Théophile Gautier
Mademoiselle de Maupin
Part VI: Chapters 15 to 17
Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved
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Contents
- Chapter 15: Théodore to Graciosa.
- Chapter 16: The Story Continued.
- Chapter 17: Madeleine to D’Albert
Chapter 15: Théodore to Graciosa
It was five in the morning when I entered the town. The place was astir, the bolder residents poking their noses out of doors, or revealing a benign face, surmounted by a pyramidal nightcap, behind their window panes. At the sound of my horse, whose hooves clattered on the stony and uneven paving, there emerged, from the skylights, the large, red faces, open-eyed with curiosity, and dishevelled shoulders, of the Venuses of the place, who were exhausting themselves attempting to divine the meaning of the uncommon apparition of a traveller, in C***, at such an hour, and in such attire, for I was untidily dressed, and of a suspicious character. A little rascal, his hair hanging over his eyes, raised its mop in the air to more readily discern me, and directed me to an inn. I gave him a few sous for his trouble, and a conscientious flick of the whip, which sent him off, shrieking like a plucked jay. Once in my room, I threw myself on the bed, and fell into a deep sleep. When I woke, it was three in the afternoon, though my sleep had hardly restored me completely. Indeed, it was far too brief to compensate for a sleepless night, a passionate encounter, a duel, and an over-rapid, though victorious, flight.
I was anxious with regard to Alcibiades’ wound; but a few days later I was completely reassured, for I learned that it had led to no dangerous consequence, and that he was in full convalescence. This relieved me of a singular burden, for the idea of having killed a man tormented me strangely, even though it be in legitimate defence of myself, and against my own will. I had not yet arrived at that sublime indifference for the lives of men which I have since attained.
I met up with several of the young men I had spent time with at C***: this pleased me; I became more intimate with them, and they gave me access to several charming houses. I was perfectly accustomed to my clothes, and the rougher and more active life I had led, the violent exercises I had undertaken, had made me twice as robust as before. I followed these young fools everywhere. I rode horses, I hunted, I feasted with them, for, little by little, I had trained myself to drink. Without reaching the Germanic capacity of some of them, I emptied two or three bottles for my share, and was not too intoxicated, a very satisfactory achievement. I cursed heavily and, quite deliberately, kissed the girls at the inn. In short, I was an accomplished young cavalier and entirely in keeping with the latest pattern of such. I scorned certain provincial ideas I had once held regarding virtue and other like nonsense; on the other hand, I became so prodigiously delicate as regards points of honour that I fought a duel almost every day: this itself had become a necessity for me, a kind of indispensable exercise without which I would have felt ill all day. Also, whenever no one had looked at me or stepped on my foot, and I thus had no reason to fight, rather than remain idle and sit on my hands, I served as a second to my comrades, or even to people I knew only by name.
I soon acquired a vast reputation for bravery, and it took nothing less to prevent the jests to which my beardless face and effeminate air would otherwise inevitably have given rise. But three or four extra buttonholes that I opened in doublets, and a few braided scars that I very delicately raised on some recalcitrant skins made me seem more virile than Mars himself, or Priapus, and you might have met people who swore they had stood godfather to my bastards at the baptismal font.
Throughout all this apparent dissipation, amidst a life thrown away and wasted, I never failed to pursue my original quest, that is to say, by a conscientious study of men, to discover the solution to the great problem of finding a perfect lover, a quest even more difficult to resolve than that of finding the philosopher’s stone.
Certain ideas are much like the horizon, which certainly exists, since we see it before us whichever way we turn, but which stubbornly flees from us and which, whether we walk or gallop, always remains at the same distance; only able to manifest itself through the fact of being distant; it is seemingly approached by our advance, only to form further away in the fleeting, elusive azure, as we try to catch the edge of its trailing cloak, in vain.
The more I advanced in knowledge of the male creature, the more I saw how impossible my desire was of realisation, and how far what I demanded, in order to love happily, was beyond its very nature. I convinced myself that the man who proved himself most sincerely in love with me would find a way, even with the best will in the world, to render me the most wretched of women, and yet I had already abandoned many of my maidenly requirements. I had descended from the sublime clouds, not quite to the street and the gutter, but to a hill of moderate height, accessible, though a little steep.
The climb, would be hard for him, true; but I took pride in believing that I was well worth the effort, and that I would prove sufficient compensation for the trouble taken. I could never have brought myself to advance a step: rather I waited, perched, patiently, on my summit.
Here was all my plan: dressed in male attire, I would make the acquaintance of some young man whose appearance pleased me; I would live familiarly with him. By means of clever questioning, and false confidences designed to provoke true ones, I would soon arrive at a complete knowledge of his feelings and thoughts; and, if I found him as I wished, I would pretend to go on a journey. I would keep myself from him for three or four months to give him a little time to forget my features; then I would return in female costume. I would already have acquired in some secluded suburb, a seductive little house, buried among trees and flowers; then I would arrange things in such a way that he would visit me and pay me court; and, if he showed true and faithful in his love, I would give myself to him without restriction or precaution: the title of mistress would seem honourable to me, and I would seek no other.
But this plan will never be executed, since it is in the nature of plans that they are not, and it is here that the fragility of will, and pure nothingness, of men are chiefly apparent. The proverb ‘what a woman wills, God wills’ is no truer than any other proverb, which is to say that it is barely true.
As long as I saw them from afar and through the veil of my desire, men seemed beautiful to me, and the optics deluded me. Now, I find them quite frightening, and cannot understand how a woman can allow such things into her bed. As for me, it would turn my stomach; I could never bring myself to do so.
How coarse, ignoble, lacking in finesse and elegance are their features! What coarse, ungainly lines! What harsh, black, furrowed skin! Some are tanned like six-month-old hanged corpses, gaunt, bony, and hairy, with stringy fingers on their hands, large feet like drawbridges, filthy moustaches, rising to their ears, and always full of bits of food, heads of hair bristling like brooms, chins ending in a boar’s snout, lips chapped and cooked by strong liquor, eyes rimmed by four or five dark circles, necks full of twisted veins, swollen muscles and prominent cartilage. Others are padded with reddened flesh, projecting before them bellies, encircled by their belts with immense difficulty. They blink tiny sea-green eyes, inflamed with lust, and look more like hippopotamuses in breeches than human beings. They always smell of wine, brandy, or tobacco, or of their natural odour, which is worst of all. As for those whose form is a little less disgusting, they simply look like ill-made women, that’s all.
At first, I failed to note all this. I went through life my head in the clouds, my feet barely touching the ground. The scent of roses and the lilacs of spring filled my brain like too strong a perfume. I dreamt only of accomplished heroes, faithful and respectful lovers, ardour worthy of the altar, wondrous devotion and sacrifice, and I thought to find it in the first scoundrel who greeted me. However, that first and gross intoxication did not last long; strange suspicions seized me, and I found no rest until I had resolved them.
In the early days, the horror I felt at the male sex affected me to the utmost degree of exaggeration. I regarded them as frightful monstrosities. Their way of thinking, their bearing, their carelessly cynical language, their brutality, and their disdain for women, shocked and revolted me completely, so little did the idea I had entertained of them correspond to reality. They proved not monsters, if you like, but far worse! They proved to be excellent young men of most jovial humour, who drink and eat well, who will render you all sorts of services, who are witty and brave, fine painters and excellent musicians, and fit for a thousand things, except the one for which they were created, which is to serve as male counterparts to the creature called woman, with whom they have not the slightest connection, neither physical nor moral.
Having found difficulty in disguising the contempt they inspired in me, I became accustomed, little by little, to their manner of living. I felt no more piqued by the mockeries they hurled at women than if I myself were of the male sex. On the contrary, I offered up some very fine jests, the success of which strangely flattered my pride; certainly, none of my comrades went as far as I did, as regards my sarcasm and witticism on the subject. Perfect knowledge of the terrain granted me a great advantage, and my epigrams, besides the piquant turn they took, shone with the merit of an exactitude theirs often lacked. For, though all the bad things said about women are always well-founded to some degree, it is nevertheless difficult for men to maintain the composure necessary to mock us effectively, and there is often a great deal of affection in their invective.
I noticed that it was the most tender, those who had the greatest feeling for women, who mocked them more than the rest, and who returned to the subject with particular relentlessness, as if they had a mortal grudge against them for not being as they wished them to be, and by giving the lie to the good opinion they had initially formed of them.
What I demanded above all was not physical beauty, it was beauty of the soul, it was love itself; but love as I feel it is perhaps not within human grasp. And yet it seems to me that I could love thus, and would offer more than I ask. What magnificent madness! What sublime prodigality!
To surrender oneself entirely, without retaining anything of oneself, to renounce one’s self-possession and free choice, to submit one’s will to the embrace of another, to no longer see with one’s own eyes, hear with one’s own ears, to be a single entity in two bodies, both souls melted and mingled so as to no longer discern one from another, to absorb and radiate warmth continually, to be sometimes the moon, sometimes the sun, to find the whole world and all creation in a single being, to shift the centre of one’s life, to be ready, at any moment, for the greatest sacrifice and the most absolute self-denial; to suffer the loved one’s heartache, as if it were one’s own; to doubly enhance one’s own existence, oh, wondrously, by giving of oneself wholly: this is love as I understand it.
A closeness like that of ivy, intertwining the growing vine, a fidelity like that of turtledoves cooing, is, it goes without saying, the first and simplest requirement.
If I had stayed at home, dressed like the rest of my sex, melancholically working my spinning wheel, or weaving tapestry behind the panes of a window embrasure, what I have sought throughout the world might have found me of its own accord. Love is like good fortune; it is not won by being pursued. It prefers to visit those who fall asleep beside wells. Often the kisses of royal queens, or deities, descend upon closed eyes.
One may be deluded and deceived into thinking that all adventures occur, all happiness exists, only where one is not, and one calculates ill in saddling one’s horse, or riding a stagecoach, in search of one’s ideal. Many commit that error; many more will. The landscape, on the horizon, is always a most seductive shade of azure, yet when you arrive, the hills that compose it are often of bare, cracked clay, the colour of ochre washed by the rain.
I imagined the world to be full of delightful young men, and that, on the road, one would meet many an Esplandián, or Amadis, or Lancelot of the Lake, in pursuit of their Dulcinea, and was astonished to find that the male sex takes very little interest in so sublime a quest, content to sleep with the first woman that comes along. I have been well-punished for my curiosity, by acquiring mistrust. I have become jaded in the worst possible way, without tasting enjoyment. In my case, knowledge has exceeded customary bounds; the result of nothing more than hurriedly gained experience lacking the fruits of action. Complete ignorance would be a hundred thousand times better; it at least would see one commit many a stupidity that would serve to instruct and correct one’s ideas; for, beneath the disgust of which I spoke, there is always a lively, rebellious element which produces the strangest disorders: the mind is convinced, the flesh is not and refuses to subscribe to the former’s proud disdain. The youthful, robust body is agitated, and kicks like a vigorous stallion ridden by a feeble old man, yet it cannot unseat him, because the leather cavesson grips its head, and the bit tears its mouth.
A lady and her knight errant, possibly a scene from Ivanhoe
Robert Scott Lauder (Scottish, 1803 – 1869)
Artvee
Since I have lived among the male sex, I have seen many a woman shamefully betrayed, many a secret liaison imprudently divulged, the purest loves dragged carelessly through the mud, young men running to hideous courtesans after leaving the arms of the most charming of mistresses, the most well-established affairs suddenly and without plausible motive broken off, such that it is no longer possible for me to commit to a lover. It would be to throw myself, open-eyed and in broad daylight, into a bottomless abyss. However, my heart’s secret wish is still to find a lover. The voice of Nature stifles the voice of Reason. I feel I will never be happy if I cannot love and be loved: but my misfortune is that I am only allowed a man as my lover, and men, though they are not entirely devils, are far from being angels. They may well glue feathers to their shoulder blades, and place gold-paper halos on their heads, but I know them too well to be deceived. All the fine speeches they might utter would achieve nothing. I know in advance how they will start, and could continue their speeches myself. I have seen them study their roles, and rehearse them before going on stage. I know their main tirades, spoken for effect, and the passages on which they rely. Neither a pallid lovesick face nor lean and altered features could convince me. I know these prove nothing. A night’s revels, a few bottles of wine, and two or three girls, suffice to restore them. I have seen this fine recipe practiced by a young marquis, of a most rosy and fresh complexion, who thus presented himself in the best possible manner. and who owed merely to a touching and undeserved pallor the consummation of his affair. I also know how the most languid Celadon consoles himself for the severity of his Astrea, and waits, patiently, for the crowning hour. I have seen the girls who serve as understudies for that prudish Ariadne of his.
In truth, given all this, the male sex fails to tempt me much; it lacks the beauty of womankind: beauty, that splendid garment which conceals the imperfections of the soul, that divine drapery cast by the deity over the world’s nakedness, which provides an excuse for loving the vilest courtesan who haunts the gutter if she possesses that magnificent and regal gift.
In the absence of spiritual virtue, I demand, at least, an exquisite perfection of form, a satiny smoothness of flesh, a roundness of contour, a suavity of line, a delicacy of skin, all that renders women charming. Since I cannot have love, I would ask voluptuousness, to replace brother with sister as best I could. For all the men I have seen seem dreadfully ugly to me. My mare is a hundred times more beautiful, and I would find less repugnance in kissing her than certain wondrous fellows who think themselves most charming. Certainly, the fops I know would offer no brilliant theme to embroider with pleasure’s variations. A swordsman would scarcely suit me either; cavaliers have something mechanical in their gait, and bestial in their faces, which makes me hardly consider them as human creatures; men of the cloth, dirty, oily, bristling, shabby, fellows with glaucous eyes and lipless mouths, smelling exorbitantly of rancid mould, delight me no more than soldiers; never would I wish to set my lips to their lynx’s, or wolf’s or badger’s muzzles. As regards the poets, all they think of are rhyming endings, not even the penultimate syllables of words, and truth to tell they’re hard to find a use for; more tedious than the others, they’re also ugly and lack the least distinction or elegance in their bearing or their clothes, which is truly singular: people who occupy themselves all day with form and beauty yet fail to notice their boots are ill-fitting, and their hat ridiculous! Their look of provincial apothecaries, or out-of-work trainers of performing dogs, is enough to put you off poetry and verse for several lifetimes.
And as for painters, they too are enormously stupid; they see nothing beyond the seven colours of the rainbow. One of them, with whom I once spent a few days at R***, when asked what he thought of me, gave this ingenious reply: ‘He is of a rather warm tone, and for the shadows one should employ, instead of white, pure Naples Yellow with a little earthy Cassel Brown.’ Such was his opinion, and, what’s more, he had a crooked nose and eyes as askew as his nose; which failed to improve his looks. Which of them should I take for a lover? A cavalier with an extravagant lace-collar, a clergyman with convex shoulders, a poet or a painter with a stupefied expression, or a skinny and insubstantial little fop? The occupant of which cage shall I choose amidst this menagerie? I haven’t a clue, and feel no more inclination to one than another; they are all as perfectly matched as possible in stupidity and ugliness.
Given that, there is only one thing left to try, and that would be to take a man I felt love for, even if he were a porter or a gypsy; yet I love neither. Oh, unhappy heroine that I am! An unpaired turtledove, condemned to utter elegiac coos forever!
Oh, how often I’ve wished to be truly the man I appear to be! How many women I might have understood, whose hearts might have comprehended mine! How perfectly happy their delicate loving attentions, their noble impulses of pure passion, to all of which I might have responded, would have made me! What sweetness, what delight! How freely all the sensitive parts of my soul would have blossomed, without being obliged to retreat and close their petals, at every moment, beneath some coarse touch! What a charming flowering of invisible blooms which now will never open, whose mysterious perfume might have sweetly embalmed some fraternal soul! It seems to me it would have proved an enchanting life, an endless ecstasy with wings forever open; walking, hands clasped together, never quitting each other, on paths of golden sand, through groves of eternally-smiling roses, in parks full of lakes over which swans glide, and where alabaster vases stand amidst the foliage.
If I were a man, how I would have loved Rosette! What adoration she would have known! Our souls were truly made for each other, two pearls destined to fuse together and become one! How perfectly I would have realised the ideas she had formed of love! Her character suited me perfectly, and her kind of beauty pleased me. It is a shame our love was condemned to inescapable Platonism!
I met with an adventure recently. I was visiting a house, in which there dwelt a charming little girl of fifteen years old at most: I have never seen a more adorable little thing. She was blonde, but with a blondness so delicate and transparent that ordinary blondes would have appeared black as moles beside her; one would have thought her hair wrought of gold powdered with silver; her eyebrows were of such a soft, blended hue they were hardly visible; her pale-blue eyes had a most velvety look, and possessed the silkiest eyelids imaginable; her mouth, almost too small to insert a finger-tip, added still more to the delightful, childish character of her beauty, and the soft roundness of her dimpled cheeks conveyed the inexpressible charm of ingenuousness. Her whole dear little person ravished me beyond all expression; I loved her small, white, fragile hands that seemed almost transparent to sunlight, her birdlike feet that barely touched the ground, her waist that a breath might have snapped, and her mother-of-pearl shoulders, still unformed, that her shawl, worn askew, happily betrayed. Her babble, in which naivety gave a new piquancy to the wit that she naturally possesses, kept me occupied for hours on end, and I particularly enjoyed hearing her speak; she repeated a thousand delightful little jests, sometimes with an extraordinary delicacy of understanding, sometimes without seeming to comprehend their significance in the least, which rendered her a thousand times more attractive. I offered her sweets and pastilles, kept expressly for her in a pale tortoiseshell box, which pleased her very much, for she was as greedy as the real little kitten that she was. As soon as I arrived, she would run to me and feel my pockets to see if the treasured box of sweets was there. I would make her try my one hand after the other, and a little battle would ensue in which she would necessarily gain the upper hand and rob me of the prize completely.
One day, however, she greeted me simply, with a most serious air, and did not run, as usual, to see if the fount of sweets was in my pocket; she remained proudly upright in her chair, with her elbows straight.
— ‘Well, Ninon,’ I asked her, ‘do you like only sour things now; do you fear sweets will rot your teeth?’ And, saying this, I tapped the box, which, beneath my jacket, gave forth a sound suggestive of softness and fullness.
Her little tongue protruded, and she licked the edges of her lips, as if to savour the imagined sweetness of the offering, but she remained where she was sitting.
So, I took the box from my pocket, opened it, and began to swallow the pralines there, religiously, sweets which she loved above all others: the instinct of gluttony was for a moment stronger than her resolution; she put out her hand to take some, then immediately withdrew it, saying: ‘I’m too big to eat sweets!’ And she sighed.
— ‘I failed to see how much you’ve grown since last week; are you a mushroom sprouting overnight? Come, let me measure you.’
— ‘Laugh as much as you like,’ she continued with a charming pout; ‘I’m no longer a little girl; I wish to be a grown-up.’
— ‘An excellent resolution in which one need only persevere; can one, my dear young lady, be told how this marvellous idea entered your head? A week ago, you seemed to be very happy being small, and ate pralines without showing any fear of compromising your dignity.’
The girl gazed at me with a singular air, looked about her, and when she was sure that no one could hear us, leaned towards me in a mysterious manner, and declared: ‘I have an admirer.’
— ‘The Devil! I’m not surprised you’ve forsaken sweets; but you’re wrong not to take some, you can play at tea-parties with him, or exchange them for a paper-plane.’
The child gave a shrug of her shoulders, and looked at me with what appeared to be utter disdain. As she still maintained her attitude of an offended princess, I continued:
— ‘What is the name of this glorious personage? Arthur, I suppose, or Henri.’ They were the two little boys with whom she used to play, and whom she termed her husbands.
— ‘No, neither Arthur nor Henri,’ she said, fixing her clear, transparent gaze on me, ‘a gentleman.’ She raised her hand above her head to give me an idea of his height.
— ‘As tall as that? But this is getting serious. Who is this ever-so-tall lover?’
— ‘I’m happy to tell you, Monsieur Théodore, but you mustn’t tell anyone else, neither Mama, nor Polly (her governess), nor your friends who think I’m a child, and would make fun of me.’
I promised her the most inviolable secrecy, because I was most curious to know who this gallant personage was, and the little girl, finding I was turning the thing into a joke, hesitated to tell me the whole story.
Reassured by my giving her my word of honour to keep silent about it, she left her armchair, came to lean over the back of mine, and whispered very quietly in my ear the name of her beloved prince.
I was astounded: it was the Chevalier de G***, a slimy, incorrigible creature, with the morals of a schoolmaster, and the physique of a drum-major, the most crassly debauched man one could find, a real satyr, minus the goat’s feet and pointed ears. This inspired serious fears on my part for dear Ninon, and I promised myself to put a stop to it. A group of people entering, the conversation ended there.
I withdrew to a corner, and searched my mind for ways to prevent the relationship from progressing further, since it would have been a downright crime for such a delightful creature to fall to such an out-and-out monster.
The little girl’s mother was the bold sort of woman who organised card-evenings and held a salon. Bad verse was read at her house, and good money lost as if in compensation. She had little love for her daughter, who was for her a sort of living baptismal certificate hindering her in falsifying her true age. Besides, she was beginning to think herself of some importance, and the daughter’s nascent charms gave rise to comparisons that were scarcely to the advantage of the latter’s prototype, a mother already rendered a little rough at the edges, due to the friction of years and the attentions of the male sex. The child was therefore somewhat neglected, and defenceless against the assault of those scoundrels who haunted the house. If the mother had noticed her, it would likely only have been in order to take advantage of her youth, by exploiting her beauty and innocence. One way or another, the fate that awaited her was not in doubt. It pained me, for she was a charming little creature who certainly deserved better, a pearl of the finest water lost in a foul quagmire; the thought touched me to the point that I resolved to rescue her from that dreadful house at all costs.
The first thing to do was to prevent the knight from continuing his assault. The simplest and best tactic was to pick a quarrel with him, and make him fight me, which cost me all the trouble in the world, for he is as cowardly as can be, and fears a sword-thrust more than anyone in the world.
Finally, I offended him so much, with such hostile words, that he was forced to take the field, though very reluctantly. I even threatened to have my footman thrash him with a stick if he were not better behaved. He knew how to fence quite well, but was so fearful that as soon as we crossed blades, I found the means to give him a nice little thrust with the point, which put him to bed for a fortnight. That sufficed; I had little desire to kill him. I preferred to let him live to be hanged later; a touching gesture for which he should have shown more gratitude! With my opponent stretched out between the sheets, and duly wrapped in bandages, there was nothing left to do but persuade the little girl to leave the house, which was not excessively difficult.
I told her a tale, regarding the disappearance of her lover about whom she was extraordinarily concerned. I said he’d run off with an actress from the troupe that was then at C***: which roused her indignation, as you can imagine. I consoled her by relating all manner of evil stories concerning her knight, who was ugly, a drunkard, and far too old, and ended by asking her if she would not prefer me as her lover. She replied that she was happy to accept, since I was more handsome, and my clothes were more fashionable. This naïve reply, uttered with enormous seriousness, made me laugh till I cried. I sounded her praises, and so filled her head with them, that I persuaded her to leave the house. A few bouquets, as many kisses, and a pearl necklace I gave her, charmed her to a point that is difficult to describe, and when before her little friends she adopted an air of importance that could not have been more comical.
I had a very rich and elegant page’s costume tailored to her size, for I could not receive her in her girl’s attire, unless I dressed as a woman again, which I had no wish to do.
I bought a small, gentle horse, easy to manage, and yet a good enough goer to follow my lead when I chose to ride swiftly. Then I told the fair one to come to the house entrance in the evening, and I would meet her there: which she did very punctually. I found her standing guard behind the half-open door. I passed close to the house; she sped forth, I held out my hand to her, she placed her foot on the end of mine, and leapt very nimbly to the crupper, being marvellously agile. I spurred my horse and by taking to winding, deserted lanes, found a way to return home without anyone seeing us.
I made her remove her clothes to don her disguise, myself serving as her maid. She made a fuss, at first, and sought to dress herself; but I gave her to understand it would waste a great deal of time, and that, besides, since she was my mistress, there was not the slightest harm in it, and it was how things were done between lovers. It took little to convince her, and she lent herself to the occasion with the best grace in the world.
Her body was a marvel of delicacy. Her arms, a little thin like those of any young girl, were of an inexpressible suavity of lineament, and her childish breast promised such charms that no maturer a form could have borne comparison with it. She still possessed all the grace of the child, yet already displayed the charm of the woman to be; she was in that adorable state of transition from child to young girl: a fleeting state, that elusive, delicious age when beauty is full of hope and each day instead of taking something from the beloved adds a fresh perfection.
Her costume suited her perfectly. It gave her a mischievous little air, intriguing and entertaining, and she laughed aloud when I revealed her image in the mirror, so that she might judge the effect of her attire. I served her some biscuits dipped in Spanish wine, in order to give her courage, and help her bear the fatigue of the journey ahead.
The horses were saddled and waiting, in the courtyard. She mounted hers cautiously, I mounted the other, and we set forth. Night had fallen, and various lamps, being quenched from moment to moment, showed that the honest town of C*** was occupied most virtuously, as any provincial town should be on the stroke of nine.
We were unable to travel fast, for Ninon was no better a rider than necessary, and when her horse broke into a trot, she clung with all her might to its mane. However, the next morning, we were far enough away that none could catch us unless they made extreme haste; but none pursued, or at least, if they did, it was in a direction opposite to that which we had taken.
I became singularly attached to the little girl. I no longer had you beside me, dear Graciosa, and I felt an immense need to love someone or something, to have with me a dog or a child to caress familiarly. Ninon played that role; she slept in my bed, and fell asleep with her little arms around my body; she believed herself to be my mistress, in all seriousness, and believed I was a man, her youth and extreme innocence maintaining her in this error which I took care not to dispel. The kisses I gave her completed her illusion, for she had no idea beyond that, and her desires did not as yet speak loudly enough to make her suspect there was more to know. Besides, she was only half-mistaken.
For, in truth, between her and myself there existed the same difference as between myself and the male sex. She was so diaphanous, slender, light, of such a delicate and select nature that she seemed far more female than I who am a woman myself, but who seem like a Hercules beside her. I am tall and dark, she is small and fair; her features are so soft that they make mine seem well-nigh hardened and austere, and her voice conveys such a melodious twittering that mine seems harsh beside hers. A man who possessed a voice like mine would shatter hers to pieces, and I always fear the breeze will bear hers away some fine morning. I would like to enclose her in a box filled with cottonwool, and hang it around my neck. You cannot imagine, my friend, how much grace and wit she possesses, how delightfully she flirts, all her childish dainty little ways and gentle manners. She is truly the most adorable creature in existence, and it would have been a real shame if she had remained with her unworthy mother. I took malicious joy in, thus, stealing this treasure from the rapacity of men. I was the eagle-headed griffin who prevented anyone from approaching, and if I could not enjoy her myself, at least no other did: always a consoling idea whatever the foolish detractors of selfishness may say.
I intended to keep her in the ignorance she enjoyed as long as possible, and to keep her with me till she no longer wished to stay, or till I had found a way to secure her fate.
I took her everywhere with me on my travels, in her boy’s attire; that kind of life pleased her singularly, and the pleasure she took in it helped her to bear its fatigues. Everywhere I was complimented on the exquisite beauty of my page, and I have no doubt that it was ‘he’ who gave birth to an idea in many precisely opposite to that which was in fact the case. Several even tried to clarify the matter; but I never allowed her to speak to anyone, and the curious were simply disappointed.
Every day I discovered in the lovely girl some new quality which made me cherish her more, and applaud the resolution I had taken. Assuredly men were not worthy of possessing her, and it would have been deplorable if so many charms of body and soul had been delivered to their brutal appetites and cynical depravity.
A woman alone could love her delicately and tenderly enough. One side of my character, which would not have developed in any other kind of relationship, yet which revealed itself completely in this one, was the need and desire to protect, which is usually a male concern. It would have displeased me extremely, if I’d taken a male lover, and he’d appeared to smother me with attention; it is I who like to take care of those who please me, and my pride is better assuaged by playing the latter role than the former, though the former may indeed seem more agreeable. So, I felt happy to give my dear little one all the care I might have delighted in receiving myself, such as aiding her on the difficult tracks, holding her bridle and stirrup, serving her at table, undressing her and putting her to bed, defending her if someone insulted her, and finally doing for her everything the most passionate and attentive lover does for an adored mistress.
I was gradually losing my sexual identity, and barely remembered, from time to time, that I was in truth a woman. In the beginning, words often escaped me, without thinking, incongruous with the attire I was wearing. Now that no longer happens, and even, when I write to you, to you who know my secret, I sometimes display a pointless show of virility in my use of adjectives. If I ever take it upon myself to retrieve my skirts from the drawer in which I left them, which I very much doubt unless I fall in love with some handsome young man, I will have difficulty in forgoing this acquired habit, and, instead of a woman disguised as a man, I may well seem like a man disguised as a woman. In truth, neither one nor the other of those two sexes is mine; I have neither the imbecilic submissiveness, nor the timidity, nor the pettiness of womankind. Equally I lack the male vices, the disgusting deceitfulness of men, and their brutal inclinations. I am of a third sex apart, which has not yet found a name, a sex below or beyond theirs, perhaps more defective, perhaps superior. I have the body and soul of a woman, the mind and strength of a man, and yet too much, or not enough, of both to be able to mate with either.
Oh, Graciosa! I shall never love anyone completely, whether man or woman; something unsatisfied always stirs within me, and the male lover or female friend each correspond to only one side of my character. If I had a male lover, the feminine in me would doubtless dominate the virile aspect for a time, but it would not last, and I feel I would only be half-satisfied; if I had a female friend, the idea of bodily pleasure prevents me from fully tasting the pure voluptuousness of spirit alone; so, I know not where to rest, and am perpetually drifting from one to the other.
My dream would be to possess each sex in turn to satisfy my dual nature: a man today, a woman tomorrow. I would reserve for my male lovers my languid tenderness, my submissive and devoted ways, my softest caresses, my little sighs, though melancholically spun, all that is catlike and feminine in my character; then, with my mistresses, I would be enterprising, bold, passionate, with all-conquering manners, my hat sloped over one ear, adopting the appearance of an officer and adventurer. My nature would thus be fully satisfied, and I would be perfectly happy, since true happiness is to be able to develop oneself freely in every direction, and be all that one can be. But such is impossible, and I must not think on it too deeply.
I had taken the little girl with me, with the idea of thwarting my inclination, and diverting towards her all the vague tenderness that flows within, and floods, my soul; I had taken her as a kind of release for my loving impulses; but I soon recognized, despite all the affection I felt for her, how immense a void, what a bottomless abyss remained, despite her, in my heart, and how little her most tender caresses satisfied me!… I resolved to take a lover, but a long time passed without my meeting someone who failed to displease me. I forgot to say that Rosette, having discovered where I had gone, wrote me a most heart-felt letter imploring me to visit her. I could not refuse, and went to join her in the country. I have returned there several times since, and even very recently. Rosette, desperate at not retaining me as her lover, had thrown herself into the whirlwind of society, and given way to dissipation, like all tender souls who are not religious, and who have been hurt in their first affection. She had been involved in many affairs, in no great time, and the list of her conquests was already very numerous, for not everyone had the reason for resisting her that I did.
She had with her a young man named D’Albert, who was at that time her close companion. I seemed to make a strong impression on him, and he took a most lively liking to me from the first. Although he treated her with great consideration, and displayed a tender manner towards her, at heart he did not love Rosette. His lack of ardour was not due to satiety or disgust, but rather because she failed to correspond to certain ideas, true or false, that he had formed as regards love and beauty. An ideal form interposed itself between himself and her, and prevented his being as happy as he should otherwise have been. Evidently his dream was not fulfilled in her, and he longed for something more. But he did not look elsewhere, remaining faithful to their friendship which weighed on him; for his soul possesses a degree more delicacy and honour than most men, and his heart is far from being as decadent as his mind. Ignorant of the fact that Rosette had never been in love with anyone but myself, and still was, despite all her intrigues and follies, he was afraid of distressing her by letting her see that he did not love her: this consideration restrained him, and he sacrificed his own feelings in the most generous manner in all the world.
My features pleased him extraordinarily, for he attaches extreme importance to outward form, so much so that he fell in love with me, despite my male attire and the formidable rapier I bear at my side. I confess I was grateful to him for his fineness of instinct, and esteemed him for having discerned the true self behind my disguise. At first, he believed himself to be endowed with a more deviant inclination than he possessed in reality, and I laughed inwardly to see him torment himself thus. Sometimes, when approaching me, he had a timorous expression on his face, which amused me more than anything, for the quite natural feeling which drew him towards me seemed to him a diabolical impulse which he was obliged to resist in every possible way.
On these occasions, he would turn to Rosette, throwing himself into their relationship with a fury, once more, and attempt in doing so to resume a more orthodox path; then he would return to me with a mind more inflamed than before. Then the bright idea that I might indeed be a woman entered his mind. To convince himself it might be true, he began to study me, observing me in minute detail. He must know every single hair on my head, and have numbered those same in both my eyelashes. My feet, my hands, my neck, my cheeks, the slight down at the corner of my lips; he examined, compared and analysed all, and from this investigation in which the artist within him aided the lover he seemingly realised, clear as day (if the day is ever clear), that I must be, and am indeed, a woman, and moreover that I represented his ideal, his type of beauty, the reality that matched his dream; a wondrous discovery!
All that remained was to woo me, and be granted the mercy within my gift as the beloved, that of permitting him to verify my sex completely. A play, a comedy, that the company enacted, in which I appeared as a woman decided him completely. I cast him a few equivocal glances, and pointed up a few passages of my speeches, the situation being analogous to our own, to embolden him, and encourage him in declaring himself, for, though I felt no passion for him, he pleased me enough not to let him wither on the vine; and as he had been the first to suspect that I was a woman since my transformation, it was only right that I should enlighten him on that important point, and I was resolved to leave him not the shadow of a doubt.
He came to my room several times, his declaration on his lips, but dared not utter it; indeed, it is difficult to speak of love to someone who wears the same attire as you, and who is donning their riding boots. Finally, not being able to say what he wished out loud, he wrote me a long letter, very Pindaric and laudatory in nature, in which he explained to me at great length all that I was more aware of than himself.
I am uncertain what to do, whether to grant his request or refuse it; the latter would be most immoderately virtuous of me; besides, he would be too deeply upset to regard himself as having been rejected. If we render unhappy the people who love us, what shall we do to those who hate us? Perhaps it would be more strictly proper to play the cruel beloved for a while, and wait at least a month before doffing the tigress’ skin and donning a more humane covering. But, since I am resolved to yield, then better now than later, for I fail to quite comprehend those beautiful mathematically-graduated gestures of resistance which abandon one hand to the admirer today, the other tomorrow, then the foot, the leg, the knee, and so on but only as far as the garter; those intractable shows of virtue, where the beloved is ever-prepared to ring the bell violently, if the line on the field of battle, beyond which they have resolved none shall pass that day, is exceeded. It makes me laugh to see some Lucretia retreat, methodically, while displaying every sign of virginal terror, and from time to time casting a furtive glance over her shoulder to make sure if the sofa on which she is about to fall is indeed directly behind her. That’s a degree of caution I could not countenance.
I don’t love D’Albert, at least not in the sense I give to the word, but I certainly have a taste and a liking for him; his mind pleases me, and his person does not repel me: there are few people of whom I can say as much. He does not have everything, but possesses something. What pleases me, as regards the man, is that he never seeks to satisfy himself aggressively like other men; he has a perpetual aspiration, an urge forever sustained, towards beauty; material beauty only, it is true, but still, it is a noble inclination, and one that is enough to keep him to the purer regions of male behaviour. His conduct with Rosette proves honesty of heart, an honesty rarer than that of the mind, if that is possible.
And then, I must confess, I am possessed by the most violent desire, I languish, and die of voluptuousness; for the clothes I wear, which involve me in various adventures with women, protect me only too perfectly from the enterprises of men; an idea of pleasure, never realised, floats vaguely in my head, and that flat, colourless dream wearies me and bores me. So many women, in the most chaste of environments, lead the lives of prostitutes, yet I, by somewhat laughable contrast, remain as untouched and virginal as chilly Diana herself, amidst the greatest dissipation, and surrounded by the wildest debauchees of the century. This innocence of the flesh, unaccompanied by a corresponding innocence of the mind, is the most wretched thing that exists. So that my body may not boast of being superior to my soul, I wish to defile it equally, if indeed it is any more a defilement than drinking or eating, which I doubt. In a word, I want to know what a man is, and what pleasure he can give me. Since D’Albert has recognised me beneath my disguise, it is only right that he be rewarded for his perspicacity; he is the first to divine that I am a woman, and I will prove to him, as best I can, that his suspicions were well-founded. It would be uncharitable to let him believe that he has but a deviant taste.
So, it is D’Albert who must resolve my doubts, and give me my first lesson in love: it is now only a matter of presenting the matter in a wholly poetic way. I feel like not replying to his letter, and showing him a chilly face for a few days. When I see him sad and desperate, inveighing against the gods, shaking his fist at creation, and looking into the well to see if it is not too deep to throw himself into, I will retreat to my room like Donkeyskin (see Charles Perrault’s fairytale) and put on my dress rich with all the colours of the sky, that is to say, my Rosalind costume; for my own feminine wardrobe is very limited. Then I will go to his room, radiant as a peacock spreading its tail, ostentatiously showing what I usually hide most carefully, in my dress with a revealing lace neckline, and say to him, in the most pathetic tone I can adopt: ‘O most elegiac and most perceptive young man, I am truly a young, modest, and lovely woman, who adores you, moreover, and who only asks to please you, and herself. Tell me if that suits you, and should you still retain any scruples, be reassured, go to work, sin as much as you please.’
This fine speech finished, I will let myself fall, half-swooning, into his arms and, while heaving melancholy sighs, will skilfully undo the clasp of my dress so as to be in a fitting state, that is to say, half-naked. D’Albert will do the rest, and I hope, by the next morning, to know all about those vast delights that have troubled my brain for so long. By satisfying my curiosity, I will also know the pleasure of having made someone happy.
I also intend to pay Rosette a visit in the same costume, to show her that, if I did not respond to her love, it was neither out of coldness nor disgust. I wish her to hold a good opinion of me, and she deserves, as well as D’Albert, that I unmask myself in her favour. How will she regard the revelation? Her pride will be assuaged, but her heart will ache.
Farewell, my wholly good and beautiful friend; pray that sexual pleasure does not prove as slight to me as those who dispense it. I have spoken in jest in this letter, yet what I am about to attempt is a serious thing, and one which may influence the rest of my life.
Chapter 16: The Story Continued
It was already more than a fortnight since D’Albert had placed his amorous epistle on Théodore's table, and yet nothing appeared altered in the latter’s manner. D’Albert knew not to what this silence could be attributed; it seemed as if Théodore had not read the letter; D’Albert thought it must have been diverted, regrettably, or lost; however, such an explanation seemed strange, for Théodore had returned to the room a moment later, and it would have been most extraordinary if he had not noticed the paper, all alone in the centre of the table, in such a way as to attract the most distracted of glances.
Was Théodore really male, and not female as D’Albert had imagined? Or, if a woman, did she feel such an aversion for him, such contempt, that she even disdained to take the trouble to answer him? The poor young man who, unlike ourselves, lacked the advantage of having rummaged through Graciosa’s post, she being the confidante of the beautiful La Maupin, was in no condition to decide either of these important questions, either in the negative or affirmative, and experienced, sadly, a most miserable state of irresolution.
One evening he was in his room, his forehead pressed, in his melancholy, against the windowpane, staring at, without registering them, the chestnut trees in the park, which were already leafless and reddened. A dense fog drowned the distant landscape, night was falling, grey rather than black, cautiously treading with velvety step over the tops of the trees: a large amorous swan dipped and re-dipped its neck and shoulders into the misted water of the river, and its whiteness made it appear, in the shadows, like a large snowy star. It was the only living being enlivening the gloomy scene.
D’Albert’s thoughts were as sad as those of any disconsolate man might be who found himself at five in the evening, in autumn, in foggy weather, with a harsh north wind for his only music, and the skeleton of a leafless forest filling the perspective.
He thought of hurling himself into the river, but the water seemed very dark and cold, and the swan’s example only half-persuaded him to it; or of blowing his brains out, though he had neither pistol nor powder, and would have been sorry to have had either; or of taking a new mistress or even two: a most sinister resolution! But he knew none that suited him, nor even any who did not. His despair reached as far as desiring to renew acquaintance with such women as were completely insufferable, and whom he had ordered his footman to whip from his house. He finally settled on something even more dreadful... the writing of a second letter. O sixfold foolishness!
He was at this point in his meditation, when he felt a hand settle on his shoulder, like a small dove landing on a palm tree. The comparison is somewhat inappropriate, in that D’Albert’s shoulder bore scant resemblance to a palm tree: no matter, we retain it out of our deep love for the Orient.
The hand was attached to the end of an arm, which corresponded with a shoulder forming part of a body, none other than that of Théodore/Rosalind, Mademoiselle de Maupin, or Madeleine d’Aubigny, to call her by her original name.
To whom is this a surprise? Certainly not you or I, since we anticipated the visit. D’Albert, however, did not expect it in the least. He gave a little cry of astonishment, halfway between an ‘oh!’ and an ‘ah!’ However, I have every reason to believe that it was more ‘ah!’ than ‘oh!’
It was indeed Rosalind, so beautiful and radiant that she brightened the whole room, with strings of pearls in her hair, her prismatic gown, her large lace ruffles, her red-heeled shoes, and her beautiful fan of peacock feathers, just as on the day of the performance. Only, and it was an important and decisive difference, she had neither mantle, nor wimple, nor ruff, nor aught else to conceal those two charmingly opposed companions, who, alas, too often tend to be reconciled.
Her bare, white, transparent throat, as if most exquisitely carved from the purest antique marble, boldly protruded from an extremely low-cut bodice, and seemed to demand to be kissed. It was a most reassuring sight; and indeed D’Albert, swiftly reassured, yielded, confidently, to the wildest emotion.
— ‘Come, Orlando, do you not recognise your Rosalind?’ said the lovely woman with the most charming of smiles. ‘Or have you left your amorous thoughts hanging beside your sonnets on some bush in the forest of Arden? Are you really cured of the love-sickness for which you so earnestly requested a remedy? I am much afraid it must be so.’
— ‘No, no, Rosalind, I am sicker than ever! I am dying, I am dead, or almost so!’
— ‘You don’t look too bad for a dead man; many of the living don’t look so well.’
— ‘What a week I’ve endured! You cannot imagine, Rosalind. I hope it will save me a thousand years in purgatory in the next world. But, as I dared write to you, why did you not reply to me sooner?’
— ‘Why? I don’t know, indeed, unless I lack a reason. But if that seems insufficient, here are three other reasons much less adequate; you may choose: firstly, because, carried away by your passion, you wrote illegibly, and it took me several days or more to guess what your letter was all about; or, secondly, because my modesty could not accustom itself sooner to so ludicrous an idea as taking a dithyrambic poet for a lover; or, thirdly, because I was inclined to see if you would blow your brains out, or poison yourself with opium, or hang yourself by your garter. Choose.’
— ‘A wicked thought! You did well to come today, you might not have found me alive tomorrow.’
— ‘Really! Poor boy! Don’t look so tearful, or I shall be moved too, and that would render me less intelligent than all the creatures in the ark with old Noah. If I once let my feelings run free, you’ll be overwhelmed, I warn you. Just now I gave you three poor reasons, now I offer you three fine kisses; will you accept, on condition that you forget the reasons, in dealing the kisses? I owe you them, and more.’
With those words, the beautiful girl advanced on her doleful lover, and threw her beautiful arms around his neck. D’Albert kissed her effusively on both cheeks, and on her mouth. The last kiss lasted longer than the others, and might have counted for four. Rosalind realised that all she had done till then was pure childishness. Her debt paid, she sat on D’Albert’s knees, he being still quite moved, and, running her fingers through his hair, said to him:
— ‘All my harshness is exhausted, my sweet friend. It took this last fortnight to sate my natural thirst for cruelty. I will confess I found the days long. Don’t become over-conceited because I’m being honest with you, but it is true. I place myself in your hands; avenge yourself for my past rigour. If you were a fool, I would not have admitted it, nor aught else, since fools I disdain. It would have been easy enough to make you think me prodigiously shocked at your boldness, and that all your platonic sighs and most quintessential gibberish could scarcely excuse something with which I was, in fact, most pleased. I could, like many another, have bargained with you for hours, and given you only after lengthy resistance what I grant you freely and at once; yet I think you would not have loved me a single hair’s breadth more. I ask you neither for oaths of eternal love, nor exaggerated protestations. Love me as long as the good Lord wills. I, for my part, will do the same. I will call you neither perfidious nor a wretch, when you no longer love me. You must be kind enough, too, to spare me correspondingly odious titles, if I chance to leave you. I must simply be a woman who has ceased to love you, nothing more. There is no need to hate each other all our lives, because we slept together for a night or two. Whatever happens, and wherever fate takes me, I swear to you, and this is a promise that one may keep, that I shall always retain a charming memory of you, and, if I am no longer your mistress, I shall be your friend, as I was your comrade. I shed my male clothing for you this morning; I shall don it again tomorrow for all others to see. Remember that I am Rosalind only by night, while in daylight I am, and can only be, Théodore de Sérannes…’
Her sentence ended in a kiss, and was followed by many another, which went uncounted, and of which we shall not take exact account, since the number would be great, and their duration seem quite immoral to some, though I find nothing more moral or more sacred under heaven than the caresses shared between man and woman, when both are beautiful and young.
As D’Albert’s entreaties became more tender and livelier, instead of blossoming in radiant delight, Théodore's handsome face assumed an expression of proud melancholy, which gave his lover some anxiety.
— ‘Why, my sovereign, do you bear the chaste and serious air of ancient Diana, when you should rather reveal the smiling lips of Venus risen from the sea?’
— ‘Well, you see D’Albert, I resemble Diana the huntress more. I assumed this male attire at a very young age for reasons that it would be tiresome and useless to explain. You alone have guessed the truth of my sex, and, if I have made conquests before, they were only of women; quite superfluous conquests by which I have been embarrassed more than once. In a word, though it may seem an incredible and ridiculous thing, I am still a virgin, as virginal as the snow in the Himalayas, as the Moon before she slept with Endymion, or Mary before having made the acquaintance of that divine messenger, and I am as serious as any person about to undergo something of an irreversible change. It is a metamorphosis, a transformation I countenance. To change my title of maid to that of woman, to no longer be able to grant tomorrow what I possessed yesterday; to experience something of which I know nothing, and turn an important page in the book of life. That is why I look sad, my friend, yet not for a moment is the fault yours.’ Saying this, she parted the young man’s flowing hair with her lovely hands, and set her gently-pursed lips to his pale brow.
D’Albert, singularly moved by the sweet and solemn tone in which she had delivered her whole tirade, took her hands, and kissed her fingers, one by one, then very delicately undid the laces of her dress, opening her bodice to reveal her twin pale treasures in all their splendour, her gleaming breasts, clear as silver, displaying their sweet paradisial rosebuds. He lightly pressed the vermilion tips to his mouth, and traced their contours thus. Rosalind allowed all this, with infinite complaisance, and returned his caresses, in kind, as best she might.
— ‘You must find me most awkward and cold, my poor D’Albert; but I hardly know how to go about this; you will have much to do to instruct me, and truly you are charged with a most difficult task.’
D’Albert gave the simplest of replies, none at all, and, embracing her in his arms with fresh passion, he covered her bare shoulders and breasts with kisses. The half-swooning girl’s hair loosened, and her outer dress slipped to her feet, in an instant. She stood there, a pale apparition in her simple chemise of the most transparent fabric. The blissful lover knelt, and soon sent the two pretty little shoes with red heels to the opposite corner of the room; the embroidered stockings quickly followed.
The Kiss (1859)
Francesco Hayez (Italian, 1791 - 1882)
Artvee
Her chemise, endowed with the happy spirit of imitation, pursued the dress: it slipped first from her unresisting shoulders; then, taking advantage of the moment when her arms were raised, freed itself neatly and fled to her hips, whose undulating contours half-restrained it. Rosalind, perceiving the perfidy of this final garment, raised her knee to prevent it from falling completely. Thus posed, she resembled to perfection those marble statues of goddesses, whose cleverly-disposed drapery, regretting its role in hiding such charms, reluctantly envelops their lovely thighs, yet, in a happy show of deceit, ends precisely beneath the place it was intended to hide. But, as Rosalind’s chemise was not carved in marble, and its folds were unsupported, it continued its glorious descent, sank onto her dress, completely, and lay curved about its mistress’ feet, like a large pale greyhound.
A simple way to have prevented all this disorder, would have been to restrain the fugitive garment with her hand: this idea, though a most natural gesture, failed to occur to our humble heroine.
Thus, she remained, unveiled, her fallen clothes forming a sort of pedestal, in all the diaphanous splendor of her lovely nakedness, lit by the soft glow of the alabaster lamp that D’Albert had previously lit.
D’Albert, dazzled, contemplated her with rapture.
— ‘I’m cold,’ she said, crossing her two hands on her shoulders.
— ‘Oh, please! One more minute more!’
Rosalind uncrossed her hands, rested the tip of her finger on the back of a chair, and stood almost motionless, swaying slightly which highlighted all the wealth of her undulating lineaments; she appeared not at all embarrassed; the imperceptible pinkness of her cheeks deepening not a shade more: only the slightly more rapid beating of her heart set the contours of her left breast trembling.
Our young enthusiast for beauty could not take his eyes from the spectacle: and I must say, to the immense credit of Rosalind, the reality on this occasion exceeded his dreams, and he experienced not the slightest disappointment.
All was united in the beautiful body that posed before him: delicacy and strength, form and hue; the lines of a Greek statue of the finest artistic period, the colour-tones of a Titian. There before him, palpable and finished, stood the previously-vague chimera whose flight he had so often tried to halt, though in vain: his vision was not constrained, as he had complained so bitterly to his friend Silvio, to a certain portion seen complete, and he unable to stray beyond it for fear of seeing something frightful. His gaze descended, lovingly, from head to foot, and rose again from feet to crown, his sight caressed gently by a harmonious rightness of form.
Her knees were admirably formed, her ankles elegant and slender, her legs and thighs of a proud and superb shape, her belly polished like an agate, her hips supple and powerful, her breasts enough to make the gods descend from heaven to kiss them, her arms and shoulders of the most magnificent character; a torrent of lovely dark tresses, slightly crimped, such as one sees on those heads painted by the old masters, descended her ivory back, whose whiteness they wondrously enhanced, in little waves.
The artist satisfied, the lover regained the ascendant; for, however much one loves art, there are things one cannot rest content with merely gazing upon. He lifted the beautiful girl in his arms, and bore her to bed; in a moment he himself was undressed and beside her.
She pressed herself against him, and embraced him tightly, for her breasts were as cold as the snow whose colour they displayed. This coolness made Albert burn ardently, exciting him to the highest degree. Soon the lovely girl was as heated as himself. He kissed her, in the wildest and most ardent manner, on breasts, throat, shoulders, neck, on her mouth, her arms, her feet; he would have liked to cover with a single caress all that beautiful body, which almost melted into his own, so intimate was their embrace. Amidst a profusion of charming treasures, he knew not which to reach for.
They no longer kissed each other individually, rather Rosalind’s perfumed breath became one with D’Albert’s. Their breasts swelled, their eyes half-closed; their arms, relaxed in voluptuousness, no longer had the strength to clasp each other’s body. The divine moment approached: the last obstacle was overcome, a supreme convulsive spasm agitated the two lovers, and the curious Rosalind was fully enlightened as to that question whose answer had worried her for so long.
However, as one lesson, however well-delivered, rarely suffices, D’Albert entered onto a second, then a third... Out of consideration for the reader, whom we do not wish to render envious, or drive to despair, I will carry my account no further, for the loveliest of my readers would surely pout at her lover, if I revealed the formidable heights to which D’Albert’s love ascended, aided by Rosalind’s profound curiosity. Let that lovely reader remember the most fulfilling and charming of nights, the night she would remember for a hundred thousand days and more, if she were not obliged to vanish long before; let her lay the book by her side, and calculate, on the tips of her charming fingers, how many times the one who loved her best, made love to her, and so fill the gap I leave in our glorious story.
Rosalind had a prodigious aptitude for learning, and made enormous progress in that one night alone. Her physical naiveté which was astonished by everything and her mental powers which were astonished not at all formed a most piquant and adorable contrast. D’Albert was delighted, lost, transported, and wished the night to last for forty-eight hours, like that on which Hercules was conceived. However, towards morning, after a superhuman effort, and despite an infinity of kisses and caresses, both the sweetest in the world and calculated to keep anyone awake, he was obliged to take a rest. A sweet, voluptuous sleep touched his eyes with the tips of its wings, his head sank, and he fell asleep between the twin breasts of his beautiful mistress. She considered him for some time with an air of melancholy, and profound reflection; then, as dawn cast its whitish rays through the curtains, she gently raised him, lowered him beside her, rose, and slid lightly over his body.
She collected her clothes and dressed swiftly, then returned to the bed, leaned over D’Albert, who was still asleep, and kissed his two eyelids and their long, silky eyelashes. After which, she retreated, still gazing at him.
Instead of returning to her own room, she went to Rosette’s. What she said there, and what she did there, I have never been able to learn, though I have made the most conscientious efforts. I have found nothing in Graciosa’s papers, nor in those of D’Albert or Silvio, in connection with her visit. But one of Rosette’s maids informed me of this singular circumstance: that though her mistress had not slept with D’Albert that night, the bed was rumpled and unmade, and bore the imprint of two bodies. Moreover, she showed me two pearls, exactly like those Théodore wore in his hair when playing the part of Rosalind, which she had found between the sheets while re-making it. I leave this remark to the sagacity of my readers, who are free to draw whatever inference they wish. As for myself, I have made a thousand conjectures on this subject, each one more unreasonable than the last, and so absurd that I dare not relate them, even in the most cautious and circumlocutionary of styles.
It was quite noon when Théodore left Rosette’s room. He failed to appear at dinner or supper, though D’Albert and Rosette seemed not at all surprised. He retired to bed very early, and next morning, as soon as it was light, without warning, saddled his horse, and that of his page, and left the château, telling a footman that he was not to be expected at dinner, and might not return for a few days.
D’Albert and Rosette were astonished beyond measure, and knew not to what they should attribute this strange disappearance, especially D’Albert, who, after the exploits of the previous night, believed he had earned a second visit. Towards the end of the week, the unfortunate and disappointed lover received a letter from ‘Théodore’, which I am about to transcribe. I am afraid it will satisfy neither my male nor my female readers; but, in truth, the letter was thus and not otherwise, and this glorious novel can meet with no other ending.
Chapter 17: Madeleine to D’Albert
You will doubtless be most surprised, my dear D’Albert, at my actions, after my previous ones. I will allow there is reason. I would wager you’ve already bestowed on me at least twenty of those epithets which we had agreed to erase from your vocabulary: ‘perfidious’, ‘inconstant’, ‘villainous’, etc. is that not so? At least you cannot term me cruel or prudish, that is something gained. If you curse me, you are wrong to do so. You desired me, you loved me, I was your ideal. Very well, I granted you, at once, what you asked; it was in your hands to have attained it sooner. I served as the incarnation of your dream in the most complacent and satisfactory manner in the world. I have given you what I will certainly never give again to any, something on which, in your surprise, you could scarcely have counted and for which you should be more than grateful to me. Now I have satisfied you, I am pleased to depart.
What is so monstrous in that? I gave myself to you entirely, and without reserve, for a whole night; what more can you want? Another night, and then another? No doubt you would even apply yourself for days if needs be. You would continue so till you were disgusted with me. I can hear you, even at this distance, exclaiming most gallantly that I am not one of those who are capable of arousing disgust. Lord, it is my lot as it is that of others.
Our affair might last six months, two years, ten years even, if you like, but everything must have an end. You would retain me from habit, or because you lacked the courage to part from me. What point is there in waiting till then?
And it might be that I would cease to love you. I have found you charming; perhaps, by dint of seeing you often, I might find you detestable. Forgive the supposition. Living with you, in greater intimacy, I would doubtless have the opportunity to see you in a cotton night-cap, or embroiled in some ridiculous and comical domestic situation. The romantic and mysterious aspect of things, which endlessly seduces me, would vanish, as regards yourself, while your character, more thoroughly explored, would no longer seem of interest. I would pay less attention to keeping you near me, much as one often neglects those books one never opens because they sit nearby in one’s library. Your mind, or even your nose, would no longer seem nearly as well-formed. I would note that your coat fitted badly, that your stockings were wrinkled. I would meet with a thousand disappointments of that kind which would make me suffer, singularly, and in the end I would reach this conclusion: that you definitely possessed neither heart nor soul, and that I was destined never to be understood in love.
You adore me and I have repaid you. You cannot offer me the slightest reproach, and I have nothing in the least to complain about as regards yourself. I have been perfectly faithful to you, throughout our affair. I have not deceived you in aught. I possessed neither a false heart, nor false virtue. You were so extremely kind as to say that I was even more beautiful than you imagined. For the beauty I offered, you gave me much pleasure; we are both quits: I go my way, and you yours; perhaps we shall find ourselves at the antipodes.
Live with these thoughts. If you think I did not love you, simply because I am leaving, you will later realise the truth. If I thought less of you, I would have stayed, and poured and drunk the insipid brew to the dregs. Your love would soon have died of ennui. After a while, you would have completely forgotten me, and, re-reading my name on the list of your conquests, would have asked yourself: ‘Who the devil was she?’ I have at least this satisfaction of believing that you will remember me better than another. Your unsatisfied desire will open its wings once more to fly in search of me. I will always be something desirable to which your fantasies will be pleased to return, and I hope that, in the bed of any mistress you may take, you will sometimes think of that unique night you spent with me.
You will never be more lovable than you were on that happy occasion, and even if you seemed to be so, you would be less so; for, in love as in poetry, to rest where one is, is already to retreat. Hold to that thought, and you will do well.
You have made it hard for me to find another lover (if I choose to seek another), and no one will be able to erase your memory; they will all be merely ‘the heirs of Alexander’.
If it grieves you too much to lose me, burn this letter, which is the only proof you possess that I exist, and believe you simply enjoyed a lovely dream. Who could blame you? The vision has vanished before dawn, at the hour when dreams return home through the gate of horn or the gate of ivory (see Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, XIX: 562-567. True dreams arrive through the former, false dreams through the latter). How many have died and, less fortunate than you, failed to kiss their phantom even once!
I am neither capricious, wild, nor prudish. What I do arises from deep conviction. It is not to inflame you further, through a calculated form of coquetry, that I have departed C***. Don’t try to follow me, or seek me: you will not succeed. My precautions, designed to hide my traces from you, are too well taken. You will always be, for me, the man who opened a world of fresh sensations. Such a thing as that, a woman does not easily forget. Though absent, I will often think of you, and far more often than if you were with me.
Console poor Rosette as best you can, who must be at least as angry as you, regarding my departure. Love each other in memory of me, whom you both have loved, and repeat my name sometimes, to each other, in a kiss.
The End of Part VI, and of Gautier’s ‘Mademoiselle de Maupin’