Why is this? I really cannot tell. I have never experienced that intoxication1 of the heart which we call love! Never have I lived in that dream, in that exaltation, in that state of madness into which the image of a woman casts us. I have never been pursued, haunted, roused to fever heat, lifted up to Paradise by the thought of meeting, or by the possession of, a being who had suddenly become for me more desirable than any good fortune, more beautiful than any other creature, of more consequence than the whole world! I have never wept, I have never suffered on account of any of you. I have not passed my nights sleepless2, while thinking of her. I have no experience of waking thoughts bright with thought and memories of her. I have never known the wild rapture3 of hope before her arrival, or the divine sadness of regret when she went from me, leaving behind her a delicate odor of violet powder.
I have never been in love.
I have also often asked myself why this is. And truly I can scarcely tell. Nevertheless I have found some reasons for it; but they are of a metaphysical character, and perhaps you will not be able to appreciate them.
I suppose I am too critical of women to submit to their fascination4. I ask you to forgive me for this remark. I will explain what I mean. In every creature there is a moral being and a physical being. In order to love, it would be necessary for me to find a harmony between these two beings which I have never found. One always predominates; sometimes the moral, sometimes the physical.
The intellect which we have a right to require in a woman, in order to love her, is not the same as the virile5 intellect. It is more, and it is less. A woman must be frank, delicate, sensitive, refined, impressionable. She has no need of either power or initiative in thought, but she must have kindness, elegance6, tenderness, coquetry and that faculty7 of assimilation which, in a little while, raises her to an equality with him who shares her life. Her greatest quality must be tact8, that subtle sense which is to the mind what touch is to the body. It reveals to her a thousand little things, contours, angles and forms on the plane of the intellectual.
Very frequently pretty women have not intellect to correspond with their personal charms. Now, the slightest lack of harmony strikes me and pains me at the first glance. In friendship this is not of importance. Friendship is a compact in which one fairly shares defects and merits. We may judge of friends, whether man or woman, giving them credit for what is good, and overlooking what is bad in them, appreciating them at their just value, while giving ourselves up to an intimate, intense and charming sympathy.
In order to love, one must be blind, surrender one's self absolutely, see nothing, question nothing, understand nothing. One must adore the weakness as well as the beauty of the beloved object, renounce9 all judgment10, all reflection, all perspicacity11.
I am incapable12 of such blindness and rebel at unreasoning subjugation13. This is not all. I have such a high and subtle idea of harmony that nothing can ever fulfill14 my ideal. But you will call me a madman. Listen to me. A woman, in my opinion, may have an exquisite15 soul and charming body without that body and that soul being in perfect harmony with one another. I mean that persons who have noses made in a certain shape should not be expected to think in a certain fashion. The fat have no right to make use of the same words and phrases as the thin. You, who have blue eyes, madame, cannot look at life and judge of things and events as if you had black eyes. The shade of your eyes should correspond, by a sort of fatality16, with the shade of your thought. In perceiving these things, I have the scent17 of a bloodhound. Laugh if you like, but it is so.
And yet, once I imagined that I was in love for an hour, for a day. I had foolishly yielded to the influence of surrounding circumstances. I allowed myself to be beguiled18 by a mirage19 of Dawn. Would you like me to tell you this short story?
I met, one evening, a pretty, enthusiastic little woman who took a poetic20 fancy to spend a night with me in a boat on a river. I would have preferred a room and a bed; however, I consented to the river and the boat.
It was in the month of June. My fair companion chose a moonlight night in order the better to stimulate21 her imagination.
We had dined at a riverside inn and set out in the boat about ten o'clock. I thought it a rather foolish kind of adventure, but as my companion pleased me I did not worry about it. I sat down on the seat facing her; I seized the oars22, and off we starred.
I could not deny that the scene was picturesque23. We glided24 past a wooded isle25 full of nightingales, and the current carried us rapidly over the river covered with silvery ripples26. The tree toads27 uttered their shrill28, monotonous29 cry; the frogs croaked30 in the grass by the river's bank, and the lapping of the water as it flowed on made around us a kind of confused murmur31 almost imperceptible, disquieting32, and gave us a vague sensation of mysterious fear.
The sweet charm of warm nights and of streams glittering in the moonlight penetrated33 us. It was delightful34 to be alive and to float along thus, and to dream and to feel at one's side a sympathetic and beautiful young woman.
I was somewhat affected35, somewhat agitated36, somewhat intoxicated37 by the pale brightness of the night and the consciousness of my
Join or Log In!
You need to log in to continue reading