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
