with close attention the chicken on the spit, which was turning browner
and browner, and the unfortunate dog whose rest I had so unluckily
disturbed, who was struggling away in his wheel like several devils in
the same holy-water vessel.
The youngest of the party brought his hand down on my shoulder with a
force that made me wince, on my word, and extorted from me a little
involuntary shriek, and asked me if I would not prefer to sup with
them rather than all alone, as several could drink better than one.--I
answered that it was a pleasure I should not have dared to hope for,
and that I would be very glad to do it. Our places were laid together
and we took our seats at the table.
The panting dog, after swallowing an enormous dipperful of water with
three laps of his tongue, resumed his post opposite the other dog, who
had not stirred any more than if he had been made of porcelain,--the
new-comers, by a special dispensation of Providence, not having ordered
chicken.
I learned, from some sentences that escaped them, that they were on
their way to the court, which was then at--, where they expected to
meet other friends. I told them that I was a young gentleman just from
the University, on my way to visit my kins-men in the provinces by
the true student's road, that is to say the longest he can find. That
made them laugh, and after some comments on my innocent and artless
appearance, they asked me if I had a mistress. I answered that I knew
nothing about mistresses, whereat they laughed still louder. Bottle
succeeded bottle with great rapidity; although I was careful almost
always to leave my glass full, my head was a little heated, and, not
losing sight of my idea, I managed to turn the conversation upon women.
It was no difficult task; for, after theology and æsthetics, it is the
subject upon which men talk most freely when they are drunk.
My companions were not exactly drunk, they carried their wine too well
for that; but they began to enter upon moral discussions that had no
end and to rest their elbows unceremoniously on the table.--One of them
had gone so far as to put his arm about the extensive waist of one of
the maid-servants, and was nodding his head most amorously; another
swore that he should burst on the spot, like a toad that has been made
to take snuff, unless Jeannette would let him give her a kiss on each
of the great red apples that served her as cheeks. And Jeannette, not
wishing that he should burst like a toad, gave him permission with very
good grace and did not even check a hand that stole audaciously between
the folds of her neckerchief into the moist valley of her breast,
very insecurely guarded by a little golden cross, and not until he
had exchanged some words with her in an undertone did he allow her to
remove the dishes.
And yet they were habitués of the court and young men of refined
manners, and unless I had seen it myself I should never have thought
of accusing them of such familiarity with servants at an inn.--It is
probable that they had just left charming mistresses, to whom they had
sworn the mightiest oaths known to man: upon my word, it would never
have occurred to me to request my lover not to sully lips on which I
had placed mine, by contact with the cheeks of a clumsy wench.
The rascal seemed to take as much pleasure in that kiss as if he had
kissed Phyllis or Oriana; it was a loud kiss, solidly and honestly
bestowed, and left two little white marks on the fiery cheek of the
damsel, who wiped them away with the back of the hand that had just
been washing the dishes.--I do not believe that he had ever bestowed
one so naturally affectionate on the chaste deity of his heart.--That
was his thought apparently, for he said in an undertone and with a
disdainful shrug:
"To the devil with thin women and high-flown sentiments!"
That moral maxim seemed to suit the party, and all nodded their heads
approvingly.
"Faith," said another, following out the same line of thought, "I am
unlucky in everything. Messieurs, allow me to inform you, under seal of
the most profound secrecy, that I, who speak to you, have a passion at
this moment."
"Oho!" exclaimed the others. "A passion! That is depressing to the last
degree. What are you doing with a passion?"
"She's a virtuous woman, messieurs; you must not laugh, messieurs; for,
after all, why shouldn't I have a virtuous woman? Have I said anything
ridiculous?--I say, you over there, I'll throw the house at your head,
if you don't have done."
"Well! what then?"
"She is mad over me:--she's the dearest soul in the world; speaking of
souls, I know what I'm talking about, I know at least as much about
'em as I do about horses, and I give you my word that hers is the first
quality. She is all exaltation, ecstasy, devotion, self-sacrifice,
refinements of tenderness, everything that you can imagine that is most
transcendent; but she has hardly any breast, indeed she has none at
all, like a girl of fifteen at the outside.--She's pretty enough; has a
well-shaped hand and pretty foot; she has too much mind and not enough
flesh, and sometimes I long to drop her. Damnation! a man doesn't lie
with a mind. I'm very unlucky; pity me, my dear friends."--And, made
maudlin by the wine he had drunk, he began to weep hot tears.
"Jeannette will console you for the misfortune of lying with sylphs,"
said his neighbor, pouring him out a bumper; "her soul's so thick that
you could make other women's bodies out of it, and she has flesh enough
to cover the carcasses of three elephants."
O pure and noble woman! if you knew what is said of you, in wine-shops,
regardless of everything, before people he does not know, by the man
you love best in the world and for whom you have sacrificed everything!
how shamelessly he undresses you, and with base effrontery abandons
you all naked to the vinous gaze of his companions, while you sit sadly
at your window, your chin resting in your hand, watching the road by
which he should return to you!
If any one had told you that your lover, less than twenty-four hours
perhaps after leaving you, was making love to a low-born servant, and
that he had made arrangements to pass the night with her, you would
have insisted that it was not possible, and you would have refused to
believe it; you would hardly have trusted your own eyes and ears; but
it was so, nevertheless.
The conversation lasted some time longer, extravagant and coarse to the
last degree; but through all the exaggerated buffoonery and the jests,
which were often obscene, one could distinguish a deep and genuine
feeling of profound contempt for woman, and I learned more that evening
than by reading twenty cart-loads of moral essays.
The monstrous, incredible things I heard gave to my features a tinge
of melancholy and sternness which the other guests noticed and upon
which they good-naturedly rallied me; but my cheerfulness refused to
return.--I had shrewdly suspected that men were not as they appeared
to be before us, but I did not think that they were so entirely
different from their masks, and my surprise equalled my disgust.
I would ask no more than half an hour of such conversation to cure a
romantic girl forever; it would be more effective than all the maternal
remonstrances.
Some boasted of having as many women as they pleased, and that they
had only to say a word to procure them; others exchanged receipts for
procuring mistresses or lectured upon the tactics to be followed in
laying siege to virtue; some ridiculed the women whose lovers they were
and proclaimed themselves the most simple fools on earth for trifling
away their time with such hussies.--All of them held love very cheap.
Such, then, are the thoughts they conceal from us under such attractive
exteriors! Who would dream of it to see them so humble and cringing,
so ready for everything?--Ah! after the victory how boldly they raise
their heads and how insolently place their heels on the brow they
adored from afar and on their knees! how they avenge themselves for
their temporary abasement! how dearly they make us pay for their
courtesies! and with what bitter insults do they seek a change from
the compliments they have paid us! What fierce brutality of language
and thought! what boorish manners and bearing!--It is a complete change
and certainly not to their advantage. Far as my previsions had gone,
they fell a long way short of the reality.
O ideal, thou blue flower with the golden heart, that bloomest,
dew-empearled, beneath the spring sky, in the perfumed breath of
sweet reveries, and whose fibrous roots, a thousand times finer than
the silken tresses of the fairies, burrow to the depths of our soul
with their countless hairy heads, to drink its purest substance; thou
flower, so sweet and yet so bitter, we cannot uproot thee without
making the heart bleed at every pore, and from thy broken stalk ooze
great red drops, which, falling one by one into the lake of our tears,
serve to measure the halting hours of our death-watch beside the bed of
moribund Love!
Ah! accursed flower, how thou hast taken root in my soul! thy branches
have multiplied faster than nettles in a ruin. The young nightingales
came to drink from thy cup and to sing in thy shade; diamond
butterflies, with emerald wings and ruby eyes, fluttered and danced
around thy slender pistils, covered with golden dust; swarms of white
bees sucked unsuspiciously thy poisoned honey; chimeras folded their
swan wings and crossed their lion paws beneath their lovely breasts to
rest beside thee. The tree of the Hesperides was no better guarded;
sylphs collected the tears of the stars in lily urns, and watered thee
every night with their magic watering-pots.--O plant of the ideal,
more poisonous than the manchineel or the deadly upas-tree, how bitter
the pang, despite thy treacherous flowers and the poison one inhales
with thy perfume, of uprooting thee from my soul! Neither the cedar of
Lebanon, nor the gigantic baobab, nor the palm-tree a hundred cubits
high, could together fill the place thou alone dost occupy, thou little
blue flower with the heart of gold!
The supper came to an end at last, and the subject of going to bed was
broached; but as the number of guests was twice the number of beds,
it naturally followed that it was necessary either to go to bed by
detachments or for two to sleep together. It was a very simple matter
for the rest of the party, but it was much less simple for me--having
in view certain protuberances which the waistcoat and doublet concealed
well enough, but which a simple shirt would have revealed in all their
damning roundness; and certainly I was little inclined to betray my
_incognito_ in favor of any one of these gentlemen, who at that moment
seemed to me genuine, self-confessed monsters, but whom I have since
recognized as very good fellows and at least as estimable as the rest
of their sex.
He whose bed I was to share was comfortably drunk. He threw himself
on the mattress with one leg and one arm hanging out, and fell asleep
instantly, not as the just man sleeps, but so soundly that, if the
angel of the last judgment had come and blown his trumpet in his ear,
he would not have waked for that.--That sleep of his simplified the
difficulty very much; I took off nothing but my doublet and my boots,
climbed over the sleeper's body and lay down outside the clothes on the
side next the wall.
So there I was in bed with a man! It was not a bad beginning!--I
confess that, despite all my assurance, I was strangely moved and
disturbed. It was so extraordinary, so novel a situation, that I could
hardly convince myself that it was not a dream.--The other slept on and
on, but I could not close an eye all night.
He was a young man of about twenty-four, with a by no means ugly face,
black eyelashes and light moustache; his long hair flowed about his
head like waves from the overturned urn of a river, a slight flush
passed over his pale cheeks like a cloud under the surface of the
water, his lips were partly open and smiling a vague, languid smile.
I raised myself upon my elbow and so remained a long while gazing at
him by the flickering light of a candle, of which almost all the tallow
had rolled down in great drops and the wick was all covered with black
thieves.
We lay some distance apart. He was on the extreme edge of the bed; I,
with superabundant precaution, had taken my place on the other edge.
Assuredly what I had heard was not calculated to dispose me to
tenderness and the lusts of the flesh;--I held men in horror.--And yet
I was more restless and agitated than I should have been: my body did
not share the repugnance of my mind as fully as it ought.--My heart
beat fast, I was very warm, and, twist and turn as I would, I could
find no rest.
The most profound silence reigned in the inn; there was not a sound to
be heard save now and then the dull thud made by a horse's foot on the
stable floor, or the dropping of the rain down the chimney upon the
ashes on the hearth. The candle, having reached the end of the wick,
smoked and went out.
Black darkness came down between us like a curtain.--You cannot
imagine the effect produced upon me by the sudden disappearance of the
light.--It seemed to me that it was all at an end, and that I could
no longer see my way clearly.--For an instant I was inclined to leave
the bed; but what could I have done? It was only two o'clock, all the
lights were out, and I could not wander about like a phantom in a
strange house. I had no choice but to remain where I was and wait for
daylight.
I lay there on my back; with my hands folded on my breast, trying to
fix my thoughts upon something and always falling back on this, namely,
that I was in bed with a man. I went so far as to wish he would wake
up and find out that I was a woman.--Doubtless the wine I had taken,
although it was a very small quantity, had something to do with that
extravagant idea, but I could not help returning to it.--I was on the
point of putting out my hand to wake him and tell him what I was.--A
fold in the bedclothes, which caught my arm, was all that withheld me
from carrying out my plan: it gave me time for reflection; and while I
was extricating my arm, my reason, which I had totally lost, returned,
if not entirely, at least enough to keep me within bounds.
Wouldn't it have been very curious if a disdainful charmer like myself,
who had resolved to try a man's life ten years before giving him my
hand to kiss, had surrendered to the first comer on a wretched bed in
an inn! and, upon my word, I was not far from it.
Can a sudden effervescence, a sudden boiling of the blood, checkmate
so effectually the most superb resolutions? and does the voice of the
body speak louder than the voice of the mind?--Whenever my pride soars
too high, I place the memory of that night before its eyes in order to
recall it to earth.--I am beginning to share the opinion of most men:
what a poor weak thing is female virtue! and upon how small a thing
does it depend, _Mon Dieu!_
Ah! we seek in vain to spread our wings; there is too much slime upon
them; the body is an anchor that holds the soul fast to earth; in
vain does it spread its sails to the breeze of the loftiest ideas,
the vessel remains immovable, as if all the sucking-fishes in the
ocean were clinging to its keel. Nature takes delight in hurling such
sarcasms at us. When she sees a mind standing on its pride as upon a
high pillar and almost touching the sky with its head, she whispers to
the red fluid to make haste and hurry to the doors of the arteries;
she orders the temples to throb, the ears to ring, and lo, the lofty
idea is attacked with vertigo: all its images become confused and
indistinguishable, the earth seems to rise and fall like a ship's
deck in a storm, the sky goes round and the stars dance a saraband;
the lips which emitted naught but austere moral maxims, close and put
themselves forward as if for a kiss; the arms, so strong to repel,
relax and become more supple and entwining than scarfs. Add to this the
contact of an epidermis, a breath blowing through your hair, and all is
lost.--Often, indeed, so much is not needed;--the odor of fresh foliage
coming from the fields through your open window, the sight of two birds
pecking at each other, a marguerite blooming, an old love-song which
persists in coming to your mind, do what you will, and which you repeat
without understanding its meaning, a warm breeze that disturbs and
excites you, the wooing softness of your bed or your couch--any one of
these circumstances is enough; even the solitude of your chamber makes
you think that two might be very comfortable there, and that no one
could find a more delightful nest for a brood of pleasures. The drawn
curtains, the half-light, the silence, everything brings you back to
the fatal thought that brushes you with its insidious, dovelike wings,
and coos softly about your head. The soft stuffs that touch you seem to
caress you and their folds cling amorously to your body.--Thereupon the
maiden opens her arms to the first footman with whom she happens to be
left alone; the philosopher leaves his page unfinished, and, with his
head in his cloak, rushes away in hot haste to the nearest courtesan.
I certainly was not in love with the man who caused me such strange
agitation.--He had no other charm than that he was not a woman, and in
the state in which I then was, that was enough! A man! that mysterious
creature who is concealed from us so carefully, the strange animal of
whose history we know so little, the demon or the god who alone can
realize all the vague dreams of pleasure whose springtime cradles our
sleep, the only thought that we have from the time we are fifteen years
old.
A man!--The idea of pleasure floated confusedly in my heavy head. The
little that I knew of it made my desire burn the brighter. Ardent
curiosity urged me to solve once for all the doubts that troubled me
and recurred incessantly to my mind. The solution of the problem was on
the other side of the leaf; I had but to turn it, the book was beside
me.--Such a comely youth, such a narrow bed, such a dark night!--a
girl with a few glasses of champagne in her brain! what a suspicious
gathering!--Ah well! the result of it all was a most virtuous void.
I began to be able to distinguish the position of the window in the
wall on which my eyes were fixed, by favor of the lessening darkness;
the panes of glass became less opaque and the gray light of the
morning, slipping behind them, restored their transparency; the sky
lighted up little by little: it was day.--You cannot conceive the
pleasure it gave me to see that pale gleam on the green hangings of
Aumale serge which surrounded the glorious battlefield whereon my
virtue had triumphed over my desires! It seemed to me that it was my
crown of victory.
As for my bedfellow, he had fallen out onto the floor.
I rose, made my toilet rapidly, ran to the window and threw it open;
the morning air did me good. I stood in front of the mirror to comb my
hair, and I was amazed at the pallor of my face which I imagined was
purple.
The others came in to see if we were still asleep, and kicked their
friend, who did not seem greatly surprised to find where he was.
The horses were saddled and we resumed our journey.
But this is enough for to-day: my quill refuses to make a mark and I
am disinclined to mend it; another time I will tell you the rest of my
adventures; meanwhile love me as I love you, Graciosa the well-named,
and do not form too poor an opinion of my virtue from what I have just
told you.
XI
Many things are bores: it is a bore to return the money you have
borrowed and have become accustomed to look upon as your own; it is a
bore to-day to caress the woman you loved yesterday; it is a bore to
call at a friend's house about dinner-time and find that the master
and mistress have been in the country a month; it is a bore to write a
novel and even more so to read one; it is a bore to have a pimple on
your nose and chapped lips on the day you go to call on the idol of
your heart; it is a bore to have to wear jocose boots that smile at
the pavement through all their seams, and above all things to have an
empty void behind the spider's web in your pocket; it is a bore to be
a concierge; it is a bore to be an emperor; it is a bore to be one's
self or even to be somebody else; it is a bore to go on foot because it
hurts your corns, to ride because it rubs the skin off the antithesis
of your front, to drive because some fat man inevitably makes a pillow
of your shoulder, or to travel on a packet-boat because you are seasick
and turn yourself inside out;--it is a bore to live in winter because
you shiver and in summer because you perspire; but the greatest bore on
earth, in hell, or in heaven, is beyond all question a tragedy, unless
it be a melodrama or a comedy.
It really makes me sick at heart.--What can be more idiotic and more
stupid? The great tyrants with voices like bulls, who pace across the
stage from wing to wing, waving their hairy arms like the sails of a
windmill, imprisoned in flesh-colored tights, are nothing more than
wretched counterfeits of Bluebeard or the Bogey. Their rodomontades
would make any one who could keep awake burst with laughter.
The unfortunate lovers are no less ridiculous.--It is a most diverting
thing to see them come forward, dressed in black or white, with hair
weeping on their shoulders, sleeves weeping on their hands, and their
bodies ready to burst from their corsets like a nut when you squeeze
it between your fingers; walking as if they meant to sweep the boards
with the soles of their satin shoes, and in great outbursts of passion
throwing back their trains with a little twist of the heel.--The
dialogue, being exclusively composed of _oh_! and _ah_! which they
roll about under their tongues as they spread their plumage, is
pleasant pasturage surely and readily digested.--Their princes are very
charming, too; only they are a bit gloomy and melancholy, which does
not prevent their being the best companions in the world or elsewhere.
As for the comedy which is intended to correct our morals, and which
luckily performs its duty with only moderate success, I consider that
the fathers' sermons and the uncles' everlasting repetitions of the
same things are as crushing on the stage as in real life.--I am not
of the opinion that you double the number of fools by representing
them on the stage; there are already quite enough of them, thank God,
and the race is not nearly extinct.--What is the necessity of drawing
the portrait of a man with a pig's snout or the muzzle of an ox and
collecting the foolish talk of a clown whom you would throw out of
the window if he came to your house? The image of a pedant is as
uninteresting as the pedant himself, and he is no less a pedant because
you look at him in a mirror.--An actor who should succeed in imitating
perfectly the manner and attitudes of a cobbler would not be much more
entertaining than a real cobbler.
But there is a stage that I love, the fanciful, extravagant, impossible
stage, where the virtuous public would hiss pitilessly from the first
scene, for lack of understanding a word.
That is a strange stage indeed.--Glow-worms instead of lamps; a beetle
beating time with its antennæ is stationed in the conductor's box. The
cricket plays in the orchestra; the nightingale is first flute; little
sylphs, coming from sweet-pea blossoms, hold bass-viols made of lemon
peel between their pretty ivory-white legs, and with an ample supply of
arms draw bows made from Titania's eyelashes over spider's web strings;
the little wig with three horns worn by the beetle who leads the
orchestra trembles with pleasures, and showers a luminous dust about;
the harmony is sweet and the overture so well executed!
A curtain of butterflies' wings, thinner than the interior pellicle
of an egg, rises slowly after the regulation three blows. The hall is
filled with the souls of poets sitting in stalls of mother-of-pearl,
and watching the play through drops of dew mounted upon the golden
pistils of lilies.--They are their opera-glasses.
The scenery resembles no known scenery; the country it represents
is more unknown than America before its discovery.--The palette of
the richest painter has not the half of the colors in which it is
painted: the tones are all striking and unusual: ash-green, ash-blue,
ultramarine, red and yellow lacquer are used lavishly.