Justine

CHAPTER 1O thou my friend! The prosperity of Crime is like unto thelightning, whose traitorous brilliancies embellish the atmospherebut for an instant, in order to hurl into death's very depths theluckless one they have dazzled. Yes, Constance, it is to thee Iaddress this work; at once the example and honor of thy s*x, with aspirit of profoundest sensibility combining the most judicious andthe most enlightened of minds, thou art she to whom I confide mybook, which will acquaint thee with the sweetness of the tearsVirtue sore beset doth shed and doth cause to flow. Detesting thesophistries of libertinage and of irreligion, in word and deedcombating them unwearingly, I fear not that those necessitated bythe order of personages appearing in these Memoirs will put thee inany peril; the cynicism remarkable in certain portraits (they weresoftened as much as ever they could be) is no more apt to frightenthee; for it is only Vice that trembles when Vice is found out, andcries scandal immediately it is attacked. To bigots Tartuffe was indebted for his ordeal; Justine's willbe the achievement of libertines, and little do I dread them:they'll not betray my intentions, these thou shalt perceive; thyopinion is sufficient to make my whole glory and after havingpleased thee I must either please universally or find consolationin a general censure. The scheme of this novel (yet, 'tis less anovel than one might suppose) is doubtless new; the victory gainedby Virtue over Vice, the rewarding of good, the punishment of evil,such is the usual scheme in every other work of this species: ah!the lesson cannot be too often dinned in our ears! But throughoutto present Vice triumphant and Virtue a victim of its sacrifices,to exhibit a wretched creature wandering from one misery to thenext; the toy of villainy; the target of every debauch; exposed tothe most barbarous, the most monstrous caprices; driven witless bythe most brazen, the most specious sophistries; prey to the mostcunning seductions, the most irresistible subornations for defenseagainst so many disappointments, so much bane and pestilence, torepulse such a quantity of corruption having nothing but asensitive soul, a mind naturally formed, and considerable courage:briefly, to employ the boldest scenes, the most extraordinarysituations, the most dreadful maxims, the most energetic brushstrokes, with the sole object of obtaining from all this one of thesublimest parables ever penned for human edification; now, suchwere, 'twill be allowed, to seek to reach one's destination by aroad not much traveled heretofore. Have I succeeded, Constance?Will a tear in thy eye determine my triumph? After having readJustine, wilt say: "Oh, how these renderings of crime make me proudof my love for Virtue! How sublime does it appear through tears! How 'tis embellishedby misfortunes !" Oh, Constance! may these words but escape thylips, and my labors shall be crowned. The very masterpiece ofphilosophy would be to develop the means Providence employs toarrive at the ends she designs for man, and from this constructionto deduce some rules of conduct acquainting this wretchedtwo-footed individual with the manner wherein he must proceed alonglife's thorny way, forewarned of the strange caprices of thatfatality they denominate by twenty different titles, and allunavailingly, for it has not yet been scanned nor defined. If,though full of respect for social conventions and neveroverstepping the bounds they draw round us, if, nonetheless, itshould come to pass that we meet with nothing but brambles andbriars, while the wicked tread upon flowers, will it not bereckoned - save by those in whom a fund of incoercible virtuesrenders deaf to these remarks-, will it not be decided that it ispreferable to abandon oneself to the tide rather than to resist it?Will it not be felt that Virtue, however beautiful, becomes theworst of all attitudes when it is found too feeble to contend withVice, and that, in an entirely corrupted age, the safest course isto follow along after the others? Somewhat better informed, if onewishes, and abusing the knowledge they have acquired, will they notsay, as did the angel Jesrad in ‘Zadig’, that there isno evil whereof some good is not born? and will they not declare,that this being the case, they can give themselves over to evilsince, indeed, it is but one of the fashions of producing good?Will they not add, that it makes no difference to the general planwhether such-and-such a one is by preference good or bad, that ifmisery persecutes virtue and prosperity accompanies crime, thosethings being as one in Nature's view, far better to join companywith the wicked who flourish, than to be counted amongst thevirtuous who founder? Hence, it is important to anticipate thosedangerous sophistries of a false philosophy; it is essential toshow that through examples of afflicted virtue presented to adepraved spirit in which, however, there remain a few goodprinciples, it is essential, I say,- to show that spirit quite assurely restored to righteousness by these means as by portrayingthis virtuous career ornate with the most glittering honors and themost flattering rewards. Doubtless it is cruel to have to describe, on the one hand, ahost of ills overwhelming a sweet-tempered and sensitive woman who,as best she is able, respects virtue, and, on the other, theaffluence of prosperity of those who crush and mortify this samewoman. But were there nevertheless some good engendered of thedemonstration, would one have to repent of making it? Ought one besorry for having established a fact whence there resulted, for thewise man who reads to some purpose, so useful a lesson ofsubmission to providential decrees and the fateful warning that itis often to recall us to our duties that Heaven strikes down besideus the person who seems to us best to have fulfilled his own ? Suchare the sentiments which are going to direct our labors, and it isin consideration of these intentions that we ask the reader'sindulgence for the erroneous doctrines which are to be placed inthe mouths of our characters, and for the sometimes rather painfulsituations which, out of love for truth, we have been obliged todress before his eyes.