CHAPTER XXXIII
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.
CHAPTER XXXIV
OF CONFIDENCES
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 the confidante having 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 faithless confidante, 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 borrowed names, 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. (See l'Elefanteide, l'Uomo, la Strefeide.)
CHAPTER XXXV
OF JEALOUSY
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 same salon as 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 essential thing 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 reading Othello; it will make you doubt the most conclusive appearances. You will feast your eyes on these words:—
Trifles light as air
Seem to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs from Holy Writ. (Othello, Act III.)
It is my experience that the sight of a fine sea is consoling.
The morning which had arisen calm and bright gave a pleasant effect to the waste mountain view, which was seen from the castle on looking to the landward, and the glorious ocean crisped with a thousand rippling waves of silver extended on the other side in awful, yet complacent majesty to the verge of the horizon. With such scenes of calm sublimity the human heart sympathises even in its most disturbed moods, and deeds of honour and virtue are inspired by their majestic influence. (The Bride of Lammermoor, Chap. VII.)
I find this written by Salviati:—
July 20th, 1818.—I often—and I think unreasonably—apply to life as a whole the feelings of a man of ambition or a good citizen, if he finds himself set in battle to guard the baggage or in any other post without danger or action. I should have felt regret at forty to have passed the age of loving without deep passion. I should have had that bitter and humiliating displeasure, to have found out too late that I had been fool enough to let life pass, without living.
Yesterday I spent three hours with the woman I love and a rival, whom she wants to make me think she favours. Certainly, there were moments of bitterness, in watching her lovely eyes fixed on him, and, on my departure, there were wild transports from utter misery to hope. But what changes, what sudden lights, what swift thoughts, and, in spite of the apparent happiness of my rival, with what pride and what delight my love felt itself superior to his! I went away saying to myself: The most vile fear would bleach those cheeks at the least of the sacrifices, which my love would make for the fun of it, nay, with delight—for example, to put this hand into a hat and draw one of these two lots: "Be loved by her," the other—"Die on the spot." And this feeling in me is so much second nature, that it did not prevent me being amiable and talkative.
If someone had told me all that two years ago, I should have laughed.
I find in the Travels to the Source of the Missouri River ... in 1804–6 of Captains Lewis and Clarke (p. 215):—
The Ricaras are poor and generous; we stayed some time in three of their villages. Their women are more beautiful than those of the other tribes we came across; they are also not in the least inclined to let their lover languish. We found a new example of the truth that you only have to travel to find out that there is variety everywhere. Among the Ricaras, for a woman to grant her favours without the consent of her husband or her brother, gives great offence. But then the brothers and the husband are only too delighted to have the opportunity of showing this courtesy to their friends.
There was a negro in our crew; he created a great sensation among a people who had never seen a man of his colour before. He was soon a favourite with the fair sex, and we noticed that the husbands, instead of being jealous, were overjoyed to see him come to visit them. The funny part was that the interior of the huts was so narrow that everything was visible.[5]
[1] Here you see one of love's follies; for this perfection, seen by your eyes, is not one for him.
[2] Montaguola, 13th April, 1819.
[3] La Princesse de Tarente. Story by Scarron.
[4] As in the Curieux-impertinent, story by Cervantes.
[5] There ought to be instituted at Philadelphia an academy, whose sole occupation would be the collection of materials for the study of man in the savage state, instead of waiting till these curious peoples have been exterminated.
I know quite well that such academies exist—but apparently regulated in a way worthy of our academies in Europe. (Memoir and Discussion on the Zodiac of Denderah at the Académie des Sciences of Paris, 1821.) I notice that the academy of, I fancy, Massachusetts wisely charges a member of the clergy (Mr. Jarvis) to make a report on the religion of the savage. The priest, of course, refutes energetically an impious Frenchman, called Volney. According to the priest, the savage has the most exact and noble ideas of the Divinity, etc. If he lived in England, such a report would bring the worthy academician a preferment of three or four hundred pounds and the protection of all the noble lords in the county. But in America! For the rest, the absurdity of this academy reminds me of the free Americans, who set the greatest store on seeing fine coats-of-arms painted on the panels of their carriages; what upsets them is that, through their carriage-painter's want of instruction, the blazoning is often wrong.
CHAPTER XXXVI
OF JEALOUSY—(continued)
Now for the woman suspected of inconstancy!
She leaves you, because you have discouraged crystallisation, but it is possible that in her heart you have habit to plead for you.
She leaves you, because she is too sure of you. You have killed fear, and there is nothing left to give birth to the little doubts of happy love. Just make her uneasy, and, above all, beware of the absurdity of protestations!
During all the time you have lived in touch with her, you will doubtless have discovered what woman, in society or outside it, she is most jealous or most afraid of. Pay court to that woman, but so far from blazoning it about, do your best to keep it secret, and do your best sincerely; trust to the eyes of anger to see everything and feel everything. The strong aversion you will have felt for several months to all women ought to make this easy.[1] Remember that in the position you are in, everything is spoiled by a show of passion: avoid seeing much of the woman you love, and drink champagne with the wits.
In order to judge of your mistress' love, remember:—
1. The more physical pleasure counts for in the basis of her love and in what formerly determined her to yield, the more prone it is to inconstancy, and, still more, to infidelity. This applies especially to love in which crystallisation has been favoured by the fire of sweet seventeen.
2. Two people in love are hardly ever equally in love:[2] passion-love has its phases, during which now one, now the other is more impassioned. Often, too, it is merely gallantry or vain love which responds to passion-love, and it is generally the woman who is carried away by passion. But whatever the love may be that either of them feels, directly one of them is jealous, he insists on the other fulfilling all the conditions of passion-love; vanity pretends to all the claims of a heart that feels.
Furthermore, nothing wearies gallant-love like passion-love from the other side.
Often a clever man, paying court to a woman, just sets her thinking of love in a sentimental frame of mind. She receives this clever man kindly for giving her this pleasure—he conceives hopes.
But one fine day that woman meets the man, who makes her feel what the other has described.
I do not know what are the effects of a man's jealousy on the heart of the woman he loves. Displayed by an admirer who wearies her, jealousy must inspire a supreme disgust, and it may even turn to hatred, if the man he is jealous of is nicer than the jealous one; for we want jealousy, said Madame de Coulanges, only from those of whom we could be jealous.
If the jealous one is liked, but has no real claims, his jealousy may offend that feminine pride so hard to keep in humour or even to recognise. Jealousy may please women of pride, as a new way of showing them their power.
Jealousy can please as a new way of giving proof of love. It can also offend the modesty of a woman who is over-refined.
It can please as a sign of the lover's hot blood—ferrum est quod amant. But note that it is hot blood they love, and not courage à la Turenne, which is quite compatible with a cold heart.
One of the consequences of crystallisation is that a woman can never say "yes" to the lover, to whom she has been unfaithful, if she ever means to make anything of him.
Such is the pleasure of continuing to enjoy the perfect image we have formed of the object of our attachment, that until that fatal "yes"—
L'on va chercher bien loin, plutot que de mourir,
Quelque prétexte ami pour vivre et pour souffrir.
(André Chénier.[3])
Everyone in France knows the anecdote of Mademoiselle de Sommery, who, caught in flagrant delict by her lover, flatly denied the fact. On his protesting, she replied: "Very well, I see you don't love me any more: you believe what you see before what I tell you."
To make it up with an idol of a mistress, who has been unfaithful, is to set yourself to undo with the point of a dagger a crystallisation incessantly forming afresh. Love has got to die, and your heart will feel the cruel pang of every stage in its agony.
It is one of the saddest dispositions of this passion and of life. You must be strong enough to make it up only as friends.
[1] You compare the branch adorned with diamonds to the branch left bare, and contrast adds sting to your memories.
[2] e. g. the love of Alfieri for that great English lady (Lady Ligonier) who also philandered with her footman and prettily signed herself Penelope. (Vita, Epoca III, Chaps. X and XI.)
[3] ["Sooner than die, we will go very far in search of some friendly pretext to live and suffer."—Tr.]
CHAPTER XXXVII
ROXANA
As for women's jealousy—they are suspicious, they have infinitely more at stake than we, they have made a greater sacrifice to love, have far fewer means of distraction and, above all, far fewer means of keeping a check on their lover's actions. A woman feels herself degraded by jealousy; she thinks her lover is laughing at her, or, still worse, making fun of her tenderest transports. Cruelty must tempt her—and yet, legally, she cannot kill her rival!
For women, jealousy must be a still more abominable evil than it is for men. It is the last degree of impotent rage and self-contempt[1] which a heart can bear without breaking.
I know no other remedy for so cruel an evil, than the death of the one who is the cause of it or of the one who suffers. An example of French jealousy is the story of Madame de la Pommeraie in Jacques le Fataliste[(19)].
La Rochefoucauld says: "We are ashamed of owning we are jealous, but pride ourselves on having been and of being capable of jealousy."[2] Poor woman dares not own even to having suffered this torture, so much ridicule does it bring upon her. So painful a wound can never quite heal up.
If cold reason could be unfolded before the fire of imagination with the merest shade of success, I would say to those wretched women, who are unhappy from jealousy: "There is a great difference between infidelity in man and in you. In you, the importance of the act is partly direct, partly symbolic. But, as an effect of the education of our military schools, it is in man the symbol of nothing at all. On the contrary, in women, through the effect of modesty, it is the most decisive of all the symbols of devotion. Bad habit makes it almost a necessity to men. During all our early years, the example set by the so-called 'bloods' makes us set all our pride on the number of successes of this kind—as the one and only proof of our worth. For you, your education acts in exactly the opposite direction."
As for the value of an action as symbol—in a moment of anger I upset a table on to the foot of my neighbour; that gives him the devil of a pain, but can quite easily be fixed up—or again, I make as if to give him a slap in the face....
The difference between infidelity in the two sexes is so real, that a woman of passion may pardon it, while for a man that is impossible.
Here we have a decisive ordeal to show the difference between passion-love and love from pique: infidelity in women all but kills the former and doubles the force of the latter.
Haughty women disguise their jealousy from pride. They will spend long and dreary evenings in silence with the man whom they adore, and whom they tremble to lose, making themselves consciously disagreeable in his eyes. This must be one of the greatest possible tortures, and is certainly one of the most fruitful sources of unhappiness in love. In order to cure these women, who merit so well all our respect, it needs on the man's side a strong and out-of-the-way line of action—but, mind, he must not seem to notice what is going on—for example, a long journey with them undertaken at a twenty-four hours' notice.
[1] This contempt is one of the great causes of suicide: people kill themselves to give their sense of honour satisfaction.
[2] Pensée 495. The reader will have recognised, without my marking it each time, several other thoughts of celebrated writers. It is history which I am attempting to write, and such thoughts are the facts.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
OF SELF-ESTEEM PIQUED[1]
Pique is a manifestation of vanity; I do not want my antagonist to go higher than myself and I take that antagonist himself as judge of my worth. I want to produce an effect on his heart. It is this that carries us so far beyond all reasonable limits.
Sometimes, to justify our own extravagance, we go so far as to tell ourselves that this rival has a mind to dupe us.
Pique, being an infirmity of honour, is far more common in monarchies; it must, surely, be exceedingly rare in countries, where the habit is rampant of valuing things according to their utility—for example, in the United States.
Every man, and a Frenchman sooner than any other, loathes being taken for a dupe; and yet the lightness of the French character under the old monarchic régime[2], prevented pique from working great havoc beyond the domains of gallantry and gallant-love. Pique has produced serious tragedies only in monarchies, where, through the climate, the shade of character is darker (Portugal, Piedmont).
The provincial in France forms a ludicrous idea of what is considered a gentleman in good society—and then he takes cover behind his model, and waits there all his life to see that no one trespasses. And so good-bye naturalness! He is always in a state of pique, a mania which gives a laughable character even to his love affairs. This enviousness is what makes it most unbearable to live in small towns, and one should remind oneself of this, when one admires the picturesque situation of any of them. The most generous and noble emotions are there paralysed by contact with all that is most low in the products of civilisation. In order to put the finishing touch to their awfulness, these bourgeois talk of nothing but the corruption of great cities.[3]
Pique cannot exist in passion-love; it is feminine pride. "If I let my lover treat me badly, he will despise me and no longer be able to love me." It may also be jealousy in all its fury.
Jealousy desires the death of the object it fears. The man in a state of pique is miles away from that—he wants his enemy to live, and, above all, be witness of his triumph.
He would be sorry to see his rival renounce the struggle, for the fellow may have the insolence to say in the depth of his heart: "If I had persevered in my original object, I should have outdone him."
With pique, there is no interest in the apparent purpose—the point of everything is victory. This is well brought out in the love affairs of chorus-girls; take away the rival, and the boasted passion, which threatened suicide from the fifth-floor window, instantly subsides.
Love from pique, contrary to passion-love, passes in a moment; it is enough for the antagonist by an irrevocable step to own that he renounces the struggle. I hesitate, however, to advance this maxim, having only one example, and that leaves doubts in my mind. Here are the facts—the reader will judge. Dona Diana is a young person of twenty-three, daughter of one of the richest and proudest citizens of Seville. She is beautiful, without any doubt, but of a peculiar type of beauty, and is credited with ever so much wit and still more pride. She was passionately in love, to all appearances at least, with a young officer, with whom her family would have nothing to do. The officer left for America with Morillo, and they corresponded continuously. One day in the midst of a lot of people, assembled round the mother of Dona Diana, a fool announced the death of the charming officer. All eyes are turned upon Dona Diana; Dona Diana says nothing but these words: "What a pity—so young."
Just that day we had been reading a play of old Massinger, which ends tragically, but in which the heroine takes the death of her lover with this apparent tranquillity. I saw the mother shudder in spite of her pride and dislike; the father went out of the room to hide his joy. In the midst of this scene and the dismay of all present, who were making eyes at the fool who had told the story, Dona Diana, the only one at ease, proceeded with the conversation, as if nothing had happened. Her mother, in apprehension, set her maid to watch her, but nothing seemed to be altered in her behaviour.
Two years later, a very fine young man paid his attentions to her. This time again, and, still for the same reason, Dona Diana's parents violently opposed the marriage, because the aspirant was not of noble birth. She herself declared it should take place. A state of pique ensues between the daughter's sense of honour and the father's. The young man is forbidden the house. Dona Diana is no longer taken to the country and hardly ever to church. With scrupulous care, every means of meeting her lover is taken from her. He disguises himself and sees her secretly at long intervals. She becomes more and more resolute, and refuses the most brilliant matches, even a title and a great establishment at the Court of Ferdinand VII. The whole town is talking of the misfortunes of the two lovers and of their heroic constancy. At last the majority of Dona Diana draws near. She gives her father to understand that she means to make use of her right of disposing of her own hand. The family, driven back on its last resources, opens negotiations for the marriage. When it is half concluded, at an official meeting of the two families, the young man, after six years' constancy, refuses Dona Diana.[4]
A quarter of an hour later no trace of anything—she was consoled. Did she love from pique? Or are we face to face with a great soul, that disclaims to parade its sorrow before the eyes of the world?
In passion-love satisfaction, if I can call it such, is often only to be won by piquing the loved one's self-esteem. Then, in appearance, the lover realises all that can be desired; complaints would be ridiculous and seem senseless. He cannot speak of his misfortune, and yet how constantly he knows and feels its prick! Its traces are inwoven, so to speak, with circumstances, the most flattering and the most fit to awaken illusions of enchantment. This misfortune rears its monstrous head at the tenderest moments, as if to taunt the lover and make him feel, at one and the same instant, all the delight of being loved by the charming and unfeeling creature in his arms, and the impossibility of this delight being his. Perhaps after jealousy, this is the cruellest unhappiness.
The story is still fresh in a certain large town[5] of a man of soft and gentle nature, who was carried away by a rage of this kind to spill the blood of his mistress, who only loved him from pique against her sister. He arranged with her, one evening, to come for a row on the sea by themselves, in a pretty little boat he had devised himself. Once well out to sea, he touches a spring, the boat divides and disappears for ever.
I have seen a man of sixty set out to keep an actress, the most capricious, irresponsible, delightful and wonderful on the London stage—Miss Cornel.
"And you expect that she'll be faithful?" people asked him.
"Not in the least. But she'll be in love with me—perhaps madly in love."
And for a whole year she did love him—often to distraction. For three whole months together she never even gave him subject for complaint. He had put a state of pique, disgraceful in many ways, between his mistress and his daughter.
Pique wins the day in gallant-love, being its very life and blood. It is the ordeal best fitted to differentiate between gallant-love and passion-love. There is an old maxim of war, given to young fellows new to their regiment, that if you are billeted on a house, where there are two sisters, and you want to have one, you must pay your attentions to the other. To win the majority of Spanish women, who are still young and ready for love affairs, it is enough to give out, seriously and modestly, that you have no feelings whatever for the lady of the house. I have this useful maxim from dear General Lassale. This is the most dangerous way of attacking passion-love.
Piqued self-esteem is the bond which ties the happiest marriages, after those formed by love. Many husbands make sure of their wives' love for many years, by taking up with some little woman a couple of months after their marriage.[6] In this way the habit is engendered of thinking only of one man, and family ties succeed in making the habit invincible.
If in the past century at the Court of Louis XV a great lady (Madame de Choiseul) was seen to worship her husband,[7] the reason is that he seemed to take a keen interest in her sister, the Duchesse de Grammont.
The most neglected mistress, once she makes us see that she prefers another man, robs us of our peace and afflicts our heart with all the semblance of passion.
The courage of an Italian is an access of rage; the courage of a German a moment of intoxication; that of a Spaniard an outburst of pride. If there were a nation, in which courage were generally a matter of piqued self-esteem between the soldiers of each company and the regiments of each division, in the case of a rout there would be no support, and consequently there would be no means of rallying the armies of such a nation. To foresee the danger and try to remedy it, would be the greatest of all absurdities with such conceited runaways.
"It is enough to have opened any single description of a voyage among the savages of North America," says one of the most delightful philosophers of France,[8] "to know that the ordinary fate of prisoners of war is not only to be burnt alive and eaten, but first to be bound to a stake near a flaming bonfire and to be tortured there for several hours, by all the most ferocious and refined devices that fury can imagine. Read what travellers, who have witnessed these fearful scenes, tell of the cannibal joy of the assistants, above all, of the fury of the women and children, and of their gruesome delight in this competition of cruelty. See also what they add about the heroic firmness and immutable self-possession of the prisoner, who not only gives no sign of pain, but taunts and defies his torturers, by all that pride can make most haughty, irony most bitter, and sarcasm most insulting—singing his own glorious deeds, going through the number of the relations and friends of the onlookers whom he has killed, detailing the sufferings he has inflicted on them, and accusing all that stand around him of cowardice, timidity and ignorance of the methods of torture; until falling limb from limb, devoured alive under his own eyes by enemies drunk with fury, he gasps out his last whisper and his last insult together with his life's breath.[9] All this would be beyond belief in civilised nations, will look like fable to the most fearless captains of our grenadiers, and will one day be brought into doubt by posterity."
This physiological phenomenon is closely connected with a particular moral state in the prisoner, which constitutes, between him on the one side and all his torturers on the other, a combat of self-esteem—of vanity against vanity, as to who can hold out longer.
Our brave military doctors have often observed that wounded soldiers, who, in a calm state of mind and senses, would have shrieked out, during certain operations, display, on the contrary, only calmness and heroism, if they are prepared for it in a certain manner. It is a matter of piquing their sense of honour; you have to pretend, first in a roundabout way, and then with irritating persistence, that it is beyond their present power to bear the operation without shrieking.
[1] In Italian puntiglio[(20)].
[2] Three-quarters of the great French noblemen about 1778 would have been on the high road to prison in a country where the laws were executed without respect of persons.
[3] As the one keeps strict watch on the other in all that touches love, there is less love and more immorality in provincial towns. Italy is luckier.
[4] Every year there is more than one example of women abandoned just as vilely, and so I can pardon suspiciousness in respectable women. Mirabeau, Lettres à Sophie[(21)]. Opinion is powerless in despotic countries: there is nothing solid but the friendship of the pasha.
[5] Leghorn, 1819.
[6] See The Confessions of an Odd-tempered Man. Story by Mrs. Opie.
[7] Letters of Madame du Deffant, Memoirs of Lauzun.
[8] Volney, Tableau des États-Unis d'Amérique, pp. 491–96.
[9] Anyone accustomed to a spectacle like this, who feels the risk of being the hero of such another, may possibly be interested only in its heroic aspect, and, in that case, the spectacle must be the foremost and most intimate of the non-active pleasures.
CHAPTER XXXIX
OF QUARRELSOME LOVE
It is of two kinds:
- In which the originator of the quarrel loves.
- In which he does not love.
If one of the lovers is too superior in advantages which both value, the love of the other must die; for sooner or later comes the fear of contempt, to cut short crystallisation.
Nothing is so odious to the mediocre as mental superiority. There lies the source of hatred in the world of to-day, and if we do not have to thank this principle for desperate enmities, it is solely due to the fact that the people it comes between are not forced to live together. What then of love? For here, everything being natural, especially on the part of the superior being, superiority is not masked by any social precaution.
For the passion to be able to survive, the inferior must ill-treat the other party; otherwise the latter could not shut a window, without the other taking offence.
As for the superior party, he deludes himself: the love he feels is beyond the reach of danger, and, besides, almost all the weaknesses in that which we love, make it only the dearer to us.
In point of duration, directly after passion-love reciprocated between people on the same level, one must put quarrelsome love, in which the quarreller does not love. Examples of this are to be found in the anecdotes, relative to the Duchesse de Berri (Memoirs of Duclos).
Partaking, as it does, of the nature of set habits, which are rooted in the prosaic and egoistic side of life and follow man inseparably to the grave, this love can last longer than passion-love itself. But it is no longer love, it is a habit engendered by love, which has nothing of that passion but memories and physical pleasure. This habit necessarily presupposes a less noble kind of being. Each day a little scene is got ready—"Will he make a fuss?"—which occupies the imagination, just as, in passion-love, every day a new proof of affection had to be found. See the anecdotes about Madame d'Houdetot and Saint-Lambert.[1]
It is possible that pride refuses to get used to this kind of occupation; in which case, after some stormy months, pride kills love. But we see the nobler passion make a long resistance before giving in. The little quarrels of happy love foster a long time the illusion of a heart that still loves and sees itself badly treated. Some tender reconciliations may make the transition more bearable. A woman excuses the man she has deeply loved, on the score of a secret sorrow or a blow to his prospects. At last she grows used to being scolded. Where, really, outside passion-love, outside gambling or the possession of power,[2] can you find any other unfailing entertainment to be compared with it for liveliness? If the scolder happens to die, the victim who survives proves inconsolable. This is the principle which forms the bond of many middle-class marriages; the scolded can listen to his own voice all day long talking of his favourite subject.
There is a false kind of quarrelsome love. I took from the letters of a woman of extraordinary brilliance this in Chapter XXXIII:—
"Always a little doubt to allay—that is what whets our appetite in passion-love every moment.... As it is never separated from fear, so its pleasures can never tire."
With rough and ill-mannered people, or those with a very violent nature, this little doubt to calm, this faint misgiving shows itself in the form of a quarrel.
If the loved one has not the extreme susceptibility, which comes of a careful education, she may find that love of this kind has more life in it, and consequently is more enjoyable. Even with all the refinement in the world, it is hard not to love "your savage" all the more, if you see him the first to suffer for his transports. What Lord Mortimer thinks back on, perhaps, with most regret for his lost mistress, are the candlesticks she threw at his head. And, really, if pride forgives and permits such sensations, it must also be allowed that they do wage implacable warfare upon boredom—that arch-enemy of the happy!
Saint-Simon, the one historian France has had, says:—
After several passing fancies, the Duchesse de Berri had fallen in love, in real earnest, with Riom, cadet of the house of d'Aydie, son of a sister of Madame de Biron. He had neither looks nor sense: a stout, short youth, with a puffy white face, who with all his spots looked like one big abscess—though, true, he had fine teeth. He had no idea of having inspired a passion, which in less than no time went beyond all limits and lasted ever after, without, indeed, preventing passing fancies and cross-attachments. He had little property, and many brothers and sisters who had no more. M. and Madame de Pons, lady-in-waiting to the Duchesse de Berri, were related to them and of the same province, and they sent for the young man, who was a lieutenant in the dragoons, to see what could be made of him. He had scarcely arrived before the Duchess's weakness for him became public and Riom was master of the Luxembourg.
M. de Lauzun, whose grand-nephew he was, laughed in his sleeve; he was delighted to see in Riom a reincarnation at the Luxembourg of himself from the time of Mademoiselle. He gave Riom instructions which were listened to by him, as befitted a mild and naturally polite and respectful young fellow, well behaved and straightforward. But before long Riom began to feel the power of his own charms, which could only captivate the incomprehensible humour of this princess. Without abusing his power with others, he made himself liked by everyone, but he treated his duchess as M. de Lauzun had treated Mademoiselle. He was soon dressed in the richest laces, the richest suits, furnished with money, buckles, jewels. He made himself an object of admiration and took a delight in making the princess jealous or pretending to be jealous himself—bringing her often to tears. Little by little he reduced her to the state of doing nothing without his permission, not even in matters of indifference. At one time, ready to go out to the Opera, he made her stay at home; at another he made her go against her will. He forced her to do favours to ladies she disliked, or of whom she was jealous, and to injure people she liked, or of whom he pretended to be jealous. Even as far as dress, she was not allowed the smallest liberty. He used to amuse himself by making her have her hair done all over again, or have her dress changed when she was completely ready—and this happened so often and so publicly, that he had accustomed her to take in the evening his orders for dress and occupation for the next day. The next day he would change it all and make the princess cry still more. At last she came to sending him messages by trusted valets—for he lived in the Luxembourg almost from the day of his arrival—and the messages had often to be repeated during her toilet for her to know what ribbons to wear and about her frock and other details of dress; and nearly always he made her wear what she disliked. If sometimes she gave herself some liberty in the smallest matter without leave, he treated her like a servant, and often her tears lasted several days.
This haughty princess, who was so fond of display and indulging her boundless pride, could bring herself so low as to partake of obscene parties with him and unmentionable people—she with whom no one could dine unless he were prince of the blood. The Jesuit Riglet, whom she as a child had known, and who had brought her up, was admitted to these private meals, without feeling ashamed himself or the Duchess being embarrassed. Madame de Mouchy was admitted into the secret of all these strange events; she and Riom summoned the company and chose the days. This lady was the peacemaker between the two lovers, and the whole of this existence was a matter of general knowledge at the Luxembourg. Riom was there looked to, as the centre of everything, while on his side he was careful to live on good terms with all, honouring them with a show of respect, which he refused in public only to his princess. Before everybody he would give her curt answers, which would make the whole company lower their eyes and bring blushes to the cheeks of the Duchess, who put no constraint upon her idolatry of him."
Riom was a sovereign remedy, for the Duchess, against the monotony of life.
A famous woman said once off-hand to General Bonaparte, then a young hero covered with glory and with no crimes against liberty on his conscience: "General, a woman could only be a wife or a sister to you." The hero did not understand the compliment, which the world has made up for with some pretty slanders.
The women, of whom we are speaking, like to be despised by their lover, whom they only love in his cruelty.
[1] Memoirs of Madame d'Épinay, I think, or of Marmontel.
[2] Whatever certain hypocritical ministers may say, power is the foremost of pleasures. I believe love alone can beat it, and love is a lucky illness, which cannot be got like a ministry.
CHAPTER XXXIX
(Part II)
REMEDIES AGAINST LOVE
The leap of Leucas was a fine image of antiquity. It is true, the remedy of love is almost impossible. A danger is needed to call man's attention back sharply to look to his own preservation.[1] But that is not all. What is harder to realise—a pressing danger must continue, and one that can only be averted with care, in order that the habit of thinking of his own preservation may have time to take root. I can see nothing that will do but a storm of sixteen days, like that in Don Juan[2] or the shipwreck of M. Cochelet among the Moors. Otherwise, one gets soon used to the peril, and even drops back into thoughts of the loved one with still more charm—when reconnoitring at twenty yards' range from the enemy.
We have repeated over and over again that the love of a man, who loves well, delights in and vibrates to every movement of his imagination, and that there is nothing in nature which does not speak to him of the object of his love. Well, this delight and this vibration form a most interesting occupation, next to which all others pale.
A friend who wants to work the cure of the patient, must, first of all, be always on the side of the woman the patient is in love with—and all friends, with more zeal than sense, are sure to do exactly the opposite.
It is attacking with forces too absurdly inferior that combination of sweet illusions, which earlier we called crystallisation.[3]
The friend in need should not forget this fact, that, if there is an absurdity to be believed, as the lover has either to swallow it or renounce everything which holds him to life, he will swallow it. With all the cleverness in the world, he will deny in his mistress the most palpable vices and the most villainous infidelities. This is how, in passion-love, everything is forgiven after a little.
In the case of reasonable and cold characters, for the lover to swallow the vices of a mistress, he must only find them out after several months of passion.[4]
Far from trying bluntly and openly to distract the lover, the friend in need ought to tire him with talking of his love and his mistress, and at the same time manage that a host of little events force themselves upon his notice. Even if travel isolates,[5] it is still no remedy, and in fact nothing recalls so tenderly the object of our love as change of scene. It was in the midst of the brilliant Paris salons, next to women with the greatest reputation for charm, that I was most in love with my poor mistress, solitary and sad in her little room in the depth of the Romagna.[6]
I looked at the superb clock in the brilliant salon, where I was exiled, for the hour she goes out on foot, even in the rain, to call on her friend. Trying to forget her, I have found that change of scene is the source of memories of one's love, less vivid but far more heavenly than those one goes in search for in places, where once upon a time one met her.
In order that absence may prove useful, the friend in need must be always at hand, and suggest to the lover's mind all possible reflections on the history of his love, trying to make these reflections tiresome through their length and importunity. In this way he gives them the appearance of commonplaces. For example, tender sentimental talk after a dinner enlivened with good wine.
It is hard to forget a woman, with whom one has been happy; for, remember, that there are certain moments the imagination can never be tired of evoking and beautifying.
I leave out all mention of pride, cruel but sovereign remedy, which, however, is not to be applied to sensitive souls.
The first scenes of Shakespeare's Romeo form an admirable picture; there is so vast a gap between the man who says sorrowfully to himself: "She hath forsworn to love," and he who cries out in the height of happiness: "Come what sorrow can!"
[1] Danger of Henry Morton in the Clyde. (Old Mortality, Vol. IV, Chap. X.)
[2] Of the over-extolled Lord Byron.
[3] Merely in order to abbreviate, and with apologies for the new word.
[4] Madame Dornal and Serigny. Confessions of le Comte ... of Duclos. See the note to p. [50]: death of General Abdallah at Bologna.
[5] I cried almost every day. (Precious words of the 10th of June.)
[6] Salviati.
CHAPTER XXXIX
(Part III)
Her passion will die like a lamp for want of what the flame should feed upon. (Bride of Lammermoor, II, Chap. VI.)]
The friend in need must beware of faulty reasoning—for example, of talking about ingratitude. You are giving new life to crystallisation, by procuring it a victory and a new enjoyment.
In love there is no such thing as ingratitude; the actual pleasure always repays, and more than repays, sacrifices that seem the greatest. In love no other crime but want of honesty seems to me possible: one should be scrupulous as to the state of one's heart.
The friend in need has only to attack fair and square, for the lover to answer:—
"To be in love, even while enraged with the loved one, is nothing less, to bring myself down to your £ s. d. style, than having a ticket in a lottery, in which the prize is a thousand miles above all that you can offer me, in your world of indifference and selfish interests. One must have plenty of vanity—and precious petty vanity—to be happy, because people receive you well. I do not blame men for going on like this, in their world, but in the love of Léonore I found a world where everything was heavenly, tender and generous. The most lofty and almost incredible virtue of your world counted, between her and me, only as any ordinary and everyday virtue. Let me at all events dream of the happiness of passing my life close to such a creature. Although I understand that slander has ruined me, and that I have nothing to hope for, at least I shall make her the sacrifice of my vengeance."
It is quite impossible to put a stop to love except in its first stages. Besides a prompt departure, and the forced distractions of society (as in the case of the Comtesse Kalember), there are several other little ruses, which the friend in need can bring into play. For example, he can bring to your notice, as if by chance, the fact that the woman you love, quite outside the disputed area, does not even observe towards you the same amount of politeness and respect, with which she honours your rival. The smallest details are enough; for in love everything is a sign. For example, she does not take your arm to go up to her box. This sort of nonsense, taken tragically by a passionate heart, couples a pang of humiliation to every judgment formed by crystallisation, poisons the source of love and may destroy it.
One way against the woman, who is behaving badly to our friend, is to bring her under suspicion of some absurd physical defect, impossible to verify. If it were possible for the lover to verify the calumny, and even if he found it substantiated, it would be disqualified by his imagination, and soon have no place with him at all. It is only imagination itself which can resist imagination: Henry III knew that very well when he scoffed at the famous Duchesse de Montpensier[(22)].
Hence it is the imagination you must look to—above all, in a girl whom you want to keep safe from love. And the less her spirit has of the common stuff, the more noble and generous her soul, in a word the worthier she is of our respect, just so much greater the danger through which she must pass.
It is always perilous, for a girl, to suffer her memories to group themselves too repeatedly and too agreeably round the same individual. Add gratitude, admiration or curiosity to strengthen the bonds of memory, and she is almost certainly on the edge of the precipice. The greater the monotony of her everyday life, the more active are those poisons called gratitude, admiration and curiosity. The only thing, then, is a swift, prompt and vigorous distraction.
Just so, a little roughness and "slap-dash" in the first encounter, is an almost infallible means of winning the respect of a clever woman, if only the drug be administered in a natural and simple manner.