years old at most: I had never seen a more adorable miniature.--She was
fair, but her complexion was so delicate and transparent that ordinary
blondes would have seemed like brunettes, black as moles, beside her;
one would have said that she had golden hair powdered with silver;
her eyebrows were of such a delicate shade, and so blended with the
flesh, that they could hardly be distinguished; her light-blue eyes
had the softest expression and the silkiest lashes it is possible
to imagine; her tiny mouth, so small that you could hardly put the
end of your finger in it, added to the childish, dainty character
of her beauty, and the soft curves and dimples in her cheeks had an
indescribable charm of artless innocence.--Her whole dear little person
delighted me beyond expression; I loved her little slender white hands
through which the light shone, her bird's foot which hardly touched
the ground, her waist which a breath would have snapped, and her
pearly shoulders, hardly formed as yet, which her scarf, placed awry,
happily disclosed.--Her childish prattle, whose _naïveté_ added a new
charm to her naturally gay manner, kept me absorbed for hours at a
time, and I took a singular pleasure in making her talk; she said a
thousand deliciously amusing things, sometimes with an extraordinary
shrewdness of purpose, sometimes as if she had not the slightest idea
of their meaning, which made her infinitely more attractive. I gave
her bonbons and pastilles, which I kept expressly for her in a box
of light tortoise-shell, which pleased her extremely, for she is a
dainty creature like the genuine kitten she is. As soon as I arrived,
she would run to meet me and feel my pockets to see if the blessed
bonbonnière was there; I would pass it from one hand to the other, and
that would lead to a little battle in which she necessarily ended by
gaining the upper hand and stripping me completely.
One day, however, she contented herself by saluting me very gravely,
and did not come as usual to see if the fountain of sweetmeats was
still playing in my pocket; she sat haughtily upright in her chair, her
elbows back.
"Well, Ninon," I said, "are you fond of salt now or are you afraid that
bonbons will make your teeth fall out?"--And, as I spoke, I tapped my
box, which gave forth, under my waistcoat, the sweetest and most sugary
sound in the world.
She put her little tongue to her lips, as if to enjoy the sweet ideal
of the absent bonbon, but she did not budge.
Thereupon I took the box from my pocket, opened it and began
religiously to devour the almonds, which she loved above everything:
the instinct of gluttony was, for an instant, stronger than her
resolution; she put out her hand to take some, but instantly drew it
back, saying: "I am too big to eat bonbons!" And she sighed.
"I hadn't noticed that you have grown much since last week; are you
like the mushrooms that grow in one night? Come and let me measure you."
"Laugh as much as you please," she continued with a charming pout; "I
am not a little girl any longer; and I am going to be very big."
"Those are excellent resolutions, in which you must persevere;--and
might I know, my dear young lady, what has put these noble ideas into
your head? For, a week ago, you seemed to be very well pleased to be a
little girl, and you crunched almonds without a thought of compromising
your dignity."
The little lady looked at me with a curious expression, cast her eyes
around the room, and, when she had made certain that no one could
overhear us, leaned toward me with a mysterious air and said:
"I have a lover."
"The devil! I no longer wonder that you don't want pastilles; but you
were unwise not to take some; you could have played at having dinner
with him, or you could have exchanged them for a shuttlecock."
The child shrugged her shoulders disdainfully and seemed to be
profoundly sorry for me.--As she retained the attitude of an offended
queen, I continued:
"What is this victorious person's name? Arthur, I suppose, or
Henri."--They were two little boys with whom she was in the habit of
playing, and whom she called her husbands.
"No, not Arthur or Henri," she said, fixing her bright, clear eye on
me--"a gentleman."--She put her hand above her head to give me an idea
of his height.
"As tall as that? Why, this is becoming serious.--Pray, who is this
tall lover?"
"Monsieur Théodore, I would like to tell you, but you mustn't mention
it to anybody, not to mamma or to Polly"--her governess--"or to your
friends who think I'm a child and would make fun of me."
I promised inviolable secrecy, for I was very curious to know who this
gallant gentleman might be, and the little one, seeing that I was
inclined to treat the affair as a joke, hesitated to give me her full
confidence.
Reassured by my solemn undertaking to hold my peace scrupulously, she
left her chair, leaned over the back of mine, and whispered very softly
in my ear the name of the cherished prince.
I was confounded: it was the Chevalier de G--, a filthy, uncivilized
animal, with the morals of a school-master and the physique of a
drum-major, the most sottish, debauched creature imaginable--a
veritable satyr, minus the cloven foot and pointed ears. That aroused
serious apprehensions for my dear Ninon in my mind, and I promised
myself that I would straighten matters out.
Somebody came in and the conversation dropped.
I withdrew into a corner and cudgelled my brains for the means of
preventing the affair from going any farther, for it would have been
downright murder for such a sweet creature to fall to such an arrant
knave.
The little one's mother was a rather dissolute woman, who gave
card-parties and kept a sort of bureau of wit. People read
wretched verses at her house and lost good crowns, which was a
compensation.--She cared little for her daughter, who was a living
certificate of baptism, so to speak, and embarrassed her in the matter
of falsifying her chronology.--Besides, she was growing apace and her
nascent charms occasioned comparisons which were not to the advantage
of her prototype, who was already a little defaced by the action of
years and men. The child was rather neglected, therefore, and left
defenceless against the blackguardly habitués of the house.--If her
mother had bestowed any attention upon her, it would have been for no
other purpose probably than to sell her youth at a good bargain and
farm out her beauty and her innocence.--In one way or another the fate
in store for her was not doubtful.--That grieved me, for she was a
fascinating little thing, deserving surely of something better, a pearl
of the fairest water lost in that noxious pest-hole; the idea affected
me so strongly that I determined to rescue her from the horrible place
at any price.
The first thing to do was to prevent the chevalier from pursuing his
design.--What seemed to me the best and simplest way was to pick a
quarrel with him and make him fight me, and I had the utmost difficulty
in arranging it, for he is the most arrant poltroon and fears blows
more than any other man on earth.--At last I said so many and such
cutting things to him, that he had to make up his mind to go out with
me, although decidedly against his inclination.--I even threatened to
have him horse-whipped by my servants, if he did not show himself more
of a man.--He knew how to handle a sword very well, by the way, but
fright disturbed him so that our blades had no sooner crossed than I
found a way to administer a pretty little thrust that put him to bed
for a fortnight.--That was enough for me; I had no wish to kill him,
and I much preferred to let him live so that he might be hanged later;
a touching attention for which he ought to be most grateful to me!--My
rascal stretched out between two sheets and duly trussed and bandaged,
it only remained to persuade the little one to leave the house, which
was not a very difficult matter.
I told her a tale about her lover's disappearance, as she was
tremendously concerned about him. I told her that he had gone with an
actress of the troupe then playing at C----; which angered her, as you
can imagine.--But I consoled her, telling her all sorts of evil of the
chevalier, who was ugly, besotted, and old, and I ended by asking her
if she would not prefer to have me for her sweetheart.--She answered
that she would indeed, because I was handsomer and my clothes were
new.--This naïve remark, uttered with perfect seriousness, made me
laugh until the tears came.--I excited the little one's imagination and
worked to such good purpose that I persuaded her to leave the house.--A
bouquet or two, as many kisses, and a pearl necklace which I gave her,
delighted her to a point difficult to describe, and she assumed an air
of importance before her little friends that was as laughable as you
can imagine.
I ordered a very rich and elegant page's costume made to fit her, for
I could not take her away in her girl's clothes, unless I dressed as
a woman myself, which I did not choose to do.--I purchased a small
horse of a gentle disposition and easy gait, and yet with speed enough
to follow my horse when I chose to ride fast. Then I told the little
beauty to try and come down to the door just at dusk and that I would
be there to meet her; which she did most punctually.--I found her doing
sentry duty in front of the half-open door.--I rode very close to the
house; she came out, I gave her my hand, she placed her foot on my
toe and leaped quickly to a seat behind me, for she was wonderfully
agile in her movements. I spurred my horse and succeeded in returning
unnoticed to my own quarters through seven or eight deserted, winding
lanes.
I made her take off her clothes and put on her disguise and I myself
acted as her maid; she made some objections at first and wanted to
dress alone; but I made her understand that that would waste much time,
and that, being my mistress, there was not the slightest impropriety,
and that it was the way lovers always did.--Less than that would have
convinced her, and she bowed to circumstances with the best grace in
the world.
Her body was a little marvel of delicacy.--Her arms, which were rather
thin, like those of every young girl, had an indescribable smoothness
of outline, and her immature bosom gave such charming promise for the
future, that no fully-developed bosom could have sustained a comparison
with it.--She had all the graces of the child and all the charm of the
woman; she was in the adorable period of transition from girl to young
woman; a fleeting, intangible, delicious period when beauty is full of
hope, and each succeeding day, instead of taking anything away from
your love, adds new elements of perfection.
Her costume could not have been more becoming. It gave her a saucy air,
very curious and very amusing, which made her roar with laughter when
I handed her the mirror so that she could judge of the effect of her
toilet. Then I made her eat some biscuit dipped in Spanish wine, in
order to give her courage and enable her better to endure the fatigue
of the journey.
The horses were waiting, all saddled, in the court-yard;--she coolly
mounted hers, I leaped upon the other, and we set off.--It was quite
dark, and a few lights, which went out one after another, showed that
the good town of C---- was virtuously occupied in sleeping, as every
provincial town should be on the stroke of nine.
We could not go very fast, for Ninon was not the best horsewoman that
ever was, and when her horse trotted she clung with all her strength
to the mane.--However, when morning came we were so far away that no
one could overtake us except by using great diligence; but we were not
pursued, or, if we were, our pursuers took the opposite direction from
that which we had taken.
I became singularly attached to the little beauty.--I no longer had
you with me, my dear Graciosa, and I felt a pressing need of loving
some one or something, of having with me a dog or a child to caress
familiarly.--Ninon was just that to me;--she lay in my bed and slept
with her little arms around my body;--she believed herself my mistress
in all seriousness, and did not suspect that I was not a man; her
extreme youth and her absolute innocence confirmed her in that error,
which I was very careful not to correct.--The kisses I gave her rounded
out her illusion perfectly, for her ideas did not yet go beyond kisses,
and her desires did not speak loud enough to make her suspect anything
else. However, she was only half deceived.
Really there was the same difference between her and myself as between
myself and men.--She was so transparent, so slender, so light and airy,
and her nature was so refined and exceptional, that she seemed like a
woman even to me, who am myself a woman, but who look like a Hercules
beside her. I am tall and dark, she is small and fair; her features are
so soft that they make mine seem almost hard and stern, and her voice
is such a melodious hum that my voice seems harsh beside it. Any man
who had her would break her in pieces, and I am always afraid that the
wind will blow her away some fine morning.--I would like to shut her up
in a box of cotton wool and wear it around my neck.--You can't imagine,
my dear friend, how graceful and bright she is, what fascinating,
cajoling, dainty little childish ways she has. She is the most adorable
creature that ever was, and it really would have been a pity for her to
stay with her unworthy mother.
I took malicious delight in thus rescuing that treasure from the
rapacity of men. I was the griffin who prevented them from approaching
it, and if I did not enjoy it myself, at all events no one else enjoyed
it: an idea that never fails to console one, whatever all the absurd
decriers of selfishness may say.
I proposed to keep her as long as possible in the same ignorance, and
to keep her with me until she was unwilling to stay any longer or until
I had found some way of assuring her future.
I took her with me in her boy's costume on all my journeys, east and
west; that kind of life pleased her immensely, and the delight she
took in it helped her to endure the fatigue.--I was complimented on
all sides on the exquisite beauty of my page, and I doubt not that it
caused a great many people to form an idea exactly contrary to the
truth. Indeed, several persons tried to solve the problem; I did not
allow the little one to speak to any one, and the inquisitive ones were
altogether disappointed.
Every day I discovered in the dear child some new quality which made
her dearer to me than ever, and caused me to congratulate myself on the
resolution I had taken.--Most assuredly no man was worthy to possess
her, and it would have been a deplorable thing that such charms of body
and mind should have been abandoned to their brutal appetites and their
cynical depravity.
Only a woman could love her with proper delicacy and tender
affection.--One side of my character, which might not have been
developed in a _liaison_ of another sort, but which suddenly manifested
itself in this, is the imperative longing to have some one under my
protection, which is usually characteristic of men. If I had taken
a lover, it would have annoyed me intensely to have him assume to
defend me, for the reason that that is something I love to do myself
for people whom I am fond of, and my pride is much better suited
with the first rôle than the second, although the second may be more
agreeable.--So I was very well content to bestow upon my dear little
girl all the attentions I ought to have wanted to receive, such as
assisting her over difficult places in the road, holding her rein
and her stirrup, waiting on her at table, undressing her and putting
her to bed, defending her if any one insulted her, in short, doing
everything for her that the most passionate and attentive lover does
for an adored mistress.
I gradually lost all idea of my sex, and I barely remembered, now
and then, that I was a woman. In the beginning I often let slip,
unthinkingly, "I am tired," or some remark that did not accord with
the coat I wore. Now that never happens, and even when I am writing
to you, who are in my confidence, I sometimes retain an unnecessary
amount of virility in my adjectives. If I ever take a fancy to go and
look for my skirts in the drawer where I left them, which I very much
doubt unless I fall in love with some fine young man, I shall have
difficulty in accustoming myself to them, and I shall look like a man
disguised as a woman, instead of a woman disguised as a man. The truth
is, that I belong to neither sex; I have not the idiotic resignation,
the timidity nor the pettiness of the woman; I have not men's vices,
their disgusting sottishness and their brutal inclinations:--I am of a
third distinct sex which has no name as yet: above or below the others,
more imperfect or superior; I have the body and soul of a woman, the
mind and strength of a man, and I have too much or not enough of either
to enable me to mate with one or the other.
O Graciosa, I shall never love any one, either man or woman, with all
my heart; there is always something unsatisfied grumbling within me,
and the lover or the friend fills the need of only one side of my
character. If I had a lover, such feminine qualities as I have would
dominate the virile part of me, I doubt not, but that would last but a
short time, and I feel that I should be only half content; if I have a
friend of my own sex, the thought of sensual pleasure prevents me from
enjoying to the full the pure pleasure of the mind; so that I do not
know where to stop, and am forever hesitating between the two.
My ideal of happiness would be to have the two sexes turn and
turn about to satisfy this twofold nature:--a man to-day, a woman
to-morrow, I would reserve for my lovers my languishing tenderness, my
submissive, devoted manners, my softest caresses, my little melancholy,
long-drawn sighs, whatever there is of the cat and the woman in my
character; then, with my mistresses, I would be froward, enterprising,
impassioned, with victorious manners, my hat cocked over my ear and the
bearing of a swash-buckling adventurer. Thus my whole nature would come
to light, and I should be perfectly happy, for true happiness consists
in the ability to develop one's nature freely in every direction, and
to be everything that one can be.
But these are impossibilities and I mustn't think about them.
I had kidnapped the little one with the idea of fooling my
inclinations, and diverting upon some one all the vague affection that
was floating about in my heart, and inundating it; I had taken her as
a sort of safety-valve for my faculty of loving; but I soon realized,
notwithstanding all my affection for her, what an immense void, what a
bottomless abyss, she left in my heart, how little her fondest caresses
satisfied me!--I resolved to try a lover, but a long time passed, and
still I met no one who was not disagreeable to me. I have forgotten to
tell you that Rosette, having discovered where I had gone, had written
me a most imploring letter, begging me to come and see her; I could
not refuse, and I visited her at a country estate she has.--I have
been there several times since, very recently in fact.--Rosette, in
despair at her inability to have me for her lover, had plunged into
the whirlpool of society and into dissipation, like all loving souls
who are not religious and who have been disappointed in their first
love;--she had had many adventures in a short time, and the list of
her conquests was already very long, for not everybody had the same
reasons for resisting her that I had.
She had with her a young man named D'Albert, who was for the moment
her titular lover.--I seemed to make a deep impression on him, and he
conceived a very warm friendship for me at once.
Although he treated her with much consideration and his manner toward
her was affectionate enough, he did not love Rosette,--not because he
was satiated or disgusted with women, but because she did not respond
to certain conceptions, true or false, which he had formed of love and
beauty. An ideal cloud floated between her and him, and prevented him
from being happy as he would have been but for that.--Evidently his
dream was not fulfilled and he was sighing for something else.--But he
was not seeking it, and remained faithful to bonds that were irksome
to him; for he has in his soul a little more delicacy and honor than
most men have, and his heart is very far from being as corrupt as his
mind.--Not being aware that Rosette had never been in love with any one
but me, and was still, through all her love-affairs and follies, he
feared to give her pain by letting her see that he did not love her;
that consideration restrained him, and he sacrificed himself in the
most generous way imaginable.
The character of my features pleased him extraordinarily,--for he
attaches undue importance to exterior form--to such a point, in fact,
that he fell in love with me, notwithstanding my male attire and the
formidable rapier I wear at my side.--I confess that I am obliged to
him for the shrewdness of his instinct, and that I esteem him somewhat
for having detected me under those deceptive appearances.--In the
beginning he fancied that he was blessed with a much more depraved
taste than he really was, and I laughed in my sleeve to see him torment
himself so.--Sometimes when he approached me he had a frightened look
that diverted me beyond measure, and the very natural inclination that
drew him toward me seemed to him a diabolical impulsion which one could
not resist too sturdily.--At such times he fell back on Rosette in a
frenzy, and strove to resume more orthodox methods of love; then he
would come back to me, naturally more inflamed than before. At last
the illuminating idea that I might be a woman stole into his mind. To
convince himself of it, he set about watching and studying me with the
most minute attention; he must have an intimate acquaintance with each
hair on my head and know just how many lashes I have on my eyelids; my
feet, my hands, my neck, my cheeks, the suspicion of down at the corner
of my mouth,--he examined them all, compared and analyzed them, and the
result of that investigation, in which the artist aided the lover, was
the conviction, clear as the day--when it is clear--that I was in very
truth a woman, and, what was more, his ideal, his type of beauty, the
realization of his dream;--a marvellous discovery!
Nothing remained except to make an impression on me and to induce me
to grant him the lover's gift of gratitude, to establish my sex beyond
doubt.--A comedy that we acted, and in which I appeared as a woman,
convinced him completely. I bestowed some equivocal glances upon him,
and used certain passages in my part that bore some analogy to our
situation to embolden him and induce him to declare himself.--For, even
if I did not love him passionately, I was sufficiently attracted by him
not to let him pine away with love where he stood; and as he was the
first one since my transformation to suspect that I was a woman, it was
no more than fair that I should enlighten him on that important point,
and I determined not to leave a shadow of doubt in his mind.
He came to my room several times with his declaration on his lips,
but he dared not put it in words; for after all it is hard to talk of
love to some one who wears the same kind of clothes that you do, and
affects top-boots. At last, being unable to bring himself to the point,
he wrote me a long letter, a most Pindaric production, in which he
explained at great length what I knew better than he.
I don't quite know what I had better do.--Grant his request, or reject
it,--that would be immoderately virtuous;--moreover, it would grieve
him too much to be refused; if we make those who love us unhappy,
what shall we do to those who hate us?--Perhaps it would be more in
accordance with strict propriety to play the cruel for some time, and
to wait at least a month before unclasping the tigress's skin to don
the civilized chemise.--But, as I am determined to yield to him, it is
quite as well to do it at once as later;--I don't think very much of
the noble resistance, mathematically graduated, which abandons one hand
to-day, the other to-morrow, then the foot, then the leg and the knee
as far as the garter only,--or the intractable virtue that is always
ready to clutch the bell-rope if you go a hair's breadth beyond the
limit of the territory they have decided to surrender on that day.--It
makes me laugh to see these methodical Lucreces walking backward with
signs of the most maidenly terror, and casting a furtive glance over
their shoulder from time to time to see if the sofa on which they are
to fall is directly behind them.--I could not take so much trouble.
I do not love D'Albert, at least in the sense in which I understand
the word, but I certainly have a liking and inclination for him;--his
wit pleases me and his person does not repel me; there are not many
people of whom I can say as much. He hasn't everything, but he has
something;--what pleases me, in him is that he does not try to slake
his thirst brutally, like other men; he has a constant aspiration and
a sustained impulse toward the beautiful--toward material beauty only,
it is true, but that is a noble tendency, and sufficient to keep him
within the limits of the pure.--His behavior to Rosette proves honesty
of heart,--honesty, that is more rare than the other kind, if that be
possible.