THE SCIENCE OF PLATONISM
The doctrine we have just indicated never excited any very determined
opposition as a theory; its adversaries reserved their objections for
its practical working. The New Law, it is true, had redeemed us in love;
but the politicians held the same opinions as the moralists of Du Four’s
school. From Machiavelli to Calvin, many men thought the bludgeon a
simpler and more effectual guide for humanity than sentiment. At best
they would have favoured a sort of sentimental sociology. They regarded
everything else as a mere philosophic dream—Eden, of which barely a
glimpse had been caught before it was guarded by the angel with the
terrible sword; the burning bush from which issued the voice of God, but
near which Moses dared not kneel for fear his garments should take fire
and the flame scorch his flesh.
Assuredly, the practical science of platonism is more difficult than its
metaphysic; it assumes that women have the knack of cleverly taming men
by means of love’s blandishments, without getting scratched themselves.
The cleverest lion-tamers are sometimes clawed, but they have been
known to die in their beds. Here is the question in a nutshell: Are
women capable of following this tamer’s vocation and making themselves
sufficiently invulnerable? and secondly: Are men tamable?
On the first point the friends of the beautiful displayed the utmost
confidence. They made their appeal to women, sensitive—more than
sensitive, refined—fortified by marriage against materialities, and
inspired only with disgust by the vulgar vice that came under their
eyes and even in their own circle. As Du Bellay says, Cato’s manners
harmonised perfectly with Plato’s discourses. Margaret of France
unhesitatingly descended into the den and grappled with her friend
Bonnivet.[164] She believed in the invulnerability of women, as also
did Castiglione and many others. The platonists found no difficulty in
justifying their position; they cited heroic examples of feminine virtue
even in the remotest antiquity, and they met other admirable examples in
the ordinary intercourse of life. Castiglione and Dolce show us women who
in the vilest environments were angels of chastity. In most cases they
were young girls, for instance a poor girl of Capua (very often cited)
who flung herself into a river to escape a troop of Gascons; a poor
peasant girl of Mantua, who, betrayed by a scoundrel, drowned herself
with a sort of frenzy, flinging away all the ropes held out to her—a
tragic suicide, anti-Christian as such, yet so Christian in its grandeur
of despair that the Bishop of Mantua proposed to erect a statue to this
noble woman of the people. Unhappily he died before he could carry out
his idea; in those days people fought shy of inartistic statues.
Such examples of virtue were not met with only among the lower classes,
which are naturally the most exposed to danger. All Rome was stirred to
its depths by the dreadful fate of a young gentlewoman who, having been
decoyed into the catacombs of St. Sebastian with the connivance of a
maidservant, strangled herself rather than yield to the violence of the
miscreant who devised the snare. She might well have been left to rest
in the dim twilight of those silent vaults, where so many pure victims
sleep under the seal of a cross and a dove; but Rome could not leave this
flower of virtue to be forgotten, even in so sacred a spot: the poor body
was crowned with laurel and borne in triumph like a trophy through the
thronged streets of the city, the same fever of enthusiasm infecting both
hovel and palace.
No, women are not naturally sensual; animalism is utterly abhorrent to
them, and however much their education may have been neglected, their
deepest feelings are won by a man’s intellectual qualities, his moral
authority, much more than by his physical beauty, a beauty often hard
to trace. When they love deeply, even when they yield themselves, it
is still with a sentiment of reserve and modesty; it would also seem
as if they cannot dispense with the additional refinement of respect.
Man, on the contrary, as all the world knows, has no sense of shame,
and to get every possible enjoyment, love or no love, is his only aim.
It is to singularly terrestrial Venuses that peoples and kings, judges
and culprits, flock pell-mell. Is this a reason for despair? Cannot
the obvious feebleness of women, their delicacy, the almost religious
character of their love, become an element of attraction and power?
Women, we are told, deliberately expose themselves to sharp tussles. That
is true. But if men were platonic, what merit would women have in being
platonic too? And surely no one would impose on men, as the first rule
of intercourse, the obligation of remaining in marble coldness beside
beautiful creatures of passion, whose very nature is to set their pulses
throbbing! “Ah! impossible!” cries Margaret of France, to whom the mere
idea seems almost an insult. It is wise to recognise danger, but it
would be disgraceful to flee from it! In France, a country hostile to
the beautiful and to sentiment, the women who preached the gospel of
love were, as we have said, high-born dames, whose very position made
them wardens of men’s souls, and whose nobleness constituted part of
the public patrimony. Maybe they did not believe themselves predestined
to impeccability; but while enjoying a wonderful store of goodness and
benevolence, they were at the same time proud, high-strung, courageous.
Far from terrifying, peril inspirited them; to shrink from it would
have appeared disgraceful to Anne of France, who represents prudence
incarnate. Women are not so frail as people are pleased to say. They are
only frail when they wish to be; and then it is duty that guides their
steps.
The real difficulty, then, does not lie in this direction. The difficulty
is to discover a sure method of capturing men. We have already outlined
the two theories; there are likewise two practical systems.
The first consists in really devoting heart and soul to the matter, the
second in the mere playing of a part. The first is concrete, actual,
full of zest and energy; the second is nothing but abstractions,
coquetry, poses, and never extends beyond mere sentimentality. Anne of
France, manifestly wedded to the first system, speaks of it with a warmth
and yet with a wealth of circumlocution that show, not only how much the
question interested her, but how troublesome she found it.
A woman, she thinks, should not push enthusiasm so far as to run to meet
love; she may wait for it, it comes soon enough unsought. In spite of her
very real simplicity, she always impresses us as having a touch of pride;
and besides, she was writing for her daughter. But what a noble heart is
hers, how ardent and how generous! She distrusts the love excited merely
by physical beauty, because she regards it as imperfect, undistinguished,
commonplace, of little stability, subject to all sorts of disappointments
and regrets; but no less—accustomed as she is to deal with things broadly
and grandly—does true love, that which wells up from the heart and mind,
and is only strengthened and sanctified with increasing years, seem to
her precious and firm. When a man can analyse his love and tell himself
that it depends on some definable beauty, however exquisite—that of the
eyes, perhaps, or that of a charming manner or an uncommon mind—in this
case the love is slight. But when it takes entire possession of him, when
he knows not how to describe it nor to what to attribute it, when it
surprises him in the plenitude of his vigour, and keeps him in subjection
to another person of whose will he becomes the mere echo; above all,
when it inspires him with the overpowering consciousness that henceforth
his life may be bounded by no other horizon: then it has a superb range;
it possesses soul and heart; the rest is merely supplementary—a more
complete intimacy, a pledge of affection. The woman a man most loves is
not the one he covets most. At twenty it is easy to confuse sensations
with sentiments; and that is why true love is not known till later. It
is a gradual unfolding; and then it becomes so ardent as to bring into
play all the impulsive forces of the mind. It is by this new emotional
fruitfulness, by this responsiveness, so to speak, to the spur, that a
man’s worth is measured. Externally, on their commonplace side, all men
are alike; their souls alone have different physiognomies: a time comes
when they are stirred to the depths, shaken out of themselves, and then
it is seen that there are great souls and small. Not too great, however,
nor too small; but quite human! We cannot expect miracles, or look for
the perfection God has reserved for Himself. But sometimes the reality
is better than appearances promise: “’Tis not the cowl that makes the
monk.” We should not be too ready to take fright at an inconsistency, or
to despair of men who err by excess of genuine sensibility. These are the
easiest to convert.
Anne of France believes in a method of princely candour. She objects to
any woman, with the best intentions in the world, appearing to promise
what she is firmly resolved never to grant; in this regard it would be
better to retreat at once, with no false shame, and quietly await another
occasion for giving battle.
If, on the other hand, love presents itself under reassuring aspects, it
may be accepted. Honourable love is so beautiful, so full of “benefits
and honours”! But precisely because it is so delightful a condition it is
rare, and the devil leaves nothing undone to poison it, and therefore it
is well to advance with much practical prudence, even with distrust! The
world is so vile! Sweet love has often come to a bad end! In discussing
this tender and mournful psychology, the great princess would seem, under
her mask of impassibility as a philosophical woman, to utter a cry of
pain as though bleeding from an internal wound: “I have known a knight,”
she says, “who heaped oath on oath of the most sacred character, even
on the holy altars, on the gospel, and who did not keep them even till
the evening.” She is one of those who, giving the heart, give it wholly,
and how perilous that is is manifest. A genuine platonist, however, she
acknowledges no degrees in honour; there is no splitting it up; it must
be preserved in its entirety: and the primitive, strenuous, almost naïve
lady concludes that chastity does not consist solely in “saving oneself
from the overt act.” Among the women who skate more venturously near the
danger point there is not one in a thousand, she thinks, but has lost
something of her honour or of her illusions.
Of this sculptural view of love—majestic, holy, like certain of Wagner’s
harmonies, but necessarily very rare—Michelangelo is a practical
exemplification.
Madly smitten, at the age of fifty-one, with a lady of thirty-six, whom,
however, he did not see till twelve years later; so mastered by his
agitation as to pen two extraordinary letters—which, incomprehensible
as they appear, Messieurs Milanesi, Gotti and Mézières have succeeded
in interpreting—writing one letter three times over without making
up his mind to send it (it never was sent)—that was the man known as
Michelangelo.
Why did he love the Marchioness of Pescara! For her beauty? No. For
her wit? No. He loved her because he loved her: there is no more to be
said. He asked nothing of her. She was the woman of his heart; to her he
dedicated all the fibres of his being. He saw with her eyes, acted by her
inspiration, “no longer conscious of aught but the memory of her.” And he
was happy, and unhappy. What energy of expression there is in his sonnets
when his vigour bursts out in passionate laments! But for the most part
this vigour seems itself to yield to respect and enthusiasm.
A genuine patrician, sweet and unaffected, the marchioness understood
with wonderful intuition the man who was addressing her, and proved what
in such a case a woman may do with a man. Condivi, who had seen her
correspondence, described it as full of a grave and profoundly moving
love; the fragments which have come down to us indicate a thousand little
tendernesses: “Our friendship is stable, and our affection very sure; it
is tied with a Christian knot.” And here is the address outside a letter:
“To my more than magnificent and more than very dear Messer Michelangelo
Buonarotti.”
It was the same with their talks together; love only served to give
their conversation an elevated tone. A certain François de Hollande,
who happened one day to be in their company, has preserved some
characteristic fragments of their conversation. The marchioness was
formulating quite a scheme of splendid idealism: “Painting,” she said,
“better than any other means, enables us to see the humility of the
saints, the constancy of the martyrs, the purity of the virgins, the
beauty of the angels, the love and charity with which the seraphim burn;
it raises and transports mind and soul beyond the stars, and leads us
to contemplate the eternal sovereignty of God.... If we desire to see
for ourselves a man renowned for his deeds, painting shows us him to
the life. It brings before our eyes the image of a beauty far removed
from our experience, and Pliny held this to be a service of priceless
value. The widow in her affliction finds solace in gazing every day
upon her husband’s picture; young orphans owe to painting the happiness
of recognising, when they have come to man’s estate, the features of a
beloved father.”
Is not this true love, to love the beautiful, the object of love to so
many besides ourselves? Is not this the enchanting joy dreamed of by Anne
of France, so sweet for a woman, and lifting a man “beyond the stars”?
But this love is terribly individual and exclusive!
Twenty years later Michelangelo lost the lady of his soul. He stood by
her death-bed. With reverence and pity he pressed a long kiss upon her
hand, not daring, even at that tragic moment when Death purifies all
things, to touch ever so lightly that pale cold brow; though many a time,
in truth, he regretted the timidity of his farewell. Condivi tells us
that he was frantic with grief. Night had closed her wings upon his life;
he could never hear the marchioness mentioned without tears starting in
his eyes: “We had a great mutual regard,” he said; “Death has snatched
from me a great friend.” A great friend! He became religious; in his
robust old age his soul maintained its fire, like some deep pool which,
in the blackness of night, still reflects the sunset glow. He died at
the age of ninety, and among his papers were found the letters of the
marchioness, and the sonnets he wrote for her—though cunning pilferers
had carried off a portion of these, which, unhappily, they kept for
themselves.
The other, and more numerous, school of platonists started from an
absolutely different principle. It was much less individual, and much
more sociological. It was cultured, to all appearance without enthusiasm,
keenly sensitive, wholly of this world, or if it moved at all toward
the ideal it was by many tortuous, obscure and labyrinthine paths of
which it would sometimes be difficult to draw an accurate map. It was
philosophical; its method was to coax the human animal, to converse
with him, to lure him with smiles and soft words, and to wind about him
a multitude of slender cords till he was reduced to helplessness. The
method was considered eminently laudable, and indeed it demanded infinite
tact, time and patience; for what was involved was nothing less than the
training of “the other partner” in habits of refinement and discretion—to
content himself with a few tit-bits of love or kindliness, to refrain
from constantly showing teeth and claws with a cry for his “reward”—the
wolfish cry, the roar of the beast of prey! A light hand was needed. Men,
snared in cold blood, appeared so commonplace, so much alike!
The little favours by which men were held captive were in no way open
to censure; they were virtue itself, for the end justified the means.
The art which regulated the dispensation of these favours may justly
be regarded as a complicated one. It grew out of long habit, and was
not learnt from books; it was the Machiavelism of a special charity, a
supreme devotion, very often the immolation of self; and it was precisely
this admirable feature which distinguished platonism from coquetry: “O
Love!” cried Bembo, “it is by thee that the higher virtues rule the
lower.” How many of these strange, admirable women might be mentioned,
who devoured men like veritable Minotaurs, and who, after devouring them,
would have liked to resurrect them for another meal!
The Marchesa Scaldasole, of Pavia, was one of these terrible harpies;
yet she acted with absolute frankness. One day, at a ball, she said to a
young protonotary named De Lescun, who was losing his head a little: “You
see, I do as your guards do, who fix a tassel to their horses’ cruppers,
to warn people not to go too near,” and she pointed to her sky-blue
dress: in Italy, blue denoted heavenward aspirations. Lescun was devoured
like the rest. By a strange freak of fate, he happened to be severely
wounded beneath the walls of Pavia in the famous battle of Francis I.
When he was picked up, covered with blood, he asked to be carried to
the house of his “dear lady and patroness.” The marchesa received these
quivering shreds of humanity with transports of tenderness, and it was in
her arms, sustained by her loving look and consoled by her pious words,
that Lescun breathed his last.
I know not how La Rochefoucauld could say: “The first lover is kept long
when no second is taken.” It is the vice of men not to know when to
stop. Nothing grieved Margaret of France like the thought that a man,
to qualify as a “man of honour” and a “pleasant companion,” was expected
to kill someone for giving him the lie, and to love a dozen women. She
objected strongly to a happily settled man, as she says, going prowling
over the world, were it ever so platonically: “it is wisest to remain
satisfied where love has once attached us.”
The women, on the contrary, anxious to fulfil their social duty,
thought themselves bound to sow love broadcast, to distribute their
favours widely; by that means they protected themselves against the
tongue of malice, though at the cost of desperately hard work and many
embarrassments. For every man of intelligence and breeding who knows
better than to display too much whimsicality, how many jealous, touchy,
tiresome men there are! A princess could do no less than be kind to a
number of favourites; Margaret of France loved not far short of a dozen,
and the number was only so small because of the difficulty of finding
recruits for platonism.
We must remember the idea from which these women started, which was
absolutely the reverse of that which now prevails. In these days
women are careful not to generalise; they prefer to personalise
everything—medicine in the doctor, religion in the priest, the family
in the husband, love in the lover. The women of the sixteenth century,
we cannot repeat too often, had an ardent faith in things, but none at
all in men; they had no intention whatever of being in bondage to a man,
whoever he was, but preferred to go straight to the idea, and then to
make its interpreter their apostle, or what they pleased. They were in
love with love, but were unquestionably prone to regard the lover as of
secondary importance, or at the most as the minister of their cult, not
their master. Trustfulness and self-surrender struck them as delightful,
desirable, religious, almost necessary, when based on a broad principle
of liberty, and when they furnished a goal at which the affections might
aim.
We must insist also on another most important consideration, which the
reader will already have suspected. These ladies did not labour for their
personal happiness; in most cases they had no hope of ever attaining
it. They discovered a means of giving life to others, but lacked it for
themselves; they had known either too much or too little of existence.
They were dissatisfied—out of conceit—with everything, perhaps with
themselves; they had been mothers, and were yet maids. For the soul, like
the body, needs to give itself, and on this condition depends its life
and fruitfulness. Now many of these women had shadowy and inscrutable
souls—souls whose pages no one had troubled to turn; they smothered their
feelings, but they had suffered much, and still suffered. Hitherto they
had given only their body, the poorest part of them, the contaminated
part, the part that is lost in the giving; while the soul is ennobled
and purified by self-surrender. They had perforce to cut themselves in
two, and as maidens to look on at the ruin of one part of themselves, and
nothing was more painful than this cleavage; philosophers even maintained
that it was an impossible one, and that, when a woman yielded her body,
under obligation or necessity, sometimes with disgust, she gave nothing,
but remained immaculately a virgin, because the true virginity is that
of the heart. Indeed, a favourite idea of that time was that whatever
vicissitudes the bodily mechanism might undergo, only the soul could
endorse them.
Here, then, were unhappy dilettanti of love, who, regarding animal
passion as the antipodes, almost the negation, of true passion,
rigorously safeguarded their purity, and adopted platonism as the
channel through which to bestow their souls on mankind, with a smiling
disenchantment, almost happy in possessing at least the assurance that
in this harmless game there would be only occasional outbursts of the
violence of love. They chose the good part, sowing broadcast, in a soil
often ungrateful, the seeds of a love of which they had been harshly
deprived, and the fruits of which they hoped probably that others would
gather. Many of them had lovers, but true love comes only once, and
among these charming women, all fire in appearance, there were some who
bore, deep down in their hearts, an unsuspected burden of sorrow which
oppressed and overwhelmed them. With some of them passion had never
ceased to rumble; some had been seen to become desperately attached to
a man (maybe their own husband), or even to fling themselves into a
nunnery. The most of them, more sick than those they wished to cure, and
faltering inwardly under the outward charms of their devotion, went
their way, vainly seeking in life’s desert the heart, the one only heart,
sensitive enough to comprehend them. They steered their way composedly
among the billows, in complete security, alas! and without adventuring
anything but their good sense, at most their good nature, which Anne
of France severely calls their hypocrisy. Ah! how they smart for this
hypocrisy! How much of their life-blood it costs them! We yearn to strip
off their veils, to beseech them to take thought for themselves and
put some faith in passion! But no, they lead our woful procession like
singing children, and, forcing back their tears like Margaret of France,
they strew a few rose-leaves in our doleful path:
De petits amours à fleurettes,
D’autres petites amourettes,
Mesmement de vieilles amours,[165]
—_Voiture._
and the sole benefit is reaped by us, or at least by men capable of
enjoying an illusion. Sometimes, in their infinite goodness, they may
give us divine moments that compensate for the painfulness of life; they
succeed in thrilling us with that magnetic influence which quickens our
faculties, sends our life into a wider channel, makes commonplace actions
seem interesting to us, gives higher relief and brighter colour to all
our surroundings. They do a good work, a pious work, a social work. And
that is why this loveless love fell especially to the lot of princesses.
At first sight the idea of making love so excessively aristocratic
appears somewhat singular, if not repugnant. What is the value of
distinctions of birth in such a matter? To sincere hearts they can only
raise obstacles to genuine happiness. This was especially the opinion of
Anne of France. Could it be right to dignify with the name of love or
platonism a wretched coquetry which consisted in attaching oneself to
the most conspicuous women, whoever they were?—for some were plain, and,
what was worse, influential!—so that this so-called love would oscillate
between snobbishness and solicitation of the kind nowadays practised
upon a minister of state—whose ugliness does not matter. Assuredly it is
possible to love a plain woman with all one’s heart; such love, indeed,
is said to be the strongest. But how difficult it must have been in
those days for a princess to believe in a disinterested love! And even
supposing such happiness were hers, could she ever have relied upon it?
So the love of princesses, which was an essential characteristic
of platonism, sprang in reality from a very special principle. The
princesses (and other great ladies) had no experience whatever of the
sentiment (very masculine and somewhat modern) that everything was theirs
by right, and that a certain lofty egotism was the natural complement
of a lofty station. On the contrary, they imagined themselves to be the
property of society, so to speak, and not their own—and further, as they
realised that a great name is just as isolating and paralysing as a large
fortune, if not more so, they considered themselves specially bound to
keep their activities in full play. Their efforts were sweetened by their
pride. That the woman should have the castle and the man the cottage,
that she should be rich and he poor, seemed to them a good thing: it was
the subversion of old ideas, but the consecration of the idea that was
to be. They found a special charm in material inequalities of position;
it was often distressing to have to raise a man morally, but it was
delightful to raise him in a material sense; as Balzac has said, “No man
has ever been able to raise his mistress to his own level, but a woman
always places her lover as high as herself.”
This explains why, in the eyes of all the friends of the Beautiful at
that epoch, every princess was beautiful, in other words, she piloted
the world towards the idea of the Beautiful. Failing a princess, or a
lady of title, or an eminent woman,[166] a man might content himself
with a simple maid-of-honour; but it would be almost to fail in respect
towards princesses of the blood-royal not to fall in love with them,
since they were born for that end; and indeed a certain accent of ardour
did not displease them, for, as they told themselves, “everybody knows
that a fortress is only stormed when it seems hopeless to expect weakness
or treachery.”[167] Nothing flattered them more; in the admirable words
of Alfred de Vigny: “In the purest relationships of life there are
nevertheless things which are only poured into one single heart, as
into a chosen vessel.” This chosen vessel must be rare and delicately
fashioned, all compact of idealism, intellectuality and tenderness.
The love of princesses, therefore, however sincere and intoxicating,
manifested itself with crystal purity. When a poet makes extravagant
boast of the beauty of his mistress, who is sometimes of mature years,
we may be quite sure he means beauty of soul, “which is all-sufficient,”
as Margaret ingenuously says. The only misfortune of the princesses was
often their scant knowledge of the human heart; they saw too much of the
worldly, showy, conventional exterior, and it was that usually which made
them pessimists. But they exerted a powerful sway. And as their favours,
coming whence they did, had no important sequels, they were not niggardly
in bestowing them. Of what is not a woman capable who has nothing to
fear, either from herself or from others? In such a case there is danger
only for the man. Certain ladies took men and stirred them up, shook them
as you shake a tree whose fruit you desire to bring down. And, to tell
the truth, they were even taunted with carrying this science of theirs
too far. Margaret of France in particular has been generally regarded as
a consummate virtuoso; unquestionably she often puzzles us, and gives us
the uneasy feeling that she is making fools of us. She herself boasted of
juggling with the hearts of men, of “winning her devoted servants,” and
of managing them so well that literally they no longer knew what to make
of her. “The most daring,” she says, “were reduced to despair, and the
most down-hearted saw a ray of hope.”[168] So, while those who know her
story most intimately—Madame d’Haussonville, M. Anatole France, Madame de
Genlis—come forward as guarantees of her absolute virtue, those who, like
Brantôme, peep at her through the window regard her as a coquette, which
indeed was her mother’s opinion. Shall I confess it? I myself, during
the years, now no small portion of my life, which I have devoted to the
service of these adorable women, during the many long hours spent in
delightful intimacy with them, wholly absorbed in deciphering the enigma
of their hearts, have known and felt these singular perplexities. One day
the ladies have enchanted me, almost given me wings; another, they have
crushed me into the dust: one day I would fain kiss their hands with all
the ardour of a loyal worshipper; another, long to obliterate their very
footprints. Sometimes I have glowed with pride, fancying myself master
of this fervent love of which they used to speak so well; and thrilled
through and through with their overflowing enthusiasm I have seen the
world become transfigured behind them, our pale northern mists dissolve
in radiant colour, our sky become translucent—and next day I would trudge
mechanically behind them in utter mystification. Passion and irony have
in turn moved my pen, and having mutually slain each other, I know not
whether anything is left. And to-day even, when I am seeking earnestly
to lisp the praises of these ladies, when as the prize of serious and
constant effort I beseech of them some positive pledge of their thought,
they flit like butterflies before me!
Yet they had hearts, large hearts, it is impossible to doubt,—hearts
staunch and ardent; but they shrank from employing them. They dallied
in a dim twilight sensibility, like that noble lady of Genoa, Thomasina
Spinola, who had broken all material ties with her husband in order
to devote her thoughts to King Louis XII. One day the rumour spread,
falsely, that Louis was dead, and soon it was reported at Blois that
Thomasina was dead also. Thereupon the official poet recited an
interminable elegy. Happily, both Louis XII. and Thomasina had many years
to live. No one durst smile at matters so eminently respectable, though
Anne of France was indignant; in her opinion love was dishonoured by such
proceedings, and she would readily have forgiven men for not taking these
pleasant comedies too seriously.
Strange women! Perhaps they themselves dared not probe their souls!
The artists who painted them must have dropped their brush and peered
into the heart of their idol, and asked themselves whether it was a
Beatrice or a Venus they were painting. A strange veil covers their
features; as a skilful artist contents himself with vague suggestions
where a perfect rendering is impossible, so their souls have deliberately
blotted themselves in mist, blurring their outlines, and throwing us
into uncertainty. These women are frank, and reserved; they attract, and
repel; embrace us, and hold us at arm’s length; allure us, and alienate
us. Now they are like virgin soil, now like paths too many feet have
trod. Their contemporaries were baffled by them; we too may well fail to
comprehend this platonism—we who see it from afar.
Such is the magic haze in which Leonardo has enwrapped his Gioconda.
Everything is there, but he tells us nothing save that this is she.
He barely hints at her subtle mind, her soft, pure flesh; you seem to
catch a delicate perfume floating in the air. The world around her seems
sunk in torpor; the landscape fades away in indefinite and fantastic
suggestions. And the woman dominating it all pursues us with her complex
look—the look that all these women have; she seems to be several women
superimposed—a succession of appetites, a mingling of languors, thoughts
crowded on thoughts, an encumbrance of flesh. Voluptuousness and
intelligence are there too, held in reserve. She terrifies us, for she is
too richly endowed; she will give nothing: she is a woman of brains.
And yet we err in not trying to understand these women! We do not
understand them because we set them apart, picture them as solitary in
their defensive attitude, shutting our eyes to what engrosses their
mistrustful looks—the cruel welter of humanity around them.
With Anne of France and Vittoria Colonna we met Michelangelo. But
whom shall we find flocking about these gracious priestesses of love?
Contemptible drones, ambitious men, empty-headed fools, young fops,
youths anxious to push their way in the world, society clowns, scholars
in the sere and yellow leaf, a whole herd of men who have their reasons
for liking the tame cat’s rôle, and certainly would never think of love
unless someone mentioned it. Is it in any real sense cheating to cheat
such men? There are sceptics like the excellent Montaigne, who love in
order to find relief from their worries; others who love for a wager,
like Nifo, who went sweethearting because it amused Cardinal Pompeo
Colonna. There are pedants and hair-splitters; men who analyse and refine
and talk of social duty—speak too of their love for humanity at large,
for irrational things, for the All-in-all, for supernatural beings, for
the angels. They make love an amusement like dicing and racing. They tell
off on their fingers the various species of love.
Nifo amused himself by cataloguing the motives leading to love or
“re-love.” He found fifteen chief motives: (1) Youth. (2) Nobility (since
aristocracy springs from love, and love from aristocracy). (3) Wealth,
a tainted source, but abundant. (4) Power. It is to this last that he
maliciously ascribes the love of princesses, the best and most practical
of all. Ambitious by destiny, he says, princesses necessarily yearn for
glory; wherefore they are more accessible than others, and no one renders
love graver, loftier, more substantial. (5) Beauty, a very stimulating
factor, but secondary. (6) The mere rapture of the senses. Alas! many
women, even in the highest stations, must have owed shameful connections
to this cause! (7) Fame. The thought of hearing themselves sung about,
of seeing themselves in pictures and statues, of being analysed and made
the subject of dissertations, is a strong incentive to love: women love
posterity in this guise. (8) The love of love, the artistic pleasure
in knowing themselves loved, adored. (9) Elegant love, a matter of gay
doublets and a good stable. (10) Obsequious love, not very amusing, but
practical and very common; a love made up of little attentions, little
symbolic presents, balls and banquets; Nifo had seen Prince Ferdinand
of Salerno win his lady by means of a ball. And after these principal
categories, there come secondary inducements to love, which, in spite of
their commonness, are constantly successful; fine melodramatic rages,
comprising disdain, jealousy, frenzy—all excellent investments; or the
more peaceable and rudimentary means, such as entertainments (provided
they are intellectual), flattery (highly recommended), prayer, this too,
excellent, according to the maxim of Martial—
Nor prayer nor incense e’er did Jove despite.
Lovers have only too many methods to choose from, and the advantage of
these sentiments (generally feigned), is that thanks to them anybody,
however modest his resources, can find something to suit him; it is the
bazaar of love.
And thus raw individualism, the mainspring of human energy, was to become
transformed and to tend towards a collective end.
Poor women! they were under no illusion about the superficial effect they
for the most part produced; they knew that perhaps it would all amount
to no more than an outward show of improvement, and that at bottom man
would remain the vulgar and self-seeking creature he was.[169] This
thought confirmed them in their platonism and their virtue; if there was
no better result, they told themselves that, after all, to awaken mere
sensibility was not an absolute waste of time; that it was a merit to
refine vice, to “polish it up,” to drape it with hypocrisy, to rule men
and impress their intelligence even by indirect means: they found the
occupation every whit as interesting as piling up household linen or
polishing the furniture. They hoped that the future would justify their
devotion. After all their love was only a means; the end was to pour
upon life a little joy, a little balm, light, power, happiness—to shower
happiness everywhere.