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Title: Mademoiselle de Maupin, Volume 1 (of 2)

Author: Théophile Gautier

Illustrator: François-Xavier Le Sueur
Édouard Toudouze

Translator: I. G. Burnham

Release date: May 8, 2015 [eBook #48893]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48893

Credits: Laura Natal & Marc D’Hooghe

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADEMOISELLE
DE MAUPIN, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***

MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN

VOLUME ONE

BY

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
THE REALISTS

PRINTED BY

GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PHILADELPHIA

1897

THIS EDITION OF

MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN

HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED

BY

I. G. BURNHAM

THE ETCHINGS ARE BY

FRANÇOIS-XAVIER LE SUEUR

AND DRAWINGS BY

ÉDOUARD TOUDOUZE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN—VOLUME I

MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN Front.
THE IMAGINARY MISTRESS
FIRST MEETING WITH ROSETTE
EPISODE OF THE "TOILETTE DE BAL"
D'ALBERT AND ROSETTE
THE ARRIVAL OF THÉODORE
THÉODORE AND THE PAGE
ROSETTE'S MORNING AUDIENCE
THE ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE

This celebrated novel, the celebrity of which has not been lessened by the very
numerous editions that have been published, had a very modest beginning which
in no way foreshadowed the great success which it was to obtain later.

The title: Mademoiselle de Maupin—Double Love appeared, we believe, for the
first time in Renduel's catalogue in connection with The Life of Hoffman, by
Lœve-Weimars, which appeared in October, 1833, announcing the new work of
Théophile Gautier as being in press. Renduel had made the acquaintance of the
author at Victor Hugo's; he had published in August, 1833, his first volume of
prose, Young France, and now it was a question of launching a work in two
volumes, a truly daring undertaking for a publisher of that day; especially in the
case of the work of an author but little known and only twenty-two years old.
Mademoiselle de Maupin was not, however, destined to see the light so soon.
For two years Théophile Gautier, more enamored of freedom than of work, or
preferring the task of making two harmonious rhymes to all the beauties of his
learned and rhythmic prose, incessantly abandoned and resumed the promised
work. A tradition preserved in the family of the poet tells how his father often
shut him up in his room at that time, forbidding him to leave it until he had
completed a certain number of pages of the Grotesques or of Mademoiselle de
Maupin. When the maternal kindness did not come to his aid, the frolicsome
author, who then lived with his parents on Place Royale, often found the means
of getting away by the window and so escaping a paternal task. Such escapades
being frequently renewed, it may well be believed that the novel made but little
progress; 1834 was drawing to a close; only the first of the two volumes was
finished; the publisher complained, and the author tried to pacify him by notes
similar to the following:

"I have just discovered at a bric-à-brac dealer's a charming picture
of Boucher in a splendid state of preservation; it is an opportunity
that I do not wish to miss, and not having money enough, I take the
liberty of asking you for my balance.[1] You will confer on me a real
pleasure in sending it to me.
"I am harnessed to La Maupin, and that prevents me from prowling
about and calling on you.
"With cordial wishes, I am, yours,
"THÉOPHILE GAUTIER."

Finally, in 1835, the second volume was written in six weeks on Rue du
Doyenné, where the poet, having left the paternal nest, had installed himself; the
manuscript was delivered to Renduel and we read the following note in Le
Monde Dramatique, of September 20th, concerning the biography of the strange
person who really bore the name of Maupin, a biography signed by Rochefort

and published in that number under the title: Mademoiselle d'Aubigny-Maupin:
"One of our collaborators, Monsieur Théophile Gautier, has been busy for a long
time on a romance entitled: Mademoiselle (de) Maupin."
The work was now soon to appear; it was issued in November, 1835, in two
octavo volumes, printed by Madame Poussin under the title: Mademoiselle de
Maupin—Double Love. The first volume bears the date 1835, the second 1836,
while the preface is dated May, 1834.
The work produced no very great sensation. A few journals spoke of it, but
publicity was not then systematized as it is to-day, and except by some few
literary men and the small romantic group of the author's friends, Mademoiselle
de Maupin was soon forgotten. Let us remark, nevertheless, that immediately the
book appeared, Honoré de Balzac wrote Renduel a note, asking for a copy, this
note we have seen ourselves; from this moment dates the admiration that he
always professed thereafter for Théophile Gautier. We learn from Monsieur
Arsène Houssaye, the old and faithful friend of the poet, that owing to the failure
to sell the work, Renduel determined not to publish anything more for his
author; La Comédie de la Mort, already announced upon the covers of the work
(as well as Capitaine Fracasse), was, in fact, returned to the author, and only
appeared in 1838, when it was published by Desessart, at that time one of
Arsène Houssaye's publishers; it was the author of La Couronne de Bleuets, who
introduced his friend to him and secured a favorable consideration for his
collection of verses.
How strange to us and unlikely, even, all this seems, when one recalls the
exorbitant prices obtained for some years past for rare, stitched copies in good
condition of the first edition of the work that we are now considering. Many
have realized one thousand five hundred francs, that is to say, the total sums
received by the author as royalty on the first issue of his work. This sum is
verified by his receipts to Renduel, which are in our hands.
A curious incident occurred as to Mademoiselle de Maupin. After its appearance,
all the opening of the eleventh chapter was inserted in Le Monde Dramatique of
January 4, 1836, without mentioning its source, under the title of: La Comédie
Romanesque. Since that time, those pages have been frequently reprinted, but
not a single one of these reproductions gives any indication of their origin. It
must be admitted that Théophile Gautier himself gave rise to this error in La
Presse of December 17, 1838, in again quoting these lines, inserted in an
unpublished commentary, as an isolated article which had come under his notice
by chance. He had forgotten this extract, and believed in good faith to have
found in La Monde Dramatique only a newspaper improvisation. This first

mistake was the starting-point of all that succeeded, the most striking of which is
the insertion in 1858 of this fragment from Mademoiselle de Maupin in the first
volume of Théophile Gautier's work: Histoire de l'Art Dramatique in France. It
is useless to add that no one noticed this fact.
Time, however, rolled on, and the renown of the poet continued to increase; his
appearance in La Presse in 1836, and his critical work, had made a circle of new
readers. Then, Fortunio, La Comédie de la Mort, Une Larme du Diable, Tra Los
Montès, Les Grotesques, etc., etc., had considerably increased his literary
impedimenta. So, when Monsieur Charpentier, the father of the present publisher
of Théophile Gautier's complete works, had founded the collection to which he
gave his name, he soon thought of reprinting our author's principal works.
Monsieur Charpentier, who succeeded in grouping in his catalogue the most
select of the remarkable works of his age, was of refined literary taste and held
among the publishers of his day a place similar to that then held by Monsieur
Buloz in his capacity of director of La Revue des Deux Mondes: it was difficult
to obtain an interview with either, and to appear in print in their collections was
regarded as a kind of consecration.
It was in 1845 when four of Théophile Gautier's volumes appeared in the
Charpentier catalogue; they were Poésies Complètes, Nouvelles, Voyage en
Espagne, and Mademoiselle de Maupin. For this reprint, the first since the
original edition[2], the author modified, but very slightly, some phrases of his
work, the text of which, from that time, has never been changed.
Here ends, in reality, the history of this work. Since 1845, the number of editions
has continued to increase; we will only quote two that appeared in 1878: one in
two volumes, 24mo, illustrated with four designs by Eugèn Giraud, and another
in a large 12mo volume, upon Holland paper, embellished with a portrait of the
heroine by Théophile Gautier himself, the portrait dated 1834. Finally, in 1880,
there was added to a reprint of this edition, a reproduction of the medallion of
the author by David d'Anger; this reproduction is erroneously dated 1834,
instead of 1835, which is the actual year of its execution.
Is it possible, as has often been asserted, that this work, whose incomparable
style should have warranted the opening of the doors of the Académie Française
to the author, was in part the cause of their remaining stubbornly closed against
him?—We do not know; but from another tradition preserved in the poet's
family, it would appear that the father himself, when he knew of the completion
of the work (only the first volume, as we have seen, was written under his eyes),
could not have been without apprehension as to the part which the book would

play in the life of his son, and, notwithstanding his admiration for the style of
the work, he would often have expressed the fear that the second volume would
at times influence the future of the author.
In any case, the renown of Théophile Gautier, like that of his illustrious friend,
Honoré de Balzac, who, likewise, was never a member of the Académie, has
only increased since his death, and the names of these two rare talents are in
truth missed among those of the members of that illustrious body. For Théophile
Gautier at least, the Académie itself expressed one day, by the mouth of one of
its members, its regret at not having received him. On October 25, 1872, at its
public session and at the very hour of the obsequies of the great writer, Monsieur
Camille Doucet pronounced the following words which do honor to their author,
and we are happy to reproduce them here: "Permit me to digress a moment.
When I speak of the fraternity of Letters, I should fail, messieurs, if I appeared
longer to forget that at this very hour, upon the threshold of a tomb, which I have
left only with regret to come here to fulfil another duty, Letters mourning, weep
for a true poet dear to all, a brilliant writer whose wit was thoroughly French and
whose heart was still more French. Very many votes have proved to him that his
place was indicated among us, and so we deplore the more the sudden stroke to
which Théophile Gautier succumbs."
We will add nothing to these touching lines and will close this notice by saying a
few words as to the present edition of Mademoiselle de Maupin. It is the first
reprint, absolutely conforming to the original text. The work appears in two
volumes, divided like those of 1835, and the publishers have exerted every effort
to satisfy bibliophiles desirous of possessing as perfect an edition as possible,
both as regards the exactness of the text and the technical execution of the work.
Finally, let us say that the designs of E. Toudouze, made especially for this
work, will render this edition still more complete. It will rank, we hope, among
the most treasured editions of the book.
CHARLES DE LOVENJOUL.
[1] Of his royalties as author of Young France.
[2] Figaro, of May 26, 1837, and some other journals, announced the sale, at
Renduel's, of a second edition of this book. It was only the first edition that the
publisher was trying to get rid of by this means.

PREFACE

One of the most burlesque incidents of the glorious epoch in which we have the
good fortune to live side by side with Deutz and General Bugeaud, is, beyond
question, the rehabilitation of virtue undertaken by all the newspapers, of
whatever color they may be, red, green, or tri-colored.
Virtue is most assuredly a very respectable thing, and we have no wish to fail in
our devotion to the excellent, worthy creature—God forbid!—We consider that
her eyes shine with sufficient brilliancy through her spectacles, that her
stockings are reasonably well put on, that she takes snuff from her gold snuff-
box with all imaginable grace, that her little dog courtesies like a dancing-
master.—We agree to all that.—We are even willing to admit that her figure is
not bad for her age, and that she carries her years as well as any one could. She
is a very agreeable grandmother, but she is a grandmother. It seems to me to be
natural to prefer to her, especially when one is twenty years old, some little
immorality, very pert, very coquettish, very wanton, with the hair a little out of
curl, the skirt rather short than long, the foot and eye alluring, the cheek slightly
flushed, a smile on the lips and the heart in the hand.—The most horribly
virtuous journalists can hardly be of a different opinion; and, if they say the
contrary, it is very probable that they do not think it. To think one thing and
write another is something that happens every day, especially among virtuous
folk.
I remember the epigrams uttered before the Revolution—I refer to the
Revolution of July—against the ill-fated and virginal Vicomte Sosthène de la
Rochefoucauld, who lengthened the skirts of the dancers at the Opéra and
applied with his own patrician hands a chaste plaster around the middle of all the
statues.—Monsieur le Vicomte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld is far surpassed.
—Modesty has been greatly perfected since his day, and we go into refinements
that he would never have imagined.
I, who am not accustomed to look at statues in certain places, considered, as
others did, the vine-leaf cut by the scissors of Monsieur le Chargé des Beaux-
Arts, the most absurd thing in the world. It seems that I was wrong, and that the
vine-leaf is one of the most meritorious of institutions.
I have been told, but I refused to believe it, it seemed to me so extraordinary,
that there were people who, when looking at Michael Angelo's fresco of the Last
Judgment, had seen nothing therein but the episode of the lewd priests, and had
veiled their faces, crying out at the abomination of desolation!
Such people know nothing of the romance of Rodrigue except the couplet of the
snake.—If there is any nudity in a book or a picture, they go straight to it as the

swine to the mire, and pay no attention to the blooming flowers or the golden
fruit that hang within reach on all sides.
I confess that I am not virtuous enough for that. Dorine, the brazen-faced
soubrette, may display before me her swelling bosom, I certainly will not draw
my handkerchief to cover it so that it cannot be seen.—I will look at her bosom
as at her face, and if it is fair and well-shaped I will take pleasure in it.—But I
will not touch Elmire's dress to see if it is soft, nor will I push her reverently
upon the table as that poor devil of a Tartuffe did.
This great affectation of morality that reigns to-day would be very laughable if it
were not very tiresome.—Every feuilleton becomes a pulpit; every journalist a
preacher; only the tonsure and the little neckband are wanting. The weather is
rainy and homiletic; one can defend one's self against both by going out only in
a carriage and reading Pantagruel between one's bottle and one's pipe.
Blessed Jesus! what an outcry! what a frenzy!—Who bit you? who pricked you?
what the devil's the matter with you that you cry so loud, and what has poor vice
done to you that you should bear him such a grudge, he is such a good fellow, so
easy to live with, and asks nothing except to be allowed to amuse himself and
not bore others, if such a thing can be? Act with vice like Serre with the
gendarme: embrace and have done with it all.—Believe me, you will be the
better for it.—Eh! Mon Dieu! my worthy preachers, what would you do without
vice? You would be reduced to beggary to-morrow, if the world should become
virtuous to-day.
The theatres would be closed to-night.—What would you take for the subject of
your feuilleton?—No more Opéra balls to fill your columns,—no more novels to
dissect; for balls, novels, plays, are the real pomps of Satan, if we are to believe
our holy Mother Church.—The actress would dismiss her protector and could no
longer pay you for puffing her.—Nobody would subscribe to your newspapers;
people would read Saint Augustine, they would go to church, they would tell
their beads. That would be very praiseworthy, perhaps, but you would gain
nothing by it. If people were virtuous, what would you do with your articles on
the immorality of the age? You see plainly that vice is good for something.
But it is the fashion nowadays to be virtuous and Christ-like, it is an attitude
people affect; they pose as Saint Jeromes just as they used to pose as Don Juans;
they are pale and wasted, they wear their hair as the apostles did, they walk with
folded hands and eyes glued to the ground, they assume an expression sugared
to perfection; they have an open Bible on the mantel, a crucifix and consecrated
box-wood above their beds; they never swear, they smoke but little, and they

chew almost not at all.—With that they become Christians, they talk about the
sanctity of art, the lofty mission of the artist, the poesy of Catholicism, about
Monsieur de La Mennais, about the painters of the angelic school, about the
Council of Trent, about progressive humanity, and about a thousand other fine
things.—Some infuse a little republicanism into their religion, they are not the
least interesting. They couple Robespierre and Jesus Christ in the most cheerful
way and amalgamate with praiseworthy gravity the Acts of the Apostles and the
decrees of the Holy Convention—that is the sacramental title; others add, for a
final ingredient, some Saint-Simonian ideas.—These latter are complete, they
rest upon a square foundation; after them we can look for nothing better. Human
absurdity can go no farther,—has ultra metas—etc. They are the Hercules
Pillars of Burlesque.
Christianity is so in vogue by reason of the prevailing hypocrisy, that even Neo-
Christianity enjoys a certain amount of favor. They say that it can boast thus far
one recruit, Monsieur Drouineau included.
An extremely interesting variety of the moral journalist, properly so-called, is
the journalist with a female family.
He carries his modest sensitiveness to the point of anthropophagy, or very nearly
that.
His mode of procedure, although it seems at the first glance simple and easy, is
none the less clownish and superlatively entertaining, and in my opinion it
deserves to be handed down to posterity—to our last nephews, as the old fogies
of the so-called Grand Siècle used to say.
In the first place, to pose as a journalist of this variety, you need some few
preliminary utensils—such as two or three legitimate wives, a few mothers, as
many sisters as possible, a full assortment of daughters, and cousins
innumerable.—The second requisite is a play or novel of some sort, a pen, ink,
paper, and a printer. Perhaps it would be as well to have an idea or two and
several subscribers; but you can do without them, if you have a large stock of
philosophy and the shareholders' money.
When you have all these things you can set up as a moral journalist. The two
following recipes, varied to suit the occasion, will suffice for the editorial part.
Models of Virtuous Articles Concerning a First Performance.
"After the literature of blood, the literature of mud; after the morgue and the
galleys, the alcove and the brothel; after the rags stained by murder, the rags
stained by debauchery; after," etc. (according to the necessity of the occasion

and the available space, you can continue in this vein from six lines to fifty or
more),—"this is as it should be.—This is where neglect of sacred doctrines and
romantic licentiousness lead: the stage has become a school of prostitution
where one dares not venture, save with fear and trembling, with a woman one
respects. You come upon the faith of an illustrious name, and you are obliged to
retire at the third act with your young daughter all confused and abashed. Your
wife hides her blushes behind her fan; your sister, your cousin," etc. (The
degrees of relationship may be diversified at pleasure; it is enough that they be
all females.)
NOTE.—There is one man who has carried morality so far as to say: "I will not
go to see that play with my mistress."—That man I admire and love; I carry him
in my heart, as Louis XVIII. carried all France in his; for he has conceived the
most triumphant, the most monumental, the most insane, the most extravagant
idea that has passed through the brain of man in this blessed nineteenth century,
which has seen the birth of so many and such amusing ideas.
The method of dealing with a book is very expeditious and within the range of
every intellect:
"If you choose to read this book, lock yourself securely into your own room; do
not leave it lying on the table. If your wife and your daughter should open it,
they would be lost.—This is a dangerous book, it advises vicious habits. It
would have made a great success, perhaps, in the time of Crébillon, in the
houses of kept mistresses, at a duchess's select supper-parties; but now that
morals are purified, now that the hand of the people has razed the rotten edifice
of aristocracy, and that,—etc., etc.—there must be in every work an idea—an
idea—yes, a moral and religious idea which—an exalted and profound aim,
answering to the needs of humanity; for it is a deplorable thing that young
writers should sacrifice the most sacred things to success, and should expend
their talent—a notable talent by the way—in lewd descriptions that would make
a captain of dragoons blush."—(The virginity of the captain of dragoons is, after
the discovery of America, the most delightful discovery that has been made for a
long while.)—"The novel we are considering recalls Justine, the philosophic
Thérèse, Félicia, Compère Matthieu, the Contes de Grécourt, the Priapées of the
Marquis de Sade." The virtuous journalist is immensely erudite in the matter of
filthy novels;—I am very curious to know why.
It may be obtained at Eugène Renduel's, Rue des Grands-Augustins, No. 22. A
handsome volume in 8vo. with vignette. Price 7 francs 50 centimes.
Eccò,—ecce,—see it.

It is frightful to think that, through the fault of the newspapers, there are many
honest manufacturers who have only these two recipes to live upon, they and the
numerous families they employ.
Apparently I am the most monumentally immoral personage to be found in
Europe or elsewhere; for I can see nothing more licentious in the novels and
plays of the present day than in the novels and plays of an earlier time, and I find
it difficult to understand why the ears of the gentlemen of the journals have
suddenly become so Jansenically ticklish.
I do not believe that the most innocent newspaper man will dare to say that
Pigault-Lebrun, Crébillon Fils, Louvet, Voisenon, Marmontel, and all other
writers of novels and tales do not surpass in immorality, since there is such a
thing as immorality, the most dissolute and licentious productions of Messieurs
Such-an-one and So-and-so, whom I do not name out of regard for their
modesty.
One must be most notoriously false to his convictions not to agree to that.
Let not the objection be made that I have cited names little known or
unfavorably known. If I have not mentioned the brilliant, imperishable names, it
is not because they will not support my assertion with the weight of their great
authority.
The novels and tales of Voltaire, aside from the question of merit, are most
assuredly no more suitable to be given as prizes to little slips of boarding-school
misses than are the immoral tales of our friend the lycanthropist, or even the
moral tales of the insipid Marmontel.
What do we find in the comedies of the great Molière? the sacred institution of
marriage—as the catechism and the newspapers call it—scoffed at and ridiculed
in every scene.
The husband is old, ugly, and peevish; he wears his wig awry; his coat is out of
fashion; he has a bill-headed cane, a nose smeared with snuff, short legs, and a
paunch as fat as a budget.—He stammers, says nothing but foolish things, and
does as many as he says; he sees nothing, he hears nothing; his wife is kissed
before his face, and he has no idea what is going on; that state of things lasts
until he is well and duly proved a cuckold in his own eyes and in the eyes of the
whole audience, who are mightily edified and applaud in a way to bring the
walls down.
They who applaud the loudest are they who are the most married.

In Molière, marriage is named George Dandin or Sganarelle.
Adultery is Damis or Clitandre; there is no name sweet and charming enough for
it.
The adulterer is always young, handsome, well-made, and a marquis at the very
least. He enters from the wings humming the very latest waltz; he takes one or
two steps on the stage with the most deliberate, all-conquering air imaginable;
he scratches his ear with the pink nail of his deftly spread little finger; he combs
his lovely fair hair with his tortoise-shell comb, and arranges his ruffles, which
are of great volume. His doublet and his hose are almost covered with bows and
knots of ribbon; his neckband is from the best maker; his gloves smell sweeter
than balsam and civet; his plumes cost a louis apiece.
How his eye sparkles and his cheek glows! how smiling his mouth! how white
his teeth! how soft and well cared for his hand!
He speaks, naught issues from his lips save poesy, perfumed gallantries in the
most refined style and with the most charming manner; he has read the latest
novels and knows all about poetry, he is brave, and quick to draw his sword, he
scatters gold with lavish hand.—And so Angélique, Agnès, Isabelle, can hardly
refrain from leaping on his neck, well-bred and great ladies though they be; and
so the husband is regularly betrayed in the fifth act, and is very lucky that he
was not in the first.
That is how marriage is treated by Molière, one of the loftiest and most serious
geniuses who ever lived.—Do you think there is anything stronger in the suits of
Indiana and of Valentine?
Paternity is even less respected, if that be possible. Witness Orgon, Géronte, and
all the rest of them.
How they are robbed by their sons, cheated by their valets! How their avarice,
their obstinacy, their idiocy are laid bare, without mercy for their age!—What
practical jokes! what mystifications.—How they are taken by the shoulder and
pushed out of life, poor old fellows, who take a long time to die and refuse to
give up their money! how much is said about the immortality of parents! what
arguments against heredity, and how much more convincing they are than all
this Saint-Simonian declamation!
A father is an ogre, an Argus, a jailer, a tyrant, something that at the best is good
for nothing but to delay a marriage for three acts until the final reconciliation.—
A father is the ridiculous husband perfected.—A son is never ridiculous in

Molière; for Molière, like all authors at all possible epochs, paid his court to the
young generation at the expense of the old.
And what of the Scapins, with their striped cloaks à la Napolitaine, their caps
tilted over their ears, their plumes sweeping the layers of air,—are not they very
pious, very chaste individuals, most worthy of canonization?—The galleys are
filled with honest folk who have not done the fourth part of what they do. The
knavery of Trialph is paltry knavery compared with theirs. And the Lisettes, the
Martons, tudieu! what hussies!—The girls of the street are far from being as
sharp, as quick at prurient retort as they. How well they understand how to
deliver a note! what good watch they keep during assignations!—On my word,
they are invaluable girls, serviceable and shrewd advisers.
It is a charming company that walks and fidgets through those comedies and
imbroglios.—Duped guardians, cuckold husbands, lewd maids, keen-witted
valets, young ladies mad with love, dissolute sons, adulterous wives; are not
these quite as bad as the melancholy young beaux and poor, weak women,
oppressed and impassioned, of the dramas and novels of the writers in vogue to-
day?
And yet the denouements, minus the final blow of the dagger, minus the
regulation cup of poison, are as happy as the time-honored ending of a fairy tale,
and everybody, even the husband, is perfectly satisfied. In Molière, virtue is
always in disgrace, always being pummelled; it is virtue that wears horns and
turns her back to Mascarille; morality barely shows its face once at the end of
the play, in the somewhat commonplace person of the gendarme Loyal.
All this that we have said is not intended to knock a chip off Molière's pedestal;
we are not mad enough to attempt to shake that bronze colossus with our weak
arms; we desired simply to show the pious feuilletonistes, who are terrified by
recent works and by those of the romantic school, that the old classics, whom
they urge us every day to read and imitate, far surpass them in looseness and
immorality.
To Molière we might easily add Marivaux and La Fontaine, those two strongly-
contrasted exponents of the French mind, and Regnier and Rabelais and Marot,
and many others. But it is not our purpose in this place to prepare, from the
standpoint of morality, a course in literature for the benefit of the virgin minds of
the feuilleton.
It seems to me that we should not raise such a hubbub for so small a matter.
Luckily we are not living in the days of the fair Eve, and we cannot, in good
conscience, be as primitive and patriarchal as people were in the days of the ark.

We are not little girls preparing for our first communion; and when we play
crambo, we do not answer cream-pie. We are passably knowing in our
innocence, and our virginity has been on the town for a long while; those are
things that one does not have twice, and, whatever we may do, we cannot
recover them, for there is nothing in the world that runs faster than a fleeing
virginity and a vanishing illusion.
After all, perhaps there is no great harm in that, and knowledge of everything is
preferable to ignorance of everything. That is a question that I leave for those
who know more than I, to discuss. The fact remains that the world has passed
the age when one can feign modesty and chastity, and I consider it too old a
greybeard to play the child and the virgin without making itself ridiculous.
Since its marriage to civilization, society has lost the right to be artless and
bashful. There are certain blushes that are all right for the bridal bed, but can
serve no further purpose the next day; for the young wife thinks no more of the
maiden, it may be, or if she does think of her, it is a most improper thing and
gravely endangers her husband's reputation.
When I chance to read one of the fine sermons that have taken the place of
literary criticism in the public sheets, I sometimes feel great remorse and dire
apprehension, having on my conscience some paltry equivocal stories, a little
too highly spiced, such as a young man of spirit and animation may have to
reproach himself for.
Beside these Bossuets of the Café de Paris, these Bourdaloues of the balcony at
the Opéra, these Catos at so much a line, who berate the present age in such fine
fashion, I esteem myself the most infamous villain that ever marred the face of
the earth; and yet, God knows, the list of my sins, capital as well as venial, with
the usual blank spaces and leads, would barely, even in the hands of the most
skilful publisher, make one or two octavo volumes a day, which is a small matter
for one who does not claim to be bound for paradise in the other world and to
win the Monthyon prize or be rose-maiden in this.
And then, when I think that I have met under the table, and elsewhere, too, a
considerable number of these dragons of virtue, I return to a better opinion of
myself, and I consider that, whatever faults I may have, they have another which
is, in my eyes, the greatest and worst of all:—I refer to hypocrisy.
By looking carefully one might perhaps find another little vice to add; but this is
so hideous that I really hardly dare to name it. Come nearer and I will breathe its
name into your ear:—it is envy.

Envy, and nothing else.
It is envy that crawls and wriggles through all these paternal homilies; however
careful it may be to hide itself, you can see its flat little viper's head from time to
time gleaming above the metaphors and rhetorical figures; you surprise it licking
with its forked tongue its lips blue with venom, you hear it hissing softly in the
shadow of an insidious epithet.
I am well aware that it is insufferably conceited to say that any one envies you,
and that a dandy who boasts of a conquest is almost as nauseating.—I am not so
boastful as to believe that I have enemies or envious detractors; that is a piece of
good fortune that is not given to everybody, and I probably shall not enjoy it for
a long time; so I will speak freely and without reservation as one who is
perfectly disinterested in the matter.
An unquestionable fact, and easy of demonstration to those who may doubt it, is
the natural antipathy of the critic to the poet—of him who does nothing to him
who does something—of the drone to the bee—of the gelding to the stallion.
You do not become a critic until the fact is established to your own satisfaction
that you cannot be a poet. Before descending to the pitiful rôle of watching
cloaks and counting strokes like a billiard-marker or a tennis-court attendant,
you have long courted the Muse, you have tried to seduce her; but you have not
sufficient vigor for that; your breath has failed you and you have fallen back,
pale and broken-winded, to the foot of the sacred mountain.
I can conceive that antipathy. It is painful to see another take his seat at the
banquet to which you are not invited and lie with the woman who would have
none of you. I pity with all my heart the poor eunuch who is compelled to assist
at the delights of the Great Turk.
He is admitted to the most secret recesses of the Oda; he escorts the sultanas to
the bath; he sees their lovely bodies gleaming in the silvery water of the great
reservoirs, shedding streams of pearls and smoother than agate; the most hidden
charms are disclosed to him unveiled. No one is embarrassed by his presence.—
He is a eunuch.—The sultan caresses his favorite before him and kisses her on
her pomegranate mouth.—In very truth his is a terribly false position and he
must be sadly embarrassed to keep himself in countenance.
It is the same with the critic who sees the poet walking in the garden of poesy
with its nine fair odalisques, and disporting himself indolently in the shade of
tall green laurels. It is very hard for him not to pick up stones in the road to
throw at him and wound him over the wall, if he is skilful enough to do it.

The critic who has produced nothing of his own is a coward; he is like an abbé
paying court to a layman's wife: the layman cannot pay him back in his own
coin or fight with him.
I think that an account of the different methods of depreciating any sort of work,
resorted to during the last month, would be at least as interesting as the story of
Tiglath-Pileser, or of Gemmagog, who invented peaked shoes.
There would be enough matter to fill fifteen or sixteen folio volumes, but we
will have pity on the reader and confine ourselves to a few lines—a favor for
which we demand more than everlasting gratitude.—In a very remote age, lost
in the darkness of time—it was fully three weeks ago—the romance of the
Middle Ages flourished principally in Paris and the suburbs. The coat of arms
was held in high esteem; coiffures à la Hennin were not despised and party-
colored trousers were thought well of; the dagger was priceless; the peaked shoe
was adored as a fetich.—There was nothing but ogive windows, turrets,
colonnettes, stained glass, cathedrals, and fortified châteaux;—the characters
were all damoiselles and damoiseaux, pages and varlets, beggars and swash-
bucklers, gallant knights and ferocious castellans;—all of which were more
innocent certainly than innocent games, and did absolutely no harm to anybody.
The critic did not wait for the second romance before beginning his work of
depreciation: as soon as the first appeared, he enveloped himself in his robe of
camel's hair, and sprinkled a bushel of ashes on his head; then, in his loud,
wailing voice, he began to cry:
"More Middle Ages, nothing but the Middle Ages! who will deliver me from the
Middle Ages, from the Middle Ages which are not the Middle Ages?—Paste-
board and terra-cotta Middle Ages, which have nothing of the Middle Ages save
the name!—Oh! these iron barons, in their iron armor, with iron hearts in their
iron breasts! Oh! the cathedrals with their rose-work always in bloom and their
stained glass in flower, with their lace-work of granite, with their open-work
trefoils, their toothed gables, their chasubles of stone embroidered like a bride's
veil, with their tapers, their psalms, their glittering priests, with their people on
their knees, their rumbling organ, and their angels soaring aloft and flapping
their wings under the arches!—how they have spoiled my Middle Ages, my
refined, brightly-colored Middle Ages!—how they have blotted it from sight
under a layer of coarse plaster!—what discordant colors!—Ah! ignorant
daubers, who fancy you have created an effect by splashing red upon blue, white
upon black, and green upon yellow, you have seen only the outer shell of the
Middle Ages, you have not divined the true meaning of the Middle Ages, the
blood does not circulate beneath the skin in which you have clothed your

phantoms, there is no heart in your steel corselets, there are no legs in your tricot
trousers, no stomach or breast behind your emblazoned skirts; they are clothes
that have the shape of men and that is all.—So, down with the Middle Ages as
they are presented to us by the fabricators"—the great word is out, the
fabricators!—"The Middle Ages meet no need of the present day, we must have
something else."
And the public, seeing how the feuilletonistes snarled at the Middle Ages, was
seized with an ardent passion for the Middle Ages, which they claim to have
killed at a single blow. The Middle Ages invaded everything, assisted by the
obstruction of the newspapers:—dramas, melodramas, novels, tales, poetry—
there were even Middle-Age vaudevilles, and Momus recited feudal
mummeries.
Beside the romance of the Middle Ages flourished the carrion romance, a very
pleasing variety, which nervous petites-maîtresses and blasé cooks consumed in
great numbers.
The feuilletonistes speedily came flocking to the stench, like crows to the
carrion, and they tore with the beaks of their pens and inhumanly put to death
that poor species of novel, which asked nothing more than to be allowed to
prosper and putrefy in peace on the greasy shelves of the book-stalls. What did
they not say? what did they not write?—Literature of the morgue or the galleys,
an executioner's nightmare, hallucination of a drunken butcher, or a convict-
keeper with the jail-fever! They benignly gave us to understand that the authors
were assassins and vampires, that they had contracted the vicious habit of killing
their fathers and mothers, that they drank blood from human skulls, that they
used the bones of the legs for forks and cut their bread with a guillotine.
And yet they knew better than any one, from having frequently breakfasted with
them, that the authors of those charming slaughters were excellent young men of
family, very easy-going and in the best society, white-gloved and fashionably
near-sighted,—with a decided preference for beefsteak over human cutlets, and
more accustomed to drink Bordeaux wine than the blood of young girls or new-
born children.—From having seen and touched their manuscripts, they knew
perfectly well that they were written with ink of great virtue upon English paper,
and not with blood from the guillotine upon the skin of a Christian flayed alive.
But whatever they might say or do, the age was after carrion, and the charnel-
house suited them better than the boudoir; the reader would bite at no hook that
was not baited with a little body already turning blue.—A state of things easily
conceived; put a rose at the end of your line and the spiders will have time to

spin their webs in the crook of your elbow before you catch the tiniest minnow;
put on a worm or a piece of rank cheese, and carp, barbel, perch, eels, will all
leap three feet out of water to snap at it.—Men are not so different from fish as
people generally seem to believe.
One would have said that the newspaper men had become Quakers, Brahmins,
or Pythagoreans, or bulls, they had been suddenly seized with such a horror of
red and of blood.—Never had they been known to be in such a soft and melting
mood;—it was cream and buttermilk.—They admitted the existence of only two
colors, sky-blue and apple-green. Pink was only tolerated, and if the public
would have allowed them to do as they chose, they would have led it to the
banks of the Lignon to feed on spinach beside the sheep of Amaryllis. They had
changed their black frock-coats for the dove-colored jacket of Celadon or
Silvander, and surrounded their goose-feathers with clusters of roses and ribbons
after the style of a shepherd's crook. They let their hair float in the wind like a
child's, and had made themselves virgins according to the recipe of Marion
Delorme, and about as successfully as she.
They applied to literature the article in the Decalogue:
Thou shalt not kill.
The least little dramatic murder was no longer permissible, and the fifth act had
become an impossibility.
They considered the poniard extravagant, poison monstrous, the axe horrible
beyond words. They would have liked dramatic heroes to live to the age of
Melchisedec; and yet it has been a recognized fact, from time immemorial, that
the object of every tragedy is to have a poor devil of a great man, who cannot
help himself, murdered in the last act, just as the object of every comedy is to
join in matrimony two idiots of jeunes premiers of about sixty years each.
It was about this time that I threw into the fire—after having taken a duplicate,
as almost always happens—two superb and magnificent Middle-Age dramas,
one in verse, the other in prose, in which the heroes were quartered and boiled
on the stage, which would have been very entertaining and decidedly unusual.
To conform to their ideas, I have since composed an antique tragedy in five acts
called Héliogabale, the hero of which throws himself into the privy, an
extremely novel situation and one that has the merit of introducing a bit of
scenery not yet seen on the stage.—I have also written a modern drama, very
much superior to Antoni,—Arthur, or L'Homme Fatal, where the providential
idea arrives in the shape of a Strasbourg pâté de foie gras, which the hero eats to

the last crumb after committing various rapes, and that, combined with his
remorse, brings on a frightful attack of indigestion of which he dies.—A moral
ending, if ever there was one, which proves that God is just, and that vice is
always punished and virtue rewarded.
As for the monstrosity species, you know how they have dealt with that, how
they have abused Han d'Islande the cannibal, Habibrah the obi, Quasimodo the
bell-ringer, and Triboulet, who is only a hunch-back—all that family so
strangely swarming—all those gigantic deformities whom my dear neighbor
sends crawling and leaping through the virgin forests and the cathedrals of his
romances. Neither the great strokes à la Michael Angelo, nor the curiosities
worthy of Callot, nor the effects of light and shade after the fashion of Goya,
could find favor before them; they sent him back to his odes when he wrote
novels, to his novels when he wrote dramas: the ordinary tactics of journalists
who always praise what you have done at the expense of what you are doing. A
fortunate man, however, is he who is acknowledged to be superior, even by the
feuilletonistes, in all his works,—except, of course, the particular one with
whom they are dealing,—and who need only write a theological treatise or a
manual of cooking to have his plays admired.
Concerning the romance of the heart, the ardent, impassioned romance, whose
father is Werther the German, and its mother Manon Lescaut the French-woman,
we had a few words to say, at the beginning of this preface, of the moral scurf
that has fastened itself upon it in desperation, on the pretext of religion and good
morals. The critical louse is like the body-louse that deserts the dead body for
the living. From the corpse of the Middle Ages the critics have passed on to the
living body of this age, whose skin is tough and hard and might well break their
teeth.
We think, notwithstanding a deep respect for the modern apostles, that the
authors of these so-called immoral novels, without being so thoroughly married
as the virtuous journalist, generally have a mother, and that several of them have
sisters and are provided with an abundance of female relations; but their mothers
and sisters do not read novels, even immoral novels; they sew and embroider
and look after the house-keeping.—Their stockings, as Monsieur Planard would
say, are—entirely white: you can look at them on their legs—they are not blue,
and excellent Chrysale, who hated learned women so, would suggest them as
models to the skilled Philaminte.
As for these gentlemen's wives, as they have so many of them, however spotless
their husbands may be, it seems to my simple mind that there are certain things
they ought to know.—Indeed, it may well be that their husbands have never

shown them anything. In that case I understand that they are bent upon keeping
them in that useful state of blessed ignorance. God is great and Mohammed is
his prophet!—Women are inquisitive creatures; may Heaven and morality grant
that they gratify their curiosity in a more legitimate way than that adopted by
their grandmother Eve, and do not go putting questions to the serpent!
As for their daughters, if they have been at boarding-school, I fail to see what
they can learn from these books.
It is as absurd to say that a man is a drunkard because he describes an orgy, or a
debauchee because he narrates a debauch, as to claim that a man is virtuous
because he has written a book on morals; we see the contrary every day. It is the
character that speaks, not the author; his hero may be an atheist, that does not
mean that he is an atheist; he represents brigands as acting and talking like
brigands, but that does not make him a brigand. On that theory we should have
to guillotine Shakespeare, Corneille, and all the writers of tragedy; they have
committed more murders than Mandrin and Cartouche; we have not done it,
however, and, indeed, I do not believe that we shall do it for a long time to
come, however virtuous and moral criticism may become. It is one of the manias
of these little shallow-brained scribblers always to substitute the author for the
work, and to resort to personalities, in order to give some paltry scandalous
interest to their miserable rhapsodies, which they are well aware that nobody
would read if they contained only their individual opinions.
We can hardly imagine the tendency of all this wailing, or what good purpose all
this indignation and snarling can serve—or who impels these Messieurs
Geoffroy on a small scale to set themselves up as the Don Quixotes of morality,
and, like genuine literary policemen, to lay hands upon and club, in the name of
virtue, every idea that appears in a book with its mob-cap awry or its petticoats
raised a little too high.—It is very strange.
Whatever they may say, the present age is immoral,—if the word means
anything, which we much doubt,—and we require no other proof of it than the
quantity of immoral books it produces and the success they meet with.—Books
follow morals, morals do not follow books.—The Regency produced Crébillon,
not Crébillon the Regency. Boucher's little shepherdesses were painted and
immodest because the little marchionesses of the day were painted and
immodest.—Pictures are painted after models, not models after pictures.
Somebody or other has said somewhere or other that literature and the arts have
a great influence on morals. Whoever he is, he is unquestionably a great fool.—
It is as if some one should say: "Green peas make the springtime grow;" on the
other hand, green peas grow because it is spring, and cherries because it is

summer. The trees bear fruit, the fruit assuredly does not bear the trees—the law
is everlasting and invariable in its variations; the centuries succeed one another
and each bears its fruit, which differs from that of the preceding century; books
are the fruit of morals.
Beside the moral journalists, under this shower of homilies, as if it were a
summer shower in a park, there has arisen, between the boards of the Saint-
Simonian stage, a school of little mushrooms of a curious new variety, of which
we propose to give the natural history.
They are the utilitarian critics,—poor fellows whose noses were so short that
they would not hold spectacles, and who could not see to the end of their noses.
When an author tossed upon their desk a volume of any sort,—novel or poetry,
—these gentry would lean back nonchalantly in their chairs, balance them on
their hind legs, sway back and forth, puffing themselves out with a knowing air,
and say:
"What purpose does this book serve? How can it be applied to securing the
moral and spiritual well-being of the most numerous and poorest class? What!
not a word of the needs of society, nothing civilizing and progressive! How,
instead of dealing synthetically with the great problems of humanity, and
following, through the events of history, the phases of the regenerating,
providential idea, can you waste time writing poetry and novels which lead to
nothing, and which do nothing to help the generation forward in the pathway of
the future? How can you concern yourself about form and style and rhythm, in
presence of such grave interests?—What do we care for rhythm and style and
form? that is all right in its place!" (Poor foxes, they are too green!)—"Society is
suffering, it has a terrible gnawing at the vitals;" (translate: no one will subscribe
to the utilitarian papers.) "It is for the poet to seek the cause of the trouble and
cure it. He will find a way by sympathizing heart and soul with humanity;"
(philanthropic poets! that would be something rare and charming.) "We await
the coming of that poet, we pray for his coming with all our hearts. When he
appears, his will be the acclamations of the multitude, his the palm-leaves, his
the wreaths, his the Prytaneum."
Very fine; but as we desire the reader to stay awake to the end of this blessed
preface, we will not continue this very close imitation of the utilitarian style,
which, by its nature, is unusually soporific, and might advantageously replace
laudanum and the discourses of the Academy.
No, fools, no, cretins and goitrous creatures that you are, a book does not make
gelatine soup;—a novel is not a pair of seamless boots; a sonnet is not a syringe

with a continuous stream; a drama is not a railroad,—all essentially civilizing
things and tending to assist humanity along the pathway of progress.
By the bowels of all the popes, past, present, and to come, no, two hundred
thousand times no.
You cannot make a nightcap out of a metonymy, or wear comparisons by way of
slippers; you cannot use antithesis as an umbrella; unluckily we have not the
secret of clapping a few variegated rhymes upon the stomach as we put on a
waistcoat. I have a firm conviction that the ode is a garment too light for winter,
and that one would be no more warmly clad with the strophe, the antistrophe,
and the epode, than the wife of the cynic who was contented to have only her
virtue as a chemise and went about as naked as your hand, as history tells us.
The famous Monsieur de la Calprenède once had a coat, and when some one
asked what kind of cloth it was made of, he answered: Silvandre.—Silvandre
was a play of his that had just been produced with success.
Such arguments make one raise his shoulders above his head, higher than the
Duke of Gloucester's.
People who claim to be economists and who wish to rebuild society from top to
bottom, seriously put forward such trash.
A novel may be useful in two ways:—one material, the other spiritual, if we may
use such an expression with reference to a novel.—Its material utility consists,
first, of the few thousand francs that go into the author's pocket, and ballast him
so that neither the devil nor the wind can whisk him away; to the publisher it is a
noble race-horse who stamps and rears with his cabriolet of ebony and steel, as
Figaro says; to the paper manufacturer, one more factory on some stream and
often the means of spoiling a fine site; to the printers, divers hogsheads of
logwood to put their windpipes in shape once a week; to the circulating libraries,
piles of big sous covered with proletariat verdigris and a quantity of grease,
which if it were carefully collected and utilized would render the whale-fishery
useless.—The spiritual utility consists in this: that, while you are reading novels,
you fall asleep, and you are not reading utilitarian, virtuous, and progressive
newspapers, or other similar indigestible, stupefying drugs.
Let any one say after this that novels do not assist civilization.—I will say
nothing of the tobacco agents, grocers, and dealers in fried potatoes, who have a
very great interest in this branch of literature, the paper used therein being, as a
general rule, of a superior quality to that used by the newspapers.

Verily it is enough to make one split one's sides with laughter to hear messieurs
the republican or Saint-Simonian utilitarians hold forth.—In the first place, I
should be glad to know the exact meaning of that great lubberly substantive with
which they daily lard the empty void of their columns, and which serves them as
a sort of shibboleth and sacramental term:—Utility; what is the word, and to
what is it applied?
There are two kinds of utilities, and the meaning of the word is always relative.
What is useful for one is not for another. You are a cobbler, I am a poet.—It is
useful for me to have my first line rhyme with my second.—A dictionary of
rhymes is of great utility to me; you have no use for it in cobbling an old pair of
boots, and it is fair to say that a cobbler's knife would be of no great use to me in
writing an ode.—Now, you will remark that a cobbler is much above a poet, and
that we could get along better without the latter than without the former. Without
undertaking to cry down the illustrious profession of cobbler, which I honor
equally with the profession of constitutional monarch, I will humbly confess that
I should prefer to have my shoe down at heel rather than to have my lines
haltingly rhymed, and that I should be more willing to go without boots than
without poems. As I rarely go out, and walk more readily on my head than on
my feet, I wear out fewer shoes than a virtuous republican who does nothing but
run from one government department to another trying to induce somebody to
toss him an office.
I know that there are those who prefer windmills to churches, and the bread that
feeds the body to that that feeds the soul. To them I have nothing to say. They
deserve to be economists in this world and also in the other.
Is there anything absolutely useful on this earth and in this life that we live? In
the first place, there is very little use in one being on the earth and living. I
challenge the most erudite of the band to say of what use we are, unless it be to
subscribe neither to the Constitutionnel nor to a journal of any sort.
Secondly, the utility of our existence being admitted a priori, what are the really
useful things to maintain it? A plate of soup and a bit of bread twice a day are all
that we need to fill the stomach, in the strict acceptation of the word. The man
for whom a coffin six feet by two will be enough and more than enough after his
death, does not need much more space during his life. A hollow cube, seven or
eight feet broad, long and deep, with a hole to breathe through, a single cell in
the hive, is all that he needs to lodge him and to keep the rain from falling on his
back. A quilt, rolled properly about his body, will protect him from the cold as
well as, yes, better than, Staub's most stylish and elegant frock-coat.

With that a man can exist, theoretically. They say that one can live on twenty-
five sous a day; but to keep from dying is not living; and I cannot see wherein a
city organized on utilitarian principles would be more agreeable to live in than
Père La Chaise.
Nothing beautiful is indispensable to life.—If flowers should be suppressed, the
world would not suffer materially; and yet who could wish that there were no
flowers? I would rather give up potatoes than roses, and I do not believe there is
more than one utilitarian in the world capable of digging up a bed of tulips to
make room for cabbages.
What good purpose does female beauty serve? Provided that a woman is well-
developed physically, in a condition to receive a man and to produce children,
she will always be good enough for the economist.
What is the use of music? or painting? Who would be foolish enough to prefer
Mozart to Monsieur Carrel, Michael Angelo to the inventor of white mustard?
Nothing is really beautiful but that which cannot be made use of; everything that
is useful is ugly, for it is the expression of some need, and the needs of man are
vile and disgusting, like his poor, weak nature.—The most useful part of a house
is the privy.
I myself, with due respect to those gentlemen, am one of those to whom
superfluities are necessaries—and my liking for people and things is in inverse
ratio to the services they render me. I prefer a Chinese vase, covered with
dragons and mandarins, which is of no use to me at all, to a certain other vase,
which is useful to me; and that one of my talents which I prize most highly is
my inability to guess riddles and charades. I would very willingly renounce my
privileges as a Frenchman and a citizen to see an authentic painting by Raphael,
or a beautiful nude woman: the Princess Borghese, for instance, when she posed
for Canova, or Julia Grisi when she was in her bath. For my part I would gladly
consent to the return of that cannibal of a Charles X., if he would bring me, from
his castle in Bohemia, a hamper of Tokay or Johannisberg, and I would agree
that the suffrage laws were broad enough, if some of the streets were more so
and other things less so.—Although I am not a born dilettante, I prefer the noise
of squeaking fiddles and bass drums to that of Monsieur le Président's bell. I
would sell my trousers to buy a ring and my daily bread for sweetmeats.—The
most becoming occupation for a polished man is, it seems to me, to do nothing,
or to smoke his pipe or his cigar analytically. I also have a high regard for those
who play at skittles and for those who write good poetry. You see that my
principles are very far from being utilitarian, and that I shall never become

editor of a virtuous newspaper unless I am converted, which would be droll
enough.
Instead of awarding a Monthyon prize as a reward of virtue, I would prefer to
give, like Sardanapalus, that great philosopher who has been so misunderstood,
a handsome premium to the man who should invent a new form of pleasure; for
enjoyment seems to me the true aim of life and the only useful thing in the
world. God has so willed it, for it was He who made women, perfumes, light,
lovely flowers, good wines, prancing horses, greyhounds, and Angora cats; nor
did he say to his angels: "Be virtuous," but: "Love;" and he gave us a mouth,
more sensitive than the rest of the skin, with which to kiss women, eyes uplifted
to see the light, a subtle sense of smell to inhale the soul of flowers, well-knit
thighs to press the sides of stallions and fly swifter than thought without railroad
or steamboat, delicate hands with which to caress the long head of the
greyhound, the velvety back of the cat, and the gleaming shoulders of creatures
of doubtful virtue; in a word, he bestowed only upon us the threefold, glorious
privilege of drinking without being thirsty, of striking a light, and of making
love at all seasons, which distinguishes us from the brute much more than the
custom of reading newspapers and drawing maps.
Mon Dieu! what an idiotic thing is this alleged perfectibility of the human race
that is being dinned into our ears! One would say in truth that man is a machine
susceptible of improvements, and that the more careful adjustment of a wheel, a
counterpoise more conveniently placed, might make it work more smoothly and
more handily. When they have succeeded in giving man a double stomach, so
that he can chew his cud like an ox, and eyes in the back of his head, like Janus,
so that he can see those who stick out their tongues at him behind his back, and
contemplate his unworthiness in a less uncomfortable position than that of the
Venus Callipyges at Athens, and in planting wings on his shoulder blades so that
he will not be obliged to pay six sous to ride in an omnibus; when they have
given him a new organ, well and good: then the word perfectibility will begin to
mean something.
Since all these fine ameliorations, what has been done that was not done as well
and better before the deluge?
Have we succeeded in drinking more than they drank in the days of ignorance
and barbarism—old style? Alexander, the doubtful friend of the fair Hephæstion,
was no small drinker, although there was no Journal des Connaissances Utiles
in his day, and I am unable to conceive how any utilitarian, unless he should
become oïnopic and more puffed out than the younger Lepeintre or a
hippopotamus, could drain the great beaker which he called Hercules' cup. The

Maréchal de Bassompierre, who emptied his long boot to the health of the
Thirteen Cantons, seems to me a singularly estimable personage in his way and
very hard to improve upon. What economist will enlarge our stomachs so that
they will hold as many beefsteaks as the late Milo of Crotona, who ate an ox?
The bill of fare at Véfour's Café Anglais, or at any other culinary celebrity's that
you choose, seems to me very ill-supplied and commonplace compared to the
menu of Trimalcion's dinner.—At whose table in these days are a sow and her
twelve shoats served on a single platter? Who has eaten muræna and lampreys
fattened on man? Do you really think that Brillat-Savarin has improved upon
Apicius? Could Vitellius's big tripe-man find at Chevet's the wherewithal to fill
his famous Minerva's shield with pheasants' and peacocks' brains, tongues of
flamingoes and scarus livers?—The oysters you eat at the Rocher de Cancale are
such a great delicacy compared with the oysters of Lucrin, for which a lake was
made expressly.—The little establishments in the suburbs kept by the marquises
of the Regency were wretched little boxes, if we compare them with the villas of
the Roman patricians at Baiæ, Capri, and Tibur. The Cyclopean splendor of the
great voluptuaries who erected everlasting monuments for a day's pleasure
should cause us to fall flat on our faces before the genius of antiquity and erase
forever from our dictionaries the word perfectibility.
Has a new capital crime been invented? Unfortunately there are only seven of
them as before, the number of the just man's backslidings for one day, which is
very moderate.—Indeed, I do not think that after a century of progress, at the
rate we are travelling, any lover would be capable of renewing the thirteenth
labor of Hercules.—Can a man be agreeable to his divinity a single time oftener
than in the days of Solomon? Many very illustrious scholars and very
respectable ladies answer that question in the negative, and aver that amiability
is on the wane. Very good! if that is so, why do you talk of progress?—I know
that you will tell me that there is an Upper Chamber and a Lower Chamber, that
you hope that everybody will soon be an elector and the number of
representatives doubled or trebled. Do you think that there are not enough
mistakes in grammar made in the national tribune as it is, and that the deputies
are not numerous enough for the vile work they have to do? I can hardly
understand the utility of quartering two or three hundred provincials in a wooden
barrack, with a ceiling painted by Monsieur Fragonard, there to botch and
bungle nobody knows how many absurd or atrocious little laws.—What
difference does it make whether it is a sabre, a holy-water sprinkler, or an
umbrella that governs us?—It is a club all the same, and I am amazed that
progressive men should dispute as to the kind of club that is to make their

shoulders tingle, when it would be much more progressive and less expensive to
break it and throw the pieces to all the devils.
The only one of you who has any common sense is a madman, a great genius, an
imbecile, a divine poet far above Lamartine, Hugo, and Byron; it is Charles
Fourrier, the phalansterian, who is all that in his single person: he alone is
logical and has the courage to carry his theory through to its inevitable
consequence.—He asserts, without hesitation, that man will soon have a tail
fifteen feet long with an eye at the end of it; that surely is progress and will
permit us to do a thousand fine things we could not do before, such as killing
elephants without striking a blow, balancing ourselves on trees without swings,
as handily as the most expert ape, doing without sunshade or umbrella by raising
the tail above the head like a plume, as squirrels do, who get along very well
without umbrellas; and other prerogatives too numerous to mention. Several
phalansterians claim that they already have a little tail that asks nothing better
than to grow longer, if only God gives them length of days.
Charles Fourrier has invented as many species of animals as George Cuvier, the
great naturalist. He invented horses that will be thrice the size of elephants, dogs
as large as tigers, fish capable of feeding more people than the three small fishes
of the Saviour, which the incredulous Voltaireans believe were poissons d'Avril,
[1]
and I the text of a noble parable. He has built cities beside which Rome, Tyre,
and Babylon are simply mole-hills; he has piled Babels one upon another and
built spiral stairways ascending among the clouds to a greater height than all
those in John Martinn's engravings; he has conceived I cannot say how many
orders of architecture and new sauces; he has drawn a plan for a theatre which
would seem immense even to Romans of the Empire, and prepared a dinner
menu that Lucius or Nomentanus might have deemed sufficient for a dinner to
their friends; he promises to create new forms of pleasure and to develop the
organs and the senses; he is to make women fairer and more voluptuous, men
more robust and sturdy; he guarantees you children and proposes to reduce the
population of the world so that every one will be in easy circumstances; which is
more reasonable than to urge paupers to make other paupers, with the idea of
shooting them down in the streets when they breed too fast and sending them
bullets instead of bread.
Progress is possible in no other way.—All the rest is bitter mockery, buffoonery
without wit, which is not even calculated to deceive gullible fools.
The phalanstery is really a step in advance of the abbey of Thélème, and
definitely relegates the earthly paradise to the ranks of those things that are

altogether superannuated and old-fashioned. The Thousand and One Nights and
Madame d'Aulnay's Tales alone can contend successfully with the phalanstery.
What fertility! what invention! There is material there from which to supply
marvels for three thousand cartloads of romantic or classic poems; and our
versifiers, whether academicians or not, are paltry inventors compared to
Monsieur Charles Fourrier, the inventor of startling attractions.—This idea of
making use of impulses which people have hitherto sought to repress, is most
assuredly a lofty and powerful idea.
Ah! you say that we are making progress!—Suppose that a volcano should open
its maw to-morrow at Montmartre, and should make a winding-sheet of ashes
and a tomb of lava for Paris, as Vesuvius once did for Stabia, Pompeii, and
Herculaneum, and that, some thousand years hence, the antiquaries of that day
should make excavations and exhume the corpse of the dead city, tell me what
monument would remain standing to bear witness to the splendor of the mighty
entombed, the Gothic Notre-Dame?—They would form truly a fine idea of our
artistic development when they cleared away the rubbish from the Tuileries,
redecorated by Monsieur Fontaine! The statues on Pont Louis XV. would look
splendid in the museums of those days. And were it not for the pictures of the
ancient schools and the statues of antiquity or the Renaissance crowded together
in the gallery of the Louvre, that long shapeless conduit; were it not for the
ceiling by Ingres, which would show that Paris was not a Barbary camp or a
village of Welches or Topinamboux, the things that would be unearthed from the
ruins would be very interesting.—Short swords carried by National Guardsmen,
firemen's helmets, coins struck from pyriform dies, that is the kind of thing they
would find instead of the beautiful, curiously-carved weapons that the Middle
Ages left in the recesses of their towers and ruined tombs, the medallions that
fill the Etruscan vases and pave the cellars of all Roman buildings. As for our
wretched veneered furniture, all the cheap boxes, naked and ugly and shabby,
that we call commodes or secretaries, and all our shapeless, fragile utensils,—I
trust that time would have been compassionate enough to destroy the last vestige
of them.
Once, this whim of erecting a magnificent, pretentious monument took
possession of us. In the first place we were obliged to borrow the plan from the
old Romans; and even before it was finished, our Panthéon tottered on its legs
like a child with the rickets and staggered like a drunken man, so that we had to
give it crutches of stone, otherwise it would have measured its shameful length
on the ground, in sight of all the world, and would have given the nations
something to laugh at for more than a hundred francs.—We thought it better to

set up an obelisk on one of our squares; we had to go and filch it at Luxor, and
we were two years bringing it home. Old Egypt lined its roads with obelisks as
we line ours with poplars; it carried bundles of them under its arm as the market-
gardener carries bunches of asparagus, and carved a monolith from the sides of
its mountains of granite more easily than we make tooth-picks or ear-picks. A
few centuries ago Raphael was living and Michael Angelo; now we have
Monsieur Paul Delaroche, all because we are progressing.—You boast of your
Opéra; ten Opéras like yours could dance a saraband in a Roman circus.
Monsieur Martin, himself, with his tame tiger and his poor gouty lion, sound
asleep like a subscriber to the Gazette, makes a very poor showing beside the
gladiator of antiquity. Take your benefit performances that last till two o'clock in
the morning—what do they amount to when you think of the games that lasted a
hundred days, of the plays in which real ships really fought in real water; in
which thousands of men conscientiously cut one another in pieces;—aye, turn
pale O heroic Franconi!—in which, when the sea retired, the desert arrived with
its roaring tigers and lions, awe-inspiring supernumeraries who did duty but
once; in which the leading rôle was taken by some robust, athletic Dacian or
Pannonian whom they would very often have found it embarrassing to produce
at the end of the play, his sweetheart being a lovely and dainty Numidian lioness
who had fasted for three days?—Does it not seem to you that the rope-dancing
elephant was superior to Mademoiselle Georges? Do you suppose Mademoiselle
Taglioni is a better dancer than Arbuscula, and Perrot better than Bathyllus? I am
convinced that Roscius could have given points to Bocage, excellent actor
though he is,—Galeria Coppiola played ingénue rôles when she was more than a
hundred years old. It is fair to say that the oldest of our jeunes premières is but
little more than sixty, and that Mademoiselle Mars shows no sign of progress in
that direction: they had three or four thousand gods in whom they believed, and
we have only one and we hardly believe in him; that is a strange kind of
progress.—Was not Jupiter a better man than Don Juan and a much more
successful seducer? Verily, I cannot see what we have discovered or even
improved.
After the progressive journalists, as if to serve as a foil to them, come the blasé
journalists, who are usually twenty or twenty-two years old, who have never left
their quarter and have as yet lain only with their housekeeper. Everything bores
them, tires them out; they are sated, blasé, used up, inaccessible. They know
beforehand what you are going to say to them; they have seen, felt, heard,
experienced everything that it is possible to see, feel, hear, and experience; the
human heart has no corner so dark that they have not held a lantern to it. They
say to you with marvellous self-possession: "The human heart is not like that;

women are not made so; that character is falsely drawn;"—or else: "What's this!
always love or hatred! always men and women! Can't you talk about something
else? Why, man is worn threadbare, and woman, more so, since Monsieur de
Balzac took a hand.
"'Who will deliver us from men and women?'
"Do you think your fable is new, monsieur? it is new after the fashion of the
Pont-Neuf:[2] nothing in the world could be more common; I read it somewhere
or other;—when I was out at nurse or somewhere else; it's been dinned into my
ears for ten years.—By the way, monsieur, understand that there's nothing I don't
know, that everything is worn threadbare for me, and that even if your idea were
as virginal as the Virgin Mary, I would swear, none the less, that I had seen it
prostituting itself on street corners to the vilest scribblers and the most
contemptible pedants."
Journalists of that stamp are responsible for Jocko, Le Monstre Vert, Les Lions
de Mysore, and a thousand other charming conceits.
They are constantly complaining of being obliged to read books and see plays.
Apropos of a paltry vaudeville, they will talk about flowering almond-trees,
limes that perfume the air, the breezes of spring, the odor of the young foliage;
they set up for lovers of nature after the style of young Werther, and yet they
have never set foot outside of Paris and could not tell a cabbage from a beet.—If
it is winter, they prate about the joys of the domestic fireside, and the crackling
fire, and the andirons, and the slippers, and the reverie and the state between
sleeping and waking; they never fail to quote Tibullus's famous line:
Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem,
by the aid of which they assume a knowing and at the same time ingenuous air,
the most fascinating thing imaginable. They pose as men upon whom the work
of men can no longer make any impression, whom the emotions aroused by the
drama leave as cold and hard as the knife with which they cut their quills, but
who exclaim, nevertheless, with Jean Jacques Rousseau: "Ah! there's the
periwinkle!" They profess fierce antipathy to the colonels at the Gymnase, the
American uncles, the cousins, male and female, the sensitive old grumblers, the
romantic widows, and try to cure us of the vaudeville by proving every day by
the feuilletons that all Frenchmen are not born wicked.—In truth, we see no
great harm in that, but the contrary, and we are glad to acknowledge that the
extinction of the vaudeville or the opera-comique in France—national style—
would be one of the greatest benefactions that the press and Heaven could
bestow.—But I should be very glad to know what species of literature these

gentlemen would allow to be established in its place. To be sure, it could be no
worse.
Others preach against false taste and translate Seneca the tragedian. Lastly, and
to close the procession, a new battalion of critics has been formed, of a species
never before seen.
Their formula for estimating a work is the most convenient, the most elastic, the
most malleable, the most peremptory, the most superlative, and the most
successful that a critic ever could have conceived. Zoilus would certainly have
lost nothing thereby.
Hitherto, when it has seemed desirable to depreciate a work of any sort or to cast
odium upon it in the eyes of the patriarchal and simple-minded subscriber, the
ordinary method has been to make false or cunningly isolated quotations; to
maim sentences and mutilate lines in such a way that the author himself would
have considered himself the most ridiculous creature on earth; to bring
accusations of imaginary plagiarisms; to place passages from his book side by
side with passages from ancient or modern authors, which had not the least
connection therewith; to accuse him, after the style of a cook and with
innumerable solecisms, of not knowing his own language and of degrading the
French of Racine and Voltaire; to assert in all seriousness that his book tended
toward anthropophagy, and that readers would infallibly become cannibals or
have hydrophobia in the course of the week; but all that was paltry, out of date,
false and fossilized to the last degree. By dint of having dragged along through
feuilletons and Variétés articles, the charge of immorality became insufficient,
and so unfit for service that the Constitutionnel, a bashful and progressive
journal, as we know, was almost the only one that had the desperate courage to
continue to use it.
So they invented the criticism of the future, the Prospective criticism. Can you
imagine, at first thought, what a charming thing it is and what a prolific
imagination it indicates? The recipe is simple and I can tell you what it is. The
book that will be considered fine and will be praised is the book that has not yet
appeared. The one that has just appeared is infallibly detestable. The one to
appear to-morrow will be superb; but it is always to-day. It is the same with this
sort of criticism as with the barber who had these words in huge letters for his
sign:
SHAVING FREE HERE TO-MORROW.
All the poor devils who read the placard promised themselves for the next day
the ineffable, sovereign sweetness of being barbered once in their lives without

unloosing their purse-strings: and the hair on their chins easily grew half a foot
during the night that preceded that blessed day; but when they had the napkin
around their necks, the barber asked them if they had any money and bade them
pay up, or he would treat them like nut-pickers or apple-gatherers of Le Perche;
and he swore a mighty sacre dieu that he would cut their throats with his razor
unless they paid him; and when the poor devils, whining and whimpering, talked
about the sign and the sacrosanct inscription:—"Ha! ha! my little fatties!" said
the barber, "you don't know so much after all, and you'd much better go back to
school! The sign says: 'To-morrow!' I'm no such whimsical fool as to shave for
nothing to-day; my confrères would say I was throwing away my trade.—Come
another time, come the week that has two Sundays together, and you'll find
everything all right. May I be called a niggardly fellow and a flat, if I don't
shave you for nothing, on the word of an honest barber."
Authors who read a prospective article in which an existing work is attacked
always flatter themselves that the book they are writing will be the book of the
future. They try to accommodate themselves, as much as possible, to the ideas of
the critic, and become socialists, progressives, moralizers, palingenetics,
mystics, pantheists, buchezists, thinking in that way to escape the anathema; but
the same thing happens to them that happened to the barber's customers:—to-
day is not the eve of to-morrow. The to-morrow that we hear so much about will
never shine upon the world; for the formula is too convenient to be abandoned
so soon. Even while decrying the book of which they are jealous and which they
would be glad to annihilate, they put on the gloves of the most generous
impartiality. They apparently ask nothing better than to approve and praise it,
and yet they never do it. This recipe is very superior to the one that we might
call retrospective, which consists in vaunting ancient works only—works which
no one reads and no one cares about—at the expense of modern books, which
people do think about and which wound their self-esteem more directly.
We said, before beginning this review of messieurs the critics, that the material
would fill fifteen or sixteen folio volumes, but that we would content ourselves
with a few lines; I am beginning to fear that those lines will prove to be each
two or three thousand fathoms long and will resemble those thick, bulky
pamphlets that a cannon-ball would not make a hole through, which bear the
perfidious title: "A word concerning the Revolution," a word concerning this or
that. The history of the doings of the manifold loves of the goddess Madeleine
de Maupin, would run great risk of being elbowed out of the first book, and you
will understand that two whole volumes are not too much to sing worthily the
adventures of that lovely Bradamante.—That is why, however much we may

desire to continue the blazonry of the illustrious Aristarchuses of the age, we
will content ourselves with the partial sketch we have drawn, adding a few
reflections concerning the good-nature of our easy-going confrères in Apollo,
who, as stupid as the Cassander of pantomime, stand still to receive the blows
from Harlequin's lath and the clown's kicks in the stern, without budging any
more than an idol.
They resemble a fencing-master, who should fold his arms behind his back
during a bout, and receive all his opponent's thrusts in his unprotected breast
without attempting a single parry.
It is like the trial of a cause in which the king's attorney only is allowed to speak,
or a debate in which no reply is permitted.
The critic puts forward this or that theory. He makes a great dash and
ostentatious display. Absurd, detestable, monstrous; it resembles nothing, it
resembles everything. A drama is produced, the critic goes to see it; he finds that
it bears no resemblance to the drama he had constructed in his head on the
strength of the title; thereupon he substitutes, in his feuilleton, his own drama for
the author's. He interlards it with his erudite phrases; he relieves himself of all
the knowledge he has collected the day before in some library, and belabors
people to whom he ought to go to school, and the least of whom could teach
greater men than he.
Authors endure this with a magnanimity, a long-suffering which seems to me
truly inconceivable. After all is said and done, who are these critics whose tone
is so cutting, whose words are so peremptory, that one would say they were
veritable sons of the gods? they are simply men who were our school-fellows,
and who have evidently profited less by their studies than we, since they have
produced nothing and can do nothing but befoul and spoil the work of others
like genuine Stymphalian vampires.
Would it not be worth while to criticise the critics? for those disgruntled great
men, who are so fond of playing the magnificent and the fastidious, are far from
being infallible like the Holy Father. There would be matter enough to fill a
daily newspaper of the largest size. Their errors, historical or otherwise, their
distorted quotations, their mistakes in grammar, their plagiarism, their drivel,
their oft-repeated, ill-bred jests, their paucity of ideas, their lack of intelligence
and tact, their ignorance of the simplest things which leads them to mistake the
Piræus for a man and Monsieur Delaroche for a painter, would furnish authors
with ample material for vengeance, without other labor than that of drawing a
line under the passages and reproducing them word for word; for one does not

receive a commission as a great writer with a commission as critic, and to
reproach others for errors in language or taste is not enough to ensure one
against making them himself; our critics prove it every day.—If Chateaubriand,
Lamartine, and other men of that stamp should become critics, I could
understand that people might go down on their knees and worship them; but that
Messieurs Z. K. Y. V. Q. X., or any other letter of the alphabet between Alpha
and Omega, should set themselves up as little Quintilians and scold you in the
name of morality and good literature—that is what always disgusts me and
sends me into an unparalleled rage. I would like to have a police ordinance
issued prohibiting certain names from attacking certain others. To be sure, a cat
may look at a king, and Saint-Peter's at Rome, giant that it is, cannot prevent the
Transteverins from defiling its base in strange fashion; but I do not believe,
nevertheless, that it would be a bad idea to inscribe upon certain monumental
reputations:
NO FILTH DEPOSITED HERE.
Charles X. alone understood the question. By ordering the suppression of
newspapers he conferred a great service upon the arts and civilization.
Newspapers are in a certain sense courtiers or jobbers, who interpose between
artists and public, between king and people. We know the fine things that
resulted therefrom. This perpetual barking and snarling benumbs inspiration and
causes such a feeling of distrust in the heart and mind, that no one dares place
his confidence either in a poet or in a government; the result being that royalty
and poesy, the two greatest things in the world, become impossible, to the great
detriment of the people, who sacrifice their well-being to the paltry pleasure of
reading every morning a few vile sheets printed on vile paper, besmeared with
vile ink, and filled with vile stuff. There was no criticism of art under Julius II.,
and I never heard of any feuilleton on the subject of Daniel de Volterra,
Sebastiano del Piombo, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Ghiberti della Porta, or
Benvenuto Cellini; and yet I think that, for people who had no newspapers, who
did not know the word art or the word artistic, they had a fair share of talent and
acquitted themselves reasonably well at their trade. The reading of newspapers
hinders the growth of genuine scholars and genuine artists; it is like daily
dissipation that brings you, enervated and weak, to the bed of the Muses, those
harsh, exacting damsels who will have none but fresh and lusty lovers. The
newspaper kills the book, as the book has killed architecture, as artillery has
killed physical courage and muscular strength. No one realizes the pleasures that
the newspapers deprive us of. They strip everything of its virginity; they prevent
us from having anything of our own, even from owning a book all by ourselves;

they deprive us of the pleasure of being surprised at the theatre by telling us
beforehand how every play ends; they deprive us of the pleasure of spreading
idle gossip and tittle-tattle and slander, of inventing false news or peddling
genuine news for a whole week through every salon in society. They drone
ready-made opinions to us, do what we will, and warn us against things we
might like; by their means, dealers in phosphorous matches, although they have
poor memories, discuss literature as impertinently as provincial academicians;
by their means we hear, all day long, in place of artless opinions or individual
nonsense, ill-digested fragments of newspapers, which resemble omelets half
cooked on one side and burned on the other,—and we are pitilessly stuffed with
news three or four hours old, which children at the breast already know; they
deaden our taste, they make us like those people who drink spiced brandy, and
those who swallow lemons and grape-stalks, and lose the flavor of the most
generous wines and cannot appreciate their delicate, perfumed bouquet. If
Louis-Philippe should suppress all literary and political journals once for all, I
should be infinitely grateful to him and I would dash off on the spot a fine,
rambling dithyramb, in soaring verse with alternate rhymes; signed: "Your most
humble and loyal subject," etc. Pray do not imagine that there would be no
further interest in literature; in the days when there were no newspapers, a
quatrain engrossed all Paris for a week, and a first performance for six months.
It is true that this step would result in the loss of advertisements and puffs at
thirty sous a line, and notoriety would be less sudden and less overwhelming.
But I have thought out a very ingenious way of replacing advertisements. If,
between now and the day when this magnificent novel is placed on sale, my
gracious sovereign shall have suppressed the newspapers, I shall most assuredly
make use of it, and I anticipate wonders therefrom. When the great day arrives,
twenty-four mounted criers, in the livery of Renduel, with his address on their
backs and breasts, carrying banners in their hands with the title of the novel
embroidered on both sides, each preceded by a drummer and kettle-drummer,
will ride through the city, and, halting on all the squares and corners, will shout
in a loud, distinct voice: "To-day, not yesterday or to-morrow, is placed on sale
the admirable, the inimitable, the divine and more than divine novel by the most
illustrious Théophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin, which Europe, not to
mention other parts of the world and Polynesia, has been awaiting so impatiently
for a year and more. It is selling at the rate of five hundred a minute, and
editions follow one another from half-hour to half-hour; the nineteenth is
already on sale. A detachment of municipal guards is stationed at the door of the
shop, holding back the crowd and preventing all confusion." Surely that would
be worth as much as three lines in the Débats or the Courrier Français, between

advertisements of elastic belts, hoop-skirts, nursing-bottles with indestructible
teats, Regnault paste, and remedies for fluor albus.
May, 1834.
[1] April fools—literally, April fishes.
[2] New Bridge.

MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN

I

You complain, my dear friend, of the infrequency of my letters.—What would
you have me write you except that I am well and that my affection for you never
changes?—Those are facts that you know perfectly well, and that are so natural
to my age and to the noble qualities that every one recognizes in you, that it is
almost absurd to send a paltry sheet of paper a hundred leagues to say nothing
more.—In vain do I cudgel my brains, I know of nothing that is worth the
trouble of repeating; mine is the most monotonous life imaginable and nothing
happens to break the monotony. To-day leads up to to-morrow as yesterday led
up to to-day; and without claiming to be a prophet, I can boldly prophesy in the
morning what will happen to me in the afternoon.
This is how I arrange my day:—I rise, that goes without saying, and that is the
beginning of every day; I breakfast, I fence, I go out to walk, I come home, I
dine, make a few calls or amuse myself reading: then I go to bed precisely as I
did the day before; I go to sleep, and as my imagination is not excited by
unfamiliar objects, it supplies me with none but threadbare, often repeated
dreams, as monotonous as my actual life: all this is not very entertaining, as you
see. However, I reconcile myself to this existence better than I should have done
six months ago.—I am bored, to be sure, but in a tranquil, resigned fashion,
which does not lack a certain agreeableness, which might well be compared to
those gray, mild autumn days in which one finds a secret charm after the
excessive heat of summer.

This sort of existence, although I have apparently accepted it, is hardly suited to
me, however, or, at all events, it bears but little resemblance to the existence I
dream of and consider myself well adapted for.—Perhaps I am mistaken and am
in reality adapted for no other kind of life than this; but I can hardly believe it,
for, if it were my real destiny, I should more readily have adapted myself to it
and should not be so painfully bruised by its sharp corners in so many places.
You know what a powerful attraction strange adventures have for me, how I
adore everything out of the common course, extravagant and dangerous, and
with what avidity I devour novels and tales of travel; I doubt if there is on this
earth a madder, more vagabond fancy than mine; and yet, by some curious
fatality or other, I have never had an adventure, I have never made a journey. So
far as I am concerned, the tour of the world means the tour of the town in which
I live; I touch my horizon on every side; I am elbow to elbow with reality. My
life is that of the shell on the sand-bank, of the ivy clinging to the tree, of the
cricket on the hearth.—Verily, I am surprised that my feet have never taken root.
Cupid is represented with a bandage over his eyes; Destiny should be
represented in the same condition.
I have for a valet a sort of rustic boor, loutish and stupid enough, who has
travelled as much as the north wind, who has been to the devil, to every
conceivable place, who has seen with his eyes all the things of which I conceive
charming ideas, and cares as little about them as about a glass of water; he has
been in the most extraordinary situations; he has had the most amazing
adventures that a man can have. I make him talk sometimes, and I rage inwardly
when I think that all those fine things have happened to a clown who is capable
neither of sentiment nor reflection, and who is good for nothing but to do what
he does, that is to say, brush clothes and clean boots.
It is clear that that knave's life should have been mine.—For his part, he
considers me very fortunate, and his surprise is unbounded when he sees how
melancholy I am.
All this is not very interesting, my poor friend, and hardly worth the trouble of
writing, is it? But as you insist upon it that I must write to you, I must tell you
what I think and what I feel, and must give you the history of my ideas, in
default of events and acts.—It may be that there will be little order and little
novelty in what I shall have to say to you; but you must blame nobody but
yourself for it. You would have it.
You are the friend of my childhood, I was brought up with you; we lived our
lives in common for a long, long while, and we are accustomed to exchange our

most secret thoughts. I can tell you, therefore, without blushing, all the absurd
things that pass through my unoccupied brain; I will not add a word, I will not
cut out a word, I have no self-love with you. So I will be absolutely frank—even
in petty, shameful things; not before you, certainly, will I cover my nakedness.
Beneath the shroud of indifferent, depressed ennui to which I have referred just
now, there stirs sometimes a thought that is benumbed rather than dead, and I
have not always the sad and gentle tranquillity that melancholy gives.—I have
relapses and fall back into my old attacks of agitation. Nothing in the world is so
fatiguing as those motiveless paroxysms, those aimless impulses.—On those
days, although I have no more to do than on any others, I rise very early in the
morning, before sunrise, I have such a feeling of being in a hurry, of not having
all the time I need; I dress in hot haste, as if the house were on fire, tossing on
my clothes at random and bewailing a wasted minute.—Any one who happened
to see me would think that I was going to keep an assignation or to hunt for
money.—Not at all.—I have no idea where I shall go; but go I must, and I
should think my salvation endangered if I remained at home.—It seems to me as
if somebody were calling me outside, as if my destiny were passing through the
street at the moment and the question of my life or death were on the point of
being decided.
I go down with an air of surprise and alarm, clothes in disorder, hair uncombed:
people turn to look and laugh when they meet me, and take me for a young rake
who has passed the night at the ale-house or elsewhere. I am drunk to all intent,
although I have drunk nothing, and I have the aspect of a drunken man even to
the uncertain gait, now slow, now fast. I go from street to street like a dog that
has lost his master, looking in every direction, ill at ease, on the alert, turning at
the slightest sound, gliding into the centre of every group, heedless of the
rebuffs of the people I jostle against, and scrutinizing everything with a clear-
sightedness that I do not possess at other times.—Then all of a sudden it is made
clear to me that I am mistaken, that that surely is not the place, that I must go on
farther, to the other end of the town, Heaven knows where.—And I rush off as if
the devil were after me.—I touch the ground only with the tips of my toes and I
don't weigh an ounce.—Really I must be a strange sight with my terrified,
frantic manner, my waving arms and the inarticulate cries I utter.—When I think
it over in cold blood, I laugh at myself with all my heart, which doesn't prevent
me, I beg you to believe, from doing it all over again on the first occasion.
If any one should ask me why I rush about so, I certainly should be much
embarrassed to answer. I am in no hurry to arrive, as I am going nowhere. I am

not afraid of being late, as I have no appointment.—No one is waiting for me—
and I have no possible reason for hurrying so.
Is it because an opportunity to love, an adventure, a woman, an idea, a fortune,
or anything else is missing in my life, and I am seeking it unconsciously,
impelled by a vague instinct? is my existence struggling to complete itself? is it
a longing to get away from myself and my surroundings, the tiresomeness of my
life and the wish for something different? It is one of these, or perhaps all of
them together.—At all events, it is a very unpleasant experience, a feverish
irritation ordinarily succeeded by the most complete collapse.
I often have the idea that, if I had started an hour earlier, or if I had quickened
my gait, I should have arrived in time; that, while I was passing through one
street, the thing I was looking for passed through another, and that a block of
carriages was enough to make me miss what I have been pursuing, regardless of
everything else, for so long a time.—You cannot imagine the intense melancholy
and profound despair into which I fall when I see that all this comes to nothing
and that my youth is passing and no prospect opening before me; thereupon all
my idle passions mutter in my heart and devour each other for lack of better
food, like the wild beasts in a menagerie whom the keeper has forgotten to feed.
Despite the stifled, unacknowledged disappointments of every day, there is
something within me that resists and will not die. I have no hope, for, in order to
hope, one must have a desire, a certain propensity to wish that things should turn
out in one way rather than another. I desire nothing, for I desire everything. I do
not hope, or rather I have ceased to hope;—this is too absurd—and it is
absolutely one to me whether a thing is or is not.—I am waiting—for what? I
don't know, but I am waiting.
It is a shuddering sort of expectation, overflowing with impatience, broken with
somersaults and nervous movements, like the suspense of a lover waiting for his
mistress.—Nothing comes;—I fly into a passion or begin to weep.—I am
waiting for heaven to open and an angel to descend and make some revelation to
me, for a revolution to break out and the people to give me a throne, for one of
Raphaël's virgins to step out of its canvas and come and embrace me, for
relations that I don't possess to die and leave me the wherewithal to set my fancy
afloat upon a sea of gold, for a hippogriff to snatch me up and bear me away into
unknown regions.—But whatever I am waiting for, it certainly is nothing
commonplace and ordinary.
It has gone so far that, when I return home, I never fail to ask: "Has no one been
here? is there no letter for me? nothing new?"—I know perfectly well that there
is nothing, that there can be nothing. That makes no difference; I am always

much surprised and much disappointed when I receive the regular reply:—"No,
monsieur—nothing at all."
Sometimes—very rarely, however—the idea takes a more definite form.—It will
be some lovely woman whom I don't know and who doesn't know me, whom I
have met at church or at the theatre and who has not taken the slightest notice of
me.—I rush all over the house, and until I have opened the door of the last room
—I hardly dare confess it, it is so utterly absurd—I hope that she has come and
is there.—It is not conceit on my part.—I am so far from being conceited that
several women have taken a most affectionate interest in me—at least so others
have told me—when I had supposed them to be entirely indifferent to me and
never to have thought much about me.—That comes from another source.
When I am not stupefied by ennui and discouragement my mind awakes and
recovers all its former vigor. I hope, I love, I desire, and my desires are so
violent that I imagine they will force everything to come to them, as a powerful
magnet attracts bits of iron although they are at a great distance.—That is why I
wait for the things I desire, instead of going to them, and I often neglect
opportunities that open most favorably before my hopes.—Another than I would
write the most amorous note you can imagine to his heart's divinity, or would
seek an opportunity to approach her.—But I ask the messenger for the reply to a
letter I have not written, and pass my time constructing in my brain situations
most marvellously adapted to exhibit me to the woman I love in the most
unlooked-for and most favorable light.—I could make a book thicker and more
ingenious than the Stratagems of Polybius of all the stratagems I invent to make
my way to her presence and reveal my passion to her. Generally it would be
enough to say to one of my friends: "Present me to Madame So-and-So," and to
indulge in a mythological compliment suitably punctuated with sighs.
After listening to all this, one would naturally think me a fit subject for the
Petites-Maisons; I am a sensible fellow enough, however, and I haven't carried
many mad ideas into execution. All this takes place in the cellar of my brain, and
all these ridiculous ideas are very carefully buried in my lowest depths; no one
notices anything on the outside, and I am reputed to be a calm, cold young man,
by no means susceptible to female charms and indifferent to things affected by
most young men of my age; all of which is as far from the truth as society's
judgments usually are.
However, in spite of all the things that have happened to dishearten me, some of
my longings have been gratified, and from the small amount of pleasure their
gratification has afforded me, I have come to dread the realization of the others.
You remember the childish ardor of my longing to have a horse of my own? my

mother gave me one very recently; he is as black as ebony, with a little white
star on his face, flowing mane and tail, glossy coat, slender legs, just exactly the
horse I wanted. When they brought him to me, it gave me such a shock, that I
was as pale as death, and unable to recover myself, for a good quarter of an
hour; then I mounted him, and started off at a gallop without saying a word; I
rode straight ahead through the fields for more than an hour, in a state of ecstasy
hard to conceive; I did the same every day for more than a week, and, upon my
word, I don't know why I didn't founder him, or at least break his wind.—
Gradually my intense zeal slackened. I rode my horse at a trot, then at a walk,
then I began to ride so indifferently that he would frequently stop without my
noticing it: the pleasure was transformed to a habit much more quickly than I
supposed.—As for Ferragus—that is the name I gave him—he is really the most
beautiful creature you can imagine. The hair on his feet is like the down on a
young eagle; he is as active as a goat and as gentle as a lamb. You will enjoy
above all things taking a gallop on him when you come here; and, although my
passion for equestrianism has grown decidedly cool, I am still very fond of him,
for he has a very estimable equine character and I very much prefer him to many
human beings. If you could hear his neigh of delight when I go to see him in his
stable, and how intelligent his eyes are when he looks at me! I confess that I am
touched by those marks of affection, and I put my arm around his neck and kiss
him as affectionately, on my word, as if he were a lovely girl.
I had another longing also, more intense, more ardent, more constantly awake,
more dearly cherished, upon which I had built a fascinating house of cards in my
mind, a palace of chimeras, very often demolished, and reared again with
desperate constancy;—it was to have a mistress—a mistress all my own—like
the horse.—I cannot say whether the realization of that dream would have
cooled my ardor as speedily as the realization of the other; I doubt it. But
perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I should have grown weary as quickly.—It is a
peculiarity of my disposition that I crave so frantically what I desire, although I
never do anything to procure it, that if by chance, or by any other means, I attain
the object of my desire, I am so afflicted with moral weakness and confused to
such an extent, that I feel faint and ill, and have no strength left to enjoy it: so it
is that the things that come to me without my having wished for them ordinarily
afford me more pleasure than those I have most eagerly coveted.
I am twenty-two years old; I am not virgin.—Alas! nowadays nobody is so at
that age,—either in body—or in heart—which is much worse.—Aside from
those who afford pleasure to men for money, and who ought not to count any
more than a bad dream, I have had, here and there, in some dark corner, divers

virtuous, or almost virtuous women, neither lovely nor ugly, neither young nor
old, such as fall in the way of a young man who has no settled attachment and
whose heart is disengaged.—With a little good will and a considerable dose of
romantic illusion, you can call that having a mistress, if you choose.—So far as I
am concerned, it is impossible, and if I should have a thousand of that sort I
should still consider my longing as far from accomplishment as ever.
I have had no mistress, therefore, and my sole desire is to have one.—It is a
matter that disturbs me strangely; it isn't an effervescent temperament, a boiling
of the blood, the first glow of virility. It is not woman that I want, it is a woman,
a mistress; I want her, I will have her, and before long; if I don't succeed, I admit
that I shall never get over it and that I shall retain an inward timidity, a secret
discouragement that will have a serious influence on the rest of my life.—I shall
consider myself lacking in certain respects, inharmonious, incomplete—
deformed in mind or heart; for, after all, what I ask is no more than fair, and
nature owes it to every man. So long as I fail to gain my end, I shall look upon
myself as nothing more than a child, and I shall not have the confidence in
myself that I ought to have.—A mistress for myself, that is the toga virilis for a
young Roman.
I see so many men, despicable in every respect, with lovely women whose
lackeys they are hardly worthy to be, that a blush rises to my cheeks for the
women—and for myself.—It gives me a pitiable opinion of women to see them
sully themselves with such blackguards who despise and deceive them, rather
than bestow themselves upon some loyal, sincere young man who would deem
himself very fortunate and would adore them on bended knees; myself, for
example. To be sure, that sort of creature frequents salons, struts about in all
weathers, and is always sprawling over the back of some easy-chair, while I stay
at home, with my face against the window-pane, watching the river steam and
the mist rise, while rearing silently in my heart the perfumed sanctuary, the
marvellous temple in which I am to set up the future idol of my soul.—A chaste
and poetical occupation which makes women feel as little kindly toward you as
possible.
Women have very little liking for contemplative men and take strangely to those
who put their ideas into action. After all, they are not wrong. Compelled by their
education and social position to hold their tongues and to wait, they naturally
prefer those men who come to them and talk, for they relieve them from an
unnatural and wearisome silence: I realize all that; but never as long as I live
shall I be able to make up my mind, as I see many men do, to leave my seat,

walk across a salon and say unexpectedly to a woman: "Your dress makes you
look like an angel," or: "Your eyes are particularly bright to-night."
All this does not make it any less essential for me to have a mistress. I don't
know who it will be, but I see no one among the women I know who can fill that
dignified and important position properly. I find in them but very few of the
qualities I must have. Those who are young enough haven't sufficient beauty or
charm of mind; those who are young and beautiful are disgracefully and
repulsively virtuous or lack the necessary freedom of action; and then there is
always some husband or brother about, or a mother or an aunt, or I don't know
what, who has big eyes and long ears, and whom one must cajole or throw out of
the window.—Every rose has its grub, every woman has heaps of relations
whom you must get rid of like the caterpillars on a tree, if you want to pluck the
fruit of her beauty some day. There is not one of them, even to the third cousins
in the provinces, whom no one has ever seen, who is not determined to maintain
his or her dear cousin's immaculate purity in all its snowy whiteness. That is
nauseating, and I shall never have the necessary patience to tear up all the rank
weeds and lop off the thorns that fatally obstruct the approaches to a pretty
woman.
I don't care much for mammas and I care still less for little girls. I must confess,
too, that married women have very moderate attractions for me.—There is a
confusion and mixture in the latter case that disgust me; I cannot endure the idea
of going shares. The woman who has a husband and a lover is a prostitute to one
of them, often to both, and then I could never consent to give place to another.
My natural pride would be incapable of stooping to such degradation. Never will
I go away because another man is coming. Though the woman should be
compromised and ruined, though we should fight with knives, each with one
foot on her body—I would remain.—Secret staircases, closets, wardrobes, and
all the machinery of adultery would be poor expedients with me.
I am but little enamored of what is known as virgin purity, the innocence of the
flower of life, purity of heart, and other charming things which sound most
beautiful in verse; I call it all pure nonsense, ignorance, imbecility, or hypocrisy.
—Virgin purity, which consists in sitting on the edge of a chair, with the arms
pressed close against the body, the eye on the point of the corset, and in
speaking only after permission from its grandparents, the innocence which has a
monopoly of uncurled hair and white dresses, the purity of heart which wears
the corsage high in the neck, because it has as yet no breast or shoulders, do not
seem to me, in very truth, a marvellously tempting pleasure.

I am not at all anxious to teach little fools to say the alphabet of love.—I am not
old enough or corrupt enough to take any great pleasure in that. I should have
but ill-success, too, for I have never had the knack of teaching anybody, even the
things that I knew best. I prefer women who can read freely, you get to the end
of the chapter sooner; and in all things, but especially in love, what one must
consider, is the end. In that respect I am much like those people who take a
novel by the tail and read the conclusion first, being prepared then to go
backward to the first page. That method of reading and loving has its charm.
One relishes the details better when one's mind is at ease concerning the end,
and reversing the natural order of things brings the unexpected to pass.
So young girls and married women are excluded from the category. Therefore
we must select our divinity from among the widows.—Alas! I am very much
afraid that although we have nothing left but them, we shall still fail to find what
we want.
If I should fall in love with one of those pale narcissuses bathed in a warm dew
of tears and stooping with melancholy grace over the brand-new marble
gravestone of some husband happily and recently deceased, I should certainly
be, and in a very short time, as unhappy as the defunct spouse in his lifetime.
Widows, however young and charming they may be, have one terrible
inconvenience that other women have not; the instant that everything does not
go well with them and the slightest cloud floats across the sky of love, they say
at once, with a high and mighty, contemptuous manner: "Oh! how you act to-
day! You are exactly like monsieur: when we quarrelled he never said anything
but that; it's very strange, you have the same tone and the same expression;
when you are angry, you can't imagine how much you resemble my husband:—
it's enough to make one shudder."—It's very pleasant to have such things thrown
in your face point-blank! There are some who carry their impudence to the point
of praising the departed like an epitaph and extolling his heart and his leg at the
expense of your leg and your—heart.—With women who have only one or
several lovers, one has, at all events, the inestimable advantage of never hearing
of one's predecessor, which is no trifling consideration. Women have too great
an affection for what is proper and legitimate not to be very careful to keep quiet
under such circumstances, and all those matters are relegated as speedily as
possible to the old records.—It is always understood that one is always a
woman's first lover.
I do not consider that there is any serious answer to be made to such a well-
founded aversion. It is not that I look upon widows as altogether unpleasing,
when they are young and pretty and haven't put off their mourning. There are the

little languishing airs, the little tricks of letting the arms fall, bending the neck
and puffing up like a half-fledged turtle-dove; a multitude of charming
mannerisms prettily veiled behind the transparent mask of crêpe, a coquetry of
despair so skilfully managed, sighs so adroitly husbanded, tears that fall so in
the nick of time and make the eyes so bright!—Certainly, after my wine, if not
before, the liqueur I love best to drink is a lovely, clear, limpid tear trembling at
the end of a dark or light eyelash.—How is a man to resist that!—We don't resist
it;—and then black is so becoming to women!—The fair skin, poetry aside,
turns to ivory, snow, milk, alabaster, to everything pure and white on earth that
madrigal-makers can use: the dark skin has only a dash of brown, full of
animation and fire.—Mourning is good fortune for a woman, and the reason
why I shall never marry is that I am afraid my wife would get rid of me in order
to wear mourning for me.—There are women, however, who do not know how
to make the most of their affliction and who weep in such a way as to make their
noses red and to distort their features so that they look like the grotesque figures
we see on fountains: that's a great stumbling-block. A woman must have many
charms and much art to weep agreeably; lacking those, she runs the risk of not
being consoled for a long time.—Nevertheless, great as the pleasure may be of
making some Artemisia unfaithful to the shade of her Mausolus, I do not intend
to choose definitely, from among the lamenting swarm, the one whom I will ask
to give me her heart in exchange for mine.
I hear you say at that: "Whom will you take, then?—You won't have unmarried
girls nor married women, nor widows.—You don't love mammas; I don't
imagine that you love grandmammas any better.—Whom in the devil do you
love?"—That is the key to the charade, and if I knew it I should not torment
myself so. Thus far I have never loved any woman, but I have loved and I do
love love. Although I have had no mistresses and the women I have had have
aroused in me nothing but desire, I have felt and I know the sensation of love
itself: I do not love this one or that one, one rather than another, but some one I
have never seen, who must exist somewhere, and whom I shall find, God
willing. I know what she looks like, and when I meet her I shall know her.
I have very often imagined the place she lives in, the dress she wears, the color
of her eyes and her hair.—I can hear her voice; I should know her step among a
thousand others, and if, by chance, any one should mention her name, I should
turn to look; it is impossible that she should not have one of five or six names I
have assigned to her in my head.
She is twenty-six years old—no more, neither less nor more.—She is not
ignorant and she has not yet become blasé. It is a charming age at which to

make love as it should be made, without puerile nonsense and without
libertinage.—She is of medium height. I don't like a giant or a dwarf. I want to
be able to carry my deity from the sofa to the bed without assistance; but it
would be unpleasant to me to have to hunt for her there. She must be just tall
enough to put her mouth to mine for a kiss by standing on tiptoe. That is the
proper height. As for her size, she is rather plump than thin. I am a little of a
Turk on that point, and it would be very disagreeable to me to find an angle
where I was looking for a rounded outline; a woman's skin should be well filled
out, her flesh hard and firm as the pulp of an almost ripe peach: the mistress I
shall have is made in just that way. She is a blonde with black eyes, the fair skin
of a blonde and the rich coloring of a brunette, something red and sparkling in
her smile. The lower lip a little thick, the pupil of the eye swimming in a sea of
aqueous humor, the throat well-rounded and small, the wrists slender, the hands
long and plump, the gait undulating like a snake rearing on its tail, the hips full
and flexible, the shoulders broad, the back of the neck covered with down;—a
refined and yet healthy style of beauty, animated and graceful, poetic and
human; a sketch by Giorgione executed by Rubens.
This is her costume! she wears a dress of scarlet or black velvet slashed with
white satin or cloth of silver, an open corsage, a huge ruff à la Medici, a felt hat,
capriciously dented like Helena Systerman's, and long white feathers crisp and
curled, a gold chain or a stream of diamonds around her neck, and on all her
fingers a number of large rings of various enamels.
I would not waive a single ring or bracelet. The dress must be of velvet or
brocade; if I should allow her to descend to satin, it would be the utmost
concession I would make. I would rather rumple a silk skirt than a cotton one,
and pull pearls or feathers from a head than natural flowers or a simple knot of
ribbon; I am aware that the lining of the cotton skirt is often at least as
appetizing as that of the silk skirt; but I prefer the latter.—And so, in my dreams,
I have taken for my mistress many queens, many empresses, many princesses,
many sultanas, many famous courtesans, but never middle-class women or
shepherdesses; and in my most vagabond desires, I have never taken advantage
of any one on a carpet of turf or in a bed of Aumale serge. I consider that beauty
is a diamond which should be mounted and set in solid gold. I cannot imagine a
lovely woman who has not a carriage, horses, servants, and everything that one
has with a hundred thousand francs a year: there is a certain harmony between
beauty and wealth. One demands the other; a pretty foot calls for a pretty shoe, a
pretty shoe calls for carpets and a carriage, and so on. A lovely woman with
mean clothes in a wretched house is, to my mind, the most painful spectacle one

can see, and I could never fall in love with her. Only the comely and the rich can
fall in love without making themselves ridiculous or pitiable.—On that principle
few people have the right to fall in love: I myself should be shut out first of all;
however, that's my opinion.
It will be evening when we meet for the first time—during a lovely sunset;—the
sky will have the bright orange-yellow and pale-green tints that we see in some
pictures by the great masters of the old days: there will be a broad avenue of
chestnuts in flower and venerable elms all covered with ringdoves,—lovely trees
clothed in cool dark green, shadows full of mystery and moisture; here and there
a statue or two, some marble vases, standing out in their snowy whiteness
against the background of verdure, and a sheet of water in which the familiar
swan disports itself,—and in the background a château of brick and stone as in
the days of Henri IV., pointed, slate-covered roof, tall chimneys, weather-cocks
on every gable, long, narrow windows.—At one of the windows, leaning in
melancholy mood upon the balcony rail, stands the queen of my heart in the
costume I described to you a moment ago; behind her is a little negro carrying
her fan and her parrot.—You see that nothing is lacking and that it is all utterly
absurd.—The fair one drops her glove;—I pick it up, kiss it and return it. We
engage in conversation; I display all the wit that I do not possess; I say some
charming things; she answers me, I retort; it is a display of fireworks, a
luminous shower of dazzling repartee.—In short, I am adorable—and adored.—
The supper hour arrives, she invites me to join her;—I accept.—What a supper,
my dear friend, and what a cook my imagination is!—The wine laughs in the
crystal goblet, the white and gold pheasant smokes in a platter bearing her crest:
the feast is prolonged far into the night and you can imagine that I don't finish
up the night at home.—Isn't that a fine bit of imaginative work?—Nothing in the
world could be simpler, and upon my word it's very surprising that it doesn't
happen ten times rather than once.

Chapter I — What a supper——The wine laughs in the crystal goblet, the white and gold
pheasant smokes in a platter bearing her crest: the feast is prolonged far into the night
and you can imagine that I don't finish up the night at home.

Sometimes it is in a great forest.—The hunt sweeps by; the horn rings out, the
pack gives tongue and crosses the path with the swiftness of lightning; the fair
one in a riding habit is mounted on a Turkish horse, white as milk, spirited and
swift beyond words. Although she is an excellent horsewoman, he paws and
curvets and rears, and she has all the difficulty in the world in holding him; he
takes the bit in his teeth and rushes straight toward a precipice with her. I fall
from heaven for the express purpose of saving her, I stop the horse, I catch the
swooning princess in my arms, I bring her to herself and escort her to her
château. What well-born woman would refuse her heart to a man who has risked
his life for her?—None;—and gratitude is a cross-cut that leads very quickly to
love.
You will agree, at all events, that when I go into romance, I don't stop half-way,
and that I am as mad as it is possible for a man to be. That is as it should be, for
nothing in the world is more sickening than rational madness. You will agree
also that, when I write letters, they are volumes rather than simple notes. I love
whatever goes beyond ordinary bounds in everything.—That is why I love you.
Don't laugh too much at all the nonsense I have scribbled; I lay aside my pen to
carry some of it into execution; for I recur always to my refrain! I mean to have
a mistress. I cannot say whether it will be the lady of the park or the lady of the
balcony, but I bid you farewell to go in quest of her. My mind is made up.
Though she whom I seek should hide herself in the heart of the kingdom of
Cathay or Samarcand, I shall find a way to dislodge her. I will let you know of
the success or non-success of my undertaking. I hope that it will be success: give
me your prayers, my dear friend. As for myself, I dress up in my best coat, and
go out of the house determined not to return except with such a mistress as I
have in my mind.—I have dreamed long enough; now to work.
P.S.—Tell me something about little D——; what has become of him? no one
here knows anything about him; and give my compliments to your good brother
and all the family.

II

Well, my friend, I have come home again, I have not been to Cathay or
Cashmere or Samarcand;—but it is fair to say that I am no nearer having a
mistress than ever.—And yet I took myself by the hand, I swore a mighty oath
that I would go to the end of the world. I have not even been to the end of the
town. I don't know what the matter is with me, but I have never been able to
keep my word to anybody, even to myself: it must be that the devil takes a hand
in it. If I say: "I will go there to-morrow," it is certain that I shall stay at home; if
I propose to go to the wine-shop, I go to church; if I start to go to church, the
roads get tangled under my feet like skeins of thread, and I find myself in an
entirely different place. I fast when I have determined to have a debauch, and so
it goes. Therefore I am inclined to believe that what prevents me from having a
mistress is that I have determined to have one.
I must tell you about my expedition, step by step: it is well worth the honors of
narration. I had passed at least two full hours at my toilet that day. I had had my
hair combed and curled and my moustaches, such as they are, twisted and waxed
a little; and as the excitement of longing imparted some slight animation to my
ordinarily pale face, really I was not so bad. At last, after scrutinizing myself
attentively in the mirror in different lights, to see if I was fine enough and if my
bearing was sufficiently gallant, I went resolutely forth with head erect, chin
well raised, eyes front, one hand on the hip, making the heels of my boots ring
like an anspessade, elbowing the bourgeois, and with a flawlessly triumphant
and all-conquering air.
I was like another Jason setting out to conquer the Golden Fleece.—But, alas!
Jason was more fortunate than I: besides the conquest of the fleece, he made, at
the same time, the conquest of a beautiful princess, and I—I have neither fleece
nor princess.
I walked through the streets, eying all the women, and hurrying toward them and
gazing at them at closer quarters when they seemed to me to be worth the
trouble of examining.—Some assumed their high and mighty virtuous air and
passed without raising their eyes.—Others were surprised at first, then smiled if
they had white teeth.—Some turned after a little time, to look at me when they
thought I was not looking at them, and blushed like cherries when they found
themselves face to face with me.—It was a lovely day; there were quantities of
people out walking.—And yet I must confess, notwithstanding all the respect I
feel for that interesting half of the human race, which is called by common
consent the fair sex, it is, as a whole, devilishly ugly: out of a hundred women
there is hardly one who is passably good-looking. This one had a moustache;
that one had a blue nose; others had red spots in place of eyebrows; one was not

badly built, but she had a pimply face. The head of another was charming, but
she could scratch her ear with her shoulder; a third would have put Praxiteles to
shame with the graceful roundness of certain outlines, but she stumbled along on
feet like Turkish stirrups. Another exhibited the most magnificent shoulders
imaginable; in revenge, her hands resembled in shape and size those immense
scarlet gloves that haberdashers use for signs.—Generally speaking, what tired-
looking faces! how worn and streaked they were, withered by degrading petty
passions and petty vices! What expressions of envy, of malevolent curiosity, of
avarice, of brazen coquetry! and how much uglier is a woman who is not
beautiful, than a man who is not handsome!
I saw nobody worth looking at—except a few grisettes;—but they have more
cotton than silk to rumple, and they don't interest me.—In very truth, I believe
that man, and when I say man I include woman, is the vilest animal on the face
of the earth. That quadruped who walks on his hind feet seems to me
extraordinarily presumptuous to claim the first place in creation as his
undoubted right. A lion, a tiger, are finer animals than men, and in their species
many individuals attain all the beauty that belongs to it. But such a thing rarely
happens among human beings.—How many abortions for one Antinous! how
many Goths for one Phyllis!
I am very much afraid, my dear friend, that I shall never be able to embrace my
ideal, and yet there is nothing extraordinary or unnatural about it.—It is not the
ideal of a third-form school-boy. I do not ask for ivory globes or alabaster
pillars, or azure veins; I have not used in its composition either lilies, or snow, or
roses, or jet, or ebony, or coral, or ambrosia, or pearls or diamonds; I have left
the stars of heaven at rest, and I have not unhung the sun unseasonably. It is
almost a bourgeois ideal, it is so simple, and it seems to me that with a bag or
two of piastres I could find it all ready-made and realized in the first bazaar I
might happen upon at Constantinople or Smyrna; it would probably cost me less
than a blooded horse or dog; and to think that I shall not get what I want, for I
have a feeling that I shall not! It is enough to drive a man mad, and I fly into the
hottest sort of a rage against fate.
You are not such a mad fool as I, you are fortunate;—you have simply taken
your life as it came, without tormenting yourself trying to shape it, and you have
dealt with things as they turned up. You haven't sought for happiness, it has
come in search of you; you love and are loved.—I don't envy you;—for
Heaven's sake, don't think that! but I am not so happy as I ought to be when I
think of your felicity, and I say to myself, with a sigh, that I would like to enjoy
felicity of the same sort.

Perhaps my happiness passed by my side and I did not see it, blind that I was;
perhaps a voice spoke, and the uproar of my internal tempests prevented me
from hearing it.
Perhaps I have been loved in secret by some humble heart that I have neglected
or broken; perhaps I have myself been the ideal of another, the pole-star of a
suffering heart,—the dream of a night and the thought of a day.—If I had looked
at my feet, perhaps I should have seen there some fair Magdalene with her box
of ointment and her dishevelled hair. I walked along with my arms raised to
heaven, longing to pluck the stars that fled from me, and scorning to pick the
little daisy that opened its golden heart in the dewy grass. I have made a great
mistake: I have asked love for something other than love, something that it could
not give. I forgot that love was naked, I failed to grasp the meaning of that
magnificent symbol.—I asked him for brocade dresses, feathers, diamonds,
sublime intellect, learning, poesy, beauty, youth, supreme power—everything
that is not love;—love can offer naught but love, and he who seeks to extort
anything else from him is unworthy to be loved.
I have been in too much of a hurry, of course: my hour has not yet come; God
who lent me my life will not take it back without letting me live. What's the use
of giving a poet a lyre without strings, or man a life without love? God cannot
be guilty of such inconsistency; and I have no doubt that when the allotted
moment comes, He will place in my path the woman I am to love and by whom
I am to be loved.—But why has love come to me before a mistress? Why am I
thirsty when I have no fountain at which to quench my thirst? or why can I not
fly, like the birds of the desert, to the spot where water is to be found? The world
to me is a Sahara without wells or date-trees. I have not in my whole life a single
shady nook to give me shelter from the sun: I suffer all the ardors of passion
without its ineffable ecstasy and delight; I know its torments and have not its
pleasures. I am jealous of something that does not exist; I am ill at ease for the
shadow of a shade; I heave sighs that mean nothing; I have sleepless nights
embellished by no adored vision; I shed tears that flow to the ground without
being wiped away; I give the wind kisses that are not returned to me; I wear out
my eyes trying to distinguish a vague, deceitful shape in the distance; I await
what cannot come, and I count the hours with feverish anxiety as if I had an
appointment.
Whoever you be, angel or demon, virgin or courtesan, shepherdess or princess,
whether you come from north or south, you whom I do not know but whom I
love! oh! do not force me to wait longer, or the flame will consume the altar, and
you will find only a heap of cold ashes in place of my heart. Descend from the

sphere where you now are; leave the crystal sky, O comforting spirit, and cast
upon my heart the shadow of your great wings. Come, woman that I love, come,
and let me clasp about you the arms that have been open so long. Ye golden
doors of the palace where she dwells, turn on your hinges; raise yourself, latch
of her humble cottage; untwine yourselves, ye branches of trees and thorns by
the road-side; be broken, ye enchantments of the turret, ye spells of magicians;
open, ranks of the common herd, and let her pass.
If you come too late, O my ideal! I shall not have the strength to love you:—my
heart is like a dovecote full of doves. Every hour of the day some desire takes
flight. The doves return to the dovecote, but my desires do not return to my
heart.—The azure sky is whitened by their countless swarms; they wing their
way through space, from world to world, from sky to sky, seeking some love to
light upon and pass the night: haste, O my dream! or you will find naught in the
empty nest save the shells of the birds that have flown.
My friend, my childhood's companion, you are the only one to whom I can say
such things. Write me that you pity me and that you don't look upon me as a
hypochondriac; comfort me, I never was in greater need of it; how greatly to be
envied are they who have a passion they can satisfy! The drunkard finds no
cruelty in any sort of a bottle; he falls from the wine-shop to the gutter and is
happier on his dung-heap than a king on his throne. The sensual man resorts to
courtesans in search of ready loves or shameless refinements of indecency: a
painted cheek, a short skirt, an exposed bosom, an obscene jest, he is happy; his
eye turns white, his lip is moist; he attains the height of his happiness, he enjoys
the ecstasy of his vulgar lust. The gambler needs only a green cloth and a worn
and greasy pack of cards to procure the poignant excitement, the nervous spasms
and the diabolical joy of his ghastly passion. Such people can satisfy their
cravings or find distraction;—to me it is impossible.
This idea has taken such thorough possession of me that I no longer care for the
arts, and poetry has now no charm for me; the things that used to be my delight
do not make the least impression on me. I begin to believe that I am wrong, I
demand more of nature and society than they can give. What I seek does not
exist and I ought not to complain because I cannot find it. However, if the
woman we dream of does not come within the conditions of human nature, how
is it that we love only her and not others, since we are men and our instinct
should draw us irresistibly toward them? What puts this imaginary woman into
our head? with what clay do we mould this invisible statue? where do we get the
feathers we fasten to the back of this chimera? what mystic bird laid in a dark
corner of our soul the unseen egg from which our dream was hatched? what is

this abstract beauty that we feel but cannot define? why, before a woman who
may be charming, do we sometimes say that she is beautiful,—whereas we find
her very ugly? Where is the model, the type, the interior pattern that serves us as
a point of comparison? for beauty is always comparative and can be appreciated
only by contrast.—Was it in the sky that we saw her—in a star—at a ball in the
shadow of a mother, fresh bud of a leafless rose?—was it in Italy or in Spain?
was it here or there, yesterday or long ago? was it the admired courtesan, the
popular cantatrice, the prince's daughter? a proud and noble head bending under
a heavy diadem of pearls and rubies? a young and childish face stooping over
the nasturtiums and volubilis in the window?—Of what school was the picture
from which that beauty looked forth, fair and beaming amid dark shadows? Was
it Raphael who caressed the contour that has caught your fancy? 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 sylph, or a woman?
Alas! it is a little of all of these and it is none of them.
That transparent tint, that charming, blooming freshness, that flesh wherein the
blood and the life flow in abundance, that lovely fair hair falling over the
shoulders like a cloak of gold, that sparkling laughter, those amorous dimples,
that figure undulating like a flame, that strength, that suppleness, that glistening
satin, those rounded outlines, those plump arms, that full, smooth back, that
whole appearance of blooming health belongs to Rubens.—Raphael alone could
have given that pale tinge of amber to such pure features. What other than he
drew the curves of those long, fine black eyebrows, and spread out the lashes of
those modestly lowered lids?—Do you think that Allegri had no part in your
ideal? From him the lady of your thoughts stole the warm, ivory whiteness of
complexion that fascinates you. She stood long before his canvas to catch the
secret of the angelic smile that is always on her lips; she modelled her oval
features upon those of a nymph or a saint. That line of the hip that undulates so
voluptuously is taken from the sleeping Antiope.—Those plump, well-shaped
hands might be claimed by Danaë or Magdalen. Dusty antiquity itself supplied
much material for the composition of your young chimera; those strong and
supple loins, about which you twine your arms so passionately, were carved by
Praxiteles. The divinity left everything for the express purpose of putting the
toes of her charming foot outside the ruins of Herculaneum, so that your idol
should not be lame. Nature also has contributed its share. You have seen here
and there, in the prismatic rays of desire, a beautiful eye behind a blind, an ivory
forehead pressed against a window, a mouth smiling behind a fan.—You have
divined the quality of the arm from the hand, of the knee from the ankle. What

you saw was perfect; you assumed that the rest was like what you saw and you
finished it out with bits of other beauties gathered elsewhere.—Not even ideal
beauty, as realized by painters, is sufficient for you, and you must go and ask the
poets for outlines even more gracefully rounded, shapes more ethereal, charms
more divine, refinement more exquisite; you begged them to give breath and
speech to your phantom, all their love, all their musings, all their joy and their
sadness, their melancholy and their morbid fancies, all their memories and all
their hopes, their knowledge and their passion, their mind and their heart; you
took all these from them and you added, to cap the climax of the impossible,
your own passion, your own mind, your dreams and your thoughts. The star lent
its beams, the flower its perfume, the palette its colors, the poet his harmony, the
marble its shape, and you, your longing.—How could a real woman, who eats
and drinks, who goes to bed at night and gets up in the morning—however
adorable and instinct with charm she may be—sustain comparison with such a
creature! We cannot reasonably hope for such a thing, and yet we do hope for it
and seek it.—What extraordinary blindness! it is sublime or absurd. How I pity
and admire those who pursue the reality of their dream through everything and
die content, if only they have once kissed their chimera on the lips! But what a
frightful fate is that of the Columbuses who have not discovered their world, and
of lovers who have not found their mistress.
Ah! if I were a poet, I would consecrate my verses to those whose existence is a
failure, whose arrows have not reached the target, who have died with the word
they had to say still unsaid and without pressing the hand that was destined for
them; to all who have been unsuccessful or have passed by unnoticed, to genius
without issue, stifled fire, the undiscovered pearl at the bottom of the sea, to all
who have loved without being loved, to all who have suffered and not been
pitied;—it would be a noble task.
How wise it was of Plato to wish to banish you from his republic, and what
harm you have done us, O poets! Your ambrosia has made our absinthe more
bitter than ever; and we have found our lives more arid and more devastated
after plunging our eyes into the vistas leading to eternity that you open to us!
What a terrible struggle your dreams have brought upon our realities! and how
our hearts have been stamped upon and trampled under foot by those rude
athletes!
We have seated ourselves like Adam at the foot of the walls of the terrestrial
paradise, on the steps of the staircase that leads to the world you have created,
seeing a light brighter than the sunlight gleam through the chinks of the door,
hearing vaguely some few scattered notes of a seraphic harmony. Whenever one

of the elect enters or comes out amid a flood of glory, we stretch our necks
trying to see something through the open door. It is fairy-like architecture
equalled nowhere save in Arabian tales. Great numbers of pillars, superimposed
arches, fluted spiral columns, leaf-work marvellously carved, trefoils hollowed
out of the stone, porphyry, jasper, lapis-lazuli and Heaven knows what!
transparencies and dazzling reflections, a profusion of strange stones, sardonyx,
chrysoberyl, aquamarines, rainbow-hued opals, azerodrach, jets of crystal,
torches to make the stars turn pale, a gorgeous vapor filled with noise and
vertigo—genuine Assyrian magnificence!
The door closes: you see no more—and you cast down your eyes, filled with
burning tears, to the poor, bare, lifeless earth, to the ruined hovels, to the people
in rags, to your own soul, an arid rock upon which nothing grows, to all the
woes and misfortunes of reality. Ah! if we could only fly as far as that, if the
steps of that fiery staircase did not burn our feet; but alas! none but angels can
climb Jacob's ladder!
What a fate is that of the poor man at the rich man's door! what ghastly irony in
a palace opposite a hovel, the ideal opposite the real, poetry opposite prose!
what deep-rooted hatred must tighten the knots at the bottom of the poor
wretches' hearts! what a gnashing of teeth there must be at night on their poor
beds, when the wind brings to their ears the sighing notes of the lutes and viols
of love! Poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, why have you lied to us? Poets,
why did you tell us your dreams? Painters, why did you place upon your canvas
the intangible phantom that ascended and descended between your heart and
your brain with the throbbing of your blood, and say to us: "This is a woman."
Sculptors, why did you procure marble from the bowels of Carrara to make it
express for all time, in the eyes of all men, your most secret and most fleeting
desire? Musicians, why did you listen to the song of the stars and the flowers
during the night, and note it down? Why do you write such lovely ballads that
the softest voice that says to us: "I love you!" seems to us as hoarse as the
rasping of a saw or the cawing of a crow?—My curse on you, impostors!—and
may the fire from heaven burn and destroy all pictures, poems, statues, and
concerted pieces.—Ouf! there's a tirade of interminable length and a little out of
the ordinary epistolary style.—What a harangue!
I just gave full swing to the lyric impulse, my dear friend, and I have been
talking on stilts for a long, long time. All this is very far from our subject, which
is, if I remember rightly, the glorious and triumphant history of the Chevalier
d'Albert in pursuit of Daraïde, the loveliest princess in the world, as the old
romances say. But in truth the story is so poor that I am compelled to have

recourse to digressions and reflections. I hope that it will not always be so, and
that, before long, the romance of my life will be more involved and complicated
than a Spanish imbroglio.
After wandering about from street to street, I decided to call on one of my
friends who was to present me at a house where, according to what he told me, I
should see a world of pretty women—a collection of flesh and blood idealities—
the wherewithal to satisfy a score of poets.—There are some there to suit all
tastes:—aristocratic beauties with eagle glances, sea-green eyes, straight noses,
chins haughtily elevated, queenly hands, and the gait of a goddess; silver lilies
mounted upon golden stalks;—modest violets, pale of hue, sweet of perfume,
with melting, downcast eyes, slender neck, transparent flesh;—animated,
piquant beauties; devout beauties, beauties of all sorts;—for the house is a
genuine seraglio, minus the eunuchs and the Kislar aga.—My friend tells me
that he has already had five or six affairs there—quite as many as that;—that
seemed to me a prodigious record and I am very much afraid that I shall not
have the like success; De C—— says yes, and that I shall succeed much better
than I shall care to. According to him I have only one fault, which I am certain
to correct as I grow older and go more into society—he says I think too much of
woman and not enough of women.—It may well be that there's some truth in
that.—He says that I will be perfectly lovable when I rid myself of that little
failing. God grant it! It must be that women feel that I despise them; for a
compliment, which they would consider adorable and delightful to the last
degree in the mouth of another, in mine displeases them and makes them angry,
as if it were the most savage epigram. That probably has something to do with
the fault De C—— refers to.
My heart beat a little faster as I went up the stairs, and I had barely recovered
from my emotion when De C——, taking me by the elbow, brought me face to
face with a woman of about thirty—not ill-looking—dressed with dissembled
magnificence and extreme affectation of childlike simplicity—which did not
prevent her being daubed with rouge like a carriage-wheel:—it was the lady of
the house.
De C——, assuming the shrill, mocking voice which is so different from his
ordinary voice, and which he uses in society when he wants to be fascinating,
said to her, half aloud, with abundant demonstrations of ironical respect, in
which the most profound contempt could plainly be detected:
"This is the young man of whom I spoke to you the other day—a man of very
distinguished merit; he is of unexceptionable birth and I think that it cannot be

otherwise than agreeable to you to receive him; that is why I have taken the
liberty to present him to you."
"Assuredly, monsieur, you have done well," rejoined the lady, with a most
outrageously affected manner. Then she turned to me, and after looking me over
out of the corner of her eye, like a clever connoisseur, and in a way that made
me blush to my ears, she said: "You may consider yourself invited once for all,
and come as often as you have an evening to waste."
I bowed awkwardly enough, and stammered a few disconnected words which
could not have given her a very exalted opinion of my talents; other persons
came in and I was delivered from the ennui inseparable from an introduction. De
C—— led me to a window recess and began to lecture me vigorously.
"What the devil! you will get me into a scrape; I announced you as a perfect
phœnix of wit, a man of unbridled imagination, a lyric poet, everything that is
most transcendent and impassioned, and you stand there like a ninny without
lisping a word. What a wretched imagination! I thought your vein was more
fruitful; come, come, give your tongue the rein, chatter away through thick and
thin; you don't need to say sensible, judicious things, on the contrary, they might
injure your chances; talk, that's the main thing; talk fast, talk all the time; attract
attention to yourself; throw aside all fear and all modesty; fix it firmly in your
head that all who are here are fools, or almost that, and don't forget that an orator
who wants to succeed cannot despise his audience enough.—What do you think
of the mistress of the house?"
"I dislike her very much already; and although I talked with her hardly three
minutes, I was as bored as if I were her husband."
"Aha! that's what you think of her, eh?"
"Why, yes."
"Is your repugnance for her altogether insurmountable?—So much the worse; it
would have been decent for you to have her, if only for a month; it's good form,
and a young man with a little money can't get into society except through her."
"Very good! I'll have her," I said piteously, "since it must be; but is it as
necessary as you seem to think?"
"Alas! yes, it is absolutely indispensable, and I will tell you why. Madame de
Thémines is the fashion now; she has all the absurd foibles of the day in a
superior way,—sometimes those of to-morrow, but never yesterday's: she is
thoroughly posted. People will wear what she wears, and she never wears what

any one else has worn. She is rich, too, and her carriages are in the best taste.—
She has no wit, but much small-talk; she has very keen fancies and little passion.
People amuse her but do not move her; she has a cold heart and a dissolute head.
As for her soul—if she has one, which is doubtful—it is of the blackest, and
there is no malice and baseness of which she is not capable; but she is extremely
adroit and keeps up appearances, just what is necessary to prevent anything
being proved against her. For instance, she will lie with a man, but she will
never write him the simplest kind of a note. Thus her most intimate enemies can
find nothing to say against her except that she applies too much rouge and that
certain parts of her person are not, in fact, so well rounded as they seem to be—
which is false."
"How do you know?"
"What a question!—how does one know that sort of thing except by finding out
for himself?"
"Then you have had Madame de Thémines?"
"Certainly I have! Why shouldn't I have had her? It would have been most
unseemly of me not to have her.—She has done me some very great favors, and
I am very grateful to her for them."
"I don't understand what kind of favors she can have done you."
"Are you really a fool?" said De C——, gazing at me with the most comical
expression imaginable.—"Faith, I am much afraid of it; must I tell you
everything? Madame de Thémines is considered, and justly, to have special
information in certain directions, and a young man whom she has taken and kept
for some time can present himself boldly anywhere, and be sure that he won't be
long without having an affair—more likely two than one.—Aside from that
ineffable advantage, there is another hardly less great; and that is that, as soon as
the female members of this circle see that you are Madame de Thémines' official
lover, even though they have not the slightest taste for you, they will consider it
a pleasure and a duty to take you away from a fashionable woman like her; and,
instead of the advances and manœuvres you would otherwise have to make, you
will have an embarrassment of riches, and you will necessarily become the focus
of all imaginable cajoleries and blandishments.
"However, if she arouses too strong a repugnance in you, don't take her. You are
not exactly obliged to do it, although that would be courteous and proper. But
make your choice quickly and attack the one who pleases you best or seems to
offer the most facilities, for by delaying you will lose the benefit of novelty, and

the advantage it gives you over all the men here for a few days. All these ladies
have no conception of the passions that are born in private intercourse and
develop gradually in respect and silence; they are all for lightning strokes and
occult sympathies; a wonderfully well-conceived scheme to avoid the ennui of
resistance and all the long and wearisome repetitions that sentiment mingles
with the romance of love, and which serve only to defer the conclusion to no
purpose.—These ladies are very saving of their time, and it seems so valuable to
them that they would be in despair at the thought of leaving a single moment
unemployed.—They have a craving to oblige the human race which one cannot
praise too highly, and they love their neighbor as themselves—which is most
meritorious and perfectly angelic; they are very charitable creatures who would
not, for anything in the world, drive a man to die of despair.
"There must be three or four of them already who are impressed in your favor,
and I advise you as a friend to press your advantage warmly in that direction,
instead of amusing yourself prattling with me in a window-recess, which will
not materially assist your prospects."
"But, my dear C——, I am altogether green in such matters, I haven't the
necessary experience of society to distinguish at first glance a woman who is
impressed from one who isn't; and I might make some strange blunders unless
you will assist me with your experience."
"Upon my word, you are a primitive creature without a name, and I didn't
suppose it was possible to be so pastoral and bucolic in the blessed age we live
in!—What the devil are you doing with that pair of great black eyes of yours,
which would produce a most stunning effect if you knew how to use them?
"Just look over yonder, in the corner by the fire-place, at that little woman in
pink playing with her fan: she has been staring at you for a quarter of an hour
with most significant assiduity and fixity; no one in the world but she can be
indecent in so superior a fashion and display such noble insolence. The women
don't like her at all, for they despair of ever reaching that height of impudence,
but, on the other hand, she is very popular with the men who find in her all the
piquant flavor of the courtesan.—To be sure, her depravity is of a fascinating
sort, she is full of wit and impulse and caprice.—She's an excellent mistress for
a young man who has prejudices.—Within a week she will rid your conscience
of all scruples and corrupt your heart to such an extent that you will never make
yourself ridiculous or indulge in elegiacs. She has incredibly positive ideas on
every subject; she goes to the bottom of everything with astonishing rapidity and
accuracy of insight. The little woman is the incarnation of algebra; she is
precisely what a dreamer and an enthusiast needs. She will soon cure you of

your misty idealism: therein she will render you a great service. She will do it
with the greatest pleasure, however, for her instinct leads her to disenchant
poets."
My curiosity being aroused by De C——'s description, I emerged from my
retreat, and, gliding from group to group, approached the lady in question and
observed her closely,—she may have been twenty-five or twenty-six years old.
She was small, but well shaped, although a little inclined to be stout; she had
round, white arms, well-formed hands and pretty feet, almost too small,—
plump, polished shoulders, breast but little exposed, but what there was, very
satisfactory and affording a favorable idea of the rest; her hair was extremely
glossy and of a blue-black shade like a jay's wing; the corner of the eye was
turned well up toward the temple, nose thin, nostrils very open, mouth moist and
sensuous, a little crease on the lower lip and an almost imperceptible down at
the corners. And with it all, vivacity, animation, health, and an indefinable
suggestion of wantonness adroitly tempered by coquetry and tact, which made
her a very desirable creature and more than justified the very lively passions she
had inspired and continued to inspire every day.
I desired her; but yet I understood that that woman, agreeable as she might be,
was not my ideal, or could make me say: "At last I have a mistress!"
I returned to De C—— and said: "I like her looks, and perhaps I may come to an
understanding with her. But, before saying anything definite which will bind me,
I would be very glad if you would have the kindness to point out those indulgent
beauties who are so condescending as to be impressed with me, so that I may
make my choice.—You will also oblige me, as you are acting as showman on
this occasion, by adding a little descriptive notice and a list of their good and
bad qualities; how I must attack them and the tone I must adopt with them in
order not to seem too much like a provincial or a literary man."
"I most certainly will," said De C——. "Do you see that lovely, melancholy
swan who manages her neck so gracefully and makes her sleeves move like
wings? she is modesty itself, the most chaste and virginal creature in the world;
she has a snow-white brow, a heart of ice, the expression of a madonna, the
smile of an Agnes; she has a white dress and a soul of the same color; she wears
nothing but orange-blossoms or water-lily leaves in her hair, and is attached to
earth only by a thread. She has never had an evil thought and has no idea
wherein man differs from woman. The Blessed Virgin is a Bacchante beside her,
all of which does not prevent her having had more lovers than any woman I
know, and that is certainly saying a good deal. Just cast your eye on that discreet
person's throat; it is a little masterpiece, and really it is very difficult to show so

much without showing more; tell me if, with all her reserve and all her prudery,
she isn't ten times more indecent than that good lady at her left, who bravely
displays two hemispheres which, if they were united, would form a life-size
globe,—or the other one at her right, décolletée to the navel, who parades her
nothingness with fascinating intrepidity?—That virginal creature, unless I am
very much mistaken, has already figured out in her head how much love and
passion your pallor and your black eyes may be taken to promise; and my reason
for saying so is that she hasn't once looked in your direction, visibly at least; for
she can manage her pupils with such art and roll them into the corner of her eyes
so cleverly that nothing escapes her; one would think that she looked through
the back of her head, for she knows perfectly well what is going on behind her.
—She's a female Janus.—If you want to succeed with her, you must lay aside
anything like a free-and-easy, victorious manner. You must talk to her without
looking at her, without moving, in a contrite attitude and in a subdued, respectful
voice; in that way you can say whatever you choose to her, provided that it is
suitably glossed over, and she will allow you to take the greatest liberties, at first
in words; afterward in deeds. Simply take care to roll your eyes tenderly when
hers are cast down, and talk to her about the joys of platonic love and the
communion of souls, while you employ with her the least platonic and least
ideal pantomime imaginable! She is very sensual and very sensitive; kiss her as
often as you choose, but don't forget, even in the most intimate intercourse, to
call her madame at least three times per sentence: she fell out with me, because,
when I was in her bed, I said something or other to her and called her thou.
What the devil! a woman is not virtuous for nothing!"
"After what you tell me I have no great desire to try my luck. A prudish
Messalina! an entirely novel and monstrous combination."
"Old as the world, my dear boy! it is seen every day and nothing is more
common.—You are wrong not to try your hand with her.—She has one great
charm, which is that with her you always seem to be committing a deadly sin,
and the least kiss seems altogether damnable; while with others you think of it as
nothing more than a venial sin, and often you don't think you're doing anything
wrong at all.—That is why I kept her longer than any other mistress.—I should
have her still if she had not left me herself; she's the only woman who ever got
ahead of me, and I look upon her with a certain amount of respect on that
account.—She has the most delicate little refinements of pleasure and the great
art of appearing to be forced to grant what she grants very freely; which gives to
each of her favors the fascination of rape. You will find in society ten of her
lovers who will swear to you that she is one of the most virtuous creatures on

earth.—She is precisely the contrary.—It is an interesting study to analyze that
virtue of hers on a pillow. Being forewarned, you run no risk, and you won't
make the blunder of falling in love with her in earnest."
"How old is this adorable creature?" I asked De C——, for it was impossible to
decide, even after examining her with the most careful attention.
"Ah! there you are! how old is she? that's a mystery and God only knows the
clue. For my own part, and I pride myself on telling a woman's age almost to a
minute, I have never succeeded in finding out hers. I can only estimate
approximately that she is somewhere between eighteen and thirty-six.—I have
seen her in full dress, in déshabille, in her linen, and I can tell you nothing in
that connection: my knowledge is at fault; the age that you would generally take
her to be is eighteen, and yet that can't be her age.—She is a combination of a
virgin body and the soul of a harlot, and she must have had much time or much
genius to corrupt herself so thoroughly and so speciously; she must have a heart
of brass in a breast of steel; but she has neither; that makes me think that she is
thirty-six, but in reality I know nothing about it."
"Hasn't she any intimate friend who could enlighten you on the subject?"
"No; she arrived here two years ago. She came from the provinces or from
abroad, I don't know which—that is an admirable position for a woman who
knows how to make the most of it. With such a face as she has, she can make
herself any age she chooses and date only from the day she arrived here."
"That certainly is a most agreeable state of things, especially when some
impertinent wrinkle doesn't give you the lie, and Time, the great destroyer, is
kind enough to connive at that falsification of the certificate of baptism."
He pointed out several others, who, he said, would receive favorably whatever
requests it might please me to prefer to them, and would treat me with peculiar
philanthropy. But the woman in pink in the chimney-corner and the modest dove
who was her antithesis were incomparably superior to all the others; and, if they
had not all the qualities I require, they had some of them, at least in appearance.
I talked all the evening with them, especially with the last, and I took pains to
cast my ideas in the most respectful mould;—although she hardly looked at me,
I fancied sometimes that I could see her eyes gleaming behind the curtain of
their lashes, and at some compliments that I ventured to address to her,
decidedly broad but shrouded in the most modest gauze, I noticed just below the
skin a tiny blush, held back and stifled, not unlike the effect produced by
pouring a red liqueur into a glass that is half opaque.—Her replies were, in

general, sedate and well-weighed, but keen and bright, and they implied much
more than they expressed. The whole conversation was interspersed with pauses,
unfinished phrases; veiled allusions, every syllable had its meaning, every pause
its bearing; nothing could be more diplomatic or more charming.—And yet,
however great my pleasure in it for the moment, I could not endure such a
conversation very long. One must be forever on the alert and on his guard, and
what I like best in conversation is ease, familiarity.—We talked first of music,
which led us naturally to speak of the Opera, then of women, and then of love, a
subject in which it is easier than in any other to find excuses for transition from
general principles to special instances.—We vied with each other in amatory
talk; you would have laughed to hear me. Verily, Amadis on poor La Roche was
no better than a dull pedant beside me. It was generosity, abnegation, self-
sacrifice enough to put the late Curtius of Rome to the blush.—Really I didn't
believe myself capable of such transcendent humbug and bathos. Can you
imagine anything more ridiculous, a more perfect scene for a comedy, than
myself indulging in the quintessence of platonism? And then my sugary manner,
my demure, hypocritical little ways! tubleu! I looked as if I could never touch
anything, and any mother who had heard me argue wouldn't have hesitated to let
me lie with her daughter, any husband would have trusted his wife with me. It
was the one evening in all my life when I seemed to be most virtuous and was
least so. I thought it was more difficult than that to be a hypocrite and say things
one doesn't believe. It must be very easy or else I must be strongly predisposed
that way, to have succeeded so satisfactorily at the first trial.—Really I have
some inspired moments.
As for the lady, she made many remarks, very shrewdly worded, which,
notwithstanding the innocent air with which she made them, denoted a very
extensive experience; you can't conceive the subtlety of her distinctions. The
woman would split a hair in three pieces lengthwise, and make fools of all the
angelic and seraphic pundits that ever were. Indeed, from her way of talking, it
was impossible to believe that she has the shadow of a body.—It is all
immaterial, vaporous, ideal enough to break your arms; and if De C—— had not
warned me beforehand of the creature's manœuvring, I should certainly have
despaired of the success of my undertaking, and stood shamefacedly aside. How
in the devil, when a woman tells you for two hours, with the most indifferent air
you can imagine, that love lives only on privation and sacrifice and other fine
things of that sort, can you decently hope to persuade her to get between two
sheets with you some day to stir your blood and see if you are made alike?

In short, we parted the best of friends, mutually congratulating each other on the
elevation and purity of our sentiments.
My conversation with the other was, as you will imagine, of a very different
tenor. We laughed as much as we talked. We made fun, and very wittily too, of
all the women there. When I say: "We made fun, and very wittily too," I am
wrong; I ought to say: "She made fun;" a man never makes fun of a woman. I
listened and approved, for it is impossible to draw with more telling strokes or to
apply colors more brilliantly; it was the most interesting gallery of caricatures
that I have ever seen. In spite of the exaggeration, you felt the truth underneath;
De C—— was quite right; that woman's mission is to destroy the illusions of
poets. There is an atmosphere of prose about her in which a poetic idea cannot
live. She is charming, sparkling with wit, and yet when you are with her you
think only of base, vulgar things; as I talked to her I felt a crowd of desires,
incongruous and impracticable in that place; I felt like ordering wine and getting
tipsy, taking her on my knee and kissing her neck—like lifting up her skirt to see
if her garter was above or below the knee, like singing an obscene song at the
top of my voice, smoking a pipe or smashing the windows: the devil knows
what.—All the animal, all the brute rose in me; I would willingly have spat on
Homer's Iliad and thrown myself on my knees before a ham.—I understand
perfectly to-day the allegory of Circe changing the companions of Ulysses to
swine. Circe was probably a wanton like my little woman in pink.
It is a shameful thing to say, but I felt a keen delight in the consciousness that
the brute nature was gaining the upper hand; I did not resist it, I assisted it with
all my strength, corruption is so natural to man and there is so much mud in the
clay of which he is made.

Chapter II — My conversation with the other was, as you will imagine, of a very different
tenor. We laughed as much as we talked. We made fun, and very wittily too, of all the
women there.

And yet I was afraid for a minute of the gangrene that was gaining upon
me, and I tried to leave my corrupter; but the floor seemed to have risen to
my knees, and I was as if riveted to my place.
At last I made a determined effort and left her, and, it being then 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.

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.
No one ever longed as I do to live the life of others and to assimilate
another nature to my own; no one ever had less success. Whatever I may
do, other men are little more than phantoms to me and I do not feel their
existence; but it is not the desire to understand their lives and share in them
that I lack. It is the power or the want of real sympathy with anything on
earth. The existence or non-existence of a person or thing does not interest
me enough to affect me in a perceptible and convincing way. The sight of a
man or a woman who appears before me in flesh and blood leaves on my
mind no more definite trace than the fanciful vision of a dream: a pale
world of shadows and of apparitions, false or true, hovers about me,
murmuring low, and in the midst of them I feel as utterly alone as possible,
for not one of them has any effect upon me for good or evil, and they seem
to me to be of a nature altogether different from mine. If I speak to them
and they make what seems a sensible reply, I am as surprised as if my dog
or my cat should suddenly open his mouth and take part in the conversation:
the sound of their voices always astonishes me and I could easily believe
that they are only fleeting apparitions and I the mirror in which they are
reflected. Inferior or superior, I certainly am not of their kind. There are

moments when I recognize none but God above me, and others when I
deem myself hardly the equal of the earthworm under its stone or the
mollusk on its sand-bank; but whatever my frame of mind, exalted or
humble, I have never been able to persuade myself that men were really my
fellows. When any one calls me monsieur, or, in speaking of me, refers to
me as that man, it always seems strange to me. My very name seems to me
but an empty one and not my real name; and yet, no matter how low it may
be uttered, amid the loudest noise, I turn suddenly with a convulsive and
peevish eagerness which I have never been able to explain.—Is it the dread
of finding in the man who knows my name, and to whom I am no longer
simply one of the common herd, an antagonist or an enemy?
It is when I have been living with a woman that I feel most strongly how
utterly my nature repels every sort of alliance and mixture. I am like a drop
of oil in a glass of water. No matter how much you turn it and shake it, the
oil will never mix with the water; it will separate into a hundred thousand
little globules which will unite again and rise to the surface the instant it
becomes calm: the drop of oil and the glass of water epitomize my history.
Even lust—that diamond chain that binds all human beings together, that
consuming fire that melts the stone and metal of the heart and causes them
to fall in tears as material fire melts iron and granite—all powerful as it is,
has never been able to subdue or move me. And yet my senses are very
sharp; but my heart is a hostile sister to my body, and the ill-mated couple,
like every possible couple, lawfully or unlawfully united, lives in a state of
constant warfare.—A woman's arms, the strongest of all earthly bonds, so it
is said, are to me very weak fetters, and I have never been farther from my
mistress than when she was straining me to her heart.—I was stifled, that's
the whole story.
How many times have I been angry with myself! What superhuman efforts
have I made to be different! How I have exhorted myself to be affectionate,
lover-like, passionate! how often I have taken my heart by the hair and
dragged it to my lips in the middle of a kiss! Whatever I do, it always
recoils, wiping the kiss away, as soon as I release my hold. What torture for
that poor heart to look on at the orgies of my body and to be constantly
compelled to sit through banquets at which it has nothing to eat!
It was when I was with Rosette that I determined, once for all, to ascertain
if I am not hopelessly unsociable, and if I can take enough interest in

another person's existence to believe in it. I exhausted the whole category of
experiments, and I have not succeeded in solving my doubts to any great
extent. With her my pleasure is so keen that my heart often finds itself
diverted at least, if not touched, a state of things that impairs the accuracy
of observations. After all, I have discovered that it didn't go below the skin
and that my enjoyment was confined to the epidermis, the heart
participating only through curiosity. I have pleasure because I am young
and ardent; but the pleasures came from myself and not from another. Its
source was in myself rather than in Rosette.
It is of no use for me to struggle, I cannot go out of myself for a single
moment. I am still what I was, that is to say, a very tired, very tiresome
creature, who disgusts me exceedingly. I have failed utterly to introduce
into my brain the idea of another human being, into my heart, another's
emotion, into my body, another's pain or pleasure. I am a prisoner in myself
and all escape is impossible: the prisoner longs to escape, the walls ask
nothing better than to crumble, and the doors to open before him; but some
inexplicable fatality keeps every stone immovable in its place, every bolt in
its groove; it is as impossible for me to admit any one to my quarters as to
go myself to others; I cannot make or receive calls, and I live in the most
absolute solitude amid the multitude: my bed may not be widowed, but my
heart always is.
Ah! to be unable to increase one's size by a single line, by a single atom; to
be unable to admit others' blood into one's veins; to see always with one's
own eyes, never clearer, never farther, never otherwise; to hear sounds with
the same ears and the same sensation; to touch with the same fingers; to
perceive changing objects with an unchangeable organ; to be doomed to the
same tone of voice, the repetition of the same sounds, the same phrases, the
same words, and not to be able to fly, to escape one's self, to take refuge in
some corner where no one can follow; to be compelled to keep always to
one's self, to dine and lie alone—to be the same man to twenty different
women; to play, throughout the most complicated situations of the drama of
your life, a part that is forced upon you, whose lines you know by heart; to
think the same things, to have the same dreams:—what torture, what ennui!
I have longed for the horn of the Tangut brothers, for Fortunatus's hat,
Abaris's bâton, Gygès's ring; I would have sold my soul to snatch the magic
wand from a fairy's hand, but I have never longed so intensely for anything

as to meet on the mountain, like Tiresias the soothsayer, those serpents who
can change the sex of mortals, and what I most envy in the strange,
monstrous gods of the Indies are their constant incarnations and
innumerable transformations.
I began by longing to be another man; then, as I reflected that I could, by
analogy, foresee almost exactly what I should feel and therefore not
experience the change and the surprise I expected, I concluded that I would
prefer to be a woman; that idea always occurred to me when I had a
mistress who was not ugly; for an ugly woman is like a man to me, and in
my moments of enjoyment I would gladly have changed my rôle, for it is
very annoying to know nothing about the effect one produces and to judge
of others' pleasure only by one's own. Such reflections and many others
have often given me, at moments when it was most inappropriate, a
meditative, dreamy air, which has caused me to be accused most unjustly of
coldness and infidelity.
Rosette, who, very luckily, doesn't know all this, believes me to be the most
amorous man on earth; she takes that impotent frenzy for a frenzy of
passion, and she does her utmost to humor all the experimental caprices that
pass through my brain.
I have done all that I possibly could to convince myself that she belongs to
me. I have tried to go down into her heart, but I have always stopped on the
first step of the staircase, at her flesh or her mouth. Despite the intimacy of
our corporeal relations, I feel that we have nothing in common. Never has
an idea of the same tenor as mine spread its wings in that youthful, smiling
head; never has that heart, overflowing with life and fire, whose palpitations
cause that firm, white breast to rise and fall, beaten in unison with my heart.
My soul has never coalesced with hers. Cupid, the god with the hawk's
wings, has not kissed Psyche on her fair ivory brow. No!—that woman is
not my mistress.
If you know all that I have done to compel my heart to share the love of my
body! with what frenzy I have glued my mouth to hers and wound my arms
in her hair, and how tightly I have embraced her rounded, supple figure.
Like Salmacis of old, enamored of the young Hermaphrodite, I have tried to
melt her body and mine together; I have drunk her breath and her warm
tears that bliss forced from the brimming chalice of her eyes. The more

inextricably our bodies were intertwined, the closer our embrace, the less I
loved her. My heart, sitting sadly by, looked on with a pitying air at that
deplorable union to which it was not bidden, or veiled its face in disgust and
wept silently behind the skirt of its cloak. All this is attributable perhaps to
the fact that I do not really love Rosette, worthy to be loved though she be,
and anxious as I am to love her.
To rid myself of the idea that I was myself, I transported myself to most
unusual surroundings, where it was altogether unlikely that I should meet
myself, and being unable to cast my individuality to the dogs, I tried to
expatriate it so that it would no longer recognize itself. I have had but
moderate success therein, for that devil of a myself follows me persistently;
there is no way of getting rid of him; I haven't the resource of sending word
to him, as I do to other uncomfortable callers, that I am not at home or that I
have gone into the country.
I have had my mistress in the bath and I have played the Triton as best I
could.—The sea was a huge marble tub. As for the Nereid, what she
showed accused the water, transparent though it was, of not being
sufficiently so for the exquisite beauty of what it concealed.—I have had
her at night, by moonlight, in a gondola with music.
That would be very commonplace at Venice, but here it is anything but that.
—In her carriage, with the horses going at a gallop, amid the rattling of the
wheels, the leaping and jolting, sometimes by the light of lanterns,
sometimes in the densest darkness.—That doesn't lack a certain stimulating
interest and I advise you to try it: but I forget that you are a venerable
patriarch, and that you don't indulge in such refinements.—I have climbed
in at her window when I had the key to the door in my pocket.—I have
made her come to my apartments in broad daylight, in fact, I have
compromised her so thoroughly that no one—myself excepted, be it
understood—now doubts that she is my mistress.
By reason of all these inventions which, if I were not so young, would
resemble the expedients of a blasé old rake, Rosette adores me far and away
above all others. She sees therein the ardor of a teasing passion that nothing
can restrain, and that is always the same despite the changes of time and
place. She sees therein the constantly renewed effect of her charms and the

triumph of her beauty, and, in truth, I would that she were right, and it is
neither my fault nor hers—I must be just—that she is not.
The only wrong I have done her consists in being myself. If I told her that,
the child would reply at once that that is my greatest merit in her eyes;
which would be more courteous than sensible.
Once—it was in the beginning of our liaison—I believed that I had gained
my end, for a moment I believed that I loved her—I did love her.—O my
friend, I have never lived except during that moment, and if it had lasted an
hour I should have become a god. We had ridden out together in the saddle,
I on my dear Ferragus, she on a snow-white mare that looks like a unicorn,
her feet are so delicate and her body so slender. We rode along a broad
avenue of elms of prodigious height; the sun poured down upon us, bright
and warm, sifting through the serrated foliage; ultra-marine patches showed
here and there amid the fleecy clouds, broad bands of pale blue lay along
the horizon, changing to a most delicate apple-green when they encountered
the golden rays of the setting sun. The appearance of the sky was unusual
and fascinating; the breeze wafted to our nostrils an indefinable perfume of
wild flowers delicious beyond words. From time to time a bird rose in front
of us and flew singing along the avenue. The church-bell of an invisible
village softly rang the Angelus, and the silvery notes, which came but
faintly to our ears because of the distance, were inexpressibly sweet. Our
horses were going at a foot pace, and they walked side by side in such
perfect step that neither of them was an inch ahead of the other.—My heart
dilated and my soul overflowed upon my body. I had never been so happy. I
did not speak, nor did Rosette, and yet we never understood each other so
perfectly. We were so close together that my leg touched her horse's side. I
leaned toward her and put my arm about her waist; she made a similar
movement and rested her head against my shoulder. Our mouths met; O
such a chaste, delicious kiss! Our horses walked on, the reins lying on their
necks. I felt Rosette's arms relax and her body yield more and more. I knew
that my own strength was failing me, and I was near fainting.—Ah! I
promise you that at that moment I cared but little whether I was myself or
somebody else. We rode in that way to the end of the avenue, where the
sound of footsteps caused us abruptly to resume our natural positions; some
of our acquaintances, also in the saddle, rode up and spoke to us. If I had
had my pistols, I believe I should have fired at them.

I glared at them with a fierce, lowering expression that must have seemed
very strange to them. After all, I was wrong to be so angry with them, for
they had unwittingly done me the service of cutting my pleasure short at the
moment when, by its very intensity, it was certain to become pain or to sink
under its violence. The science of stopping in time is not regarded with all
the respect it deserves.—Sometimes, as you lie with a woman, you put your
arm under her waist: at first it is a most blissful sensation to feel the
pleasant warmth of her body, the soft, velvety flesh of her sides, the
polished ivory of her hips, and to press your hand against her breast which
throbs and quivers. The fair one falls asleep in that voluptuous, charming
posture; the curve of her loins becomes less pronounced, the agitation of her
bosom is calmed, her sides rise and fall with the freer, more regular
respiration of sleep, her muscles relax, her face is hidden by her hair.—
Meanwhile the weight upon your arm grows heavier, you begin to observe
that she is a woman, not a sylph; but you would not remove your arm for
anything on earth. There are many reasons for that: the first is that it is
dangerous to wake a woman with whom one is lying; one must be prepared
to substitute for the blissful dream she is probably dreaming, a more blissful
reality; the second is that, if you ask her to raise herself so that you can take
away your arm, you tell her indirectly that she is heavy and discommodes
you—which is not polite—or else you give her to understand that you are
feeble and overdone—an extremely humiliating admission for you and
likely to lower you greatly in her mind; the third is that, as you have had
pleasure in that position, you think that if you retain the position the
pleasure may be renewed, wherein you are mistaken. The poor arm is
caught under the mass that crushes it, the blood is checked, the nerves are
distended and numbness pricks you with its countless needles: you are a
sort of Milo of Crotona on a small scale, and the mattress and the back of
your divinity are a sufficiently accurate representation of the two parts of
the tree that have reunited. Day comes at last to deliver you from your
martyrdom and you leap out of that instrument of torture more eagerly than
ever husband descended from the nuptial scaffold.
That is the history of many passions. It is the history of all pleasures.
However that may be—despite the interruption or because of the
interruption—never had such a blissful sensation fallen to my lot: I felt that
I was really somebody else. Rosette's soul in its entirety had entered into

my body. My soul had left me and filled her heart as hers had filled mine.
They had met, no doubt, during that long equestrian kiss, as Rosette dubbed
it afterward—to my annoyance by the way—and had penetrated and
mingled as inextricably as the souls of two mortal creatures can upon a
morsel of perishable clay.
Angels surely must kiss like that, and the real paradise is not in heaven but
on the lips of the woman we love.
I have waited in vain for such a moment and have tried unsuccessfully to
lead up to a repetition of it. We have often ridden together through the
avenue of elms at sunset on lovely evenings; the trees had the same verdure,
the birds sang the same song, but to us the sun seemed dull, the foliage
withered: the song of the birds had a harsh, discordant sound, we were no
longer in harmony with it all. We brought our horses to a walk and we tried
the same kiss.—Alas! only our lips met and it was only the spectre of the
former kiss.—The beautiful, the sublime, the divine, the only real kiss I
have given and received in my whole life had flown away forever. Since
that day I have always had an inexpressibly sad feeling on returning from
the forest. Rosette, light-hearted madcap that she naturally is, cannot avoid
the feeling and her reverie betrays itself by a sweet little pout, which is at
least as attractive as a smile.
Scarcely anything but the fumes of wine and a great blaze of candles enable
me to shake off these fits of depression. We both drink like men condemned
to death, silently and glass after glass, until we have swallowed the
necessary amount; then we begin to laugh and mock most heartily at what
we call our sentimentality.
We laugh—because we cannot weep. Ah! who will succeed in sowing a tear
in my parched eye?
Why did I enjoy that evening so? It would be very hard for me to say. I was
the same man, Rosette the same woman. It was not my first experience on
horse-back, nor hers; we had already watched the sun set and the spectacle
had touched us no more than a picture, which one admires or not according
as the colors are more or less brilliant. There is more than one avenue of
elms and chestnuts in the world, and that was not the first one we had
ridden through; what then caused us to find such a sovereign fascination
there, what metamorphosed the dead leaves into topazes, the green leaves

into emeralds, gilded all those whirling atoms and changed into pearls all
the drops of water scattered over the greensward, what imparted such sweet
melody to the tones of a bell that was usually discordant and to the
twittering of countless young birds?—There must have been a very
penetrating flavor of poesy in the air, as even our horses seemed to catch the
scent of it.
And yet nothing in the world could be more pastoral and more simple: a
few trees, a few clouds, five or six clumps of wild thyme, a woman, and a
sunbeam over all like a gold chevron on a coat of arms.—There was neither
surprise nor bewilderment in my sensations. I knew perfectly well where I
was. I had never been to that precise spot, but I remembered perfectly the
shape of the trees and the position of the clouds, the white dove that flew
across the sky I had seen flying in the same direction; the little silvery bell,
which I then heard for the first time, had often tinkled in my ears, and its
voice seemed to me like the voice of a friend; although I had never been
there, I had many times passed through that avenue with princesses
mounted on unicorns; my most voluptuous dreams rode there every evening
and my desires had exchanged kisses absolutely like the one exchanged by
myself and Rosette.—There was nothing new to me in that kiss; but it was
as I had thought it would be. It was perhaps the only time in my life that I
have not been disappointed and that the real has seemed to me as beautiful
as the ideal.—If I could find a woman, a landscape, a building, anything
that corresponded as closely to my desires as that moment corresponded to
the moment I had dreamed of, I should have no reason to envy the gods,
and I would gladly renounce my box in paradise.—But, in truth, I do not
believe that any man of flesh and blood could have an hour of such
exquisite enjoyment; two kisses like that would pump a whole life dry and
leave a complete void in a heart and a body.—But no such consideration as
that would stop me; for, not being able to prolong my life indefinitely, I am
ready to die, and I should prefer to die of pleasure rather than of old age or
ennui.
But that woman doesn't exist.—Yes, she does exist; it may be that only a
wall separates us.—Perhaps I jostled her in the street yesterday or to-day.
In what does Rosette fall short of being that woman? In this, that I do not
believe she is. By what fatality do I always have for mistresses, women that
I do not love? Her neck is smooth enough to set off the most beautifully-

wrought necklaces; her fingers are taper enough to do honor to the loveliest
and richest rings; the ruby would blush with pleasure to gleam on the pink
lobe of her delicate ear; the cestus of Venus would fit her waist; but Love
alone has the secret of tying his mother's scarf.
All Rosette's merit is in herself, I have attributed nothing to her that she has
not. I have not cast over her beauty the veil of perfection with which love
envelops the loved one;—the veil of Isis is transparent beside that veil.
Naught but satiety can raise the corner of it.
I do not love Rosette; at least my love for her, if I have any, does not
resemble the ideal I have formed of love. It may be that my ideal is not a
just one, I do not dare to say. Certain it is that it makes me insensible to the
merits of other women, and I have desired no other with any consistency
since I have had her. If she has any reason to be jealous, it is of phantoms
only, about which she worries very little, and yet her most formidable rival
is my imagination; that is something which, with all her shrewdness, she
will probably never discover.
If women only knew!—How many infidelities the least fickle lover is guilty
of to the most adored mistress!—It is to be presumed that they pay us back
in full and more; but they do as we do and say nothing. A mistress is a
necessary subject, who ordinarily disappears under flourishes and
embroidery. Very often the kisses you give her are not for her; you embrace
the idea of another woman in her person, and she profits not infrequently—
if it can be called profiting—by the desires aroused by another. Ah! my
poor Rosette, how many times you have served as a body to my dreams and
given reality to your rivals; to how many infidelities have you unwittingly
been accessory! If you could have imagined, at times when my arms
clasped you so tightly, when my mouth was most closely united to yours,
that your beauty and your love had nothing to do with my passion, that the
thought of you was a hundred leagues from my mind; what if some one had
told you that those eyes, veiled with amorous languor, were cast down
simply in order not to look at you and not to banish the illusion that you
served only to complete, and that, instead of being a mistress, you were
simply an instrument of lust, a means of assuaging a desire impossible of
realization!

O divine creatures, ye lovely virgins, slender and diaphanous, who lower
your periwinkle eyes and clasp your lily hand in the pictures with golden
backgrounds of the old German masters, ye stained-glass saints, ye missal
martyrs who smile so sweetly amid the convolutions of the arabesques, and
come forth so fresh and fair from the flower-bells!—O ye lovely courtesans
lying all naked in your hair on beds strewn with roses, beneath great purple
curtains, with your bracelets and necklaces of huge pearls, your fan and
your mirrors, gleaming in the shadow in the fiery rays of the setting sun!—
ye dark-skinned maidens of Titian, who display so wantonly your
undulating hips, your firm, round thighs, your polished breasts and your
supple and muscular loins!—ye antique goddesses, who rear your white
phantoms in the shady corners of gardens!—ye are a part of my seraglio; I
have possessed you all in turn.—Sainte Ursule, I have kissed your hands on
the fair hands of Rosette; I have toyed with the black hair of the Muranese
and Rosette never had such a hard task to rearrange her hair: I have been
with you more than Acteon was, O virgin Diana, and I have not been
changed to a stag: it was I who replaced your handsome Endymion!—What
a multitude of rivals whom she does not suspect and upon whom she cannot
be revenged! yet they are not all painted or carved!
Women, when you notice that your lover is more affectionate than usual,
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.
Rosette, who is still in love, does what she can to avert all these
inconveniences. Unfortunately there are two things in the world that cannot
be guided: love and ennui.—For my own part I make superhuman efforts to
conquer the drowsiness that steals over me in spite of myself, and like the
provincials who fall asleep at ten o'clock in Parisian salons, I keep my eyes
as wide open as possible and hold up my eyelids with my fingers!—nothing
serves the purpose and I take conjugal liberties that are most unpalatable.
The dear child, who found the rural expedition so successful the other day,
took me off to her country estate yesterday.
It would not be out of place, perhaps, to give you a little description of the
aforesaid estate, which is very attractive; it will lighten up all this
metaphysics a little, and then, too, we must have a background for the

characters, and figures will not stand out in relief against an empty void, or
against the vague shade of brown with which painters fill up the field of
their canvas.
The approach is very picturesque.—Driving through a broad avenue, lined
with venerable trees, you come to a star, the centre of which is marked by a
stone obelisk surmounted by a sphere of gilded copper: five roads form the
points of the star. Then the land suddenly descends. The road plunges down
into a narrow valley, with a small stream flowing at the bottom, which is
crossed by a bridge of a single span; then, ascends the opposite slope, where
the village lies, whose slated church-tower can be seen among the thatched
roofs and the rounded tops of the apple-trees. The view is not very
extensive, for it is limited on both sides by the crest of the hill, but it is
bright and pleasant and rests the eye.—Beside the bridge there is a mill and
a tower-shaped structure built of red stone: almost incessant barking and the
sight of a brach-hound or two and some young terriers with crooked legs
warming themselves in the sun before the door, would inform you that it
was the head-keeper's abode, if the buzzards and martens nailed to the
shutters could leave you for a moment in doubt. At that point an avenue of
sorb-trees begins; the red berries attract clouds of birds; as there is little
passing, there is only a band of white in the middle of the road; all the rest
is covered with short, fine moss, and, in the double rut made by carriage
wheels, little grasshoppers, as green as emeralds, buzz and hop about.
After driving some little distance along this avenue you come to a painted
iron fence, with gilt trimmings, and bristling with spikes and chevaux de
frise. Thence the road leads to the château—which is still invisible, for it is
buried in verdure like a bird in its nest—but its progress is leisurely and it
frequently turns aside to visit a brook and a fountain, a dainty summer-
house or a point from which a fine view can be had, crossing and recrossing
the stream over Chinese or rustic bridges. The inequality of the land and the
dams built for the purposes of the mill cause several waterfalls some four or
five feet in height, and you can imagine nothing more delightful than to
hear the splashing of all these cascades close beside you, but generally out
of sight, for the osiers and elders that line the bank form an almost
impenetrable curtain. But all that part of the park is, so to speak, only the
antechamber of the other part: unfortunately, a public highway passes
through the estate and cuts it in two, a drawback for which a very ingenious

remedy has been devised. Two high crenelated walls, provided with
barbicans and loopholes in imitation of a ruined fortress, stand on each side
of the road; connected with a tower on the château side, completely covered
by gigantic ivy plants, is a genuine drawbridge which is lowered every
morning, by iron chains, upon the opposite bastion. You drive through a
lovely ogive archway inside the tower, and thence into the second
enclosure, where the trees, which have not been cut for more than a century,
are of extraordinary height, with gnarled trunks swathed in parasitic plants
—the handsomest and most curious trees I have ever seen. Some have
leaves only at the very top like broad umbrellas; others taper toward the top
like plumes; others, on the contrary, have a large tuft of foliage near the
bottom, from which the naked trunk rises toward the sky like a second tree
planted in the first; you would say it was the foreground of a landscape
painting or flies painted for a scene on the stage, the trees are so curiously
misshapen;—ivies that reach from one to another and hug them so tight as
to choke them, mingle their dark hearts with the green leaves and seem like
their shadow. Nothing can be more picturesque. The stream widens at that
spot, so as to form a little lake, and it is so shallow that you can see, through
the transparent water, the lovely aquatic plants that carpet its bed. There are
nymphæas and lotuses swimming nonchalantly in the purest crystal with the
reflection of the clouds and the weeping-willows that lean over the bank:
the château is on the other side, and yonder little skiff, painted apple-green
and bright red, will save you a long detour to the bridge. The château is a
collection of buildings built at different periods with gables of unequal
heights and a multitude of little turrets. One ell is of brick with stone
trimmings; another portion is in the rustic style, with quantities of
excrescences and vermiculated work. Another ell is entirely modern; it has
a flat Italian roof with vases and a tile balustrade, and a canvas porch in the
shape of a tent. The windows are all of different sizes and do not
correspond; there are some of all styles, even the trefoil and ogive, for the
chapel is Gothic. Certain parts are trellised, like Chinese houses, with
trellises painted different colors, covered with climbing honeysuckle,
jasmin, nasturtiums, and virgin's bower, whose tendrils look familiarly in at
the chamber windows and seem to put out their hands to you as they say
good-morning.
Despite this lack of regularity, or rather because of it, it is a fascinating
structure; at least, one does not see it all at a single glance; there is an

opportunity for choice and one is always on the lookout for something one
has not seen.
This château, with which I was not familiar, for it is twenty leagues from
town, pleased me immensely at first sight, and I was extremely grateful to
Rosette for conceiving the admirable idea of selecting such a nest for our
love.
We arrived just at nightfall; and, as we were tired, after eating a hearty
supper there was nothing we were so anxious to do as to go to bed—in
separate rooms, mind you, for we intended to sleep in good earnest.
I was dreaming some rose-colored dream, full of flowers and sweet
perfumes and birds, when I felt a warm breath on my forehead and a kiss
descend upon it with quivering wings. A slight smacking of the lips and a
pleasant moisture on the spot breathed upon led me to think that I was not
dreaming: I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was Rosette's cool,
white neck, as she leaned over the bed to kiss me. I threw my arms around
her waist and returned her kiss more passionately than I had done for a long
while.
She went and drew the curtain and opened the window, then returned and
sat on the edge of my bed, holding my hand in hers and playing with my
rings. Her costume was marked by the most coquettish simplicity. She was
without corsets or skirt, and had absolutely nothing on save a lawn peignoir
as white as milk, very ample and full; her hair was held in place on top of
her head by a little white rose of the sort that has only three or four petals;
her ivory feet were encased in embroidered slippers of brilliant, diversified
colors, as small as they possibly could be, although they were too large for
her, and without quarterings like those of the young Roman dames. I
regretted, when I saw her so, that I was already her lover and hadn't the
prospect still before me.

Chapter IV — She went and drew the curtain and opened the window, then returned and
sat on the edge of my bed, holding my hand in hers and playing with my rings. Her
costume was marked by the most coquettish simplicity.

The dream I was dreaming at the moment that she waked me in such
pleasant fashion was not very far removed from the reality.—My chamber
looked on the little lake I described just now. The window was surrounded
by jasmin, which shook its stars over my floor in a silvery shower: large,
exotic flowers swayed in the wind under my balcony as if to waft incense
up to me; a vague, sweet perfume, composed of a thousand different
perfumes, penetrated to my bed, from which I could see the water gleaming
and flashing with millions of spangles; the birds chattered and warbled and
whistled and chirped; it was a confusion of harmonious sounds like the hum
and buzz of a fête.—Opposite, on a hill-side lying in the sunlight, was a
smooth field of a golden green, with fat cattle feeding here and there, under
the care of a small boy.—Higher up the hill and farther away were great
patches of forest of a darker green, above which the bluish smoke of
charcoal-kilns rose in spiral columns.
Every detail of the picture was calm and fresh and smiling, and wherever I
turned my eyes, I saw only what was young and fair. My chamber was hung
with chintz, with mats on the floor, and blue Japanese jars with rounded
bodies and tapering necks, filled with strange flowers, artistically arranged
on étagères and on the dark-blue marble chimney-piece; the fire-place also
was filled with flowers. Panels above the doors, representing rural or
pastoral scenes, bright-colored and daintily executed, sofas and divans in
every nook and corner—and a lovely young woman, all in white, whose
flesh gave a delicate pink tinge to the transparent dress where it came in
contact with it: one can conceive nothing better calculated to give pleasure
to the soul as well as to the eyes.
And so my gratified, careless glance wandered, with equal pleasure, from a
magnificent jar thickly strewn with dragons and mandarins, to Rosette's
slipper, and thence to the corner of her shoulder that glistened under the
lawn; it rested on the fluttering stars of the jasmin and the white hairs of the
willows on the bank, crossed the water and sauntered over the hill-side,
then returned to the chamber to fix itself on the rose-colored ribbons of
some shepherdess's long corset.

Through the openings in the foliage the sky showed millions of blue eyes;
the water rippled gently and I gave myself up to the enjoyment of the
moment, plunged in blissful tranquillity, saying nothing, with my hand still
in Rosette's tiny hands.
It is of no use to talk: happiness is white and pink; it can hardly be
represented otherwise. Delicate colors belong to it as of right. It has on its
palette only sea-green, sky-blue and light yellow: its pictures are all light
like those of the Chinese painters. Flowers, bright light, perfumes, a soft
and velvety skin touching yours, a veiled melody coming from you know
not where,—with those one can be perfectly happy; there is no way of
being happy otherwise. I myself, who have a horror of the commonplace,
who dream only of strange adventures, violent passions, frenzied bliss,
unusual and difficult situations, I must be happy like an animal in that way,
and, whatever I may do, I can find no other.
I beg you to believe that I made none of these reflections at the time; they
have come to me since as I sat here writing to you; at that moment I thought
of nothing but enjoying myself—the only occupation of a reasonable man.
I will not describe the life we lead here, it is easily imagined. There are
walks under the great trees, violets and strawberries, kisses and little blue
flowers, luncheons on the grass, readings and books forgotten under the
trees; water parties with the end of a scarf or a white hand dipping in the
stream, long ballads and long laughter repeated by the echoes of the bank;
—the most Arcadian life imaginable!
Rosette overwhelms me with caresses and little attentions; more amorous
than the dove in May, she twines about me and envelops me in her folds;
she tries to let me breathe no other atmosphere than her breath and see no
other horizon than her eyes; she maintains a very strict blockade and allows
nothing to go in or out without permission; she has built a little guard-house
beside my heart, from which she keeps watch on it night and day.—She
says delightful things to me; she makes very complimentary speeches; she
sits on my knee and acts in my presence exactly like a submissive slave
before her lord and master; all of which suits me very well, for I like such
little humble ways and I have a leaning toward Oriental despotism; she
doesn't do the smallest thing without asking my opinion, and seems to have
completely laid aside her own fancy and her will; she tries to divine my

thought and anticipate it; she crushes me with her wit, her affection and her
submission; she is perfect enough to throw out of the window.—How in the
devil can I leave a woman so adorable without seeming to be a monster? It
would be enough to discredit my heart forever.
Oh! how I would like to catch her tripping, to find some grievance against
her! how impatiently I await an opportunity for a quarrel! but there is no
danger that the hussy will give me one! When I speak sharply to her, in a
harsh tone, to bring about a quarrel, she answers me so sweetly, in such a
silvery voice, with her eyes swimming in tears, and such a sad, loving
expression, that I seem to myself to be more than a tiger, or at least a
crocodile, and, inwardly raging, I am forced to ask her pardon.
She is literally murdering me with love; she puts me to the question and
every day she draws closer the planks between which I am caught. She
probably wants to drive me to tell her that I detest her, that she bores me to
death, and that, if she doesn't leave me in peace, I will slash her face with
my hunting crop. Pardieu! she will succeed, and if she continues to be as
amiable, it will be before long or may the devil carry me off!
Notwithstanding all this fine show, Rosette is surfeited with me as I am
with her; but as she has done some notoriously foolish things for me, she
doesn't want to take to herself the discredit of a rupture in the eyes of the
excellent corporation of sensible women. Every great passion claims to be
everlasting, and it is very convenient to assume the credit of that
everlastingness without suffering its disadvantages.—Rosette reasons thus:
—"Here is a young man who has hardly a vestige of fondness left for me,
and, as he is simple-minded and easy-going, he doesn't dare show it openly
and doesn't know which way to turn: it is plain that I bore him, but he will
wear his life out in the toils rather than take it on himself to leave me. As he
is a poet after a fashion, he has his head full of fine phrases about love and
passion, and considers himself bound in conscience to be a Tristan or an
Amadis. Now, as nothing in the world is more insupportable than the
caresses of a person one is beginning not to love—and to cease to love a
woman is to hate her intensely—I propose to lavish them on him in a way
to sicken him, and the result will be either that he will send me to the devil
or will begin to love me again as he did on the first day, which he will take
very good care not to do."

No reasoning could be better.—Isn't it charming to play the part of the
abandoned Ariadne?—People pity you and admire you, and there are no
imprecations strong enough for the infamous wretch who has been so
inhuman as to abandon such an adorable creature; you assume an air of
grieved resignation, you put your hand under your chin and your elbow on
your knee so as to show off the pretty blue veins in your wrist. You wear
your hair more dishevelled, and your dresses for some little time are of
soberer hue. You avoid mentioning the ingrate's name, but you make
roundabout allusions to him, at the same time heaving beautifully
modulated little sighs.
A woman so good, so beautiful, so passionate, who has made such great
sacrifices, who has done nothing worthy of blame, a chosen vessel, a pearl
of love, a spotless mirror, a drop of milk, a white rose, an ideal essence to
perfume a life;—a woman whom you should have adored on your knees,
and who will have to be cut in little pieces after her death, to make relics:—
such a woman to be abandoned iniquitously, villainously, fraudulently!
Why a pirate would do no worse! To give her her death-blow!—for she
certainly will die of it.—One must have a paving-stone in his breast, instead
of a heart, to act so.
O men! men!
I say this to myself, but perhaps it's not true.
However great actresses women naturally are, I find it hard to believe that
they carry it as far as that; and, when all is said, are all Rosette's
demonstrations simply the exact expression of her sentiments for me?—
However it may be, the continuation of the tête-à-tête is impossible, and the
fair chatelaine has at last issued invitations to her acquaintances in the
neighborhood. We are busily engaged making preparations to receive the
worthy provincials.—Adieu, my dear fellow.

V

I was mistaken.—My evil heart, incapable of love, seized upon that reason
to deliver itself from the burden of a gratitude it did not wish to bear; I
joyfully grasped that idea to excuse myself to my own conscience; I clung
fast to it, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Rosette was not
playing a part, and if ever woman was true, she is the woman.—Ah! well! I
am almost angry with her for the sincerity of her passion, which is an
additional bond and makes a rupture more difficult or less excusable; I
would prefer her to be false and fickle.
What an extraordinary position! You long to go, but you stay; you long to
say: "I hate you," but you say: "I love you;"—your past urges you forward
and prevents you from turning back or stopping. You are faithful and you
regret it. An indefinable sense of shame prevents your abandoning yourself
altogether to other acquaintances and leads you to compromise with
yourself. You give to one all you can steal from the other and at the same
time keep up appearances; the opportunities for meeting which formerly
came about so naturally are very hard to find to-day.—You begin to
remember that you have business of importance.—Such a perplexing
situation as that is very painful, but it is much less so than my present
situation.—When it is a new friendship that steals you from the old, it is
easier to extricate yourself. Hope smiles sweetly upon you from the
threshold of the house that contains your new-born love.—A fairer and
rosier illusion hovers on its white wings over the scarce-closed tomb of its
sister who has died; another flower, blooming more radiantly and of sweeter
perfume, upon whose petals trembles a celestial tear, has suddenly sprung
forth from among the withered calyxes of the old bouquet;—lovely, azure-
hued perspectives open before you; avenues of fresh and unpretentious
beeches stretch away to the horizon; there are gardens with white statues
here and there, or a bench against an ivy-covered wall, lawns dotted with
marguerites, narrow balconies, on whose rails you lean and gaze at the
moon, and shadows cut by fleeting rays of light;—salons from which the
daylight is excluded by heavy curtains;—all the darkness and isolation that
the passion craves which dares not avow itself. It is as if your youth had
come again. You have, moreover, a complete change of haunts and habits
and persons; you feel a sort of remorse, to be sure; but the desire that
flutters and hums about your head, like a bee in spring, prevents your
hearing its voice; the void in your heart is filled and your memories are
effaced by present impressions,—But in my case it is different: I love no

one and it is from weariness and disgust with myself rather than with her
that I wish I were able to break with Rosette.
My former ideas, which had become a little indistinct in my mind, are
coming to the front again, more foolish than ever.—I am, as formerly,
tortured by the longing to have a mistress, and, as formerly, even in
Rosette's arms I doubt whether I have ever had one.—I see once more the
lovely lady at her window, in her park of the time of Louis XIII., and the
huntress on her white horse gallops along the forest path.—My ideal beauty
smiles upon me from her hammock of clouds, I fancy that I recognize her
voice in the song of the birds, in the rustling of the foliage; it seems to me
that some one is calling me from every direction, and that the daughters of
the air brush my face with the fringe of their invisible scarfs. As in the days
of my agitation, I imagine that, if I should set out instantly and go
somewhere very far away at great speed, I should reach some place where
things that concern me are taking place and where my destiny is being
decided.—I feel that somebody is impatiently awaiting my coming in some
corner of the earth, I don't know where. Some suffering soul who cannot
come to me is calling eagerly to me and dreaming of me; that is the reason
of my uneasiness and of my inability to remain in one place; I am being
violently drawn away from my centre. Mine is not one of those natures to
which others flock, one of those fixed stars about which other radiant
bodies gravitate; I must needs wander through the expanse of heaven like
an erratic meteor, until I have fallen in with the planet whose satellite I am
to be, the Saturn about whom I am to pass my ring. Oh! when will that
union take place? Until then I cannot hope for rest or peace of mind, but I
shall be like the bewildered, vacillating needle of a compass, seeking its
pole.
I allowed my wing to be caught in the deceitful snare, hoping to leave only
a feather there and to retain the power to fly away when it seemed good to
me: nothing could be more difficult; I find myself covered by an invisible
net, harder to break than the one forged by Vulcan, and the mesh is so fine
and close that there are no openings through which I can escape. The net is
large and roomy, however, and I can move about in it with an appearance of
freedom; it is hardly perceptible except when you try to break it; but then it
resists and becomes as firm as a wall of brass.

How much time I have lost, O my ideal! without the slightest effort to
realize thee! How basely I have yielded to the temptation of a night's
pleasure! and how little I deserve to meet thee!
Sometimes I think of forming another liaison; but I have no one in view;
more frequently I make up my mind that, if I succeed in bringing about a
rupture, I will never again involve myself in such bonds, and yet there is
nothing to justify that resolution, for the present connection has been, to all
appearance, a very happy one and I have no reason in the world for
complaining of Rosette.—She has always been kind to me, and has behaved
as well as any one could; she has been exemplarily faithful to me and has
not given an opening for suspicion; the most alert and most anxious
jealousy could have had no word of blame for her and must have slept in
security.—A jealous man could have been jealous only of the past; in that
direction, it is true, there was ample ground for jealousy. But luckily,
jealousy of that sort is a very rare article, and one has quite enough to do to
look after the present without going back to fumble under the ashes of
extinct passion for phials of poison and cups of gall.—What woman could a
man love, if he thought of all that?—You may have a sort of vague idea that
a woman has had several lovers before you; but you say to yourself—a
man's pride has so many tortuous folds and counterfolds!—that you are the
first she has really loved, and that it was through a combination of fatal
circumstances that she became connected with men unworthy of her, or else
through a vague craving of a heart that sought to satisfy itself and changed
because it had not met its affinity.
Perhaps one can really love none but a virgin—a virgin in body and in mind
—a fragile bud that has never been caressed as yet by any zephyr and
whose carefully hidden breast has neither received the drop of rain nor the
pearl of dew; a chaste flower that displays its white robe for you alone, a
beautiful lily with a silver urn at which no desire has slaked its thirst and
which has been gilded only by your sun, swayed by no breath but yours,
watered by no hand but yours.—The glare of the noonday sun is less
agreeable than the divine pallor of the dawn, and all the ardor of an
experienced heart that knows what life is, yields the palm to the celestial
ignorance of a youthful heart just awaking to love.—Ah! what a bitter,
degrading thought it is that you are wiping away another's kisses, that there
may not be a single spot upon that brow, those lips, that bosom, those

shoulders, that whole body which is yours now, that has not been reddened
and branded by other lips; that those divine murmurs which come to the
relief of the tongue that can find no more words of love, have been heard
before; that those excited senses did not learn their ecstasy and their
delirium from you, and that away, away down in one of those recesses of
the heart which are never visited, there lives an inexorable memory which
compares the joys of an earlier day to the joys of to-day!
Although my natural nonchalance leads me to prefer the high roads to
unbroken paths, and the public watering-trough to the mountain spring, I
absolutely must try to love some virginal creature as spotless as the snow, as
timid as the sensitive plant, who can only blush and look down; it may be
that, from that limpid stream, which no diver has as yet investigated, I shall
fish up a pearl of the fairest water, worthy to be a pendant to Cleopatra's;
but, in order to do that, I should have to cast off the bond that binds me to
Rosette,—for I am not likely to realize that longing with her,—and to tell
the truth, I do not feel strong enough to do it.
And then, too, if I must make the confession, there is at the bottom of my
heart a secret, shameful motive, which dares not show itself in broad
daylight, but which I must tell you of, since I have promised to conceal
nothing from you, and a confession, to be deserving of credit, must be
complete;—the motive I speak of has much to do with all this uncertainty.
—If I break with Rosette, some time must necessarily pass before her place
is filled, however easy of access the class of women may be among whom I
shall seek her successor; and I have fallen into a habit of enjoying myself
with her which it will be hard for me to break off. To be sure I have the
resource of courtesans; I liked them well enough in the old days and I did
not hesitate to resort to them under such circumstances;—but to-day they
disgust me beyond measure and make me ill.—So I must not think of them,
and I am so softened by indulgence, the poison has penetrated so deep into
my bones that I cannot bear the idea of being one or two months without a
woman.—That is pure egoism of the basest kind; but it is my opinion that
the most virtuous men, if they would be perfectly frank, would have to
make nearly a similar confession.
That is the true secret of my captivity and, if it weren't for that, Rosette and
I would long ago have fallen out for good and all. Indeed it is such a deathly
bore to pay court to a woman, that I haven't the heart to attempt it. To begin

again the charming idiocies I have already said so many times, to play the
adorable once more, to write notes and reply to them; to escort the charmer,
in the evening, to some place two leagues away; to catch cold in your feet
and your head standing in front of the window watching a beloved shadow;
to sit upon a sofa calculating how many thicknesses of tissue separate you
from your goddess; to carry bouquets and go the round of the ball-rooms to
reach the point where I now am, is a vast deal of trouble!—It's about as well
to remain in one's rut.—What is the use of leaving it, only to fall into
another exactly like it, after much unnecessary agitation and untold trouble?
If I were in love, the thing would go of itself and it would all seem perfectly
delightful to me; but I am not, although I have the most earnest desire to be;
for, after all, there is nothing but love in the world; and if pleasure, which is
only its shadow, has so many allurements for us, what must the reality be?
In what an ocean of ineffable bliss, in what seas of pure, unalloyed delight
must they swim whose hearts Love has pierced with one of his gold-tipped
arrows, and who burn with the delicious warmth of a mutual flame!
Beside Rosette I feel that insipid tranquillity, that sort of slothful well-being
which results from the satisfaction of the senses, but nothing more; and that
is not enough. Often that voluptuous indolence turns to torpor, and that
tranquillity to ennui; thereupon I fall into aimless meditation and dull,
spiritless reveries that weary and harass me;—it is a state of things that I
must put an end to at any price.
Oh! if I could only be like some of my friends, who kiss an old glove with
ecstasy; who are made perfectly happy by a clasp of the hand; who would
not exchange for a sultana's jewel-case a few wretched flowers half-
withered by the heat of the ball-room; who cover with tears and sew into
their shirt, where it will rest against the heart, a note written in an inelegant
style and so stupid that you would think it was copied from the Parfait
Secrétaire; who adore women with large feet and apologize for them on the
ground that they have noble souls! If I could follow tremblingly the
vanishing folds of a dress, or wait for a door to open in order to see a
cherished white apparition pass in a blaze of light; if a word spoken beneath
the breath would make me change color; if I had the virtue to go without
my dinner so as to arrive sooner at a rendezvous; if I were capable of killing
a rival or fighting a duel with a husband; if by a special dispensation of
Providence, I were endowed with the power of considering ugly women

clever, and those who are ugly and stupid as well, pleasant and agreeable; if
I could make up my mind to dance the minuet and to listen to sonatas
played by young ladies on the harpsichord or harp; if my capacity should
rise to the height of learning ombre and reversis; in short, if I were a man
and not a poet—I certainly should be much happier than I am; I should be
less bored myself and should bore others less.
I have never asked but one thing of women—beauty; I am very willing to
go without intellect and soul.—In my eyes a beautiful woman is always
intellectual;—she knows enough to be beautiful, and I know no other
knowledge as valuable as that.—It takes many sparkling sentences and keen
shafts of wit to equal the value of the flash of a lovely eye. I prefer a pretty
mouth to a pretty speech, and a well-modeled shoulder to a virtue, even one
of the theological sort; I would give fifty souls for a dainty foot, and all
poetry and all the poets for the hand of Joanna of Aragon, or the brow of
Foligno's virgin.—Above all things I adore a beautiful figure; to my mind
beauty is manifest Divinity, palpable happiness, heaven come down to
earth.—There are certain undulations of outline, certain turns of the lip, a
certain droop of the eyelids, certain inclinations of the head, certain
elongations of the profile which enchant me beyond all expression and fix
my attention for whole hours.
Beauty, the only thing that cannot be acquired, inaccessible forever to those
who haven't it at first; an ephemeral and fragile flower that grows without
being sown, a pure gift from heaven!—O beauty, the most radiant diadem
with which chance can crown the human brow—thou art admirable and
precious like everything that is beyond man's reach, like the azure of the
firmament, like the gold of the star, like the perfume of the seraphic lily!—
Man may change his stool for a throne, may conquer the world; many have
done it; but who could fail to kneel before thee, thou pure personification of
God's thoughts?
I ask only beauty, it is true; but I must have beauty so perfect that I probably
shall never find it. I have seen here and there women who were admirably
beautiful in some respects but only mediocre in others, and I have loved
them for what was best in them, ignoring the rest; it is a difficult task,
however, and painful, to suppress thus the half of one's mistress, and to
amputate mentally the ugly or commonplace portions of her anatomy,
limiting one's glances to what points of beauty she may have.—Beauty is

harmony, and a woman who is equally ugly in all parts is often less
disagreeable to look at than one who is unevenly beautiful. Nothing offends
my sight so much as an unfinished masterpiece, or beauty in which
something is lacking; a grease-spot is less offensive upon coarse sackcloth
than upon rich silk.
Rosette is not ill-favored; she might be considered beautiful, but she is far
from realizing the ideal of my dreams; she is a statue, several portions of
which have been completed. The others are not so sharply cut from the
block; there are some parts brought out with much skill and charm, and
others more carelessly and hurriedly. To ordinary eyes the statue seems
entirely completed and perfectly beautiful; but a more careful observer soon
discovers places where the work is not close enough, and outlines which
need to be touched and retouched many times by the workman's nail before
attaining the purity that belongs to them;—it is for love to polish the marble
and complete it, which is equivalent to saying that I shall not be the one to
do it.
However, I do not confine beauty to this or that particular form or contour.
—The manner, the gesture, the gait, the breath, the coloring, the voice, the
perfume, everything that is a part of life enters into the composition of
beauty in my estimation; everything that sings or shines or perfumes the air
is rightfully a part of beauty.—I love rich brocades, gorgeous stuffs with
their ample and stately folds; I love great flowers and jars of perfume,
transparent running water and the gleaming surface of fine weapons,
blooded horses and the great white dogs that we see in Paul Veronese's
pictures. I am a genuine heathen in that respect, and I do not adore
misshapen gods;—although I am not at heart exactly what is called
irreligious, there are few who are in fact worse Christians than myself. I do
not understand the mortification of the flesh that forms the essence of
Christianity, I consider it a sacrilegious act to lay hands upon God's work,
and I do not believe that the flesh is wicked, since He Himself moulded it
with His own fingers and in His own image. I think but little of the long
sober-hued frocks from which only a head and two hands emerge, or of the
pictures in which everything is drowned in shadow except some one radiant
brow. I want the sun to shine everywhere, to have as much light and as little
shadow as possible, the bright colors to gleam, the lines to undulate, the

nude body to exhibit itself proudly and the flesh not to lie hidden, since it,
as well as the spirit, is a never-ending hymn to the praise of God.
I can understand perfectly the wild enthusiasm of the Greeks for beauty;
and for my part I can see nothing absurd in the law that compelled the
judges to listen to the arguments of the lawyers in some dark place, lest
their noble bearing, the grace of their gestures and attitudes should
prejudice the judges in their favor and throw undue weight into the scales.
I would buy nothing of an ugly shopwoman; I give alms more freely to
beggars whose rags and emaciation have a touch of the picturesque. There
is a little fever-ridden Italian, as green as an unripe lemon, with great black
and white eyes that take up half of his face;—you would say he was an
unframed Murillo or Espagnolet exposed for sale on the sidewalk by a
second-hand dealer:—he always gets two sous more than the others. I
would never whip a handsome horse or a handsome dog, and I would not
care for a friend or a servant who is not pleasant to look at.—It is downright
torture to me to look at ugly things or ugly people.—Bad taste in
architecture, a piece of furniture of ugly shape, prevent my enjoying myself
in a house, however comfortable and attractive it may otherwise be. The
best wine seems to me almost sour in an ungraceful glass, and I confess that
I would prefer the most unsubstantial broth on one of Bernard of Palissy's
enamelled plates to the most toothsome game on an earthen platter.—The
exterior of things has always exerted a powerful influence upon me, and
that is why I avoid the society of old men; they irritate me and affect me
disagreeably because they are wrinkled and deformed, although some of
them have some special beauty; and in the pity that I feel for them there is
much disgust;—of all earthly ruins, the ruin of man is assuredly the saddest
to contemplate.
If I were a painter—and I have always regretted that I am not—I should
people my canvases with none but goddesses, madonnas, nymphs,
cherubim, and loves. To devote one's brush to painting portraits, unless of
beautiful people, seems to me a crime against the majesty of the art; and, far
from seeking to duplicate those mean or ugly faces, those insignificant or
vulgar heads, I should incline toward ordering the originals to be cut off.
The ferocity of Caligula, if diverted in that direction, would seem to me
almost praiseworthy.

The only thing on earth that I have desired with any constancy, is to be
beautiful.—By beautiful, I mean as beautiful as Paris or Apollo. To have no
deformity, to have features almost regular, that is to say, to have the nose in
the centre of the face and neither flat nor hooked, eyes that are neither red
nor bloodshot, a mouth of suitable dimensions, is not to be beautiful: on that
theory I should be, and I consider myself as far removed from my ideal of
virile beauty as if I were one of the puppets that strike the hour on church-
bells; if I had a mountain on each shoulder, the crooked legs of a terrier and
the muzzle of a monkey, I should resemble it as closely. Often and often I
sit and look at myself in the mirror, for hours at a time, with incredible
fixity and close scrutiny, to see if my face has not improved in some degree;
I wait for the outlines to make a movement and straighten out or take on a
more graceful and purer curve, for my eye to brighten and swim in a more
sparkling fluid, for the hollow that separates my forehead from my nose to
fill up, and for my profile thus to become as simple and regular as the
Greek profile; and I am always greatly surprised that it does not happen. I
am always in hopes that some spring or autumn I shall cast off my present
shape as a serpent casts his old skin.—To think that I need so little to be
handsome and that I never shall be! What! half a hair's breadth, the
hundredth or the thousandth part of a hair's breadth more or less in one
place or another, a little less flesh on this bone, a little more on that—a
painter or sculptor would have it all arranged in half an hour. What was it
that made the atoms of which I am composed crystallize in this way or that?
Why need that outline bulge out here and sink in there, and why was it
necessary that I should be thus and not otherwise?—Upon my word if I had
chance by the throat, I believe I would strangle him.—Because it pleased a
vile mass of I don't know what to fall from I don't know where and
coagulate stupidly into the awkward creature that I visibly am, I shall be
miserable forever! Isn't it the most absurd and pitiful thing in the world?
How is it that my soul, although eagerly longing to do so, cannot let the
poor carcass that it now holds erect, fall prostrate, and enter into and
animate one of those statues whose exquisite beauty saddens and ravishes
it? There are two or three people whom it would give me the greatest
pleasure to assassinate, taking care, however, not to bruise or mar them, if I
knew the word by which souls are made to pass from one to another.—It
has always seemed to me that, in order to do what I wish—and I don't know
what I do wish—I needed very great and perfect beauty, and I fancy that if I

had had it, my life, which is so entangled and harassed, would have been
just the same.
We see so many lovely faces in pictures!—why is not one of them mine?—
so many charming faces disappearing under the dust and decay of time in
the recesses of old galleries! Would it not be better for them to leave their
frames and bloom anew on my shoulders? Would Raphaël's reputation
suffer greatly if one of the angels whom he drew in swarms flying about in
the deep blue of his pictures, should turn his mask over to me for thirty
years? There are so many parts of his frescoes, and among them some of the
most beautiful, that have scaled off and fallen because of their age! No one
would notice. What have the silent beauties to do that hang around those
walls, and at whom men scarcely cast an absent-minded glance? and why
has not God or chance the wit to do what a man does with a few hairs stuck
in the end of a stick and pigments of different colors mixed together on a
board?
My first sensation before one of those marvellous faces whose painted
glance seems to look through you and into infinite space beyond, is
profound amazement and admiration not unmixed with terror: tears fill my
eyes, my heart beats fast; then, when I have become a little accustomed to it
and have penetrated farther into the secret of its beauty, I mentally draw a
comparison between it and myself; deep down in my soul jealousy writhes
in knots more intricate than a viper's, and it is with the utmost difficulty that
I refrain from throwing myself upon the canvas and tearing it in pieces.
To be beautiful, that is to say, to have in yourself such a charm that every
one smiles upon you and welcomes you; that every one is prepossessed in
your favor and inclined to be of your opinion, even before you have spoken;
that you have only to pass through a street or show yourself on a balcony to
raise up friends or mistresses for yourself in the crowd. To have no need to
be lovable in order to be loved, to be exempt from all the expenditure of wit
and complaisance which ugliness makes incumbent upon you, and to be
excused from having the thousand and one moral qualities that one must
have to supplement physical beauty—what a superb, magnificent gift!
And he who should combine supreme strength with supreme beauty, who,
beneath Antinous's skin, should have the muscles of Hercules,—what more
could he desire? I am sure that with those two things and the mind that I

now have I should be emperor of the world within three years!—Another
thing that I have longed for almost as much as beauty and strength is the
gift of transporting myself from one place to another with the swiftness of
thought. Angelic beauty, the strength of the tiger and the wings of the eagle,
and I should begin to conclude that the world is not so badly organized as I
used to think.—A beautiful mask to charm and fascinate the prey, wings to
pounce down upon it and carry it off, nails to tear it to pieces;—so long as I
have not those I shall be unhappy.
All the passions and all the tastes I have had have been simply disguised
forms of those three desires. I have loved weapons, horses, women:
weapons to replace the muscles I had not; horses to serve as wings; women,
so that I might possess in some one the beauty that I lacked myself. I sought
in preference the most ingeniously deadly weapons, and those whose
wounds were incurable. I have never had occasion to use any of the krises
or yataghans, yet I like to have them around me; I take them from their
scabbards with an indescribable sense of security and power, I lay about me
in every direction with the greatest energy, and if by chance I see the
reflection of my face in a mirror, I am astonished at its ferocious expression.
—As for my horses, I override them so that they must either founder or say
why.—If I hadn't given up riding Ferragus he would have died long ago,
and it would be a pity, for he's a fine beast. What Arabian steed ever had
limbs so fleet as my desire? In women I have not looked below the exterior,
and as those whom I have seen thus far are a long way from fulfilling my
ideal of beauty, I have fallen back upon pictures and statues; which, after
all, is a pitiful expedient when one's senses are so inflammable as mine.
However, there is something grand and noble about loving a statue, for it is
a perfectly disinterested love, you have to dread neither satiety nor distaste
with your triumph, and you cannot reasonably hope for a second miracle
like the story of Pygmalion.—The impossible always had a charm for me.
Is it not strange that I, who am still in the fairest months of youth, who have
not even used the simplest things, much less abused anything, have reached
such a degree of satiety that I am tempted only by what is unusual or
difficult of accomplishment?—That satiety follows enjoyment is a natural
law and easily understood. Nothing is more easily explained than that a man
who has eaten heartily of every dish at a banquet should no longer be
hungry and should try to stimulate his benumbed palate by the thousand

stings of condiments or dry wines; but that a man who has just taken his
seat at the table and has hardly tasted the first course, should already be
assailed with that superb disgust, should be unable to touch without
vomiting any except highly-seasoned dishes, and should like only gamey
meats, cheese with blue streaks running through it, truffles and wine that
smells of the flint, is a phenomenon that can result only from a peculiar
constitution; it is as if a child of six months should deem his nurse's milk
insipid and refuse to suck anything but brandy. I am as exhausted as if I had
performed all the prodigious feats of Sardanapalus and yet my life has been
apparently very chaste and peaceful; it is a mistake to think that possession
is the only road leading to satiety. We arrive there also through desire, and
abstinence is more exhausting than excess.—Such a desire as mine is more
fatiguing than possession. Its glance envelops and penetrates the object
which it longs to have and which gleams above it, more swiftly and more
deeply than if it were in contact with it. What more could use teach it? what
experience can equal that constant, passionate contemplation?
I have gone through so much, although I have travelled very little, that only
the steepest peaks tempt me now. I am attacked by the disease that fastens
upon nations and powerful men in their old age—the impossible. Anything
that I can do has not the slightest attraction for me. Tiberius, Caligula, Nero,
ye great Romans of the Empire, whom posterity has so ill understood, and
whom the pack of ranters pursues with its yelping, I suffer with your
disease and I pity you with all the pity I have left in my heart! I, too, would
like to bridge the sea and pave its waves; I have dreamed of burning cities
to illuminate my fêtes; I have longed to be a woman to learn new forms of
pleasure. Thy golden palace, O Nero, is only a filthy stable beside the
palace I have built; my wardrobe is better furnished than thine,
Heliogabalus, and much more magnificent.—My circuses are noisier and
bloodier than yours, my perfumes more acrid and more penetrating, my
slaves more numerous and of better figure; I also have nude courtesans
harnessed to my chariot, I have walked over men's bodies with as disdainful
heel as you. Colossi of the ancient world, there beats behind my feeble ribs
a heart as great as yours, and if I had been in your places I would have done
all that you have done and perhaps more. How many Babels have I piled
one upon another to reach the sky, to cudgel the stars and spit upon all
creation! Why am I not God—as I cannot be man?

Oh! I believe that I shall need a hundred thousand centuries of nothingness
to rest from the fatigue of these twenty years of life.—God in heaven, what
stone will You roll down upon me? into what darkness will You plunge me?
from what Lethe will You make me drink? beneath what mountain will You
entomb the Titan? Am I destined to breathe a volcano through my mouth
and to cause earthquakes when I turn from side to side?
When I think of this, that I was born of a gentle, resigned mother, simple in
her tastes and manners, I am surprised that I did not burst her womb when
she was carrying me. How does it happen that none of her calm, pure
thoughts passed into my body with the blood she transmitted to me? and
why must it be that I am the son of her flesh only, not of her mind? The
dove begat a tiger who would like to have all creation fall a prey to his
claws.
I grew up amid the most chaste and tranquil surroundings. It is difficult to
imagine an existence in a setting so pure as mine. My years were passed in
the shadow of my mother's easy-chair, with my little sisters and the house-
dog. I saw about me only the kindly, placid faces of old servants who had
grown gray in our service and were in a certain sense hereditary, of grave,
sententious relations or friends, dressed in black, who placed their gloves
one after another in their hat brims; a few aunts of uncertain age, plump and
neat and sedate, with dazzling linen, gray skirts, thread mitts, and hands
upon their waist-bands like people of a religious turn of mind; furniture
severely simple to the point of melancholy, bare oak wainscoting, leather
hangings—a gloomy, sober-hued interior such as some Flemish masters
have painted. The garden was damp and dark; the box that marked the
divisions, the ivy that covered the walls, and a few firs with bare branches
were entrusted with the duty of representing verdure there and had but ill
success; the brick house, with its very high roof, although roomy and in
good condition, had something dull and drowsy about it. Certainly nothing
could be better adapted to prepare one for a secluded, austere, melancholy
life than such a place of abode. It seemed as if all the children brought up in
such a house must inevitably end by becoming priests or nuns: ah well! in
that atmosphere of purity and repose, amid that gloom and meditation, I
rotted away little by little, without any outward sign, like a medlar on the
straw. In the bosom of that upright, pious, saintly family I reached a
horrible depth of depravity.—It was not contact with the world, for I had

never seen it; nor the fire of passion, for I was benumbed in the icy sweat
that oozed from those stout walls.—The worm did not crawl from the heart
of another fruit to my heart. It came to life of itself where my pulp was
thickest and gnawed and furrowed it in every direction: but nothing
appeared outside and warned me that I was tainted at the core. I had neither
spot nor worm-hole; but I was all hollow inside and nothing remained but a
thin bright-colored pellicle, which the slightest blow would have broken.—
Is it not an inexplicable thing that a child born of virtuous parents, brought
up with care and judgment, kept at a distance from everything bad, should
become perverted all by himself to such an extent, and reach the point I
have reached? I am sure that, even if you should go back to the sixth
generation, you would not find among my ancestors a single atom like those
of which I am made. I do not belong to my own family; I am not an
offshoot of that noble trunk, but a poisonous toadstool planted among its
mossy roots on some dark, stormy night; and yet no one ever had more
aspirations, more impulses towards the beautiful than I, no one ever tried
more obstinately to spread his wings; but every attempt has made my fall
the greater and the things that should have saved me have been my ruin.
Solitude has a worse effect upon me than society, although I desire the first
more than the second. Whatever takes me out of myself is salutary; society
bores me, but it tears me by force from the vain reverie whose winding
staircase I ascend and descend, with bent head and folded arms. And so,
since one tête-à-tête came to an end and there have been people here with
whom I am compelled to put some constraint upon myself, I am less subject
to my black moods and am less tormented by those immeasurable longings
that pounce upon my heart like a swarm of vultures, as soon as I am left for
a moment without occupation. There are some very pretty women and one
or two young men who are very pleasant and jovial; but of all this swarm of
provincials, the one who has the most charm for me is a young cavalier who
arrived two or three days ago. He took my fancy at the very first, and I
became fond of him simply from seeing him alight from his horse. It is
impossible to be more graceful; he is not very tall, but slender and well set-
up; there is something supple and undulating in his gait and his movements,
which is pleasing beyond expression; many women would envy him his
hand and foot. His only defect is that he is too beautiful and has too delicate
features for a man. He is blessed with a pair of the loveliest and blackest
eyes in the world, which have an expression impossible to define and a

glance that it is not easy to sustain; but, as he is very young and has no sign
of a beard, the softness and perfection of the lower part of his face temper
somewhat the vivacity of those eagle eyes; his glossy, brown hair falls over
his neck in great curls and gives his head a character of its own.—Here then
at last is one of the types of beauty I have dreamed of, made flesh, and
actually before my eyes! What a pity that it's a man, or what a pity that I am
not a woman! This Adonis, who, in addition to his lovely face, has a very
keen intellect of very wide range, still enjoys the privilege of having at the
service of his bright remarks and his jests, a voice of a silvery and
penetrating quality which it is difficult to hear without emotion.—He is
really perfect.—It seems that he shares my taste for beautiful things, for his
clothes are very rich and well chosen, his horse very spirited and a
thoroughbred; and, in order that everything might be complete and well
assorted, he had behind him, riding a pony, a page of some fourteen or
fifteen years, fair-haired, pink-cheeked, pretty as a seraph, who was half
asleep, and so exhausted by his long ride that his master was obliged to lift
him from his saddle and carry him to his room in his arms.
Rosette welcomed him very warmly and I think she has formed a plan to
use him to arouse my jealousy and thus kindle the tiny flame that is
sleeping under the ashes of my passion. However redoubtable such a rival
may be, I am little inclined to be jealous of him, and I am so attracted to
him that I would gladly abandon my love to secure his friendship.

Chapter V — A page of some fourteen or fifteen years, fair-haired, pink-cheeked, pretty as
a seraph, who was half asleep, and so exhausted by his long ride that his master was
obliged to lift him from his saddle and carry him to his room in his arms.

VI

At this point, with the permission of the indulgent reader, we propose to
abandon for some little time to his meditations, the worthy personage who
has thus far occupied the stage all by himself and has spoken in his own
behalf, and to adopt the ordinary form of the novel, reserving the right,
however, to resume the dramatic form hereafter, if occasion should arise,
and to draw still farther upon the species of epistolary confession that the
aforesaid young man addressed to his friend, being fully persuaded that,
however penetrating and sagacious we may be, we certainly cannot know
so much about him as he knows about himself.
The little page was so overdone that he slept in his master's arms, and his
little head, with its hair all in disorder, rolled from side to side as if he were
dead. It was some distance from the stoop to the apartment set aside for the
new arrival, and the servant who escorted him offered to take his turn at
carrying the child; but the young gentleman, to whom the burden seemed no
more than a feather-weight, thanked him and declined to relinquish it; he
laid him gently on the couch, taking the utmost care to avoid waking him; a
mother could have done no better. When the servant had retired and the
door was closed, he knelt beside him and tried to remove his boots; but his
little feet were so swollen and painful that the operation was a difficult one,
and the pretty sleeper uttered from time to time vague, inarticulate
exclamations, like a person who is on the point of waking; thereupon the
young gentleman would stop and wait until he was sound asleep again. The
boots yielded at last and the most important point was gained; the stockings
made little resistance.—This operation at an end, the master took the child's
feet and placed them side by side on the velvet covering of the sofa; surely
they were the two loveliest feet in the world, no larger than that, white as
new ivory, and reddened a little by the pressure of the boots in which they
had been imprisoned seventeen hours—feet that were too small for a
woman and looked as if they had never walked; the part of the leg that

could be seen was round, plump, smooth, transparent, delicately veined, and
of the most exquisitely graceful shape—a leg worthy of the foot.

Chapter VI — The pretty sleeper uttered from time to time vague, inarticulate
exclamations, like a person who is on the point of waking; thereupon the young gentleman
would stop and wait until he was sound asleep again. The boots yielded at last and the
most important point was gained; the stockings made little resistance.

The young man, still on his knees, gazed at the two little feet with amorous,
admiring intentness; he stooped, raised the left one and kissed it, then the
right one and kissed that; then, from kiss to kiss, he ascended the leg to the
place where the clothes began.—The page raised his long lashes slightly
and cast an affectionate, sleepy glance at his master, in which there was no
trace of surprise.—"My belt hurts me," he said, passing his finger under the
ribbon; and he fell asleep again.—The master loosened the belt, placed a
cushion beneath the page's head, and finding that his feet, which had been
burning hot, were a little cold, he wrapped them carefully in his cloak, drew
an arm-chair close to the sofa and sat down. Two hours passed thus, the
young man watching the sleeping child and following the shadow of his
dreams on his brow. The only sounds to be heard in the room were his
regular breathing and the ticking of the clock.
It was certainly a very lovely picture. In the contrast between the two types
of beauty there was an opportunity for effect, of which a skilful painter
might have made good use.—The master was as beautiful as a woman—the
page as lovely as a young girl. The round, rosy face, set in its frame of hair,
resembled a peach among its leaves; it had the same fresh and velvety look,
although the fatigue of the journey had lessened somewhat its usual
brilliancy; the half-open mouth disclosed two rows of small teeth of a milky
whiteness, and beneath the full, gleaming temples a network of blue veins
crossed and recrossed; his eyelashes, like the golden threads around the
heads of virgins in missals, reached almost to the middle of his cheeks; his
long, silky hair resembled both gold and silver—gold in the shadow, silver
in the light; his neck was at the same time plump and slender, and gave no
sign of the sex indicated by his clothes; two or three buttons of his doublet
were unbuttoned to enable him to breathe more freely and as the fine shirt
of Dutch lawn beneath was open, a glimpse was afforded of an inch or two
of firm rounded flesh of admirable whiteness, and the beginning of a certain
curved line difficult to account for on a young boy's breast; upon looking
closely one might have discovered also that his hips were a little too fully
developed.—The reader will form what opinion he chooses; these are

simple conjectures that we put forward; we have no better information on
the subject than he, but we hope to learn something more in a short time,
and we promise to keep him fully informed of our discoveries.—Let the
reader, if his sight is keener than ours, bury his eyes under the lace of that
shirt and decide conscientiously whether the contour is too swelling or not;
but we warn him that the curtains are drawn and that there is a sort of half-
light in the room, ill-adapted to that sort of investigation.
The young gentleman was pale, but his was a golden pallor, full of strength
and vitality; his eyes swam in a crystalline blue fluid; his straight, thin nose
imparted a wonderful air of pride and energy to his profile, and the flesh
was of so fine a texture that it allowed the light to pass through it on the
edge; his mouth wore the sweetest smile at certain moments, but ordinarily
it was arched at the corners, curving in rather than out, as in some of the
faces we see in the pictures of the old Italian masters; a detail that gave a
charmingly disdainful expression to his face, a smorfia alluring beyond
words, an air of childish sulkiness and ill humor, very unusual and very
fascinating.
What were the bonds that united the master to the page and the page to the
master? Assuredly there was something more between them than any
conceivable affection between master and servant. Were they friends or
brothers?—In that case, why this masquerading?—It would have been
difficult for any one witnessing the scene we have just described to believe
that those two individuals were just what they seemed to be and nothing
more.
"Dear angel, how he sleeps!" murmured the young man; "I don't believe he
ever travelled so far in his life. Twenty leagues in the saddle, and he so
delicate! I'm afraid that he will be sick with fatigue. But no, it will amount
to nothing; to-morrow there will be no sign of it; he will have recovered his
brilliant color and will be fresher than a rose after the rain.—How
handsome he is like that! If I weren't afraid of waking him I would eat him
up with kisses. What a fascinating dimple he has in his chin! what fine,
white skin!—Sleep soundly, sweet treasure.—Ah! I am downright jealous
of your mother, and I wish I had brought you into the world.—He can't be
sick? No, his breathing is regular and he doesn't stir.—But I believe some
one knocked."

In fact, some one had knocked twice, as gently as possible, on the panel of
the door.
The young man rose, but, fearing that he might be mistaken, waited for a
repetition of the knocking before opening the door.—Two more taps
followed, a little more pronounced, and a soft female voice said, in a very
low tone:—"It is I, Théodore."
Théodore opened the door, but with less eagerness than a young man
naturally exhibits about admitting a woman whose voice is soft and who
knocks mysteriously at his door at nightfall.—The open door gave passage
to—whom do you suppose?—to the mistress of the perplexed D'Albert, to
the Princess Rosette in person, rosier than her name, and her bosom as
deeply moved as ever woman was upon entering a handsome youth's room
in the evening.
"Théodore!" said Rosette.
Théodore lifted his finger and placed it on his lips so as to represent a statue
of silence, and, pointing to the sleeping child, led her into the adjoining
room.
"Théodore," continued Rosette, who seemed to take strange pleasure in
repeating the name, and at the same time to be collecting her thoughts,
—"Théodore," she continued, retaining the hand the young man had offered
her to lead her to her chair, "so you have returned at last? What have you
been doing all the time? where have you been?—Do you know that it is six
months since I saw you! Ah! Théodore, that is not right; we owe some
consideration, some pity to those who love us, even if we do not love
them."

THÉODORE.

What have I been doing.—I have no idea.—I have gone away
and come home, I have waked and slept, I have sung and wept, I
have been hungry and thirsty, I have been too warm and too
cold, I have been bored, I have less money and am six months
older—I have lived, that's the whole of it.—And how about
yourself, what have you been doing?
ROSETTE.

I have loved you.
THÉODORE.

Have you done nothing but that?
ROSETTE.

Absolutely nothing.—I have made a bad use of my time, haven't
I?
THÉODORE.

You might have made a better use of it, my poor Rosette; for
example, you might have loved some one who could return your
love.
ROSETTE.

I am unselfish in love as in everything.—I don't lend love at
interest; it is a pure gift on my part.
THÉODORE.

That is a very rare virtue and one that can exist only in a noble
heart. I have often wished that I could love you, especially as
you desire it; but there is an insurmountable obstacle between us
which I cannot tell you.—Have you had any other lover since I
left you?
ROSETTE.

I have had one whom I still have.
THÉODORE.

What sort of a man is he?
ROSETTE.

A poet.
THÉODORE.

The devil! who is this poet, and what has he written?
ROSETTE.

I haven't a very clear idea—a volume that nobody knows
anything about, and that I tried to read one evening.
THÉODORE.

So you have an unpublished poet for a lover?—That must be
interesting.—Is he out at elbows, does he wear dirty linen and
rumpled stockings?
ROSETTE.

No; he dresses very well, washes his hands and has no ink-spots
on the end of his nose. He's a friend of C——; I met him at
Madame de Thémines',—you know, that tall woman, who plays
the child and puts on such innocent airs.
THÉODORE.

And might one know the name of this eminent personage?
ROSETTE.

Oh! Mon Dieu, yes! he is the Chevalier d'Albert.
THÉODORE.

Chevalier d'Albert! I think that was the young man who was on
the balcony when I alighted from my horse.
ROSETTE.

Precisely.
THÉODORE.

And who examined me so closely.
ROSETTE.

Himself.
THÉODORE.

He's a very good-looking fellow.—And he has not made you
forget me?
ROSETTE.

No. Unfortunately you are not one of those whom one forgets.
THÉODORE.

He loves you dearly no doubt?
ROSETTE.

I am not so sure of that.—There are moments when you would
think he loved me very dearly; but at heart he doesn't love me,
and he is not far from hating me, for he is angry with me
because he can't love me.—He did as many others before him
have done; he developed a very keen taste for passion, and was
greatly surprised and disappointed when his desire was
surfeited.—It is a mistake to think that two people must
mutually adore each other because they have lain together.
THÉODORE.

And what do you propose to do with this lover who is not a
lover?
ROSETTE.

What we do with bygone quarters of the moon or with last year's
fashions.—He hasn't courage enough to leave me the first, and
although he does not love me in the true sense of the word, he is
bound to me by the habit of enjoyment, and those are the habits
it is hardest to break. If I don't assist him, he is quite capable of
conscientiously submitting to be bored with me till the last
judgment and beyond; for he has within him the germ of all
noble qualities; and the flowers of his soul ask naught but an
opportunity to bloom in the sunshine of everlasting love.—
Really I am very sorry that I did not prove to be the sunbeam for
him. Of all my lovers whom I have not loved, I love him the
most; and, if I were not as kind-hearted as I am, I would not give
him back his liberty, but I would still keep him.—But that is
what I will not do; I am finishing with him at this moment.
THÉODORE.

How long will it last?

ROSETTE.

A fortnight, three weeks, but at all events not so long as if you
had not come.—I know that I shall never be your mistress.—
There is, you say, an unknown reason for that, to which I would
bow if it were possible for you to disclose it to me. Thus I am
forbidden to entertain any hope in that direction, and yet I
cannot make up my mind to be another man's mistress when you
are here; it seems to me like a profanation, and as if I should not
have the right to love you.
THÉODORE.

Keep this lover for love of me.
ROSETTE.

If it will give you pleasure I will do it.—Ah! if you could have
been mine, how different my life might have been from what it
has been!—The world has a very false idea of me, and I should
have lived and died without any one suspecting what I am—
except you, Théodore, the only one who has understood me and
been cruel to me.—I have never wanted any one but you for a
lover, and I have never had you. O Théodore, if you had loved
me, I should have been virtuous and chaste, I should have been
worthy of you; instead of that, I shall leave behind me—if any
one remembers me—the reputation of a dissolute woman, a sort
of courtesan, who differed from her of the gutter only in rank
and fortune.—I was born with the highest aspirations; but
nothing depraves one so much as being unloved.—Many people
despise me who have no idea what I have had to suffer before
reaching my present position.—Being sure that I shall never
belong to the man I would prefer above all others, I have
allowed myself to float with the current, I have not taken the
trouble to defend a body that could not be yours.—As for my
heart, no one has had it and no one ever will. It is yours,
although you have broken it;—and I am different from the
majority of women who believe themselves virtuous provided
they have not passed from one bed to another, in this respect—
although I have prostituted my flesh, I have been faithful in

heart and soul to the thought of you.—At all events I shall have
made some few people happy, I shall have caused white-robed
illusions to dance about some pillows. I have innocently
deceived more than one noble heart. I have been so miserable at
being spurned by you, that I have always been horrified at the
thought of compelling any one else to undergo such torture. That
is the sole worthy motive of adventures which are commonly
attributed to a spirit of libertinage pure and simple!—I, a
libertine! O society!—If you knew, Théodore, how intensely
painful it is to feel that your life is a failure, that you have let
slip your chance of happiness, to see that everybody
misunderstands you and that it is impossible to make people
change their opinion of you, that your most estimable qualities
are tortured into defects, your purest essences into deadly
poisons, that nothing except the evil in you has transpired; to
have found doors always open to your vices and always closed
to your virtues, and to have been unable to bring to perfection,
amid such a wilderness of hemlock and aconite, a single lily or a
single rose! you know nothing of that, Théodore.
THÉODORE.

Alas! alas! Rosette, what you have just said includes the history
of the whole world; the best part of us is that which remains
within us and which we cannot display.—It is the same with
poets.—Their noblest poem is the one they have not written;
they carry more poems to the grave than they leave in their
library.
ROSETTE.

I shall carry my poem to the grave with me.
THÉODORE.

And I mine.—Who has not written one at some time in his life?
who is so fortunate, or so unfortunate, as not to have composed
his in his head or in his heart?—Even headsmen may have
composed poems, all moist with tears of the tenderest

sensibility; poets perhaps have composed some that would be
suited to headsmen, so bloody and monstrous they are.
ROSETTE.

Yes.—White roses can fitly be placed on my grave. I have had
ten lovers, but I am a virgin, and I shall die a virgin. Many
virgins, on whose graves there is a constant snow of jasmine and
orange blossoms, were veritable Messalinas.
THÉODORE.

I know what a noble creature you are, Rosette.
ROSETTE.

You only in all the world have seen what I am; for you have
seen me under the influence of a love that is perfectly genuine
and very deep-rooted, as it is hopeless; and no one who has not
seen a woman in love can say what she is; that is the one thing
that consoles me in my bitterness of spirit.
THÉODORE.

And what does this young man think of you, who is your lover
to-day in the eyes of the world?
ROSETTE.

The mind of a lover is a gulf deeper than the Bay of Portugal,
and it is very difficult to say what there is in the depths of a
man; if the lead were attached to a line a hundred fathoms long
and every fathom unreeled, it would still sink without meeting
anything to stop it. Yet I have touched bottom several times with
this man, and the lead has sometimes brought up mud,
sometimes lovely shells, but most frequently mud and fragments
of coral mixed together.—As to his opinion of me, it has varied
greatly; he began where others leave off, he despised me; young
men with vivid imaginations are likely to do that. There is
always a tremendous fall in the first step they take, and the
passage from their chimera to reality cannot be made without a
shock.—He despised me and I entertained him; now he esteems
me and I bore him. In the early days of our liaison he saw only

the commonplace side of me, and I think that the certainty of
meeting with no resistance had much to do with his
determination. He seemed in great haste to have an affair, and I
thought at first that it was a case of a full heart seeking only an
opportunity to overflow, one of those vague passions that a man
has in the May of youth and that impel him, in default of
women, to throw his arms around the trunks of trees, and to kiss
the flowers and grass in the fields.—But it wasn't that;—he
simply passed through me to reach something else. I was a
means to him, and not an end.—Beneath the fresh exterior of his
twenty years, beneath the first down of adolescence, he
concealed profound corruption. He was tainted to the core; he
was a fruit containing nothing but ashes. In that young and lusty
body was a heart as old as Saturn—a heart as incurably
wretched as heart ever was.—I confess, Théodore, that I was
frightened and that I was almost taken with vertigo as I looked
into the black depths of that existence. Your sorrows and mine
are nothing compared to those. If I had loved him more I should
have killed him. Something irresistibly attracts and summons
him—something that is not of this world or in this world, and he
cannot rest day or night; and like the heliotrope in a cellar, he
twists about to turn toward the sun which he cannot see.—He is
one of those men whose mind was not completely dipped in the
waters of Lethe before being attached to his body, but retains
memories of the eternal beauty of the heaven from which it
comes—memories that work upon it and torment it—and
remembers that it once had wings and now has feet only.—If I
were God, I would deprive of poetry for two eternities, the angel
guilty of such negligence.—Instead of being under the necessity
of building a castle of bright-colored cards in which to shelter a
fair, youthful fancy for a single spring, it was necessary to erect
a tower higher than the eight temples of Belus piled one upon
another. I had not the strength, I pretended not to have
understood him, and I let him flutter about on his wings in
search of a peak from which he could take flight into boundless
space.—He thinks I have noticed nothing of all this, because I
have fallen in with all his caprices without seeming to suspect

their object. Being unable to cure him, I determined—and I hope
that I shall receive credit for it some day before God—to give
him at least the happiness of believing that he was passionately
loved.—He aroused in me so much pity and interest that I was
easily able to assume a tone and manner sufficiently affectionate
to deceive him. I have played my part like a consummate
actress; I have been playful and melancholy, sensible and
voluptuous; I have feigned anxiety and jealousy; I have shed
false tears, and I have summoned flocks of ready-made smiles to
my lips. I have arrayed this counterfeit of love in the richest
stuffs; I have taken him to drive through the avenues of my
parks; I have requested all my birds to sing as he passed, and all
my dahlias and daturas to bend their heads in salutation; I have
sent him across my lake on the silvery back of my darling swan;
I have concealed myself inside the manikin and bestowed my
voice, my wit, my youth and beauty upon it and given it such a
seductive appearance that the reality fell far short of my
deception. When the time comes to shatter this hollow statue, I
shall do it in such a way that he will think the wrong is all on my
side and so will have no remorse. I shall be the one to make the
pinhole through which the air with which the balloon is filled
will make its escape.—Is not that sanctified prostitution and
honorable deception? I have in a glass jar some tears that I have
collected just as they were about to fall.—They are my jewel-
case and my diamonds, and I shall present them to the angel
who comes for me to lead me before God.
THÉODORE.

They are the loveliest that can glisten on a woman's neck. A
queen's jewels are less precious than they. For my own part, I
believe that the ointment Magdalen poured on Christ's feet was
made of the tears of those she had comforted, and I believe, too,
that the Milky Way is strewn with such tears, and not, as has
been said, with drops of Juno's milk.—Who will do for you
what you have done for him?
ROSETTE.

No one, alas! since you cannot.
THÉODORE.

O dear heart! would that I could!—But do not lose hope. You
are lovely and still very young. You have many avenues of
lindens and flowering acacias to pass through before reaching
the damp road lined with box and leafless trees, which leads
from the tomb of porphyry in which your happy dead years will
be buried, to the tomb of rough and moss-covered stone where
they will hasten to bestow the remains of what once was you,
and the wrinkled, tottering spectres of the days of your old age.
You still have much of the mountain of life to climb and it will
be long before you reach the zone where the snow begins. You
are now only at the level of aromatic plants, of limpid cascades
over which the iris suspends its tri-colored arches, of stately
green oaks and sweet-smelling larches. Mount a little higher and
from that point, with the broader horizon spread out before you,
perhaps you will see the blue smoke rising above the roof
beneath which he who will love you sleeps. You must not, in the
very beginning, despair of life, for vistas open in our destiny
which we had ceased to expect. Man, in his life, has often made
me think of a pilgrim toiling up the winding stairway of a
Gothic tower. The long granite serpent winds upward in the
darkness, every coil a stair. After a few circumvolutions the little
light that came from the door dies out. The shadow of the
houses, which are not yet passed, does not allow the loopholes
to admit the sun: the walls are black and moisture oozes from
them; you seem rather to be going down into a dungeon from
which you are never to come forth, than ascending to the turret
which, from below, seemed to you so slender and graceful,
covered with lace-work and embroidery as if it were about
starting for the ball.—You hesitate whether you ought to go
higher, the damp shadows weigh so heavily upon your forehead.
—A few more turns of the staircase and more frequent openings
cast their golden trefoils on the opposite wall. You begin to see
the notched gables of the houses, the carving of the entablatures,
the strange forms of the chimneys; a few steps more and your

eye overlooks the whole city; it is a forest of steeples, of spires
and towers, bristling upon all sides, toothed and slashed and
hollowed, stamped as with dies, and allowing the light to shine
through their numberless apertures. The domes and cupolas raise
their rounded forms like a giant's breasts or the skulls of Titans.
The islets formed by houses and palaces appear through
shadowy or luminous openings. A few steps more and you will
be on the platform; and then you will see, beyond the walls of
the city, the green fields, the blue hill-sides and the white sails
on the changing ribbon of the stream. A dazzling light bursts
upon you, and the swallows fly hither and thither, close at hand,
with their joyous twitter. The distant sounds reach your eyes like
a soothing murmur or the hum of a swarm of bees; all the bells
scatter their necklaces of pearls of sound through the air; the
breezes bring you the odors of the neighboring forest and of the
mountain flowers: it is all light and melody and perfume. If your
feet had been weary or discouragement had seized upon you,
and you had remained on a lower step or had turned back and
gone down again, that spectacle would have been lost to you.—
Sometimes, however, the tower has only a single opening, in the
centre or at the top.—The tower of your life is built so.—In that
case you must have more obstinate courage, perseverance armed
with sharper nails, to cling, in the darkness, to the protruding
stones, and to reach the opening, resplendent with light, through
which the eye embraces the surrounding country; or it may be
that the loopholes have been filled up, or no one has thought to
cut them, and then you must go on to the summit; but the higher
one goes without looking out, the more extended the horizon
seems, and the greater the surprise and pleasure.
ROSETTE.

O Théodore, God grant that I may soon reach the point where
the window is! For a long, long time I have been following the
winding staircase in the most profound darkness; but I am afraid
the opening has never been cut and I must climb to the very top;
and suppose this staircase with the countless stairs should end at
a walled-up doorway, or an arch closed by blocks of stone?

THÉODORE.

Do not say that, Rosette, do not think it.—What architect would
build a stairway that led nowhere? Why imagine that the placid
Architect of the world was stupider and less far-sighted than an
ordinary architect? God makes no mistakes and forgets nothing.
It is incredible that He should have amused Himself by playing
a trick upon you and shutting you up in a long stone tunnel
without exit or opening. Why should you suppose that He would
haggle with such poor ants as we are over our paltry momentary
happiness and the imperceptible grain of millet that falls to each
of us in this immeasurable universe?—In order to do that He
must be as savage as a tiger or a judge; and if we were so
obnoxious to Him, He would simply have to bid a comet turn
aside a little from its path and annihilate us all with a hair of its
tail. How the devil can you think that God diverts Himself by
spitting us all on a gold pin as the Emperor Domitian did with
flies?—God isn't a concierge or a church-warden, and although
He is old, He is not yet in His dotage. All such petty malice is
beneath Him and He is not foolish enough to show off His
smartness to us and play tricks on us.—Courage, Rosette,
courage! If you are out of breath, stop a bit and take breath and
then continue your upward course; perhaps you have only a
score more steps to climb to reach the embrasure from which
you will see your happiness.
ROSETTE.

Never! oh never! and if I reach the top of the tower, it will only
be to hurl myself from it.
THÉODORE.

Banish these gloomy thoughts that flutter about you like bats,
and cast the opaque shadow of their wings on your fair brow,
my poor afflicted one. If you want me to love you, be happy,
and do not weep. (He draws her gently to his side and kisses her
on the eyes).
ROSETTE.

What a misfortune for me that I ever knew you! and yet, if I
could live my life over, I would still prefer to have known you.
—Your harshness has been sweeter to me than the passion of
other men; and, although you have made me suffer intensely, all
the pleasure I have ever had has come to me from you; through
you I have caught a glimpse of what I might have been. You
have been a flash of light in my darkness, and you have
illuminated many dark places in my soul; you have opened new
perspectives in my life.—I owe it to you that I know what love
is,—unhappy love, it is true; but there is a melancholy and
profound fascination in loving without being loved, and it is
pleasant to remember those who forget us. It is a joy simply to
be able to love, even when one loves alone, and many die
without having had it, and often they who love are not the most
to be pitied.
THÉODORE.

They suffer and feel their wounds, but at all events they live.
They have some interest in life; they have a star about which
they gravitate, a pole toward which they ardently extend their
hands. They have something to long for; they can say to
themselves: "If I reach that point, if I obtain that, I shall be
happy."—They suffer frightful agony, but when they die, they
can at least say to themselves: "I am dying for him."—To die
thus is to be born again. The really unhappy, the only ones who
are irreparably so, are they whose wild embrace takes in the
whole universe, they who want everything and nothing, and who
would be embarrassed and speechless if an angel or fairy should
descend to earth and say suddenly to them: "Express one wish
and it shall be gratified."
ROSETTE.

If a fairy should come I know what I would ask her.
THÉODORE.

You know, Rosette, and therein you are happier than I, for I do
not know. There are in my heart many vague longings, which

become confounded with one another and give birth to others
which eventually consume them. My desires are a cloud of birds
that fly aimlessly this way and that; yours is an eagle that has its
eyes on the sun and is prevented by lack of air from soaring
upward on its outspread wings. Ah! if I could only know what I
want; if the idea that haunts me would stand out clear and well-
defined from the mist that envelops it; if the lucky or unlucky
star would appear in the depths of my sky; if the light I am to
follow would shine out through the darkness, a deceitful will-o'-
the-wisp or a friendly beacon; if my column of fire would go on
before me, even though it were through a desert without manna
and without springs of water; if I knew where I am going, even
though my path ends at a precipice!—I would prefer the wild
flights of accursed huntsmen through bogs and thickets, to this
absurd and monotonous stamping and pawing. To live thus is to
follow a trade like that of the horses with bandages over their
eyes, who turn the wheel of a well, and travel thousands of
leagues without seeing anything or changing their position.—I
have been turning a long while, and the bucket ought to be at the
top.
ROSETTE.

You resemble D'Albert in many ways, and, when you speak, it
seems to me sometimes as if he were speaking.—I have no
doubt that, when you know him better, you will become much
attached to him; you cannot fail to suit each other.—He is
tormented as you are, by these same aimless impulses; he is
head over ears in love but does not know with what; he would
like to ascend to Heaven, for the earth seems to him like a stool
hardly fit for one of his feet to rest upon, and he has more pride
than Lucifer before his fall.
THÉODORE.

I was afraid at first that he was one of those poets, of whom
there are so many, who have driven poetry off the face of the
earth, one of those stringers of false pearls who see nothing in
the world but the last syllables of words, and who, when they

have made ombre rhyme with sombre, flame with âme, and Dieu
with lieu, fold their arms and legs conscientiously and permit
the spheres to accomplish their revolutions.
ROSETTE.

He is not one of that kind. His verses are beneath him and do not
contain his thought. You would form a very mistaken idea of his
nature from what he has written; his real poem is himself, and I
don't know if he will ever produce another. He has, in the depths
of his mind, a seraglio of choice ideas which he surrounds with
a triple wall, and of which he is more jealous than ever sultan
was of his odalisques.—He puts in his poetry only those ideas
that he holds in light esteem, or with which he has become
disgusted; he makes his verse the door through which he expels
them and the world receives only those for which he has no
further use.
THÉODORE.

I can understand his jealousy and his modesty.—Just as many
men do not care for the love they have had until they no longer
have it, or for their mistresses until they are dead.
ROSETTE.

It is so hard for one to have anything to one's self in this world!
every candle attracts so many moths, every treasure attracts so
many thieves!—I love the silent men who carry their ideas to
the grave and do not choose to abandon them to the filthy kisses
and shameless handling of the vulgar crowd. Those lovers
please me best who do not carve their mistress's name on the
bark of any tree, who confide it to no echo, and who, while they
sleep, are haunted by the fear that they may utter it in a dream. I
am one of that number; I have not divulged my thoughts and no
one shall know my love.—But it is almost eleven o'clock, my
dear Théodore, and I am preventing your taking rest that you
must sadly need. When I am obliged to leave you I always have
a feeling of oppression at my heart, and it seems to me as if it
were the last time I should ever see you. I postpone it as long as

I can; but I always have to go at last. Good-night, for I am afraid
D'Albert may be looking for me; good-night, my dear friend.

Théodore put his arm around her waist and thus escorted her to the door;
there he stopped and followed her a long time with his glance; the corridor
was lighted at intervals by small windows with narrow panes, through
which the moon shone, making alternate light and dark patches of fantastic
shape. At each window Rosette's pure, white form gleamed like a silvery
phantom; then it vanished to appear, even more brilliant, a little farther
away; at last it disappeared altogether.
Théodore stood for some moments motionless, with folded arms, as if
buried in profound meditation; then he passed his hand over his forehead
and threw back his hair with a jerk of his head, returned to his room, and
went to bed after kissing the brow of the page, who was still asleep.

VII

As soon as the daylight entered Rosette's room, D'Albert made his
appearance, with an eagerness that was not usual with him.
"Here you are," said Rosette, "I would say very early, if you could ever
arrive early.—To reward you for your gallantry I present you my hand to
kiss."
And she drew from beneath the sheet of Flemish linen trimmed with lace
the prettiest little hand that was ever seen at the end of a plump, well-
shaped arm.
D'Albert kissed it with compunction:—"And the other, little sister, are we
not to kiss that too?"
"Mon Dieu, yes! nothing is easier. I am in my Sunday humor to-day;
here."—And she extended her other hand with which she tapped him lightly
on the lips.—"Am I not the most obliging woman on earth?"
"You are grace itself, and temples of white marble should be erected to you
in thickets of myrtle.—Really, I am very much afraid that the same thing

will happen to you that happened to Psyche, and that Venus will be jealous
of you," said D'Albert, taking the fair one's hands in one of his and raising
them together to his lips.
"How you say all that without taking breath! any one would think it was
something you had learned by heart," said Rosette, with a delicious little
pout.
"No; you deserve to have the phrase turned expressly for you, and you were
made to pluck the virgin bloom from compliments," rejoined D'Albert.
"Oho! whatever is the matter with you to-day? are you ill that you are so
gallant? I fear you are dying. Do you know that when one's character
suddenly changes, and without any apparent reason, it is an evil omen?
Now it is a well-known fact, to all the women who have taken the pains to
love you, that you are usually as morose as a man can be, and it is no less
certain that at this moment you are as charming as a man can be, and
inexplicably amiable.—Really, I think you are pale, my poor D'Albert: give
me your arm and let me feel your pulse;" and she pushed back his sleeve
and counted the pulsations with mock gravity.—"No, you are perfectly well
and you haven't the slightest symptom of fever. In that case I must be
furiously pretty this morning! Go and find my mirror so that I can see how
far your gallantry is justified."
D'Albert brought a small mirror from the toilet-table and placed it on the
bed.
"In truth," said Rosette, "you are not altogether wrong. Why don't you write
a sonnet on my eyes, Monsieur le Poète. You have no excuse for not doing
it. Just see how unfortunate I am! to have eyes like these and a poet like
this, and to be left without sonnets just as if I were one-eyed and had a
water-carrier for a lover! You don't love me, monsieur; you have never
written so much as an acrostic sonnet for me.—And my mouth, what do
you think of that? I have kissed you with that mouth and perhaps I will kiss
you with it again, my dark-browed beauty; and upon my word, it is a favor
that you hardly deserve—I am not speaking of to-day, for to-day you
deserve anything;—but, to talk about something beside myself, you are
incomparably fresh and comely this morning, you look like a brother of
Aurora, and, although it is hardly daylight, you are already arrayed in your
best clothes as if for a ball. Can it be that you have designs upon me? and

do you meditate dealing an unexpected and final blow to my virtue? do you
propose to make a conquest of me? But I forget that you have already done
that, and that it's ancient history."
"Don't joke like that, Rosette; you know that I love you."
"Why, that depends. I don't know it; and you?"
"I know it perfectly well, and from such symptoms that, if you should have
the kindness to forbid me your door, I should try to prove it to you, and I
venture to flatter myself that I should do it most triumphantly."
"Not that way: however anxious I may be to be convinced, my door will
remain open; I am too pretty to be shut up behind closed doors; the sun
shines for one and all, and my beauty shall be like the sun to-day, if you
approve."
"Upon my honor I strongly disapprove; but act as if I approved as strongly.
I am your very humble slave, and I lay my wishes at your feet."
"That is as jolly as can be; continue to entertain such sentiments and leave
your key in your door to-night."
"Monsieur le Chevalier Théodore de Sérannes,"—said a huge negro, putting
his round, good-humored face between the wings of the folding-door,
"desires to pay his respects to you and begs that you will deign to receive
him."
"Admit Monsieur le Chevalier," said Rosette, pulling the sheet up to her
chin.
Théodore went first to Rosette's bed and made a very low and graceful
courtesy, which she returned with a friendly nod; then he turned to
D'Albert, whom he also saluted in an off-hand, courteous manner.
"What were you talking about?" said Théodore. "It may be that I interrupted
an interesting conversation: go on, I beg, and tell me in a few words what it
is all about."
"Oh, no!" Rosette replied with a mischievous smile; "we were talking
business."

Chapter VII — "Admit Monsieur le Chevalier," said Rosette, pulling the sheet up to her
chin.
Théodore went first to Rosette's bed and made a very low and graceful courtesy, which
she returned with a friendly nod; then he turned to D'Albert, whom he also saluted in an
off-hand, courteous manner.

Théodore seated himself at the foot of Rosette's bed, for D'Albert had taken
his place at her pillow, by right of having arrived first. The conversation
wandered for some time from subject to subject, very bright and gay and
animated, and that is why we do not report it; we should be afraid that it
would lose too much in being transcribed. The manner, the tone, the vivacity
of speech and gesture, the countless ways of uttering a word, the
effervescent wit, like the foam of champagne which sparkles and evaporates
at once, are details that it is impossible to note down and reproduce. We
leave that hiatus for the reader to fill, and he will certainly acquit himself of
the task better than we could do. Let him imagine here five or six pages
filled with whatever is most capricious, most refined, most curiously
original, most ingenious and most sparkling in the way of conversation.
We are well aware that we are resorting to an artifice which reminds one a
little of that resorted to by Timanthes, who, in despair of ever being able to
reproduce Agamemnon's face, threw some drapery over his head; but we
prefer to be timid rather than imprudent.
It would not perhaps be amiss to inquire into the motives that had led
D'Albert to rise so early, and what spur had impelled him to call upon
Rosette at as unseasonable an hour as if he had still been in love.—It would
appear as if it were a slight attack of secret, unconfessed jealousy. To be sure
he cared but little for Rosette, indeed he would have been very glad to be rid
of her,—but he preferred to leave her voluntarily and not to be left by her, a
thing which always inflicts a deep wound on a man's pride, although his first
flame may be utterly extinct.—Théodore was such a well-favored cavalier
that it was difficult to view his appearance on the scene while a liaison was
in progress without apprehending what had in fact happened many times,
that is to say, that all eyes would turn in his direction and the hearts follow
the eyes; and, strangely enough, although he had taken away many women,
no lover had harbored the enduring resentment that men usually feel for
those who have supplanted them. There was in his whole behavior such
winning charm, such unaffected grace, a something so gentle and so

dignified, that even men were touched by it. D'Albert, who had come to
Rosette's room, intending to speak very sharply to Théodore, if he should
meet him there, was greatly surprised to find that he did not feel the slightest
sensation of anger in his presence, and that he was inclined to receive with
warmth the advances he made. In half an hour's time, you would have said
that they had been friends from boyhood, and yet D'Albert felt in his inmost
heart, that if Rosette was destined ever to love, she would love that man, and
he had every reason to be jealous, for the future at least, for he did not
suspect anything at present. What would he have thought, had he seen the
fair creature in a white peignoir gliding like a night-moth on a moonbeam
into the handsome youth's room, and coming out three or four hours later
with mysterious precautions? He might well, in very truth, have deemed
himself more unfortunate than he really was, for it is a thing rarely seen that
a pretty, lovelorn young woman comes forth from the bedroom of a no less
attractive young man, exactly the same as when she went in.
Rosette listened to Théodore with much attention and as one listens to a
person one loves; but what he said was so entertaining and upon so many
different subjects, that her attention was perfectly natural and easily
explained. And so D'Albert took no offence at it. Théodore's manner toward
Rosette was courteous and friendly, but nothing more.
"What shall we do to-day, Théodore?" said Rosette, "suppose we go for a
row on the river? what do you think? or shall we hunt?"
"To hunt is less depressing than to glide over the water side by side with
some tired swan and thrust the water-lily leaves aside to right and left,—
don't you think so, D'Albert?"
"I think perhaps I should enjoy gliding down the river in the skiff quite as
much as racing madly in the trail of some poor beast; but wherever you go, I
will go; what we have to do now is to allow Madame Rosette to rise and don
a suitable costume."
Rosette made a sign of assent and rang for her maid to come and dress her.
The two young men left the room arm in arm, and it was easy to guess, from
seeing them on such good terms, that one was the titular lover and the other
the loved lover of the same person.
Soon everybody was ready. D'Albert and Théodore were already mounted in
the first court-yard, when Rosette, in a riding-habit, appeared at the top of

the steps. She had assumed with the costume, a sprightly, resolute air that
was immensely becoming to her; she leaped into the saddle with her
ordinary agility and gave her horse a smart blow with her crop, so that he
darted away like an arrow. D'Albert spurred after her and soon overtook her.
Théodore allowed them some little start, being sure of catching them up
whenever he chose. He seemed to be waiting for something and turned back
frequently toward the château.
"Théodore! Théodore! come on! are you riding a wooden horse?" cried
Rosette.
Théodore urged his horse to a gallop and diminished the distance between
him and Rosette, but did not join her.
He continued to look back at the château, which they were beginning to lose
sight of; a little cloud of dust, in the centre of which something that they
could not as yet distinguish was moving very rapidly, appeared at the end of
the road. In a few moments the cloud reached Théodore's side, and, opening
like the classic clouds of the Iliad, disclosed the fresh and rosy face of the
mysterious page.
"Come, Théodore, come!" cried Rosette again; "give your tortoise the spur
and join us."
Théodore gave his horse the rein, and in a second, the animal, who was
pawing and rearing impatiently, had passed D'Albert and Rosette by several
lengths.
"Who loves me follows me," said Théodore, leaping a fence four feet high.
"Well, well, Monsieur le Poète," he said, when he was on the other side,
"you don't jump? but they say your steed has wings."
"Faith, I prefer to ride around; I have only one head to break after all; if I
had several I would try," D'Albert replied with a smile.
"No one loves me then, as no one follows me," said Théodore, bringing the
arched corners of his mouth even lower than usual. The little page looked up
at him reproachfully with his great blue eyes, and drove his heels into his
horse's sides.
The horse gave a tremendous leap.
"Yes! some one," said the child from the other side of the fence.

Rosette cast a strange glance at the boy and blushed up to her eyes; then,
with a furious blow of the crop on the mare's neck, she leaped the barrier of
green apple wood that barred the path.
"Do you think that I don't love you, Théodore?"
The child darted an oblique, stealthy glance at her and rode up to Théodore.
D'Albert was in the middle of the path—and saw nothing of all this; for,
from time immemorial, it has been the privilege of fathers, husbands and
lovers to see nothing.
"Isnabel," said Théodore, "you are mad, and so are you, Rosette! You didn't
take enough start for your jump, Isnabel, and you, Rosette, just missed
catching your dress on the posts.—You might have killed yourself."
"What difference would it make?" rejoined Rosette, in such a melancholy,
despairing tone that Isnabel forgave her for having leaped the barrier.
They rode on for some distance and reached the crossroads where the
huntsmen and the pack were to meet them. Six arched paths, cut through the
dense forest, met at a little stone tower with six sides, on each of which was
carved the name of the road that ended there. The trees rose so high that they
seemed to be trying to spin the woolly, fleecy clouds that a brisk breeze
carried hither and thither over their towering tops; tall, thick grass and
impenetrable thickets provided hiding-places and strongholds for the game,
and the hunt promised to be a successful one. It was a true forest of an
earlier age, with oaks more than a hundred years old, such trees as we never
see, now that we no longer plant trees and have not the patience to wait for
those that are planted to grow;—a hereditary forest, planted by great-
grandfathers for fathers, by fathers for grandsons, with paths of enormous
width, the obelisk surmounted by a ball, the rock-work fountain, the
inevitable pool, and the keepers with powdered wigs, yellow leather
breeches and sky-blue coats;—one of those dense, dark forests in which the
white, glossy coats of Wouvermans' great horses stand out in bold relief, and
the flaring mouths of the hunting horns à la Dampierre that Parrocel loves to
paint on the backs of his huntsmen.—A multitude of dogs' tails, shaped like
crescents or reaping-hooks, waved frantically about in a dusty cloud. The
signal was given, the dogs, straining at their leashes, were uncoupled, and
the hunt began.—We shall not undertake to describe with precision the
detours and doublings of the stag through the forest;—we do not even feel

sure whether it was a stag seven years old, and, despite our investigations on
that point, we have not been able to satisfy ourselves—which is really
distressing.—Nevertheless we can but think that in such a forest, so
venerable, so dark, so seignorial, there could be none but seven-year stags,
and we do not see why the one after which the four principal characters in
this romance were galloping on horses of different colors, and non passibus
æquis, should not have been such a one.
The stag ran, like the true stag that he was, and some fifty dogs or more that
followed at his heels were no slight spur to his natural swiftness of foot. The
pace was so fleet that only an occasional bark could be heard.
Théodore, being the best mounted and the best rider, kept on the heels of the
pack with incredible zeal. D'Albert was close behind him. Rosette and the
little page Isnabel followed, falling farther and farther behind.
The interval was soon so great that they could not hope to join their
companions.
"Suppose we stop for a moment and let our horses take breath," said Rosette.
"The hunt is going toward the pond and I know a crossroad by which we can
reach there as soon as they do."
Isnabel drew in his little mountain pony, who put down his head, shook his
forelock down over his eyes and began to paw the gravel with his hoofs.
The little creature presented a most striking contrast to Rosette's mare; he
was as black as night, she as white as white satin; his mane and tail were
bristly and unkempt; her mane was tied with blue ribbons and her tail
combed and curled. She looked like a unicorn, he like a spaniel.
There was the same marked difference between the riders as between their
steeds.—Rosette's hair was as black as Isnabel's was fair; her eyebrows were
very clearly marked and very prominent; those of the page were hardly
darker than his skin and resembled the down on a peach.—The coloring of
the one was as brilliant and enduring as the light at noonday; the other had
the transparent blushing hue of early dawn.
"Suppose we try now to overtake the hunt?" said Isnabel; "the horses have
had time to recover their breath."

"Come on!" replied the pretty Amazon, and they galloped away through a
narrow transverse path leading to the pool; the two horses ran neck and neck
and filled the whole path.
On Isnabel's side, a gnarled and twisted tree stretched out a huge branch like
an arm, and seemed to shake its fist at the riders.—The child did not see it.
"Look out!" cried Rosette, "lean forward on your saddle! you will be
unhorsed."
The warning came too late; the branch struck Isnabel in the middle of the
body. The violence of the blow caused him to lose his stirrups, and, as his
horse galloped on and the branch was too stout to bend, he was brushed
from his saddle and thrown rudely back.
The child fainted on the spot.—Rosette, terribly frightened, leaped from her
horse and knelt beside the page, who gave no sign of life.
His cap had fallen off and his lovely, rippling fair hair lay spread about over
the gravel in every direction.—His little open palms looked as if they were
made of wax, they were so devoid of color. Rosette knelt beside him and
tried to restore him to consciousness.—She had no salts or flask with her
and her embarrassment was great. At last she discovered a deep rut in which
the rain-water had collected and clarified; she dipped her fingers in it, to the
great alarm of a little toad that was the naiad of that stream, and shook a few
drops on the young page's blue-veined temples.—He did not seem to feel
them, and the pearls of water rolled down his white cheeks as a sylph's tears
roll down the leaf of a lily. Rosette, thinking that his clothes might distress
him, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his doublet and opened his shirt to give
his lungs freer play.—Thereupon Rosette saw something that would have
been the most agreeable of surprises to a man, but that seemed very far from
affording her any pleasure—for her brows contracted and her upper lip
trembled slightly;—she saw a snowy white breast, which was as yet
undeveloped, but which made the fairest promises and already fulfilled
many of them; a smooth and rounded breast, as white as ivory, and in the
language of the Ronsardists, delicious to look at, more delicious to kiss.

Chapter VII — Rosette, thinking that his clothes might distress him, unbuckled his belt,
unbuttoned his doublet and opened his shirt to give his lungs freer play.—Thereupon
Rosette saw something that would have been the most agreeable of surprises to a man,
but that seemed very far from affording her any pleasure——

"A woman!" she exclaimed, "a woman! ah! Théodore!"
Isnabel—for we will continue to call him by that name, although it was not
his—began to show some signs of life and languidly raised his long
eyelashes; he was not wounded in any way, he was simply stunned.—He
soon sat up and, with Rosette's assistance, was able to stand and remount his
horse, which had stopped as soon as he felt that his rider was gone.
They rode slowly to the pool, where they found the remainder of the hunting
party. Rosette in a few words told Théodore what had happened.—He
changed color several times during her recital, and throughout the rest of the
ride he kept his horse close beside Isnabel's.
They returned to the château betimes; the day that had begun so joyously,
had a decidedly melancholy ending.
Rosette was in a meditative mood and D'Albert seemed as deeply engrossed
in his reflections. The reader will soon learn what had given rise to them.

VIII

No, my dear Silvio, I have not forgotten you; I am not one of those who go
through life without a backward glance; my past follows me and encroaches
upon my present, and almost upon my future; your friendship is one of the
sunlit spots that stand out most clearly on the blue horizon of my later years;
often, from the peak on which I stand, I turn to gaze upon it with a feeling of
ineffable melancholy.
Oh! what lovely weather it was!—how angelically pure we were!—Our feet
hardly touched the ground, we had wings on our shoulders, as it were, our
desires carried us away and the fair halo of youth around our foreheads
trembled in the breeze of spring.

Do you remember the little island covered with poplars at the spot where the
river forms a little arm?—To reach it we had to cross a long, very narrow
plank that bent in the middle, with a strange sensation; an excellent bridge
for goats and little used, in fact, except by them: it was a delightful spot.—
Short, thick grass where the forget-me-not opened its pretty little blue
twinkling eye, a path, as yellow as nankeen, that served as a belt for the
green robe of the islet and encircled its waist, the constantly moving shadow
of aspens and poplars, were not the least charms of that paradise;—there
were great pieces of linen that the women stretched out to whiten in the dew;
—one would have said they were square patches of snow.—And the little
dark, sun-burned girl whose great wild eyes sparkled so brightly under her
long locks, and who ran after the goats, threatening them with her osier
switch when they were on the point of walking on the linen she was
watching—do you remember her?—And the sulphur-colored butterflies,
with their irregular, hesitating flight, and the kingfisher we tried so many
times to catch, that had its nest in the clump of alders; and the banks sloping
to the river, with the steps roughly hewn in the rock, with their posts and
stakes, all green at the bottom and almost always closed by a hedge of plants
and branches? How smooth and clear the water was! how the golden gravel
glistened at the bottom! and how pleasant it was to sit on the bank and
dabble our toes in the stream! The water-lily, with its golden flowers
unfolding gracefully, seemed like green hairs floating on the gleaming back
of some nymph in the bath.—The sky gazed at its reflection in that mirror
with azure smiles and transparent rifts of pearl-gray of most bewitching
beauty, and at every hour in the day there were turquoise blues, golden
yellows, fleecy whites and flickering shades in inexhaustible variety.—How
I loved those flocks of ducks with the emerald necks that sailed incessantly
from bank to bank and caused an occasional wrinkle on that glassy surface!
And how well adapted we were to be the figures in that landscape!—how
attached we became to those sweet, restful scenes, and how easily we
harmonized ourselves with them! Springtime without, youth within, the sun
on the turf, a smile on the lips, snow-white blossoms on all the bushes, fair
illusions blooming in our minds, a modest flush upon our cheeks and on the
eglantine, poetry singing in our hearts, invisible birds humming among the
trees, bright light, cooing doves, perfumes, a thousand confused murmurs,
the beating of the heart, the water stirring a pebble, a wisp of grass or a
thought springing up, a drop of water rolling down the side of a flower, a

tear flowing from beneath an eyelid, a sigh of love, the rustling of a leaf;—
what evenings we have passed there, walking slowly, so near the edge that
we often had one foot in the water and the other on land!
Alas!—that lasted a very short time, in my case at least; for you, while
acquiring the knowledge of a man, were able to retain the innocence of a
child.—The seed of corruption that was within me developed very rapidly,
and the gangrene pitilessly devoured all that was pure and saintlike about
me. The only good that remained was my friendship for you.
I am accustomed to conceal nothing from you—neither acts nor thoughts. I
have laid bare before you the most secret fibres of my heart; however
strange, absurd, eccentric the movements of my mind, I must needs describe
them to you; but, in truth, my sensations for some time past have been so
strange that I hardly dare confess them to myself. I told you at some time
that I was afraid that by dint of seeking the beautiful and straining every
nerve to attain it, I should fall into the impossible or the horrible.—I have
almost reached that point; when, then, shall I get clear of all these currents
that cross and recross one another and drag me to right and left; when will
the deck of my vessel cease to tremble under my feet and to be swept by the
waves of every storm? where shall I find a haven in which I can cast anchor,
and an immovable rock out of reach of the waves, whereon I can dry myself
and wring the spray from my hair?
You know how ardently I have sought physical beauty, what importance I
attach to physical form, and what affection I have conceived for the visible
world; it must be because I am too corrupt and too blasé to believe in moral
beauty, and to pursue it with any constancy.—I have completely lost the
power to distinguish between good and evil, and, by force of depravity, I
have almost reverted to the ignorance of the savage and the child. In fact,
nothing seems praiseworthy or blameworthy to me, and the most
extraordinary actions surprise me but little. My conscience is a deaf mute.
Adultery seems to me the most innocent thing in the world; I find it quite
natural that a girl should prostitute her person; it seems to me that I would
betray my friends without the slightest remorse, and I should not have the
slightest scruple in kicking over a precipice people who annoyed me, if I
were walking on the brink with them.—I could witness the most atrocious
scenes with indifference, and there is something that is not unpleasant to me
in the sufferings and woes of humanity.—I have the same sensation of

acrimonious, bitter joy when some great disaster falls on the world, that one
feels when one takes revenge for an old insult.
O world, what hast thou done to me that I should hate thee so? Who has so
filled me with gall against thee? what did I expect from thee that I should
bear thee such rancor for having deceived me? what high hope didst thou
disappoint? what eaglet's wings didst thou clip?—What doors shouldst thou
have opened that have remained closed, and which of us two has failed the
other?
Nothing touches me, nothing moves me;—I no longer feel, when I hear the
story of a heroic action, the sublime shudder that used to run over me from
head to foot.—Indeed, it all seems to me a little foolish.—No accent is deep
enough to tighten the relaxed fibres of my heart and make them vibrate:—I
look upon the tears of my fellow-mortals with the same eye that I look upon
the rain, unless they are of a particularly beautiful water and the light is
reflected prettily in them and they are flowing down a lovely cheek.—Dumb
animals are almost the only creatures for which I have a slight remnant of
compassion. I would allow a peasant or a servant to be soundly whipped, but
I could not stand by and see the same treatment inflicted on a horse or dog in
my presence; and yet I am not evil-minded, I have never injured anybody on
earth and I probably never shall; but that is due rather to my nonchalance
and my sovereign contempt for all those people whom I do not like, which
does not permit me to interest myself even to the extent of injuring them.—I
abhor the whole world in bulk, and there are only one or two in the whole
lot whom I deem worthy to be hated specially.—To hate a person is to be as
much disturbed about him as if you loved him;—it is to set him apart, to
distinguish him from the common herd; it is to be in a state of violent
excitement because of him; it is to think of him by day and dream of him by
night; it is to bite at your pillow and gnash your teeth as you think that he
exists; what more do you do for any one you love? Would you take the same
amount of trouble to please a mistress that you take to ruin an enemy?—I
doubt it—in order to hate one person intensely, one must be in love with
some other person. Every great hatred serves as a counterpoise to a great
love: and whom could I hate, when I love nobody?
My hatred is, like my love, a confused, general sentiment that seeks to apply
itself to some object and cannot; I have within me a treasure of hatred and
love which I don't know what to do with, and which weighs horribly upon

me. If I can find no place to bestow one or the other or both of them, I shall
burst and break apart, like a bag filled too full of money, which rips at the
seams and spills its contents.—Oh! if I could detest some one, if one of the
stupid men with whom I live would insult me in such a way as to make my
old viper's blood boil in my frozen veins, and force me out of this dull
drowsiness in which I am stagnating; if thou, old witch with the palsied
head, wouldst bite me in the cheek with thy rat's teeth and infect me with thy
venom and thy madness; if some one's death could be my life;—if the last
heart-beat of an enemy writhing under my foot could send a delicious thrill
through my hair, and the odor of his blood smell sweeter to my thirsty
nostrils than the aroma of flowers, oh! how gladly would I renounce love,
and how happy I would deem myself!
Deadly embraces, tiger-bites, the hug of a boa-constrictor, an elephant's foot
placed upon a breast that is crushed and flattened beneath it, the poisoned
tail of the scorpion, the milky juice of the Euphorbia, the curved kris of the
Javanese, blades that gleam at night and extinguish their gleam in blood—I
call upon you now, it is you who shall replace for me the leafless roses, the
moist kisses and the warm embrace of love!
I love nothing, as I have said, but alas! I am afraid of loving something.—It
would be a hundred thousand times better to hate than to have such a love!
—I have found the type of beauty that I have so long dreamed of.—I have
found the body of my phantom; I have seen it, it has spoken to me, I have
touched its hand, it exists; it is not a chimera. I knew that I could not be
mistaken and that my presentiments never lied.—Yes, Silvio, lam living
beside the dream of my life;—my chamber is here, its chamber is there; I
can see from here the curtain trembling at its window, and the light of its
lamp. Its shadow has just passed across the curtain: in an hour we shall sup
together.
Those lovely Turkish eyelashes, that clear, profound gaze, that warm hue of
pale amber, that long glossy black hair, that nose, of proud and delicate
shape, those joints and extremities, supple and slender after the manner of
Palmegiani, the graceful curves and the pure oval contour that give such an
air of aristocratic refinement to a face—all that I longed for and would have
been overjoyed to find distributed among five or six persons, I have found
united in a single person!

The thing that I adore most fervently among all earthly things is a lovely
hand.—If you could see the hand of my dream! such perfection! such
dazzling whiteness! such soft skin! such penetrating moisture! the ends of
the fingers so admirably tapered! the half-moon of the nails so clearly
marked! such polish and such brilliant color! you would say they were the
inner petals of a rose;—Anne of Austria's hands, so vaunted and famous,
were no more than the hands of a turkey-keeper or scullery-maid compared
with these.—And then what grace, what art in the slightest movements of
the hand! how gracefully the little finger bends and stays a little apart from
its tall brothers!—The thought of that hand drives me mad and makes my
lips quiver and burn.—I close my eyes to avoid looking at it; but with its
delicate fingers it seizes my eyelashes and raises the lids, causing countless
visions of ivory and snow to pass before me.
Ah! doubtless it is Satan's claw gloved in that satin skin; it is some mocking
demon making sport of me; there is witchcraft in it.—It is too monstrously
impossible.
That hand—I propose to go to Italy, to see the pictures of the great masters,
to study, compare, draw, become a painter in short, in order to be able to
reproduce it as it is, as I see it, as I feel it; it will perhaps serve the purpose
of ridding me of this sort of obsession.
I longed for beauty; I did not know what I asked for.—It is like trying to
look at the sun without eyelids, it is like trying to handle flames.—I suffer
horribly.—To be unable to assimilate this perfection, to be unable to pass
into it and to cause it to pass into me, to have no means of reproducing it and
of making it feel!—When I see anything beautiful, I want to touch it with
my whole self, everywhere and at the same time. I want to sing of it and
paint it, to carve it and write of it, to be loved by it as I love it; I want what
cannot be and never can be.
Your letter made me ill—very ill—forgive me for saying it.—All the pure,
tranquil happiness that you enjoy, the walks in the reddening woods,—the
long conversations, so affectionate and tender, that end with a chaste kiss on
the forehead; the serene, isolated life; the days that pass so quickly that night
seems to come before its time, make the constant internal agitation in which
I live seem even more tempestuous.—So you are to be married in two
months; all the obstacles are removed, you are sure now of belonging to
each other forever. Your present felicity is augmented by all the happiness in

store for you. You are happy and you are certain of being happier soon.—
What a destiny is yours!—Your beloved is beautiful, but what you have
loved in her is not the mortal, palpable beauty, material beauty, but the
invisible, immortal beauty, the beauty that does not grow old, the beauty of
the soul.—She is full of charm and innocence; she loves you as such souls
know how to love.—You never looked to see if the golden shade of her hair
resembled the golden hair painted by Rubens or Giorgione; but it pleased
you because it was her hair. I will wager, happy lover that you are, that you
have no idea whether your mistress is of the Grecian or Asiatic type, English
or Italian.—O Silvio! how rare are the hearts that are content with pure and
simple love and desire neither a hermitage in the forest nor a garden on an
island in Lago Maggiore.
If I had the courage to tear myself away from here, I would go and pass a
month with you; perhaps I should become purified in the air that you
breathe, perhaps the shade of your avenues would bring a little coolness to
my burning brow; but no, it is a paradise in which I must not set foot.—
Hardly ought I to be allowed to gaze from afar, over the wall, at the two fair
angels who are walking there, hand in hand, eyes fixed upon eyes. The devil
can enter Eden only in the shape of a serpent, and, dear Adam, for all the
happiness on earth, I would not be the serpent of your Eve.
What frightful upheaval has taken place in my soul of late! who has
transformed my blood and changed it to venom? O monstrous thought, that
puttest forth thy pale green twigs and umbels of hemlock in the glacial
shadow of my heart, what poisoned wind deposited there the seed from
which thou didst spring? This, then, was what was in store for me, this is the
end of all the roads that I so desperately attempted!—O fate, how thou dost
mock at me!—All those upward flights of the eagle toward the sun, those
pure flames aspiring to reach the sky, that divine melancholy, that profound,
restrained passion, that worship of beauty, that refined and curious fancy,
that unquenchable and ever-rising flood from the interior fountain, that
ecstasy borne upon wings always spread, that reverie blooming brighter than
the hawthorn in May—all the poesy of my youth, all those beautiful and rare
gifts were destined to serve no other purpose than to place me beneath the
lowest of mankind.
I longed to love.—I went about like a madman, calling and invoking love;—
I writhed in frenzy because of my feeling of helplessness; I set my blood on

fire, I dragged my body about in the gutters of debauchery;—I strained to
my arid heart until I almost stifled her, a woman, young and beautiful, who
loved me.—I ran after the passion that avoided me. I prostituted myself, and
I acted like a virgin who should venture into an evil place, hoping to find a
lover among those whom depravity led thither, instead of waiting patiently,
in dignified, silent retirement, until the angel whom God has set aside for me
should appear in a radiant penumbra, a heavenly flower in her hand. All
these years that I have wasted in puerile agitation, in running hither and
thither, in seeking to force nature and time, I should have passed in silence
and meditation, in trying to make myself worthy to be loved;—that would
have been wisely done;—but I had scales over my eyes and I marched
straight to the precipice. I already have one foot suspended over the void,
and I believe that I shall soon lift the other. It is useless for me to resist, I
feel that I must roll to the bottom of this new abyss that has opened within
me.
Yes, it was thus that I imagined love. I feel now what I had dreamed.—Yes,
there are the delightful yet terrible sleepless nights when the roses were
thistles and the thistles roses; there are the sweet misery and the miserable
joy, the ineffable trouble that encompasses you in a golden cloud and makes
objects waver before your eyes as drunkenness does, the ringing in the ears
in which you always hear the last syllable of the loved one's name, the
pallor, the flushes, the sudden shivering, the burning and freezing
perspiration;—all those are there; the poets do not lie.
When I am about to enter the salon where we usually meet, my heart beats
so violently that you can see it through my clothes and I am obliged to hold
it back with both hands for fear it will escape me.—If I see my dream at the
end of a path and in the park, the distance vanishes at once and I have no
idea what becomes of the road: it must be that the devil takes me or that I
have wings.—Nothing can distract my thoughts: if I read, her image comes
between the book and my eyes;—I mount my horse, I gallop over the
country, and it always seems to me that I feel its long hair mingling with
mine in the wind, hear its hurried respiration, and feel its warm breath upon
my cheek. The image possesses me and follows me everywhere, and I never
see it more clearly than when it is not before my eyes.
You pitied me for not being in love—pity me now because I am in love; and
above all because I love what I love. What a misfortune, what a crushing

blow upon my already blasted life!—what an insensate, guilty, hateful
passion has taken possession of me!—It is a shameful thing for which I shall
never cease to blush. It is the most deplorable of all my aberrations, I cannot
imagine it, I cannot understand it, everything within me is in confusion and
bewilderment; I have no idea who I am nor who others are, I doubt whether
I am a man or a woman, I have a horror of myself, I feel strange,
inexplicable impulses, and there are moments when it seems to me that my
reason is going, and when the idea of my existence abandons me altogether.
For a long time I have been unable to believe in anything; I have listened to
myself and watched myself closely. I have tried to disentangle the skein that
has become entangled in my soul. At last, through all the veils in which it
was enveloped, I have discovered the ghastly truth—Silvio, I love—Oh! no,
I can never tell you—I love a man!

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