My Little Darling: So you are crying from morning until night and from
night until morning, because your husband leaves you; you do not know
what to do and so you ask your old aunt for advice; you must consider
her quite an expert. I don't know as much as you think I do, and yet
I am not entirely ignorant of the art of loving, or, rather, of making
one's self loved, in which you are a little lacking. I can admit that at
my age.
You say that you are all attention, love, kisses and caresses for him.
Perhaps that is the very trouble; I think you kiss him too much.
My dear, we have in our hands the most terrible power in the world:
LOVE.
Man is gifted with physical strength, and he exercises force. Woman
is gifted with charm, and she rules with caresses. It is our weapon,
formidable and invincible, but we should know how to use it.
Know well that we are the mistresses of the world! To tell the history
of Love from the beginning of the world would be to tell the history
of man himself: Everything springs from it, the arts, great events,
customs, wars, the overthrow of empires.
In the Bible you find Delila, Judith; in fables we find Omphale, Helen;
in history the Sabines, Cleopatra and many others.
Therefore we reign supreme, all-powerful. But, like kings, we must make
use of delicate diplomacy.
Love, my dear, is made up of imperceptible sensations. We know that it
is as strong as death, but also as frail as glass. The slightest shock
breaks it, and our power crumbles, and we are never able to raise it
again.
We have the power of making ourselves adored, but we lack one tiny
thing, the understanding of the various kinds of caresses. In embraces
we lose the sentiment of delicacy, while the man over whom we rule
remains master of himself, capable of judging the foolishness of certain
words. Take care, my dear; that is the defect in our armor. It is our
Achilles' heel.
Do you know whence comes our real power? From the kiss, the kiss alone!
When we know how to hold out and give up our lips we can become queens.
The kiss is only a preface, however, but a charming preface. More
charming than the realization itself. A preface which can always be read
over again, whereas one cannot always read over the book.
Yes, the meeting of lips is the most perfect, the most divine sensation
given to human beings, the supreme limit of happiness: It is in the kiss
alone that one sometimes seems to feel this union of souls after which
we strive, the intermingling of hearts, as it were.
Do you remember the verses of Sully-Prudhomme:
Caresses are nothing but anxious bliss,
Vain attempts of love to unite souls through a kiss.
One caress alone gives this deep sensation of two beings welded into one
--it is the kiss. No violent delirium of complete possession is worth
this trembling approach of the lips, this first moist and fresh contact,
and then the long, lingering, motionless rapture.
Therefore, my dear, the kiss is our strongest weapon, but we must take
care not to dull it. Do not forget that its value is only relative,
purely conventional. It continually changes according to circumstances,
the state of expectancy and the ecstasy of the mind. I will call
attention to one example.
Another poet, Francois Coppee, has written a line which we all remember,
a line which we find delightful, which moves our very hearts.
After describing the expectancy of a lover, waiting in a room one
winter's evening, his anxiety, his nervous impatience, the terrible fear
of not seeing her, he describes the arrival of the beloved woman, who
at last enters hurriedly, out of breath, bringing with her part of the
winter breeze, and he exclaims:
Oh! the taste of the kisses first snatched through the veil.
Is that not a line of exquisite sentiment, a delicate and charming
observation, a perfect truth? All those who have hastened to a
clandestine meeting, whom passion has thrown into the arms of a man,
well do they know these first delicious kisses through the veil; and
they tremble at the memory of them. And yet their sole charm lies in the
circumstances, from being late, from the anxious expectancy, but from
the purely--or, rather, impurely, if you prefer--sensual point of view,
they are detestable.
Think! Outside it is cold. The young woman has walked quickly; the veil
is moist from her cold breath. Little drops of water shine in the lace.
The lover seizes her and presses his burning lips to her liquid breath.
The moist veil, which discolors and carries the dreadful odor of
chemical dye, penetrates into the young man's mouth, moistens his
mustache. He does not taste the lips of his beloved, he tastes the dye
of this lace moistened with cold breath. And yet, like the poet, we
would all exclaim:
Oh! the taste of the kisses first snatched through the veil.
Therefore, the value of this caress being entirely a matter of
convention, we must be careful not to abuse it.
Well, my dear, I have several times noticed that you are very clumsy.
However, you were not alone in that fault; the majority of women lose
their authority by abusing the kiss with untimely kisses. When they feel
that their husband or their lover is a little tired, at those times when
the heart as well as the body needs rest, instead of understanding what
is going on within him, they persist in giving inopportune caresses,
tire him by the obstinacy of begging lips and give caresses lavished
with neither rhyme nor reason.
Trust in the advice of my experience. First, never kiss your husband in
public, in the train, at the restaurant. It is bad taste; do not give in
to your desires. He would feel ridiculous and would never forgive you.
Beware of useless kisses lavished in intimacy. I am sure that you abuse
them. For instance, I remember one day that you did something quite
shocking. Probably you do not remember it.
All three of us were together in the drawing-room, and, as you did not
stand on ceremony before me, your husband was holding you on his knees
and kissing you at great length on the neck, the lips and throat.
Suddenly you exclaimed: “Oh! the fire!” You had been paying no attention
to it, and it was almost out. A few lingering embers were glowing on
the hearth. Then he rose, ran to the woodbox, from which he dragged two
enormous logs with great difficulty, when you came to him with begging
lips, murmuring:
“Kiss me!” He turned his head with difficulty and tried to hold up the
logs at the same time. Then you gently and slowly placed your mouth on
that of the poor fellow, who remained with his neck out of joint, his
sides twisted, his arms almost dropping off, trembling with fatigue and
tired from his desperate effort. And you kept drawing out this torturing
kiss, without seeing or understanding. Then when you freed him, you
began to grumble: “How badly you kiss!” No wonder!
Oh, take care of that! We all have this foolish habit, this unconscious
need of choosing the most inconvenient moments. When he is carrying a
glass of water, when he is putting on his shoes, when he is tying his
scarf--in short, when he finds himself in any uncomfortable position
--then is the time which we choose for a caress which makes him stop
for a whole minute in the middle of a gesture with the sole desire of
getting rid of us!
Do not think that this criticism is insignificant. Love, my dear, is a
delicate thing. The least little thing offends it; know that everything
depends on the tact of our caresses. An ill-placed kiss may do any
amount of harm.
Try following my advice.
Your old aunt,
COLLETTE.
This story appeared in the Gaulois in November, 1882, under the
pseudonym of “Maufrigneuse.”