CHAPTER II

UNCERTAINTY

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 of the body, but everything according to
the fantasy of the mind, and one must be always ready to obey the behests
of the other. Youth and will can resist excess; but nature silently
avenges herself, and the day when she decides to repair her forces, the
will struggles to retard her work and abuses her anew.

Finding about him then all the objects that were able to tempt him the
evening before, the man who is incapable of enjoying them looks down at
them with a smile of disgust. At the same time the objects which excite
his desire are never attained with sang-froid; all that the debauches
loves, he seizes; his life is a fever; his organs, in order to search the
depths of joy, are forced to avail themselves of the stimulant of
fermented liquors and sleepless nights; in the days of ennui and of
idleness he feels more keenly than other men the disparity between his
impotence and his temptations, and, in order to resist the latter, pride
must come to his aid and make him believe that he disdains them. It is
thus he spits on all the feasts and pleasures of his life, and so,
between an ardent thirst and a profound satiety, a feeling of tranquil
vanity leads him to his death.

Although I was no longer a debauches, it came to pass that my body
suddenly remembered that it had been. It is easy to understand why I had
not felt the effects of it sooner. While mourning my father's death every
other thought was crowded from my mind. Then a passionate love succeeded;
while I was alone, ennui had nothing to struggle for. Sad or gay, fair or
foul, what matters it to him who is alone?

As zinc, rarely found unmixed, drawn from the vein where it lies
sleeping, attracts to itself a ray of light when placed near green
leather, thus Brigitte's kisses gradually awakened in my heart what had
been buried there. At her side I perceived what I really was.

There were days when I felt such a strange sensation in the mornings that
it is impossible for me to define it. I awakened without a motive,
feeling like a man who has spent the night in eating and drinking to the
point of exhaustion. All external sensations caused me insupportable
fatigue, all well-known objects of daily life repelled and annoyed me; if
I spoke it was in ridicule of what