He.—Think you there is a woman’s brain that could stand that?
I.—It must be admitted that you have carried the talent of playing the madman, and of self-debasement, as far as it can possibly be carried.
He.—Try as hard as they will, they will never touch me—not the best of them. Palissot, for instance, will never be more than a good learner. But if this part is amusing at first, and if you have some relish in inwardly mocking at the folly of the people whom you are intoxicating, in the long run that ceases to be exciting, and then after a certain number of discoveries one is obliged to repeat one’s self. Wit and art have their limits. ’Tis only God Almighty and some rare geniuses, for whom the career widens as they advance.
I.—With this precious enthusiasm for fine things, and this facility of genius of yours, is it possible that you have invented nothing?
He.—Pardon me; for instance, that admiring attitude of the back, of which I spoke to you; I regard it as my own, though envy may contest my claim. I daresay it has been employed before: but who has felt how convenient it was for laughing in one’s sleeve at the ass for whom one was dying of admiration! I have more than a hundred ways of opening fire on a girl under the very eyes of her mother, without the latter suspecting a jot of it; yes, and even of making her an accomplice. I had hardly begun my career before I disdained all the vulgar fashions of slipping a billet-doux; I have ten ways of having them taken from me, and out of the number I venture to flatter myself there are some that are new. I possess in an especial degree the gift of encouraging a timid young man; I have secured success for some who had neither wit nor good looks. If all that was written down, I fancy people would concede me some genius.
I.—And would do you singular honour.
He.—I don’t doubt it.
I.—In your place, I would put those famous methods on paper. It would be a pity for them to be lost.
He.—It is true; but you could never suppose how little I think of method and precepts. He who needs a protocol will never go far. Your genius reads little, experiments much, and teaches himself. Look at Cæsar, Turenne, Vauban, the Marquise de Tencin, her brother the cardinal, and the cardinal’s secretary, the Abbé Trublet, and Bouret! Who is it that has given lessons to Bouret? Nobody; ’tis nature that forms these rare men.
I.—Well, but you might do this in your lost hours, when the anguish of your empty stomach, or the weariness of your stomach overloaded, banishes slumber.