OURIKA.
by
CLAIRE DE DURAS
This is to be alone, this, this is solitude.
BYRON.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, BROWN, ANDGREEN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1824.
INTRODUCTION.
A few months had elapsed since I quitted Montpellier to follow myprofession as physician in Paris, when I was sent for one morning toattend a sick Nun at a convent in the Faubourg St. Jacques. Napoleonhad a short time since permitted several of these convents to bere-established: the one I was going to belonged to the order of theUrsuline Sisters, and was opened for the education of young females.Part of the edifice had been destroyed during the Revolution. Thecloister was laid bare on one side by the demolition of an antiquechapel, of which but a few arches remained. One of the nuns led methrough this cloister. As we traversed it I perceived that the broadflat stones that paved it were tombs: they all bore inscriptions halfeffaced; some were broken, others quite torn up. I had never yet seenthe interior of a convent, and felt curious to witness a scene so newto me. My conductress led the way into the garden, where she said weshould find our sick patient. I beheld her seated at a distance atone end of a bower, almost entirely enveloped in a long black veil."Here is the physician," said her companion, and immediately left us.I approached timidly, for my heart had sickened at the sight of thetombs; and I fancied that I should now contemplate another victim ofthe cloister. The prejudices of my youth had just been awakened, anda considerable interest excited in my mind from the kind of maladyI had imagined for her. She turned towards me, and I was singularlysurprised on beholding a black woman. Her polite address and choice ofwords increased my astonishment, "You are come, Sir, to visit a verysick person," said she, "and one who greatly wishes to get better,though she has not always wished it, and that perhaps has been thecause of her long sufferings." I questioned her as to the nature ofthem. "I feel," replied she, "continual oppression and fever, andsleep has quite forsaken me." Her emaciated appearance confirmed thisaccount of herself. Her figure was tall, but indescribably, meagre.Her large brilliant eyes and very white teeth lit up the rest of herfeatures. It was plain that violent and lengthened grief had worn herframe, though her soul still retained its powers. Her melancholy aspectmoved me. I resolved to exert every means of saving her, and mentionedthe necessity of subduing her evidently heightened imagination, anddiverting her mind from what might give it pain. "I am perfectlyhappy!" cried she; "I have never felt so happy and so calm as I doat present." The sweet and sincere tone in which this was utteredpersuaded me, though it again surprised me.
"That you have not always thought yourself happy is evident," saidI; "you bear the marks of heavy sufferings."—"True; but my mind istranquil now, though it has been long in finding repose."—"Since itis so, then, let us try to cure the past; but can I hope for successwhen I know not the disease?"—"Alas! must I own my folly?" cried she,her eyes filling with tears. "You are not happy!" exclaimed I. "I am,"replied she, gathering more firmness; nor would I change my presenthappiness for the state I once envied. I have no secret; my misfortuneis the history of my whole life. My sufferings were so continual untilI entered this abode that they have gradually undermined, my health.With joy did I feel myself wasting away, for I had no prospect ofhappiness in life. This guilty joy has been punished, for now that Idesire to live, I have scarcely a hope of it left."
I soothed her apprehensions with the promi