It is very certain that for a woman to make a man love her it is not always necessary that she should love him, but simply that she should pretend to. True love makes one timid, awkward, bungling, imprudent; how, with all these failings, can one be attractive? When one truly loves, one loses all one’s attractions. When a girl—observe that I mean an innocent girl—sees the man she loves enter the salon where she is surrounded by people, she instantly becomes embarrassed, pensive, distraught; the blood rises to her cheeks; speak to her and she answers incoherently; she dares not raise her eyes for fear of attracting attention; she trembles lest someone may guess what she wants; it seems to her that all eyes are fastened on her, and that everyone knows her secret. If two persons speak in low tones, she fancies that they are talking about her. The slightest thing adds to her confusion. If she is musical and is escorted to the piano, her fingers get in one another’s way and cannot touch the keys correctly. Does she sing? her voice trembles, she is afraid of putting too much meaning into the words which refer to love. Does she dance? she is afraid to dance with the man she adores; she despairs in secret if he dances with another.—Poor child! if you were not in love, or if he were not there you would recover your charm, your good spirits; you would flirt perhaps, but you would be much more attractive; and your kind girl friends would not laugh among themselves at your awkwardness and your stupidity.
In the case of a young man it is even worse, for the timidity and embarrassment which take possession of a young woman always give her a certain air of innocence and candor, which induces one to excuse her awkwardness. But a lovelorn man who sits and sulks in a corner of the salon if the woman he loves does not look at him fondly enough, who sighs without speaking when he is seated beside his charmer; who does not know what to say when an opportunity presents itself to declare his flame: such a man, it must be confessed, is far from attractive; he is laughed at in society, and she who is the cause of his blunders is often the first to make fun of him. Whereas a giddy youngster, who is not in love, who has no feeling; who takes pleasure in tormenting women, who turns sentiment into ridicule and constancy into a subject of derision—a ne’er-do-well, in a word—easily makes himself master of a heart and triumphs in a day over her for whom the shrinking and sensitive lover has sighed in vain for many years! To be sure, the ne’er-do-well is very lively, very pushing, very enterprising in a tête-à-tête! while the poor lover—The old song is quite right:
“Ah! how stupid is the man who’s in love!”
But I see many ladies fly into a rage with me and exclaim:
“What, monsieur l’auteur, you advise men not to love us sincerely? Why, that is frightful! You have outrageous principles!”
Calm yourselves, mesdames, for heaven’s sake! it must be that I did not explain my meaning clearly; I do advise men not to love you awkwardly, foolishly,—that is all; therein you yourselves will agree that I am right. A lover who can do nothing but sigh is a very uninteresting creature. I would have men make love to you with spirit and wit, when they have any; with gayety, because that adds to the charms of love; with ardor, because that does not displease you, and because life is not everlasting, and when two people suit each other, I do not see the necessity of waiting a century before telling each other so; seeing that it is as well to be happy to-day as to-morrow.
But let us drop the metaphysics of love, and return to Edouard, who was very much in love with a woman who had never been in love with anybody, and who was not likely to begin with him, whom she desired to make her slave, and whom, for that reason, she did not propose to love; for we do not put chains on the person we love, but we wear them together.
A rich and passionate young man like Edouard was a windfall to Madame de Géran, who, whatever Dufresne might say, was not so cruel as she chose to appear. If Edouard had taken the trouble to make inquiries concerning the young widow, he would have learned that his divinity had a more than equivocal reputation; that she had had intimate liaisons with a great Russian noble, a stout baronet, a contractor and a dealer in cashmere shawls; that her house was the rendezvous of young rakes, schemers and gamblers; and lastly, that no one had ever found at the Ministry of War the name of the general whose widow she claimed to be.
Edouard knew nothing of all this. He believed that he possessed a woman who gave herself to him by virtue of the bond of sympathy that drew them together; he was as proud as a peacock over a triumph which twenty other men had won before him; and he went into ecstasies over charms which he considered far superior to his wife’s; for a mistress always has a softer skin, a firmer breast and a smaller foot than a wife; which is not true three-fourths of the time; but the wives take their revenge by allowing connoisseurs to admire them.
So Edouard passed the day caressing the soft skin, the firm breast and the tiny foot of Madame de Géran, who allowed him to do as he chose because she could not resist the force of her love and the voice of her heart; at all events, that is what she told him as she received his caresses. Time passes very swiftly in such pleasant occupation. Edouard entirely forgot his house and his business. He knew that night had arrived only by the appearance of a dozen or more persons, habitués of the fascinating widow’s house, who came there every evening to play cards.