[1]Mary Stuart speaking of Leicester, after the interview with Elizabeth, where she had just met her doom. (Schiller.)[2]It is well known that that celebrated woman was the author, probably in company with M. de la Rochefoucauld, of the novel,La Princesse de Clèves, and that the two authors passed together in perfect friendship the last twenty years of their life. That is exactly loveà l'Italienne.
[1]Mary Stuart speaking of Leicester, after the interview with Elizabeth, where she had just met her doom. (Schiller.)
[1]Mary Stuart speaking of Leicester, after the interview with Elizabeth, where she had just met her doom. (Schiller.)
[2]It is well known that that celebrated woman was the author, probably in company with M. de la Rochefoucauld, of the novel,La Princesse de Clèves, and that the two authors passed together in perfect friendship the last twenty years of their life. That is exactly loveà l'Italienne.
[2]It is well known that that celebrated woman was the author, probably in company with M. de la Rochefoucauld, of the novel,La Princesse de Clèves, and that the two authors passed together in perfect friendship the last twenty years of their life. That is exactly loveà l'Italienne.
Women with their feminine pride visit the iniquities of the fools upon the men of sense, and those of the prosaic, prosperous and brutal upon the noble-minded. A very pretty result—you'll agree!
The petty considerations of pride and worldly proprieties are the cause of many women's unhappiness, for, through pride, their parents have placed them in their abominable position. Destiny has reserved for them, as a consolation far superior to all their misfortunes, the happiness of loving and being loved with passion, when suddenly one fine day they borrow from the enemy this same mad pride, of which they were the first victims—all to kill the one happiness which is left them, to work their own misfortune and the misfortune of him, who loves them. A friend, who has had ten famous intrigues (and by no means all one after another), gravely persuades them that if they fall in love, they will be dishonoured in the eyes of the public, and yet this worthy public, who never rises above low ideas, gives them generously a lover a year; because that, it says, "is the thing." Thus the soul is saddened by this odd spectacle: a woman of feeling, supremely refined and an angel of purity, on the advice of a low t——, runs away from the boundless, the only happiness which is left to her, in order to appear in a dress of dazzling white, before a great fat brute of a judge, whom everyone knows has been blind a hundred years, and who bawls out at the top of his voice: "She is dressed in black!"
Ingenium nobis ipsa puella facit.(Propertius, II,i.)
Bologna,April 29th, 1818.
Driven to despair by the misfortune to which love has reduced me, I curse existence. I have no heart for anything. The weather is dull; it is raining, and a late spell of cold has come again to sadden nature, who after a long winter was hurrying to meet the spring.
Schiassetti, a half-pay colonel, my cold and reasonable friend, came to spend a couple of hours with me "You should renounce your love."
"How? Give me back my passion for war."
"It is a great misfortune for you to have known her."
I agree very nearly—so low-spirited and craven do I feel—so much has melancholy taken possession of me to-day. We discuss what interest can have led her friend to libel me, but find nothing but that old Neapolitan proverb: "Woman, whom love and youth desert, a nothing piques." What is certain is that that cruel woman isenragedwith me—it is the expression of one of her friends. I could revenge myself in a fearful way, but, against her hatred, I am without the smallest means of defence. Schiassetti leaves me. I go out into the rain, not knowing what to do with myself. My rooms, this drawing-room, which I lived in during the first days of our acquaintance, and when I saw her every evening, have become insupportable to me. Each engraving, each piece of furniture, brings up again thehappiness I dreamed of in their presence—which now I have lost for ever.
I tramped the streets through a cold rain: chance, if I can call it chance, made me pass under her windows. Night was falling and I went along, my eyes full of tears fixed on the window of her room. Suddenly the curtains were just drawn aside, as if to give a glimpse into the square, then instantly closed again. I felt within me a physical movement about the heart. I was unable to support myself and took refuge under the gateway of the next house. A thousand feelings crowd upon my soul. Chance may have produced this movement of the curtains; but oh! if it was her hand that had drawn them aside.
There are two misfortunes in the world: passion frustrated and the "dead blank."
In love—I feel that two steps away from me exists a boundless happiness, something beyond all my prayers, which depends upon nothing but a word, nothing but a smile.
Passionless like Schiassetti, on gloomy days I see happiness nowhere, I come to doubt if it exists for me, I fall into depression. One ought to be without strong passions and have only a little curiosity or vanity.
It is two o'clock in the morning; I have seen that little movement of the curtain; at six o'clock I paid some calls and went to the play, but everywhere, silent and dreaming, I passed the evening examining this question: "After so much anger with so little foundation (for after all did I wish to offend her and is there a thing on earth which the intention does not excuse?)—has she felt a moment of love?"
Poor Salviati, who wrote the preceding lines on his Petrarch, died a short time after. He was the intimate friend of Schiassetti and myself; we knew all his thoughts, and it is from him that I have all the tearful part of this essay. He was imprudence incarnate; moreover,the woman, for whom he went to such wild lengths, is the most interesting creature that I have met. Schiassetti said to me: "But do you think that that unfortunate passion was without advantages for Salviati? To begin with, the most worrying of money troubles that can be imagined came upon him. These troubles, which reduced him to a very middling fortune after his dazzling youth, and would have driven him mad with anger in any other circumstances, crossed his mind not once in two weeks.
"And then—a matter of importance of a quite different kind for a mind of his range—that passion is the first true course of logic, which he ever had. That may seem peculiar in a man who has been at Court; but the fact is explained by his extreme courage. For example, he passed without winking the day of ——, the day of his undoing; he was surprised then, as in Russia(16), not to feel anything extraordinary. It is an actual fact, that his fear of anything had never gone so far as to make him think about it for two days together. Instead of this callousness, the last two years he was trying every minute to be brave. Before he had never seen danger.
"When as a result of his imprudence and his faith in the generosity of critics,[1]he had managed to get condemned to not seeing the woman he was in love with, except twice a month, we would see him pass those evenings, talking to her as if intoxicated with joy, because he had been received with that noble frankness which he worshipped. He held that Madame —— and he were two souls without their like, who should understand each other with a glance. It was beyond him to grasp that she should pay the least attention to petty bourgeois comments, which tried to make a criminal of him. The result of this fine confidence in a woman, surrounded by his enemies, was to find her door closed to him.
"'With M——,' I used to say to him, 'you forgetyour maxim—that you mustn't believe in greatness of soul, except in the last extremity.'
"'Do you think,' he answered, 'that the world contains another heart which is more suited to hers? True, I pay for this passionate way of being, which Léonore, in anger, made me see on the horizon in the line of the rocks of Poligny, with the ruin of all the practical enterprises of my life—a disaster which comes from my lack of patient industry and imprudence due to the force of momentary impressions.'" One can see the touch of madness!
For Salviati life was divided into periods of a fortnight, which took their hue from the last interview, which he had been granted. But I noticed often, that the happiness he owed to a welcome, which he thought less cold, was far inferior in intensity to the unhappiness with which a hard reception overwhelmed him.[2]At times Madame ---- failed to be quite honest with him; and these are the only two criticisms I ever dared offer him. Beyond the more intimate side of his sorrow, of which he had the delicacy never to speak even to the friends dearest to him and most devoid of envy, he saw in a hard reception from Léonore the triumph of prosaic and scheming beings over the open-hearted and the generous. At those times he lost faith in virtue and, above all, in glory. It was his way to talk to his friends only of sad notions, to which it is true his passion led up, but notions capable besides of having some interest in the eyes of philosophy. I was curious to observe that uncommon soul. Ordinarily passion-love is found in people, a little simple in the German way.[3]Salviati, on the contrary, was among the firmest and sharpest men I have known.
I seemed to notice that, after these cruel visits, he hadno peace until he had found a justification for Léonore's severities. So long as he felt that she might have been wrong in ill-using him, he was unhappy. Love, so devoid of vanity, I should never have thought possible.
He was incessantly singing us the praises of love.
"If a supernatural power said to me: Break the glass of that watch and Léonore will be for you, what she was three years ago, an indifferent friend—really I believe I would never as long as I live have the courage to break it." I saw in these discourses such signs of madness, that I never had the courage to offer my former objections.
He would add: "Just as Luther's Reformation at the end of the Middle Ages, shaking society to its base, renewed and reconstructed the world on reasonable foundations, so is a generous character renewed and retempered by love.
"It is only then, that he casts off all the baubles of life; without this revolution he would always have had in him a pompous and theatricalsomething. It is only since I began to love that I have learnt to put greatness into my character—such is the absurdity of education at our military academy.
"Although I behaved well, I was a child at the Court of Napoleon and at Moscow. I did my duty, but I knew nothing of that heroic simplicity, the fruit of entire and whole-hearted sacrifice. For example, it is only this last year, that my heart takes in the simplicity of the Romans in Livy. Once upon a time, I thought them cold compared to our brilliant colonels. What they did for their Rome, I find in my heart for Léonore. If I had the luck to be able to do anything for her, my first desire would be to hide it. The conduct of a Regulus or a Decius was something confirmed beforehand, which had no claim to surprise them. Before I loved, I was small, precisely because I was tempted sometimes to think myself great; I felt a certain effort, for which I applauded myself.
"And, on the side of affection, what do we not owe to love? After the hazards of early youth, the heart is closed to sympathy. Death and absence remove our early companions, and we are reduced to passing our life with lukewarm partners, measure in hand, for ever calculating ideas of interest and vanity. Little by little all the sensitive and generous region of the soul becomes waste, for want of cultivation, and at less than thirty a man finds his heart steeled to all sweet and gentle sensations. In the midst of this arid desert, love causes a well of feelings to spring up, fresher and more abundant even than that of earliest youth. In those days it was a vague hope, irresponsible and incessantly distracted[4]—no devotion to one thing, no deep and constant desire; the soul, at all times light, was athirst for novelty and forgot to-day its adoration of the day before. But, than the crystallisation of love nothing is more concentrated, more mysterious, more eternally single in its object. In those days only agreeable things claimed to please and to please for an instant: now we are deeply touched by everything which is connected with the loved one—even by objects the most indifferent. Arriving at a great town, a hundred miles from that which Léonore lives in, I was in a state of fear and trembling; at each street corner I shuddered to meet Alviza, the intimate friend of Madame ——, although I did not know her. For me everything took a mysterious and sacred tint. My heart beat fast, while talking to an old scholar; for I could not hear without blushing the name of the city gate, near which the friend of Léonore lives.
"Even the severities of the woman we love have an infinite grace, which the most flattering moments in the company of other women cannot offer. It is like the great shadows in Correggio's pictures, which far from being, as in other painters, passages less pleasant, but necessary in order to give effect to the lights and relief to the figures,have graces of their own which charm and throw us into a gentle reverie.[5]
"Yes, half and the fairest half of life is hidden from the man, who has not loved with passion."
Salviati had need of the whole force of his dialectic powers, to hold his own against the wise Schiassetti, who was always saying to him: "You want to be happy, then be content with a life exempt from pains and with a small quantity of happiness every day. Keep yourself from the lottery of great passions."
"Then give me your curiosity," was Salviati's answer.
I imagine there were not a few days, when he would have liked to be able to follow the advice of our sensible colonel; he made a little struggle and thought he was succeeding; but this line of action was absolutely beyond his strength. And yet what strength was in that soul!
A white satin hat, a little like that of Madame ——, seen in the distance in the street, made his heart stop beating, and forced him to rest against the wall. Even in his blackest moments, the happiness of meeting her gave him always some hours of intoxication, beyond the reach of all misfortune and all reasoning.[6]For the rest, at the time of his death[7]his character had certainly contracted more than one noble habit, after two years ofthis generous and boundless passion; and, in so far at least, he judged himself correctly. Had he lived, and circumstances helped him a little, he wouldhave made a name for himself. Maybe also, just through his simplicity, his merit would have passed on this earth unseen.
O lassoQuanti dolci pensier, quanto desioMenò costui al doloroso passo!Biondo era, e bello, e di gentile aspetto;Ma l'un de' cigli un colpo avea diviso.(Dante.)[8]
O lassoQuanti dolci pensier, quanto desioMenò costui al doloroso passo!Biondo era, e bello, e di gentile aspetto;Ma l'un de' cigli un colpo avea diviso.
(Dante.)[8]
[1]Sotto l'usbergo del sentirsi pura. [Under the shield of conscious purity.—Tr.] (Dante,Inf., XXVIII, 117.)[2]That is a thing which I have often seemed to notice in love—that propensity to reap more unhappiness from what is unhappy than happiness from what is happy.[3]Don Carlos,(17)Saint-Preux,(17)Racine'sHippolyteandBajazet.[4]Mordaunt Mertoun,Pirate, Vol. I.[5]As I have mentioned Correggio, I will add that in the sketch of an angel's head in the gallery of the museum at Florence, is to be seen the glance of happy love, and at Parma in the Madonna crowned by Jesus the downcast eyes of love.[6]Come what sorrow canIt cannot countervail the exchange of joyThat one short moment gives me in her sight.—(Romeo and Juliet.)[7]Some days before the last he made a little ode, which has the merit of expressing just the sentiments, which formed the subject of our conversations:—.L'ULTIMO DI.Anacreontica.A ELVIRA.Vedi tu dove il rioLambendo un mirto va,Là del riposo mioLa pietra surgerà.Il passero amoroso,E il nobile usignuolEntro quel mirto ombrosoRaccoglieranno il vol.Vieni, diletta Elvira,A quella tomba vien,E sulla muta lira,Appoggia il bianco sen.Su quella bruna pietra,Le tortore verran,E intorno alia mia cetra,Il nido intrecieran.E ogni anno, il di che offendereM'osasti tu infedel,Faro la su discendereLa folgore del ciel.Odi d'un uom che muoreOdi l'estremo suonQuesto appassito fioreTi lascio, Elvira, in donQuanto prezioso ei siaSaper tu il devi appienIl di che fosti mia,Te l'involai dal sen.Simbolo allor d'affettoOr pegno di dolorTorno a posarti in pettoQuest' appassito fior.E avrai nel cuor scolpitoSe crudo il cor non è,Come ti fu rapito,Come fu reso a te.—(S. Radael.)** [Lo! where the passing stream laps round the myrtle-tree, raise there the stone of my resting-place. The amorous sparrow and the noble nightingale within the shade of that myrtle will rest from flight. Come, beloved Elvira, come to that tomb and press my mute lyre to your white bosom. Turtles shall perch on that dark stone and will twine their nest about my harp. And every year on the day when you did dare cruelly betray me, on this spot will I make the lightning of heaven descend. Listen, listen to the last utterances of a dying man. This faded flower, Elvira, is the gift I leave you. How precious it is you must know full well: from your bosom I stole it the day you became mine. Then it was a symbol of love; now as a pledge of suffering I will put it back in your bosom—this faded flower. And you shall have engraved on your heart, if a woman's heart you have, how it was snatched from you, how it was returned.][8]"Poor wretch, how many sweet thoughts, what constancy brought him to his last hour. He was fair and beautiful and gentle of countenance, only a noble scar cut through one of his eyebrows."
[1]Sotto l'usbergo del sentirsi pura. [Under the shield of conscious purity.—Tr.] (Dante,Inf., XXVIII, 117.)
[1]Sotto l'usbergo del sentirsi pura. [Under the shield of conscious purity.—Tr.] (Dante,Inf., XXVIII, 117.)
[2]That is a thing which I have often seemed to notice in love—that propensity to reap more unhappiness from what is unhappy than happiness from what is happy.
[2]That is a thing which I have often seemed to notice in love—that propensity to reap more unhappiness from what is unhappy than happiness from what is happy.
[3]Don Carlos,(17)Saint-Preux,(17)Racine'sHippolyteandBajazet.
[3]Don Carlos,(17)Saint-Preux,(17)Racine'sHippolyteandBajazet.
[4]Mordaunt Mertoun,Pirate, Vol. I.
[4]Mordaunt Mertoun,Pirate, Vol. I.
[5]As I have mentioned Correggio, I will add that in the sketch of an angel's head in the gallery of the museum at Florence, is to be seen the glance of happy love, and at Parma in the Madonna crowned by Jesus the downcast eyes of love.
[5]As I have mentioned Correggio, I will add that in the sketch of an angel's head in the gallery of the museum at Florence, is to be seen the glance of happy love, and at Parma in the Madonna crowned by Jesus the downcast eyes of love.
[6]Come what sorrow canIt cannot countervail the exchange of joyThat one short moment gives me in her sight.—(Romeo and Juliet.)
[6]
Come what sorrow canIt cannot countervail the exchange of joyThat one short moment gives me in her sight.—(Romeo and Juliet.)
Come what sorrow canIt cannot countervail the exchange of joyThat one short moment gives me in her sight.—(Romeo and Juliet.)
[7]Some days before the last he made a little ode, which has the merit of expressing just the sentiments, which formed the subject of our conversations:—.L'ULTIMO DI.Anacreontica.A ELVIRA.Vedi tu dove il rioLambendo un mirto va,Là del riposo mioLa pietra surgerà.Il passero amoroso,E il nobile usignuolEntro quel mirto ombrosoRaccoglieranno il vol.Vieni, diletta Elvira,A quella tomba vien,E sulla muta lira,Appoggia il bianco sen.Su quella bruna pietra,Le tortore verran,E intorno alia mia cetra,Il nido intrecieran.E ogni anno, il di che offendereM'osasti tu infedel,Faro la su discendereLa folgore del ciel.Odi d'un uom che muoreOdi l'estremo suonQuesto appassito fioreTi lascio, Elvira, in donQuanto prezioso ei siaSaper tu il devi appienIl di che fosti mia,Te l'involai dal sen.Simbolo allor d'affettoOr pegno di dolorTorno a posarti in pettoQuest' appassito fior.E avrai nel cuor scolpitoSe crudo il cor non è,Come ti fu rapito,Come fu reso a te.—(S. Radael.)** [Lo! where the passing stream laps round the myrtle-tree, raise there the stone of my resting-place. The amorous sparrow and the noble nightingale within the shade of that myrtle will rest from flight. Come, beloved Elvira, come to that tomb and press my mute lyre to your white bosom. Turtles shall perch on that dark stone and will twine their nest about my harp. And every year on the day when you did dare cruelly betray me, on this spot will I make the lightning of heaven descend. Listen, listen to the last utterances of a dying man. This faded flower, Elvira, is the gift I leave you. How precious it is you must know full well: from your bosom I stole it the day you became mine. Then it was a symbol of love; now as a pledge of suffering I will put it back in your bosom—this faded flower. And you shall have engraved on your heart, if a woman's heart you have, how it was snatched from you, how it was returned.]
[7]Some days before the last he made a little ode, which has the merit of expressing just the sentiments, which formed the subject of our conversations:—.
L'ULTIMO DI.Anacreontica.A ELVIRA.Vedi tu dove il rioLambendo un mirto va,Là del riposo mioLa pietra surgerà.Il passero amoroso,E il nobile usignuolEntro quel mirto ombrosoRaccoglieranno il vol.Vieni, diletta Elvira,A quella tomba vien,E sulla muta lira,Appoggia il bianco sen.Su quella bruna pietra,Le tortore verran,E intorno alia mia cetra,Il nido intrecieran.E ogni anno, il di che offendereM'osasti tu infedel,Faro la su discendereLa folgore del ciel.Odi d'un uom che muoreOdi l'estremo suonQuesto appassito fioreTi lascio, Elvira, in donQuanto prezioso ei siaSaper tu il devi appienIl di che fosti mia,Te l'involai dal sen.Simbolo allor d'affettoOr pegno di dolorTorno a posarti in pettoQuest' appassito fior.E avrai nel cuor scolpitoSe crudo il cor non è,Come ti fu rapito,Come fu reso a te.—(S. Radael.)*
* [Lo! where the passing stream laps round the myrtle-tree, raise there the stone of my resting-place. The amorous sparrow and the noble nightingale within the shade of that myrtle will rest from flight. Come, beloved Elvira, come to that tomb and press my mute lyre to your white bosom. Turtles shall perch on that dark stone and will twine their nest about my harp. And every year on the day when you did dare cruelly betray me, on this spot will I make the lightning of heaven descend. Listen, listen to the last utterances of a dying man. This faded flower, Elvira, is the gift I leave you. How precious it is you must know full well: from your bosom I stole it the day you became mine. Then it was a symbol of love; now as a pledge of suffering I will put it back in your bosom—this faded flower. And you shall have engraved on your heart, if a woman's heart you have, how it was snatched from you, how it was returned.]
[8]"Poor wretch, how many sweet thoughts, what constancy brought him to his last hour. He was fair and beautiful and gentle of countenance, only a noble scar cut through one of his eyebrows."
[8]"Poor wretch, how many sweet thoughts, what constancy brought him to his last hour. He was fair and beautiful and gentle of countenance, only a noble scar cut through one of his eyebrows."
The greatest happiness that love can give—'tis first joining your hand to the hand of a woman you love.
The happiness of gallantry is quite otherwise—far more real, and far more subject to ridicule.
In passion-love intimate intercourse is not so much perfect delight itself, as the last step towards it.
But how depict a delight, which leaves no memories behind?
Mortimer returned from a long voyage in fear and trembling; he adored Jenny, but Jenny had not answered his letters. On his arrival in London, he mounts his horse and goes off to find her at her country home. When he gets there, she is walking in the park; he runs up to her, with beating heart, meets her and she offers him her hand and greets him with emotion; he sees that she loves him. Roaming together along the glades of the park, Jenny's dress became entangled in an acacia bush. Later on Mortimer won her; but Jenny was faithless. I maintain to him that Jenny never loved him and he quotes, as proof of her love, the way in which she received him at his return from the Continent; but he could never give me the slightest details of it. Only he shudders visibly directly he sees an acacia bush: really, it is the only distinct remembrance he succeeded in preserving of the happiest moment of his life.[1]
A sensitive and open man, a formerchevalier, confidedto me this evening (in the depth of our craft buffeted by a high sea on the Lago di Garda[2]) the history of his loves, which I in my turn shall not confide to the public. But I feel myself in a position to conclude from them that the day of intimate intercourse is like those fine days in May, a critical period for the fairest flowers, a moment which can be fatal and wither in an instant the fairest hopes.
[3]
Naturalnesscannot be praised too highly. It is the only coquetry permissible in a thing so serious as loveà laWerther; in which a man has no idea where he is going, and in which at the same time by a lucky chance for virtue, that is his best policy. A man, really moved, says charming things unconsciously; he speaks a language which he does not know himself.
Woe to the man the least bit affected! Given he were in love, allow him all the wit in the world, he loses three-quarters of his advantages. Let him relapse for an instant into affectation—a minute later comes a moment of frost.
The whole art of love, as it seems to me, reduces itself to saying exactly as much as the degree of intoxication at the moment allows of, that is to say in other terms, to listen to one's heart. It must not be thought, that this is so easy; a man, who truly loves, has no longer strength to speak, when his mistress says anything to make him happy.
Thus he loses the deeds which his words[4]would have given birth to. It is better to be silent than say things too tender at the wrong time, and what was in point ten seconds ago, is now no longer—in fact at this moment it makes a mess of things. Every time that I used to infringe this rule[5]and say something, which had come into my head three minutes earlier and which I thought pretty, Léonore never failed to punish me. And later I would say to myself, as I went away—"She is right." This is the sort of thing to upset women of delicacy extremely; it is indecency of sentiment. Like tasteless rhetoricians, they are readier to admit a certain degree of weakness and coldness. There being nothing in the world to alarm them but the falsity of their lover, the least little insincerity of detail, be it the most innocent in the world, robs them instantly of all delight and puts mistrust into their heart.
Respectable women have a repugnance to what is vehement and unlooked for—those being none the less characteristics of passion—and, furthermore, that vehemence alarms their modesty; they are on the defensive against it.
When a touch of jealousy or displeasure has occasioned some chilliness, it is generally possible to begin subjects, fit to give birth to the excitement favourable to love, and, after the first two or three phrases of introduction, as long as a man does not miss the opportunity of saying exactly what his heart suggests, the pleasure he will give to his loved one will be keen. The fault of most men is that they want to succeed in saying something, which they think either pretty or witty or touching—instead ofreleasing their soul from the false gravity of the world, until a degree of intimacy andnaturalnessbrings out in simple language what they are feeling at the moment. The man, who is brave enough for this, will have instantly his reward in a kind of peacemaking.
It is this reward, as swift as it is involuntary, of the pleasure one gives to the object of one's love, which puts this passion so far above the others.
If there is perfectnaturalnessbetween them, the happiness of two individuals comes to be fused together.[6]This is simply the greatest happiness which can exist, by reason of sympathy and several other laws of human nature.
It is quite easy to determine the meaning of this wordnaturalness—essential condition of happiness in love.
We callnaturalthat which does not diverge from an habitual way of acting. It goes without saying that one must not merely never lie to one's love, but not even embellish the least bit or tamper with the simple outline of truth. For if a man is embellishing, his attention is occupied in doing so and no longer answers simply and truly, as the keys of a piano, to the feelings mirrored in his eye. The woman finds it out at once by a certain chilliness within her, and she, in her turn, falls back on coquetry. Might not here be found hidden the cause why it is impossible to love a woman with a mind too far below one's own—the reason being that, in her case, one can make pretence with impunity, and, as that course is more convenient, one abandons oneself to unnaturalness by force of habit? From that moment love is no longer love; it sinks to the level of an ordinary transaction—the only difference being that, instead of money, you get pleasure or flattery or a mixture of both. It is hard not to feel a shade of contempt for a woman, before whom one can with impunity act a part, andconsequently, in order to throw her over, one only needs to come across something better in her line. Habit or vow may hold, but I am speaking of the heart's desire, whose nature it is to fly to the greatest pleasure.
To return to this wordnatural—natural and habitual are two different things. If one takes these words in the same sense, it is evident that the more sensibility in a man, the harder it is for him to be natural, since the influence ofhabiton his way of being and acting is less powerful, and he himself is more powerful at each new event. In the life-story of a cold heart every page is the same: take him to-day or take him to-morrow, it is always the same dummy.
A man of sensibility, so soon as his heart is touched, loses all traces of habit to guide his action; and how can he follow a path, which he has forgotten all about?
He feels the enormous weight attaching to every word which he says to the object of his love—it seems to him as if a word is to decide his fate. How is he not to look about for the right word? At any rate, how is he not to have the feeling that he is trying to say "the right thing"? And then, there is an end of candour. And so we must give up our claim to candour, that quality of our being, which never reflects upon itself. We are the best we can be, but we feel what we are.
I fancy this brings us to the last degree ofnaturalness, to which the most delicate heart can pretend in love.
A man of passion can but cling might and main, as his only refuge in the storm, to the vow never to change a jot or tittle of the truth and to read the message of his heart correctly. If the conversation is lively and fragmentary, he may hope for some fine moments ofnaturalness: otherwise he will only be perfectly natural in hours when he will be a little less madly in love.
In the presence of the loved one, we hardly retainnaturalnesseven in our movements, however deeply such habits are rooted in the muscles. When I gave myarm to Léonore, I always felt on the point of stumbling, and I wondered if I was walking properly. The most one can do is never to be affected willingly: it is enough to be convinced that want ofnaturalnessis the greatest possible disadvantage, and can easily be the source of the greatest misfortunes. For the heart of the woman, whom you love, no longer understands your own; you lose that nervous involuntary movement of sincerity, which answers the call of sincerity. It means the loss of every way of touching, I almost said of winning her. Not that I pretend to deny, that a woman worthy of love may see her fate in that pretty image of the ivy, which "dies if it does not cling"—that is a law of Nature; but to make your lover's happiness is none the less a step that will decide your own. To me it seems that a reasonable woman ought not to give in completely to her lover, until she can hold out no longer, and the slightest doubt thrown on the sincerity of your heart gives her there and then a little strength—enough at least to delay her defeat still another day.[7]
Is it necessary to add that to make all this the last word in absurdity you have only to apply it to gallant-love?
[1]Life of Haydn(18).[2]20 September, 1811.[3]At the first quarrel Madame Ivernetta gave poor Bariac hiscongé. Bariac was truly in love and thiscongéthrew him into despair; but his friend Guillaume Balaon, whose life we are writing, was of great help to him and managed, finally, to appease the severe Ivernetta. Peace was restored, and the reconciliation was accompanied by circumstances so delicious, that Bariac swore to Balaon that the hour of the first favours he had received from his mistress had not been as sweet as that of this voluptuous peacemaking. These words turned Balaon's head; he wanted to know this pleasure, of which his friend had just given him a description, etc. etc. (Vie de quelques Troubadours, by Nivernois, Vol. I, p. 32.)[4]It is this kind of timidity which is decisive, and which is proof of passion-love in a clever man.[5]Remember that, if the author uses sometimes the expression "I," it is an attempt to give the form of this essay a little variety. He does not in the least pretend to fill the readers' ears with the story of his own feelings. His aim is to impart, with as little monotony as possible, what he has observed in others.[6]Resides in exactly the same actions.[7]Haec autem ad acerbam rei memoriam, amara quadam dulcedine, scribere visum est—ut cogitem nihil esse debere quod amplius mihi placeat in hac vita. (Petrarch, Ed. Marsand.) [These things, to be a painful reminder, yet not without a certain bitter charm, I have seen good to write—to remind me that nothing any longer can give me pleasure in this life.—Tr.]15 January, 1819.
[1]Life of Haydn(18).
[1]Life of Haydn(18).
[2]20 September, 1811.
[2]20 September, 1811.
[3]At the first quarrel Madame Ivernetta gave poor Bariac hiscongé. Bariac was truly in love and thiscongéthrew him into despair; but his friend Guillaume Balaon, whose life we are writing, was of great help to him and managed, finally, to appease the severe Ivernetta. Peace was restored, and the reconciliation was accompanied by circumstances so delicious, that Bariac swore to Balaon that the hour of the first favours he had received from his mistress had not been as sweet as that of this voluptuous peacemaking. These words turned Balaon's head; he wanted to know this pleasure, of which his friend had just given him a description, etc. etc. (Vie de quelques Troubadours, by Nivernois, Vol. I, p. 32.)
[3]At the first quarrel Madame Ivernetta gave poor Bariac hiscongé. Bariac was truly in love and thiscongéthrew him into despair; but his friend Guillaume Balaon, whose life we are writing, was of great help to him and managed, finally, to appease the severe Ivernetta. Peace was restored, and the reconciliation was accompanied by circumstances so delicious, that Bariac swore to Balaon that the hour of the first favours he had received from his mistress had not been as sweet as that of this voluptuous peacemaking. These words turned Balaon's head; he wanted to know this pleasure, of which his friend had just given him a description, etc. etc. (Vie de quelques Troubadours, by Nivernois, Vol. I, p. 32.)
[4]It is this kind of timidity which is decisive, and which is proof of passion-love in a clever man.
[4]It is this kind of timidity which is decisive, and which is proof of passion-love in a clever man.
[5]Remember that, if the author uses sometimes the expression "I," it is an attempt to give the form of this essay a little variety. He does not in the least pretend to fill the readers' ears with the story of his own feelings. His aim is to impart, with as little monotony as possible, what he has observed in others.
[5]Remember that, if the author uses sometimes the expression "I," it is an attempt to give the form of this essay a little variety. He does not in the least pretend to fill the readers' ears with the story of his own feelings. His aim is to impart, with as little monotony as possible, what he has observed in others.
[6]Resides in exactly the same actions.
[6]Resides in exactly the same actions.
[7]Haec autem ad acerbam rei memoriam, amara quadam dulcedine, scribere visum est—ut cogitem nihil esse debere quod amplius mihi placeat in hac vita. (Petrarch, Ed. Marsand.) [These things, to be a painful reminder, yet not without a certain bitter charm, I have seen good to write—to remind me that nothing any longer can give me pleasure in this life.—Tr.]15 January, 1819.
[7]Haec autem ad acerbam rei memoriam, amara quadam dulcedine, scribere visum est—ut cogitem nihil esse debere quod amplius mihi placeat in hac vita. (Petrarch, Ed. Marsand.) [These things, to be a painful reminder, yet not without a certain bitter charm, I have seen good to write—to remind me that nothing any longer can give me pleasure in this life.—Tr.]
15 January, 1819.
Always a little doubt to allay—that is what whets our appetite every moment, that is what makes the life of happy love. As it is never separated from fear, so its pleasures can never tire. The characteristic of this happiness is its high seriousness.
There is no form of insolence so swiftly punished as that which leads you, in passion-love, to take an intimate friend into your confidence. He knows that, if what you say is true, you have pleasures a thousand times greater than he, and that your own make you despise his.
It is far worse between women—their lot in life being to inspire a passion, and theconfidantehaving commonly also displayed her charms for the advantage of the lover.
On the other hand, for anyone a prey to this fever, there is no moral need more imperative than that of a friend, before whom to dilate on the fearful doubts which at every instant beset his soul; for in this terrible passion, always a thing imagined is a thing existent.
"A great fault in Salviati's character," he writes in 1817, "—in this point how opposed to Napoleon's!—is that when, in the discussion of interests in which passion is concerned, something is at last morally proved, he cannot resolve to take that as a fact once and for all established and as a point to start from. In spite of himself and greatly to his hurt, he brings it again and again under discussion." The reason is that, in the field of ambition, it is easy to be brave. Crystallisation, not being subjected to the desire of the thing to be won, helps to fortify our courage; in love it is wholly in the service of the object against which our courage is wanted.
A woman may find an unfaithful friend, she also may find one with nothing to do.
A princess of thirty-five,[1]with nothing to do and dogged by the need of action, of intrigue, etc. etc., discontented with a lukewarm lover and yet unable to hope to sow the seeds of another love, with no use to make of the energy which is consuming her, with no other distraction than fits of black humour, can very well find an occupation, that is to say a pleasure, and a life's work, in accomplishing the misfortune of a true passion—passion which someone has the insolence to feel for another than herself, while her own lover falls to sleep at her side.
It is the only case in which hate produces happiness; the reason being that it procures occupation and work.
Just at first, the pleasure of doing something, and, as soon as the design is suspected by society, the prick of doubtful success add a charm to this occupation. Jealousy of the friend takes the mask of hatred for the lover; otherwise how would it be possible to hate so madly a man one has never set eyes on? You cannot recognise the existence of envy, or, first, you would have to recognise the existence of merit; and there are flatterers about you who only hold their place at Court by poking fun at your good friend.
The faithlessconfidante, all the while she is indulging in villainies of the deepest dye, may quite well think herself solely animated by the desire not to lose a precious friendship. A woman with nothing to do tells herself that even friendship languishes in a heart devoured by love and its mortal anxieties. Friendship can only hold its own, by the side of love, by the exchange of confidences; but then what is more odious to envy than such confidences?
The only kind of confidences well received between women are those accompanied in all its frankness by a statement of the case such as this:—"My dear friend, in this war, as absurd as it is relentless, which the prejudices,brought into vogue by our tyrants, wage upon us, you help me to-day—to-morrow it will be my turn."[2]
Beyond this exception there is another—that of true friendship born in childhood and not marred since by any jealousy...
The confidences of passion-love are only well received between schoolboys in love with love, and girls eaten up with unemployed curiosity and tenderness or led on perhaps by the instinct,[3]which whispers to them that there lies the great business of their life, and that they cannot look after it too early.
We have all seen little girls of three perform quite creditably the duties of gallantry. Gallant-love is inflamed, passion-love chilled by confidences.
Apart from the danger, there is the difficulty of confidences. In passion-love, things one cannot express (because the tongue is too gross for such subtleties) exist none the less; only, as these are things of extreme delicacy, we are more liable in observing them to make mistakes.
Also, an observer in a state of emotion is a bad observer; he won't allow for chance.
Perhaps the only safe way is to make yourself your own confidant. Write down this evening, under borrowednames, but with all the characteristic details, the dialogue you had just now with the woman you care for, and the difficulty which troubles you. In a week, if it is passion-love, you will be a different man, and then, rereading your consultation, you will be able to give a piece of good advice to yourself.
In male society, as soon as there are more than two together, and envy might make its appearance, politeness allows none but physical love to be spoken of—think of the end of dinners among men. It is Baffo's sonnets[4]that are quoted and which give such infinite pleasure; because each one takes literally the praises and excitement of his neighbour, who, quite often, merely wants to appear lively or polite. The sweetly tender words of Petrarch or French madrigals would be out of place.
[1]Venice, 1819.[2]Memoirs of Madame d'Épinay, Geliotte.Prague, Klagenfurth, all Moravia, etc. etc. Their women are great wits and their men are great hunters. Friendship is very common between the women. The country enjoys its fine season in the winter; among the nobles of the province a succession of hunting parties takes place, each lasting from fifteen to twenty days. One of the cleverest of these nobles said to me one day that Charles V had reigned legitimately over all Italy, and that, consequently, it was all in vain for the Italians to want to revolt. The wife of this good man read the Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse. (Znaym, 1816.)[3]Important point. It seems to me that independent of their education, which begins at eight or ten months, there is a certain amount of instinct.[4]The Venetian dialect boasts descriptions of physical love which for vivacity leave Horace, Propertius, La Fontaine and all the poets a hundred miles behind. M. Buratti of Venice is at the moment the first satirical poet of our unhappy Europe. He excels above all in the description of the physical grotesqueness of his heroes; and he finds himself frequently in prison. (Seel'Elefanteide, l'Uomo, la Strefeide.)
[1]Venice, 1819.
[1]Venice, 1819.
[2]Memoirs of Madame d'Épinay, Geliotte.Prague, Klagenfurth, all Moravia, etc. etc. Their women are great wits and their men are great hunters. Friendship is very common between the women. The country enjoys its fine season in the winter; among the nobles of the province a succession of hunting parties takes place, each lasting from fifteen to twenty days. One of the cleverest of these nobles said to me one day that Charles V had reigned legitimately over all Italy, and that, consequently, it was all in vain for the Italians to want to revolt. The wife of this good man read the Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse. (Znaym, 1816.)
[2]Memoirs of Madame d'Épinay, Geliotte.
Prague, Klagenfurth, all Moravia, etc. etc. Their women are great wits and their men are great hunters. Friendship is very common between the women. The country enjoys its fine season in the winter; among the nobles of the province a succession of hunting parties takes place, each lasting from fifteen to twenty days. One of the cleverest of these nobles said to me one day that Charles V had reigned legitimately over all Italy, and that, consequently, it was all in vain for the Italians to want to revolt. The wife of this good man read the Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse. (Znaym, 1816.)
[3]Important point. It seems to me that independent of their education, which begins at eight or ten months, there is a certain amount of instinct.
[3]Important point. It seems to me that independent of their education, which begins at eight or ten months, there is a certain amount of instinct.
[4]The Venetian dialect boasts descriptions of physical love which for vivacity leave Horace, Propertius, La Fontaine and all the poets a hundred miles behind. M. Buratti of Venice is at the moment the first satirical poet of our unhappy Europe. He excels above all in the description of the physical grotesqueness of his heroes; and he finds himself frequently in prison. (Seel'Elefanteide, l'Uomo, la Strefeide.)
[4]The Venetian dialect boasts descriptions of physical love which for vivacity leave Horace, Propertius, La Fontaine and all the poets a hundred miles behind. M. Buratti of Venice is at the moment the first satirical poet of our unhappy Europe. He excels above all in the description of the physical grotesqueness of his heroes; and he finds himself frequently in prison. (Seel'Elefanteide, l'Uomo, la Strefeide.)
When you are in love, as each new object strikes your eye or your memory, whether crushed in a gallery and patiently listening to a parliamentary debate, or galloping to the relief of an outpost under the enemy's fire, you never fail to add a new perfection to the idea you have of your mistress, or discover a new means (which at first seems excellent) of winning her love still more.
Each step the imagination takes is repaid by a moment of sweet delight. No wonder that existence, such as this, takes hold of one.
Directly jealousy comes into existence, this turn of feelings continues in itself the same, though the effect it is to produce is contrary. Each perfection that you add to the crown of your beloved, who now perhaps loves someone else, far from promising you a heavenly contentment, thrusts a dagger into your heart. A voice cries out: "This enchanting pleasure is for my rival to enjoy."[1]
Even the objects which strike you, without producing this effect, instead of showing you, as before, a new way of winning her love, cause you to see a new advantage for your rival.
You meet a pretty woman galloping in the park[2]; your rival is famous for his fine horses which can do ten miles in fifty minutes.
In this state, rage is easily fanned into life; you no longer remember that in love possession is nothing, enjoyment everything. You exaggerate the happiness of your rival, exaggerate the insolence happiness produces in him, and you come at last to the limit of tortures, that is to say to the extremest unhappiness, poisoned still further by a lingering hope.
The only remedy is, perhaps, to observe your rival's happiness at close quarters. Often you will see him fall peacefully asleep in the samesalonas the woman, for whom your heart stops beating, at the mere sight of a hat like hers some way off in the street.
To wake him up you have only to show your jealousy. You may have, perhaps, the pleasure of teaching him the price of the woman who prefers him to you, and he will owe to you the love he will learn to have for her.
Face to face with a rival there is no mean—you must either banter with him in the most off-hand way you can, or frighten him.
Jealousy being the greatest of all evils, endangering one's life will be found an agreeable diversion. For then not all our fancies are embittered and blackened (by the mechanism explained above)—sometimes it is possible to imagine that one kills this rival.
According to this principle, that it is never right to add to the enemy's forces, you must hide your love from your rival, and, under some pretext of vanity as far as possible removed from love, say to him very quietly, with all possible politeness, and in the calmest, simplest tone: "Sir, I cannot think why the public sees good to make little So-and-so mine; people are even good enough to believe that I am in love with her. As for you, if you want her, I would hand her over with all my heart, if unhappily there were not the risk of placing myself into a ridiculous position. In six months, take her as much as ever you like, but at the present moment, honour, such as people attach (why, I don't know) to these things,forces me to tell you, to my great regret, that, if by chance you have not the justice to wait till your turn comes round, one of us must die."
Your rival is very likely a man without much passion, and perhaps a man of much prudence, who once convinced of your resolution, will make haste to yield you the woman in question, provided he can find any decent pretext. For that reason you must give a gay tone to your challenge, and keep the whole move hidden with the greatest secrecy.
What makes the pain of jealousy so sharp is that vanity cannot help you to bear it. But, according to the plan I have spoken of, your vanity has something to feed on; you can respect yourself for bravery, even if you are reduced to despising your powers of pleasing.
If you would rather not carry things to such tragic lengths, you must pack up and go miles away, and keep a chorus-girl, whose charms people will think have arrested you in your flight.
Your rival has only to be an ordinary person and he will think you are consoled.
Very often the best way is to wait without flinching, while he wears himself out in the eyes of the loved one through his own stupidity. For, except in a serious passion formed little by little and in early youth, a clever woman does not love an undistinguished man for long.[3]In the case of jealousy after intimate intercourse, there must follow also apparent indifference or real inconstancy. Plenty of women, offended with a lover whom they still love, form an attachment with the man, of whom he has shown himself jealous, and the play becomes a reality.[4]
I have gone into some detail, because in these moments of jealousy one often loses one's head. Counsels, made in writing a long time ago, are useful, and, the essentialthing being to feign calmness, it is not out of place in a philosophical piece of writing, to adopt that tone.
As your adversaries' power over you consists in taking away from you or making you hope for things, whose whole worth consists in your passion for them, once manage to make them think you are indifferent, and suddenly they are without a weapon.
If you have no active course to take, but can distract yourself in looking for consolation, you will find some pleasure in readingOthello; it will make you doubt the most conclusive appearances. You will feast your eyes on these words:—