OF JEALOUSY--(continued)
Now for the woman suspected of inconstancy!
She leaves you, because you have discouraged crystallisation, but it is
possible that in her heart you have habit to plead for you.
She leaves you, because she is too sure of you. You have killed fear,
and there is nothing left to give birth to the little doubts of happy
love. Just make her uneasy, and, above all, beware of the absurdity of
protestations!
During all the time you have lived in touch with her, you will
doubtless have discovered what woman, in society or outside it, she is
most jealous or most afraid of. Pay court to that woman, but so far
from blazoning it about, do your best to keep it secret, and do your
best sincerely; trust to the eyes of anger to see everything and feel
everything. The strong aversion you will have felt for several months
to all women ought to make this easy.[1] Remember that in the position
you are in, everything is spoiled by a show of passion: avoid seeing
much of the woman you love, and drink champagne with the wits.
In order to judge of your mistress' love, remember:--
1. The more physical pleasure counts for in the basis of her love and
in what formerly determined her to yield, the more prone it is to
inconstancy, and, still more, to infidelity. This applies especially to
love in
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which crystallisation has been favoured by the fire of sweet seventeen.
2. Two people in love are hardly ever equally in love:[2] passion-love
has its phases, during which now one, now the other is more
impassioned. Often, too, it is merely gallantry or vain love which
responds to passion-love, and it is generally the woman who is
carried away by passion. But whatever the love may be that either of
them feels, directly one of them is jealous, he insists on the other
fulfilling all the conditions of passion-love; vanity pretends to all
the claims of a heart that feels.
Furthermore, nothing wearies gallant-love like passion-love from the
other side.
Often a clever man, paying court to a woman, just sets her thinking
of love in a sentimental frame of mind. She receives this clever man
kindly for giving her this pleasure--he conceives hopes.
But one fine day that woman meets the man, who makes her feel what the
other has described.
I do not know what are the effects of a man's jealousy on the heart of
the woman he loves. Displayed by an admirer who wearies her, jealousy
must inspire a supreme disgust, and it may even turn to hatred, if
the man he is jealous of is nicer than the jealous one; for we want
jealousy, said Madame de Coulanges, only from those of whom we could be
jealous.
If the jealous one is liked, but has no real claims, his jealousy
may offend that feminine pride so hard to keep in humour or even to
recognise. Jealousy may please women of pride, as a new way of showing
them their power.
Jealousy can please as a new way of giving proof of love. It can also
offend the modesty of a woman who is over-refined.
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It can please as a sign of the lover's hot blood--_ferrum est quod
amant_. But note that it is hot blood they love, and not courage _à la_
Turenne, which is quite compatible with a cold heart.
One of the consequences of crystallisation is that a woman can never
say "yes" to the lover, to whom she has been unfaithful, if she ever
means to make anything of him.
Such is the pleasure of continuing to enjoy the perfect image we have
formed of the object of our attachment, that until that fatal "yes"--
L'on va chercher bien loin, plutot que de mourir,
Quelque prétexte ami pour vivre et pour souffrir.
(_André Chénier_.[3])
Everyone in France knows the anecdote of Mademoiselle de Sommery, who,
caught in flagrant delict by her lover, flatly denied the fact. On his
protesting, she replied: "Very well, I see you don't love me any more:
you believe what you see before what I tell you."
To make it up with an idol of a mistress, who has been unfaithful, is
to set yourself to undo with the point of a dagger a crystallisation
incessantly forming afresh. Love has got to die, and your heart will
feel the cruel pang of every stage in its agony.
It is one of the saddest dispositions of this passion and of life. You
must be strong enough to make it up only as friends.
[1] You compare the branch adorned with diamonds to the branch left
bare, and contrast adds sting to your memories.
[2] e. g. the love of Alfieri for that great English lady (Lady
Ligonier) who also philandered with her footman and prettily signed
herself Penelope. (_Vita_, Epoca III, Chaps. X and XI.)
[3] ["Sooner than die, we will go very far in search of some friendly
pretext to live and suffer."--Tr.]
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