I conjure you, my dear child--reflect--throw back one impartial glance at your past life--weigh your own thoughts--and you will be afraid of yourself.Remember those moments of strange excitement, during which, as you have told me, you seemed to soar above the earth--and, above all, while it is yet time--while you preserve enough clearness of mind to compare and judge--compare, I entreat, your manner of living with that of other ladies of your age? Is there a single one who acts as you act? who thinks as you think? unless, indeed, you imagine yourself so superior to other women, that, in virtue of that supremacy, you can justify a life and habits that have no parallel in the world."
"I have never had such stupid pride, you know it well," said Adrienne, looking at the doctor with growing terror.
"Then, my dear child, to what are we to attribute your strange and inexplicable mode of life? Can you even persuade yourself that it is founded on reason? Oh, my child! take care?--As yet, you only indulge in charming originalities of conduct, poetical eccentricities, sweet and vague reveries--but the tendency is fatal, the downward course irresistible.Take care, take care!--the healthful, graceful, spiritual portion of your intelligence has yet the upper hand, and imprints its stamp upon all your extravagances; but you do not know, believe me, with what frightful force the insane portion of the mind, at a given moment, develops itself and strangles up the rest.Then we have no longer graceful eccentricities, like yours, but ridiculous, sordid, hideous delusions."
"Oh! you frighten me," said the unfortunate girl, as she passed her trembling hands across her burning brow.
"Then," continued M.Baleinier, in an agitated voice, "then the last rays of intelligence are extinguished; then madness--for we must pronounce the dreaded word--gets the upper hand, and displays itself in furious and savage transports."
"Like the woman upstairs," murmured Adrienne, as, with fixed and eager look, she raised her finger towards the ceiling.
"Sometimes," continued the doctor, alarmed himself at the terrible consequences of his own words, but yielding to the inexorable fatality of his situation, "sometimes madness takes a stupid and brutal form; the unfortunate creature, who is attacked by it, preserves nothing human but the shape--has only the instincts of the lower animals--eats with voracity, and moves ever backwards and forwards in the cell, in which such a being is obliged to be confined.That is all its life--all."
"Like the woman yonder." cried Adrienne, with a still wilder look, as she slowly raised her arm towards the window that was visible on the other side of the building.
"Why--yes," said M.Baleinier."Like you, unhappy child, those women were young, fair, and sensible, but like you, alas! they had in them the fatal germ of insanity, which, not having been destroyed in time, grew, and grew, larger and ever larger, until it overspread and destroyed their reason."
"Oh, mercy!" cried Mdlle.de Cardoville, whose head was getting confused with terror; "mercy! do not tell me such things!--I am afraid.Take me from this place--oh! take me from this place!" she added, with a heartrending accent; "for, if I remain here, I shall end by going mad!
No," added she, struggling with the terrible agony which assailed her, "no, do not hope it! I shall not become mad.I have all my reason.I am not blind enough to believe what you tell me.Doubtless, I live differently from others; think differently from others; am shocked by things that do not offend others; but what does all this prove? Only that I am different from others.Have I a bad heart? Am I envious or selfish? My ideas are singular, I knew--yes, I confess it--but then, M.
Baleinier, is not their tendency good, generous, noble!--Oh!" cried Adrienne's supplicating voice, while her tears flowed abundantly, "I have never in my life done one malicious action; my worst errors have arisen from excess of generosity.Is it madness to wish to see everybody about one too happy? And again, if you are mad, you must feel it yourself--and I do not feel it--and yet--I scarcely know--you tell me such terrible things of those two women! You ought to know these things better than I.
But then," added Mdlle, de Cardoville, with an accent of the deepest despair, "something ought to have been done.Why, if you felt an interest for me, did you wait so long? Why did you not take pity on me sooner? But the most frightful fact is, that I do not know whether I ought to believe you--for all this may be a snare--but no, no! you weep--