Mademoiselle de Maupin

II

“Well! my friend, I have come in again without having been to Cathay, Cashmere, or Samarcand; but it is right to say that I have not a mistress any more than before. Yet I had taken myself by the hand and sworn my greatest oath that I would go to the end of the world-and I have not even been to the end of the town. I do not know how it is, but I have never been able to keep my word to any one, even to myself: the devil must have a hand in it. If I say, 'I shall go there to-morrow,' I am sure to remain where I am; if I purpose going to the wine shop, I go to church; if I wish to go to church, the roads become as confused beneath my feet as skeins of thread, and I find myself in quite a different place; I fast when I have determined on an orgy, and so on. Thus I believe that my resolve to have a mistress is what prevents me from having one.

“I must give you a detailed account of my expedition; it is quite worthy of the honors of narration. That day I had spent two full hours at least at my toilet. I had my hair combed and curled, the small amount of moustache that I possess turned up and waxed, and with my usually pale face animated somewhat by the emotion of desire, I was really not so bad. At last, after looking at myself carefully in the glass in different lights to see whether I had a sufficiently handsome and gallant appearance, I went resolutely out of the house, with lofty countenance, chin in air, and one hand on my hip, looking straight before me, making the heels of my boots rattle like an anspessade, elbowing the townsfolk, and with quite a victorious and triumphal mien.

“I was like another Jason going to the conquest of the Golden Fleece. But, alas! Jason was more fortunate than I: besides the conquest of the fleece he at the same time effected the conquest of a beautiful princess, while, as for me, I have neither princess nor fleece.

“I went away, then, through the streets, noticing all the women, and hastening up to them and looking at them as closely as possible when they seemed worth the trouble of an examination. Some would assume their most virtuous air, and pass without raising their eyes. Others would at first be surprised, and then, if they had good teeth, would smile. Others again would turn after a little to see me when they thought I was no longer looking at them, and blush like cherries when they found themselves. face to face with me.

“The weather was fine, and there was a crowd of people out walking. And yet, I must confess, in spite of all the respect I entertain towards that interesting half of the human race, that which it is agreed to call the fair sex is devilish ugly: in a hundred women there was scarcely one that was passable. This one had a moustache; that one had a blue nose; others had red spots instead of eyebrows. One was not badly made, but her face was covered with pimples. A second had a charming head, but she might have scratched her ear with her shoulder. A third would have shamed Praxiteles with the roundness and softness of certain curves, but she skated on feet that were like Turkish stirrups. Yet another displayed the most magnificent shoulders that one could see; but as a set off, her hands resembled for shape and size those enormous scarlet gloves which haberdashers use as signs. And generally, what fatigue was there on these faces! how blighted, etiolated, and basely worn by petty passions and petty vices! What expressions of envy, evil curiosity, greediness, and shameless coquetry! And how much more ugly is a woman who is not handsome than a man who is not so!

“I saw nothing good-except some grisettes. But there is more linen than silk to rumple in that quarter, and they are no affair of mine. In truth, I believe that man, and by man I also understand woman, is the ugliest animal on earth. This quadruped who walks on his hind legs seems to me singularly presumptuous in assigning quite as a matter of right the first rank in creation to himself. A lion, or a tiger, is handsomer than man, and many individuals in their species attain to all the beauty that belongs to their nature. This is extremely rare among men. How many abortions for one Antinous! how many Gothones for one Phyllis!

“I am greatly afraid, my dear friend, that I shall never embrace my ideal, and yet there is nothing extravagant or unnatural in it. It is not the ideal of a third-form schoolboy. I do not require globes of ivory, nor columns of alabaster, not traceries of azure; and in its composition I have employed neither lilies, nor snow, nor roses, nor jet, nor ebony, nor coral, nor ambrosia, nor pearls, nor diamonds; I have left the stars of heaven in peace, and I have not unhooked the sun out of season. It is almost a vulgar ideal, so simple is it; and it seems to me that with a bag or two of piastres I might find it ready made and completely realized in no matter which bazaar of Constantinople or Smyrna; it would probably cost me less than a horse or a thorough-bred dog. And to think that I shall never attain to this-for I feel that I shall never do so! It is enough to madden one, and I fall into the finest passions in the world against my fate.

“As for you-you are not so foolish as I am, and you are fortunate; you have simply given yourself up to your life without tormenting yourself to shape it, and you have taken things as they came. You have not sought happiness, and it has sought you; you are loved, and you love. I do not envy you-you must not think that, at least-but when I reflect on your bliss, I feel less joyous than I ought to be, and I say to myself with a sigh that I would gladly enjoy similar felicity.

“Perhaps my happiness has passed close to me, and in my blindness I have not seen it. Perhaps the voice has spoken and the noise of the storms within me has prevented me from hearing.

“Perhaps I have been loved in obscurity by some humble heart that I have disregarded and broken. Perhaps I have myself been the ideal of another, the lode-star of some soul in suspense, the dream of a night and the thought of a day. Had I looked to my feet, I might perhaps have seen some fair Magdalene, with her box of odors and her sweeping hair. I passed along with my arms raised towards the heavens, desiring to pluck the stars which fled from me, and disdaining to pick up the little Easter daisy that was opening her golden heart to me in the dewy grass. I have made a great mistake: I have asked from love something more than love, and that it could not give. I forgot that love was naked; I did not understand the meaning of this grand symbol. I have asked from it robes of brocade, feathers, diamonds, sublimity of soul, knowledge, poetry, beauty, youth, supreme power-everything that is „not itself. Love can offer itself alone, and he who would obtain from it aught else is not worthy to be loved.

“I have without doubt hastened too much: my hour has not come; God, who has lent me life, will not take it back from me before I have lived. To what end give a lyre without strings to a poet, or a life without love to a man? God could not do such an inconsistent thing; and no doubt He will, at His chosen time, place in my path her whom I am to love, and by whom I am to be loved. But why has love come to me before the mistress? Why am I thirsty, yet without the spring at which to quench my thirst? or why can I not fly like the birds of the desert to the spot where there is water? The world is to me a Sahara without wells or date-trees. I have not a single shady nook in my life where I can screen myself from the sun: I endure all the fervor of passion without its raptures and unspeakable delights; I know its torments, and am without its pleasures. I am jealous of what does not exist; I am disquieted by the shadow of a shadow; I heave sighs which have no motive; I suffer sleeplessness which no worshipped phantom comes to adorn; I shed tears which flow to the ground without being dried; I give to the winds kisses which are not returned; I wear out my eyes trying to grasp in the distance an uncertain and deceitful form; I wait for what is not to come, and I count the hours anxiously, as though I had an appointment to keep.

“Whoever thou art, angel or demon, maid or courtesan, shepherdess or princess, whether thou comest from the north or from the south, thou whom I know not, and whom I love! oh! force me not to wait longer for thee, or the flame will consume the altar, and thou wilt find in the place of my heart but a heap of cold ashes. Descend from the sphere where thou art; leave the crystal skies, consoling spirit, and come thou to cast the shadow of thy mighty wings upon my soul. Come thou, woman whom I will love, that I may close about thee the arms that have been open for so long. Let the golden doors of the palace wherein she dwells turn on their hinges; let the humble latch of her cottage rise; let the branches in the woods and the briars of the wayside untwine themselves; let the enchantments of the turret and the spells of the magicians be broken; let the ranks of the crowd be opened up to suffer her to pass through.

“If thou comest too late, O my ideal! I shall not have the power left to love thee. My soul is like a dovecote full of doves. At every hour of the day there flies forth some desire. The doves return to the cote, but desires return not to the heart. The azure of the sky becomes white with their countless swarms; they pass away, through space, from world to world, from clime to clime, in quest of some love where they may perch and pass the night: hasten thy step, O my dream! or thou wilt find in the empty nest but the shells of the birds that have flown away.

“My friend, companion of my childhood, to you alone could I relate such things as these. Write to me that you pity me, and that you do not reckon me as a hypochondriac; afford me comfort, for never did I need it more: how enviable are those who have a passion which they can satisfy! The drunkard never encounters cruelty in his bottle. He falls from the tavern into the kennel, and is more happy on his heap of filth than a king upon his throne. The sensualist goes to courtesans for facile amours or shameless refinements. A painted cheek, a short petticoat, a naked breast, a licentious speech, and he is happy; his eye grows white, his lip is wet; he attains the last degree of his happiness, he feels the rapture of his course voluptuousness. The gamester has need but of a green cloth and a pack of greasy and worn-out cards to obtain the keen pangs, nervous spasms, and diabolical enjoyments of his horrible passion. Such people as these may be sated or amused; but that is impossible for me.

“This idea has so taken possession of me that I no longer love the arts, and poetry has no longer any charm for me. What formerly transported me, makes not the least impression on me.

“I begin to believe that I am in the wrong, and that I am asking more from nature and society than they can give. What I seek has no existence, and I ought not to complain for having failed to find it. Yet if the woman of our dreams is impossible to the conditions of human nature, what is it that causes us to love her only and none other, since we are men, and our instincts should be an infallible guide? Who has given us the idea of this imaginary woman? From what clay have we formed this invisible statue? Whence took we the feathers that we have placed on the back of this chimera? What mystic bird placed unnoted in some dark corner of our soul the egg from which there has come forth our dream? What is this abstract beauty which we feel but cannot define? Why, in the presence of some woman who is often charming, do we sometimes say that she is beautiful, while we think her very ugly?

“Where is the model, the type, the inward pattern which affords us the standard of comparison? — for beauty is not an absolute idea, and it can be estimated only by contrast. Have we seen it in the skies, — in a star, — at a ball, under a mother's shadow, the fresh bud of a leafless rose? Was it in Italy or in Spain? Was it here or was it there, yesterday or a long time ago? Was it the worshipped courtesan, the fashionable singer, the prince's daughter? A proud and noble head bending beneath a weighty diadem of pearls and rubies? A young and childish face stooping among the nasturtiums and bindweeds at the window? To what school belonged that picture in which this beauty stood out white and radiant amid the dark shadows? Was it Raphael who caressed the outline that pleases you? Was it Cleomenes who polished the marble that you adore? Are you in love with a Madonna or a Diana? Is your ideal an angel, a sylphid, or a woman?

“Alas! it is something of all this, and yet it is not this.

“Such transparency of tone, such freshness so charming and full of splendor, such flesh wherein runs so much blood and life, such beautiful flaxen hair spreading itself like a mantle of gold, such sparkling smiles and such amorous dimples, such shapes undulating like flames, such force and such suppleness, such satin gloss and such rich lines, such plump arms and such fleshy and polished backs — all this exquisite health belongs to Rubens. Raphael alone could fill lineaments so chaste with that pale amber color. What other, save he, curved those long eye-brows so delicate and so black, and spread the fringes of those eyelashes so modestly cast down? Do you think that Allegri goes for nothing in your ideal? It is from him that the lady of your thoughts has stolen the dull, warm whiteness that enraptures you. She has stood for long before his canvases to surprise the secret of that angelic and ever full-blown smile; she has modelled the oval of her face on the oval of a nymph or a saint. That line of the hip which winds so voluptuously belongs to the sleeping Antiope. Those plump, delicate hands might be claimed by Danae or Magdalene.

“Dusty antiquity itself has provided many of the materials for the composition of your young chimera. Those strong and supple loins around which you twine your arms with so much passion were sculptured by Praxiteles. That divinity has purposely suffered the tip of her charming little foot to pass through the ashes of Herculaneum that your idol may not be lame. Nature has also contributed her share. Here and there in the prism of desire you have seen a beautiful eye beneath a window-blind, an ivory brow pressed against a pane, a smiling mouth behind a fan. From a hand you have divined the arm, and from an ankle, the knee. What you saw was perfect; you supposed the rest to be like what you saw, and you completed it with portions of other beauties obtained elsewhere.

“Even the ideal beauty realized by the painters did not satisfy you, and you have sought from the poets more rounded curves, more ethereal forms, more divine charms, and more exquisite refinements. You have besought them to give breath and speech to your phantom, all their love, all their musing, all their joy and sadness, their melancholy and their morbidness, all their memories and all their hopes, their knowledge and their passions, their spirit and their heart. All this you have taken from them, and to crown the impossible you have added your own passion, your own spirit, your own dream, and your own thought. The star has lent its ray, the flower its fragrance, the palette its color, the poet his harmony, the marble its form, and you your desire.

“How could a real woman, eating and drinking, getting up in the morning and going to bed at night, however adorable and full of charm she might otherwise be, compare with a creature such as this? It could not reasonably be expected, and yet it is expected and sought. What strange blindness! It is sublime or absurd. How I pity and how I admire those who pursue their dream in the teeth of all reality, and die content if they have but once kissed the lips of their chimera! But what a fearful fate is that of a Columbus who has failed to discover his world, and of a lover who has not found his mistress!

“Ah! if I were a poet my songs should be consecrated to those whose lives have been failures; whose arrows have missed the mark, who have died without speaking the word they had to utter and without pressing the hand that was destined for them; to all that has proved abortive and to all that has passed unnoticed, to the stifled fire, to the barren genius, to the. unknown pearl in the depths of the sea, to all that has loved without return, and to all that has suffered with pity from none. It would be a noble task.

“Plato was right in wishing to banish you from his republic, O ye poets! for what evil have you wrought upon us! How yet more bitter has our wormwood been rendered by your ambrosia! and how yet more arid and desolate seems our life to us after feasting our eyes on the vistas which you open up to us of the infinite! How terrible a conflict have your dreams waged against our realities, and how have our hearts been trodden and trampled on by these rude athletes during the contest!

“We have sat down like Adam at the foot of the walls of the terrestrial paradise, on the steps of the staircase leading to the world which you have created, seeing a light brighter than the sun's flashing through the chinks of the door, and hearing indistinctly some scattered notes of a seraphic harmony. Whenever one of the elect enters or comes forth amid a flood of splendor, we stretch our necks trying to see something through the half-opened portal. The fairy architecture has not its equal save in Arab tales. Piles of columns with arches superposed, pillars twisted in spirals, foliage marvellously carved, hollowed trefoils, porphyry, jaspar, lapis-lazuli-but what know I of the transparencies and dazzling reflections of the profusion of strange gems, sardonyx, chrysoberyl, aqua marina, rainbow-tinted opals, and azerodrach, with jets of crystals, torches that would make the stars grow pale, a lustrous vapor, giddy and filled with sound-a luxury perfectly Assyrian!

“The door swings to again, and you see no more. Your eyes, filled with corrosive tears, are cast down on this poor earth so impoverished and wan, on these ruined hovels and on this tattered race, on your soul, an arid rock where nothing living springs, on all the wretchedness and misfortune of reality. Ah! if only we could fly so far, if the steps of that fiery staircase did not burn our feet; but, alas I Jacob's ladder can be ascended only by angels 1

“What a fate is that of the poor man at the gate of the rich! What keen irony is that of a palace facing a cottage-the ideal fading the real, poetry facing prose! What rooted hate must wring the heart-strings of the wretched beings! What gnashings of teeth must sound through the night from their pallet, as the wind brings to their ears the sighs of theorbos and viols of love! Poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, why have you lied to us? Poets, why have you told us your dreams? Painters, why have you fixed upon the canvas that impalpable phantom which ascended and descended with your fits of passion between your heart and your head, saying to us: 'This is a woman?' Sculptors, why have you taken marble from the depths of Carrara to make it express for ever, and to the eyes of all, your most secret and fleeting desire? Musicians, why have you listened during the night to the song of the stars and the flowers, and noted it down? Why have you made songs so beautiful that the sweetest voice saying to us: 'I love you!' seems hoarse as the grinding of a saw or the croaking of a crow? Curse you for impostors! — and may fire from heaven burn up and destroy all pictures, poems, statues, and musical scores-But this is a tirade of interminable length, and one which deviates somewhat from the epistolary style. What a dose!

“I have given myself up nicely to lyrics, my dear friend, and I have now been writing bombast for some time absurdly enough. All this is very remote from our subject, which is, if I remember rightly, the glorious and triumphant history of the Chevalier D'Albert in his pursuit of the most beautiful princess in the world, as the old romances say. But in truth the history is so meagre that I am obliged to have recourse to digressions and reflections. I hope that it will not be always so, and that the romance of my life will before long be more tangled and complicated than a Spanish imbroglio.

“After wandering from street to street, I determined to go to one of my friends who was to introduce me to a house where, I was told, a world of pretty women were to be seen-a collection of real ideals, enough to satisfy a score of poets. There were some to suit every taste-aristocratic beauties with eagle looks, sea-green eyes, straight noses, proudly elevated chins, royal hands, and the walk of a goddess; silver lilies mounted on stalks of gold; simple violets of pale color and sweet perfume, with moist and downcast eye, frail neck, and diaphanous flesh; lively and piquant beauties, affected beauties, and beauties of all sorts; for the house is a very seraglio, minus the eunuchs and the kislar aga.

“My friend tells me that he has already had five or six flames there-quite as many. This seems to me prodigious in the extreme, and I greatly fear that I shall not be equally successful; De C- pretends that I shall, and that I shall succeed beyond my wishes. According to him, I have only one fault, which will be cured by time and by mixing in society; it is that I esteem woman too much and women not enough. It is quite possible that there may be some truth in this. He says that I shall be quite lovable when I have got rid of this little oddity. God grant it! Women must feel that I despise them, for a compliment which they would think adorable and charming to the last degree in the mouth of another, angers and displeases them as much as the most cutting epigram when it proceeds from mine. This has probably some connection with what De C- objects to in me.

“My heart beat a little as I ascended the staircase, and I had scarcely recovered from my emotion when De C-, nudging me with his elbow, brought me face to face with a woman of about thirty years of age, rather handsome, attired with heavy luxury and an extreme affectation of childish simplicity, which, however, did not prevent her from being plastered with red paint like a coach wheel. It was the lady of the house.

“De C-, assuming that shrill mocking voice so different from his customary tones, and which he makes use of in society when he wishes to play the charmer, said to her, with many tokens of ironic respect, through which was visible the most profound contempt:

“'This is the young fellow I spoke to you about the other day-a man of the most distinguished merit. He belongs to one of the best families, and I think that it cannot but be agreeable to you to receive him. I have therefore taken the liberty to introduce him to you.”

“'You have certainly done quite right, sir,' replied the lady, mincing in the most exaggerated fashion. Then she turned to me, and, after looking me over with the corner of her eye after the manner of a skilled connoisseur, and in a way that made me blush to the tips of my ears, said, 'You may consider yourself as invited once for all, and come as often as you have an evening to throw away.'

“I bowed awkwardly enough, and stammered out some unconnected words, which could not have given her a lofty opinion of my talents. The entrance of some other people released me from the irksomeness inseparable from an introduction, and De C-, drawing me into a corner of the window, began to lecture me soundly.

“'The deuce! You are going to compromise me. I announced you as a phoenix of wit, a man of unbridled imagination, a lyric poet, everything that is most transcendent and impassioned, and there you stand like a blockhead without uttering a word! What a miserable imagination! I thought your humor more fertile than that. But come, give your tongue the rein, and chatter right and left. You need not say sensible and judicious things; on the contrary, that might do you harm. Speak-that is the essential thing-speak much and long. Draw attention to yourself; cast aside all fear and modesty. Get it well into your head that all here are fools or nearly so, and do not forget that an orator who would succeed cannot despise his hearers enough. What do you think of the mistress of the house?'

“'She displeases me considerably already; and, though I spoke to her for scarcely three minutes, I felt as bored as if I had been her husband.'

“'Ah! is that what you think of her?'

“'Why, yes!'”

“'Your dislike to her is then quite insurmountable? Well, so much the worse. It would have been only decent to have courted her if but for a month. It is the proper thing to do, and a respectable young fellow cannot be introduced into society except through her.'

“'Well! I'll pay court to her,' I replied with a piteous air, 'since it is necessary. But is it so essential as you seem to think?'

“'Alas! yes, it is most indispensable, and I am going to explain the reasons to you. Madame de Thymines is at present in vogue; she has all the absurdities of the day after a superior fashion, sometimes those of to-morrow, but never those of yesterday. She is quite in the swim. People wear what she wears, and she never wears what has been worn already. Furthermore, she is rich, and her equipages are in the best taste. She has no wit, but much jargon; she has keen likings and little passion. People please her, but do not move her. She has a cold heart and a licentious head. As to her soul-if she has one, which is doubtful-it is of the blackest, and there is no wickedness or baseness of which it is incapable; but she is very dexterous, and she keeps up appearances just so far as is necessary to prevent anything being proved against her. She will grant her favors to a man without ado, but will not write him the simplest note. Accordingly her most intimate enemies can find nothing to say about her except that she rouges too highly, and that certain portions of her person have not in truth all the roundness that they seem to possess-which is false.'

“'How do you know?'

“'What a question! in the only way one knows things of the kind, by finding out for myself.'

“'Then you've been intimate with Madame de Thymines?'

“'Certainly! Why not? It would have been most unbecoming if I had not had her. She has been of great service to me, and I am very grateful for it.'

“'I do not understand the nature of the services she can have rendered you.'

“'Are you really a fool then?' said De C-, looking at me with the most comical air in the world. 'Upon my word, I am afraid so? Must I tell you the whole story? Madame de Thymines is reputed, and deservedly so, to have special knowledge on certain subjects, and a young man that she has taken up and favored for a while may present himself boldly everywhere, and be sure that he will not remain for long without having an affair on hand, and two rather than one. Besides this unspeakable advantage, there is another no less important, which is, that as soon as the women of the world here see that you are the recognized lover of Madame do Thymines, they will make it a pleasure and a duty, even if they had not the least liking for you, to carry you off from a woman who is the fashion as she is. Instead of the advances and proceedings that would have been necessary, you will not know where to choose, and you will of necessity become the object of all the allurements and affectations imaginable.

“'Nevertheless, if she inspires you with too great a repugnance, do not take her. You are not exactly obliged to do so, though it would have been polite and proper. But make a choice quickly, and attack her who pleases you most, or who seems to afford you most facilities, for delay would lose you the benefit of novelty, and the advantage it gives you for a few days over all the cavaliers here. All these ladies have no conception of those passions which have their birth in intimacy, and develop slowly with respect and silence. They are for thunderbolts and occult sympathies — something marvellously well imagined to save the tedium of resistance, and all the prolixity and repetition which sentiment mingles with the romance of love, and which only serve to delay the conclusion uselessly. These ladies are very economical of their time, and it appears so precious to them that they would be grieved to leave a single minute unemployed. They have a desire to oblige mankind which cannot be too highly praised, and they love their neighbor as themselves, which is quite according to the Gospel, and very meritorious. They are very charitable creatures, who would not for anything in the world cause a man to die of despair.

“'There must be three or four already smitten in your favor, and I would advise you in a friendly way to pursue your point with spirit over these instead of amusing yourself gossiping with me in the embrasure of a window, which will not advance you to any great extent.'

“'But, my dear De C-, I am quite new to this kind of thing. I am utterly without the power to distinguish at first sight a woman who is smitten from one who is not; and I might make strange blunders if you did not assist me with your experience.'

“'You are really as primitive as you can be. I did not think that it was possible to be as pastoral and bucolic as that in the present blessed century! What the devil do you do, then, with the large pair of black eyes that you have there, and that would have the most crushing effect if you knew how to make use of them?

“'Just look yonder a moment at that little woman in rose, playing with her fan in the corner near the fireplace. She has been eyeing you for a quarter of an hour with the most significant fixity and assiduity. There is not another in the world who can be indecent after such a superior fashion, and display such noble shamelessness. She is greatly disliked by the women who despair of ever attaining to such a height of impudence, but to compensate for this, she is greatly liked by the men, who find in her all the piquancy of a courtesan. She is in truth charmingly depraved, and full of wit, spirit, and caprice. She is an excellent preceptor for a young man with prejudices. In a week she will rid your conscience of all scruples, and corrupt your heart in such a way that you will never be a subject for ridicule or elegy. She has inexpressibly practical ideas about everything; she goes to the bottom of things with a swiftness and certainty that are astonishing. She is algebra incarnate, is that little woman. She is precisely what is needed by a dreamer and an enthusiast. She will soon cure you of your vaporish idealism, and she will do you a great service. She will moreover do it with the greatest pleasure, for it is an instinct with her to disenchant poets.'

“My curiosity being aroused by De C-'s description, I left my retreat, and gliding through the various groups, approached the lady, and looked at her with much attention. She was perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. Her figure was small, but well made, though somewhat inclined to embonpoint. Her arm was white and plump, her hand noble, her foot pretty and even too delicate, her shoulders full and glossy, and her bosom small, but what there was of it very satisfactory, and giving a favorable idea of the remainder. As to her hair, it was splendid in the extreme, of a blue black, like that of a jackdaw's wing. The corner of her eye was turned up rattier high towards the temple, her nose slender with very open nostrils, her mouth humid and sensual, a little furrow in the lower lip, and an almost imperceptible down where the upper was united to it. And with all this there was such life, animation, health, force, and such an indefinable expression of lust skilfully tempered with coquetry and intrigue, that she was in short a very desirable creature, and more than justified the eager likings which she had inspired and still inspired every day.

“I wished for her; but I nevertheless understood that, agreeable as she was, she was not the woman who would realize my desire, and make me say, 'At last I have a mistress!'

“I returned to De C- and said to him: 'I like the lady well enough, and I shall perhaps make arrangements with her. But before saying anything definite and binding, I should be very glad if you would be kind enough to point me out these indulgent beauties who had the goodness to be smitten with me, so that I may make a choice. It would please me too, seeing that you are acting as demonstrator to me here, if you would add a little account of them with the nomenclature of their qualities and their defects, the manner in which they should be attacked, and the tone to adopt with them in order that I may not look too much like a provincial or an author.'

“'Willingly,' said De C-. 'Do you see that beautiful, melancholy swan, displaying her neck so harmoniously, and moving her sleeves as though they were wings? She is modesty itself-everything that is chastest and most maidenly in the world. She has a brow of snow, a heart of ice, the looks of a Madonna, the smile of a simpleton, her dress is white, and her soul is the same. She puts nothing but orange-blossoms or leaves of the water-lily in her hair, and she is connected with the earth only by a thread. She has never had an evil thought, and she is profoundly ignorant of how a man differs from a woman. The Holy Virgin is a Bacchante beside her, which, however, does not prevent her from having had more lovers than any other woman of my acquaintance, and that is saying a good deal. Just examine this discreet person's bosom for a moment; it is a little masterpiece, and it is really difficult to show so much while hiding more. Say, is she not, with all her restrictions and all her prudery, ten times more indecent than that good lady on her left, who is making a grand show of two hemispheres, which, if they were joined together, would make a map of the world of natural size, or than the other on her right, whose dress is open almost to her stomach, and who is parading her nothingness with charming intrepidity?

“'This maidenly creature, if I am not greatly mistaken, has already computed in her head the amount of love and passion promised by your paleness and black eyes, and what makes me say so is the fact that she has not once, apparently, at least, looked towards you; for she can move her eyes with so much art, and look out of the corner of them so skilfully, that nothing escapes her; one would think that she could see out of the back of her head, for she knows perfectly well what is going on behind her. She is a female Janus. If you would succeed with her you must lay swaggering and victorious manners aside. You must speak to her without looking at her, without making any movement, in an attitude of contrition, and in suppressed and respectful tones. In this way you may say to her what you will, provided it be suitably veiled, and she will allow you the greatest freedom at first of speech, and afterwards of action. Only be careful to look at her with tenderness when her own eyes are cast down, and speak to her of the sweets of platonic love and of the intercourse of the soul, while employing the least platonic and ideal pantomime in the world! She is very sensual and very susceptible; embrace her as much as you like; but, when most freely intimate with her, do not forget to call her madame two or three times in every sentence. She quarrelled with me because when I was most intimate with her I addressed her familiarly when saying something or other. The devil! a woman is not virtuous for nothing.

“'I have no great desire to hazard the adventure, after what you have told me. A prudish Messalina! the union is monstrous and strange!'

“'It is as old as the world, my dear fellow! It is to be seen every day, and nothing is more common. You are wrong not to have fixed upon her. She has one great charm, which is, that with her a man always seems to be committing mortal sin, and the least kiss appears perfectly damnable, while in the case of others he scarcely thinks the sin a venial one, and often even thinks nothing of it at all. That is why I kept her longer than any other mistress. I should have had her still if she had not left me herself. She is the only woman who has anticipated me and I have a certain respect for her on that account. She has little voluptuous refinements of the most exquisite delicacy, and she possesses the great art of making it appear that she has wrested from her what she grants very willingly-a circumstance which gives each of her favors a peculiar charm. You will find in the world ten of her lovers who will swear to you on their honor that she is the most virtuous creature in existence. She is just the contrary. It is a curious study to anatomize virtue of that kind on a pillow. Being forewarned you will not run any risk, and you will not have the awkwardness to fall really in love with her.'

“'And how old is this adorable person?' I asked, for, examining her with the most scrupulous attention, I found it impossible to determine her age.

“'Ah! how old is she? That is just the mystery, and God alone knows. I, who pique myself on telling a woman's age to within a minute, have never been able to find out. I merely estimate approximately that she is perhaps from eighteen to thirty-six years of age. I have seen her in full dress, in dishabille, and less scantily clad, and I can tell you nothing with respect to this. My knowledge is at fault; the age which she seems particularly to be is eighteen, yet that cannot be the case. She has the body of a maiden and the soul of a gay woman, and to become so deeply and so speciously depraved, much time or genius is necessary; it is needful to have a heart of bronze in a breast of steel; she has neither one nor the other, and I therefore think that she is thirty-six; but practically I do not know.'

“'Has she no intimate friend who could give you information on this point?”

“'No. She arrived in this town two years ago. She came from the country, or from abroad, I forget which- an admirable situation for a woman who knows how to turn it to account. With such a face as hers she might give herself any age she liked, and date only from the day that she arrived here.'

“'Nothing could be more pleasant, especially when some impertinent wrinkle does not come to give you the lie, and time, the Great Destroyer, has the goodness to lend himself to this falsification of the certificate of baptism.'

“He showed me some others who, according to him, would favorably receive all the petitions that it might please me to address to them, and would treat me with most particular philanthropy. But the woman in rose at the corner of the fire-place, and the modest dove who served as her antithesis, were incomparably better than all the rest; and if they had not all the qualities which I require, they had, in appearance, at least, some of them.

“I conversed the whole evening with them, especially with the latter, and was careful to cast my ideas in the most respectful mould. Although she scarcely looked at me, I thought that I saw her eyes gleam sometimes beneath their curtain of eyelashes, and, when I ventured some rather lively gallantries, clothed, however, in most modest guise, a little blush, checked and suppressed, pass two or three lines below her skin, similar to that produced by a rose-colored liquid when poured into a semi-opaque cup. Her replies were, in general, sober and circumspect, yet acute and full of point, and they suggested more than they expressed. All this was intermingled with omissions, hints, indirect allusions, each syllable having its purpose, and each silence its import. Nothing in the world could have been more diplomatic and more charming. And yet, whatever pleasure I may have taken in it for the moment, I could not keep up a conversation of the kind for long. One must be perpetually on the alert and on one's guard, and what I like best of all in a chat is freedom and familiarity.

“We spoke at first of music, which led us quite naturally to speak of the Opera, next of women, and then of love, a subject in which it is easier than in any other to find means of passing from the general to the particular. We vied with each other in making love; you would have laughed to listen to me. In truth, Amadis on the poor Boche was but a pedant without fire beside me. There was generosity, and abnegation, and devotion enough to cause the deceased Italian, Curtius, to blush for shame. I really did not think myself capable of such transcendent balderdash and bombast.

“I playing at the most quintessential Platonism-does it not strike you as a most facetious thing, as the best comedy scene that could be presented? And then, good heavens! the perfectly devout air, the little, demure, and hypocritical ways that I displayed! I looked most innocent, and any mother who had heard me reasoning would not have hesitated at all in letting me go about with her daughter, and any husband would have entrusted his wife to me. On that evening I appeared more virtuous, and was less so than ever in my life before. I thought that it was more difficult than that to play the hypocrite, and to say things without in the least believing them. It must be easy enough, or I must be very apt to have succeeded so agreeably the first time. In truth, I have some fine moments.

“As to the lady, she said many things that were most ingeniously detailed, and which, in spite of the appearance of f rankness which she threw into them, denoted the most consummate experience. You can form no idea of the subtlety of her distinctions. That woman would saw a hair into three parts lengthways, and would disconcert all the angelic and seraphic doctors. For the rest, she speaks in such a manner that it is impossible to believe that she has even the shadow of a body. She is immaterial, vaporous, and ideal enough to make you break your arms, and if De C- had not warned me about the ways of the animal, I should assuredly have despaired of success, and have stood piteously aside. And when a woman tells you for two hours, with the most disengaging air in the world, that love lives only by privations and sacrifices, and other fine things of the sort, how the devil can you decently hope to persuade her some day to place herself in such a situation with you as will enable you to discover whether you are both made alike?

“In short, we separated on very friendly terms, with reciprocal congratulations on the loftiness and purity of our sentiments.

“The conversation with the other one was, as you may imagine, of quite an opposite description. We laughed as much as we spoke. We made fun very wittily of all the women who were there; but I am mistaken when I say: 'We made fun of them very wittily.' I should have said that 'she' did so, for a man can never laugh effectively at a woman. For my part, I listened and approved, for it would have been impossible to draw a more lively sketch, or to color it more highly. It was the most curious gallery of caricatures that I have ever seen. In spite of the exaggeration, one could see the truth underlying it. De C- was quite right; the mission of this woman is to disenchant poets. She has about her an atmosphere of prose in which a poetical thought cannot live.

“She is charming and sparkling with wit, yet beside her one thinks only of base and vulgar things. While speaking to her I felt a crowd of desires incongruous and impracticable in the place where I was, such as to call for wine and get drunk, to place her on one of my knees and madly kiss her, to raise the hem of her skirt and see whether her ankle was slender or just the reverse, to sing a ribald refrain with all my might, to smoke a pipe, or to break the windows-in short, to do anything. All the animal part, all the brute, rose within me; I would willingly have spat on the Iliad of Homer; and I would have gone on my knees to a ham. I can now quite understand the allegory of the companions of Ulysses being changed into swine by Circe. Circe was probably some lively creature like my little woman in rose.

“Shameful to relate, I experienced great delight in feeling myself overtaken by brutishness; I made no resistance, but assisted it as much as I could-so natural is depravity to man, and so much mire is there in the clay of which he is formed.

“Yet for one moment I feared the canker that was seizing upon me, and wished to leave my corrupter; but the floor seemed to have risen to my knees, and it was as though I were set fast in my place.

“At last I took it on me to leave her, and the evening being far advanced, I returned home much perplexed and troubled, and without very well knowing what to do. I hesitated between the prude and her opposite. I found voluptuousness in one and piquancy in the other, and after a most minute and searching self-examination, I found, not that I loved them both, but that I wished sufficiently for them both, for one as much as for the other, to dream about them and be preoccupied with the thought of them.

“To all appearance, my friend, I shall gain over one of these women, and perhaps both; and yet I confess to you that the possession of them will only half satisfy me. It is not that they are not very pretty, but at sight of them nothing cried out within me, nothing panted, nothing said: 'It is they,' I did not recognize them. Nevertheless, I do not think that I shall meet with anything much better so far as birth and beauty are concerned, and De C- advisee me to go no further. I shall certainly take his advice, and one or other of them will be my mistress, or the devil will take me before very long; but at the bottom of my heart a secret voice reproaches me for being false to my love, and for stopping thus at the first smile of a woman for whom I care nothing, instead of seeking untiringly through the world, in cloisters and in evil places, in palaces and in taverns, for her who, whether she be princess or serving-maid, nun or courtesan, has been made for me and destined to me by God.

“Then I say to myself that I am fancying chimeras, and that it is after all just the same whether I sleep with this woman or with another; that it will not cause the earth to deviate by a hair's breadth from its path, or the four seasons to reverse their order; that nothing in the world can be of smaller moment; and that I am very simple to torment myself with such crotchets. This is what I say to myself; but it is all in vain! I am not more tranquil nor resolved than before.

“This, perhaps, results from the fact that I live a great deal with myself, and that the most petty details in a life so monotonous as mine assume too great an importance. I pay too much attention to my living and thinking. I hearken to the throbbing of my arteries, and the beatings of my heart; by dint of close attention I detach my most fleeting ideas from the cloudy vapor in which they float, and give them a body. If I acted more I should not perceive all these petty things, and I should not have time to be looking at my soul through a microscope, as I do the whole day long. The noise of action would put to flight this swarm of idle thoughts which flutter through my heart, and stun me with the buzzing of their wings. Instead of pursuing phantoms I should grapple with realities; I should ask from women only what they can give-pleasure; and I should not seek to embrace some fantastic ideal attired in cloudy perfections.

“This intense straining of the eye of my soul after an invisible object has distorted my vision. I cannot see what is for my gazing at what is not; and my eye, so keen for the ideal, is perfectly near-sighted in matters of reality. Thus I have known women who are declared charming by everybody, and who appear to me to be anything but that. I have greatly admired pictures generally considered bad, and odd or unintelligible verses have given me more pleasure than the most worthy productions. I should not be astonished if, after offering up so many sighs to the moon, staring so often at the stars, and composing so many elegies and sentimental apostrophes, I were to fall in love with some vulgar prostitute or some ugly old woman. That would be a fine downfall! Reality will perhaps revenge itself in this way for the carelessness with which I have courted her. Would it not be a nice thing if I were to be smitten with a fine romantic passion for some awkward cross-patch or some abominable trollop? Can you see me playing the guitar beneath a kitchen window, and ousted by a scullion carrying the pug of-an old dowager who is getting rid of her last tooth?

“Perhaps, too, finding nothing in the world worthy of my love, I shall end by adoring myself, like the late Narcissus of egotistical memory. To secure myself against so great a misfortune, I look into all the mirrors and all the brooks that I come across. In truth, with my reveries and aberrations, I am tremendously afraid of falling into the monstrous or unnatural. It is a serious matter and I must take care.

“Good-bye, my friend; I am going directly to see the lady in rose, lest I should give myself up to my customary meditations. I do not think that we shall pay much attention to entelechia, and I imagine that anything we may do will have no connection with spiritualism, although she is a very spiritual creature; I carefully roll up the pattern of my ideal mistress, and put it away in a drawer, that I may not use it as a test with her. I wish to enjoy peacefully the beauties and the merits that she possesses. I wish to leave her attired in a robe that suits her, without trying to adapt for her the vesture that I have cut out beforehand, and at all hazards for the lady of my thoughts. These are very wise resolutions; I do not know whether I shall keep them. Once more, good-bye.”