CHASTITY IN ITS RELATIONS TO LOVE
This chapter may to many readers seem utterly useless in a psychological
work, since chastity is a question of hygiene or a negation of love; and
in any case, someone could whisper in my ear: "_Non est hic locus_." Let
the enemies of chastity, or those who do not know what chastity is, jump
this chapter, which will be among the shortest in the book, and allow
us, when we speak of light, to say at least what shade means.
Chastity is the shadow of love, and the most enthusiastic among the
adorers of the sun seeks always the friendly shade of a tree where,
among the labyrinths of the knotty roots, or on the soft carpet of a
meadow, he can slowly drink in the light of which he went in search; he,
too, must love a tranquil shade from which to contemplate without injury
the distant splendors of the supreme father of every energy and every
heat. Even in the desert of sand called the Sahara, or in the desert of
grass called the Pampas, man feels the necessity of resting in the
shadow of his camel, or of his horse, to brood voluptuously over the
long and fiery suns absorbed. Repose you, also, then in the shadow of
the hair, of the eyebrows of your sweetheart to relish the long memories
of the lightning flashes of love.
Chastity is not only repose, but also a wise and powerful creation of
new energies and infinite poetry. Voluptuousness is a hurricane or
thunderbolt, but always a superior force which brutally rends and
brutally bends the tree of life, dashing the leaves against the ground
that nourishes them. Chastity is a boundless temple, in which the fresh
and silent atmosphere dries the sweat of the struggles, refreshes the
sultry air of the battle and restores calm to every turbulent and
stormy brow. The chastity of two lovers is a real temple in which the
animal man collects himself, prays and invokes an unknown god that he
may make him an angel; and love is purified, cleansed of all mire, and
soars on its wings to the highest regions of the ideal. Desire, when
subdued without violence but without hesitation by chastity, lowers its
eyes, bows its head and kneels before the statue of love, and, quivering
but subdued, caresses with its long neck and warm hair the soft knees,
like an enamored swan fondled by the gentle hand of a nude but chaste
woman.
Have you ever noticed two lovers who, sitting on one chair, read the
same book together, while a little child, the fruit of their first
loves, sits at their feet, chattering and prattling? When that little
angel raises its head too petulantly or screams too boisterously, the
fondling hand of the mother or that of the father will silence him. Thus
must desire long remain under restraint at the feet of the two lovers,
obeying an amorous voice and not the rod of the schoolmaster of old.
No more odious virtue exists than chastity taught by the intolerant and
often not very chaste prude; no more delicate, more sublime virtue than
chastity taught by love and by the noblest faculties of the human mind.
An immodest love, an unchaste love may be happy for a time; it may laugh
and smile, let itself be carried away by the maelstrom of voluptuousness
into a revel of unrestrained dances; but it is always an inebriated
love, and inebriety ends quickly and, generally, very badly. Chaste love
is ardent but serene; a love always armed and always cheerful; a
sapphire illuminated by electric light. Self-imposed chastity is a
hidden form of onanism, disease or mania; the evidence of something
lacking in a man, or of a violent amputation, of a cruel mutilation. The
free and sweet chastity of two lovers is a most wise lust, which
sacrifices the daily bread to the splendors of a Sardanapalian banquet;
an education of senses and affections; a most holy worship of the
noblest joys of thought; one of the most precious gems that can adorn
the crown of life. Blessed are those who know how to be chaste in this
manner, to turn love into an energy that educates and etherealizes, and
who find in it the greater coefficient of noble ambitions and
magnanimous purposes!
And you, women, you who have the "intellect of love," teach chastity to
us, for whom this holiest of virtues is difficult to acquire. Prize
dearly this delicate mission, because you will be the first to enjoy its
fruits. Through an ignoble and vulgar calculation, you prefer to disarm
your lovers in order that they may not strike other victims than
you,--perhaps, also, that they may not hurt their own hands; but your
calculation is groundless. From the nausea of satiety more infidelity
has sprung than from the prudent restraint of desires; and to leave a
desire always lighted, and a flower in your garden always untouched, is
one of the most precious secrets for reigning eternally, for being
always loved.
There is an absolute chastity imposed by the cruel laws of sects or of
society, but this is not the place to speak of it. And there is another
absolute chastity imposed by ambition, by a misinterpreted virtue, or
even by egotism; a chastity which, at the bottom, is nothing else than
self-idolatry, a rabid concentration of forces to reach lofty or
insensate ends. The fruit which human voluptuousness reaps is, however,
generally beneath its desire or expectation, and nature wreaks its
vengeance in a thousand ways upon those who outrage it. In many cases,
however, true, sincere chastity, imposed by an iron will, is an
admirable thing, deserving a place among the rarest and most valuable
things in a museum. Not one case in a hundred of those upon which
history has bestowed veneration deserves the praises which are
habitually offered to them, because many of these forms of chastity are
false, or easy through impotency; they are, therefore, false virtues.
Other chastities are as sterile as the sands of the desert, they are
clouds that rise without shape and without aim in the imagination of the
human heart, and vanish without leaving any trace. Be that as it may,
they do not belong to the history of love, and to discuss them here
would entitle the gentle reader to whisper in my ear a second time:
"_Non est hic locus_."