The Confession of a Child of the Century

WHAT a powerful lever is the human thought! It is our defense and our safeguard, the most beautiful present that God has made us. It is ours and it obeys us; we may shoot it for...

BRIGITTE slept. Silent, motionless, I sat near her. As a farmer, when the storm has passed, counts the sheaves that remain in his devastated field, thus I began to estimate the...

"ALL there was of good in that, supposing there was some good in it, was that false pleasures were the seeds of sorrow and of bitterness which fatigued me to the point of exhaus...

DURING the wars of the Empire, while the husbands and brothers were in Germany, the anxious mothers brought forth an ardent, pale, nervous generation. Conceived between two batt...

I MUST now recite what happened to my love, and the change that took place in me. What reason can I give for it? None, except as I repeat the story and as I say: "It is the truth."

I attended a great supper, after a masquerade. About me my friends richly costumed, on all sides young men and women, all sparkling with beauty and joy; on the right and on the...

I WENT to call upon her the next morning. I found her at the piano, her old aunt at the window sewing, the little room filled with flowers, the sunlight streaming through the bl...

While absent, I had thought of nothing but her, and I despaired of ever forgetting her. Nevertheless, I determined to restrain my feelings in her presence; I had suffered too cr...

A KIND of stagnant inertia, tempered with bitter joy, is characteristic of debauchery. It is the sequence of a life of caprice, where nothing is regulated according to the needs...

WHEN Desgenais saw that my despondency was incurable, that I would neither listen to any advice nor leave my room, he took the matter seriously. I saw him enter one evening with...

AWAKENING the next morning I experienced a feeling of such deep disgust with myself, I felt so degraded in my own eyes that a horrible temptation assailed me. I leaped from bed...

ALL my efforts to divine the cause of so unexpected a change were as vain as the questions I had first asked. Brigitte was ill and obstinately remained silent. After an entire d...

One day a word, a flush, a glance, made me shudder; another day, another glance, another word, threw me into uncertainty. Why are they both so sad? Why am I as motionless as a s...

OUR quarrel had been less sad than our reconciliation; it was attended, on Brigitte's part, by a mystery which frightened me at first and then planted in my soul the seeds of co...

IT was Mercanson who had repeated in the village and in the chateaux my conversation with him about Dalens and the suspicions that, in spite of myself, I had allowed him clearly...

I found Brigitte much disturbed; her aunt was seriously ill; she had time for only a few words with me. I did not see her for an entire week; I knew that she had summoned a phys...

BRIGITTE was better. She had informed me that she wished to go away as soon as she was well enough to travel. But I insisted that she ought to rest at least fifteen days before...

DESGENAIS had planned a reunion of young people at his country house. The best wines, a splendid table, gaming, dancing, hunting, nothing was lacking. Desgenais was rich and gen...

I had no occupation. I had studied medicine and law without being able to decide on either of the two professions; I had worked for a banker for six months and my services were...

A SMALL wooden railing was placed around my father's grave. According to his expressed wish, he was buried in the village cemetery. Every day I visited his tomb and passed part...

ONE evening I was seated by the fire with Desgenais. The window was open; it was one of the early days in March, a harbinger of spring. It had been raining and a sweet odor came...

ONE evening, as I was walking under a row of linden-trees on the outskirts of the village, I saw a young woman come from a house some distance from the road. She was dressed sim...

I had written my mistress saying that I never wished to see her again; I kept my word, but I passed the nights under her window, seated on a bench before her door. I could see t...

THE fever confined me to my bed a week. When I was able to write I assured Madame Pierson that she would be obeyed, and that I would go away. I wrote in good faith, without any...

The decision to leave France had changed everything: joy, hope, confidence, all returned; no more sorrow, no more grief over approaching separation. It was now nothing but dream...

ON the morrow, a clear December day, a young man and a woman who rested on his arm, passed through the garden of the Palais-Royal. They entered a jeweler's store where they chos...

THE apprenticeship to debauchery resembles vertigo, for one feels at first a sort of terror mingled with sensuous delight as though peering down from some dizzy height. While sh...

YET I was not willing to yield. Before taking life on its pleasant side after having seen its evil side so dearly, I resolved to test everything. I remained thus for some time a...

THE next morning I rode through the Bois de Boulogne; the day was dark and threatening. At the Porte Maillot I dropped the reins on the back of my horse and abandoned myself to...

THE instant I noticed her resemblance to my mistress a frightful idea occurred to me; it took irresistible possession of my muddled mind and I put it into execution at once.

UPON returning to my apartments I found a large box in the center of the room. One of my aunts had died and I was one of the heirs to her fortune, which was not large. The box c...

WE walked along without a word; the wind was lowering; the trees quivered gently, shaking the rain from the boughs. Some distant flashes of lightning could still be seen; the pe...

IF I were a jeweler, and had in my stock a pearl necklace that I wished to give a friend, it seems to me I would take great pleasure in placing it about her neck with my own han...

WHEN Madame Pierson had spoken these words, she waited some time as though expecting a reply. As I remained overwhelmed with grief, she gently withdrew her hand, stepped back, w...

ETERNAL angel of happy nights, who will utter thy silence? A kiss! mysterious vintage that flows from the lips as from a stainless chalice! Intoxication of the senses! O voluptu...

I entered and saw my father dead. "Sir," I said to the physician, "please have every one retire that I may be alone here; my father had something to say to me, and he will say it."

ONE day, I saw a little chamber she called her oratory; there was no furniture except a priedieu and a little altar with a cross and some vases of flowers. As for the rest, the...

Having been attacked in early youth by an abominable moral malady, I relate what has happened to me during three years. If I were the only victim of this disease, I would say no...