Calamy shook his head. “But I don’t really want it to return,” he said. “I don’t want to succumb to any more little ravishments. It’s too stupid; it’s too childish. I used to think that there was something rather admirable and enviable about being an homme à bonnes fortunes. Don Juan has an honoured place in literature; it’s thought only natural that a Casanova should complacently boast of his successes. I accepted the current view and when I was lucky in love—and I’ve always been only too deplorably fortunate—I used to think the more highly of myself.”
“We have all thought the same,” said Mr. Cardan. “The weakness is a pardonable one.”
Lord Hovenden nodded and took a sip of wine to show that he entirely agreed with the last speaker.
“Pardonable, no doubt,” said Calamy. “But when one comes to think it over, not very reasonable. For, after all, there’s nothing really to be very proud of, there’s nothing very much to boast about. Consider first of all the other heroes who have had the same sort of successes—more notable, very probably, and more numerous than one’s own. Consider them. What do you see? Rows of insolent grooms and pugilists; leather-faced ruffians and disgusting old satyrs; louts with curly hair and no brains, and cunning little pimps like weasels; soft-palmed young epicenes and hairy gladiators—a vast army composed of the most odious specimens of humanity. Is one to be proud of belonging to their numbers?”
“Why not?” asked Mr. Cardan. “One should always thank God for whatever native talents one possesses. If your talent happens to lie in the direction of higher mathematics, praise God; and if in the direction of seduction, praise God just the same. And thanking God, when one comes to examine the process a little closely, is very much the same as boasting or being proud. I see no harm in boasting a little of one’s Casanovesque capacities. You young men are always so damned intolerant. You won’t allow any one to go to heaven, or hell, or nowhere, whichever the case may be, by any road except the one you happen to approve of.… You should take a leaf out of the Indians’ book. The Indians calculate that there are eighty-four thousand different types of human beings, each with its own way of getting through life. They probably underestimate.”
Calamy laughed. “I only speak for my type,” he said.
“And Hovenden and I for ours,” said Mr. Cardan. “Don’t we, Hovenden?”
“Oh yes. Yes, of course,” Lord Hovenden answered; and for some reason he blushed.
“Proceed,” said Mr. Cardan, refilling his glass.
“Well then,” Calamy went on, “belonging to the species I do belong to, I can’t take much satisfaction in these successes. The more so when I consider their nature. For either you’re in love with the woman or you aren’t; either you’re carried away by your inflamed imagination (for, after all, the person you’re really violently in love with is always your own invention and the wildest of fancies) or by your senses and your intellectual curiosity. If you aren’t in love, it’s a mere experiment in applied physiology, with a few psychological investigations thrown in to make it a little more interesting. But if you are, it means that you become enslaved, involved, dependent on another human being in a way that’s positively disgraceful, and the more disgraceful the more there is in you to be enslaved and involved.”