Part 10

My heart beat a little faster as I went up the stairs, and I had barely recovered from my emotion when De C----, taking me by the elbow, brought me face to face with a woman of about thirty--not ill-looking--dressed with dissembled magnificence and extreme affectation of childlike simplicity--which did not prevent her being daubed with rouge like a carriage-wheel:--it was the lady of the house.

De C----, assuming the shrill, mocking voice which is so different from his ordinary voice, and which he uses in society when he wants to be fascinating, said to her, half aloud, with abundant demonstrations of ironical respect, in which the most profound contempt could plainly be detected:

"This is the young man of whom I spoke to you the other day--a man of very distinguished merit; he is of unexceptionable birth and I think that it cannot be otherwise than agreeable to you to receive him; that is why I have taken the liberty to present him to you."

"Assuredly, monsieur, you have done well," rejoined the lady, with a most outrageously affected manner. Then she turned to me, and after looking me over out of the corner of her eye, like a clever connoisseur, and in a way that made me blush to my ears, she said: "You may consider yourself invited once for all, and come as often as you have an evening to waste."

I bowed awkwardly enough, and stammered a few disconnected words which could not have given her a very exalted opinion of my talents; other persons came in and I was delivered from the ennui inseparable from an introduction. De C---- led me to a window recess and began to lecture me vigorously.

"What the devil! you will get me into a scrape; I announced you as a perfect phœnix of wit, a man of unbridled imagination, a lyric poet, everything that is most transcendent and impassioned, and you stand there like a ninny without lisping a word. What a wretched imagination! I thought your vein was more fruitful; come, come, give your tongue the rein, chatter away through thick and thin; you don't need to say sensible, judicious things, on the contrary, they might injure your chances; talk, that's the main thing; talk fast, talk all the time; attract attention to yourself; throw aside all fear and all modesty; fix it firmly in your head that all who are here are fools, or almost that, and don't forget that an orator who wants to succeed cannot despise his audience enough.--What do you think of the mistress of the house?"

"I dislike her very much already; and although I talked with her hardly three minutes, I was as bored as if I were her husband."

"Aha! that's what you think of her, eh?"

"Why, yes."

"Is your repugnance for her altogether insurmountable?--So much the worse; it would have been decent for you to have her, if only for a month; it's good form, and a young man with a little money can't get into society except through her."

"Very good! I'll have her," I said piteously, "since it must be; but is it as necessary as you seem to think?"

"Alas! yes, it is absolutely indispensable, and I will tell you why. Madame de Thémines is the fashion now; she has all the absurd foibles of the day in a superior way,--sometimes those of to-morrow, but never yesterday's: she is thoroughly posted. People will wear what she wears, and she never wears what any one else has worn. She is rich, too, and her carriages are in the best taste.--She has no wit, but much small-talk; she has very keen fancies and little passion. People amuse her but do not move her; she has a cold heart and a dissolute head. As for her soul--if she has one, which is doubtful--it is of the blackest, and there is no malice and baseness of which she is not capable; but she is extremely adroit and keeps up appearances, just what is necessary to prevent anything being proved against her. For instance, she will lie with a man, but she will never write him the simplest kind of a note. Thus her most intimate enemies can find nothing to say against her except that she applies too much rouge and that certain parts of her person are not, in fact, so well rounded as they seem to be--which is false."

"How do you know?"

"What a question!--how does one know that sort of thing except by finding out for himself?"

"Then you have had Madame de Thémines?"

"Certainly I have! Why shouldn't I have had her? It would have been most unseemly of me not to have her.--She has done me some very great favors, and I am very grateful to her for them."

"I don't understand what kind of favors she can have done you."

"Are you really a fool?" said De C----, gazing at me with the most comical expression imaginable.--"Faith, I am much afraid of it; must I tell you everything? Madame de Thémines is considered, and justly, to have special information in certain directions, and a young man whom she has taken and kept for some time can present himself boldly anywhere, and be sure that he won't be long without having an affair--more likely two than one.--Aside from that ineffable advantage, there is another hardly less great; and that is that, as soon as the female members of this circle see that you are Madame de Thémines' official lover, even though they have not the slightest taste for you, they will consider it a pleasure and a duty to take you away from a fashionable woman like her; and, instead of the advances and manœuvres you would otherwise have to make, you will have an embarrassment of riches, and you will necessarily become the focus of all imaginable cajoleries and blandishments.

"However, if she arouses too strong a repugnance in you, don't take her. You are not exactly obliged to do it, although that would be courteous and proper. But make your choice quickly and attack the one who pleases you best or seems to offer the most facilities, for by delaying you will lose the benefit of novelty, and the advantage it gives you over all the men here for a few days. All these ladies have no conception of the passions that are born in private intercourse and develop gradually in respect and silence; they are all for lightning strokes and occult sympathies; a wonderfully well-conceived scheme to avoid the ennui of resistance and all the long and wearisome repetitions that sentiment mingles with the romance of love, and which serve only to defer the conclusion to no purpose.--These ladies are very saving of their time, and it seems so valuable to them that they would be in despair at the thought of leaving a single moment unemployed.--They have a craving to oblige the human race which one cannot praise too highly, and they love their neighbor as themselves--which is most meritorious and perfectly angelic; they are very charitable creatures who would not, for anything in the world, drive a man to die of despair.

"There must be three or four of them already who are impressed in your favor, and I advise you as a friend to press your advantage warmly in that direction, instead of amusing yourself prattling with me in a window-recess, which will not materially assist your prospects."

"But, my dear C----, I am altogether green in such matters, I haven't the necessary experience of society to distinguish at first glance a woman who is impressed from one who isn't; and I might make some strange blunders unless you will assist me with your experience."

"Upon my word, you are a primitive creature without a name, and I didn't suppose it was possible to be so pastoral and bucolic in the blessed age we live in!--What the devil are you doing with that pair of great black eyes of yours, which would produce a most stunning effect if you knew how to use them?

"Just look over yonder, in the corner by the fire-place, at that little woman in pink playing with her fan: she has been staring at you for a quarter of an hour with most significant assiduity and fixity; no one in the world but she can be indecent in so superior a fashion and display such noble insolence. The women don't like her at all, for they despair of ever reaching that height of impudence, but, on the other hand, she is very popular with the men who find in her all the piquant flavor of the courtesan.--To be sure, her depravity is of a fascinating sort, she is full of wit and impulse and caprice.--She's an excellent mistress for a young man who has prejudices.--Within a week she will rid your conscience of all scruples and corrupt your heart to such an extent that you will never make yourself ridiculous or indulge in elegiacs. She has incredibly positive ideas on every subject; she goes to the bottom of everything with astonishing rapidity and accuracy of insight. The little woman is the incarnation of algebra; she is precisely what a dreamer and an enthusiast needs. She will soon cure you of your misty idealism: therein she will render you a great service. She will do it with the greatest pleasure, however, for her instinct leads her to disenchant poets."

My curiosity being aroused by De C----'s description, I emerged from my retreat, and, gliding from group to group, approached the lady in question and observed her closely,--she may have been twenty-five or twenty-six years old. She was small, but well shaped, although a little inclined to be stout; she had round, white arms, well-formed hands and pretty feet, almost too small,--plump, polished shoulders, breast but little exposed, but what there was, very satisfactory and affording a favorable idea of the rest; her hair was extremely glossy and of a blue-black shade like a jay's wing; the corner of the eye was turned well up toward the temple, nose thin, nostrils very open, mouth moist and sensuous, a little crease on the lower lip and an almost imperceptible down at the corners. And with it all, vivacity, animation, health, and an indefinable suggestion of wantonness adroitly tempered by coquetry and tact, which made her a very desirable creature and more than justified the very lively passions she had inspired and continued to inspire every day.

I desired her; but yet I understood that that woman, agreeable as she might be, was not my ideal, or could make me say: "At last I have a mistress!"

I returned to De C---- and said: "I like her looks, and perhaps I may come to an understanding with her. But, before saying anything definite which will bind me, I would be very glad if you would have the kindness to point out those indulgent beauties who are so condescending as to be impressed with me, so that I may make my choice.--You will also oblige me, as you are acting as showman on this occasion, by adding a little descriptive notice and a list of their good and bad qualities; how I must attack them and the tone I must adopt with them in order not to seem too much like a provincial or a literary man."

"I most certainly will," said De C----. "Do you see that lovely, melancholy swan who manages her neck so gracefully and makes her sleeves move like wings? she is modesty itself, the most chaste and virginal creature in the world; she has a snow-white brow, a heart of ice, the expression of a madonna, the smile of an Agnes; she has a white dress and a soul of the same color; she wears nothing but orange-blossoms or water-lily leaves in her hair, and is attached to earth only by a thread. She has never had an evil thought and has no idea wherein man differs from woman. The Blessed Virgin is a Bacchante beside her, all of which does not prevent her having had more lovers than any woman I know, and that is certainly saying a good deal. Just cast your eye on that discreet person's throat; it is a little masterpiece, and really it is very difficult to show so much without showing more; tell me if, with all her reserve and all her prudery, she isn't ten times more indecent than that good lady at her left, who bravely displays two hemispheres which, if they were united, would form a life-size globe,--or the other one at her right, décolletée to the navel, who parades her nothingness with fascinating intrepidity?--That virginal creature, unless I am very much mistaken, has already figured out in her head how much love and passion your pallor and your black eyes may be taken to promise; and my reason for saying so is that she hasn't once looked in your direction, visibly at least; for she can manage her pupils with such art and roll them into the corner of her eyes so cleverly that nothing escapes her; one would think that she looked through the back of her head, for she knows perfectly well what is going on behind her.--She's a female Janus.--If you want to succeed with her, you must lay aside anything like a free-and-easy, victorious manner. You must talk to her without looking at her, without moving, in a contrite attitude and in a subdued, respectful voice; in that way you can say whatever you choose to her, provided that it is suitably glossed over, and she will allow you to take the greatest liberties, at first in words; afterward in deeds. Simply take care to roll your eyes tenderly when hers are cast down, and talk to her about the joys of platonic love and the communion of souls, while you employ with her the least platonic and least ideal pantomime imaginable! She is very sensual and very sensitive; kiss her as often as you choose, but don't forget, even in the most intimate intercourse, to call her madame at least three times per sentence: she fell out with me, because, when I was in her bed, I said something or other to her and called her thou. What the devil! a woman is not virtuous for nothing!"

"After what you tell me I have no great desire to try my luck. A prudish Messalina! an entirely novel and monstrous combination."