very late, I returned home in dire perplexity, very much disturbed in
mind and with none too clear an idea what I ought to do.--I wavered
between the prude and the wanton.--I found piquancy in the one,
sensuousness in the other; and after a very close and very thorough
examination of my conscience I discovered, not that I loved them both,
but that I desired them both, one as much as the other, with sufficient
eagerness to indulge in reverie and preoccupation.
According to all appearances, O my friend! I shall have one of those
two women, perhaps I shall have them both, and yet I confess that I
am only half satisfied by possessing them; it isn't that they're not
very pretty, but at sight of them nothing cried out within me, nothing
throbbed, nothing said: "It is they;"--I did not recognize them.--And
yet I don't imagine that I shall find any one much better off in the
way of birth and beauty, and De C---- advises me to try my hand with
them. Most certainly I shall do it, and one or the other shall be my
mistress before long or may the devil fly away with me; but way down in
my heart a still small voice reproaches me for lying to my love and for
pausing thus at the first smile of a woman I do not love, instead of
seeking untiringly through the world, in cloisters and all sorts of bad
places, in palaces and taverns, the woman who was made for me and whom
God destines for me, be she princess or serving-maid, nun or courtesan.
Then I say to myself that I am indulging in chimeras, and that it's
very much the same after all, whether I lie with that woman or another,
that the earth will not swerve a hair's breadth from its course, and
that the seasons will not change their order on that account; that
nothing in the world is more indifferent to me, and that I am very
simple to torment myself about such trifles: that is what I say to
myself.--But it's of no use for me to talk, I am not a whit more easy
in my mind or more decided.
It may be because I live much alone and the smallest details take on
too much importance in a life so monotonous as mine. I give too much
heed to my living and thinking: I hear the throbbing of my arteries,
the beating of my heart; by dint of close attention I disengage my most
intangible ideas from the confused haze in which they float, and give
them a body.--If I had more to do I should not notice all these trivial
things and should not have time to look at my heart under a microscope,
as I do all day long. The din of action would drive away this swarm
of indolent thoughts that are flying about in my head and deafening
me with the buzzing of their wings: instead of pursuing phantoms I
should come to blows with realities; I should ask women for nothing
beyond what they can give--pleasure--and I should not try to embrace
some fanciful ideal decked out in hazy perfections.--This desperate
tension of the eye of my heart toward an invisible object has impaired
my sight. I am unable to see what is, from having stared at what is
not, and my eye, so keen for the ideal, is terribly short-sighted for
the real; so that I have known women whom everybody declared to be
most ravishing creatures, but who seemed to me very far from that. I
have greatly admired pictures generally considered to be daubs, and
fantastic or unintelligible verses have given me more pleasure than
the most courtly productions.--I should not be at all astonished if,
after addressing so many sighs to the moon and looking at the stars
with strained gaze, after perpetrating so many elegies and sentimental
apostrophes, I should fall in love with some vile girl from the street,
or some ugly old woman; that would be a great come-down!--Reality
will perhaps take its revenge thus for the little care I have taken
to pay court to it:--wouldn't it be a fine thing if I should conceive
a romantic passion for a scullery wench or a low, dirty trollop? Can
you imagine me playing a guitar under a kitchen window and supplanted
by a lackey carrying an old toothless dowager's pet cur?--Or perhaps,
finding nothing in this world worthy of my love, I shall end by adoring
myself, like the late Narcissus of selfish memory. To protect myself
from such a great disaster, I look at myself in every mirror and in
all the streams I pass. To tell the truth, as a result of musing and
mental wandering I am terribly afraid of being led into something
monstrous and unnatural. That is a serious matter and I must be on my
guard.--Adieu, my friend;--I am going at once to call on the pink lady,
for fear of relapsing into my usual state of meditation. I do not think
that we shall trouble ourselves very much about actualities, and if we
do anything it surely won't be in a spiritual direction, although she
is very spirituelle. I carefully roll up and put away in a drawer the
pattern of my ideal mistress in order not to try it upon this one. I
propose to enjoy tranquilly such good qualities and merits as she has.
I propose to leave her in a dress adapted to her figure, and not to try
to fit clothes to her that I have cut out, in case of emergency, for
the lady of my thoughts.--Those are very prudent resolutions, but I
don't know whether I shall keep to them.--Once more, adieu.
III
I am the titular lover of the pink lady; that is almost a profession,
an office, and it gives a man a firm footing in society. I no longer
look like a scholar seeking a mistress among a parcel of grandmothers
and afraid to sing a love-song to a woman unless she's a hundred
years old; I notice, since my installation, that I receive much more
consideration, that all the women talk to me with jealous coquetry and
go out of their way to smile on me.--The men, on the other hand, are
colder, and in the few words we exchange there is a touch of hostility
and constraint; they feel that they have in me an enemy already
formidable, who may become much more so.--I have heard that many of
them had bitterly criticised my way of carrying myself and said that my
style of dress was too effeminate; that my hair was curled and anointed
with more care than beseemed me; that that fact, taken in connection
with my beardless face, gave me a most absurd girlish appearance; that
I affected rich materials that smelt of the stage, and that I looked
more like an actor than a man: a parcel of trite, sneering remarks,
intended to justify themselves in being dirty and wearing wretched,
ill-fitting clothes. But all this serves only to make me the whiter,
and all the ladies consider that my hair is the finest in the world,
and that the niceties of my toilet are in the best taste, and they
seem strongly disposed to make up to me for all that I spend for
their benefit, for they are not fools enough to believe that all that
elegance has no other aim than my own private embellishment.
The lady of the house seemed at first a little offended at my choice,
which she thought must inevitably fall upon herself, and for some days
she was decidedly sour--to her rival only, for there was no change in
her manner to me--her spleen manifesting itself in divers little "My
dears," uttered in that dry, abrupt tone that women alone can master,
and in certain uncomplimentary remarks concerning her costume, made
in as loud a voice as possible, such as: "Your hair is done too high
and not at all to correspond with your face," or: "Your waist bags
under the arms; who in the world made that dress?" or: "You have black
rings under your eyes; it seems to me you are much changed;" and a
thousand other trivial observations to which the other did not fail to
retort with all desirable malignity when opportunity offered; and if
the opportunity was too slow in offering she made one for her own use
and returned, with interest, what she had received. But soon, another
object having distracted the attention of the slighted princess, the
little war of words ceased and everything resumed its usual order.
I said baldly that I was the pink lady's titular lover; that is not
enough for so accurate a man as you are. You will undoubtedly ask
me what her name is: as for that, I shall not tell you; but, if you
choose, to shorten the story and in memory of the color of the dress in
which I first saw her, we will call her Rosette; it's a pretty name; my
little dog has the same name.
You would like to know from point to point, for you love exactness in
all things, the story of our love-affairs with this fair Bradamante,
and by what successive steps I passed from the general to the
particular and from the condition of simple spectator to that of actor;
how, after being one of the audience, I became the lover. I will
gratify your desire with the very greatest pleasure. There is nothing
unpleasant in our romance; it is all rose-colored, and no tears are
shed except tears of pleasure; you will find no long descriptions or
repetitions, and everything moves on toward the end with the haste
and speed so urgently recommended by Horace;--it is a genuine French
romance.--Do not imagine, however, that I carried the citadel at the
first assault. The princess, although very humane to her subjects, is
not as lavish of her favors at first, as you might think; she knows
their value too well not to make you purchase them; she also knows
too well how a judicious delay sharpens the appetite and what relish
a semi-resistance adds to the pleasure, to abandon herself to you at
first, however keen the inclination you have aroused in her.
To tell the whole story at length, I must go back a little. I gave you
a very circumstantial account of our first interview. I had one or two,
perhaps three others in the same house, and then she invited me to call
on her; I did not make her repeat the invitation, as you can believe;
I went there at discreet intervals at first, then a little more
frequently, then still more so, and finally whenever the fancy seized
me, and I must confess that it seized me at least three or four times a
day.--The lady, after we had been parted a few hours, always received
me as if I had just returned from the East Indies; which fact touched
me as much as anything could and impelled me to show my gratitude in a
marked manner by the most gallant and tenderest words you can imagine,
to which she replied as best she could.
Rosette--as we have agreed to call her that--is a very bright woman and
has a most admirable appreciation of man; although she postponed the
end of the chapter for some time, I did not once lose my temper with
her: which is really marvellous, for you know how I fly into a passion
when I don't get what I want on the instant, and when a woman goes
beyond the time I have mentally allowed her in which to surrender.--I
have no idea how she did it at the first interview; she gave me to
understand that I should have her, and I was surer of her than if I had
had her written promise signed by her hand. You will say perhaps that
her bold and free-and-easy manners left the field free to rash hopes.
I do not think that that is the real motive: I have seen some women
whose prodigious freedom of manner excluded the last vestige of doubt,
who did not produce that effect upon me, and in whose presence I was
conscious of a timidity and uneasiness that were, to say the least,
misplaced.
The result is, generally speaking, that I am less amiable with the
woman I long to possess than with those who are indifferent to me;
it is because of the excitement of waiting for an opportunity and my
uncertainty as to the success of my project; that makes me gloomy and
casts me into a fit of musing which takes away much of my power of
pleasing and my presence of mind. When I see the hours I had set aside
for another purpose passing one by one, I am filled with anger in spite
of myself, and I cannot keep from saying very sharp, harsh things,
which sometimes go as far as brutality and put my affair back a hundred
leagues.
With Rosette I had no such feeling; never, even at the moment when she
resisted me most stubbornly, did I have the idea that she wanted to
escape from my love. I calmly allowed her to display all her little
coquetries, and I endured in patience the overlong delays to which it
pleased her to subject my ardor; there was something smiling in her
harshness that consoled you for it as much as possible, and in her most
Hyrcanian cruelties you could distinguish a background of humanity that
made it impossible for you to have any very serious fear.--Virtuous
women, even when they are not really virtuous at all, have a crabbed,
disdainful way which is perfectly unendurable to me. They have the
air of being always ready to ring and order their footmen to put you
out; and it seems to me, really, that a man who takes the trouble to
pay court to a woman--and it isn't always as agreeable as you may
think--doesn't deserve to be looked at in that way.
Dear Rosette has no such glances as that, not she; and I assure you
that she doesn't lose anything by it; she is the only woman with whom
I have ever been myself, and I am conceited enough to say that I have
never been so agreeable. My wit has displayed itself freely; and, by
the skill and fire of her retorts, she has led me to discover more than
I had any idea that I possessed, and more perhaps than I really do
possess.--To be sure, I haven't done much in the way of lyrics--that
is hardly possible with her; it is not that she has no poetic side,
notwithstanding what De C---- said of her; but she is so full of life
and strength and movement, she seems to be so well placed in her
present surroundings, that one has no desire to leave them for a flight
among the clouds. She fills one's real life so pleasantly and makes of
it something so entertaining to herself and others, that reverie has
nothing better to offer you.
A miraculous thing! I have known her nearly two months, and in those
two months the only times I have been bored have been when I was not
with her. You will agree that she can be no inferior woman to produce
such a result, for women usually produce exactly the opposite effect on
me and are much more agreeable to me at a distance than near at hand.
Rosette has the best disposition in the world, with men I mean, for
with women she's as wicked as a devil; she is bright, lively, alert,
ready for anything, very original in her way of speaking, and has
always some charming nonsense to tell you that you don't expect; she
is a delightful companion, a jolly comrade with whom you sleep, rather
than a mistress; and if I were a few years older and had fewer romantic
ideas, I should be perfectly satisfied, indeed I should deem myself
the most fortunate mortal on earth. But--but--that conjunction implies
nothing good, and unfortunately that little devil of a restrictive word
is the one most frequently employed in all human tongues;--but I am an
imbecile, an idiot, a downright booby, never content with anything and
always hunting mares' nests; and, instead of being altogether happy, I
am only half so;--half, that is a good deal for this world, and yet I
find it not enough.
In the eyes of the world I have a mistress whom several desire and envy
me, and whom no one would disdain. My desire is gratified, therefore,
in appearance, and I no longer have the right to pick a quarrel with
fate. However, it seems to me that I have no mistress; I can convince
myself that I have by arguing it out, but I do not feel it, and if
anybody should ask me unexpectedly if I had one, I think I should
answer no.--However, the possession of a woman who has beauty, youth,
and wit, constitutes what, in all times and in all countries, has
been and still is called having a mistress, and I think there is no
other way. That doesn't prevent my having the strangest doubts in that
connection, and it has gone so far that if several people should unite
to convince me that I am not Rosette's favored lover, I should end by
believing them in the face of the palpable evidence to the contrary.
Do not think from what I say that I do not love her or that she is
displeasing to me in any way; on the contrary, I am very fond of her
and I see in her what everybody else would see in her: a pretty,
alluring creature. I simply do not feel that I possess her, that is
all. And yet no woman ever gave me so much pleasure, and if I have ever
known bliss, it has been in her arms.--A single one of her kisses, the
most chaste of her caresses makes me shiver to the soles of my feet
and sends all my blood back to my heart. Explain it all if you can.
The facts, however, are as I tell them to you. But the human heart is
full of such absurdities; and if we were obliged to reconcile all the
contradictions it exhibits, we should have a heavy task on our hands.
How does it happen? Verily, I have no idea.
I see her all day, and all night too, if I choose. I bestow as many
caresses on her as I please; I have her naked or dressed, in town or
in the country. Her good humor is inexhaustible, and she enters heart
and soul into my whims however eccentric they may be; one evening the
fancy seized me to possess her in the middle of the salon, with all the
candles lighted, the fire blazing on the hearth, the chairs arranged
in a circle as if for a grand evening reception, she, in a _toilette
de bal_ with her bouquet and her fan, all her diamonds on her fingers
and her neck, feathers in her hair--the most magnificent costume
imaginable--and I dressed like a bear; she consented.--When everything
was ready, the servants were greatly surprised to receive orders to
close the doors and admit no one; they acted as if they had not the
slightest comprehension of what it all meant, and went away with a
dazed look that made us laugh heartily. They certainly thought that
their mistress was stark mad; but what they thought or did not think
mattered little to us.
That was the most burlesque evening of my whole life. Can you imagine
the appearance I must have presented with my hat and feather under my
paw, rings on every claw, a little silver-hilted sword and a sky-blue
ribbon on its hilt? I approached the fair one, and, having made her
a most graceful reverence, sat down beside her and besieged her in
due form. The flattering madrigals, the exaggerated compliments I
addressed to her, all the jargon suited to the occasion assumed a
strange significance in passing through my bear's muzzle; for I had
a superb head of painted cardboard which I was soon obliged to throw
under the table, my deity was so adorable that evening, and I longed
so to kiss her hand and something better than her hand. The skin soon
followed the head; for not being accustomed to play the bear, I was
stifled in it, more so than was necessary. Thereupon the ball-dress
had a fine time as you can imagine; the feathers fell like snow around
my beauty, the shoulders soon came out of the sleeves, the bosom from
the corset, the feet from the shoes, the legs from the stockings; the
unstrung necklaces rolled on the floor, and I believe that fresher
dress was never more pitilessly rumpled and torn; the dress was of
silver gauze and the lining of white satin. Rosette displayed on that
occasion a heroism altogether unusual to her sex, which gave me a most
exalted opinion of her. She looked on at the sack of her costume like
an uninterested witness, and did not for a single instant show the
slightest regret for her dress and her lace; on the contrary, she was
wildly gay, and assisted with her own hands in tearing and breaking
anything that wouldn't untie or unclasp quickly enough to suit my
taste and hers.--Doesn't this strike you as worthy to be handed down
in history beside the most brilliant deeds of the heroes of antiquity?
The greatest proof of love a woman can give her lover is to refrain
from saying to him: "Take care and not rumple me or spot my dress,"
especially if the dress be new.--A new dress is a greater source
of security to a husband than is commonly supposed. It must be that
Rosette adores me or else she is blessed with a philosophy superior to
that of Epictetus.
[Illustration: Chapter III--_Thereupon the ball-dress had a fine time as
you can imagine; * * * and I believe that fresher dress was never more
pitilessly rumpled and torn; the dress was of silver gauze and the
lining of white satin. Rosette displayed on that occasion a heroism
altogether unusual to her sex._]
Nevertheless I think that I paid Rosette the full value of her dress
and more, in coin which is none the less esteemed and valued because it
does not pass current with tradesmen. Such unexampled heroism surely
deserved such a recompense. However, like the generous creature she
is, she repaid what I gave her. I had a wild, almost convulsive sort
of pleasure, such as I did not believe myself capable of enjoying. The
resounding kisses mingled with bursts of laughter, the shuddering,
impatient caresses, all the piquant, tantalizing sensations, the
pleasure imperfectly enjoyed because of the costume and the situation,
but a hundred times keener than if there had been no obstacles,
produced such an effect on my nerves that I was seized with paroxysms
which I had some difficulty in overcoming.--You cannot conceive the
proud, affectionate way in which Rosette gazed at me as she tried to
soothe me, and the joyful yet anxious manner with which she lavished
attentions upon me: her face glowed with the pleasure that she felt
in producing such an effect upon me, while her eyes, swimming in
sweet tears, bore witness to her alarm at my apparent illness and the
interest she took in my health.--She had never seemed so beautiful to
me as at that moment. There was something so maternal and so chaste
in her glance that I entirely forgot the more than anacreontic scene
that had just taken place, and threw myself on my knees at her feet,
asking permission to kiss her hand; which permission she granted with
extraordinary dignity and gravity.
That woman certainly isn't as depraved as De C---- claims and as she
has often seemed to me to be; her corruption is in her mind and not in
her heart.
I have cited this scene from among twenty others: it seems to me that
after such an experience one can, without overweening conceit, believe
himself a woman's lover.--And yet I have not that feeling.--I had no
sooner returned home than that thought took possession of me and began
to work upon me as usual.--I remembered perfectly all that I had said
and heard, all that I had done and seen. The slightest gestures, the
most insignificant attitudes, all the most trivial details stood out
clearly in my memory: I remembered everything, even to the slightest
inflections of the voice, the most indescribable shades of enjoyment;
but it did not seem to me that all those things had happened to me
rather than to some one else. I was not sure that it was not all
an illusion, a phantasmagoria, a dream, or that I had not read it
somewhere or other, or even that it was not a story invented by myself
as I had invented many others. I dreaded being the dupe of my own
credulity or the plaything of some deception; and notwithstanding the
evidence of my weariness and the material proofs that I had not slept
at home, I could easily have believed that I had gone to bed at my
usual hour and slept till morning.
I am very unfortunate in my inability to acquire the moral certainty
of something of which I am physically certain. In ordinary cases the
contrary is the case and the fact proves the idea. I would like well to
prove the fact by the idea; I cannot do it; although it is a strange
thing, it is so. It rests with myself, to a certain extent, to have a
mistress; but I cannot force myself to believe that I have one, even
though that is the fact. If I have not the necessary faith in me, even
for a thing so palpable as that, it is just as impossible for me to
believe in so simple a fact as for another to believe in the Trinity.
Faith is not to be acquired, it is a pure gift, a special grace from
Heaven.