of my friends who was to present me at a house where, according to
what he told me, I should see a world of pretty women--a collection
of flesh and blood idealities--the wherewithal to satisfy a score
of poets.--There are some there to suit all tastes:--aristocratic
beauties with eagle glances, sea-green eyes, straight noses, chins
haughtily elevated, queenly hands, and the gait of a goddess; silver
lilies mounted upon golden stalks;--modest violets, pale of hue, sweet
of perfume, with melting, downcast eyes, slender neck, transparent
flesh;--animated, piquant beauties; devout beauties, beauties of all
sorts;--for the house is a genuine seraglio, minus the eunuchs and the
Kislar aga.--My friend tells me that he has already had five or six
affairs there--quite as many as that;--that seemed to me a prodigious
record and I am very much afraid that I shall not have the like
success; De C---- says yes, and that I shall succeed much better than
I shall care to. According to him I have only one fault, which I am
certain to correct as I grow older and go more into society--he says I
think too much of woman and not enough of women.--It may well be that
there's some truth in that.--He says that I will be perfectly lovable
when I rid myself of that little failing. God grant it! It must be that
women feel that I despise them; for a compliment, which they would
consider adorable and delightful to the last degree in the mouth of
another, in mine displeases them and makes them angry, as if it were
the most savage epigram. That probably has something to do with the
fault De C---- refers to.
My heart beat a little faster as I went up the stairs, and I had
barely recovered from my emotion when De C----, taking me by the
elbow, brought me face to face with a woman of about thirty--not
ill-looking--dressed with dissembled magnificence and extreme
affectation of childlike simplicity--which did not prevent her being
daubed with rouge like a carriage-wheel:--it was the lady of the house.
De C----, assuming the shrill, mocking voice which is so different from
his ordinary voice, and which he uses in society when he wants to be
fascinating, said to her, half aloud, with abundant demonstrations of
ironical respect, in which the most profound contempt could plainly be
detected:
"This is the young man of whom I spoke to you the other day--a man of
very distinguished merit; he is of unexceptionable birth and I think
that it cannot be otherwise than agreeable to you to receive him; that
is why I have taken the liberty to present him to you."
"Assuredly, monsieur, you have done well," rejoined the lady, with
a most outrageously affected manner. Then she turned to me, and
after looking me over out of the corner of her eye, like a clever
connoisseur, and in a way that made me blush to my ears, she said: "You
may consider yourself invited once for all, and come as often as you
have an evening to waste."
I bowed awkwardly enough, and stammered a few disconnected words which
could not have given her a very exalted opinion of my talents; other
persons came in and I was delivered from the ennui inseparable from an
introduction. De C---- led me to a window recess and began to lecture
me vigorously.
"What the devil! you will get me into a scrape; I announced you as a
perfect phœnix of wit, a man of unbridled imagination, a lyric poet,
everything that is most transcendent and impassioned, and you stand
there like a ninny without lisping a word. What a wretched imagination!
I thought your vein was more fruitful; come, come, give your tongue
the rein, chatter away through thick and thin; you don't need to say
sensible, judicious things, on the contrary, they might injure your
chances; talk, that's the main thing; talk fast, talk all the time;
attract attention to yourself; throw aside all fear and all modesty;
fix it firmly in your head that all who are here are fools, or almost
that, and don't forget that an orator who wants to succeed cannot
despise his audience enough.--What do you think of the mistress of the
house?"
"I dislike her very much already; and although I talked with her hardly
three minutes, I was as bored as if I were her husband."
"Aha! that's what you think of her, eh?"
"Why, yes."
"Is your repugnance for her altogether insurmountable?--So much the
worse; it would have been decent for you to have her, if only for a
month; it's good form, and a young man with a little money can't get
into society except through her."
"Very good! I'll have her," I said piteously, "since it must be; but is
it as necessary as you seem to think?"
"Alas! yes, it is absolutely indispensable, and I will tell you why.
Madame de Thémines is the fashion now; she has all the absurd foibles
of the day in a superior way,--sometimes those of to-morrow, but never
yesterday's: she is thoroughly posted. People will wear what she
wears, and she never wears what any one else has worn. She is rich,
too, and her carriages are in the best taste.--She has no wit, but
much small-talk; she has very keen fancies and little passion. People
amuse her but do not move her; she has a cold heart and a dissolute
head. As for her soul--if she has one, which is doubtful--it is of
the blackest, and there is no malice and baseness of which she is
not capable; but she is extremely adroit and keeps up appearances,
just what is necessary to prevent anything being proved against her.
For instance, she will lie with a man, but she will never write him
the simplest kind of a note. Thus her most intimate enemies can find
nothing to say against her except that she applies too much rouge and
that certain parts of her person are not, in fact, so well rounded as
they seem to be--which is false."
"How do you know?"
"What a question!--how does one know that sort of thing except by
finding out for himself?"
"Then you have had Madame de Thémines?"
"Certainly I have! Why shouldn't I have had her? It would have been
most unseemly of me not to have her.--She has done me some very great
favors, and I am very grateful to her for them."
"I don't understand what kind of favors she can have done you."
"Are you really a fool?" said De C----, gazing at me with the most
comical expression imaginable.--"Faith, I am much afraid of it;
must I tell you everything? Madame de Thémines is considered, and
justly, to have special information in certain directions, and a young
man whom she has taken and kept for some time can present himself
boldly anywhere, and be sure that he won't be long without having
an affair--more likely two than one.--Aside from that ineffable
advantage, there is another hardly less great; and that is that, as
soon as the female members of this circle see that you are Madame de
Thémines' official lover, even though they have not the slightest
taste for you, they will consider it a pleasure and a duty to take you
away from a fashionable woman like her; and, instead of the advances
and manœuvres you would otherwise have to make, you will have an
embarrassment of riches, and you will necessarily become the focus of
all imaginable cajoleries and blandishments.
"However, if she arouses too strong a repugnance in you, don't take
her. You are not exactly obliged to do it, although that would be
courteous and proper. But make your choice quickly and attack the one
who pleases you best or seems to offer the most facilities, for by
delaying you will lose the benefit of novelty, and the advantage it
gives you over all the men here for a few days. All these ladies have
no conception of the passions that are born in private intercourse and
develop gradually in respect and silence; they are all for lightning
strokes and occult sympathies; a wonderfully well-conceived scheme
to avoid the ennui of resistance and all the long and wearisome
repetitions that sentiment mingles with the romance of love, and
which serve only to defer the conclusion to no purpose.--These ladies
are very saving of their time, and it seems so valuable to them
that they would be in despair at the thought of leaving a single
moment unemployed.--They have a craving to oblige the human race
which one cannot praise too highly, and they love their neighbor as
themselves--which is most meritorious and perfectly angelic; they are
very charitable creatures who would not, for anything in the world,
drive a man to die of despair.
"There must be three or four of them already who are _impressed_ in
your favor, and I advise you as a friend to press your advantage warmly
in that direction, instead of amusing yourself prattling with me in a
window-recess, which will not materially assist your prospects."
"But, my dear C----, I am altogether green in such matters, I haven't
the necessary experience of society to distinguish at first glance
a woman who is impressed from one who isn't; and I might make some
strange blunders unless you will assist me with your experience."
"Upon my word, you are a primitive creature without a name, and I
didn't suppose it was possible to be so pastoral and bucolic in the
blessed age we live in!--What the devil are you doing with that pair of
great black eyes of yours, which would produce a most stunning effect
if you knew how to use them?
"Just look over yonder, in the corner by the fire-place, at that little
woman in pink playing with her fan: she has been staring at you for
a quarter of an hour with most significant assiduity and fixity; no
one in the world but she can be indecent in so superior a fashion and
display such noble insolence. The women don't like her at all, for
they despair of ever reaching that height of impudence, but, on the
other hand, she is very popular with the men who find in her all the
piquant flavor of the courtesan.--To be sure, her depravity is of a
fascinating sort, she is full of wit and impulse and caprice.--She's an
excellent mistress for a young man who has prejudices.--Within a week
she will rid your conscience of all scruples and corrupt your heart to
such an extent that you will never make yourself ridiculous or indulge
in elegiacs. She has incredibly positive ideas on every subject;
she goes to the bottom of everything with astonishing rapidity and
accuracy of insight. The little woman is the incarnation of algebra;
she is precisely what a dreamer and an enthusiast needs. She will soon
cure you of your misty idealism: therein she will render you a great
service. She will do it with the greatest pleasure, however, for her
instinct leads her to disenchant poets."
My curiosity being aroused by De C----'s description, I emerged from
my retreat, and, gliding from group to group, approached the lady in
question and observed her closely,--she may have been twenty-five
or twenty-six years old. She was small, but well shaped, although a
little inclined to be stout; she had round, white arms, well-formed
hands and pretty feet, almost too small,--plump, polished shoulders,
breast but little exposed, but what there was, very satisfactory and
affording a favorable idea of the rest; her hair was extremely glossy
and of a blue-black shade like a jay's wing; the corner of the eye
was turned well up toward the temple, nose thin, nostrils very open,
mouth moist and sensuous, a little crease on the lower lip and an
almost imperceptible down at the corners. And with it all, vivacity,
animation, health, and an indefinable suggestion of wantonness adroitly
tempered by coquetry and tact, which made her a very desirable creature
and more than justified the very lively passions she had inspired and
continued to inspire every day.
I desired her; but yet I understood that that woman, agreeable as she
might be, was not my ideal, or could make me say: "At last I have a
mistress!"
I returned to De C---- and said: "I like her looks, and perhaps I may
come to an understanding with her. But, before saying anything definite
which will bind me, I would be very glad if you would have the kindness
to point out those indulgent beauties who are so condescending as to be
impressed with me, so that I may make my choice.--You will also oblige
me, as you are acting as showman on this occasion, by adding a little
descriptive notice and a list of their good and bad qualities; how I
must attack them and the tone I must adopt with them in order not to
seem too much like a provincial or a literary man."
"I most certainly will," said De C----. "Do you see that lovely,
melancholy swan who manages her neck so gracefully and makes her
sleeves move like wings? she is modesty itself, the most chaste and
virginal creature in the world; she has a snow-white brow, a heart
of ice, the expression of a madonna, the smile of an Agnes; she has
a white dress and a soul of the same color; she wears nothing but
orange-blossoms or water-lily leaves in her hair, and is attached to
earth only by a thread. She has never had an evil thought and has no
idea wherein man differs from woman. The Blessed Virgin is a Bacchante
beside her, all of which does not prevent her having had more lovers
than any woman I know, and that is certainly saying a good deal.
Just cast your eye on that discreet person's throat; it is a little
masterpiece, and really it is very difficult to show so much without
showing more; tell me if, with all her reserve and all her prudery,
she isn't ten times more indecent than that good lady at her left, who
bravely displays two hemispheres which, if they were united, would form
a life-size globe,--or the other one at her right, _décolletée_ to the
navel, who parades her nothingness with fascinating intrepidity?--That
virginal creature, unless I am very much mistaken, has already figured
out in her head how much love and passion your pallor and your black
eyes may be taken to promise; and my reason for saying so is that she
hasn't once looked in your direction, visibly at least; for she can
manage her pupils with such art and roll them into the corner of her
eyes so cleverly that nothing escapes her; one would think that she
looked through the back of her head, for she knows perfectly well what
is going on behind her.--She's a female Janus.--If you want to succeed
with her, you must lay aside anything like a free-and-easy, victorious
manner. You must talk to her without looking at her, without moving,
in a contrite attitude and in a subdued, respectful voice; in that way
you can say whatever you choose to her, provided that it is suitably
glossed over, and she will allow you to take the greatest liberties,
at first in words; afterward in deeds. Simply take care to roll your
eyes tenderly when hers are cast down, and talk to her about the joys
of platonic love and the communion of souls, while you employ with her
the least platonic and least ideal pantomime imaginable! She is very
sensual and very sensitive; kiss her as often as you choose, but don't
forget, even in the most intimate intercourse, to call her _madame_ at
least three times per sentence: she fell out with me, because, when I
was in her bed, I said something or other to her and called her _thou_.
What the devil! a woman is not virtuous for nothing!"
"After what you tell me I have no great desire to try my luck. A
prudish Messalina! an entirely novel and monstrous combination."
"Old as the world, my dear boy! it is seen every day and nothing is
more common.--You are wrong not to try your hand with her.--She has one
great charm, which is that with her you always seem to be committing a
deadly sin, and the least kiss seems altogether damnable; while with
others you think of it as nothing more than a venial sin, and often you
don't think you're doing anything wrong at all.--That is why I kept her
longer than any other mistress.--I should have her still if she had not
left me herself; she's the only woman who ever got ahead of me, and I
look upon her with a certain amount of respect on that account.--She
has the most delicate little refinements of pleasure and the great art
of appearing to be forced to grant what she grants very freely; which
gives to each of her favors the fascination of rape. You will find in
society ten of her lovers who will swear to you that she is one of the
most virtuous creatures on earth.--She is precisely the contrary.--It
is an interesting study to analyze that virtue of hers on a pillow.
Being forewarned, you run no risk, and you won't make the blunder of
falling in love with her in earnest."
"How old is this adorable creature?" I asked De C----, for it was
impossible to decide, even after examining her with the most careful
attention.
"Ah! there you are! how old is she? that's a mystery and God only knows
the clue. For my own part, and I pride myself on telling a woman's age
almost to a minute, I have never succeeded in finding out hers. I can
only estimate approximately that she is somewhere between eighteen
and thirty-six.--I have seen her in full dress, in déshabille, in her
linen, and I can tell you nothing in that connection: my knowledge is
at fault; the age that you would generally take her to be is eighteen,
and yet that can't be her age.--She is a combination of a virgin body
and the soul of a harlot, and she must have had much time or much
genius to corrupt herself so thoroughly and so speciously; she must
have a heart of brass in a breast of steel; but she has neither; that
makes me think that she is thirty-six, but in reality I know nothing
about it."
"Hasn't she any intimate friend who could enlighten you on the subject?"
"No; she arrived here two years ago. She came from the provinces or
from abroad, I don't know which--that is an admirable position for a
woman who knows how to make the most of it. With such a face as she
has, she can make herself any age she chooses and date only from the
day she arrived here."
"That certainly is a most agreeable state of things, especially when
some impertinent wrinkle doesn't give you the lie, and Time, the great
destroyer, is kind enough to connive at that falsification of the
certificate of baptism."
He pointed out several others, who, he said, would receive favorably
whatever requests it might please me to prefer to them, and would
treat me with peculiar philanthropy. But the woman in pink in the
chimney-corner and the modest dove who was her antithesis were
incomparably superior to all the others; and, if they had not all the
qualities I require, they had some of them, at least in appearance.
I talked all the evening with them, especially with the last, and I
took pains to cast my ideas in the most respectful mould;--although
she hardly looked at me, I fancied sometimes that I could see her eyes
gleaming behind the curtain of their lashes, and at some compliments
that I ventured to address to her, decidedly broad but shrouded in
the most modest gauze, I noticed just below the skin a tiny blush,
held back and stifled, not unlike the effect produced by pouring a
red liqueur into a glass that is half opaque.--Her replies were, in
general, sedate and well-weighed, but keen and bright, and they implied
much more than they expressed. The whole conversation was interspersed
with pauses, unfinished phrases; veiled allusions, every syllable had
its meaning, every pause its bearing; nothing could be more diplomatic
or more charming.--And yet, however great my pleasure in it for the
moment, I could not endure such a conversation very long. One must
be forever on the alert and on his guard, and what I like best in
conversation is ease, familiarity.--We talked first of music, which led
us naturally to speak of the Opera, then of women, and then of love,
a subject in which it is easier than in any other to find excuses for
transition from general principles to special instances.--We vied with
each other in amatory talk; you would have laughed to hear me. Verily,
Amadis on poor La Roche was no better than a dull pedant beside me.
It was generosity, abnegation, self-sacrifice enough to put the late
Curtius of Rome to the blush.--Really I didn't believe myself capable
of such transcendent humbug and bathos. Can you imagine anything more
ridiculous, a more perfect scene for a comedy, than myself indulging in
the quintessence of platonism? And then my sugary manner, my demure,
hypocritical little ways! _tubleu_! I looked as if I could never touch
anything, and any mother who had heard me argue wouldn't have hesitated
to let me lie with her daughter, any husband would have trusted his
wife with me. It was the one evening in all my life when I seemed to be
most virtuous and was least so. I thought it was more difficult than
that to be a hypocrite and say things one doesn't believe. It must be
very easy or else I must be strongly predisposed that way, to have
succeeded so satisfactorily at the first trial.--Really I have some
inspired moments.
As for the lady, she made many remarks, very shrewdly worded, which,
notwithstanding the innocent air with which she made them, denoted
a very extensive experience; you can't conceive the subtlety of her
distinctions. The woman would split a hair in three pieces lengthwise,
and make fools of all the angelic and seraphic pundits that ever were.
Indeed, from her way of talking, it was impossible to believe that she
has the shadow of a body.--It is all immaterial, vaporous, ideal enough
to break your arms; and if De C---- had not warned me beforehand of
the creature's manœuvring, I should certainly have despaired of the
success of my undertaking, and stood shamefacedly aside. How in the
devil, when a woman tells you for two hours, with the most indifferent
air you can imagine, that love lives only on privation and sacrifice
and other fine things of that sort, can you decently hope to persuade
her to get between two sheets with you some day to stir your blood and
see if you are made alike?
In short, we parted the best of friends, mutually congratulating each
other on the elevation and purity of our sentiments.
My conversation with the other was, as you will imagine, of a very
different tenor. We laughed as much as we talked. We made fun, and very
wittily too, of all the women there. When I say: "We made fun, and very
wittily too," I am wrong; I ought to say: "She made fun;" a man never
makes fun of a woman. I listened and approved, for it is impossible to
draw with more telling strokes or to apply colors more brilliantly; it
was the most interesting gallery of caricatures that I have ever seen.
In spite of the exaggeration, you felt the truth underneath; De C----
was quite right; that woman's mission is to destroy the illusions of
poets. There is an atmosphere of prose about her in which a poetic idea
cannot live. She is charming, sparkling with wit, and yet when you are
with her you think only of base, vulgar things; as I talked to her I
felt a crowd of desires, incongruous and impracticable in that place;
I felt like ordering wine and getting tipsy, taking her on my knee
and kissing her neck--like lifting up her skirt to see if her garter
was above or below the knee, like singing an obscene song at the top
of my voice, smoking a pipe or smashing the windows: the devil knows
what.--All the animal, all the brute rose in me; I would willingly
have spat on Homer's Iliad and thrown myself on my knees before a
ham.--I understand perfectly to-day the allegory of Circe changing the
companions of Ulysses to swine. Circe was probably a wanton like my
little woman in pink.
It is a shameful thing to say, but I felt a keen delight in the
consciousness that the brute nature was gaining the upper hand; I did
not resist it, I assisted it with all my strength, corruption is so
natural to man and there is so much mud in the clay of which he is
made.
[Illustration: Chapter II--_My conversation with the other was, as
you will imagine, of a very different tenor. We laughed as much as we
talked. We made fun, and very wittily too, of all the women there._]
And yet I was afraid for a minute of the gangrene that was gaining upon
me, and I tried to leave my corrupter; but the floor seemed to have
risen to my knees, and I was as if riveted to my place.