"She has, therefore, by way of an adornment, all the passions and all
the weaknesses of womankind; and, thanks to the gods, she does not
present that still-born perfection which possesses all the virtues
without being vivified by a single fault. In what imaginary world do we
find a virtue that is not grafted upon a defect? A virtue is but a vice
that raises instead of lowering itself; and a good quality is but a
defect that has turned itself to use.
"How should she have the necessary energy if she were deprived of
ambition and pride? How could she thrust aside unjust obstacles if she
did not possess a reserve of selfishness proportionate to the lawful
exigencies of her life? How should she be ardent and fond if she were
not sensual? How should she be kind if she were not a little weak? How
should she be trustful if she were not often too credulous? How should
she be beautiful if she knew not mirrors and did not seek to please? How
should she preserve her feminine grace if she had no innocent vanities?
How should she be generous if she were not a little improvident? How
should she be just if she were unable to be hard, how brave if she were
not rash? How should she be devoted and capable of sacrifice if she
never escaped from the control of icy reason? What we call virtues and
vices are the same forces passing along a life. They change their name,
according to the direction in which they go: to the left, they fall into
the shallows of ugliness, selfishness and folly; to the right, they
climb to the high lands of nobleness, generosity and intelligence. They
are good or bad according to what they do and not according to the title
which they bear.
V
"When a man's virtues are depicted for us, they are represented in the
effort of action; but those which are admired in a woman always infer a
model as motionless as a beautiful statue in a marble gallery. She is an
inconsistent image, a tissue of vices quiescent, of inert qualities, of
slumbering epithets, of passive movements, of negative forces. She is
chaste because she has no senses, she is kind because she does harm to
none, she is just because she does not act, she is patient and resigned
because she is devoid of energy, she is indulgent because none offends
her or forgiving because she has not the courage to resist, she is
charitable because she allows herself to be stripped or because her
charity deprives her of nothing, she is faithful, she is loyal, she is
submissive, she is devoted because all these virtues can live in
emptiness and can blossom on a dead woman's body. But what shall happen
if the image takes life and comes forth from her retreat to enter upon
an existence in which all that does not take part in the movement that
surrounds it becomes a pitiful or dangerous wreck? Is it still a virtue
to keep faithful to an ill-chosen or morally extinguished love, or to
remain subject to an unintelligent or unjust master? Is to refrain from
harming enough to make one kind, to refrain from lying enough to make
one true? There is the morality of those who keep to the banks of the
great river and the morality of those who ascend the stream. There is
the morality of sleep and that of action, the morality of shadow and
that of light; and the virtues of the first, which may be described as
concave virtues, must needs arise, stand up and become virtues in
relief, if they are to remain virtues in the second. The matter and the
lines perhaps remain identical, but the values are exactly reversed.
Patience, mildness, submissiveness, confidence, renunciation,
resignation, devotion, sacrifice, all fruits of passive goodness,
become, if we remove them, such as they are, into the stern outer life,
no more than weakness, servility, indifference, unconsciousness,
indolence, unconstraint, folly or cowardice and must, in order to keep
at the necessary level the source of goodness from which they spring, be
able to develop into energy, firmness, obstinacy, prudence, indignation
and revolt. Loyalty, which has scarce anything to fear so long as it
does not stir, must be careful lest it be duped and surrender its arms
to the enemy. Chastity, which sat waiting with eyes closed and hands
folded, has the right to change into passion, which shall decide and
settle destiny. And the same consecutively with all the virtues which
have a name as with those which are as yet unnamed. Next, it is a
problem to know which is preferable, active or passive life, that which
mingles with men and events or that which shuns them. Is there a moral
law that imposes the one or the other, or has each the right to make
his choice according to his tastes, his character, his aptitudes? Is it
better or worse that the active or the passive virtues should stand in
the foreground? It may, I think, be declared that the former always
imply the second, but that the converse is not true. Thus, the woman of
whom I speak is the more capable of devotion and sacrifice in that she
has the strength to ward off their overwhelming necessity longer than
any others. She will not cultivate sadness or suffering vaguely, as a
means of expiation or purification; but she is able to accept and go in
search of them with ingenuous ardour in order to save those whom she
loves a small affliction or a great sorrow which she feels herself
strong enough to face alone and to overcome in silence in her secret
heart. How often have I not seen her force back tears ready to gush
forth under unjust reproaches, while her lips, on which flickered a
fevered smile, held back, with almost invisible courage, the word which
would have justified her, but which would have crushed him who misjudged
her. For, like all just and good beings, she had naturally to undergo
the petty injustice and the petty wickedness of those who hover
indeterminately between good and evil and who hasten to abuse the
indulgence or forgiveness too frequently obtained. There you have that
which, better than any slack and weeping acquiescence, shows an ardent
and potent reserve of love.