A middle-aged man and a young woman: If theory, hygiene, logical concords, and compacts proclaim the truth—which has all the force of a dogma—that an old man ought not to marry a young woman, daily practice shows us that all these combinations are possible:
40 ♀ + 20 ♂
50 ♀ + 18 ♂
60 ♀ + 30 ♂
60 ♀ + 15 ♂
70 ♀ + 30 ♂
70 ♀ + 20 ♂
80 ♀ + 40 ♂
80 ♀ + 30 ♂
80 ♀ + 15 or 18 ♂
All formulæ, cold and precise as the numbers that make them up, but full of a terrible crescendo of precipices and cataclysms! They arouse before us the phantom of a perfect pandemonium, and show us the horrors of a hell more dreadful than that of Dante.
How many tears, how much blood, bathe the path which divides those figures! What deep and hidden hatred, how much revenge premeditated during the night and put into practice in the clear light of day; how many deceptions planned with the cruelty of art; what repentance, crimes, intrigues, bitterness of soul; how many tortures and struggles are written between those silent and lifeless figures? Yet, still, you will find the rarest, most complete, and perfect happiness lying close to this hell, like an oasis in the midst of a desert.
For example, there are marriages of which the formula is 60 + 30, and even 50 + 18, that are real Edens of delight, where neither the most lovely and fragrant flowers of spring-time, nor the sweet tendernesses of voluptuousness, illimitable prospects, painless sighs, conversation without words, nor all indescribable delights, are wanting; and where you have also the charm that belongs to difficulty, and all the fascination which surrounds things sacred.
But why among these mute and dead numbers do we find the extremes of human misery and blessedness? Why do we see the most noble sacrifices and meannesses, the most ignoble baseness and the highest ideality, bound together, with a cruel irony, by a malignant fate; why do we see angels and demons dancing together as though enchanted by some fantastic waltz?
For a very simple reason.
Because the happiness of marriage between an old man and a young woman is nothing but an unstable and difficult balance granted to few. But to those who are capable of feeling it, it brings the sublime giddiness of the great heights. Everyone walks, but few take the leap to death. All climb the hills; exceedingly few have stood on the top of Mont Blanc. But those who do not break their necks, nor fall into the crevasses, experience, as they mount the highest and most difficult summit of the Alps, strong and fascinating emotions which make them proud and glad. All problems of life, whether great or small or indifferent, always have this dilemma hidden within them:
To dare or not to dare.
The Rubicon is either an historical fact, a myth, or a romance.