that he presses you in his arms with unwonted emotion; when he rests
his head upon your knees and raises it to look at you with moist and
wandering eyes; when enjoyment serves only to augment his desire and
he stifles your voice with his kisses as if he dreaded to hear it, be
sure that he simply does not know that you are there; that he has, at
that moment, an assignation with a chimera which you make palpable, and
whose part you play.--Many chamber-maids have profited by the love that
queens inspire.--Many women have profited by the love that goddesses
inspire, and a commonplace reality has often served as the pedestal
for an ideal idol. That is why poets habitually take dirty trollops for
mistresses.--You can lie ten years with a woman without ever seeing
her; that is the history of many great geniuses, whose ignoble or
obscure connections have caused the world to wonder.
I have been unfaithful to Rosette in no other way than that. I have
been false to her only for pictures and statues and she has been
equally concerned in the treachery. I have not the slightest material
sin upon my conscience with which to reproach myself. I am, in that
respect, as white as the snow-capped Jungfrau, and yet, while not in
love with anybody, I would like to be with some one. I do not seek the
opportunity, but I shall not be sorry if it comes; if it should come,
I might not use it, perhaps, for I have an innate conviction that it
would be the same with another, and I prefer that it should be so
with Rosette than with any other; for, take away the woman, I still
have a jolly companion, witty, and very agreeably depraved; and that
consideration is not one of the least of those that restrain me, for,
in losing the mistress, I might be distressed to find that I had lost
the friend.
IV
Do you know that it will soon be five months, yes, fully five months,
five eternities that I have been the titular Celadon of Madame Rosette?
That is admirable to the last degree. I would not have believed myself
to be so constant, nor would she, I will wager. We are in very truth a
couple of plucked pigeons, for only turtle-doves are capable of such
affection. How we have cooed! how we have pecked at each other! what
pictures of clinging ivy! what a charming existence _à deux!_ Nothing
could be more touching, and our two poor little hearts might have been
placed on a dial pierced by the same spit, and as though trembling in a
gust of wind.
Five months' tête-à-tête, so to speak, for we see each other every
day and almost every night--the door being always closed to visitors;
doesn't it make your flesh creep simply to think of it? Well! to the
glory of the incomparable Rosette be it said, I am not greatly bored,
and those months will doubtless prove to be the most agreeable in my
life. I do not think it would be possible to entertain more constantly
and more successfully a man who has no passion in his heart, and
God knows what pitiable idleness it is that is attributable to an
empty heart! You cannot imagine that woman's expedients. She began
by taking them from her mind, then from her heart, for she loves me
to adoration.--With what skill she makes the most of the slightest
spark and how well she knows how to fan it into a conflagration!
how adroitly she guides the slightest impulses of the heart! how
she transforms languor into tender reverie! and by what roundabout
roads does she bring back to her the mind that is slipping away!--It
is marvellous!--And I admire her as one of the greatest geniuses
imaginable.
I have been to her house in very bad humor, sulky, looking for a
quarrel. I have no idea how the witch did it, but in a very few minutes
she had compelled me to say flattering things to her, although I hadn't
the slightest desire to do it, to kiss her hands and laugh with all my
heart, although I was horribly angry. Can you conceive of such tyranny
as that?--However, adroit as she is, the tête-à-tête cannot last much
longer, and in the course of the last fortnight I have frequently
done what I never did before--open the books on the chimney and on
the table and read a few lines during the pauses in the conversation.
Rosette has noticed it, it has alarmed her so that she has had hard
work to dissemble her feelings, and she has taken all the books out of
her room. I confess that I regret them, although I dare not ask for
them.--The other day--an alarming symptom!--some one called while we
were together, and instead of flying into a rage as I used to do at the
beginning, I was conscious of a sort of pleasure. I was almost affable:
I kept up the conversation when Rosette tried to let it languish so
that monsieur would take his leave, and when he had gone I ventured to
say that he didn't lack wit and that he was a very agreeable fellow.
Rosette reminded me that only two months before I had found the same
man intensely stupid and the most annoying idiot on earth, to which I
had no reply to make, for I did actually say it; and I was right, too,
despite the apparent contradiction: for the first time he disturbed
a charming tête-à-tête, and the second he came to the assistance of
a conversation that was exhausted and running dry--on one side at
least--and spared me for that day a tender scene that I was tired of
acting.
That is the point at which we now are; it is a serious state of
things, especially when one of the two is still in love and is
clinging desperately to the remains of the other's love. I am in great
perplexity. Although I am not in love with Rosette, I am very, very
fond of her, and I should hate to do anything to cause her pain. I wish
her to believe, as long as possible, that I love her.
In gratitude for all the hours to which she has lent wings, in
gratitude for the love she has given me for pleasure, I wish it.--I
shall deceive her; but is not pleasurable deceit preferable to painful
truth?--for I shall never have the heart to tell her that I do not love
her. The empty shadow of love on which she is feeding seems to her so
adorable and so dear, she embraces the pale spectre with such rapture
and effusion that I do not dare cause it to vanish; and, yet I am
afraid that she will discover at last that it is only a phantom. This
morning we had an interview which I propose to repeat in dramatic form
for greater accuracy, and which makes me fear that I cannot prolong our
liaison very long.
The scene is Rosette's bed. A sunbeam streams through the curtains: it
is ten o'clock. Rosette has one arm under my neck and lies perfectly
still for fear of waking me. From time to time she rises a little
on her elbow and leans over my face, holding her breath. I see all
this through my eyelashes, for I have been awake an hour. Rosette's
night-dress has a neck ruffle of Malines lace which is all torn: it
has been a stormy night; her hair protrudes in disorder from under her
little cap. She is as pretty as a woman can be, when one doesn't love
her and is lying in bed with her.
ROSETTE (_seeing that I am awake)._
Oh! sleepyhead!
I (_yawning_).
Ah-h-h!
ROSETTE.
Don't yawn like that or I won't kiss you for a week.
I.
Oh!
ROSETTE.
It seems, monsieur, that you don't care much whether I
kiss you or not.
I.
Yes, I do.
ROSETTE.
How indifferently you say it!--All right; you can depend
upon it that I won't touch you with the end of my lips for
a week to come.--To-day is Tuesday: not till next Tuesday.
I.
Nonsense!
ROSETTE.
What's that? nonsense?
I.
Yes, nonsense! you'll kiss me before night, or I shall die.
ROSETTE.
You die! What a silly fellow!--I have spoiled you,
monsieur.
I.
I shall live.--I am not silly and you have not spoiled
me--quite the contrary. In the first place I demand the
instant suppression of _monsieur;_ I know you well enough
for you to call me by my name and speak in the language of
intimates.
ROSETTE.
I have spoiled you, D'Albert.
I.
Very good.--Now put your mouth over here.
ROSETTE.
No, next Tuesday.
I.
Well, well! has it come to this, that we exchange
caresses, calendar in hand? We are both a little too young
for that.--Come, your mouth, my child, or I shall get a
crick in my neck.
ROSETTE.
No.
I.
Ah! you want me to force you, mignonne; _pardieu_! then I
will force you. The thing is feasible, although perhaps it
has never been done.
ROSETTE.
Impertinent!
I.
Notice, my lovely one, that I was courteous enough to say
_perhaps;_ that was very good of me.--But we are getting
away from the subject. Put down your head. Hoity-toity!
what is all this, my favorite sultana? and what means the
sulky expression on your face? It is a pleasure to kiss a
smile and not a pout.
ROSETTE. (_stooping to kiss me)._
How do you expect me to laugh? you say such harsh things
to me!
I.
My purpose is to say very tender things to you. Why should
I say harsh things?
ROSETTE.
I don't know; but you do say them.
I.
You mistake meaningless jests for harshness.
ROSETTE.
Meaningless! You call it meaningless, do you? everything
has a meaning in love. I tell you I would rather have you
beat me than laugh as you do.
I.
Then you would like to see me weep?
ROSETTE.
You always go from one extreme to the other. No one asks
you to weep, but to talk reasonably and drop that tone of
persiflage that becomes you so ill.
I.
It is impossible for me to talk reasonably and not joke;
I'll beat you, if that's what you want!
ROSETTE.
Do it.
I (_giving her a little tap or two on the shoulder)._
I would rather cut off my own head than mar your adorable
little body and make blue stripes on that lovely white
back.--However much a woman may enjoy being beaten, my
goddess, I swear that you shan't be.
ROSETTE.
You don't love me any more.
I.
That doesn't follow very logically from what precedes;
it's almost as logical as to say: "It rains, so don't give
me my umbrella;" or: "It's cold, open the window."
ROSETTE.
You don't love me, you have never loved me.
I.
Aha! the plot thickens; you don't love me any more and you
have never loved me. That is rather contradictory; how can
I cease to do a thing which I never began to do?--You see,
my little queen, you don't know what you are saying and
you are perfectly ridiculous.
ROSETTE.
I longed so to have you love me that I helped to deceive
myself. It is easy to believe what one desires; but now
I see that I am mistaken. You made a mistake yourself;
you mistook liking for love and desire for passion. It's
something that happens every day. I bear you no ill will
for it: it wasn't your fault that you weren't in love with
me; my own lack of charm is all that I have to blame.
I ought to have been prettier, more playful, more of a
flirt; I ought to have tried to rise to your level, O my
poet! instead of trying to pull you down to mine: I was
afraid of losing you among the clouds, and I dreaded lest
your head should steal your heart from me. I imprisoned
you in my love and I thought that, if I gave myself to you
utterly, you would keep a little something of me--
I.
Move away a little, Rosette; your leg burns me--you're
like a hot coal.
ROSETTE.
If I annoy you, I'll get up.--Ah! stony heart, drops of
water pierce the stone, but my tears have no effect on
you. (_She weeps_).
I.
If you weep like that, you will certainly make a bathtub
of our bed.--A bathtub, did I say? an ocean.--Can you
swim, Rosette?
ROSETTE.
Villain!
I.
Oho! now I am a villain! You flatter me, Rosette, I
haven't that honor. I am a blithesome bourgeois, alas!
and I have never committed the least crime; I have done a
foolish thing, perhaps, in loving you to distraction; that
is all.--Are you absolutely determined to make me repent
that?--I have loved you and I love you now as much as I
can. Since I have been your lover I have always walked
in your shadow: I have given you all my time, my days
and my nights. I have indulged in no high-flown phrases
with you because I don't care for them except when they
are written; but I have given you a thousand proofs of my
affection. I won't speak of the most scrupulous fidelity,
for that goes without saying; but I have lost a pound and
three-quarters since you have been my mistress. What more
do you want? Here I am in your bed; I was here yesterday,
I shall be here to-morrow. Is that the way a man acts
with a woman he doesn't love? I do whatever you want; you
say: "Go," and I go; "stay," and I stay; I am the most
admirable lover in the world, it seems to me.
ROSETTE.
That is just what I complain of--you are the most perfect
lover in the world.
I.
What have you to reproach me for?
ROSETTE.
Nothing; and I would prefer to have some reason to
complain of you.
I.
This is an extraordinary quarrel.
ROSETTE.
It's much worse than that.--You don't love me.--I can
do nothing about it, nor can you.--What remedy have I
for that? Certainly I would prefer to have something to
forgive you for.--I would scold you; you would apologize
as best you could and we should make up.
I.
That would be all clear gain for you. The greater the
crime, the more imposing the reparation.
ROSETTE.
You know very well, monsieur, that I am not yet reduced to
that, and that if I chose, at this moment, although you
don't love me and we are quarrelling--
I.
Yes, I agree that it is purely the result of your kindness
of heart.--Be a little kind now; that would be better than
syllogizing over our heads as we are doing.
ROSETTE.
You want to cut short a conversation that embarrasses you;
but by your leave, my good friend, we will be content with
talking.
I.
That's a cheap repast.--I assure you that you are making
a mistake, for you are distractingly pretty, and I have
sensations.
ROSETTE.
Which you can describe some other time.
I.
Aha! my adorable, you have become a little Hyrcanian
tigress, have you? your cruelty to-day is beyond
words!--Have you been taken with the fever to set yourself
up as a vestal? It would be an amusing whim.
ROSETTE.
Why not? stranger whims have been known; but this
much is sure, I shall be a vestal so far as you are
concerned.--Understand, monsieur, that I give myself only
to people who love me or who I think love me.--You are in
neither position.--Allow me to rise.
I.
If you rise, I shall rise too.--You will have the trouble
of going back to bed, that's all.
ROSETTE.
Let me go!
I.
_Pardieu_, no!
Rosette (_struggling)._
Oh! you shall let me go!
I.
I venture, madame, to assure you of the contrary.
ROSETTE (_seeing that she is not the stronger)._
All right! I will stay! you squeeze my arms so
tight!--What do you want of me?
I.
I think you know.--I would not allow myself to put in
words what I allow myself to do; I have too much respect
for decency.
ROSETTE (_already beyond the power to defend herself_).
On condition that you will love me dearly--I surrender.
I.
It's a little late to strike your flag, when the enemy is
already in the citadel.
ROSETTE (_half swooning, throwing her arms around my
neck_).
Unconditionally. I rely on your generosity.
I.
You do well.
At this point, my dear friend, I think it would not be amiss to place
a line of asterisks, for the rest of the dialogue could hardly be
translated except by onomatopœia.
* * * * *
The sunbeam has had time, since the opening of the scene, to make the
tour of the bedroom. A pleasant, penetrating odor of linden-trees
comes up from the garden. It is as beautiful a day as can be imagined;
the sky is as blue as an Englishwoman's eye. We rise, and, after
breakfasting with a good appetite, we take a long drive in the country.
The clear air, the beauty of the landscape and the aspect of nature in
her joyous mood instilled enough sentimentality and tenderness into my
soul to make Rosette agree that, after all, I have something in the
shape of a heart like other men.
Have you never noticed how the shade of the woods, the plashing of
fountains, the singing of birds, a bright and laughing landscape, the
odor of the leaves and flowers, all the paraphernalia of eclogues
and descriptive poems which we have agreed to despise, none the less
retain a secret influence over us, however depraved we may be, which
it is impossible for us to resist? I will tell you in confidence,
under seal of the most profound secrecy, that I surprised myself very
recently in a most provincial state of emotion in connection with a
nightingale's song. It was in D----'s garden; the sky, although it
was night, was almost as bright as at noonday; it was so measureless
and so transparent that one's glance easily penetrated to God. It
seemed to me as if I could see the folds of the angels' robes on the
white windings of the Milky Way. The moon had risen, but a great tree
hid it completely; it riddled the dark foliage with a million little
luminous holes and showered more spangles about than ever glittered
upon a marchioness's fan. A silence laden with faint sounds and sighs
filled the garden--perhaps this resembles pathos, but it is not my
fault;--although I saw nothing save the bluish gleam of the moon, it
seemed to me as if I were surrounded by a whole population of phantoms,
unknown yet adored, and I had no feeling of loneliness, although there
was no one but myself on the terrace.--I was not thinking, I was not
dreaming, I was blended with my surroundings and I felt myself shiver
with the foliage, glisten with the water, gleam with the moonbeams,
bloom with the flowers; I was no more myself than the tree, the
streamlet, or the four-o'clock. I was all of them at once, and I do
not think it possible to be more thoroughly removed from one's self
than I was at that moment. Suddenly, as if something extraordinary
had happened, the leaf ceased to flutter at the end of the branch,
the drop of water from the fountain remained suspended in the air and
did not fall. The silvery thread, starting from the edge of the moon,
stopped on the way; my heart alone beat with such resonance that it
seemed to fill the whole vast space with clamor.--My heart ceased to
beat and there was such a profound silence that you could have heard
the grass grow, and a word spoken in an undertone two hundred leagues
away. And then the nightingale, who probably was awaiting that moment
to begin his song, emitted from his little throat a note so shrill and
piercing that I heard it with my breast no less than with my ears. The
sound spread quickly through the crystalline expanse, until that moment
as still as death, and created a harmonious atmosphere, wherein the
other notes that followed it flew to and fro, flapping their wings.--I
understood what he said as perfectly as if I had known the secret of
the bird language. The story of the loves I have not found was what the
nightingale sang. Never was a truer story told or told with greater
fulness. He did not omit the smallest detail, the most imperceptible
shade. He told me what I had not been able to tell myself, he explained
what I had not been able to understand; he gave voice to my reverie
and compelled the phantom, hitherto dumb, to reply. I knew that I was
beloved, and a thrill most languorously drawn out informed me that I
should soon be happy. It seemed to me that I could see the white arms
of my beloved extended toward me through the trills and quavers of his
song and beneath the shower of notes, in a moonbeam.
She rose slowly before me with the perfume of the heart of a
hundred-petalled rose.--I will not try to describe her beauty. It is
one of those things that words decline to attempt. How describe the
indescribable? how paint that which has neither form nor color? how
note down a voice without quality and speechless?--I have never had
so much love in my heart; I would have pressed nature to my bosom, I
embraced the empty void as if my arms were clasped about a virgin form;
I kissed the air that blew upon my lips, I swam in the magnetic fluids
that exhaled from my glowing body. Ah! if Rosette had been there, what
adorable rhapsodies I would have indulged in! But women never know
enough to arrive at the opportune moment.--The nightingale ceased
to sing; the moon, who could keep awake no longer, pulled her cap of
clouds over her eyes, and I left the garden; for the cool night air was
beginning to make itself felt.
As I was cold, I naturally thought that I should be warmer in Rosette's
bed than my own, and I went to lie with her.--I let myself in with my
pass-key, for everybody in the house was asleep.--Rosette herself had
fallen asleep, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that it was over a
volume uncut, of my latest poems. She had both arms under her head, her
mouth half open and smiling, one leg stretched out and the other partly
curled up, in an attitude instinct with ease and grace; she was so
lovely that I mortally regretted that I was no longer in love with her.
As I looked at her I reflected that I was as stupid as an ostrich.
I had what I had so long desired, a mistress as entirely my own as
my horse and my sword, young, pretty, amorous and clever; with no
stern-principled mother, no father with a decoration, no cross-grained
aunt, no swaggering brother, and with the priceless advantage of a
husband duly sealed and nailed up in a fine oaken casket lined with
lead, the whole covered over with a large block of hewn granite, which
is not to be despised; for, after all, it is a very doubtful pleasure
to be caught in the act in the middle of a blissful paroxysm, and to
complete one's sensations on the pavement, after describing an arc of
40 to 45 degrees, according to the floor on which you happen to be;--a
mistress as free as the mountain air and rich enough to indulge in
the most exquisite refinements and luxuries, and, moreover, free from
anything like moral ideas, never talking about her virtue as she tries
a new posture, nor of her reputation, any more than if she had never
had one; with no intimate female friends, and despising all women
almost as much as if she were a man, entertaining a very low opinion of
platonic affection and making no secret of it, and always playing with
her heart in the game; a woman who, if her lines had fallen in another
sphere, would indubitably have become the most admirable courtesan on
earth and dimmed the glory of the Aspasias and Imperias!
Now, that woman, so made, was mine. I did what I chose with her; I
had the key to her room and her drawer; I broke the seals of her
letters; I had taken away her name and given her another. She was my
chattel, my property. Her youth, her beauty, her love, all belonged
to me; I used them, I abused them. I made her go to bed in the daytime
and sit up at night, if the whim seized me, and she obeyed simply,
without any affectation of making a sacrifice, and without assuming
the air of a resigned victim.--She was attentive, caressing, and--a
most extraordinary thing!--absolutely faithful; that is to say, if in
the days when I was lamenting that I had no mistress, six months ago,
any one had given me a glimpse of such happiness, even in the distant
future, I should have gone mad with joy and tossed my hat up to knock
at the gates of heaven, in token of my delight. And now that I have
that happiness, I am cold; I am hardly conscious that I have it, I
am _not_ conscious of it, and my present position makes so little
impression upon me that I often doubt if I have changed my position at
all. If I should leave Rosette, I am convinced in my inmost soul that,
at the end of a month, perhaps less, I should have so thoroughly and
carefully forgotten her, that I shouldn't know whether I had ever known
her or not! Would she do the same? I think not.
I reflected, as I say, upon all these things, and impelled by a sort
of repentant feeling, I deposited on the fair sleeper's brow that
most chaste and melancholy kiss that ever young man bestowed upon
young woman--just on the stroke of midnight. She moved slightly, the
smile about her mouth became a little more pronounced, but she did not
wake. I undressed slowly, and, creeping under the clothes, stretched
myself out by her side like a snake. The coolness of my body startled
her; she opened her eyes, and, without speaking, put her mouth to mine
and twined herself about me so completely that I was warmed in less
than no time at all. All the poetry of the evening changed to prose,
but to poetic prose at all events. That night was one of the sweetest
sleepless nights I ever passed. I can hope for no more such.
We still have pleasurable moments, but they must be led up to and
prepared for by some outside incident like this, and in the beginning I
did not need to have my imagination excited by gazing at the moon and
listening to the nightingale, in order to have all the pleasure one can
have when one is not really in love. There are as yet no broken threads
in our woof, but there are knots here and there, and the chain is not
nearly so smooth as it was.