CHAPTER XV

[1]Scents.[2]See note 2, p.28.[3]Nessun maggior doloreChe ricordarsi del tempo feliceNella miseria.—Dante,Inf., V (Francesca).[No greater sorrow than to remember happy times in misery.—Tr.]

[1]Scents.

[2]See note 2, p.28.

[3]Nessun maggior doloreChe ricordarsi del tempo feliceNella miseria.—Dante,Inf., V (Francesca).[No greater sorrow than to remember happy times in misery.—Tr.]

[3]

Nessun maggior doloreChe ricordarsi del tempo feliceNella miseria.—Dante,Inf., V (Francesca).

[No greater sorrow than to remember happy times in misery.—Tr.]

Suddenly in the midst of the most violent and the most thwarted passion come moments, when a man believes that he is in love no longer—as it were a spring of fresh water in the middle of the sea. To think of his mistress is no longer very much pleasure, and, although he is worn-out by the severity of her treatment, the fact that everything in life has lost its interest is a still greater misery. After a manner of existence which, fitful though it was, gave to all nature a new aspect, passionate and absorbing, now follows the dreariest and most despondent void.

It may be that your last visit to the woman, whom you love, left you in a situation, from which, once before, your imagination had gathered the full harvest of sensation. For example, after a period of coldness, she has treated you less badly, letting you conceive exactly the same degree of hope and by the same external signs as on a previous occasion—all this perhaps unconsciously. Imagination picks up memory and its sinister warnings by the way, and instantly crystallisation[1]ceases.

[1]First, I am advised to cut out this word; next, if I fail in this for want of literary power, to repeat again and again that I mean by crystallisation a certain fever in the imagination, which transforms past recognition what is, as often as not, a quite ordinary object, and makes of it a thing apart. A man who looks to excite this fever in souls, which know no other path but vanity to reach their happiness, must tie his necktie well and constantly give his attention to a thousand details, which preclude all possibility of unrestraint. Society women own to the effect, denying at the same time or not seeing the cause.

In a small port, the name of which I forget, near Perpignan, 25th February, 1822.[1]

This evening I have just found out that music, when it is perfect, puts the heart into the same state as it enjoys in the presence of the loved one—that is to say, it gives seemingly the keenest happiness existing on the face of the earth.

If this were so for all men, there would be no more favourable incentive to love.

But I had already remarked at Naples last year that perfect music, like perfect pantomime, makes me think of that which is at the moment the object of my dreams, and that the ideas, which it suggests to me, are excellent: at Naples, it was on the means of arming the Greeks.

Now this evening I cannot deceive myself—I have the misfortuneof being too great an admirer of milady L.[2]

And perhaps the perfect music, which I have had the luck to hear again, after two or three months of privation, although going nightly to the Opera, has simply had the effect, which I recognised long ago—I mean that of producing lively thoughts on what is already in the heart.

March 4th—eight days later.

I dare neither erase nor approve the preceding observation. Certain it is that, as I wrote it, I read it in my heart. If to-day I bring it into question, it isbecause I have lost the memory of what I saw at that time.

The habit of hearing music and dreaming its dreams disposes towards love. A sad and gentle air, provided it is not too dramatic, so that the imagination is forced to dwell on the action, is a direct stimulant to dreams of love and a delight for gentle and unhappy souls: for example, the drawn-out passage on the clarionet at the beginning of the quartet inBianca and Faliero(10), and the recitative of La Camporesi towards the middle of the quartet.

A lover at peace with his mistress enjoys to distraction Rossini's famous duet inArmida and Rinaldo, depicting so justly the little doubts of happy love and the moments of delight which follow its reconciliations. It seems to him that the instrumental part, which comes in the middle of the duet, at the moment when Rinaldo wishes to fly, and represents in such an amazing way the conflict of the passions, has a physical influence upon his heart and touches it in reality. On this subject I dare not say what I feel; I should pass for a madman among people of the north.

[1]Copied from the diary of Lisio.[2][Written thus in English by Stendhal,—Tr.]

[1]Copied from the diary of Lisio.

[2][Written thus in English by Stendhal,—Tr.]

Alberic meets in a box at the theatre a woman more beautiful than his mistress (I beg to be allowed here a mathematical valuation)—that is to say, her features promise three units of happiness instead of two, supposing the quantity of happiness given by perfect beauty to be expressed by the number four.

Is it surprising that he prefers the features of his mistress, which promise a hundred units of happinessfor him? Even the minor defects of her face, a small-pox mark, for example, touches the heart of the man who loves, and, when he observes them even in another woman, sets him dreaming far away. What, then, when he sees them in his mistress? Why, he has felt a thousand sentiments in presence of that small-pox mark, sentiments for the most part sweet, and all of the greatest interest; and now, such as they are, they are evoked afresh with incredible vividness by the sight of this sign, even in the face of another woman.

If ugliness thus comes to be preferred and loved, it is because in this case ugliness is beauty.[1]A man was passionately in love with a woman, very thin and scarred with small-pox: death bereft him of her. At Rome, three years after, he makes friends with two women, one more lovely than the day, the other thin, scarred withsmall-pox, and thereby, if you will, quite ugly. There he is, at the end of a week, in love with the ugly one—and this week he employs in effacing her ugliness with his memories; and with a very pardonable coquetry the lesser beauty did not fail to help him in the operation with a slight whip-up of the pulse.[2]A man meets a woman and is offended by her ugliness; soon, if she is unpretentious, her expression makes him forget the defects of her features; he finds her amiable—he conceives that one could love her. A week later he has hopes; another week and they are taken from him; another and he's mad.

[1]Beauty is only the promise of happiness. The happiness of a Greek was different to that of a Frenchman of 1822. See the eyes of the Medici Venus and compare them with the eyes of the Magdalen of Pordenone (in the possession of M. de Sommariva.)[2]If one is sure of the love of a woman, one examines to see if she is more or less beautiful; if one is uncertain of her heart, there is no time to think of her face.

[2]If one is sure of the love of a woman, one examines to see if she is more or less beautiful; if one is uncertain of her heart, there is no time to think of her face.

An analogy is to be seen at the theatre in the reception of the public's favourite actors: the spectators are no longer conscious of the beauty or ugliness which the actors have in reality. Lekain, for all his remarkable ugliness, had a harvest of broken hearts—Garrick also. There are several reasons for this; the principal being that it was no longer the actual beauty of their features or their ways which people saw, but emphatically that which imagination was long since used to lend them, as a return for, and in memory of, all the pleasure they had given it. Why, take a comedian—his face alone raises a laugh as he first walks on.

A girl going for the first time to the Français would perhaps feel some antipathy to Lekain during the first scene; but soon he was making her weep or shiver—and how resist him as Tancrède[1]or Orosmane?

If his ugliness were still a little visible to her eyes, the fervour of an entire audience, and the nervous effect produced upon a young heart,[2]soon managed to eclipseit. If anything was still heard about his ugliness, it was mere talk; but not a word of it—Lekain's lady enthusiasts could be heard to exclaim "He's lovely!"

Remember that beauty is the expression of character, or, put differently, of moral habits, and that consequently it is exempt from all passion. Now it is passion that we want. Beauty can only supply us with probabilities about a woman, and probabilities, moreover, based on her capacity for self-possession; while the glances of your mistress with her small-pox scars are a delightful reality, which destroys all the probabilities in the world.

[1]See Madame de Staël inDelphine, I think; there you have the artifice of plain women.[2]I should be inclined to attribute to this nervous sympathy the prodigious and incomprehensible effect of fashionable music. (Sympathy at Dresden for Rossini, 1821.) As soon as it is out of fashion, it becomes no worse for that, and yet it ceases to have any effect upon perfectly ingenuous girls. Perhaps it used to please them, as also stimulating young men to fervour.Madame de Sévigné says to her daughter (Letter 202, May 6, 1672): "Lully surpassed himself in his royal music; that beautifulMisererewas still further enlarged: there was aLiberaat which all eyes were full of tears."It is as impossible to doubt the truth of this effect, as to refuse wit or refinement to Madame de Sévigné. Lully's music, which charmed her, would make us run away at present; in her day, his music encouraged crystallisation—it makes it impossible in ours.

[1]See Madame de Staël inDelphine, I think; there you have the artifice of plain women.

[2]I should be inclined to attribute to this nervous sympathy the prodigious and incomprehensible effect of fashionable music. (Sympathy at Dresden for Rossini, 1821.) As soon as it is out of fashion, it becomes no worse for that, and yet it ceases to have any effect upon perfectly ingenuous girls. Perhaps it used to please them, as also stimulating young men to fervour.Madame de Sévigné says to her daughter (Letter 202, May 6, 1672): "Lully surpassed himself in his royal music; that beautifulMisererewas still further enlarged: there was aLiberaat which all eyes were full of tears."It is as impossible to doubt the truth of this effect, as to refuse wit or refinement to Madame de Sévigné. Lully's music, which charmed her, would make us run away at present; in her day, his music encouraged crystallisation—it makes it impossible in ours.

Madame de Sévigné says to her daughter (Letter 202, May 6, 1672): "Lully surpassed himself in his royal music; that beautifulMisererewas still further enlarged: there was aLiberaat which all eyes were full of tears."

It is as impossible to doubt the truth of this effect, as to refuse wit or refinement to Madame de Sévigné. Lully's music, which charmed her, would make us run away at present; in her day, his music encouraged crystallisation—it makes it impossible in ours.

A woman of quick fancy and tender heart, but timid and cautious in her sensibility, who the day after she appears in society, passes in review a thousand times nervously and painfully all that she may have said or given hint of—such a woman, I say, grows easily used to want of beauty in a man: it is hardly an obstacle in rousing her affection.

It is really on the same principle that you care next to nothing for the degree of beauty in a mistress, whom you adore and who repays you with harshness. You have very nearly stopped crystallising her beauty, and when yourfriend in needtells you that she isn't pretty, you are almost ready to agree. Then he thinks he has made great way.

My friend, brave Captain Trab, described to me this evening his feelings on seeing Mirabeau once upon a time. No one looking upon that great man felt a disagreeable sensation in the eyes—that is to say, found him ugly. People were carried away by his thundering words; they fixed their attention, they delighted in fixing their attention, only on what was beautiful in his face. As he had practically no beautiful features (in the sense of sculpturesque or picturesque beauty) they minded only what beauty he had of another kind, the beauty of expression.[1]

While attention was blind to all traces of ugliness, picturesquely speaking, it fastened on the smallest passable details with fervour—for example, the beauty of his vast head of hair. If he had had horns, people would have thought them lovely.[2]

The appearance every evening of a pretty dancer forces a little interest from those poor souls, blasé or bereft of imagination, who adorn the balcony of the opera. By her graceful movements, daring and strange, she awakens their physical love and procures them perhaps the only crystallisation of which they are still capable. This is the way by which a young scarecrow, who in the street would not have been honoured with a glance, least of all from people the worse for wear, has only to appear frequently on the stage, and she manages to get herself handsomely supported. Geoffroy used to say that the theatre is the pedestal of woman. The more notorious and the more dilapidated a dancer, the more she is worth; hence the green-room proverb: "Some get sold at a price who wouldn't be taken as a gift." These women steal part of their passions from their lovers, and are very susceptible of love from pique.

How manage not to connect generous or lovable sentiments with the face of an actress, in whose features there is nothing repugnant, whom for two hours every evening we see expressing the most noble feelings, and whom otherwise we do not know? When at last you succeed in being received by her, her features recall such pleasing feelings, that the entire reality which surrounds her, however little nobility it may sometimes possess, is instantly invested with romantic and touching colours.

"Devotee, in the days of my youth, of that boring French tragedy,[3]whenever I had the luck of supping with Mlle. Olivier, I found myself every other moment overbrimming with respect, in the belief that I was speaking to a queen; and really I have never been quite sure whether, in her case, I had fallen in love with a queen or a pretty tart."

[1]That is the advantage of beingà la mode. Putting aside the defects of a face which are already familiar, and no longer have any effect upon the imagination, the public take hold of one of the three following ideas of beauty:—(1) The people—of the idea of wealth.(2) The upper classes—of the idea of elegance, material or moral.(3) The Court—of the idea: "My object is to please the women."Almost all take hold of a mixture of all three. The happiness attached to the idea of riches is linked to a refinement in the pleasure which the idea of elegance suggests, and the whole comes into touch with love. In one way or another the imagination is led on by novelty. It is possible in this way to be interested in a very ugly man without thinking of his ugliness,[*]and in good time his ugliness becomes beauty. At Vienna, in 1788, Madame Viganò, a dancer andthewoman of the moment, was with child—very soon the ladies took to wearing littleVentres à la Viganò. For the same reason reversed, nothing more fearful than a fashion out of date! Bad taste is a confusion of fashion, which lives only by change, with the lasting beauty produced by such and such a government, guided by such and such a climate. A building in fashion to-day, in ten years will be out of fashion. It will be less displeasing in two hundred years, when its fashionable day will be forgotten. Lovers are quite mad to think about their dress; a woman has other things to do, when seeing the object of her love, than to bother about his get-up; we look at our lover, we do not examine him, says Rousseau. If this examination takes place, we are dealing with gallant-love and not passion-love. The brilliance of beauty is almost offensive in the object of our love; it is none of our business to see her beautiful, we want her tender and languishing. Adornment has effect in love only upon girls, who are so rigidly guarded in their parents' house, that they often lose their hearts through their eyes. (L.'s words. September 15, 1820.)* Le petit Germain,Mémoires de Grammont.[2]For their polish or their size or their form! In this way, or by the combination of sentiments (see above, the small-pox scars) a woman in love grows used to the faults of her lover. The Russian Princess C. has actually become used to a man who literally has no nose. The picture of his courage, of his pistol loaded to kill himself in despair at his misfortune, and pity for the bitter calamity, enhanced by the idea that he will recover and is beginning to recover, are the forces which have worked this miracle. The poor fellow with his wound must appear not to think of his misfortune. (Berlin, 1807.)[3]Improper expression copied from the Memoirs of my friend, the late Baron de Bottmer. It is by the same trick that Feramorz pleases Lalla-Rookh. See that charming poem.

(1) The people—of the idea of wealth.

(2) The upper classes—of the idea of elegance, material or moral.

(3) The Court—of the idea: "My object is to please the women."

Almost all take hold of a mixture of all three. The happiness attached to the idea of riches is linked to a refinement in the pleasure which the idea of elegance suggests, and the whole comes into touch with love. In one way or another the imagination is led on by novelty. It is possible in this way to be interested in a very ugly man without thinking of his ugliness,[*]and in good time his ugliness becomes beauty. At Vienna, in 1788, Madame Viganò, a dancer andthewoman of the moment, was with child—very soon the ladies took to wearing littleVentres à la Viganò. For the same reason reversed, nothing more fearful than a fashion out of date! Bad taste is a confusion of fashion, which lives only by change, with the lasting beauty produced by such and such a government, guided by such and such a climate. A building in fashion to-day, in ten years will be out of fashion. It will be less displeasing in two hundred years, when its fashionable day will be forgotten. Lovers are quite mad to think about their dress; a woman has other things to do, when seeing the object of her love, than to bother about his get-up; we look at our lover, we do not examine him, says Rousseau. If this examination takes place, we are dealing with gallant-love and not passion-love. The brilliance of beauty is almost offensive in the object of our love; it is none of our business to see her beautiful, we want her tender and languishing. Adornment has effect in love only upon girls, who are so rigidly guarded in their parents' house, that they often lose their hearts through their eyes. (L.'s words. September 15, 1820.)

* Le petit Germain,Mémoires de Grammont.

[2]For their polish or their size or their form! In this way, or by the combination of sentiments (see above, the small-pox scars) a woman in love grows used to the faults of her lover. The Russian Princess C. has actually become used to a man who literally has no nose. The picture of his courage, of his pistol loaded to kill himself in despair at his misfortune, and pity for the bitter calamity, enhanced by the idea that he will recover and is beginning to recover, are the forces which have worked this miracle. The poor fellow with his wound must appear not to think of his misfortune. (Berlin, 1807.)

[3]Improper expression copied from the Memoirs of my friend, the late Baron de Bottmer. It is by the same trick that Feramorz pleases Lalla-Rookh. See that charming poem.

Perhaps men who are not susceptible to the feelings of passion-love are those most keenly sensitive to the effects of beauty: that at least is the strongest impression which such men can receive of women.

He who has felt his heart beating at a distant glimpse of the white satin hat of the woman he loves, is quite amazed by the chill left upon him by the approach of the greatest beauty in the world. He may even have a qualm of distress, to observe the excitement of others.

Extremely lovely women cause less surprise the second day. 'Tis a great misfortune, it discourages crystallisation. Their merit being obvious to all and public property, they are bound to reckon more fools in the list of their lovers than princes, millionaires, etc.[1]

[1]It is quite clear that the author is neither prince nor millionaire. I wanted to steal that sally from the reader.

Imaginative souls are sensitive and also mistrustful, even the most ingenuous,[1]—I maintain. They may be suspicious without knowing it: they have had so many disappointments in life. Thus everything set-out and official, when a man is first introduced, scares the imagination and drives away the possibility of crystallisation; the romantic is then, on the contrary, love's triumph.

Nothing simpler—for in the supreme astonishment, which keeps the thoughts busy for long upon something out of the ordinary, is already half the mental exercise necessary to crystallisation.

I will quote the beginning of the Amours of Séraphine (Gil Blas, Bk. IV, Chap. X). It is Don Fernando who tells the story of his flight, when pursued by the agents of the inquisition....

After crossing several walks I came to a drawing-room, the door of which was also left open. I entered, and when I had observed all its magnificence.... One side of the room a door stood ajar; I partly opened it and saw a suite of apartmentswhereof only the furthest was lighted. "What is to be done now?" I asked myself.... I could not resist my curiosity.... Advancing boldly, I went through all the rooms and reached one where there was a light—to wit, a taper upon a marble table in a silver-gilt candlestick.... But soon afterwards, casting my eyes upon a bed, the curtains of which were partly drawn on account of the heat, I perceived an object which at once engrossed my attention: a young lady, fast asleep in spite of the noise of the thunder, which had just been bursting forth. I softly drew near her. My mind was suddenly troubled at the sight. Whilst I feasted my eyes with the pleasure of beholding her, she awoke.Imagine her surprise at seeing in her room at midnight a man who was an utter stranger to her! She trembled on beholding me and shrieked aloud.... I took pains to reassure her and throwing myself on my knees before her, said—"Madam, have no fear." She called her women.... Grown a little braver by his (an old servant's) presence, she haughtily asked me who was, etc. etc."[2]

Imagine her surprise at seeing in her room at midnight a man who was an utter stranger to her! She trembled on beholding me and shrieked aloud.... I took pains to reassure her and throwing myself on my knees before her, said—"Madam, have no fear." She called her women.... Grown a little braver by his (an old servant's) presence, she haughtily asked me who was, etc. etc."[2]

There is an introduction not easily to be forgotten! On the other hand, could there be anything sillier in our customs of to-day than the official, and at the same time almost sentimental, introduction of the young wooer to his future wife: such legal prostitution goes so far as to be almost offensive to modesty.

"I have just been present this afternoon, February 17th, 1790," says Chamfort, "at a so-called family function. That is to say, men of respectable reputation and a decent company were congratulating on her good fortune Mlle. de Marille, a young person of beauty, wit and virtue, who is to be favoured with becoming the wife of M. R.—an unhealthy dotard, repulsive, dishonest, and mad, but rich: she has seen him for the third time to-day, when signing the contract. If anything characterises an age of infamy, it is the jubilation on an occasion like this, it is the folly of such joy and—looking ahead—the sanctimonious cruelty, with which the same society will heap contempt without reserve uponthe pettiest imprudence of a poor young woman in love."

Ceremony of all kinds, being in its essence something affected and set-out beforehand, in which the point is to act "properly," paralyses the imagination and leaves it awake only to that which is opposed to the object of the ceremony, e. g. something comical—whence the magic effect of the slightest joke. A poor girl, struggling against nervousness and attacks of modesty during the official introduction of herfiancé, can think of nothing but the part she is playing, and this again is a certain means of stifling the imagination.

Modesty has far more to say against getting into bed with a man whom you have seen but twice, after three Latin words have been spoken in church, than against giving way despite yourself to the man whom for two years you have adored. But I am talking double Dutch.

The fruitful source of the vices and mishaps, which follow our marriages nowadays, is the Church of Rome. It makes liberty for girls impossible before marriage, and divorce impossible, when once they have made their mistake, or rather when they find out the mistake of the choice forced on them. Compare Germany, the land of happy marriages: a delightful princess (Madame la Duchesse de Sa——) has just married in all good faith for the fourth time, and has not failed to ask to the wedding her three first husbands, with whom she is on the best terms. That is going too far; but a single divorce, which punishes a husband for his tyranny, prevents a thousand cases of unhappy wedded life. What is amusing is that Rome is one of the places where you see most divorces.

Love goes out at first sight towards a face, which reveals in a man at once something to respect and something to pity.

[1]The Bride of Lammermoor, Miss Ashton.A man who has lived finds in his memory numberless examples of "affairs," and his only trouble is to make his choice. But if he wishes to write, he no longer knows where to look for support. The anecdotes of the particular circles he has lived in are unknown to the public, and it would require an immense number of pages to recount them with the necessary circumstantiality. I quote for that reason from generally-known novels, but the ideas which I submit to the reader I do not ground upon such empty fictions, calculated for the most part with an eye to the picturesque rather than the true effect.[2][Translation of Henri van Laun.—Tr.]

[1]The Bride of Lammermoor, Miss Ashton.

A man who has lived finds in his memory numberless examples of "affairs," and his only trouble is to make his choice. But if he wishes to write, he no longer knows where to look for support. The anecdotes of the particular circles he has lived in are unknown to the public, and it would require an immense number of pages to recount them with the necessary circumstantiality. I quote for that reason from generally-known novels, but the ideas which I submit to the reader I do not ground upon such empty fictions, calculated for the most part with an eye to the picturesque rather than the true effect.

[2][Translation of Henri van Laun.—Tr.]

The most fastidious spirits are very given to curiosity and prepossession: this is to be seen, especially, in beings in which that sacred fire, the source of the passions, is extinct—in fact it is one of the most fatal symptoms. There is also the infatuation of schoolboys just admitted to society. At the two poles of life, with too much or too little sensibility, there is little chance of simple people getting the right effect from things, or feeling the genuine sensation which they ought to give. These beings, either too ardent or excessive in their ardour, amorous on credit, if one may use the expression, throw themselves at objects instead of awaiting them.

From afar off and without looking they enfold things in that imaginary charm, of which they find a perennial source within themselves, long before sensation, which is the consequence of the object's nature, has had time to reach them. Then, on coming to close quarters, they see these things not such as they are, but as they have made them; they think they are enjoying such and such an object, while, under cover of that object, they are enjoying themselves. But one fine day a man gets tired of keeping the whole thing going; he discovers that his idol isnot playing the game; infatuation collapses and the resulting shock to his self-esteem makes him unfair to that which he appreciated too highly.

So ridiculous an expression ought to be changed, yet the thing exists. I have seen the amiable and noble Wilhelmina, the despair of the beaux of Berlin, making light of love and laughing at its folly. In the brilliance of youth, wit, beauty and all kinds of good luck—a boundless fortune, giving her the opportunity of developing all her qualities, seemed to conspire with nature to give the world an example, rarely seen, of perfect happiness bestowed upon an object perfectly worthy. She was twenty-three years old and, already some time at Court, had won the homage of the bluest blood. Her virtue, unpretentious but invulnerable, was quoted as a pattern. Henceforth the most charming men, despairing of their powers of fascination, aspired only to make her their friend. One evening she goes to a ball at Prince Ferdinand's: she dances for ten minutes with a young Captain.

"From that moment," she writes subsequently to a friend,[1]"he was master of my heart and of me, and this to a degree that would have filled me with terror, if the happiness of seeing Herman had left me time to think of the rest of existence. My only thought was to observe whether he gave me a little notice.

"To-day the only consolation that I might find for my fault is to nurse the illusion within me, that it is through a superior power that I am lost to reason and to myself. I have no word to describe, in a way that comes at all near the reality, the degree of disorder and turmoilto which the mere sight of him could bring my whole being. I blush to think of the rapidity and the violence with which I was drawn towards him. If his first word, when at last he spoke to me, had been 'Do you adore me?'—truly I should not have had the power to have answered anything but 'yes.' I was far from thinking that the effect of a feeling could be at once so sudden and so unforeseen. In fact, for an instant, I believed that I had been poisoned.

"Unhappily you and the world, my dear friend, know how well I have loved Herman. Well, after quarter of an hour he was so dear to me that he cannot have become dearer since. I saw then all his faults and I forgave them all, provided only he would love me.

"Soon after I had danced with him, the king left: Herman, who belonged to the suite, had to follow him. With him, everything in nature disappeared. It is no good to try to depict the excess of weariness with which I felt weighed down, as soon as he was out of my sight. It was equal only to the keenness of my desire to be alone with myself.

"At last I got away. No sooner the door of my room shut and bolted than I wanted to resist my passion. I thought I should succeed. Ah, dear friend, believe me I paid dear that evening and the following days for the pleasure of being able to credit myself with some virtue."

The preceding lines are the exact story of an event which was the topic of the day; for after a month or two poor Wilhelmina was unfortunate enough for people to take notice of her feelings. Such was the origin of that long series of troubles by which she perished so young and so tragically—poisoned by herself or her lover. All that we could see in this young Captain was that he was an excellent dancer; he had plenty of gaiety and still more assurance, a general air of good nature and spent his time with prostitutes; for the rest, scarcely a nobleman, quite poor and not seen at Court.

In these cases it is not enough to have no misgivings—one must be sick of misgivings—have, so to speak, the impatience of courage to face life's chances.

The soul of a woman, grown tired, without noticing it, of living without loving, convinced in spite of herself by the example of other women—all the fears of life surmounted and the sorry happiness of pride found wanting—ends in creating unconsciously a model, an ideal. One day she meets this model: crystallisation recognises its object by the commotion it inspires and consecrates for ever to the master of its fortunes the fruit of all its previous dreams.[2]

Women, whose hearts are open to this misfortune, have too much grandeur of soul to love otherwise than with passion. They would be saved if they could stoop to gallantry.

As "thunderbolts" come from a secret lassitude in what the catechism calls Virtue, and from boredom brought on by the uniformity of perfection, I should be inclined to think that it would generally be the privilege of what is known in the world as "a bad lot" to bring them down. I doubt very much whether rigidityà laCato has ever been the occasion of a "thunderbolt."

What makes them so rare is that if the heart, thus disposed to love beforehand, has the slightest inkling of its situation, there is no thunderbolt.

The soul of a woman, whom troubles have made mistrustful, is not susceptible of this revolution.

Nothing facilitates "a thunderbolt" like praise, given in advance and by women, to the person who is to occasion it.

False "thunderbolts" form one of the most comic sources of love stories. A weary woman, but one without much feeling, thinks for a whole evening that she is in love for life. She is proud of having found at last one of those great commotions of the soul, which used toallure her imagination. The next day she no longer knows where to hide her face and, still more, how to avoid the wretched object she was adoring the night before.

Clever people know how to spot, that is to say, make capital out of these "thunderbolts."

Physical love also has its "thunderbolts." Yesterday in her carriage with the prettiest and most easy-going woman in Berlin, we saw her suddenly blush. She became deeply absorbed and preoccupied. Handsome Lieutenant Findorff had just passed. In the evening at the play, according to her own confession to me, she was out of her mind, she was beside herself, she could think of nothing but Findorff, to whom she had never spoken. If she had dared, she told me, she would have sent for him—that pretty face bore all the signs of the most violent passion. The next day it was still going on. After three days, Findorff having played the blockhead, she thought no more about it. A month later she loathed him.

[1]Translatedad litteramfrom the Memoirs of Bottmer.[2]Several phrases taken from Crébillon.

[1]Translatedad litteramfrom the Memoirs of Bottmer.

[2]Several phrases taken from Crébillon.

I advise the majority of people born in the North to skip the present chapter. It is an obscure dissertation upon certain phenomena relative to the orange-tree, a plant which does not grow or reach its full height except in Italy and Spain. In order to be intelligible elsewhere, I should have had to cut down the facts.

I should have had no hesitation about this, if for a single moment I had intended to write a book to be generally appreciated. But Heaven having refused me the writer's gift, I have thought solely of describing with all the ill-grace of science, but also with all its exactitude, certain facts, of which I became involuntarily the witness through a prolonged sojourn in the land of the orange-tree. Frederick the Great, or some such other distinguished man from the North, who never had the opportunity of seeing the orange-tree growing in the open, would doubtless have denied the facts which follow—and denied in good faith. I have an infinite respect for such good faith and can see itswherefore.

As this sincere declaration may seem presumption, I append the following reflexion:—

We write haphazard, each one of us what we think true, and each gives the lie to his neighbour. I see in our books so many tickets in a lottery and in reality they have no more value. Posterity, forgetting some and reprinting others, declares the lucky numbers. And in so far, each one of us having written as best he can, what he thinks true, has no right to laugh at his neighbour—exceptwhere the satire is amusing. In that case he is always right, especially if he writes like M. Courrier to Del Furia(12).

After this preamble, I am going bravely to enter into the examination of facts which, I am convinced, have rarely been observed at Paris. But after all at Paris, superior as of course it is to all other towns, orange-trees are not seen growing out in the open, as at Sorrento, and it is there that Lisio Visconti observed and noted the following facts—at Sorrento, the country of Tasso, on the Bay of Naples in a position half-way down to the sea, still more picturesque than that of Naples itself, but where no one reads theMiroir.

When we are to see in the evening the woman we love, the suspense, the expectation of so great a happiness makes every moment, which separates us from it, unbearable.

A devouring fever makes us take up and lay aside twenty different occupations. We look every moment at our watch—overjoyed when we see that we have managed to pass ten minutes without looking at the time. The hour so longed-for strikes at last, and when we are at her door ready to knock—we would be glad not to find her in. It is only on reflexion that we would be sorry for it. In a word, the suspense before seeing her produces an unpleasant effect.

There you have one of the things which make good folk say that love drives men silly.

The reason is that the imagination, violently withdrawn from dreams of delight in which every step forward brings happiness, is brought back face to face with severe reality.

The gentle soul knows well that in the combat which is to begin the moment he sees her, the least inadvertency, the least lack of attention or of courage will be paid for by a defeat, poisoning, for a long time to come, the dreams of fancy and of passion, and humiliating to a man's pride, if he try to find consolation outside thesphere of passion. He says to himself: "I hadn't the wit, I hadn't the pluck"; but the only way to have pluck before the loved one is by loving her a little less.

It is a fragment of attention, torn by force with so much trouble from the dreams of crystallisation, which allows the crowd of things to escape us during our first words with the woman we love—things which have no sense or which have a sense contrary to what we mean—or else, what is still more heartrending, we exaggerate our feelings and they become ridiculous in our own eyes. We feel vaguely that we are not paying enough attention to our words and mechanically set about polishing and loading our oratory. And, also, it is impossible to hold one's tongue—silence would be embarrassing and make it still less possible to give one's thoughts to her. So we say in a feeling way a host of things that we do not feel, and would be quite embarrassed to repeat, obstinately keeping our distance from the woman before us, in order more really to be with her. In the early hours of my acquaintance with love, this oddity which I felt within me, made me believe that I did not love.

I understand cowardice and how recruits, to be delivered of their fear, throw themselves recklessly into the midst of the fire. The number of silly things I have said in the last two years, in order not to hold my tongue, makes me mad when I think of them.

And that is what should easily mark in a woman's eyes the difference between passion-love and gallantry, between the gentle soul and the prosaic.[1]

In these decisive moments the one gains as much as the other loses: the prosaic soul gets just the degree of warmth which he ordinarily wants, while excess of feeling drives mad the poor gentle heart, who, to crown his troubles, really means to hide his madness. Completely taken up with keeping his own transports in check, he is miles away from the self-possession necessary in order to seize opportunities,and leaves in a muddle after a visit, in which the prosaic soul would have made a great step forward. Directly it is a question of advancing his too violent passion, a gentle being with pride cannot be eloquent under the eye of the woman whom he loves: the pain of ill-success is too much for him. The vulgar being, on the contrary, calculates nicely the chances of success: he is stopped by no foretastes of the suffering of defeat, and, proud of that which makes him vulgar, laughs at the gentle soul, who, with all the cleverness he may have, is never quite enough at ease to say the simplest things and those most certain to succeed. The gentle soul, far from being able to grasp anything by force, must resign himself to obtaining nothing except through thecharityof her whom he loves. If the woman one loves really has feelings, one always has reason to regret having wished to put pressure on oneself in order to make love to her. One looks shame-faced, looks chilly, would look deceitful, did not passion betray itself by other and surer signs. To express what we feel so keenly, and in such detail, at every moment of the day, is a task we take upon our shoulders because we have read novels; for if we were natural, we would never undertake anything so irksome. Instead of wanting to speak of what we felt a quarter of an hour ago, and of trying to make of it a general and interesting topic, we would express simply the passing fragment of our feelings at the moment. But no! we put the most violent pressure upon ourselves for a worthless success, and, as there is no evidence of actual sensation to back our words, and as our memory cannot be working freely, we approve at the time of things to say—and say them—comical to a degree that is more than humiliating.

When at last, after an hour's trouble, this extremely painful effort has resulted in getting away from the enchanted gardens of the imagination, in order to enjoy quite simply the presence of what you love, it often happens—that you've got to take your leave.

All this looks like extravagance, but I have seen better still. A woman, whom one of my friends loved to idolatry, pretending to take offence at some or other want of delicacy, which I was never allowed to learn, condemned him all of a sudden to see her only twice a month. These visits, so rare and so intensely desired, meant an attack of madness, and it wanted all Salviati's strength of character to keep it from being seen by outward signs.

From the very first, the idea of the visit's end is too insistent for one to be able to take pleasure in the visit. One speaks a great deal, deaf to one's own thoughts, saying often the contrary of what one thinks. One embarks upon discourses which have got suddenly to be cut short, because of their absurdity—if one manage to rouse oneself and listen to one's thoughts within. The effort we make is so violent that we seem chilly. Love hides itself in its excess.

Away from her, the imagination was lulled by the most charming dialogues: there were transports the most tender and the most touching. And thus for ten days or so you think you have the courage to speak; but two days before what should have been our day of happiness, the fever begins, and, as the terrible instant draws near, its force redoubles.

Just as you come into hersalon, in order not to do or say some incredible piece of nonsense, you clutch in despair at the resolution of keeping your mouth shut and your eyes on her—in order at least to be able to remember her face. Scarcely before her, something like a kind of drunkenness comes over your eyes; you feel driven like a maniac to do strange actions; it is as if you had two souls—one to act and the other to blame your actions. You feel, in a confused way, that to turn your strained attention to folly would temporarily refresh the blood, and make you lose from sight the end of the visit and the misery of parting for a fortnight.

If some bore be there, who tells a pointless story, the poor lover, in his inexplicable madness, as if he were nervous of losing moments so rare, becomes all attention. That hour, of which he drew himself so sweet a picture, passes like a flash of lightning and yet he feels, with unspeakable bitterness, all the little circumstances which show how much a stranger he has become to her whom he loves. There he is in the midst of indifferent visitors and sees himself the only one who does not know her life of these past days, in all its details. At last he goes: and as he coldly says good-bye, he has the agonising feeling of two whole weeks before another meeting. Without a doubt he would suffer less never to see the object of his love again. It is in the style, only far blacker, of the Duc de Policastro, who every six months travelled a hundred leagues to see for a quarter of an hour at Lecce a beloved mistress guarded by a jealous husband.

Here you can see clearly Will without influence upon Love.

Out of all patience with one's mistress and oneself, how furious the desire to bury oneself in indifference! The only good of such visits is to replenish the treasure of crystallisation.

Life for Salviati was divided into periods of two weeks, which took their colour from the last evening he had been allowed to see Madame ——. For example, he was in the seventh heaven of delight the 21st of May, and the 2nd of June he kept away from home, for fear of yielding to the temptation of blowing out his brains.

I saw that evening how badly novelists have drawn the moment of suicide. Salviati simply said to me: "I'm thirsty, I must take this glass of water." I did not oppose his resolution, but said good-bye: then he broke down.

Seeing the obscurity which envelops the discourse of lovers, it would not be prudent to push too far conclusions drawn from an isolated detail of their conversation.They give a fair glimpse of their feelings only in sudden expressions—then it is the cry of the heart. Otherwise it is from the complexion of the bulk of what is said that inductions are to be drawn. And we must remember that quite often a man, who is very moved, has no time to notice the emotion of the person who is the cause of his own.

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