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 POCKET EDITION 
 
 THE ROMANCES of 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER 
 
 Volume One 
 
 Translated and Edited by 
 
 PROFESSOR F. C. DE SUMICHRAST 
 
 Department of French, Harvard University 
 
 W 
 
 MADEMOISELLE 
 DE M AU PI N 
 
 Volume One 
 
 V 
 
 With the Author's Preface and an 
 
 Essay and Introduction 
 
 by the Editor 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1912 
 
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Copyright, IQOO, by 
 George D. Sproul 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
E 
 I 1 ? ' 
 
 The op hi I f e Gautier 
 
 o 
 
 4S9339 
 
 FRENCH 
 
TH EOPH I LE 
 
 G AUT I ER 
 
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 THEOPHILE GAUTIER was born at 
 Tarbes, in the South of France, on 
 August 30, 181 1, — the year of the birth 
 of that King of Rome who ended his 
 days as Duke of Reichstadt at the Austrian court. 
 The family of Gautier was of Southern origin, and came 
 from Avignon, the city of the Popes. The father, a 
 fanatical royalist, had married a tailor's daughter, named 
 Adelaide-Antoinette Cocard, whose eldest sister had 
 wedded the Count of Poudens. Adelaide was a re- 
 markably beautiful woman, of a cold and haughty mien, 
 but devoted to her son. Jean-Pierre Gautier, the 
 father, was in the Internal Revenue service, and in 
 1 8 14 removed to Paris, where nostalgia, one of the 
 fundamental traits of the poet's temperament, speedily 
 developed in the boy. Young Gautier never forgot the 
 sunny South ; he longed to return to it, and one dav, 
 hearing some soldiers speaking in the Gascon tongue, 
 
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 THEQPHILE GAUTIER 
 
 he begged them to take him back to the land of his 
 birth. 
 
 At the age of five he read with ease and began to 
 devour one book after another, beginning with " Robin- 
 son Crusoe," and passing through Florian's u Estelle 
 et Nemorin " to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's " Paul et 
 Virginie," which, to the end, he esteemed a perfect 
 masterpiece. The love of reading never left him ; 
 even dictionaries and encyclopaedias had a charm for 
 him. 
 
 He was doomed to the ordinary fate of the French 
 boy whose parents are ambitious that he should suc- 
 ceed : life in a college. The prison — it was nothing 
 else in his case — was Louis-le-Grand, named after 
 the illustrious monarch for whom Gautier uniformly 
 professed the utmost contempt and detestation. Of a 
 poetic nature, of an artistic temperament, exceedingly 
 susceptible to the influence of his surroundings, depend- 
 ent on affection and loving care, the lad, severed fron?| 
 his family, bound down by rigid rules, kept from that 
 freedom which he had already learned to prize, was 
 unutterably wretched. Fortunately for him, his fatherj 
 was a man who to wide reading and sovnd scholarship 
 joined common-sense. Seeing the boy's unhappiness, 
 
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 THE MAN AND HIS WORK 
 
 he withdrew him from Louis-le-Grand and entered him 
 as a day-pupil at Charlemagne, where, bar the jealousy 
 excited by his success in study, his life was pleasanter. 
 As he proceeded he manifested a distinct preference for 
 the decadent writers, such as Martial, Petronius, and 
 Apuleius, and a bent towards drawing and painting 
 which clearly indicated his vocation. 
 
 Before he left the lycee he was already a pupil in 
 Rioult's studio, where he had for comrades youths 
 who to a man were fervent Romanticists and wor- 
 shippers of the genius of Victor Hugo. The same 
 influence was at work in his family ; besides, his school 
 friend, Gerard de Labrunie, better known as that 
 Gerard de Nerval whose talents promised so brilliant a 
 career and who ended so wretchedly, belonged heart 
 and soul to the new school. Labrunie had early dis- 
 tinguished himself: at seventeen he had published a 
 volume of verse, and his translation of u Faust " had 
 brought him high praise from the great Goethe. He 
 
 it was who presented Gautier to the master-poet, in 
 hat house of the rue Jean Goujon, which was soon to 
 ,je abandoned for the historic mansion in the Place 
 Royale. Hugo received the budding poet kindly, and 
 advised him to publish the verses Labrunie had praised. 
 
. 
 
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 THEOPHILE GAUTIER' 
 
 , -s 
 
 From that day Hugo became to Gautier " the Real 
 
 Presence of Poetry, as it were ; " and when the famous 3 
 25th of February, 1830, came round shortly after- j. 
 wards, Gautier was elected to be one of the squad > 
 leaders who were to direct the applause at the first ■ 
 performance of " Hernani," the drama on which, rightly : 
 enough, as events proved, the followers of Hugo built 
 such high hopes. That first performance marks the 
 great epoch of Gautier's life. It made upon him an 
 ineffaceable impression ; and although he broke away 
 from the trammels of the school and asserted his own 
 individuality, " Hernani " remained for him what it 
 was to the youth of 1830, the most splendid creation 
 of the French stage. When the play was revived in 
 1867, under the Second Empire — Hugo being then in 
 exile and a bitter opponent of Napoleon III — Gautier 
 wrote for the official Monlteur an enthusiastic and 
 laudatory notice of the play, and put it, together with 
 his resignation of the office of dramatic critic, beion^y 
 the Minister of the Interior. The article was accepted, 
 and published, and the resignation refused. The last 
 work he was engaged upon was that " History of Ro- 
 manticism " which has remained unfinished, and in 
 which he describes, with a fire of enthusiasm that 
 
 
! 
 
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 THE MAN AND HIS WORK 
 
 neither age nor suffering could extinguish, the story of 
 that memorable first night, on which, wearing his rose- 
 colored doublet and his lion mane of hair, he was the 
 most conspicuous figure in the tumultuous scene. The 
 last lines he penned were an article on u Hernani." 
 
 From this time his career was practically settled, and 
 literature claimed him as her own with the publication 
 of his first "Poems/' on the 28th of July, 1830. An 
 unfortunate date, for it was the first of those "glori- 
 ous days of July " which overthrew the reactionary 
 Charles X. and inaugurated the reign of Louis-Philippe, 
 the bourgeois king. 
 
 Gautier had the ill-luck, or rather the lack of fore- 
 sight, which marked also his admirers, the Goncourt 
 brothers. Devoted to art like them and despising the 
 bourgeois^ — under which term, broadened for his own 
 use, he classed all whosoever did not make of art an 
 exclusive cult, — he was blind, or at least wholly indif- 
 ferent to the signs of the times, and always failed to 
 perceive coming revolutions until they had become 
 accomplished facts. To this was due the failure of 
 his first poetic effort to attract any attention whatever. 
 Even worse than this — for Gautier was in no wise dis- 
 couraged by this check — his father, an ardent believer 
 
 7 
 
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 T.HEOPHILE GAUTIER 
 
 in the monarchy, as has already been said, speculated j 
 on a rise in the funds and naturally lost his all; and 
 thus began for the son that life-long struggle with ill- 
 fortune which recalls that still more pathetic, still more 
 trying one in which Balzac is the central figure. The 
 revolution of 1848, which dethroned Louis-Philippe in 
 his turn, found Gautier in fairly comfortable circum- 
 stances ; it left him again a ruined man. He managed 
 to pull up once more, and at the end of eighteen years 
 was justified in believing that he would be appointed 
 to the Imperial Senate, — a comfortable sinecure, — that 
 the doors of the Academy would at last open to admit 
 him, and that he might end his life in the fulfilment of 
 a long caressed project, the founding of a school for 
 the training of literary artists, — when the crash came 
 at Sedan and the Empire fell. 
 
 But in 1830 he was young, full of energy and high 
 hopes, and determined to cut his way to the front. 
 His first long poem, " Albertus," appeared in 1832 and 
 won him fame. It was of the Romantic order and 
 stamped its author as one of the brilliant minds of that 
 ever-increasing company of devotees to art in all its 
 forms whose cardinal principle was the lauding of each 
 other's works and the faithful imitation of the manner- 
 
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 fHE MAN AND HIS WORK 
 
 sms of Victor Hugo, then the recognised standard- 
 earer of the school. 
 
 Gautier, however, like Musset, had a strongly marked 
 
 ndividuality and a keen sense of the humorous. He 
 
 erceived readily the ridiculous side of Romanticism ; 
 
 he more so that he himself had gone to the fullest 
 
 xtremes in the extravagance and nonsense that then 
 
 )assed as a mark of genius, or of great talent at least. 
 
 fust as Musset, in his audacious " Ballad to the Moon," 
 
 An his " Mardoche," and in many parts of his 
 
 V Namouna," had satirised the excesses of the school, 
 
 so Gautier relieved himself by the composition and 
 
 I )ublication of the tales which bear the collective name 
 
 )f " les Jeune-France." The work was a great suc- 
 
 ess, acclaimed on the one hand by the Romanticists, 
 
 ost of whom were not quick-witted enough to per- 
 
 jleive the sarcasm dealt out to them, and most heartily 
 
 jlamned, on the other, by the pale-faced bourgeois^ who 
 
 jere treated in it with that total disrespect and that 
 
 '^asperating contempt which the adherents of Hugo 
 
 penly and loudly professed for them. 
 
 I Youth loves to make a sensation. Gautier enjoyed 
 
 le noisy reputation he had so easily gained, as did also 
 
 v (gene Renduel, the publisher of the Romanticists, 
 
 u 
 
 , 
 
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 THEOPHILE GAUTIE 
 
 who begged him for another work, a sensational novel} 
 He got it, though it took three years to write. It waif 
 " Mademoiselle de Maupin," which called out, on it. 
 appearance^a storm of mingled reprobation and admira-)i f i 
 tion, provoked then mainly by the Preface, later by the 
 story itself, and the echoes of which have not altogethei 
 died out in our day. In those debonair times, whei 
 Realists and Naturalists had not yet appeared upon the 
 scene and served up "slices of life " to a public whos 
 vitiated taste refuses all but the gamiest and most highly] 
 seasoned works of an epoch of decadence, the book wa< 
 looked upon as a shameless exposition of sensuality byl 
 some, as a masterpiece of art and audacity by others 
 The brilliant " Preface," with its virulently sarcastic] 
 attacks upon critics and the old-maidish prudery of the 
 bourgeois, was, however, the chief offence, the story itselfr- 
 attracting little attention outside the sacred circle. 
 
 It was at this time that he became connected witlj] 
 the Chronique de Paris, founded by Balzac, and iVi 
 which he published several tales, " Death in Love ■ 
 and " The Golden Chain " being the most noteworth 
 The tale which now bears the title of " Fortunio, 
 and which is one of his best-known works, belongf 
 also to this period. It appeared in book form-* f 
 
 y 
 
 Ml 
 
 10 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE 
 
 IDE MAUPIN 
 
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 Introduction 
 
 N r OT milk for babes nor a book for young 
 men or maidens, undoubtedly ; composed 
 by a youth who forgot or contemned the 
 "maxima reverentia ; ,: a work of art, 
 hymn to plastic beauty, an outburst of Romanticism, 
 literary escapade comparable in some respects to por- 
 ions of Byron's work, recalling passages of Shelley, 
 ines of Keats, and, still more, the daring stanzas of 
 Ufred de Musset in " Mardoche " and " Namouna," 
 nd some of the exquisite strains of u Rollo " and the 
 Nuits." 
 
 Written to the order of Renduel, who desired a sen- 
 Jtional novel, the book failed, save for its audaciously 
 ipertinent Preface, to fulfil the publisher's expecta- 
 )ns, and it did not create as much of a stir as the 
 loulish " Han d'Islande," the absurd novels of 
 etrus Borel, or the brilliant stories of Dumas the 
 
 )L. 
 
 33 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI 
 
 elder. It was too poetical for the average reader i\\ 
 that day, and the sensuality which marks it was n 
 gross enough for that class of prurient persons wli 
 seek and invariably find nastiness where others fail ; 
 discover it. Yet the novel exemplifies in a strikir 
 manner several of the important traits of Romanticis 
 in France, and indicates the tendencies of a movemei 
 the full consequences of which have been clearly pe 
 ceived in our day only. 
 
 Though partly based upon fact, " Mademoiselle c 
 Maupin " is largely a work of pure imagination ar. 
 fancy. It is a day-dream, related in wondrous lai 
 guage, depicted in occasional tableaux, made tangib 
 and almost real by the great skill of the writer. It 
 partly, also, a mental autobiography, for many of tr 
 sentiments attributed to d'Albert are unquestionabl 
 the sentiments of Gautier himself. The yearning for 
 full realisation of beauty, the distaste for the commor 
 place, the longing for the unattainable, the feelinl 
 of disappointment, the disgust of satiety experieno, 
 with the first taste of pleasure, these are all found f 
 the author himself, and so far d'Albert is to GautiS 
 what Rene is to Chateaubriand — but so far only. Acjjj 
 to this sentimental need of putting himself into t 
 
 34 
 
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 INTROD UCTI ON 
 
 o:in of his male personage the devouring desire to ex- 
 
 Ibrience what women feel, what different beings feel, 
 
 bt nowadays only, but also in other days, a desire 
 
 thich was ever present in Gautier, and the choice of 
 
 e subject becomes more intelligible. Gautier would 
 
 sifive delighted in leading many lives, not in fancy 
 
 | erely, but actually. Could he have gone beyond the 
 
 eDunds of metempsychosis and become a passionate, an 
 
 norous, a voluptuous woman, such as the one he de- 
 
 dcts in his heroine, his soul would have been satisfied. 
 
 ould he have lived the real life of an Eastern poten- 
 
 te, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, steeped in all 
 
 ie pleasure of the Orient, he would have breathed a 
 
 y\\ of contentment. Could he have become a god 
 
 id known the fulness of beauty and expressed it, 
 
 ade it tangible, he would have felt that life was well 
 
 /ed and annihilation cheap at the price. But none of 
 
 ese things could he do, though he remained a prey to 
 
 re burning desire, and therefore in the composition of 
 
 Mademoiselle de Maupin " he strove to realise some- 
 
 jing of the avatar he dreamed of. 
 
 The book is not a product of Christian art, in the 
 
 Minary sense of the word, and Chateaubriand himself 
 
 uld have been puzzled — had it been written in his 
 
 35 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI 
 
 day — to relate it to Christian inspiration, yet the 
 fluence of that art is not wholly absent from it \ 
 paganism, in which the Greek love of beauty, tl 
 refreshed and revived art in France at the time 
 the Renaissance, is felt, drew to itself some part of t 
 spiritual beauty which Christianity called out in t 
 religious paintings of the great masters of Italy a 
 Spain. But Gautier is, nevertheless, essentially 
 pagan, to whom the art of the Middle Ages appeals 1 
 imperfectly, his own nature not being spiritual. T 
 times, the circumstances in which he lived and wh 
 affected the earlier development of his talent, m; 
 some mark upon his work ; the real influence to wh 
 he sympathetically responded was that which inspi 
 the Greek of old and the artist of the Renaissance, 
 the love of external beauty, the sensuous delight in 
 perfection of form and the glory of colour, the splend 
 of rich stuffs, and the gleam of jewels. 
 
 Romanticism laid much stress on externals, and 
 so far Gautier was in touch with it, as the perusal 
 the novel readily shows. It acted on him, howe;[ 
 and on his work in another way, producing resj^ 
 more markedly distinctive. He has no thought of or 
 for analysis of character. There is not a single str 
 
 ) 
 
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 I NTRO D UCTI ON 
 
 iracter in the book, no living creation, no type that 
 
 '; passed into the domain of literature. D'Albert is 
 
 ^ak, and to a large extent unattractive. His con- 
 
 ( nt self-torture is apt to weary, as does that of the 
 
 mantic hero. He has no will of his own, no manly 
 
 our. The heroine, for all her strangeness, her bold- 
 
 ||S, and her assumption of masculine dress, is simply 
 
 haracterless creature. Now this is the badge of the 
 
 ole tribe of Romantic heroes and heroines. They 
 
 not living human beings ; they are merely creations 
 
 the fancy, and mouthpieces of the author. They 
 
 figures dressed in rich or picturesque costumes ; 
 
 Y strike attitudes, they pose, they affect certain ex- 
 
 ssions, they knit their brows and frown, they scowl, 
 
 j turn their eyes to heaven, they swoon, they rage, 
 
 they are not real ; they do not convey the idea of 
 
 lality. And this is emphatically the case with 
 
 lbert and Theodore. They are shadows evoked 
 
 Sautier, — brilliant, striking, fair to look upon, but 
 
 lows that melt into thin air, substanceless, unreal. 
 
 rcjigain, Romantic writers, for all their fine phrases 
 
 ffljt woman, for all the adornments which they be- 
 
 Wred upon her and the languorous and amorous verse 
 
 spouted about her, had but a low opinion of the sex, 
 
 37 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 and considered her, when all is said and done, as merel 1 yl 
 a charming ornament, a pretty plaything intended tno 
 satisfy man's sensual desires. In all Victor Hugops 
 dramas there is not one woman who commands adminPi- 
 tion and respect, and he is the chief and leader of thl ' e 
 school. As is the master, so are the disciples. I ( *r 
 " Mademoiselle de Maupin " Gautier takes no pains tj d 
 conceal his low view of woman ; not that he thinks .1 
 low; he merely expresses what he, in common witY h 
 the other Romanticists of the day, felt and believet ^ d 
 Vigny, at least, honours woman more by presenting hwj ji 
 to us as an active principle of evil which man has inh 
 combat. She is not a nonentity; she is impure, it c $ i 
 true, in body and soul, but she is a power. Lamar c , i 
 tine has idealised her, etherealised her to the extent <fffco 
 making her a phantom of delight, but not " a perfect j 
 woman, nobly planned, to warm, to comfort, and con> 
 mand." Hogg's Kilmeny that " gaed up the glen " Li 
 superior as a spiritual, yet human, creation to a , \ 
 French heroine of the Romantic period. 
 
 The curious obliquity which made the courtesan, t v y |J i 
 Messalina, a favourite with the French Romanticists b 1 - , 
 given us Hugo's Marion Delorme, Lucrezia Borgia, a c 
 Tisbe, Dumas's Adele d'Hervey, and Gautier's Rose"o 
 
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 I NTRODUCTION 
 
 and Mademoiselle de Maupin. The rehabilitation of 
 virtue by the journalists of his day, against which the 
 latter declaims in his Preface, was the counterpart of 
 the rehabilitation of immorality in woman, in which the 
 Romanticists especially delighted. Gautier asks noth- 
 ing of woman but beauty, perfect beauty. As to the 
 moral side of her nature, he cares not a jot for it, and it 
 is, consequently, wholly absent from this novel. 
 
 Another trait, the disdain of the vulgar, the contempt 
 for the public, while not confined to the members of 
 the Romantic school, is nevertheless characteristic of it 
 and crops up constantly in " Mademoiselle de Maupin." 
 Gautier abhors the bourgeois and cannot chafF, cannot 
 abuse him too much. He takes pleasure in scandalis- 
 ing him, in horrifying him, in making him shudder, in 
 shocking him. Hence many of the more risky situa- 
 tions, many of the more lascivious passages of the novel. 
 He enjoyed writing them, because the young animal 
 in him was hot-blooded and its passions highly ex- 
 cited, but very largely, too, because primness, prudery, 
 conventional morality would be stirred up to impotent 
 protestation. Much of the same sort of thing is to 
 tyj met with in Musset, the most adorably impertinent 
 contemner of the profanum vulgus. In this there was, 
 
 39 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPINJ 
 
 further, the element of the disdain of youth for age y, 
 so very marked in all the Romanticist writers of th?k* 
 flamboyant group, — a disdain which went, in Gautit^ 
 and at that time, to the length of abhorrence. Old agPi 
 was repulsive to him, and he joyed in the confoundl'i 
 ing of it by youth, as did the valets of Moliere whl 1 
 befooled and beat the Gerontes, or the Crispins ol^ ( 
 Regnard who personated in order to rob them. IT. 
 But after all, the main inspiration of " Mademoiselle 1 
 de Maupin " is the love of beauty, the passionate desiuj r 
 for the perfection of loveliness. Gautier dwells off; 
 this aspect of his subject ; Rosette and Theodore aif-f: 
 but pretexts for lyrical strains in praise of his idol, bi I 
 pegs on which to hang votive offerings of garlands oft 1 
 Poesy to it. Hence the transformation of the origin; | 
 subject-matter, which he found in the life of t'he advert 
 turess and Opera singer whose name he has given to hip 
 heroine, and whose adventures and temperament he he | 
 borne in mind while tracing the portrait ot Theodor 
 This woman was a Mademoiselle d'Aubigny, whos y. 
 father was secretary to the Count d'Armagnac, and wfiVM: 
 born in 1673. When quite young she was married mdk: 
 an insignificant fellow of the name of Maupin, wh c Y 
 soon dropped out of her life to reappear only towarcfoj 
 
 40 
 
 
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 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ts close. He spent his days in the provinces, as a 
 :lerk or subordinate official in the Treasury Department. 
 The girl herself early left him to seek adventures in 
 he gay world of Paris, where she became the mistress 
 if a fencing-master, Seranne, under whom she acquired 
 emarkable skill in the use of the small sword. The 
 »air went to the South of France, and finding them- 
 elves impecunious, turned to account their natural gift 
 n fine voice, Maupin possessing a splendid contralto. 
 Ae made her debut as a singer on the Marseilles stage, 
 tr at once scored a success. A discreditable adven- 
 p with a young girl of that city, involving the digging- 
 of the body of a dead nun and the setting fire to the 
 went in which Maupin was masquerading as a novice, 
 /ought down upon her the arm of the law, but no par- 
 icular effort appears to have been made to carry out the 
 *ntence passed upon her. She adopted thereafter the 
 ,<-*ctice of dressing in men's clothes, and in her assumed 
 leracter fought many a duel, out of which she invari- 
 ci came victorious. 
 
 cUeturning to Paris she was presented by the com- 
 prr Bouvard to Francine, Lulli's successor in the 
 K tgement of the Opera, and under his auspices she 
 ccje her first appearance on the Paris stage in the part 
 
 4i 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI^ 
 
 of Pallas in the opera of u Cadmus." Here again $j 
 won success and speedily became a prima donna. Se 
 is described by a contemporary as being at this tim'^ 
 most beautiful woman, of medium stature, with a v'*e 
 fine figure, brown hair, great blue eyes, an aquiline nc*t- 
 a well shaped mouth, remarkably fine teeth, and p?t- 
 feet neck and shoulders. From Paris, where heradve ^ 
 tures were numerous and noisy, she went to Bruss^ 
 and became the mistress of the Elector of Bavaj h 
 When he cast her off she again returned to the car A 
 and resumed her relations with Count d'Albert, 
 officer of the King's household, who had been 
 became again her preferred lover. Not long af 
 wards she withdrew from the stage, was reconcile 
 her husband, and lived with him until her death, sloi 
 say, — until she entered a convent, according to othe] : 
 
 Gautier has retained the name of d'Albert as wel,! 1 ' 1 
 that of Maupin, but in other respects has allowed KrU 
 self the greatest latitude in dealing with the materi|tr) 
 his command. 
 
 The book, when first published, had for sub-title jj'l 
 Double Love," which, however, appears only inH 
 original edition and in the reprint, published by Oft i 
 pentier-Conquest in 1887. The original " Pref; 
 
 42 
 
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 I NTRO D UCTIO N 
 
 Fers in some slight respects from the text now pub- 
 hed. These changes were made in 1845 f° r tne 
 tst edition issued by Charpentier, and are of little 
 iportance, being mostly concessions to taste. The 
 I ginal edition, which appeared at the close of the year 
 '135, did not sell well, and Renduel, the publisher, 
 aiused to take any other work from Gautier. But 
 fcm 1845, when Charpentier acquired the copyright, 
 ^Gautier was paid 1500 francs for the work, — it has 
 >bi at an average number of several thousand copies a 
 pr, and its popularity has never waned. 
 
 I 
 
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 I 
 
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 43 
 
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 tademoiselle de Maupin 
 
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 Pref 
 
 ace 
 
 3NE of the most comical traits of the glori- 
 ous epoch in which it is our happy lot to 
 live is unquestionably the rehabilitation 
 of virtue which all our newspapers — no 
 er of what stripe, red, green, or tri-colour — have 
 ^rtaken. 
 
 ^questionably virtue is a very respectable thing, 
 
 we have not the least intention of being rude 
 
 he good and worthy lady, Heaven help us ! — 
 
 are of opinion that her eyes beam quite brightly 
 
 hgh through her spectacles, that her stockings have 
 
 vrinkles to speak of, that she takes her pinch of 
 
 7 from her gold box with all possible grace, that 
 
 pet dog curtsies like a dancing master. We grant 
 
 {'hat. We even grant that, taking her age into 
 
 [ant, she is still comely enough, and that she carries 
 
 er years undeniably well. She is a very pleasant 
 
 Hmother, but a grandmother. It seems to me 
 ral to prefer to her, especially when one is twenty 
 
 45 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI 
 
 h 
 
 k 
 on 
 re, 
 an 
 
 years old, some little trig immorality coquettish t 
 degree, easy going, her hair out of curl, her skirt sJ 
 rather than long, with an ankle and a glance that d"' 
 the eye, a cheek somewhat aglow, a laugh on the 
 and her heart on her sleeve. The most monstro 
 virtuous journalists cannot possibly hold a differ 
 opinion, and, if they assert the contrary, it is 
 likely they do not think as they speak. To think 
 way and to write in another happens every day, t 
 cially to virtuous people. 
 
 I remember the sarcasms hurled before the R 
 lution (the Revolution of July, I mean) at the u 
 tunate and maidenlike Viscount Sosthenes d 
 Rochefoucauld, who lengthened the skirts of the b 
 dancers at the Opera, and with his patrician V n 
 stuck a modesty-preserving plaster just below the 
 of all statues. The Viscount Sosthenes de la R 
 foucauld has been left far behind. Modesty hasr 
 vastly improved upon since his day, and we indujp 
 refinements he would never have thought of 
 
 For myself, as I am not in he habit of look; 
 certain parts of statues, I thought, as others di 
 fig-leaf cut out by the scissors of the director o\H l 
 Arts, the most ridiculous thing in the world. It ° 
 
 ID 
 
 pot 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 [ am wrong and that the fig-leaf is a most merito- 
 
 institution. 
 
 ave been told — though so strange is the statement 
 
 refused to credit it — that there are people who 
 •thing in Michael Angelo's fresco of the Last Judg- 
 but the group of libertine prelates, and who veil 
 : aces as they lament the abomination of desolation ! 
 ese people know only the couplet of the adder in 
 mance of Rodriguez. If there be, in a book or a 
 e, any nudity, they go straight to it as a pig to 
 md take no account of the blooming flowers or 
 
 fair golden fruits which hang everywhere. 
 Dnfess that I am not virtuous enough for that sort 
 ng. Dorine, the bold soubrette, may freely ex- 
 n my presence her swelling bosom ; I shall cer- 
 
 not pull out my handkerchief to cover those 
 ; one ought not to look at. I shall look at her 
 
 as at her face, and, if it be white and shapely, I 
 ike to look at it. But I shall not feel Elmira's 
 o see if the stuff be soft, and I shall not devoutly 
 ler against the edge of the table, as that " poor 
 
 TartufFe did. 
 I: great pretence of morality which reigns nowa- 
 
 ould be very funny, were it not very wearisome. 
 
 47 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUF 
 
 Every feuilkton is turned into a pulpit, every r 
 paper writer into a preacher \ the tonsure and the i 
 cal collar alone are wanting. We are having no 
 but rain and homilies, and the one and the others c; 
 avoided only by taking a carriage to go out, an 
 reading Pantagruel between the bottle and the pip< 
 Mercy on us ! what excitement ! what fre 
 What has bitten you ? what has stung you ? wha 
 devil is the matter with you that you are yellii 
 loud, and what has poor Vice done to you that yq 
 so angry with it, — Vice, which is so good-natun 
 easy to get on with, and which merely wants to 
 itself and not to bore others, if this be possible ? 
 to Vice as Serre did to the constable : kiss and 
 done. Believe me, you will be the better f 
 Good Heavens ! what would you do but for Vi 
 ye preachers ? You would be reduced to pove 
 later than to-morrow, if men turned virtuous t 
 The theatres would close this very evening. \ 
 would you find material for your article ? No 
 Opera balls to fill your columns, — no more noyi 
 dissect ; for balls, novels, and plays are the very 
 of Satan, if our Holy Mother the Church is to |j. ; i 
 licved. The actress would dismiss the man who 
 
 4 8 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 and could no longer afford to pay you for praising 
 
 Your papers would have no subscribers. People 
 
 ild read Saint Augustine, go to church, tell their 
 
 Js. Very nice, no doubt, but you would not be 
 
 gainers. What would you do with your articles 
 
 :he immorality of the age, if people were virtuous ? 
 
 1 see that Vice is of some use after all. 
 
 Jut it is the fashion now to be virtuous and Chris- 
 
 ; it is a way we have. A man affects to be a 
 
 it Jerome as formerly to be a Don Juan ; he culti- 
 
 s pallor and emaciation ; he wears his hair of an 
 
 ;tolic length ; he walks with clasped hands and 
 
 bent on the ground. He tries to look as if butter 
 Id not melt in his mouth ; he keeps a Bible open 
 lis mantelpiece and hangs a crucifix and a sprig of 
 , blessed by the priest, above his bedstead ; he 
 lews swearing ; he smokes but little ; he scarcely 
 
 chews. Then he is a Christian ; talks of the 
 edness of art, of the artist's high mission, of the 
 ry of Catholicism, of de Lamennais, of the painters 
 le Angelic School, of the Council of Trent, of pro- 
 \ive humanity, and a thousand other fine things. 
 fc mingle a small dose of republicanism with their 
 %n ; they are not the least peculiar. They couple 
 
 R 
 
 49 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUP 
 
 Robespierre and Jesus-Christ in the jolliest way, 
 mix, with a seriousness worthy of all praise, the 1 
 of the Apostles and the decrees of the sainted Com 
 tion, — that is the regulation epithet. Others add 
 way of final ingredient, a few of Saint-Simon's id 
 These are the finished variety ; after them there is 
 more to be said. It is not possible for man to e 
 absurdity to greater lengths — has ultra metas, etc. 7 
 are the Pillars of Hercules of the burlesque. 
 
 Thanks to the prevailing hypocrisy, Christianity i 
 much in vogue that neo-Christianity itself enjoys a 
 tain amount of favour. It is said to reckon as mar 
 one follower, including Mr. Drouineau. 
 
 An exceedingly curious variety of the jourr 
 properly called moral is the journalist with a fami 
 women. 
 
 This variety carries the susceptibility of moc 
 almost to the point of cannibalism. 
 
 Its method of working, simple and easy at 
 glance, is none the less most comical and highly dif 
 ing, and I think it worthy of being preserved foi 
 benefit of posterity, — for our ultimate descend 
 as the asses of our so-called Golden Age use 
 say. 
 
 5° 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 begin with, in order to start as a journalist of 
 sort, a few trifling properties are needed as a pre- 
 ary, — two or three legitimate wives, a few moth- 
 is many sisters as possible, a complete assortment 
 aughters, and innumerable cousins. Next, any 
 or novel, pen, ink, paper, and a printer. An idea 
 'o and a few subscribers might come in usefully, 
 vith plenty of philosophy and the money of the 
 holders these may be dispensed with. 
 
 hen you have these things / you can start out as a 
 
 1 journalist. The two following recipes, suitably 
 id, suffice for the editorial work : — 
 
 f ode Is of Virtuous Articles on a First Performance, 
 
 \fter sanguinary literature, filthy literature ; after 
 lorgue and the penitentiary, the bedroom and the 
 : of ill-fame ; after the rags stained by murder, 
 igs soiled by debauch ; after . . . etc. (according 
 ed and space one may go on in this fashion for 
 
 six to fifty lines and more), — that is to be ex- 
 i. This is the result of romantic excess and the 
 tfulness of healthy doctrine ; the stage has be- 
 
 a school of prostitution, into which one ventures 
 ter but hesitatingly with a respectable woman, 
 go to the theatre on the strength of an illustrious 
 , and you are compelled to withdraw at the third 
 
 5i 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPp 
 
 act with your daughter all upset and not knowing w hicl 
 way to look. Your wife conceals her blushes bebinc 
 her fan ; your sister, your cousin, etc." (The n? r me< 
 of relatives may be diversified at will ; it is sufficient 
 that they should be feminine.) 
 
 Note — One of these journalists has carried morality 
 to the point of declaring, " I shall not go to see that 
 drama with my mistress." I admire that man ; I love 
 him ; I bear him in my heart as Louis XVIII. bore all 
 France in his ; for he has had the most triumphant, the 
 most pyramidal, the most startling, the most gigantic 
 idea which has penetrated the brain of man in, this 
 blessed nineteenth century, in which so many and sq 
 funny ideas have come into men's heads. 
 
 The mode of reviewing a book is very expeditious 
 and within reach of all minds : — 
 
 " If you intend to read this book, lock yourself up 
 carefully in your own room ; do not let it lie about on 
 your table. If your wife or your daughter happened 
 to open it she would be lost. This book is dangerous; 
 it preaches vice. It might have had much success, 
 perchance, in Crebillon's time, in houses of ill fame, 
 at the select suppers of duchesses ; but nowadays, when 
 morals are purer, when the hand of the people has 
 thrown down the rotten edifice of aristocracy, etc., etc., 
 etc., that . . . that . . . that . . . there must be in 
 
 52 
 
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 I PREFACE 
 
 ■very book an idea, an idea . . . why, a moral, a relig- 
 ious idea that ... a lofty, a deep view which satisfies 
 lie needs of humanity ; for it is most regrettable that 
 loung writers should sacrifice the holiest things to sue- 
 less, and should devote their meritorious talents to 
 libidinous descriptions that would bring a blush to the 
 Iheek of a captain of dragoons " (the maidenliness of 
 laptains of dragoons is the finest discovery made for 
 lhany a year since the discovery of America). " The 
 tovel we criticise recalls Theresa the Philosopher, 
 relicia, Gaffer Matthew, Grecourt's Tales." 
 
 The virtuous journalist is deeply versed in filthy 
 iovels ; I should greatly like to know why. 
 
 It is appalling to reflect that in the world of news- 
 laperdom there are many worthy artisans who have no 
 jther means of livelihood for themselves and the 
 tumerous family they employ than these two recipes. 
 
 I am apparently the most enormously immoral in- 
 dividual in Europe or elsewhere, for I see nothing 
 lore licentious in the novels and plays of to-day than 
 i the novels and plays of a former time, and I can 
 ~arcely understand why the morals of our journalists 
 ave suddenly become so jansenistically prurient. 
 
 I do not believe that the simplest-minded journalist 
 /ill venture to say that Pigault-Lebrun, Crebillon the 
 
 53 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUP^ 
 
 younger, Louvet, Voisenon, Marmontel, and all othe 
 writers of novels and tales are not more immoral — 
 since immorality is insisted upon — than the most out 
 rageous and the freest productions of Messrs. So-and-So 
 whom I do not name, in order to spare their blushes. 
 
 A man would have to be perversely untruthful no 
 to own it. 
 
 And let it not be objected that I have cited name! 
 little known. If I have not selected dazzling an( 
 splendid names, it is not because they would fail t( 
 confirm my statement by their great weight. 
 
 Voltaire's novels and tales are assuredly not, sav< 
 so far as difference in merit goes, fitter to be given a< 
 prizes to the youngsters in our boarding-schools thar 
 are the immoral tales of our friend the Lycanthrope oj 
 even the moral tales of sugared Marmontel. 
 
 What do you find in the comedies of the grea 
 Moliere ? The holy institution of marriage (to speai 
 like catechisms and journalists) derided and turned intc 
 ridicule in every scene. 
 
 The husband is old, ugly, and peevish ; he wears his 
 wig awry ; his coat is old-fashioned ; he carries a sticl 
 with a hooked head ; his nose is filthy with snuff; h( 
 is short-legged •> he has a corporation as big as th< 
 
 54 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 , budget. He cannot speak distinctly, and talks non- 
 
 . sense ; he acts as foolishly as he talks ; he sees noth- 
 
 I ing, hears nothing; you can kiss his wife to his face; 
 
 I he has no idea of what that means, and so it goes on 
 until he is plainly and duly made out a cuckold, to his 
 
 ; own knowledge and that of the very much edified 
 audience, which applauds loudly. 
 
 It is the most thorough-paced husbands in the 
 
 I audience who applaud most loudly. 
 
 In Moliere, marriage bears the name of George 
 Dandin or Sganarelle ; adultery, that of Damis or 
 
 [ Clitandre ; there is no name too sweet or charming for 
 it. The adulterer is always young, handsome, well- 
 made, and a marquis at the very least. He comes in 
 from the wings humming the latest cor ant o ; he steps 
 on to the stage in the most deliberate and victorious 
 fashion ; he scratches his ear with the rosy nail of his 
 little finger, coquettishly stuck out ; he combs out his 
 handsome blond wig with his tortoise-shell comb ; he 
 resettles his voluminous trunk-lace; his doublet and 
 trunk hose disappear under pointlaces and favours ; 
 his scarf is from the right makers, his gloves are per- 
 fumed with more delicate scent than benzoin and 
 civet ; his feathers have cost a louis apiece. 
 
 55 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 What a flashing eye and what a peach-like cheek ! 
 What smiling lips and white teeth! What soft and 
 well-washed hands. 
 
 When he speaks, it is only in madrigals and per- 
 fumed gallantries of the best pr'ecieux style and of the 
 bravest air ; he has read novels and knows poetry > he 
 is valiant and ready to draw -, he scatters gold with a 
 lavish hand, — so Angelica, Agnes, and Isabella can 
 scarce refrain from throwing themselves in his arms, 
 well-bred and great ladies though they are; and so the 
 husband is regularly betrayed in the fifth act, and is 
 very lucky if it is not in the first. 
 
 That is how marriage is treated by Moliere, one 
 of the loftiest and most serious geniuses that have 
 ever existed. Does any one believe there is any- 
 thing stronger in the indictments of "Indiana" and 
 " Valentine " ? 
 
 Paternity is even less respected, if it were possible. 
 Just see Orgon, Geronte, all the fathers, how they 
 are robbed by their sons, beaten by their valets ! How, 
 without pity for their age, their avarice, their obstinacy, 
 their imbecility are laid bare ! What pleasantries and 
 practical jokes at their expense ! How they are hus- 
 tled out of life, these poor old fellows who put off 
 
 _ 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 dying and who will not give up their money ! How 
 the tenacity of life of parents is talked of; what argu- 
 ments against heredity ; and how much more convincing 
 all this is than are the declamations of a Saint-Simon ! 
 
 A father is an ogre, an Argus, a jailer, a tyrant, of 
 no use save to delay marriage during the space of three 
 acts until the final recognition takes place. A father is 
 the perfectly complete ridiculous husband. Sons never 
 are ridiculous in Moliere's plays, for Moliere, like all 
 authors of all times, paid his court to the rising genera- 
 tion at the expense of the older. 
 
 And the Scapins, with their capes striped Neapolitan 
 fashion, their cap cocked on one ear, their feathers 
 waving, are they not most pious and chaste individuals, 
 fit subjects for canonisation ? Penitentiaries are full of 
 honest people who have not done one fourth of what 
 they have done. The villanies of Tralph are pecca- 
 dilloes in comparison with theirs. And what of the 
 Lisettes, the Martons ? Nice young females truly ! 
 The street-walkers are less shameless, less ready with 
 libidinous reply. How cleverly they can smuggle you 
 a note ! — how well keep watch during a rendezvous ! 
 On my word, they are invaluable young women, ready 
 to oblige and full of sage counsel. 
 
 57 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 A nice company it is that lives and moves and has 
 its being in these comedies and imbroglios ! Befooled 
 guardians, cuckold husbands, libertine maids, swindling 
 valets, daughters crazed with love, debauched sons, 
 adulterous wives. Are they not at least the peers of 
 the young and handsome melancholy heroes, and of the 
 poor, weak, oppressed, and passionate women in the 
 dramas and novels of our popular writers ? 
 
 In all this, bar the final dagger-thrust, the indispen- 
 sable bowl of poison, the denouements are as bright as 
 the endings of fairy tales, and everybody, even the 
 husband, is fully satisfied. In Moliere, virtue is 
 always kicked out and beaten ; it is virtue which 
 wears horns and is thrashed by Mascarille ; it is 
 but once that, towards the end of the play, morality 
 puts in a brief appearance in the somewhat bourgeois 
 incarnation of Loyal the constable. 
 
 It is not to take aught from Moliere's glory that we 
 have said all this. We are not crazy enough to 
 attempt to shake this colossus of bronze with our puny 
 arms. Our intention was merely to demonstrate to 
 our pious newspaper writers, whom the new works 
 of the Romantic school cause to shudder and shy, 
 that the classics, the reading and imitation of which 
 
 _ 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 they daily recommend, greatly surpass these works 
 in licentiousness and immorality. 
 
 To Moliere we might easily join both Marivaux 
 and La Fontaine, each of whom incarnates two op- 
 posite sides of the French mind, and Regnier and 
 Rabelais and Marot and many more. But it is not 
 our intention to deliver here, because we are discussing 
 morality, a course on literature for the use of those 
 virgins, our newspaper writers. 
 
 In my opinion there is no reason for making so 
 much fuss over so slight a matter. We are fortu- 
 nately no longer in the days of fair-haired Eve, and 
 honestly, we cannot be as primitive and patriarchal as 
 they were in the Ark. We are not little girls prepar- 
 ing for their first communion, and when we play at 
 capping rimes we do not answer tarte a la crime. Our 
 ignorance is pretty learned, and our virginity has long 
 since vanished \ these are things to be possessed once 
 only, and do what we may we cannot again have them, 
 for nothing is swifter than disappearing virginity and 
 vanishing illusions. 
 
 And perhaps it is no great harm, after all, and the 
 knowledge of all things may be preferable to the igno- 
 rance of all things. That is a question the discussion 
 
 59 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 of which I leave to those who are more learned than 
 I. What is certain is that the world has got beyond 
 the stage at which one may affect modesty and maidenly 
 shame, and I think that the world is too old a duffer to 
 assume to be childish and maidenly without becoming 
 ridiculous. 
 
 Since its marriage to civilisation society has for- 
 feited its right to be ingenuous and prudish. There 
 is a blush which beseems the bride as she is be- 
 ing bedded, which would be out of place on the 
 morrow ; for the young wife mayhap remembers no 
 more what it is to be a girl, or, if she does remember 
 it, it is very indecent, and seriously compromises the 
 reputation of the husband. 
 
 When perchance I peruse one of those fine sermons 
 which, in our public prints, have taken the place of 
 literary criticism, I sometimes feel very remorseful 
 and very apprehensive, for there lie on my conscience 
 sundry broad jests, somewhat highly spiced, as may 
 well be the case of a youth who is hot-blooded and 
 high-spirited. 
 
 Compared with these Bossuets of the Cafe de Paris, 
 these Bourdaloues of the dress circle at the Opera, or 
 these penny-a-liner Catos who reprove our age so 
 
 60 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 tartly, I own to being indeed the most awful scoundrel 
 that ever trod this earth, and yet, Heaven knows, 
 the enumeration of my sins, both mortal and venial, 
 with the customary spaces and leads, would scarcely, 
 even in the hands of the cleverest publisher, make 
 more than one or two octavo volumes a day, which 
 is not much for a man who has no idea of entering 
 paradise in the next world, or of winning the Mon- 
 thyon prize or of being crowned with roses for vir- 
 ginity in this. 
 
 Then when I recall that I have met under the 
 table, and even elsewhere, a pretty good number of 
 these paragons of virtue, I come to have a better opin- 
 ion of myself, andT consider that, whatever my own 
 defects may be, they have one which, in my opinion, 
 is the greatest and the worst of all — hypocrisy. 
 
 I dare say that if we were to look closely we might 
 find another little vice to be added to this one, but 
 this little vice is so hideous that, candidly, I dare not 
 name it. Come near, and I shall whisper its name in 
 your ear: it is — envy. 
 
 Envy ; nothing else. 
 
 Envy it is that crawls and meanders in and out of 
 all these paternal homilies -, careful though it is to 
 
 61 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 conceal itself, from time to time you see glitter, 
 above the metaphors and the rhetorical figures, its 
 little flat, viper head. You catch it licking with its 
 forked tongue its lips blue with venom ; you hear it 
 hissing softly under some insidious epithet. 
 
 I know that it is unbearably conceited to claim 
 that people are envious of you, and that it is almost 
 as sickening as a fop who brags of his successes. 
 I am not braggart enough to fancy that I have 
 enemies and that men are envious of me \ that is a 
 piece of luck which does not fall to every one's share, 
 and it is probable that it will not fall to mine for a 
 long while yet ; therefore I shall speak out freely and 
 without reserve, as one who is very much disinterested 
 in this matter. 
 
 A thing which it is easy to prove to those who have 
 any doubt about it is the natural antipathy of the critic 
 towards the poet, — of the one who creates noth- 
 ing towards him who creates something, — of the 
 hornet towards the bee, — of the gelding towards the 
 stallion. 
 
 A man turns critic only after he has become thor- 
 oughly convinced that he cannot be a poet. Before he 
 
 comes down to the wretched business of looking after 
 
 _ 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 the overcoats, or of marker in a billiard-room or a 
 tennis-court, he has long courted the Muse of Poetry, 
 he has tried to ravish her, but he proved not vigorous 
 enough for the task and fell, pale and panting, at the 
 foot of the sacred mount. 
 
 I understand the critic's hatred. It is distressful to 
 see another man sit down to the banquet to which one 
 is not bidden, or lie with the woman who would have 
 none of you. I pity from the bottom of my heart the 
 poor eunuch who is compelled to witness the enjoy- 
 ment of the Grand Seignior. 
 
 He is admitted into the most secret recesses of the 
 Oda ; he takes the sultanas to the bath ; he sees, under 
 the silvery water of the great reservoirs, the sheen of 
 those fair forms streaming with pearls and smoother 
 than agate ; the most hidden beauties are unveiled be- 
 fore him. Whv trouble about him ? He is a eunuch. 
 The sultan caresses his favourite in his presence, and 
 kisses her luscious lips. A very awkward situation for 
 him, in truth, in which he can scarce know which way 
 to look. 
 
 It is the same with the critic who sees the poet 
 wandering about the garden of Poesy with his nine 
 lovely odalisques and lazily disport himself in the 
 
 _ 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 shade of the great green laurels. He finds it pretty 
 difficult to keep from picking up the stones on the 
 highway, to throw them at him and hit him behind his 
 wall, if he be skilful enough to do it. 
 
 The critic who has produced nothing is a coward ; 
 he is like a priest courting a layman's wife; the lay- 
 man can neither fight the priest nor seduce his wife. 
 
 I am of opinion that a history of the different 
 methods of running down a book — no matter which 
 — since a month ago down to the present day, would 
 form a history at least as interesting as that of Tiglath- 
 Pileser or Gemmagog who invented pointed shoes. 
 
 There exists matter enough for fifteen or sixteen 
 folio volumes ; but we shall take pity on the reader 
 and confine ourselves to a few lines ; in return for 
 which blessing, we ask for more than eternal gratitude. 
 At a very distant time, lost in the mist of ages- — it is 
 quite three weeks ago — the mediaeval novel flourished 
 in Paris and the suburbs. The blazoned surcoat was 
 highly honoured ; the Hennin head-dress was not looked 
 down upon ; party-coloured trunks were highly prized ; 
 daggers were priceless ; pointed shoes adored as fetishes. 
 Everywhere pointed arches, turrets, columns, stained- 
 glass, cathedrals, and castles ; everywhere damosels and 
 
 64 
 
PREFACE 
 
 young sirs, pages and varlets, beggars and mercenaries, 
 brave knights and fierce lords ; all of which things were 
 certainly more innocent than children's games, and did 
 no harm to any one. 
 
 The critic did not wait for the publication of the 
 second novel to begin his work of depreciation. As 
 soon as the first appeared he put on his camel-hair 
 shirt, scattered a bushel of ashes upon his head, and, 
 lifting up his voice in loud lamentation, called, — 
 
 "More Middle Ages ! Nothing but Middle Ages ! 
 Who shall deliver me from the Middle Ages, from these 
 Middle Ages which are not the Middle Ages at all ? — 
 Middle Ages of pasteboard and terra-cotta with nothing 
 mediaeval about them but their name. Oh ! the 
 barons of iron in their armour of steel, with their 
 hearts of steel in their iron breasts ! Oh ! the 
 cathedrals with ever-blooming rose-windows, flower- 
 ing stained-glass, with granite lace-work, and open- 
 work trefoils, their serrated gables, and chasuble of 
 stone embroidered like a bridal veil, with their tapers 
 and chants, splendidly vested priests and kneeling con-' 
 gregations, deep, tremulous notes of organs, and angels 
 hovering under the arches against which flutter their 
 wings ! How they have spoiled the Middle Ages for 
 
 vol. i — 5 65 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 me, — my exquisite and richly coloured Middle Ages ! 
 They have plastered them over with coarse whitewash 
 and crude colourings ! Ah ! ye ignorant daubers who 
 fancy you are colourists because you have stuck red on 
 blue, white on black, red on green, you have seen but 
 the outer pellicle of the Middle Ages, you have not 
 discovered their spirit, no blood flows in the epidermis 
 with which you have clothed your phantoms, no heart 
 beats beneath the steel corslets, no legs fill the cotton 
 trunk-hose, no stomach, no breasts are underneath the 
 blazoned tunics : these are clothes with the outward 
 semblance of men, — no more. So away with the 
 Middle Ages turned out for us by the hacks (there ! 
 the murder is out ! Hacks !). The day of the Middle 
 Ages is past ; we want something else." 
 
 And the public, seeing that the writers for the press 
 were barking at the heels of the Middle Ages, was 
 seized with a great passion for those poor mediaeval days 
 which the critics thought they had killed at one stroke. 
 The Middle Ages — helped on by newspaper opposi- 
 tion — invaded everything: the drama, the melodrama, 
 the song, the tale, poetry ; there were even mediaeval 
 vaudevilles, and Momus sang feudal refrains. 
 
 By the side of the mediaeval novel budded the novel 
 
 66 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 of rottenness, a very delightful form of tale, greatly in 
 request among kept women of a nervous disposition, as 
 also among disillusioned cooks of the female persuasion. 
 The newspaper writers were as quickly drawn by the 
 stench thereof as are crows by a dead body, and with 
 the sharp nib of their pens they tore to pieces and 
 wickedly did to death this unhappy sort of novel, that 
 only asked to prosper and to rot in peace upon the 
 stickv shelves of circulating libraries. The things 
 they said, the things they wrote about it ! They called 
 it morgue literature, penitentiary literature, hangman's 
 nightmare, drunken, butcher's hallucinations, delirious 
 jailer's literature. They gently hinted that the authors 
 were assassins and vampires, that they had contracted 
 the virtuous habit of murdering their father and mother, 
 that they drank blood out of skulls, used legbones for 
 forks, and cut their bread with a guillotine. 
 
 And yet they knew better than any one — because 
 they had often lunched with them — that the authors of 
 these delightful butcheries were worthy sons of good 
 families, debonair, belonging to good society, wearing 
 white gloves, fashionably short-sighted, feeding by pref- 
 erence on beefsteak rather than on human chops, and as 
 a rule drinking claret rather than the blood of maidens 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 or new-born babes. Having seen and fingered their 
 manuscripts, they knew very well that they were 
 written in ink, on English paper, and not with blood 
 from the dripping guillotine, upon the skin of a Chris- 
 tian that had been flayed alive. 
 
 But no matter what they said or did, the times wanted 
 corruption, and the charnel house was preferred to the 
 boudoir. The reader refused to be caught save by a 
 hook baited with a small corpse in the first stage of 
 putrefaction. This is easily understood. Bait your 
 line with a rose, and the spiders will have time to 
 weave their web in the crook of your elbow — you will 
 catch not the smallest fish. But bait it with a worm 
 or a bit of ripe cheese, and carps, barbels, pikes, and 
 eels will leap three feet out of water to catch it. Men 
 are not as unlike fishes as most people seem to think. 
 
 One might have thought the journalists had turned 
 Brahmin, Quaker, or followers of Pythagoras, or bulls, 
 so suddenly did they display a detestation of blood and 
 of red. Never had they appeared so melting, so emol- 
 lient ; they were as cream and buttermilk. Two 
 colours — sky-blue and apple-green — were alone recog- 
 nised by them. They barely tolerated rose, and, had 
 
 the public given them their way, they would have taken 
 
 __ _ 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 t to graze on spinach on the banks of the Lignon in 
 rompany with the sheep of Amaryllis. They had 
 exchanged their black frock-coat for the dove-coloured 
 loublet of Celadon or Sylvander, and they had adorned 
 :heir quills with Burgundy roses and favours after the 
 manner of a shepherd's crook. They allowed their 
 hair to grow long like children's, and by using Marion 
 Delorme's recipe they had renewed their virginity with 
 success equal to hers. They applied to literature the 
 commandment of the Decalogue: Thou shalt not kill. 
 Not the tiniest of murders was allowed, and a fifth act 
 had become an impossibility. 
 
 They looked on the poniard as excessive, on poison 
 as monstrous, on the axe as unmentionable. They 
 would have had the heroes of dramas reach the good 
 old age of a Melchisedec, although it has been recog- 
 nised from times immemorial that the end and aim of 
 every tragedy is the doing to death in the last scene of 
 some poor helpless devil of a great man, just as the end 
 and aim of every comedy is to join together in the bonds 
 of holy matrimony two idiots of young lovers of some 
 threescore years each of them. 
 
 It was about that time that I burned (after having 
 made a careful copy, in accordance with unfailing cus- 
 
 _ 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 torn) two superb, magnificent mediaeval dramas, the 
 one in verse, the other in prose, the. heroes whereof 
 were quartered and boiled on the stage, an ending 
 most jovial in itself and possessing the merit of almost 
 complete novelty. 
 
 To conform to the critic's ideas, I have since then 
 written a tragedy after the antique, in five acts, named 
 u Heliogabalus," the hero of which precipitates himself 
 into the latrines, a wholly new situation which has the 
 advantage of involving a setting yet unknown to the 
 stage. I also have written a modern drama vastly 
 superior to "Antony Arthur, or The Fated Man," in 
 which the heaven-sent idea arrives in the shape of a 
 Strasburg pate de foie gras^ which the hero consumes 
 to the uttermost atom, after having repeatedly com- 
 mitted rape \ a combination which, remorse being added 
 to it, brings on a violent attack of indigestion that 
 causes his death. A moral ending, if ever there was 
 one, which proves that God is just^ and that vice is 
 always punished, and virtue recompensed. 
 
 As for the monster variety, you know what they 
 have done to it, how they have treated Han d'Islande, 
 devourer of men, Habibrah the Obeah, Quasimodo the 
 bell-ringer, and Triboulet, a mere hunchback ; all the 
 
 70 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 curiously swarming race, all the huge loathsomeness 
 which my dear neighbour causes to abound and to hop 
 •around in the virgin forests and the cathedrals in his 
 novels. Neither the mighty strokes after the manner 
 of Michael Angelo, nor the peculiarities worthy of Cal- 
 lot, nor the effects of light and shade after the fashion 
 of Goya, nothing, in short, found mercy at their hands. 
 When he wrote novels they quoted his odes ; when 
 he composed dramas they sent him back to his novels ; 
 which is the customary procedure of newspaper writers, 
 who always prefer what one has done to what one does. 
 Happy the man, however, whose talent is acknowl- 
 edged, even by the newspaper reviewers, to show in all 
 his works, save of course the one they are reviewing, 
 and who would merely have to write a theological trea- 
 tise or a cookery-book to have his drama considered 
 admirable. 
 
 As for the novel of the heart, the novel of fire and 
 passion, whose father is Werther the German, and 
 whose mother is Manon Lescaut the Frenchwoman, 
 we have said something, at the beginning of this pref- 
 ace, of the moral leprosy which strenuously attaches to 
 it under pretext of morality and religion. The lice 
 of criticism resemble the lice of the human body, 
 
 7 1 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 which desert the dead for the living. Abandoning the 
 dead mediaeval novel, the critics have fastened upon 
 the novel of passion, which has a tough and living 
 skin that may break their teeth. 
 
 We think, saving the respect we entertain for 
 modern apostles, that the authors of these alleged 
 immoral novels, though not as much married as the 
 virtuous journalists, have usually a mother, that many 
 have sisters, and own, too, numerous female relatives ; 
 but their mothers and sisters do not read novels, 
 even immoral ones ; they sew, embroider, and look 
 after the house. Their stockings, as Mr. Planard 
 might say, are spotlessly white ; they can stand hav- 
 ing their legs looked at — they are not blue ; and old 
 Chrysale, who so cordially hated learned women, 
 would propose them as models to Philaminte. 
 
 As for these gentlemen's wives, since they have so 
 many of them, virgin though their husbands be, it 
 seems to me that there are certain things they are 
 bound to know — though, after all, they may not 
 have taught them anything. So I understand that 
 they are anxious to maintain them in that precious 
 and blessed ignorance. God is great and Mahomet 
 ic his prophet! Women are inquisitive; Heaven and 
 
 72 
 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 orality grant that they satisfy their curiosity more 
 ritimately than did Eve, their foremother, and that 
 ey do not go asking questions of the serpent. 
 As for their daughters, if they have been to board- 
 s-school, I do not see what these books could pos- 
 >ly teach them. 
 
 It is just as absurd to say that a man is a drunkard 
 cause he describes an orgy, or a debauchee because 
 
 tells of a debauch, as to claim that a man is vir- 
 ous because he has written a work on morality; the 
 ntrary is met with every day. It is the characters 
 at speak, not the author ; his hero is an atheist, it 
 es not follow that he is one himself. He makes 
 igands speak and act like brigands, but that does 
 >t make him one. If it did, Shakespeare, Corneille, 
 d all tragic writers would have to be sent to the 
 affbld ; they have committed more murders than 
 andrin and Cartouche ; yet it has not been done, 
 d I doubt whether it will ever be done, however 
 rtuous and moral criticism may become. It is one of 
 e manias of these small-brained cads to constantly 
 t the author in the place of his work, and to have 
 course to personalities in order to give some flavour 
 
 scandal to their wretched lucubrations, which, they 
 
 73 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI1 
 
 are well aware, no one would read did they contai 
 but their own opinions. 
 
 We scarce understand the drift of all this abust 
 anger, and vituperation, why these petty Geoffrey 
 should play the part of Don Quixotes of morality an 
 true literary policemen, why they should arrest an 
 club, in the name of virtue, any idea which happens t< 
 trip through a book with its cap cocked the least littl 
 bit, or its skirts raised something too much. It is verj: 
 curious. 
 
 The time, no matter what, they affirm is immora 
 (though we doubt whether " immoral " means anything) 
 and no better proof is needed than the number of 
 immoral books it produces and the success they meet 
 with. Books are the product of manners, not manners 
 of books. The Regency produced Crebillon ; it was 
 not Crebillon who made the Regency what it was. 
 Boucher's shepherdesses were rouged and free and easy 
 because the marchionesses of his day were rouged and of 
 easy manners. Pictures are made from models, not 
 models from pictures. I forget who has said that 
 literature and art influence manners; whoever he was 
 he was unquestionably a great ass. It is just as if one 
 said, " Sweet peas make the spring grow." On the con- 
 
 74 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 ary, sweet peas grow because it is springtime, and 
 merries, because it is summer-time. Trees bear fruits, 
 jt fruit, trees assuredly, — a law eternal, and invariable 
 
 its variety. Centuries follow centuries, and each 
 is its results, which are not those of the preceding age ; 
 » books are the results of manners. 
 
 By the side of the moral journalist, under that 
 lower of homilies comparable to rain in summer in a 
 irk, there has sprung up, between the planks of the 
 lint-Simon staging, a band of mushrooms of a new 
 id curious kind, the natural history of which we shall 
 )w relate. 
 
 They are the utilitarian critics, — poor wights whose 
 >se is so diminutive that spectacles cannot stay on 
 em, and who yet cannot see as far as the end of their 
 ose. 
 
 When an author threw a book on their table, novel 
 
 volume of verse, these gentlemen leaned noncha- 
 
 atly back in their arm-chair, balanced it on its hind- 
 
 bs, and themselves with a capable air, swelled out and 
 
 id, — 
 
 f " What is the good of this book ? In what way can 
 i be applied to the moral and physical improvement 
 
 our most numerous and poorest class ? Why, there 
 
 75 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPU 
 
 is not a word in it on the needs of society, nothin 
 civilising, nothing progressive. How comes it th^ 
 men write verse and novels that lead to nothing 
 which do not help on our generation on the road of th 
 future, instead of taking up the great synthesis of 
 humanity, and following out, through the events relate* 
 by history, the phases of regenerating and providential 
 thought ? How can one trouble about form, style 
 rime, in presence of such grave interests ? What d( 
 we care for style, rime, and form ? We have nothing 
 to do with them " (no, poor foxes ; they are too green !) 
 " Society is suffering ; it is torn by fierce internal con- 
 vulsions " (id est, no one cares to subscribe to usefu' 
 papers). " It is the poet's business to seek out the cause 
 of this disturbance and to cure it. He will find means 
 to do so by sympathising with his heart and soul with 
 humanity/' (Philanthropic poets! — -how rare and de- 
 lightful they would be !) " We are awaiting that poet, 
 we long for him. When he shall appear, his shall be 
 the acclaim of the crowd, the palms, the abode in the 
 Prytaneum. ..." 
 
 That is all right, but, as we want our reader to keep 
 awake to the end .of this blessed preface, we shall not 
 pursue further this most faithful imitation of the 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 ilitarian style, which is essentially very soporific, and 
 io-ht advantageously be substituted for laudanum and 
 ademic discourses. 
 
 No, dolts, fools, and asses that you are, a book can- 
 )t be turned into gelatine soup, a novel is not a pair of 
 amless boots, a sonnet an automatic syringe, a drama 
 not a railway,— all of which things are essentially civ- 
 sing and carry mankind along the road of progress. 
 No ! by all the entrails of popes, past, present, and 
 ture, no, — two thousand times no! 
 You cannot make a nightcap out of a metonymy, a 
 ir of slippers out of a comparison, an umbrella out 
 an antithesis ; unfortunately, you cannot stick on 
 ur stomach a few variegated rimes by way of 
 listcoat. I am firmly convinced that an ode is too 
 ht a garment for winter, and that if one put on a 
 ophe, an antistrophe, and an epode, one would not be 
 3re fully clothed than that Cynic's wife who, history 
 Is us, was content with her virtue for a shift, and 
 mt about naked as a new-born babe. 
 And yet the famous De la Calprenede once had a 
 at, and when asked of what stuff it was, replied, 
 5ylvander." " Sylvander " was a play of his which 
 d just been successfully performed. 
 
 11 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI 
 
 That sort of reasoning makes one shrug one's shoi 
 ders higher than one's head, higher than the Duke I 
 Gloucester. 
 
 People who claim to be economists, and who pr 
 pose to reconstruct society from top to bottom, grave 
 put forward such nonsense. 
 
 A novel is useful in two ways, the one material, tl 
 other spiritual, — if one may apply the term to a nov< 
 The material use is, first, to the author, the few tho! 
 sand francs which fall into his pocket and so balla 
 him that neither wind nor devil can carry him off; 
 the publisher, a fine blood-horse which plunges ar 
 paws the ground, when harnessed to the cabriolet o 
 ebony and steel, as Figaro has it ; to the paper-make 
 another mill on some other stream, and often a meai 
 of spoiling a fine site ; to the printers, a few tons of los 
 wood with which to colour their throats at their week! 
 drinking ; to the circulating library, a whole lot of bi 
 pennies most vulgarly verdigrised, and a mass of greas 
 that, were it properly collected and turned to accoun 
 would render the whale-fishery unnecessary. The spii 
 itual use is that when one is reading novels one is aslee[ 
 instead of reading useful, virtuous, and progressive new* 
 papers, or other indigestible and degrading drugs. 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 ^o\v, then, who will deny that novels make for 
 ilisation ? And I shall not speak of the tobacconists, 
 ccrs, and dealers in potato chips, who are each and all 
 ply interested in this branch of literature, the paper 
 d in it being, as a general thing, of a much better 
 ility than that used for newspapers, 
 indeed it is enough to make one laugh a horse-laugh 
 iear those republican or Simonian gentry talk. First 
 I foremost I should like to know the exact meaning 
 :hat great fool of a word with which they daily fill up 
 ir empty columns, and which is to them at once a 
 Dboleth and a consecrated expression? Usefulness, 
 what is that word ? What is it applied to ? 
 Fhere are two sorts of usefulness, and the meaning 
 the word itself is always relative. What is useful to 
 : man is of no use to another. You are a cobbler, 
 I I am a poet. It is of use to me that my first line 
 verse should rime with my second. A dictionary 
 rimes is of great use to me ; it would be of no use 
 atever to you in patching an old pair of boots, and I 
 bound to say that a cobbler's knife would not be of 
 7 profit to me in the writing of an ode. Of course 
 i may reply that a cobbler is far above a poet, and 
 t one can dispense with the latter much better than 
 
 79 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPi 
 
 with the former. Without venturing to cast disci:: 
 upon the illustrious profession of the cobbler, whi: 
 honour as highly as the profession of constitute 
 monarchs, I humbly confess that I would rather ha* 
 gaping seam in my shoe than a false ri-me to my ve 
 and that I would rather do without shoes than with 
 poems. As I rarely go out, and progress more rea 
 with my head than with my feet, I wear out less f 
 wear than a virtuous republican who spends his w! 
 time rushing from one department to another to ob 
 the contemptuous gift of some office or other. 
 
 I am aware that there are people who prefer mill 
 churches, and the bread of the body to the bread of: 
 soul. I have nothing to say to such people. T 
 deserve to be economists in this world and in the r 
 likewise. 
 
 Is there anything absolutely useful on this earth 
 in this life of ours ? To begin with, there is mig 
 little use in our being on this earth and living, 
 challenge the wisest of the company to tell us what 
 are good for unless it be not to subscribe to the C 
 stitutionnel or any other paper. 
 
 Next, admitting that, a priori, our being in existe 
 is of use, what are the things really necessary to sust 
 
 80 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 xistence ? Soup and meat twice a day are all 
 it is needed to fill our stomachs in the strict sense 
 the word. Man, to whom a coffin six feet long and 
 o feet wide is more than sufficient after his death, 
 es not need much more room while alive. A hollow 
 even to eight feet each way, with a hole for 
 sh air, one cell in the hive, that is all he needs for a 
 Iging and to keep off the rain. A blanket properly 
 iped round his body will protect him against the cold 
 well as would the most stylish and well-fitting frock- 
 at turned out by Staub. Better, indeed. 
 Thus provided for he can literally live. It is said 
 it a man can live on a shilling a day, but to barely 
 ep from dying is not living, and I do not see in what 
 >pect a city organised on utilitarian lines would be a 
 >asanter residence than the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise. 
 There is no one beautiful thing indispensable for 
 IXC living. Flowers might be suppressed without the 
 >r!d suffering materially from their loss, and yet who 
 >uld be willing that there should be no more flowers ? 
 .vould rather do without potatoes than without roses, 
 d I believe there is but one utilitarian in the world 
 pable of rooting up a bed of tulips and replacing them 
 cabbages. 
 
 L. 1—6 8 1 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI* 
 
 
 
 What is the use of beauty in woman ? Provided 
 woman is physically well made and capable of beariri: 
 children, she will always be good enough in the opinioj 
 of economists. 
 
 What is the use of music ? — of painting ? Wh< 
 would be fool enough nowadays to prefer Mozar 
 to Carrel, Michael Angelo to the inventor of whit 
 mustard ? 
 
 There is nothing really beautiful save what is of n< 
 possible use. Everything useful is ugly, for it expresse 
 a need, and man's needs are low and disgusting, like hi 
 own poor, wretched nature. The most useful place ii 
 a house is the water-closet. 
 
 For my part, saving these gentry's presence, I am oi 
 those to whom superfluities are necessaries, and I an 
 fond of things and people in inverse ratio to the servici 
 they render me. I prefer a Chinese vase with its man 
 darins and dragons, which is perfectly useless to me, t( 
 a utensil which I do use, and the particular talent ot 
 mine which I set most store by is that which enable: 
 me not to guess logogriphs and charades. I woult 
 very willingly renounce my rights as a Frenchman am 
 a citizen for the sight of an undoubted painting bj 
 Raphael, or of a beautiful nude woman, — - Princes: 
 
 82 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 irghese, for instance, when she posed for Canova, or 
 lia Grisi when she is entering her bath. I would 
 >st willingly consent to the return of that cannibal, 
 larles X., if he brought me, from his residence in 
 )hemia, a case of Tokai or Johannisberg; and the elec- 
 "al laws would be quite liberal enough, to my mind, 
 >re some of our streets broader and some other things 
 s broad. Though I am not a dilettante, I prefer 
 ; sound of a poor fiddle and tambourines to that of 
 ; Speaker's bell. I would sell my breeches for a 
 ig, and my bread for jam. The occupation which 
 st befits civilised man seems to me to be idleness or 
 alytically smoking a pipe or a cigar. I think highly 
 those who play skittles, and also of those who write 
 rse. You perceive that my principles are not utilita- 
 n, and that I shall never be the editor of a virtuous 
 per, unless I am converted, which would be very 
 mical. 
 
 Instead of founding a Monthyon prize for the reward 
 virtue, I would rather bestow — like Sardanapalus,. 
 it great, misunderstood philosopher — a large reward 
 him who should invent a new pleasure; for to me 
 joyment seems to be the end of life and the only 
 *ful thing on this earth. God willed it to be so, for 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPD 
 
 He created women, perfumes, light, lovely flowen 
 good wine, spirited horses, lapdogs, and Angora cats 
 for He did not say to his angels, u Be virtuous," but 
 " Love," and gave us lips more sensitive than the res 
 of the skin that we might kiss women, eyes looking 
 upward that we might behold the light, a subtile sens 
 of smell that we might breathe in the soul of the flow 
 ers, muscular limbs that we might press the flanks oi 
 stallions and fly swift as thought without railway o 
 steam-kettle, delicate hands that we might stroke th 
 long heads of greyhounds, the velvety fur of cats, and th« 
 polished shoulder of not very virtuous creatures, and: 
 finally, granted to us alone the triple and glorious privi 
 lege of drinking without being thirsty, striking fire, an<> 
 making love in all seasons, whereby we are verv mucl, 
 more distinguished from brutes than by the custom ol 
 reading newspapers and framing constitutions. 
 
 By Jupiter ! what a stupid thing is that pretende< 
 perfectibility of human kind which is being constantly 
 dinned into our ears ! In truth, it would make it ap 
 pear that man is a mechanism capable of improvements 
 and that a cog-wheel more accurately engaged, a coun 
 terpoise more suitably placed, are able to make tha, 
 mechanism work more commodiously and more easily 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 When man shall have been given two stomachs, so that 
 le can chew the cud like an ox ; eyes at the back of 
 lis head so that, like Janus, he can see those who are 
 cutting their tongues out at him behind his back, and 
 :an contemplate his posterior in a less constrained 
 attitude than the Venus Callypige of Athens ; when he 
 >hall have had wings stuck into his shoulder-blades, so 
 :hat he shall not have to pay threepence to go in a 
 bus, when he shall have had a new organ bestowed on 
 him, — then, all right, the word " perfectibility," will 
 Degin to mean something. 
 
 With all these fine improvements what has been 
 done that was not as well and better done before the 
 Deluge ? Has man succeeded in drinking more than 
 he did in the days of ignorance and barbarism (old 
 style) ? Alexander, the equivocal friend of handsome 
 Hephaestion, was no mean toper, though in his day 
 :here existed no ^Journal of Useful Knowledge ; and 
 [ know of no utilitarian who could drain — without 
 fear of becoming wine-stricken and swelling to a size 
 greater than that of Lepeintre the younger, or a hippo- 
 potamus — the huge cup he called Hercules' tankard. 
 iMarshal Bassompierre, who drank a jackboot full to the 
 health of the Thirteen Cantons, strikes me as a singu- 
 
 _ 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 larly estimable man in his way, and one very difficult t( 
 improve upon. 
 
 Where is the economist capable of enlarging oui 
 stomach so that it shall contain as many beefsteaks a: 
 could that of Milo of Croton, who ate an ox ? The 
 menu at the Cafe Anglais or Vefour or at such othei 
 famous restaurant as you please, seems to me verj 
 meagre and oecumenical by the side of the menu ai 
 Trimalcion's dinner. Where is the table on which yoi 
 can now have served up in a single dish a wild sow anc 
 her twelve young boars ? Who among us has eater 
 sea-eels and lampreys fed on human flesh ? Do you 
 conscientiously believe that Brillat-Savarin has improved 
 on Apicius ? Think you that fat swine Vitellius could 
 fill his famous Minerva buckler with the brains of 
 pheasants and peacocks, with the tongues of flamingoes, 
 and the livers of parrot-fish at Chevet's ? What dc 
 your oysters at the Rocher de Cancale amount to inj 
 comparison with those of the Lucrine lake, for which 
 special sea water was prepared ? The suburban assig- 
 nation-houses of the Regency marquesses are wretched 
 drink-shops compared with the villas of Roman patri- 
 cians at Baia, Capri, and Tibur. The cyclopean splen-y 
 dours of these mighty voluptuaries, who built enduring; 
 
 86 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 „, 
 
 onuments for a day's pleasuring, should make us 
 fall prostrate at the feet of the genius of antiquity 
 and forever strike from our dictionaries the word 
 " perfectibility. " 
 
 Has a single additional mortal sin been invented ? 
 Unfortunately, the number of them is still seven, as of 
 yore, the number of a just man's falls in one day — 
 pretty small. I do not even believe that after a century 
 of progress at the present rate, there Ls a single amo- 
 rous man capable of repeating the thirteenth labour of 
 Hercules. Can one make things pleasanter for one's 
 goddess than in Solomon's time ? Many very illustri- 
 ous scholars and many very respectable ladies affirm the 
 opposite, and declare that amatory energy is steadily 
 decreasing. Then, why talk of progress ? I know very 
 well that you will say we have an upper and a lower 
 Chamber, that universal suffrage is expected, and the 
 number of deputies to be doubled or tripled. Do you 
 think there is not enough bad French spoken from the 
 national tribune, and that there are not enough depu- 
 ties for the wretched job they have to do ? I do not 
 see much use in collecting two or three hundred coun- 
 trymen in a wooden barracks, with a ceiling painted by 
 Fragonard, and to set them to pottering at and spoil- 
 
 ~*7 ' 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 ing I know not how many petty, absurd, or abominable 
 laws, What matters it whether it is a sword, a holy 
 water sprinkler, or an umbrella that rules you ? It is a 
 stick all the same, and I am amazed that progressive 
 men should squabble over the kind of club which is tc 
 be laid across their shoulders, when it would be far 
 more progressive and far less costly to break it and to 
 throw the pieces away. 
 
 There is but one of you with common-sense ; he is 
 a lunatic, a great genius, an ass, a divine poet far supe- 
 rior to Lamartine, Hugo, and Byron. It is Charles 
 Fourrier, the phalansterian, who is all these things in 
 himself. He alone has been logical enough and bold 
 enough to carry out consequences to their ultimate end. 
 He affirms without hesitation that men will shortly 
 have fifteen-foot tails with an eye at the end ° y which is 
 assuredly an improvement, and enables one to do many! 
 a fine thing that was impossible before, — such as 
 smashing an elephant's head without striking a blow, 
 swinging from trees without having a rope-swing, as 
 easily as does the most perfect monkey, to do 
 without a parasol or umbrella by merely spreading 
 one's tail over one's head like a plume, after the fash-? 
 ion of squirrels, which do without umbrellas with no 
 
 88 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 nconvenience, — and other prerogatives too numerous 
 :o mention. Several^ phalansterians indeed claim that 
 hey already have a bit of a tail, which would willingly 
 rrow longer if Heaven should let them live long 
 enough. 
 
 Charles Fourrier has invented as many kinds of 
 animals as the great naturalist Cuvier. He has in- 
 dented horses which are to be three times the size 
 of elephants, dogs as huge as tigers, fishes capable of 
 feeding more people than Jesus Christ's three fishes ; 
 i story which incredulous followers of Voltaire call a 
 fish story, and which I call a magnificent parable. 
 He has built cities by the side of which Rome, Baby- 
 ion, and Tyre are but mole-hills; he has heaped Babels 
 on Babels, and carried into soaring heights spirals 
 more unending than those in all John Martin's en- 
 gravings. He has invented I know not how many 
 3rders of architecture, and how many seasonings. He 
 has planned a theatre which would strike even Romans 
 of the Empire as grandiose, and drawn up a dinner 
 menu which Lucius or Nomentanus would perchance 
 nave considered sufficient for a small dinner. He 
 promises to create new pleasures, and to develop the 
 jrgans and the senses. He is going to make women 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 more beautiful and more passionate, men more robust 
 and more capable ; he warrants your having children, 
 and intends to so diminish the population of the world 
 that everybody shall be comfortable in it; which is more 
 sensible than to urge the proletariat to engender more 
 inhabitants, and, when those swarm beyond reason, to 
 sweep them off the streets with artillery, and to fire 
 cannon-balls at them instead of giving them bread. 
 
 Only in this way is progress possible. Any other 
 is bitter derision, a witless prank, not good enough to 
 fool even credulous idiots. 
 
 The phalanstery is really an improvement on the 
 abbey of Thelema, and finally disposes of the Earthly 
 Paradise as a worn-out, old-fashioned concern. Alone 
 the u Thousand and One Nights " and Madame 
 d'Aubray's " Tales," can successfully compete with the 
 phalanstery. What fertility and invention ! There 
 is enough in it to supply marvels for three thousand 
 waggon-loads of romantic or classic poems ; and our 
 versifiers, whether of the Academy or not, are pretty 
 small inventors in comparison with Charles Fourrier, 
 the inventor of passionate attractions. It is unques- 
 tionably a great and lofty idea to turn to use move- 
 ments which hitherto it has been sought to repress. 
 
 90 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 Ah ! you claim that we are progressing. If to- 
 morrow the crater of a volcano opened at Montmartre 
 land threw over Paris a pall of ashes and a shroud 
 of lava, as Vesuvius did of yore over Stabjae, Pompeii, 
 land Herculaneum, and if, some thousands of years 
 later, the antiquarians of those days began excavations 
 and brought to light the remains of the dead city, tell 
 me, what monument would have remained standing to 
 testify to the splendour of the great buried, the Gothic 
 Notre-Dame ? A pretty idea of our art would the 
 Tuileries — touched up by M. Fontaine — give when 
 brought to light ! And how fine would be the statues 
 of the Louis XV. bridge when transported into the 
 museums of that day ! And apart from paintings of 
 the old schools, and the statues of antiquity or of 
 the Renaissance collected in the gallery of the Louvre, 
 that long shapeless passage ; apart from the ceiling 
 Ingres painted, which would prevent people from 
 believing that Paris was a camping-ground of Bar- 
 barians, a village of the Welch or the Topinambous, 
 what might be dug up would be mighty curious. 
 Flint-locks of the National Guard, firemen's helmets, 
 crowns stamped with an ugly die, — that is what would 
 be found, instead of those fine weapons, so exquisitely 
 
 9 1 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 chased, which the Middle Ages left within the towers 
 and the ruined tombs, of the medals which fill Etrus- 
 can vases and underlie the foundations of all Roman 
 constructions. As for our contemptible veneered 
 wood furniture, all those wretched boxes, so bare, so 
 ugly, so mean, that are called commodes or desks, all 
 those shapeless and fragile utensils, I hope that Time 
 would have pity enough on them to destroy the very 
 last trace of them. 
 
 We did once get it into our heads to build our- 
 selves a grand and splendid monument. We were 
 first obliged to borrow the plan from the old Romans; 
 then, even before it was finished, our Pantheon began 
 to give way below like a child with the rickets, and 
 swayed like a dead-drunk pensioner, so that it had to 
 be provided with stone crutches, else it would have 
 fallen flat in sight of the whole world and would have 
 afforded food for laughter to the nations for more 
 than a century. We wanted to stick up an obelisk 
 on one of our two squares ; we had to go and steal 
 it in Luxor, and it took us two years to bring it 
 home. Ancient Egypt bordered its roads with obelisks 
 as we border ours with poplars ; it carried bundles of | 
 them under its arms, as a market-gardener carries 
 
 92 
 
PREFACE 
 
 isparagus, and it cut a monolith out of the slopes of 
 ts granite mountains more easily than we cut out an 
 ar-pick or a toothpick. Some centuries ago they had 
 Raphael and Michael Angelo; now we have Mr. 
 ^aul Delaroche, and all because we are progressing. 
 
 You brag of your Opera house ; ten Opera houses 
 he size of yours could dance a saraband in a Roman 
 imphitheatre. Even Mr. Martin, with his lame tiger 
 md his poor gouty lion, as drowsy as a subscriber to 
 he Gazette^ cuts a pretty small figure by the side of 
 i gladiator of antiquity. What are your benefit per- 
 formances, lasting till two in the morning, compared 
 tvith those games which lasted a hundred days, with 
 :hose performances in which real ships fought real 
 battles on a real sea ; when thousands of men 
 earnestly carved each other — turn pale, O heroic 
 Franconi ! — when, the sea having withdrawn, the 
 desert appeared, with its raging tigers and lions, fearful 
 supernumeraries that played but once ; when the lead- 
 ing part was played by some robust Dacian or Panno- 
 nian athlete, whom it would often have been mighty 
 difficult to recall at the close of the performance, whose 
 leading lady was some splendid and hungry lioness of 
 Numidia starved for three days ? Do you not con- 
 
 93 
 
■ 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 sider the clown elephant superior to Mile. Georges r 
 Do you believe Taglioni dances better than did Arbus- 
 cula, and Perrot better than Bathyllus ? Admirable as 
 is Bocage, I am convinced Roscius could have given 
 him points. Galeria Coppiola played young girls' 
 parts, when over one hundred years old ; it is true that 
 the oldest of our leading ladies is scarcely more than 
 sixty, and that Mile. Mars has not even progressed in 
 that direction. The ancients had three or four thou- 
 sand gods in whom they believed, and we have but 
 one, in whom we scarcely believe. That is a strange 
 sort of progress. Is not Jupiter worth a good deal 
 more than Don Juan, and is he not a much greater 
 seducer ? By my faith, I know not what we have in- 
 vented, or even wherein we have improved. 
 
 Next to the progressive journalists and by way of 
 antithesis to them, come the disillusioned. These 
 range in age from twenty to twenty-two ; they have 
 never gone beyond the confines of their quarter, and 
 have lain only with their housekeeper. But everything 
 bores them, palls on them, wearies them ; they are un- 
 interested, disillusioned, worn out, inaccessible. They 
 know beforehand just what you are going to say \ they 
 have seen everything, felt everything, borne every- 
 
 94 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 hing, heard everything it is possible to feel, see, hear, 
 3r experience ; there is no recess of the human heart 
 ;o obscure that the beams of their lantern have not 
 shone into it. They tell you with the utmost cool- 
 ness : " The human heart is not like that; women are 
 snot so constituted ; that character is not true to nature." 
 Or else, u What ! never anything but love and hate, 
 men and women ? Have you nothing else to talk 
 about ? Man, as a subject, is worn threadbare, and so 
 is woman, since M. de Balzac has taken her up. Who 
 shall deliver me from men and women ? You fancy, 
 sir, your fabulation is novel ? It is as stale as stale can 
 be ; nothing staler. I read it, I forget where, when I 
 was at nurse or something else ; it has been dinned 
 into my ears for ten years past. Moreover, know, sir, 
 that there is nothing of which I am ignorant, that 
 everything is stale and unprofitable to me, and that, 
 were your idea as virginal as the Virgin Mary, I 
 should none the less affirm that I had seen it pros- 
 titute itself at the street-corners to the veriest cads and 
 low fellows." 
 
 It is to these journalists we owe Jocko, the Green 
 Monster, the Lyons of Mysore and many another fine 
 invention. 
 
 95 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPII\ 
 
 They are always complaining of having to reac 
 books and to see plays. If they have to write about i 
 wretched vaudeville they bring in the almond-trees ir 
 flower, the lime-trees with their perfumed bloom, the 
 breezes of springtime, the scent of the young leafage 
 they set up for lovers of nature after the fashion of 
 young Werther, though they have never set foot out- 
 side of Paris, and could not tell a cabbage from a beet, 
 If it happens to be winter they will talk of the 
 pleasures of the home fireside, of crackling blazes, and- 
 irons, slippers, reverie, and dozing, and will not fail tc 
 quote the famous line from Tibullus, — 
 
 " Quam jwvat immites njentos audire cubantem j " 
 which will allow them to assume the most charmingly 
 naive and disillusioned air. They will pose as men 
 insensible henceforth to the work of men, whom dra- 
 matic emotions leave cold and hard as the penknife, 
 with which they mend their pen, but they will yell, all 
 the same, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "There 's a peri- 
 winkle ! " They profess fierce antipathy for Gymnase 
 colonels, American uncles, cousins of both sexes, 
 sentimental veterans, romantic widows, and they try 
 to cure us of our love of vaudeville by daily giving 
 proof in their articles that the Frenchman was not 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 born witty. As a matter of fact, we do not object to 
 this, and, on the contrary, gladly own that the dis- 
 appearance of vaudevilles and comic opera (a national 
 genre) in France would be a great blessing. But I 
 should like to know what kind of literature these 
 gentlemen would allow to take their place. True, it 
 could not possibly be worse. 
 
 Others preach against bad taste, and translate Seneca, 
 the tragic writer. Lately, by way of bringing up the 
 rear of the procession, a new and yet unknown band 
 of critics has been formed. 
 
 Their formula of appreciation is the most conven- 
 ient, the most widely applicable, the most malleable, the 
 most peremptory, superlative, and victorious that could 
 ever be invented by any critic. Zoi'lus would certainly 
 not have suffered by it. 
 
 Until now, when it was desired to run down a book, 
 or to give a bad opinion of it to the ancient and artless 
 subscriber, incorrect or perfidiously incomplete quota- 
 tions were made from it ; sentences were deformed, 
 lines mutilated in such wise that the author himself 
 would have owned his work most ridiculous. He was 
 accused of imaginary plagiarisms; passages from his 
 book were compared with passages from ancient or 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 97 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 modern writers that in no wise resembled his ; he was 
 charged, in the worst of French, and with endless 
 solecisms, with being unacquainted with his mother 
 tongue, and with debasing the French of Racine and 
 Voltaire ; his work drove readers to anthropophagy, and 
 his readers invariably fell victims, within a week, to 
 cannibalism or hydrophobia. But all that sort of thing 
 had become stale, behind the times, exploded sham, and 
 ancient history. By dint of having dragged its slow 
 length along the notices, reviews, and gossip columns, 
 the charge of immorality had lost its force, and had 
 become so utterly unserviceable that scarce any paper, 
 save the chaste and progressive Constitutionnel, was 
 desperately courageous enough to revamp it. 
 
 So the criticism of the future, prospective criticism 
 was invented. All at once ; fancy that ! Is it not 
 splendid, and does it not betoken a fine power of imag- 
 ination ? The recipe is simple and easily told. The 
 book which shall be praised is the book which has not 
 yet been published. The one that is just published is 
 infallibly detestable. To-morrow's will be splendid, 
 but it never is to-morrow. This form of criticism 
 proceeds like the barber who had on his sign in large 
 letters, — Free Shave To-morrow. 
 
 ^8 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 All the poor devils who read the sign looked forward 
 to enjoying next day the ineffable and supreme delight 
 of being, once in their life, shaved without money and 
 without price, and their beard grew six inches longer 
 with delighted anticipation during the night which pre- 
 ceded the happy day. But when, neck enwrapped in 
 napkin, the barber asked whether they had any money 
 and told them to be ready to shell out, or he would 
 treat them as are treated the purloiners of nuts and the 
 appropriators of apples, and he swore his biggest oath 
 that unless they paid he would slice their throats with 
 his razor, then the poor devils, much cast down and 
 crestfallen, pointed to the sign and its sacrosanct in- 
 scription. " Ha ! ha ! " would the barber laugh ; " your 
 education has been neglected, my little ones, and you 
 ought to go back to school. The sign says, c To- 
 morrow.' I am not of so foolish or fantastic humour as 
 to give a free shave to-day ; my colleagues would accuse 
 me of ruining the business. Come back last time, or 
 when Sunday falls in the middle of the week, and you 
 will be all right. May I then rot to perdition if I do not 
 shave you free, on the word of an honest barber." 
 
 Authors who read a prospective article, in which an 
 existing work is run down, always flatter themselves 
 
 99 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 that the book they are at work on will be the book of 
 the future. So far as they are able, they try to fall in 
 with the critic's views, and turn social, progressive, 
 moral, palingenetic, mythic, pantheist, buchezist, believ- 
 ing that they shall thus escape the awful anathema; 
 but it is with them as with the barber's customers : 
 to-day is not to-morrow's eve. Never will that long- 
 promised to-morrow dawn upon the world, for the 
 trick is too useful to be soon given up. While decry- 
 ing the book he is jealous of, and that he would fain 
 destroy, the critic assumes the air of the most generous 
 impartiality. He makes it appear that he would dearly 
 like to approve and to praise, but he never does ap- 
 prove or praise. This method is unquestionably supe- 
 rior to that which may be called retrospective, and 
 which consists in praising none save ancient works r 
 which are never read nowadays, and which disturb noi 
 one, at the expense of modern works, which we are 
 concerned with, and which more directly wound self- 
 love. 
 
 On entering upon this review of critics we stated 
 that there was matter enough for fifteen or sixteen 
 folio volumes, but that we should confine ourselves to 
 a few lines. I begin to fear that these few lines prove 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 be two to three thousand yards long apiece, and re- 
 emble those pamphlets so thick that they cannot be 
 >ierced by a penknife thrust, and whose treacherous 
 itle reads, "A Few Words on the Revolution," — or, 
 c A Few Words on This or That." The story of the 
 leeds, of the many loves of the diva Magdalen de 
 Vlaupin would run great danger of being passed by, 
 md it will readily be conceived that it will take at least 
 
 1 whole volume to sing, as they deserve to be sung, 
 he adventures of that fair Bradamante. That is why r 
 lowever desirous we may be, to carry still further the 
 lescription of the illustrious Aristarchs of the day, we 
 hall be satisfied with the brief sketch we have just 
 ;iven, and add a few reflections on the simplicity of 
 >ur debonair fellow-poets who, with the stupidity of a 
 )antomime Pantaloon, stand, without a murmur, the 
 >lows of Harlequin's bat and the kicks of the clown, 
 rhey are like a fencing master who should, in an as- 
 lault of arms, cross his arms behind his back, and let 
 lis opponent pink him in the breast without once 
 carrying ; or like speeches for the plaintiff and the 
 lefendant, of which the King's attorney's only should 
 )e heard ; or like a debate in which reply was 
 r orbidden. 
 
 IOI 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 The critic affirms this and. affirms that; he puts on 
 airs and slashes away : — absurd, detestable, monstrous, 
 like nothing that ever was ; like everything that ever 
 has been. A new drama is played ; the critic goes 
 to see it ; it turns out that the play in no wise cor- 
 responds to the one which, on the strength of the title, 
 the critic has evolved for himself; therefore, in his re- 
 view, he substitutes his own play for the author's. He 
 serves up his erudition in strong doses ; he pours out 
 all the knowledge he got up the day before in some 
 library or other, and treats in heathenish fashion people 
 at whose feet he ought to sit, and the most ignorant of 
 whom could give points to much wiser men than he. 
 
 Authors bear this sort of thing with a magnanimity 
 and a patience that are really incomprehensible. For, 
 after all, who are those critics, who with their trenchant 
 tone, their dicta, might be supposed sons of the gods? 
 They are simply fellows who were at college with 
 us, and who have turned their studies to less account, 
 since they have not produced anything, and can do no 
 more than soil and spoil the works of others, like true 
 stymphalid vampires. 
 
 There is something to be done in the way of criticis- 
 ing critics; for those fine contemners who pose as be- 
 
 102 
 
PREFACE 
 
 ig so haughty and difficult to please are far from being 
 is infallible as the Holy Father. Such a criticism 
 vould more than fill a daily paper of large size. The 
 blunders they make in matters historical and others, their 
 misquotations, their bad French, their plagiarisms, their 
 foolish babble, their threadbare jokes in most evil taste, 
 :heir lack of ideas, of intelligence, of tact, their igno- 
 rance of the simplest things, which makes them mis- 
 take the Piraeus for a man, and Mr. Delaroche for a 
 painter, would afford authors material enough for re- 
 venge, without their having to do more than underline 
 the extracts and reproduce them textually; for a great 
 writer's commission does not go along with a critic's 
 commission, and in order to avoid errors in grammar, 
 or of taste, it is not enough to reproach others with mak- 
 ing them, as our critics plainly prove every day in the 
 week. If it were men like Chateaubriand, Lamartine, 
 and others of that sort who wrote criticisms, I could 
 understand people going down on their knees and wor- 
 shipping; but what disgusts me and furiously angers me 
 is that Messrs. Z., K., Y., V., Q., X.,or some other letter 
 of the alphabet between Alpha and Omega, should set 
 up as small Quinctilians and scold us in the name of 
 morals and letters. I wish there were a police ordinance 
 
 103 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 forbidding certain names to bump up against others. 
 I know a cat may look at a king, and that even the 
 gigantic proportions of St. Peter's at Rome cannot 
 prevent the Transteverini filthying its base in strange 
 fashion, but I none the less believe it would be absurd 
 to inscribe across certain reputations, " Commit no 
 nuisance." Charles X. alone thoroughly grasped the 
 question. He rendered a great service to arts and civi- [ 
 lisation when he ordered the suppression of the press. 
 Newspapers are something like brokers or horse-dealers, 
 who intervene between the artists and the public, the 
 king and the public. Every one knows the fine result 
 that has followed. This perpetual barking deadens in- 
 spiration and spreads such mistrust in hearts and minds 
 that one dare trust neither poet nor government ; so 
 that poesy and royalty, the two greatest things in the 
 world, become impossible, to the great misfortune of 
 the nations which sacrifice their well-being to the petty 
 satisfaction of reading every morning a few sheets of 
 inferior paper dirtied with bad ink and worse style. 
 There was no art criticism under Julius II., and I 
 have not come across any articles of the day on Daniele 
 da Volterra, Sebastiano del Piombo, Michael Angelo, 
 Raphael, Ghiberti della Porta, or Benvenuto Cellini ; 
 
 104 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 and yet I am of opinion that, for people who had no 
 newspapers and who knew nothing of the words "art" 
 or " artistic," they had their fair share of talent and 
 knew their trade pretty well. The reading of newspa- 
 pers is a bar to the existence of real scholars and genu-' 
 ine artists ; it is comparable to daily excess, which lands 
 you worn out and weak on the couch of the Muses, 
 those hard, exacting maids who will have none but 
 lusty and virgin lovers. The newspaper kills the book 
 as the book killed architecture, as artillery has killed 
 courage and muscular strength. No one suspects of 
 what numberless treasures we are robbed by the news- 
 papers. They take the bloom off everything ; they 
 prevent our really owning anything, our having a book 
 to our very self. At the theatre they prevent our being 
 surprised, and reveal to us beforehand the ending of 
 every piece. They deprive us of the delight of tittle- 
 tattle, gossip, back-biting and slander, of inventing a 
 piece of news, or of carting a true one for a week 
 through all the drawing-rooms of society. Whether 
 we will it or not, they proclaim ready-made judgments ; 
 they prejudice us against things we would like. They 
 are the cause that dealers in matches, provided they are 
 endowed with memory, talk as much absurd nonsense 
 
 105 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 
 
 about literature as do members of provincial Academies. 
 It is to them that we are indebted for hearing all day 
 long, instead of artless notions or individual idiotic re- 
 marks, ill-digested scraps of newspapers that are for all 
 the world like omelets raw on one side and burned on 
 the other; that we are pitilessly stuffed with news three 
 or four hours old, already familiar to babes and suck- 
 lings. They deaden our taste and reduce us to the 
 level of those drinkers of peppered alcohol, of the 
 swallowers of files and scrapers, who find the finest 
 wines flavourless and miss their perfumed and flowery 
 bouquet. I should be infinitely obliged to Louis-Phi- 
 lippe if he would, once for all, suppress all literary and 
 political sheets, and I should forthwith rime for him 
 fine wild dithyrambics in the freest of verse and alter- 
 nate rimes, signed, "Your most humble and most 
 faithful subject," etc. 
 
 And let it not be supposed that literature would cease 
 to interest, for in the days before newspapers were, Paris 
 was busy four days on end with a quatrain, and talked 
 of a first performance for six months. 
 
 It is true that suppression of the press would mean 
 the loss of advertisements and of praise at eighteen pence 
 a line, and notoriety would be less prompt and less 
 
 106 
 
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 PREFACE 
 
 remendously sudden. But I have thought of a very 
 ngenious way of filling the place of advertisements, 
 f between now and the publication of this glorious 
 lovel my gracious sovereign has suppressed the press, 
 shall most assuredly use my method, and I expect 
 vonders from it. The great day having come, twenty- 
 bur criers on horseback, wearing the publisher's livery 
 vith his address on breast and back, bearing in their 
 lands banners on both sides of which would be em- 
 broidered the title of the novel, and each preceded by 
 i tambourine and by kettledrums, should go through 
 he streets of the city and, stopping in squares and at the 
 rossings of streets, they should proclaim in a loud and 
 ntelligible voice : " It is to-day, not yesterday or to- 
 norrow, that is published the admirable, inimitable, 
 livine and more than divine novel of the most famous 
 rheophile Gautier, c Mademoiselle de Maupin,' which 
 lurope, and even the other parts of the world and 
 Polynesia have been impatiently expecting for more 
 han a year past. It is*being sold at the rate of five 
 mndred copies a minute, and new editions appear 
 jvery half-hour. A picket of municipal guards is sta- 
 ioned at the shop door to keep back the crowd and 
 >revent disorder in any shape." That would certainly 
 
 107 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 be worth just as much as a three-line advertisement in 
 the D'ebats and the Courrier fran^ais, between elastic 
 belts, crinoline collars, patent-nipple nursing-bottles, 
 Regnault's comfits, and recipes for toothache. 
 
 May, 1834. 
 
 108 
 
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 I 
 
 YOU complain of the infrequency of my letters, 
 my dear friend. But what am I to write 
 about, now that I am well and as fond of 
 ou as ever ? This much you know perfectly well, and 
 t my age and with your fine qualities it is so natural 
 hat it is almost ridiculous to send a poor little sheet of 
 aper travelling three hundred miles merely to say that, 
 n vain I ransack my memory, I find nothing worth 
 filing; my life is the most uniform in the world, and 
 lothing occurs to break its monotony. To-day brings 
 o-morrow just as yesterday brought to-day ; and with- 
 •ut making any pretensions to the gift of prophecy, I 
 nay boldly predict in the morning what will befall me 
 n the evening. 
 
 In this wise is my daily life ordered : I rise, of 
 :ourse, and thus begin each day ; I breakfast, fence, 
 ;o out, return, dine, pay a few visits or read. Then I 
 50 to bed, just as I did the night before ; I go to sleep, 
 ind my imagination, not having been stirred up by 
 
 109 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 novel objects, treats me only to a repetition of the 
 same old dreams, which are as monotonous as my 
 waking existence; all of which is not very exciting, as 
 you see. And yet I am better satisfied with this son 
 of life than I should have been six months ago. I am 
 bored, it is true, but in a quiet, resigned way, which 
 may not inaptly be compared to those dull, soft autumr 
 days which are not without a secret charm after the 
 great heat of summer. 
 
 This sort of life, though I am outwardly reconciler 
 to it, is scarcely the one to suit me ; at least it is very 
 unlike that of which I dream, and for which I thini 
 myself fitted. I am mistaken, perhaps, and this ma) 
 be the very kind of life for which I am fitted ; but ] 
 find this difficult to believe, for, were it really my 
 destiny, I should accommodate myself more easily tc 
 it, and not be bruised by its asperities so often and sc 
 painfully. 
 
 You are aware of the irresistible attraction extraor- 
 dinary adventures have for me ; that I fairly worship 
 everything singular, excessive, and perilous, and tha ( 
 I devour with avidity novels and books of travel 
 No one on earth, perchance, is endowed with so fan- 
 tastic and erratic a fancy as mine; and spite of it, ] 
 
 
 
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 1ADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 iow not by what malign fate it comes about that 
 ;ver has an adventure befallen me, never have I made 
 voyage. As far as I am concerned, going round 
 e world means going round the town I inhabit ; on 
 1 sides the confines of my horizon are within easy 
 ach. I rub elbows with reality. My life is that of 
 e shellfish on the sand-bank, of the ivy that clings to 
 e tree, of the cricket on the hearth. Indeed, I won- 
 ;r I have not actually taken root. 
 
 Cupid is depicted blindfolded; Fate it is that should 
 i thus shown. 
 
 For servant I have a sort of heavy, stupid lout who 
 is travelled as far and wide as the north wind; who has 
 me to the devil, to all sorts of places ; who has seen 
 ith his own eyes all that my fancy paints, and cares 
 3t a straw for it all ; who has been in the most 
 :traordinary situations ; who has had the most amaz- 
 g adventures. Sometimes I set him talking, and I 
 vear as I reflect that all these fine things have hap- 
 med to an ass incapable of thought or feeling, fit 
 ily to do what he does — brush clothes and black boots. 
 
 Plainly, that rascal's life should be mine. On his 
 irt, he thinks I am a very happy man, and wonders 
 -eatly at seeing me as sad as I am. 
 
 i II 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUP^ 
 
 Not very interesting all this, my poor friend, am 
 scarcely worth writing, is it not ? But as you insist on; 
 my writing to you, I have to tell you my thoughts, m 
 feelings, my ideas, since events and actions are lacking 
 What I have to say may not be marked by muci 
 orderliness or novelty ; blame yourself in that case, fo 
 you have willed it. 
 
 We have been friends from childhood ; we wer 
 brought up together ; we lived our life in common fo! 
 a long time, and have been accustomed to confide t< 
 each other our most secret thoughts. So I may relat 
 to you, without a blush, all the nonsense that flit 
 through my idle brain ; naught shall I add and naugh: 
 extenuate; I have no self-love when writing to you 
 Therefore I shall be absolutely truthful, even with re 
 spect to small and shameful things ; from you I sha! 
 assuredly conceal nothing. 
 
 Under those cerements of nonchalant and dejecte 
 weariness of which I but now spoke, stirs at times 
 thought benumbed rather than dead, for melancholy' 
 sweet and sad tranquillity is not always with me. 
 have relapses, and I fall a prey to my old preoccupations 
 Nothing is more fatiguing than these motiveless agit? 
 tions and these aimless impulses. When they seiz 
 
 112 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 ipon me, although I have not any more to do than on 
 my other day, I rise very early, before the sun, for I 
 ;eem to myself to be in a great hurry and to lack time 
 11 which to do all I have to do. I jump into my 
 ;Iothes as if the house were on fire, and mourn over 
 :very minute lost. Any one seeing me then would 
 iwear I was going to keep a love tryst or to receive 
 noney. Nothing of the sort. I do not even know 
 vhere I am going, but go I must, and I feel my soul's 
 ;alvation would be endangered did I stay. I fancy 
 iome one calls to me from without, that my fate is just 
 hen going down the street, and that my destiny is 
 ibout to be settled. 
 
 I go down, with a staring, surprised look, my clothes 
 iwry, my hair ill-brushed. Those who meet me look 
 ound, laugh, and take me for a young debauchee who 
 las made a night of it in a tavern or elsewhere. 
 3runk I am, but not with wine, and my walk is un- 
 teady, like a drunkard's, now quick, now slow. I 
 vander from street to street like a lost dog, nosing 
 .round, restless, inquisitive, turning around at the least 
 ound, making my way into every knot of people, care- 
 ess of the rebuff of those against whom I knock up, 
 nd observing everything with a keenness of sight un- 
 
 ol. i — 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 possessed by me at other times. Then suddenly some- 
 thing tells me I am mistaken ; that this is certainly 
 not the place, that I must go farther, to the city's end, 
 anywhere, and off I go as if the devil were after me. 
 My feet scarcely touch the ground ; I am light as air. 
 I must indeed present a singular appearance with my 
 busy, excited look, my arms going, and inarticulate 
 sounds coming from my lips. When I think it over 
 quietly I laugh at myself very heartily, but all the same 
 I repeat the performance the very next time. 
 
 I should be greatly puzzled to say what it is thai 
 drives me to rush about in such fashion. I am in nc 
 hurry to get anywhere, for I am not going anywhere 
 I am not afraid of being behind time, for I am no 
 bound down to any time. No one is waiting for me 
 and there is no reason why I should hurry in thi 
 place. 
 
 Can it be that my life needs a chance to love, 
 adventure, a woman, an idea, a fortune, something 
 another, and that I seek after it unconsciously, drivt 
 on by some vague instinct ? Is it that my life seeks 
 round itself out ? That I feel the need of going out 
 myself and of my house ? That I am weary of 
 condition and seek another ? Perchance something 
 
 114 
 
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 V1ADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 his, and perchance all this. Whatever it be, it is a 
 nost unpleasant state of mind, a feverish irritation, 
 isually followed by the flattest depression. 
 
 It often occurs to me that if I had started an hour 
 arlier, or if I had hurried, I should have been on time ; 
 hat while I was going along this street, the something 
 am looking for was passing down the other and that 
 . block of carriages sufficed to make me miss what I 
 lave been looking for at random for so long a season, 
 fou cannot imagine the deep sadness and profound 
 ;loom into which I fall when I see the uselessness of 
 t all, my youth passing away and no future opening 
 'efore me. Then all my unoccupied passions growl in 
 ny heart with low mutterings and devour one another 
 or want of other food, like the animals in a menagerie 
 i T hen the keeper has forgotten to feed them. In spite 
 'f daily stifled and hidden disappointments, something 
 esists in me and will not die. I am hopeless, for hope 
 uplies desire, a certain tendency to wish that things 
 /ould happen in one way rather than in another. I 
 esire nothing in particular, for it is everything that I 
 :>ng for. I do not hope, or rather I have ceased to 
 iope, — it is too utterly stupid ; whether things are or 
 iot is a matter of profound indifference to me. What 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPII! 
 
 is it I expect ? I do not know, but I keep o 
 expecting. 
 
 Expecting with trembling eagerness, full of imp; 
 tience, with sudden starts and nervous tremors, like 
 lover awaiting his mistress. Nothing comes ; then 
 rage or weep. I keep on expecting the heavens t 
 open and an angel to descend bearing a revelation t 
 me ; expecting a revolution to break out and a crow 
 to be given me ; expecting a Madonna of Raphael t 
 step out of the canvas and to embrace me ; relative: 
 whom I have not, to die and leave me wherewithal t 
 let my fancy drift adown a golden stream ; a hippogri 
 to take me and bear me away to climes unknown. Bi 
 no matter what it is that I expect, it is never by an 
 chance commonplace or mediocre. 
 
 I carry this so far that, when returned home, I nev< 
 fail to say, " No one called ? Are there no lettei 
 for me ? Nothing new ? ' : I know very well there 
 nothing, there can be nothing. All the same I ai 
 always greatly surprised and deeply disappointed whe 
 I hear the usual answer, " No, sir ; nothing at all." 
 
 Sometimes — rarely, however — my thought b( 
 comes more concrete. It is, maybe, some beautif 
 woman, whom I do not know and who does not kno> 
 
 116 
 
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 flADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 jie, whom I shall have met at the theatre or at church, 
 id who will not have even noticed me. I go through 
 /ery part of the house, and until I have opened the 
 jor of the last room of all, I go on hoping — I dare 
 arce say it, so mad is it — that she has come, that she 
 
 there. It is not conceit. I have so little self-conceit 
 lat several women have very gently striven to attract 
 ie, — so I am told by others, — while I believed they 
 ired nothing for me and had never bestowed a thought 
 pon me. It springs from another cause. 
 
 When I am not stupefied by dulness and discourage- 
 ment, my soul revives and resumes all its former vig- 
 lr. I hope, love, desire ; and my desires are so 
 olent that I imagine they will compel all to come to 
 tern, as a powerful magnet draws to itself every par- 
 cle of iron, distant though it may be. That is why I 
 vait the fulfilment of my wishes instead of bringing it 
 >out, and often enough neglect the opportunities which 
 e most favourable to my hopes. Another man would 
 rite the tenderest note to his heart's love, or would 
 ek an opportunity to meet her. I, on the other 
 md, ask of the messenger the answer to the letter I 
 ive not written, and spend my time imagining the 
 ost amazing situations in order to exhibit myself 
 
 117 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI> 
 
 to her I love in the most unexpected and favourabl 
 light. The stratagems I invent in order to drav 
 near to her and reveal my passion would make ; 
 volume thicker and more interesting than the u Strata 
 gems " of Polybius, As a matter of fact, nothing mor: 
 would be needed usually than to say to a friend, " Pre 
 sent me to Mrs. So-and-So," and to utter a mytho 
 logical compliment duly punctuated with sighs. 
 
 Any one hearing me talk like this would think me 
 fit subject for a lunatic asylum. Yet am I a sensibl 
 fellow enough, and I have seldom put my crazy imagin 
 ings into action. All these things go on in the recesse 
 of my mind ; all these absurd notions are careful]; 
 buried deep within me. Nothing of them is visible ex 
 ternally, and I enjoy the reputation of being a quiet 
 cold young man, not much attracted by women, an« 
 indifferent to the pleasures of my age, — a belief as fa 
 from the truth as the beliefs of the world usually are. 
 
 And yet, in spite of the many things which have re 
 buffed me, some of my wishes have been fulfilled, an- 
 the smallness of the pleasure this fulfilment has brough 
 me has led me to dread the gratification of further de 
 sires. You remember with what childish ardour 
 longed to have a horse of my own ; my mother gave m 
 
 118 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 one quite recently. He is black as a coal, with a white 
 star on the forehead ; long-maned, long-tailed, with a 
 glistening coat and slender limbed, exactly as I wished 
 him to be. When he was brought to me my emotion 
 was so great that for more than fifteen minutes I re- 
 mained quite pale, unable to pull myself together. Then 
 I mounted and, without a word, went off at full speed 
 and galloped for more than an hour straight ahead 
 across country in a state of delight difficult to conceive. 
 I repeated this every day for a week and more, and I 
 marvel that I did not kill the horse, or at the very least 
 break his wind. Little by little my great ardour 
 cooled. I took to trotting, then to walking, then to 
 riding so idly that often my steed stops without my 
 being aware of it. My pleasure turned into a habit far 
 sooner than I could have believed it possible. As for 
 Ferragus, — that is the name I have given him, — he is 
 the finest mount you can come across. He has hair on 
 his fetlocks soft as eagle's down ; he is quick as a goat 
 and gentle as a lamb. You will keenly enjoy riding 
 him when you come here, and, although my riding 
 craze has greatly diminished, I am still very fond of 
 him, for as an equine he has an excellent disposition, 
 and I honestly prefer him to many persons. I wish 
 
 119 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 you could hear his neigh of delight when I go to the 
 stables to pay him a visit, and see the intelligent way 
 in which he looks at me ! These marks of affection 
 touch me, I confess, and I put my arm round his 
 neck and kiss him as tenderly, i' faith, as if he were 
 a handsome maid. 
 
 There was another wish, stronger, fiercer, more con- 
 tinually alive, more dearly caressed, and for which I 
 had built in my heart a lovely house of cards, a palace of 
 fancy, often destroyed and again rebuilt with despairing 
 persistence, — the wish to have a mistress, a mistress 
 who should be wholly mine, like my horse. I know 
 not whether, had this dream come true, I should not as 
 quickly have grown cold as in the other case, but I do 
 not think so. Perhaps I am wrong, however, and 
 weariness would have been as swift-footed. Owing to 
 my peculiar disposition, I desire so frantically what I 
 do desire — though without taking any steps to obtain 
 it — that if by chance, or otherwise, I gain the object 
 of my longing, I suffer from such acute moral fatigue, 
 I am so worn out by it, that I feel faint, and lack 
 strength to enjoy it ; so what happens to me without 
 my having wished for it gives me usually much more 
 pleasure than what I have ardently desired. 
 
 120 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I am twenty-two years old and my virginity is gone. 
 Alas ! nowadays virginity in body, or, worse still, in 
 heart, is a thing unknown at my age. Besides such 
 women as sell pleasure to men for money and who 
 are of no more account than a lascivious dream, I 
 have had, of course, here and there, in some obscure 
 corner, some honest or almost honest women, neither 
 handsome nor ugly, young nor old, such as are apt to 
 offer themselves to young men who have no regular 
 tie and whose heart happens to be unoccupied. If 
 you are willing to make an effort and if you have a 
 pretty strong dose of romantic illusions, you can call 
 that sort of thing having a mistress if you like. I 
 cannot, for my part, and if I had a thousand of that 
 sort of women I should still consider my desire as 
 unfulfilled as ever. 
 
 So I have yet had no mistress, and my sole desire is 
 to have one. The obsession of this desire is curious ; it 
 does not spring from an over-passionate temperament, 
 from heat of the blood, or a first effervescence of 
 puberty. It is not woman whom I desire ; it is a 
 woman, a mistress. I mean to have one, and I shall 
 have one before very long. If I should fail in this, I 
 confess I should never recover from it, and the conse- 
 
 121 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 quence would be an inward timidity towards myself, a 
 dull discouragement that would seriously influence me 
 during the remainder of my life. I should consider 
 myself imperfect in certain respects, lacking in balance, 
 or without an affinity, deformed in heart or mind, for I 
 ask for nothing but what is right and what nature is 
 bound to give to every man. As long as my aim is 
 unattained, I shall look on myself as a child, and I 
 shall lack proper self-confidence. To me a mistress 
 means what the toga meant to the young Roman. 
 
 I see so many men, ignoble in every respect, who 
 possess beautiful women whose lackeys they are scarcely 
 worthy to be, that I blush for the women — and my- 
 self. To see women crazy about such cads as these, 
 — who betray and despise them, — instead of giving 
 themselves to some true and earnest young fellow who 
 would think himself mighty lucky and who would wor- 
 ship them on bended knee, — such an one as myself, 
 for instance, — gives me a very poor opinion of the 
 sex. It is true that these cads crowd every drawing- 
 room, show ofF before every beauty, and are always 
 leaning over the backs of arm-chairs, while I stay 
 at home, my face pressed against the window-pane, 
 watching the river smoke and the mists rise, while I 
 
 122 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 silently build in my heart the perfumed sanctuary, the 
 wondrous fane in which I mean to place the future 
 idol of my soul. A chaste and poetic occupation, for 
 which women bear you no gratitude whatever. 
 
 Women care very little for mere contemplators, 
 but greatly prize men who turn their thoughts into 
 action. After all, they are right. Compelled by their 
 education and their social position to be silent and to 
 wait, they naturally prefer men who come to them and 
 speak out ; they it is who relieve them of a false and 
 wearisome position. I feel the truth of this, yet never 
 in this world shall I be able to do what I see many 
 others do, — . rise from my seat, cross the room, and go 
 to say without warning to a lady, " Your dress be- 
 comes you divinely," or, " Your eyes are remarkably 
 bright this evening." 
 
 All the same I must have a mistress. But who is 
 to fill the post, I know not. Among the women I 
 know, there is not one capable of doing it properly. 1 
 find in them but few of the qualities I insist upon. 
 Those who are young enough fail in beauty or in 
 sprightliness of wit ; those who are both young and 
 beautiful are either shockingly and repulsively virtuous, 
 or do not enjoy the necessary freedom. Then there 
 
 123 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MjVUpFn 
 
 is always round such women a husband or brother, an 
 aunt or mother, some relative, sharp-eyed and sharp- 
 eared, who has either to be won over or thrown out 
 of the window. Every rose has lice ; every woman 
 has a crowd of relatives who have to be carefully 
 removed from about her, if one desires to pluck, 
 some day, the fruit of her beauty. Even the country 
 cousins, thrice removed, and whom one has never 
 met, insist on maintaining the pristine immaculate 
 purity of their dear cousin. That is sickening, and 
 I should never be patient enough to remove all the 
 weeds and cut away all the brambles which inevitably 
 obstruct the approaches to a pretty woman. 
 
 I am not very fond of mammas, and I am still less 
 fond of little girls. I must further confess that mar- 
 ried women have but slight attraction for me. That 
 kind of business means a mixing up and a confusion 
 that disgust me ; I cannot bear the idea of partnership. 
 A woman who has both a husband and a lover is a 
 prostitute as far as one, and often both, are concerned. 
 Besides, I could not consent to make way for another 
 man. My natural pride could not stoop so low. 
 Never shall I leave because another fellow has come. 
 Even if it meant loss of reputation for the woman, 
 
 124 
 

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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 even had we to fight it out knife in hand, each with a 
 foot on her body, — I should stay. Concealed stair- 
 cases, cupboards, closets, and all the stage properties 
 of adultery would be of little use to me. 
 
 I care very little for what is termed maidenly can- 
 dour, innocence of youth, purity of heart, and other fine 
 things which look very well in verse ; I call them 
 simply stupidity, ignorance, imbecility, or hypocrisy. 
 Maidenly candour, which means sitting on the edge of 
 a chair, elbows pressed close to the side, eyes fixed on 
 the point of the waist, and not a word uttered save by 
 leave of the grandparents; innocence, which has a 
 monopoly of straight hair and white gowns ; purity of 
 heart, which wears high-necked dresses because it has 
 not yet swelling bosom or rounded shoulders, these 
 things do not, in truth, strike me as particularly at- 
 tractive. 
 
 I care very little about teaching the rudiments to 
 little fools. I am neither old enough nor corrupt 
 enough to derive any pleasure from such an occu- 
 pation, and besides I should but ill succeed in it, for 
 I have never been able to teach anybody anything, 
 even what I know best. I prefer women who read 
 easily, for one gets more quickly to the end of the 
 
 125 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 chapter, and in all things, but especially in love, one 
 must consider the end. In this respect, I am not un- 
 like those people who begin a novel at the end and 
 read the last chapter first, going back afterwards, if so 
 minded, to the first page. There is a charm about this 
 way of reading and making love. Details are enjoyed 
 more thoroughly when one is reassured about the out- 
 come, and the inversion of the order brings about the 
 unexpected. 
 
 So young girls and married women are out of the 
 reckoning. It is therefore among widows that our 
 deity is to be sought for. Alas! I much fear that, 
 though widows only are left, it is not among them 
 that we shall find what we want. 
 
 Were I to take to loving one of those drooping 
 daffodils, wet with a warm dew of tears, and bending 
 over the new marble tomb of a happily and recently 
 deceased husband, I should certainly, before very long, 
 be as wretched as the late spouse had been in his life- 
 time. However young and charming widows may be, 
 they have a drawback from which other women are 
 free : if one happens to lose their good graces for a 
 moment, if but a cloud obscure love's azure, they at 
 once remark with a distant and contemptuous air : 
 
 126 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 u What is the matter with you to-day ? You are ex- 
 actly like my late husband ; when we quarrelled he 
 talked just as you t are doing. Very curious, your 
 look is the same, the sound of your voice the same ; 
 when you lose your temper you have no idea how like 
 my husband you are — it is really startling." 
 
 Pleasant, is it not, to be spoken to like that ? There 
 are even some widows shameless enough to praise the 
 late lamented as unblushingly as an epitaph, and who 
 compare his physical and mental qualities with yours, 
 much to your disadvantage. On the other hand, with 
 women who have but one or several lovers, one enjoys 
 the great comfort of never hearing one's predecessor 
 spoken of, which is no small matter. Women are too 
 careful of forms and conventionalities not to be most 
 discreetly silent in such circumstances, and all matters 
 of this sort are as speedily as possible relegated to the 
 limbo of oblivion. It is a standing principle that one 
 is always a woman's first lover. 
 
 I do not see what sound argument can be advanced 
 against so well founded an aversion. I do not mean 
 to imply that I consider widows entirely unattractive 
 when young, pretty, and still in mourning. They 
 have little languishing airs, ways of letting their arms 
 
 127 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 fall, of bending their neck and of swelling out their 
 bosoms like a forlorn turtle-dove ; they have a whole 
 series of delightful blandishments delicately attenuated 
 by the fact of their mourning, — such a perfect under- 
 standing of the coquetry of broken hearts, sighs uttered 
 so thoroughly at the right moment, tears that fall just 
 when they should fall, and which cause the eyes to 
 shine so brilliantly. Assuredly, next to wine, my favour- 
 ite beverage is a beautiful, crystal-clear tear trembling 
 on an eyelash, be it dark or fair. It is irresistible, and 
 one does not resist. Then, mourning becomes women 
 so well. Thanks to the black they wear, the fair skin 
 becomes ivory, snow, milk, marble, anything you please 
 that is white enough for the use of madrigal writers ; 
 the dark skin becomes merely nutbrown with a dash of 
 colour and flame. It is great luck for a woman to go 
 into mourning, and my reason for not marrying is 
 a fear lest my wife should make away with me in order 
 to wear mourning. All the same there are women who 
 do not know how to turn their grief to account, and so 
 weep that their nose becomes red and their face assumes 
 the look of the masks on fountains. To weep fittingly 
 calls for much charm and skill ; lacking these, one risks 
 remaining long inconsolable. However great, never- 
 
 128 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 theless, may be the pleasure of causing an Artemisia to 
 be unfaithful to the memory of her Mausoleus, I have 
 quite made up my mind that I shall not select from 
 among these lamenting ones the woman whose heart I 
 shall ask for in exchange for mine. 
 
 I can hear you ask : " Whom, then, will you choose ? 
 You will have none of maid, wife, or widow. You do 
 not care for mammas, and, I fancy, you do not care any 
 more for grandmothers. Who the devil are you in 
 love with ? ' That is exactly where the answer to the 
 riddle comes in, and if I knew it I would not worry as 
 much as I do. Up to this moment, I have loved no 
 woman, but I have loved and still love Love itself. 
 Though I have had no mistresses, though the women 
 I have possessed have aroused nothing more than desire 
 in me, love itself I have experienced and know. It 
 was not this woman or that whom I loved, the one 
 rather than the other, but a yet unseen woman who 
 certainly exists somewhere, and whom I shall find, 
 please God. I know just what she is like, and I shall 
 easily recognise her when we meet. 
 
 I have often imagined the place where she lives, the 
 dress she wears, the colour of her eyes and hair. Her 
 voice is in my ear ; her step I should know among a 
 
 vol. i — 9 129 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 thousand, and if any one chanced to name her I should 
 turn round, for she must bear one of the five or six 
 names I have given her in fancy. 
 
 She is twenty-six ; neither more nor less. She is no 
 longer ignorant and not yet blasee. Her age is the right 
 one for love as it should be, neither puerile nor libertine. 
 She is neither tall nor short; I do not care for either a 
 giantess or a dwarf. I want to have a goddess whom 
 I can carry alone from the sofa to the bed, but I should 
 dislike having to look for her in the bed. When she 
 rises slightly on tiptoe her lips will be just the height of 
 my kiss. That is the correct stature. As to her figure, 
 she is plump rather than thin ; I am a bit of a Turk 
 on this point, and I should not fancy coming across the 
 edge of a bone when seeking a soft roundness. A 
 woman should be plump, of a firm plumpness like that 
 of a peach on the point of complete ripeness, and that 
 is the sort of plumpness my future mistress shall be of. 
 She is fair, with black eyes, white-skinned as is a fair 
 woman, and with a rich colour like a brunette, with 
 something of flame and sparkle in her smile. Her 
 lower lip somewhat full, her eye swimming in glisten- 
 ing moisture, her breasts small, round, and firm ; her 
 wrists slight, her hands long and dimpled : her gait un- 
 
 130 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 dulating like an adder, hips full and undulating; her 
 shoulders broad, and the back of the neck covered with 
 fine hair — a type of beauty at once delicate and strong, 
 refined and full of life, poetic and real ; a motif of Gior- 
 gione's carried out by Rubens. 
 
 As for her dress, she wears a dress of scarlet or black 
 velvet slashed with white satin or silver tissue, the 
 bodice open in front, a great Medici ruff, a felt hat 
 capriciously shaped, like that of Helena Systermans, and 
 with long white feathers purled and crimped, a golden 
 chain or a necklace of diamonds round her neck, and 
 numerous large rings of various enamels on every finger 
 of her hands. 
 
 I will not allow of a single ring or bracelet being 
 wanting ; her dress must be literally of velvet or bro- 
 cade ; at the most I would barely permit her to come 
 down to satin. I prefer rumpling a silk skirt rather 
 than a linen one, and to cause pearls and feathers to fall 
 from the hair, rather than natural flowers or a mere 
 knot of ribbon. I am well aware that what is under- 
 neath the linen skirt is often as attractive as what is 
 under the silk skirt, but I prefer the latter. Thus it is 
 that in my dreams I have often presented myself with 
 many a queen, empress, princess, sultana, or famous 
 
 J3 1 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 courtesan for a mistress, but never with a bourgeoise or 
 a shepherdess, and in my most erratic desires I have 
 never taken advantage of any woman on a carpet of 
 grass or in a bed of Aumale serge. In my opinion 
 beauty is a diamond that should be set in gold. I 
 cannot conceive a beautiful woman without a carriage, 
 horses, lackeys, and all that goes with an income of a 
 hundred thousand a year \ between beauty and riches 
 there is harmony ; the one requires the other — a pretty 
 foot must have a pretty shoe, and a pretty shoe needs 
 carpets, carriages, and all the rest of it. A beautiful 
 woman in mean clothes in a wretched house is, in my' 
 view, the most pitiable of sights, and I could feel no 
 love for her. Only the rich and the handsome can be 
 in love without being ridiculous or pitiable. At that 
 rate few people have the right to be in love ; I should 
 be the very first barred out, and yet such is my belief. 
 
 We shall meet for the first time in the evening, 
 when the sun is setting splendidly; the sky will glow 
 with those light-yellow, orange, and pale-green tones 
 one sees in the pictures of some of the old masters. 
 There will be a great avenue of chestnut trees in bloom, 
 and of aged elms full of wood-pigeons ; glorious 
 trees of a cool dark-green, shades full of mystery and 
 
 132 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 dewy coolness; a few statues, a few marble vases 
 standing out here and there in snowy whiteness against 
 a background of verdure ; a pool of water on which 
 swims the usual swan, and at the very back of it all a 
 chateau of brick and stone of the time of Henry IV., 
 with its pointed slate roof, tall chimneys, vanes on 
 every gable-end, tall, narrow windows. At one of 
 these windows, leaning sadly on the balcony, the queen 
 of my soul in the costume I described a moment ago. 
 Behind her, a little negro holding her fan and her par- 
 rot. You see nothing is wanting to my fancy, and the 
 whole business is sheer absurdity. The fair one lets fall 
 her glove ; I pick it up, kiss it, and return it to her. We 
 fall to talking ; I make a parade of all the wit I do not 
 possess ; I say charming things ; charming things are 
 said to me ; I return others ; it is a regular coruscation 
 of witticisms. In a word, I am adorable and adored. 
 The supper hour comes round ; I am invited, and I 
 accept. What a supper, O my friend ! And what a 
 cook my fancy can be ! The wines sparkle in the 
 crystal glasses ; the pheasant, golden-brown, smokes on 
 a blazoned dish. The feast lasts well into the night, 
 and you need not be told that I do not return home to 
 finish it. Now, is not that a good piece of imagina- 
 
 *33 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 tive work ? Nothing could be simpler, and the only 
 wonder is that it has not happened frequently. 
 
 Sometimes it is in a great forest. The hunt goes by, 
 the horns sound, the pack is in full cry and flashes 
 across the road ; my beauty, in a riding habit, is 
 mounted on a milk-white Turkish horse, very spirited, 
 and very much excited. Although she is an excellent 
 horsewoman, it plunges, caracoles, rears, and she finds 
 it almost impossible to hold it in ; it bolts and takes 
 her straight to a precipice. I happen to be right on 
 the spot. I stop the horse, catch in my arms my 
 princess, who has fainted, bring her to, and escort her 
 back to her chateau. What well-bred woman would 
 refuse her heart to a man who had just saved her life ? 
 Not one ; and gratitude is a short cut which speedily 
 leads to love. 
 
 You must own, I think, that, when I become 
 romanesque, I do not do it by halves, and that I am as 
 crazy as it is given to man to be ; and that is something, 
 for there is nothing so disagreeable as a sensible craze. 
 You must own, too, that when I write letters they are 
 volumes rather than notes. I love to go beyond 
 ordinary bounds in everything. That is why I love 
 you. Do not laugh overmuch at all the nonsense I 
 
 *34 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 have scribbled for you. I cease scribbling to turn that 
 nonsense into fact, for it all comes back to this, that I 
 mean to have a mistress. I do not know whether she 
 will prove to be the lady in the park or the lady in the 
 balcony, but I am off to look for her. My mind is 
 made up. Were she to conceal herself in the far 
 confines of Cathay or Samarcand, I shall find her out. 
 I will inform you of the outcome of my quest, whether 
 it be success or failure. I hope it will be success ; 
 pray that it may, my dear friend. For my part, I am 
 putting on my handsomest clothes, and I leave my 
 house firmly determined not to re-enter it save accom- 
 panied by a mistress, conformable to my views. I have 
 dreamed long enough : now for action. 
 
 P. S. Tell me if you know anything of little 
 
 D . What has become of him ? No one here 
 
 knows. Present my compliments to your good brother 
 and all your family. 
 
 *35 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
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 II 
 
 WELL, my friend, I am at home again ; I have 
 not been to Cathay, Cashmere, or Samar- 
 cand, but I am bound to say that I have 
 no mistress yet, although I had clasped my own hand 
 and sworn a great oath that I would go to the world's 
 end — I did not even go to the city's gates. I do not 
 know how it comes about, but, the devil is in it, I 
 have never been able to keep a promise made to any 
 one, not even to myself. If I say, I shall go there to- 
 morrow, you may be sure I shall stop at home ; if I 
 mean to go to church, the road gets tangled around 
 my feet like a skein of thread, and I find myself in 
 quite another place. I fast when it was my inten- 
 tion to enjoy an orgy, and so on. I therefore have 
 come to the conclusion that what prevents my having 
 a mistress is that I have resolved to have one. 
 
 I must relate my expedition to you in detail ; it is 
 well worth telling. I had spent that day two full 
 hours in dressing. I had my hair curled, my small 
 moustaches twisted and waxed, while the warmth of 
 desire flushing somewhat my usually pale complexion, 
 
 136 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I really did not look badly. In short, after having 
 carefully studied my appearance in the mirror from 
 different points, to ascertain whether I was handsome 
 enough and whether my mien was properly gallant, I 
 resolutely sallied forth, head up, nose in the air, firm 
 glance, hand on hip, and the heels of my boots clank- 
 ing like a corporal's, brushing aside the bourgeois, and 
 having a perfectly victorious and triumphant air. 
 
 I was like a new Jason going to the conquest of the 
 Golden Fleece. But Jason was luckier than I, for 
 besides carrying off the fleece, he also bore away a 
 princess, and I — I have neither princess nor fleece. 
 
 So I went trotting through the streets, noting every 
 woman, hastening to her and examining her closely, 
 when she struck me as worth examining. Some as- 
 sumed a highly virtuous air, and passed on without a 
 look. Others were surprised at first, then smiled — if 
 they had fine teeth. A few turned after a time to look 
 at me when they thought I was not looking at them, 
 and blushed crimson when they found my face close to 
 theirs. The weather was fine, and crowds of people 
 were out walking. And yet I must confess, spite 
 of the respect I have for that interesting moiety of man- 
 kind whom we are in the habit of calling the fair sex, 
 
 1.37 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 that out of one hundred women there was scarcely one 
 that would pass muster. One had a moustache, 
 another's nose was blue -, others had red spots in place 
 of eyebrows ; another again had rather a good figure, but 
 her face was blotched. Still another had a lovely head, 
 but she could have scratched her ear with her shoulder ; 
 the perfect form and the softness of certain contours 
 of a third would have shamed Praxiteles, but she skated 
 along on feet the size of Turkish stirrups. Another 
 displayed the most superb shoulders, but, on the other 
 hand, the shape and size of her hands recalled the 
 enormous scarlet gloves which glove-makers hang up 
 as a sign; and, in general, the faces were so drawn, 
 they were so faded, crinkled, and ignobly worn-looking 
 through mean passions and mean vices. They bore 
 such expressions of envy, wicked curiosity, avidity, bold 
 coquetry. And a woman who is not handsome is 
 uglier than a man who is not handsome. 
 
 I saw not one worth looking at, save a few grisettes ; 
 but with these it is not silk but linen you rumple, and 
 that does not suit me. Of a truth, I believe man, and 
 in man I include woman, is the ugliest creature on 
 earth. It strikes me as very presumptuous that this 
 quadruped that struts on its hind-legs should assume 
 
 ^38~ 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 the highest rank in creation. A lion or a tiger is much 
 handsomer than a man, and among these species many 
 attain to the full beauty which pertains to the race, 
 while with man this is extremely rare. How many a 
 misshapen lout for one Antinous ! How many a clumsy 
 wench for one Phyllis ! 
 
 I greatly fear, dear friend, that I shall never embrace 
 my ideal, and yet it has in itself nothing extravagant 
 or out of the common. It is not the ideal of a high- 
 school boy. I do not ask for ivory globes, alabaster 
 columns, or nets of azure; in making it up I have 
 never made use of lilies, snow, roses, jet, ebony, coral, 
 ambrosia, pearls, or diamonds ; I let alone the stars of 
 heaven and I did not drag in the sun unseasonably. 
 My ideal is almost commonplace, so simple is it, and 
 it seems as though one provided with a bag or two of 
 crowns would find it ready to his hand in the very first 
 bazaar of Constantinople or Smyrna. Probably it would 
 cost me less than a thoroughbred horse or dog, and to 
 think that I cannot manage to secure it ! For I shall 
 not secure it, I feel it. It is enough to make one 
 swear, and I get into the wildest of rages. 
 
 As for you, you are not as crazy as I am ; you are 
 happy ; you let yourself drift into your life without tak- 
 
 139 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 ing the trouble to mould it, and you took things as they 
 came. You did not look for happiness, and it sought 
 you out. You love and are loved. I do not envy 
 you, — do not think that, — but I do feel less joyous 
 than I ought to be when I reflect on your happiness, 
 and I remark with a sigh that I would fain enjoy a 
 similar one. 
 
 It may be that happiness brushed by me, and that, 
 blind fool that I am, I did not see it ; it may be that 
 the voice spoke in my ear, and that the noise of the 
 tempests within me drowned it. It may be that I have 
 been secretly loved by some humble heart which I 
 have failed to appreciate, which I have broken ; that 
 I have myself been some one's ideal, the loved star of 
 some suffering soul, a dream of the night, a thought of 
 the day. Had I cast a glance at my feet, I might per- 
 chance have seen some fair Magdalen with her box of 
 perfume and her hair cast to the winds. I went rais- 
 ing my hands to heaven, seeking to pluck the stars 
 that escaped me, and disdainful of the modest daisy 
 that opened its golden heart in the dewy grass. 
 
 I have made a serious blunder. I have asked of 
 Love something else than love, something it could not 
 give. I forgot that Love is nude, and failed to grasp 
 
 140 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 the meaning of that splendid symbol. I asked of it 
 brocade dresses, feathers, diamonds, a sublime mind, 
 science, poetry, beauty, youth, supreme power — all 
 that it has not. Love can offer but itself, and he who 
 would draw aught else from it is not worthy of being 
 loved. 
 
 And no doubt I was in too great a hurry; my time 
 has not come. God, who gave me life, will not 
 recall it before I have lived. What is the use of giv- 
 ing a stringless lyre to the poet, a loveless life to the 
 man ? God does not do such illogical things, and He 
 will no doubt, at the right time, put in my way her I 
 am to love and by whom I am to be loved. But why 
 did love come to me before the mistress ? Why should 
 I thirst and have no spring to slake my thirst ; or else, 
 why can I not, like the birds of the desert, fly to the 
 water springs ? To me the world is a Sahara void of 
 wells and date-palms. There is not in my life one 
 shaded place where I can take shelter from the sun. 
 I experience all the ardours of passion without its ecsta- 
 sies and ineffable delights ; I know its torments, its 
 pleasures I ignore. I am jealous of the non-existent ; 
 I am troubled by the shadow of a shadow ; I sigh I 
 know not for what ; I have sleepless nights which no 
 
 : 
 
 141 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 fair apparition lightens ; I shed tears that fall to earth 
 unkissed away ; I throw to the winds kisses that are 
 not returned ; I wear out mine eyes in trying to per- 
 ceive afar a dim and deceiving form ; I wait for what 
 will not come, and anxiously count the hours as if I 
 had a tryst to keep. 
 
 Wherever thou art, angel or demon, maid or courte- 
 san, peasant or princess, whether thou comest from 
 the North or the South, thou whom I know not 
 and whom I love, do not keep me waiting longer, or 
 the fire will consume the altar, and in the place of 
 my heart thou shalt find but a heap of ashes grown 
 cold. Descend from the sphere where thou art ; leave 
 the crystal skies, O Spirit of Consolation, and with thy 
 mighty wings overshadow my soul. Come, come, 
 thou whom I shall love, and let my arms, so long out- 
 stretched, at last close around thee ! Golden gates of 
 her palace, roll back on your hinges ; humble latch 
 of her cabin-door, be lifted up ; separate, ye branches of 
 the trees, ye brambles of the roads •> be broken, spells 
 of the turrets, charms of wizards ; ye serried crowds, 
 open up and let her pass ! 
 
 If you come too late, ideal mine, I shall have no I 
 more strength to love you ; my soul is like a dovecote 
 
 142 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 full of doves — a desire flies away from it every hour 
 of the day - 9 the doves return to the cote, but desires 
 never return to the heart. The azure vault of heaven is 
 whitened by their innumerable flocks j they go through 
 space from world to world, from heaven to heaven, 
 seeking some love where they can rest for the night. 
 Hasten, then, O my dream, or you will find in the 
 empty nest but the broken shells of birds that have 
 flown. 
 
 You are the only one, dear friend and companion of 
 my childhood, to whom I can say such things. Write to 
 me ; tell me you are sorry for me, that you do not think 
 me hypochondriacal; console me, for never did I stand 
 in greater need of it. Happy they who have a passion 
 they can satisfy ! No bottle is cruel to the drunkard ; 
 he staggers from the tavern to the gutter, and is happier 
 on his filth heap than a king on his throne. The 
 voluptuary seeks facile loves or shameless excitements 
 in the arms of courtesans -, a painted cheek, a short 
 skirt, an immodest bosom, a vile phrase, make him 
 happy ; his eye pales, his lip is wet, he reaches the 
 highest degree of his form of happiness, he enjoys the 
 ecstasy of his coarse voluptuousness. The gamester 
 needs but the green cloth and a worn and greasy paclc 
 
 H3 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 of cards to experience the keen anguish, the nervous 
 spasms and the devilish delights of his horrible passion. 
 These people can satiate or distract themselves — I 
 cannot. 
 
 This feeling has so thoroughly laid hold of me that 
 I have got to the point of almost not caring for art and 
 finding no charm in poetry. What once delighted me 
 now fails to impress me in the least. 
 
 I begin to believe I am wrong. I ask more of 
 nature and society than they can give. What I am 
 looking for does not exist, and I ought not to complain 
 at not finding it. On the other hand, if the woman 
 we love is not to be found in human shape, how comes 
 it that we love her and not another, seeing that we are 
 men and that our instinct ought irresistibly to lead us 
 to love the other ? Whence came to us the idea of 
 this imaginary woman ? Out of what clay have we 
 moulded that invisible statue ? Where did we find 
 the feathers wherewith we have clothed our chimera ? 
 What mystic bird laid in some obscure corner of our! 
 soul the unperceived egg whence sprang our dream ? 
 Who is she, that abstract beauty, which we feel but 
 cannot define ? Why, in presence of a woman often 
 charming, do we sometimes say she is beautiful, al- 
 
 144 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 though we think her very ugly ? Where is the ideal 
 model, type, pattern which we use as a standard of com- 
 parison ? For beauty is not an absolute idea, and con- 
 trast alone enables us to appreciate it. Was it in heaven 
 that we beheld it, in a star, at a ball, under a mother's 
 wing, like the sweet bud by the side of the full-blown 
 rose ? Was it in Italy or Spain, here or yonder, yes- 
 terday or long ago ? Was it the adored courtesan, the 
 popular singer, the prince's daughter ? Was it a proud 
 and noble head bending under the heavy diadem of 
 pearls and rubies, or the young childish face showing 
 between the nasturtiums and the morning glories at the 
 window ? To what school belonged the picture in 
 which that beauty shone luminous out of the dark 
 shadows ? Did Raphael trace that outline which de- 
 lights you ? Did Cleomenes polish the statue you adore ? 
 Is it a Madonna or a Diana you are in love with ? Is 
 your ideal angel, sylph, or woman ? Alas ! it is some- 
 thing of all these, but it is none of these. 
 
 To Rubens belong that transparent tone, that charm- 
 ing, brilliant bloom, that flesh wherein course blood and 
 life, that glorious fair hair that falls like a mantle of 
 gold, the sparkling laughter, the love-provoking dimples, 
 the strength and suppleness, the satin sheen, the well- 
 
 vol. i — 10 145 
 
4; 4; 4; 4; 4* 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4; 4* 4* 4* 4* 4* 4* 4; 4* 4* 4* 4? 4j4j 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 filled lines, the plump arms, the firm and polished back, 
 the splendid health. Raphael alone can have coloured 
 with pale amber these most chaste lineaments, and none 
 other but he curved these long, delicate, dark brows, 
 and drew the lashes of these eyes so modestly cast 
 down. Think you Allegri has had naught to do with 
 your ideal ? It is from him that the lady of your 
 thoughts has filched that dead but warm pallor that 
 transports you. She gazed long at his pictures in 
 order to discover the secret of that ever radiant, angelic 
 smile ; the oval of her face, she has modelled it from 
 the oval of a nymph or a saint. That voluptuously 
 sweeping line of the hip comes from the sleeping Anti- 
 ope. The hands, plump and delicate, might be claimed 
 by Danae or Magdalen. Dusty antiquity itself has 
 furnished many of the elements that compose your 
 youthful chimera. The strong and supple waist you 
 passionately clasp in your arms was carved by Praxite- 
 les. Yonder goddess purposely let the tips of her 
 lovely foot emerge from the ashes of Herculaneum 
 that your idol might not limp. Nature, too, has con- 
 tributed her share. Here and there you have seen, 
 through the prism of desire, an ivory brow pressed 
 against a pane, lips smiling behind a fan. The hand 
 
 146 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 told you of the shapely arm ; the rounded ankle of the 
 polished knee. What you could see was perfection ; 
 you took for granted that the rest resembled what you 
 saw, and you completed it with bits of other beauties 
 snatched elsewhere. Ideal beauty, as realised by -paint- 
 ers, was yet insufficient, and you asked of the poets 
 more graceful curves, more ethereal forms, diviner 
 charms, more exquisite refinement. You prayed them 
 to bestow on your phantom breath and speech, the 
 fulness of their love, of their fancy, of their joy and 
 sadness, of their melancholy and morbidczza, of their 
 memories and their hopes, of their knowledge and their 
 passion, of their mind and their heart. All this you 
 took from them, and to it added, to fill up the impossi- 
 ble, your own passion, mind, fancy, and thought. The 
 star lent its beams, the flower its scent, the palette its 
 colours, the poet harmony, the marble form, and you 
 desire. 
 
 How is it possible for a woman, a real woman, who 
 eats, drinks, rises in the morning, goes to bed at night, 
 adorable and gracious though she may be, to stand a 
 comparison with such a creature ? It is folly to expect 
 that she should, and yet one does expect it and one hunts 
 for her. Oh, strange blindness ! How sublime, or ab- 
 
 x 47 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 surd ! I pity and admire those who pursue their dream 
 through all reality, and who die happy if once they 
 have kissed their chimera's lips. But what a dreadful 
 fate is that of the Columbus who has failed to discover 
 his New World, of the lover who has not met his 
 mistress ! 
 
 Were I a poet, I should sing — and a noble task it 
 would be — those who have failed in life, whose bolts have 
 not hit the mark, who died with the word untold, the 
 hand not clasped that was meant for them ; all that has 
 missed its aim and passed away unperceived : the smoth 
 ered fire, the mute, inglorious genius, the unknown pearl 
 within the ocean's depths; all that has loved unloved in 
 return, all that has suffered and been unpitied. 
 
 Plato was right indeed when he banished you from 
 his republic, O poets ! for ye have wrought us harm 
 infinite. Our absinthe has been made more bitter be- 
 cause of your ambrosia ; the vast horizons you have un- 
 rolled before us have made our life but more waste 
 and barren ; your dreams have made us fight our 
 reality fiercely, and in the struggle our heart has been 
 trampled and crushed by that great athlete. 
 
 Like Adam we have sat ourselves down at the foot 
 
 I 
 of the walls of the Earthly Paradise, on the steps of 
 
 148 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 the stairs that lead to the world you have created ; we 
 bave seen through the rifts of the gate the flash of a 
 light brighter than that of the sun ; we have heard the 
 r aint scattered notes of a heavenly harmony. When- 
 ever one of the elect enters or comes out in a flood 
 }f splendour, we crane forward to catch a glimpse 
 Df something through the open leaf. It is a fairy 
 architecture that has no equal but in Arabian fairy 
 :ales. Columns innumerable, arches rising on arches, 
 pillars twisted into spirals, wondrously carved foliage, 
 Dpenwork trefoils, porphyry, jasper, lapis lazuli, and 
 nore ! — transparence and dazzling reflections, a pro- 
 r usion of strange gems, sardonyx, chrysoprase, aqua- 
 marine, iridescent opals, azerodrach ; flashings of 
 :rystals, flames that make the stars grow pale, a lum- 
 nous haze full of sound and dizziness — Assyrian 
 uxury. 
 
 The leaf of the door closes ; you see nothing more, 
 md your eyes turn, full of burning tears, to this poor, 
 )ale, fleshless earth, to the ruined hovels, the ragged 
 )eople, to your own soul, — that barren rock on which 
 lothing grows, — all the wretchedness and all the 
 lorrows of reality. Ah ! if only we could fly thither ; 
 f only the steps of those stairs did not burn our 
 
 149 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 feet ! But, alas ! the angels done can climb Jacob's 
 ladder ! 
 
 What a lot is that of the poor man at the gate of 
 the rich ! What hideous irony is a palace opposite a 
 hut, the ideal opposed to the real, poetry contrasted 
 with prose ! What bitter hatred must fill the heart of 
 the wretched ! What gnashings of teeth must sound at 
 night on their miserable couch while the breeze carries 
 to them the sound of the theorbo and the lute ! Why 
 have you lied unto us, poets, painters, sculptors, com- 
 posers ? Ye poets, why did you tell us your dreams ? 
 Ye painters, why did you preserve on the canvas that 
 elusive phantom that rose and fell from your heart 
 to your head with the throbbings of your veins, and 
 why did you tell us, " This is a woman " ? Wherefore, 
 O sculptors, did you raise the marble from Carrara's 
 depths and make it express forever and in the sight 
 of all, your lightest and deepest desire? And you 
 composers, why did you note the song of the stars 
 and the song of the flowers In the shadow of night 
 and note it down ? Why have you written such 
 sweet songs that the sweetest voice which whispers 
 to us, " I love you," seems harsh as rasp of saw or 
 croak of raven ? Be ye accursed, ye impostors i and 
 
 150 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 may the fire of heaven burn and destroy every paint- 
 ing and poem, every statue, and every composition. 
 Ouf! that tirade is marvellous long and somewhat 
 out of the epistolary style. What a screed ! 
 
 I have largely indulged in lyrical rhapsody, most 
 dear friend, and I have been imitating Pindar at 
 prodigious length. All this is far removed from our 
 subject, which is, if I remember rightly, the glorious 
 and triumphant story of the knight Albert in pursuit 
 of Darai'da, the most beautiful princess in the world, 
 as our old romances have it. But the fact is, there 
 is so little in the story itself that I am compelled to 
 have recourse to reflections and digressions. I hope 
 it will not always be so, and that before long the 
 romance of my life will be more complex and involved 
 than a Spanish imbroglio. 
 
 After wandering through street after street, I re- 
 solved to call on a friend of mine who was to present 
 me in a house where, according to him, one met a 
 host of lovely women, a collection of ideals, become 
 real enough to satisfy a score of poets. All tastes can 
 be suited ; there are aristocratic beauties with eagle 
 glance, sea-green eyes, Greek noses, proudly turned 
 chins, queenly hands, and the walk of a goddess ; silver 
 
 151 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 lilies on a golden stem ; soft-coloured, modest violets, 
 sweet-scented, eye moist and cast down, swan neck, 
 transparent skin ; arch and piquant beauties ; affected 
 beauties ; beauties of every sort ; for that house is a 
 veritable seraglio, bar the eunuchs and the kislar aga. 
 My friend tells me that he has already had no less than 
 five or six love affairs there. This amazes me and I 
 greatly fear I shall not meet with such success. De 
 
 C insists that I shall, and that sooner than I wish. 
 
 He maintains that I have but one defect, which age 
 and a knowledge of the world will soon cure — it 
 is that I think too highly of woman and not enough 
 of women. There may be some truth in this. He 
 says that when I have rid myself of this defect I 
 shall be perfectly lovable. Heaven grant it ! Women 
 surely feel that I despise them, for a compliment 
 which they would think adorable and most charming, 
 coming from another man, angers and displeases them, 
 coming from me, as much as would the bitterest 
 
 epigram. This is probably due to what de C 
 
 reproaches me with. 
 
 My heart beat somewhat fast as we ascended the 
 stairs, and I had scarcely mastered my emotion when 
 de C , nudging me, brought me face to face with 
 
 152 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 a woman of thirty or thereabouts, rather handsome, 
 dressed with quiet luxury and an extreme affectation 
 of childish simplicity, which did not prevent her having 
 painted herself as if she were a carriage-wheel. She 
 was the mistress of the house. 
 
 De C , in that thin and sarcastic voice so differ- 
 ent from his habitual one, and which he uses in the 
 world when he wants to charm, said to her, neither 
 very low nor very loud, and with many demonstrations 
 of ironic respect, through which contempt was plainly 
 visible, — 
 
 u This is the young gentleman of whom I spoke to 
 you the other day ; a man of distinguished merit, of 
 the best of families, whom I think you will surely 
 be pleased to receive. That is why I have taken the 
 liberty of presenting him to you." 
 
 " You did quite right, sir," replied the lady, with 
 the most exaggerated airs and graces. Then she 
 turned towards me and looked me over out of the 
 corner of her eye like a skilful expert, in a way that 
 made me blush to the ears. 
 
 " You may consider yourself as invited once for all, 
 and you may come as often as you have an evening to 
 waste." 
 
 x 53 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I bowed rather awkwardly, and stammered a few 
 disconnected words, which assuredly did not give her a 
 high opinion of my capacity. Then other guests entered 
 and relieved me of the boredom inseparable from an 
 
 introduction. De C - drew me into a window 
 
 recess and proceeded to scold me in proper fashion. 
 
 " What the devil ! You will compromise me. I 
 spoke of you as a very phoenix of wit, a man of mad- 
 dest imagination, a lyric poet, transcendent and pas- 
 sionate in the extreme ; and you stand there like a log, 
 without a word to say. What poverty of resources ! 
 I thought you could talk more freely ; come, let your 
 tongue go ; chatter much, if not wisely. There is no 
 need of saying wise and sensible things ; on the con- 
 trary, it might prove hurtful. Talk, that is the main 
 thing ; talk much, talk long ; attract attention to your- 
 self; cast aside all fear and modesty ; bear well in 
 mind that every one here is a fool, or almost a fool, 
 and do not forget that an orator who desires to succeed 
 cannot despise his audience too much. What think 
 you of the mistress of the house ? " 
 
 " I dislike her excessively, and although I spoke to 
 her for barely three minutes, I was as much bored as 
 if I had been her husband.'' 
 
 154 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 " Ah ! that is what you think of her ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Is your dislike of her wholly insurmountable ? 
 'T is a pity. It would have been becoming in you to 
 have her, even but for a month ; it is the thing to do, 
 and a young man of the right sort can be launched into 
 society by her only." 
 
 " Well ! I shall have her," said I, rather ruefully, 
 u since have her I must. But is it as indispensable as 
 you seem to think ? " 
 
 " Why, yes. Most indispensable, and I shall tell 
 you why. Mme. de Themines is all the rage just 
 now ; she indulges in all the follies of the day to a 
 marked degree; she sometimes indulges in to-morrow's 
 follies, but never in yesterday's ; she is thoroughly up 
 to date. What she wears will be worn, and she never 
 wears what has been worn. Besides, she is rich, and 
 she dresses in the best style. She is not witty, but she 
 knows thoroughly the jargon of society ; she takes very 
 strong fancies, but scarcely knows what deep attach- 
 ment is. You may strike her fancy, but you will not 
 touch her feelings. She is cold-hearted and lasciviously 
 minded. If she has a soul, which is doubtful, it is of 
 the blackest ; she is capable of any wickedness or 
 
 155 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 baseness, but she is very clever, and preserves appear- 
 ances just so far as is necessary to prevent anything 
 being proved against her. For instance, she will readily 
 lie with a man, but will not write him the briefest 
 note. So her most intimate female enemies can find 
 nothing to say against her, save that she rouges too 
 high, and that certain parts of her person are not, in 
 fact, as rounded as they seem to be, — which is not 
 true." 
 
 " How do you know it ? " 
 
 "That's a funny question. As one knows that 
 kind of thing, — by finding out for myself." 
 
 " So you have had Mme. de Themines also ? " 
 
 " Certainly. Why should I not have had her ? It 
 would have been most improper in me not to have 
 her. She has done me great services, and I am very 
 grateful to her." 
 
 u I do not quite understand what kind of services 
 she can have done you — " 
 
 " Are you really a fool ? " then said de C- , 
 
 looking at me most quizzically. " Upon my word, I 
 begin to think so. Must I enter into details ? A4me. 
 de Themines has the well-deserved reputation of pos- 
 sessing special knowledge of certain matters, and a 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 young man whom she has taken and kept for a time 
 may boldly present himself everywhere, and he may be 
 sure he will not be long without an affair ; two affairs, 
 indeed, rather than one only. Besides this ineffable 
 advantage, there is another equally important, and that 
 is that as soon as the ladies in that company see you 
 have become Mme. de Themines' official lover, then, 
 even if they care not a straw for you, they will consider 
 it a duty and a pleasure to carry you off from a woman 
 so much the fashion as she is, and instead of the ad- 
 vances and attentions you would have to indulge in, 
 you will only have the difficulty of making a choice, 
 and you will of necessity become the aim of all imag- 
 inable lures and baits. 
 
 u However, if she is too repugnant to you, do not 
 take her. You are not actually obliged to have her, 
 although it would be polite and proper for you to do so. 
 But choose speedily, and lay siege to one who most 
 pleases you, or seems most likely to surrender easily ; 
 for delay will cost you the benefit of novelty, and the 
 advantage derived from it during a few days over all 
 the men who are here. None of these ladies believe 
 in love affairs which spring from intimacy, and grow 
 slowly under the influence of silence and respect m > they 
 
 157 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 prefer the sudden passion and occult sympathy, — a 
 very clever invention which saves the boredom of re- 
 sistance, and all the delays and repetitions which senti- 
 ment mingles with the romance of love, and which 
 merely postpone its outcome. These ladies value their 
 time highly, and it is apparently so precious to them 
 that they would forever regret not having made use of 
 every minute. It is impossible to praise too much 
 their desire to oblige mankind ; they love their neigh- 
 bour as themselves, a most evangelical and meritorious 
 action. They are exceedingly charitable, and nothing 
 in the world would induce them to let a man die of 
 despair. 
 
 " Some three or four of them must already be smitten 
 with you, and, as a friend, I should advise you to urge 
 your suit vigorously in that direction, rather than to 
 fool away your time talking with me in the embrasure 
 of a window, — which is not the way to get on/' 
 
 " But, my dear de C , I am quite a novice in 
 
 such matters. I have not that knowledge of the world 
 which enables one to distinguish at a glance a woman 
 who is smitten from one who is not, and unless you 
 aid me with your experience, I shall be apt to make 
 startling mistakes." 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 u Upon my word, you are uncommonly green, and I 
 did not think it was possible to be pastoral and bucolic 
 to such a degree nowadays. What the devil do you do 
 with those great black eyes of yours, then, which, did 
 you but know how to use them, would be irresistible ? 
 Just look yonder, in that corner near the mantelpiece, 
 at that little lady in pink who is playing with her fan. 
 She has been observing you through her glasses for the 
 past fifteen minutes with the most significant atten- 
 tion and assiduity. She has not her match in being 
 supremely indecent and nobly shameless. Women 
 dislike her very much, for they despair of ever attaining 
 to the same height of immodesty ; but, on the other 
 hand, men are very fond of her, and think her as 
 piquant as a courtesan. It is true that she is charm- 
 ingly depraved, witty, spirited, and capricious. She is 
 an excellent mistress for a young man with prejudices. 
 In a week she frees a conscience of all scruples and 
 corrupts the heart so that you never will be ridicu- 
 lous or given to elegy. She is inexpressibly posi- 
 tivist in all things ; she goes to the root of a matter 
 with a swiftness and accuracy that are amazing. 
 She is the incarnation of algebra, — exactly what 
 is needed for a dreamer and an enthusiast. She will 
 
 *59 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 soon cure you of your vague idealism, and thus do 
 you a great service. Besides, she will do it with the 
 greatest pleasure, for she instinctively loves to disen- 
 chant poets." 
 
 My curiosity being awakened by de C 's descrip- 
 tion, I emerged from my retreat, and making my way 
 through the groups, I approached the lady and looked 
 at her very attentively. She was about twenty-five or 
 twenty-six ; her figure was small but well proportioned, 
 though somewhat plump ; her arm was white and dim- 
 pled, her hand rather fine, her foot pretty and indeed 
 rather small, her shoulders rounded and shining, her 
 bosom not very full, but conveying a very favourable 
 idea of the unseen portions. Her hair was very glossy 
 and of a blue-black like the wings of the jay ; the 
 corner of the eye slanting somewhat upwards, the nose 
 thin, and the nostrils well open ; moist, sensuous lips, 
 a slight depression in the lower one, and almost imper- 
 ceptible down at the corners of the mouth. And withal 
 vivacity, animation, health, strength, and an indefinable 
 expression of sensuality, cleverly tempered by coquetry 
 and artifice that combined to form a most desirable 
 person, and more than justified the very lively desires 
 she had inspired and still excited. 
 
 160 
 

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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I wanted her, but I understood, nevertheless, that, 
 however charming she might be, she was not the 
 woman who would satisfy my longing and make me 
 say, u At last I have a mistress ! " 
 
 I returned to de C and said to him : " I rather 
 
 like the lady, and I may come to terms with her. But 
 before saying anything definite and binding, I wish you 
 would be good enough to show me the indulgent 
 beauties who have been good enough to be struck with 
 me, so that I may choose. And you will oblige me 
 further, since you are acting as my guide here, if you 
 will say a few words about each and enumerate her 
 defects and qualities ; tell me how I am to approach 
 them, and what tone I should adopt so as not to seem 
 too countryfied or literary." 
 
 u Very willingly," said de C . " Do you see 
 
 that fair and melancholy swan-like creature who bends 
 her neck so harmoniously, and moves her sleeves like- 
 wings ? She is modesty itself, the most chaste and 
 maidenly creature in the world ; snow-white brow, 
 heart of ice, glance of a Madonna, innocent smile, 
 white dress, and white soul. She never wears in her 
 hair aught but orange blossoms or water-lily leaves, 
 and but a thread holds her to this earth. She has 
 
 VOL.1 II 161 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 never had an evil thought, and has not the faintest idea 
 of the difference between a man and a woman. The 
 Blessed Virgin would be a Bacchante in comparison 
 with her, but all the same she has had more lovers 
 than any woman I know, and I have known many. 
 Pray examine that discreet lady's bosom — it is really 
 a masterpiece, for it is indeed difficult to exhibit as 
 much while concealing more — and tell me whether, 
 with all her reservations and her prudery, she is not 
 ten times more indecent than the worthy lady on her 
 left who simply displays a couple of hemispheres that, 
 were they put together, would form a full-sized globe, 
 or than the other on her right, with her dress cut down 
 to her stomach and who is parading her flat chest 
 with delightful intrepidity ? I am greatly mistaken if 
 that maidenly creature has not already calculated in 
 her own mind how much love and ardour may be 
 inferred from your pale complexion and your black 
 eyes. I say this, because she has not once looked 
 our way, — apparently, at least ; for she is so skilful 
 in the use of her eyes, and she can look so cleverly 
 out of the corners of them that nothing escapes her. 
 You would swear she can see with the back of her 
 head, for she knows perfectly well what is going on 
 
 162 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 behind her. She is a female Janus. If you desire to 
 succeed with her, you must put aside loud and domi- 
 neering ways ; speak to her without looking at her, 
 without a gesture, in a contrite attitude and in a sub- 
 dued and respectful tone. You may then say anything 
 you please, provided you veil it properly, and she will 
 permit you the utmost freedom of speech to begin 
 with, and of action afterwards. But be careful to roll 
 your eyes tenderly when she is looking down, and talk 
 to her of the delights of platonic love and the inter- 
 change of souls while indulging in the least platonic 
 and the most .matter-of-fact gestures. She is very 
 sensual and susceptible ; kiss her as much as you 
 please, but even when she is wholly giving herself, 
 do not forget to call her madam every minute. She 
 quarrelled with me because, being in bed with her, I 
 addressed her familiarly. I can tell you that she is 
 not an honest woman for nothing." 
 
 " I do not feel much tempted, after what you have 
 told me, to try my chances with her. A prudish Mes- 
 salina ! it is a novel and monstrous combination." 
 
 cc A combination as old as the world, my dear fellow ; 
 met with every day, so common is it. You are wrong 
 not to settle on this one. She has a great charm about 
 
 163 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 her ; one always feels with her as if one were com- 
 miting a mortal sin, and the least kiss appears abso- 
 lutely damning, while with others one has scarcely 
 the sensation of venial sin, and often, indeed, no sen- 
 sation of sin at all. Hence I kept her as my mistress 
 much longer than any other. She would still be my 
 mistress, had she not herself thrown me over ; she 
 is the only woman who ever forestalled me, and I 
 rather respect her on that account. She has a most 
 refined delicacy in her voluptuousness, and the rare 
 art of seeming to yield reluctantly what she grants 
 most readily, so that the gift of her favours has all 
 the charm of rape. You will meet in society some 
 nine or ten lovers of hers who will pledge their honour 
 that she is the most virtuous creature living. She is 
 exactly the opposite. It is very interesting to study 
 that virtue in bed. Now as you are forewarned you 
 run no danger and will not be fool enough to fall 
 really in love with her." 
 
 " How old is this marvellous woman ? " asked I, for I 
 could not make it out, even after observing her most 
 carefully. 
 
 " You may well ask her age. It is a mystery known 
 to God alone. Even I, who pride myself on telling a 
 
 164 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 woman's age within a minute of the correct time, I 
 have never been able to make out hers. But, roughly 
 speaking, I should say she is anywhere from eighteen 
 to thirty-six. I have seen her in full dress, in undress, 
 in her night-dress, and I cannot tell you anything on 
 that point. My skill fails me. She seems to be most 
 likely eighteen, and yet she cannot be that. She has 
 the outward appearance of a virgin, and the soul of a 
 prostitute, and it takes much time or genius to become 
 so thoroughly and speciously corrupt as she is. It 
 takes a heart of bronze in a breast of steel ; she has 
 neither, and so I judge she is thirty-six, but the truth is 
 I do not know at all." 
 
 " Has she no intimate friend who could enlighten 
 you ? " 
 
 " No ; she came to this place two years ago, from the 
 provinces or abroad, I forget which ; an admirable 
 condition if a woman knows how to profit by it. With 
 such a figure as hers, she may claim any age and have 
 it reckoned only from the day of her arrival here. " 
 
 " Very pleasant indeed, especially when no imper- 
 tinent wrinkle appears to give you the lie, and Time, 
 the great destroyer, is good enough to lend itself to 
 such an alteration in a certificate of baptism." 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 He showed me several others who, he affirmed, 
 would favourably entertain whatever requests I might 
 make of them and would treat me with singular phil- 
 anthropy. But the lady in pink at the corner of the 
 mantelpiece and the modest dove who formed a con- 
 trast to her were incomparably superior to all the 
 others, and if the two had not all the qualities I 
 insist upon, they, apparently at least, enjoyed some 
 of them. 
 
 I talked with them the whole evening, especially 
 with the dove-like one, and was careful to utter my re- 
 marks in the most respectful fashion. Although she 
 scarcely looked at me once, I thought at times I saw 
 her eyes shine under their veiling eyelashes, and when 
 I ventured on some rather free gallantries — clothed in 
 the most modest of gauze — I saw her skin flush softly 
 and slightly, with an effect not unlike that produced by 
 a rosy liquor poured into a translucent cup. Her 
 replies were usually sober, temperate, but keen and 
 barbed, suggesting much more than they expressed. 
 And withal reservations, half-spoken thoughts, indirect 
 allusions, each syllable fraught with meaning, every 
 silence pregnant with purpose — nothing could be more 
 diplomatic and delightful. Nevertheless, though I 
 
 ~ - ~ 76rT 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 enjoyed it at the time, I could not long bear with that 
 sort of conversation. One has to be constantly on 
 guard and wide-awake, and what I most prize in a talk 
 is ease and familiarity. 
 
 First, we spoke of music, and were naturally led to 
 talk of the Opera, then of women, and finally of love, 
 which is the subject of all others in which it is easiest 
 to pass from the general to the particular. We rivalled 
 with each other in the expression of lofty sentiments ; 
 you would have laughed had you heard me. Amadis 
 on Poverty Rock was but a passionless wight compared 
 with me. We talked of generosity, self-denial, devo- 
 tion, in a way that would have brought the blush of 
 shame to the cheek of the late Curtius the Roman. 
 Honestly, I did not believe I was capable of talking 
 such transcendental bosh and bathos. Does it not strike 
 you as most comical, most buffoon that I should be in- 
 dulging in the most superfine quintessence of platonism ? 
 And, by Jove ! you should have seen my devout mien, 
 my sanctimonious and demure ways. I seemed to be 
 perfectly innocent about it, and any mother who had 
 happened to hear me talk would not have hesitated to 
 let me go to bed with her daughter, any husband 
 would have confided his wife to me. It is the even- 
 
 167 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 ing of my life on which I had the most virtuous air, 
 and on which I was least virtuous. I thought it was 
 a good deal more difficult to be hypocritical and to 
 say things you do not believe. Either it must be 
 quite easy or I have a fine turn for it, since I suc- 
 ceeded so well at the first attempt. The truth is that 
 I am pretty successful at times. 
 
 As for the lady herself, she said many things very 
 cleverly put, which, spite of the candid way in which 
 she enunciated them, proved that she was consum- 
 mately experienced. You cannot imagine how subtle 
 were the distinctions she made. She would split a hair 
 in three parts and beat all angelic and seraphic doctors 
 with their own weapons. For the rest, judging from 
 her speech, it is impossible to believe that she has even 
 a shadow of a body. She is so immaterial, vaporous, 
 
 ideal as fairly to stagger you, and if de C had not 
 
 warned me of the ways of the creature, I should have 
 certainly despaired of success and shamefacedly kept 
 away from her. And really, when a woman tells you 
 during a couple of hours, in the airiest way, that love 
 lives only on privations and sacrifice and other pretty 
 things of the kind, can you reasonably hope to persuade 
 her one day to get in between a couple of sheets with 
 
 168 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 you, in order to warm each other's complexions, and to 
 see if you are built alike ? 
 
 In a word, we parted very good friends and con- 
 gratulated each other on the elevation and purity of our 
 sentiments. 
 
 You will readily divine that my conversation with 
 the other was entirely different. We laughed as much 
 as we talked. We made fun, and very wittily, of every 
 woman present, or rather I ought to say she made fun, 
 as a man can never do that well of a woman. For 
 my part, I listened and approved, for it is impossible to 
 sketch more cleverly and to paint more brilliantly ; it 
 was the most amusing collection of caricatures I have 
 ever seen. Through the exaggeration one felt the un- 
 derlying truth. De C was right ; that woman's 
 
 mission is to disenchant poets. She bears about with 
 her a prosaic atmosphere in which no poetic idea can 
 live. She is charmingly and sparklingly witty, and yet, 
 in her society, vulgar and ignoble thoughts alone occur 
 to me. While speaking to her I felt the maddest de- 
 sire to do things incongruous and impossible to do 
 where we were, such as to call for wine, get drunk, 
 plant her on my knee, kiss her bosom, pull up her 
 petticoats and see if she wore her garter above or below 
 
 169 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 the knee, to sing an obscene refrain, smoke a pipe, 
 smash windows, and I know not what else. The ani- 
 mal, the brute in me was aroused ; I would have un- 
 hesitatingly spat on Homer's Iliad and knelt to a ham. 
 I now perfectly understand the allegory of Ulysses' 
 companions turned into swine by Circe. She was 
 probably a trollop, like my little lady in pink. 
 
 I am ashamed to say it, but I positively enjoyed my 
 descent into beastliness ; I not only did not struggle 
 against it, but helped it on with all my strength, so 
 natural is corruption to man, and so much slime is there 
 mixed with the clay of which he is made. 
 
 I did for a moment fear this growing leprosy and 
 tried to leave my corrupter, but I seemed to be sunk 
 in the floor up to the knees, and, as it were, nailed 
 to the spot. 
 
 At last I managed to leave her, and the night being 
 far gone, I returned home in great perplexity and trouble 
 of mind, not knowing very well what was best for me 
 to do. I hesitated between the prudish and the las- 
 civious one. The one seemed voluptuous to me ; the 
 other piquant, and, after a most thorough self-examina- 
 tion, I ascertained, not that I was in love with both, but 
 that I desired to have both, as much the one as the 
 
 170 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 other, and earnestly enough to be preoccupied and 
 dreamy about them. 
 
 In all probability, my dear friend, I shall have one 
 of these women, possibly both, and yet I confess that 
 possessing them will but half satisfy me. It is not that 
 they lack good looks, but at sight of them nothing 
 within me called out, nothing beat high, nothing said, 
 " It is she." I did not recognise them. And yet, as far 
 as birth and beauty go, I do not suppose I can do much 
 
 better, and de C- advises me to seek no further. 
 
 I shall certainly do so, and one of them shall be my 
 mistress or the devil shall have me, ere long. Deep 
 down in my heart, however, a secret voice reproaches 
 me with being false to my love and with being stayed 
 by the first smile of a woman for whom I care nothing, 
 instead of seeking on without rest through the world, 
 in convents and places of ill-fame, in palaces and inns, 
 her who has been created for me and whom God 
 means me to have, be she princess or servant, nun or 
 paramour. 
 
 Then I repeat to myself that I dream dreams, and 
 that it matters very little, after all, whether I go to bed 
 with one woman rather than another; that this earth 
 will not,' on that account, change its course by a single 
 
 171 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 line, and that the four seasons will not alter their 
 order in consequence ; that nothing is more indifferent 
 to me and that it is very foolish in me to allow myself 
 to be bothered by such nonsense ; that is what I tell 
 myself, but, say what I please, I am neither resolved nor 
 at peace. 
 
 The reason of this may be that 1 live much to my- 
 self and that the slightest details in a life as monoto- 
 nous as mine is assume an exaggerated importance. I 
 listen too much to myself as I live and think ; I hear 
 the throbbing of my veins, the beating of my heart ; 
 by dint of attention I free my most impalpable thoughts 
 from the mists in which they float, and I incarnate them. 
 If I were more a man of action I should not notice all 
 these small matters, and I should not have time to ex- 
 amine my soul with a microscope, as I do all day long. 
 The bustle of action would drive away that swarm of 
 idle fancies which flutter in my brain and daze me with 
 the buzzing of their wings. Instead of chasing visions, 
 I should take hold of realities ; I should ask of women 
 no more than they can give — pleasure ; and I would 
 not seek to clasp an imaginary, fantastic ideal adorned 
 with vague perfection. That intense tension of my 
 soul's eye fixed upon an invisible object has spoiled my 
 
 172 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 sight. I cannot see what is, by dint of having gazed 
 on what is not, and my sight, so keen to perceive the 
 ideal is quite short for reality ; for instance, I have 
 known women whom everybody declared to be charm- 
 ing and who appear to me to be the very opposite. I 
 hive greatly admired paintings generally considered 
 poor, and eccentric or unintelligible verse has often 
 pleased me more than the most neatly turned produc- 
 tions. I should not be a bit surprised if, after having 
 so long sighed to the moon and stared ' at the stars, 
 after having written so many elegies and sentimental 
 addresses, I were to fall in love with some vile light o' 
 love or some ugly old woman — it would be a pretty 
 come down. It may be that reality will take this 
 method of punishing me for my neglect of it. Would 
 it not be a sweet thing if I were to fall madly in love 
 with some kitchen wench or other or some wretched 
 dolt ? Can you see me twanging a guitar under a kitchen 
 window and supplanted by a scullion carrying the pet 
 dog of an old dowager who is losing her last tooth ? 
 Perhaps, too, finding no one in this world worthy of 
 my love, I shall end by worshipping myself, as did the 
 late Narcissus, of selfish memory. To ward off such a 
 misfortune I look into every glass and brook I come 
 
 173 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 across. In truth, thanks to excess of dreaming and 
 eccentricities, I have a great dread of falling into the 
 monstrous and abnormal. It is a serious matter, that 
 calls for care. Good-bye, dear friend ; I am off to the 
 pink lady's house for fear of yielding to my usual con- 
 templations. I fancy we shall not bother much with 
 entelechy, and that if we do anything it will certainly 
 not be in the line of spiritualism, although the lady is 
 very witty. I carefully roll up and put away in a drawer 
 the pattern of my ideal mistress so that I shall not try it 
 on this one. I mean to enjoy quietly the beauty and the 
 merit she possesses. I mean to let her be dressed in a 
 gown fitted to her, without trying to fit to her the gar- 
 ment which I have cut out beforehand, in case of need, 
 for the lady of my thoughts. These be wise resolves ; 
 I know not whether I shall keep to them. Once more, 
 adieu. 
 
 174 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
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 III 
 
 I AM the acknowledged lover of the lady in pink ; 
 it is almost a profession, an office, and gives one 
 a standing in society. No longer do I look like 
 a schoolboy in quest of successes among grandmothers, 
 and who dares not repeat a madrigal to a woman under 
 a hundred years of age. I observe that since I have 
 been installed, I am much more thought of, and all 
 women speak to me with jealous coquetry and put 
 themselves out for me. Men, on the contrary, are 
 cooler, and in the few words we exchange there is* a 
 touch of hostility and constraint ; they feel that in me 
 they have a rival already to be feared, one who may yet 
 become still more redoubtable. I have learned that 
 several of them had severely criticised my mode of 
 dress, and had said that it was too effeminate ; that 
 my hair was too glossy and curled with more care than 
 was proper ; that this, joined to my beardless face, 
 made me look ridiculously like a girl ; that I affected 
 the use of rich and brilliant stuffs which smacked of 
 the stage and were fitter for an actor than a man, — in 
 short, all the commonplaces uttered by those who want 
 
 175 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI ] 
 
 to be dirty and to wear mean and ill-cut clothes. But 
 all these remarks are like water on a duck's back, for 
 all the ladies think my hair the most beautiful in 
 the world, my refinement in dress in the very best 
 taste, and they appear very much disposed to reward 
 me for the trouble I take to please them, as they are 
 not fools enough to believe that all this elegance is 
 intended merely to gratify my own love of adorn- 
 ment. 
 
 Our hostess at first manifested some pique at my 
 choice, supposing that I would necessarily single her 
 out, and for a few days she testified on this account a 
 certain bitterness — towards her rival alone ; for she 
 treated me just as before — which came out in " my 
 dears," spoken in that dry, clear-cut fashion which 
 women alone possess, and by some unpleasant re- 
 marks about her dress made in as loud a voice as 
 possible ; as, for instance, " Your hair is dressed 
 too high and not at all becomingly for your face ; " 
 or, " Your dress does not fit under the arms ; who 
 made that gown for you ? " or again, " Your eye f 
 look very tired ; I think you are quite changed ; ' 
 and a thousand other little remarks ; to which the othei 
 never failed to reply with all desirable malice whe 
 
 176 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 opportunity offered, and if the opportunity was slow in 
 coming, she made one for herself and repaid with usury 
 what she had received. But ere long, some other 
 individual having attracted the attention of the disdained 
 infanta, the little war of words ceased and the usual 
 peace was restored. 
 
 I told you briefly that I am the declared lover of the 
 lady in pink, which is not enough for so methodical 
 a man as you. No doubt you will inquire her name. 
 That I will not tell you ; but if you like, for the con- 
 venience of my story and in memory of the colour of 
 the dress in which I first saw her, we shall call her 
 Rosette. It is a pretty name ; it was my little dog's 
 name. 
 
 You will want to know in detail, for you like 
 accuracy in such matters, the story of my loves with 
 this fair Bradamante, and the successive steps by 
 which I passed from the general to the particular, and 
 from the condition of mere spectator to that of actor; 
 how from onlooker I turned into a lover. I shall 
 gratify vour wish with the greatest pleasure. There is 
 nothing sinister in our love tale ; it is rose-coloured, 
 and the only tears shed in it are tears of pleasure ; it 
 has neither repetitions nor prosy passages, and it hast- 
 
 VOL. I 12 
 
 177 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 ens to the end with the speed and haste so strongly 
 recommended by Horace, — a regular French novel, in 
 fact. 
 
 Nevertheless, do not take it for granted that I 
 stormed the position at the first assault. My princess, 
 though very tender-hearted towards her subjects, is not 
 as lavish of her favours as one might believe at first ; 
 she knows their worth too well not to make you pay 
 for them, and she also knows what a sharp spur to 
 desire is a little delay, the relish which partial resistance 
 gives to pleasure, for her to yield at the outset, however 
 strong the fancy she may have taken to you e 
 
 If I am to tell you the story at length, I shall have 
 to go back somewhat. I related to you pretty fully the 
 account of our first meeting. I met her again once or 
 twice in the same house, three times perhaps ; then she 
 invited me to her home. You will readily understand 
 that I required no pressing. I called not too often at 
 first, then a little oftener, then still oftener, and finally 
 as often as I felt like it, and I am bound to confess I 
 felt like it three or four times a day. The lady always 
 received me, after a few hours' absence, as if I. had just 
 returned from the East Indies. I felt this, of course, 
 deeply and had to show my gratitude by saying the 
 
 ^8 
 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 most complimentary and tender things to her, and she 
 replied as best she could. 
 
 Rosette — since we have agreed to call her so — 
 is a very clever woman, who thoroughly understands 
 men. Although she postponed the end of the chapter 
 for some time, I was not once annoyed with her, 
 which is absolutely amazing, for you know how furi- 
 ously wrathy I become when I do not at once obtain 
 what I desire, and when a woman resists longer than 
 the period I have settled for her in my own mind. 
 I do not know how Rosette managed it ; at our very 
 first meeting she made me understand that she would 
 be mine, and I was more sure of it than if I had had 
 her promise in writing under her own hand and seal. 
 You may think that the boldness and freedom of her 
 manner gave free play to audacious hopes, but I do 
 not think that is the real reason. I have met women 
 whose astonishing freedom dispelled the very shadow 
 of a doubt, and who did not so impress me, and in 
 whose company I experienced most uncalled-for timidity 
 and anxiety. 
 
 The cause of my being usually much less amiable to 
 the women I wish to possess than to those who are in- 
 different to me is the passionate expectation of an op- 
 
 179 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 portunity, and the uncertainty I feel concerning the 
 success of my project. I become sombre and fall into 
 a dreamy state that deprives me of many of my advan- 
 tages as well as of my presence of mind. When I see 
 fleeing by, one after another, hours which I had in- 
 tended to devote to a far different purpose, I become 
 angry in spite of myself, and I cannot help saying 
 very dry, harsh, occasionally even brutal things, 
 which set me back ever so far. With Rosette this 
 feeling has never arisen in me ; never, when she was 
 resisting most vigorously, have I thought that she 
 desired to avoid my love. I quietly allowed her to show 
 off all her little coquetries, and patiently bore with the 
 rather prolonged delays which it pleased her to indulge 
 in at the expense of my passion. Her rigour had some- 
 thing charming about it which consoled me so far as 
 consolation was possible, and even in her Hyrcanian 
 cruelties I perceived a substratum of humanity which 
 prevented my being greatly afraid. Honest women, 
 even when least honest, have a sour and disdainful 
 manner which is perfectly unbearable to me. They 
 seem to be always ready to ring and have you kicked 
 out by their lackeys, and I really think that a man who 
 takes the trouble to pay court to a woman (which is 
 
 180 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 not as pleasant an occupation as people believe) does 
 not deserve to be looked at in such a fashion. 
 
 Dear Rosette never looks so, and I assure you she 
 gains by it. She is the only woman in whose company 
 I have really been myself, and I am conceited enough 
 to say that I never showed to better advantage. My 
 wit exhibited itself freely, and the aptness and spirit of 
 her replies made me feel myself wittier than I believed 
 I was, and wittier, perhaps, than I really am. It is 
 true that I did not indulge in much lyrism, — that is 
 scarcely possible with her, although she does not lack 
 
 a certain feeling for poetry, in spite of what de C 
 
 said ; but she is so full of life, strength, and energy, she 
 seems to be so thoroughly in the right place in the 
 atmosphere in which she lives, that one does not 
 feel like having to ascend into the clouds. She 
 fills real life so pleasantly and makes it so delightful 
 :o herself and others that fancy can offer you nothing 
 Detter. 
 
 Here is indeed a miracle ! I have known her for 
 nearly two months and during that time I have experi- 
 enced weariness only when away from her. You will 
 icknowledge that to produce such an efFect she can be 
 10 ordinary woman, since it is usually the contrary 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 one which women have on me and I am fonder of 
 them when away than when near them. 
 
 Rosette is the best-tempered woman on earth — with 
 men, of course, for with her sex she is as bitter as the 
 devil. She is bright, quick, alert, ready to do anything, 
 very original in her mode of speech, and has always 
 some unexpected pleasantry ready ; she is a charming 
 companion, a handsome comrade with whom one goes 
 to bed, rather than a mistress, and if I were somewhat 
 older and somewhat less romanesque, I should not care 
 a rap, and I should even consider myself the most for- 
 tunate of mortals. But — but, — that particle bodes 
 no good, and this devilish little restrictive word is 
 unfortunately the most frequently used in all human 
 tongues, — but I am a fool, a dolt, a goose, for I am 
 never satisfied and seek the impossible; so that instead 
 of being quite happy, I am only half happy. To be 
 half happy is a good deal in this world, and yet it strikes 
 me as insufficient. 
 
 Everybody thinks I have a mistress, desired by several 
 who envy me her possession, disdained by none. Ap- 
 parently, therefore, my wish is fulfilled and I have no 
 right to quarrel with fate. All the same I do not feel 
 as if I had a mistress ; my reason understands that I 
 
 182 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 have one, but I do not feel it, and if any one were to 
 ask me unexpectedly whether I have one, I believe I 
 would say no. Yet the possession of a beautiful, young, 
 and clever woman is what, in all ages and all countries, 
 has been and is called having a mistress, and I do not 
 believe there is any other way of having one. Still, I 
 have the queerest doubts on the point, and to such a 
 degree that if a number of people agreed to maintain to 
 me that I am not Rosette's favoured lover, I should, 
 spite of the plainest evidence to the contrary, end by 
 believing them. 
 
 Do not let what I have said lead you to think that I 
 do not love her, or that she is in any respect repugnant to 
 me. On the contrary, I am very much in love with 
 her and think her what everybody must think her, a 
 pretty and piquant creature. But I simply feel that I 
 do not possess her, that is all ; and this maugre the 
 fact that no woman has ever given me so much pleasure 
 and that, if I have known sensual delight, it is while 
 in her arms. A single kiss from her, the most chaste 
 caress, makes me tremble from head to foot and drives 
 all the blood to my heart. Reconcile these things if 
 you can. The truth is as I tell it you. But the heart 
 of man is full of such incongruities, and if we had to 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 reconcile all the contradictions it contains, our work 
 would be cut out for us. 
 
 How does this come about ? Really I cannot tell. 
 
 I see her all day long, and all night long, if I am so 
 minded. I caress her as much as I like ; I have her 
 nude or dressed, in town or in the country. Her good- 
 nature is inexhaustible, and she thoroughly enters into 
 my capricious fancies, however extraordinary they may 
 be. One evening I wished to possess her in the very 
 middle of the drawing-room, with the chandelier and 
 sconces lighted, a fire on the hearth, the arm-chairs ar- 
 ranged in a circle as if for a large evening reception, 
 she in her ball-dress, with her bouquet and her fan, all 
 her diamonds round her neck and on her fingers, 
 feathers in her hair, in the most splendid toilet, and I 
 dressed as a bear. She consented. 
 
 When all was ready the servants were greatly sur- 
 prised to receive orders to close the doors and to admit 
 no one ; they could not make head or tail out of it, and 
 went off with a wondering, stupid look which made us 
 laugh heartily. They certainly thought their mistress 
 was crazy, but what they thought or did not think mat- 
 tered little to us. 
 
 That was the funniest evening I ever spent. Can 
 
 184 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 you imagine how I looked with a plumed hat under one 
 paw, rings on all my claws, and a silver-hiked, blue- 
 ribboned small sword ? I drew close to my beauty, and 
 after bowing most gracefully I sat down by her and 
 laid siege to her in the most approved fashion. The 
 perfumed madrigals, the exaggerated compliments which 
 I paid her, the regulation jargon, became more striking 
 uttered through my bear's-head ; for I had a splendid 
 bear's-head of painted cardboard, which I soon was 
 forced to throw under the table, so adorable was my 
 goddess that evening, and so greatly did I desire to kiss 
 her hand and more than her hand. The bear-skin 
 speedily took the same road as the head, for not being 
 used to play Bruin, I was stifling inside my furs. 
 Then, as you will readily believe, the ball-dress had a 
 time of it. The feathers fell like snow around my 
 beauty, the shoulders soon showed out of the sleeves, 
 the breasts out of the stays, the feet out of the shoes, 
 the legs out of the stockings ; the broken necklaces 
 rolled on the floor, and I do not believe a new dress 
 was ever more pitilessly crushed and rumpled. It was 
 of silver gauze, with an underskirt of white satin. 
 On this occasion Rosette displayed heroism superior 
 to her sex, which gave me the highest opinion of her. 
 
 ^85 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 She witnessed the destruction of her toilet as if she 
 were a disinterested spectator, and did not for a single 
 moment appear to regret her dress and her lace. On 
 the contrary, she was madly excited and herself helped 
 to tear and break whatever could not be undone or un- 
 hooked quickly enough to satisfy her or me. Do you 
 not agree that this trait is fine enough to be preserved 
 in history alongside of the most brilliant deeds of the 
 heroes of antiquity ? The greatest proof of love a 
 woman can give a man is not to say to him, " Take 
 care not to rumple me or to spot my dress " — especially 
 if the dress is new. A new gown is a greater guaran- 
 tee of security to a husband than is generally recognised. 
 Either Rosette must fairly worship me, or as a philoso- 
 pher she is superior to Epictetus. 
 
 All the same, I think I more than paid Rosette for 
 her gown, in money which, though not current among 
 tradesmen, is none the less esteemed and prized. So 
 great heroism merited such a recompense. Besides, 
 like the generous woman she is, she gave me as good 
 as she got. I enjoyed the keenest delight, almost con- 
 vulsive and such as I did not suppose I was capable of 
 experiencing. Her sounding kisses mingling with loud 
 laughter, her eager caresses, the strong and irritating 
 
 186 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 lust, pleasure which dress and place prevented being 
 had to the full, but keener a thousand times for these 
 obstacles, acted so much on my nerves that I had 
 spasms, from which I recovered with some difficulty. 
 
 It is impossible to describe Rosette's tender and 
 proud look as she sought to make me regain con- 
 sciousness, and the mingling of joy and anxiety in her 
 manner as she worked over me. Her face shone with 
 delight at having produced such an effect on me, while 
 her eyes, filled with sweet tears, testified to the fright 
 my indisposition gave her and to the interest she took 
 in my health. Never did she appear so fair as at that 
 moment. There was something so chaste and maternal 
 in her glance that I completely forgot the exceedingly 
 anacreontic scene which had just occurred, and knelt 
 before her as I begged leave to kiss her hand, which 
 she, with singular gravity and dignity, allowed me to do. 
 
 Certainly that woman is not so depraved as de C 
 
 maintains, and as she has often seemed to me to be. 
 It is her mind, not her heart, that is corrupted. 
 
 I have described this scene as I might describe a score 
 of others. It strikes me that one may, after that, and 
 without being conceited, believe one's self a woman's 
 lover. Well, that is exactly what I do not. I had 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 scarcely reached home before this thought again seized 
 on me and began to worry me as usual. I remembered 
 perfectly all I had done and seen done. The slightest 
 gestures and attitudes, the least details stood out clearly 
 in my memory. I recalled everything, even the faintest 
 changes of tone of her voice and the indefinable grada- 
 tions of voluptuousness ; only, I did not feel that these 
 things had happened to me rather than to any one else. 
 I was not sure that the whole affair was not an illusion, 
 a phantasm, a dream, or else something I had read 
 somewhere, or even a story imagined by myself, as I 
 often imagine them. I trembled lest I should be the 
 victim of my own credulity or of some practical joke, 
 and, spite of the testimony of my fatigue and the physi- 
 cal proofs that I had spent the night out, I could readily 
 have believed that I had turned in at my usual time 
 and slept until morning. 
 
 It is most unfortunate that I cannot be morally cer- 
 tain of that of which I am physically certain. Usu- 
 ally things are the other way, and the fact is a proof 
 of the idea. I wish it could be so in my case, but it 
 is of no use. Queer as the fact may seem, it is a 
 fact none the less. It depends on me, up to a certain 
 point, to have a mistress, but I cannot, though I have 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 one, bring myself to believe that I do have her. If 
 I lack the necessary faith, even for so evident a mat- 
 ter, it is just as impossible for me to believe in so 
 simple a fact as for some one else to believe in the 
 Trinity. Faith is not to be acquired ; it is a down- 
 right gift, a special favour from Heaven. 
 
 Never did any one desire as keenly as I to live 
 the lives of others and to assimilate another na- 
 ture ; and never did any one fail more completely. 
 Do what I may, other men are to me phantoms al- 
 most, and I do not realise their existence ; yet I do 
 not lack the wish to know their life and to share in it. 
 It arises from a lack of real sympathy for anything. 
 The existence or non-existence of a person or thing 
 does not interest me sufficiently to affect me in a tan- 
 gible and convincing manner. The sight of a real 
 man or woman leaves in my mind no deeper trace 
 than the fantastic vision of a dream. There moves 
 around me a world of pale shadows and of seemings, 
 false or true, whose low murmur I hear and among 
 whom I am absolutely isolated, for not one influences 
 me for good or evil, and they appear to me to be of a 
 nature different from mine. If I speak to them and 
 they reply with an approach to common-sense, I am as 
 
 189 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 much surprised as if my cat or my dog were suddenly 
 to speak and take part in the conversation. The 
 sound of their voices always amazes me, and I am 
 not far from believing that they are merely fugitive ap- 
 pearances, and I the objective mirror. Whether I am 
 better or worse than they, I assuredly do not belong to 
 their species. At times I recognise but One as superior 
 to myself; at others I think I am scarce the equal of 
 the cockroach under its stone, or the mollusc clinging 
 to the rock ; but no matter what may be my state of 
 mind, I can never persuade myself that men are really 
 my fellows. When I am addressed as " sir," or when 
 some one speaking of me says, " that man," it strikes 
 me as very strange. My name itself seems assumed, 
 and not my true name; yet, speak it as low as you 
 please, in the midst of the greatest din, and I turn 
 round suddenly with convulsive, feverish vivacity, which 
 I have never thoroughly understood. Is it because I 
 fear to find an opponent or an enemy in that man who 
 knows my name and to whom I am no longer merely 
 one of the crowd ? 
 
 It is especially when living with a woman that I 
 have most felt how irresistibly my nature rebels at any 
 union or mingling with another. I am like a drop of 
 
 190 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 oil in a glass of water. Stir as you please, you will 
 never get the one to mix with the other ; it will break 
 up into an infinite number of globules, which will unite 
 and rise to the surface at the first opportunity ; a drop 
 of oil in a glass of water — that is my whole story. 
 Even voluptuousness, that diamond chain which binds 
 all beings ; that devouring fire which melts the rocks 
 and metals of the soul and makes them fall back in a 
 rain of tears, just as material fire melts iron and gran- 
 ite, has never, powerful though it be, tamed or softened 
 me. I have highly developed senses, but my soul is 
 hostile to its mate, my body, and the unhappy pair, like 
 all legal or illegal couples, lives in a constant state of 
 warfare. A woman's arms, said to be the fastest 
 bonds on earth, are but slight ties for me, and I have 
 never been further from my mistress than when she 
 was pressing me to her heart. I choked, that was all. 
 
 How often have I grown angry with myself, and 
 what efforts have I not made to become different ! 
 How hard have I tried to be tender, loving, passion- 
 ate ! How often have I dragged up my soul by force 
 to my lips in the midst of a kiss ? Do what I would, 
 I no sooner released my grasp than it fled, wiping away 
 the kiss. It is torture to that unhappy soul to be 
 
 191 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 compelled to be present at the debauches of my body, 
 and to sit down constantly to feasts at which it starves ! 
 
 I determined, once for all, to try with Rosette 
 whether or not I am absolutely unsociable, and whether 
 I can become sufficiently interested in another's life to 
 believe in it. I have carried my experiments to the 
 point of exhaustion, and my condition of doubt is not 
 much changed. With her, pleasure is so intense that 
 my soul is often somewhat interested, if not touched, 
 and this interferes to a certain extent with the accuracy 
 of my observations. In the end I noticed that the 
 enjoyment was skin-deep and merely superficial, the 
 soul's participation in it being merely that of curiosity. 
 I enjoy myself because I am young and lusty, but I, 
 and not any one else, am the source of the pleasure I 
 feel. Its cause is in me rather than in Rosette. 
 
 Try as hard as I may, I cannot go out of myself for 
 a single moment. I remain what I am always, — an 
 exceedingly weary and wearisome being, in whom I 
 take no pleasure. I cannot manage to get an altruistic 
 idea in my head, an altruistic feeling in my soul, 
 to feel in my own body the pain or pleasure felt by 
 some one else. I am prisoned within myself, and in- 
 vasion of my being is impossible. The prisoner seeks 
 
 192 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 to escape ; the walls would gladly fall in ruins, the 
 gates open to let him pass, but some fatal power keeps 
 the stones in their places and the bolts in their slots. 
 It is as impossible for me to let any one into myself 
 as for me to enter into any one else. I can neither 
 pay nor receive visits, and I live in saddest isolation in 
 the midst of a crowd; my bed may be tenanted, but 
 my heart is always empty. 
 
 Why can we not add a single mite, a single atom to 
 our being ? Why can we not make the blood of others 
 flow in our veins ? Why must we always see with our 
 eyes alone, — no more distinctly, no farther, not other- 
 wise ? Why must we hear sounds with the same ears 
 and the same emotion, touch with the same fingers, 
 perceive varying things with an unvarying organ, be 
 condemned to the same tone of voice, to the recurrence 
 of the same inflections, the same terms, the same 
 words, and be unable to escape, to avoid self, to take 
 refuge in some corner where it will not follow ? 
 Why must we ever keep our own self, dine and sleep 
 with it, be the same man to twenty different women, 
 be necessarily, in the most striking scenes of our life 
 drama, the same unavoidable personage whose lines we 
 know by heart, think the same things, and dream the 
 
 vol. i— - 13 193 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 same dreams ? Oh, the weariness of it ! the torture 
 of it! 
 
 I have longed for the horn of the Tangut brothers, 
 the cap of Fortunatus, the wand of Abaris, the ring of 
 Gyges. I would have given my soul to snatch the 
 magic wand from a fairy's hand, but never have I so 
 earnestly longed for anything so much as to meet on 
 the mountain side, as did Tiresias the wizard, the ser- 
 pents which make you change your sex ; and what I 
 most envy in the monstrous strange gods of India is 
 their perpetual avatars and their innumerable trans- 
 formations. 
 
 I began by desiring to be another man; then, reflect- 
 ing that I could pretty closely foresee, by analogy, what 
 my feelings would be, and thus be deprived of the ex- 
 pected surprise and change, I would have preferred to 
 be a woman. That fancy has always recurred to me 
 when I happened to have a mistress who was not ugly, 
 for an ugly woman is the same as a man to me. In 
 moments of pleasure I would willingly have changed 
 places with my mistress, for it is very annoying not to 
 know exactly the effect you are producing, and to judge 
 of the pleasure others are enjoying merely by that you 
 feel. These and many similar thoughts have caused 
 
 194 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 me often, at most unseasonable times, to look thought- 
 ful and meditative, and thus to be wrongly accused of 
 coldness and infidelity. 
 
 Rosette, who, very fortunately, is ignorant of all 
 this, thinks I am the finest lover on earth ; she mistakes 
 my powerless fury for passionate fury, and seconds as 
 well as she can the caprices of experimentation which 
 occur to me. 
 
 I have done all I could to convince myself that I 
 possess her; I have tried to penetrate into her heart, 
 but I have always stopped at the first step, at her skin 
 or at her lips. Notwithstanding the intimacy of our 
 physical intercourse, I feel deeply that we have nothing 
 in common. Never once has any idea similar to my 
 ideas unfolded its wings in that young and lovely head ; 
 never has that heart, so full of life and passion, whose 
 beating causes that firm, white bosom to heave and fall, 
 beaten with the beating of my heart ; my soul has never 
 been one with her soul ; Cupid, the hawk-winged, has 
 not kissed Psyche's ivory brow. No, — that woman is 
 not my mistress. 
 
 Could you but know all I have done to compel my 
 soul to love as loves my frame ; the fury with which I 
 have glued my lips to hers, drawn my hands through 
 
 195 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 her hair, pressed closely her round, supple waist. Like 
 the Salmacis of antiquity, in love with the young Her- 
 maphrodite, I strove to confound our bodies one with 
 the other. I drank in her breath and the warm tears 
 which the heat of love caused to drop from the over- 
 flowing calyx of her eyes. The closer we pressed each 
 other, the more intense our embraces, the less I loved 
 her. My soul, sitting sadly apart, gazed with pity upon 
 that wretched union to which she was not bidden, or 
 veiled her brow in disgust and wept silently under her 
 mantle. All this may be due to the fact that I do not 
 really love Rosette, worthy of love though she be, and 
 no matter how greatly I desire to do so. 
 
 To rid myself of the notion that I was myself, I 
 imagined utterly strange surroundings in which it was 
 quite improbable I should be, and, unable to cast my 
 individuality to the winds, I endeavoured to take it into 
 scenes so foreign that it would fail to know itself there. 
 My success has been but indifferent ; that devilish Me 
 dogs me; I cannot away with it; I cannot even have 
 it told, as to other bores, that I am out, or that I have 
 gone to the country. 
 
 I have had my mistress when bathing, and played the 
 Triton's part to the best of my ability. Our sea was a 
 
 196 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 huee marble bath. As for the Nereid, what she ex- 
 hibited made the water, transparent as it was, guilty of 
 not being transparent enough for the exquisite beauty 
 of what it concealed. I have possessed her at night, by 
 moonlight, in a gondola and to the sound of music, 
 which is uncommon here, if usual enough in Venice. I 
 have enjoyed her in her carriage, driven at full speed, to 
 the sound of the wheels, the bumps and the shocks, now 
 lighted up by the lamps, now plunged in deepest dark- 
 ness. There is a certain piquancy in this mode, and I 
 advise you to try it ; but I forget, — you are a regular 
 patriarch and do not indulge in such refinements. I 
 have gone to her through the window, having the door- 
 key in my pocket. I have made her come to my 
 house in broad daylight, — in a word, I have com- 
 promised her in such fashion that no one now, save 
 myself, of course, has any doubt of her being my 
 mistress. 
 
 Thanks to all these inventions, which, were I not 
 so young, would seem the resources of a worn-out 
 libertine, Rosette adores me chiefly and beyond all 
 others. She sees in them the fire of a petulant love 
 that cannot be restrained, and which is ever the same 
 whatever the place or time, — the ever-renewed effect of 
 
 197 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 her charms and the triumph of her beauty ; and I would, 
 in truth, she were right ; if she is not, I must do her 
 the justice to say it is neither her fault nor mine. 
 
 The only wrong I do her is that I am myself. 
 Were I to say so to her, she would at once reply that 
 that is precisely my greatest merit in her eyes, which 
 would be more polite than sensible. 
 
 Once — it was in the beginnings of our love affair 
 — I thought I had attained my end ; for one minute I 
 believed I loved — I did love. Oh, my friend, that 
 minute is the only time during which I have really 
 lived, and had it been prolonged to an hour, I should 
 have become a god. We had ridden out together, I on 
 my dear Ferragus, she on a snow-white mare that, with 
 her clean limbs and well-turned neck, looks like a uni- 
 corn. We were proceeding down a great avenue of 
 extraordinarily lofty elms; the warm golden sunshine 
 shone down upon us through the net-work of the leafy 
 screen ; bits of ultramarine gleamed here and there in 
 dappled clouds, great bands of pale-blue ran along the 
 verge of the horizon and, as they met the orange tones 
 of the sunset sky, turned into the palest and tenderest 
 apple-green. The aspect of the heavens was strangely 
 fair ; the breeze wafted to us an indescribably sweet 
 
 198 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 scent of wild flowers. From time to time a bird started 
 up in front of us and flew across the avenue with a 
 chirp. A bell in some hidden village was softly 
 ringing out the Angelus, and its silvery tones, softened 
 by distance, were passing sweet. Our horses walked 
 side by side at so even a gait that neither passed the 
 other. My heart swelled ; I was becoming all soul 
 and forgetting the body. Never had I been so happy. 
 We were both silent, yet never had we so well under- 
 stood each other. We were so close that my leg 
 touched the flank of Rosette's mare. I bent towards 
 her and put my arm round her waist ; she did the 
 same and let her head fall on my shoulder. Our 
 lips met in a kiss chaste and sweet beyond all concep- 
 tion. Our steeds walked on with loose reins. I felt 
 Rosette's arm relax and her back yield more and 
 more. I too was losing strength and nearly fainting. 
 I assure you that just then I did not trouble to know 
 whether I was myself or some one else. 
 
 We rode in this way to the end of the avenue, when 
 the sound of steps made us abruptly resume our former 
 positions. It was acquaintances of ours, also on horse- 
 back, who rode up and spoke to us; I would have shot 
 them, had I had my pistols. 
 
 199 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I kept looking at them with a gloomy, angry air 
 which must have struck them as exceedingly strange. 
 After all, I was wrong to be so angry with them, for 
 they had unwittingly done me the favour of breaking in 
 upon my happiness at the very moment when, thanks to 
 its intensity, it was about to turn to pain or to sink 
 under its own weight. The art of stopping in time is 
 entitled to more respect than it receives. It happens 
 that, being in bed with a woman, you put your arm 
 round her waist. At first it is most voluptuous to feel 
 the gentle warmth of her body, the soft, velvety back, 
 the polished ivory of the hips, and to let the hand close 
 upon the swelling, heaving breast. The fair one falls 
 asleep in that posture, at once charming and sensual ; 
 the back becomes more yielding, the heaving of the 
 bosom diminishes, the breast heaves with the longer and 
 more even respiration of sleep, the muscles become less 
 tense, the head rolls in her hair. Meanwhile the weight 
 on your arm increases, and you begin to perceive that 
 it is not a sylph but a woman whom you are support- 
 ing. Nevertheless, nothing would induce you to with- 
 draw your arm, and that for many reasons : first, 
 because awakening a sleeping woman is rather danger- 
 ous ; one has to be in condition to substitute for the 
 
 200 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 delightful dream she is no doubt dreaming a reality that 
 shall be more delightful still; next, because if you ask 
 her to raise herself sufficiently to enable you to with- 
 draw your arm, you indirectly intimate that she is 
 heavy and a trouble to you, which is not proper ; or 
 you give her to understand that you are weak and 
 fatigued, a most humiliating confession on your part, 
 which will greatly injure you in her mind ; finally, as 
 one has derived pleasure from that position, one fancies 
 that by maintaining it more pleasure will be obtained, 
 wherein one is mistaken. The poor arm is caught 
 under the pressing weight, the circulation stops, the 
 nerves are strained and numbness stings you with its 
 innumerable stings. You become a sort of small Milo 
 of Croton, the mattress and your fair one's back repre- 
 senting fairly enough the two parts of the tree that 
 have closed. At last day comes to free you from tor- 
 ture and you spring from the rack with greater eager- 
 ness than a husband ever exhibits in getting off the 
 nuptial scaffold. 
 
 Such is the history of many a passion, and that of all 
 pleasure. 
 
 However this may be, either because of or in spite 
 of the interruption, never had I experienced such 
 
 20 1 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 sensuous delight ; I really felt myself a different being. 
 Rosette's soul had wholly entered into my body. 
 Mine had left me, and filled her heart as hers filled 
 mine. No doubt they had met in that long equestrian 
 kiss (as Rosette has since called it, which, by the way, 
 annoyed me), and had traversed each other and mingled 
 with each other as completely as two mortal souls can 
 do it on this perishable atom of mud. Assuredly 
 angels must so kiss, and the true Paradise is not in 
 heaven, but on a loved woman's lips. 
 
 In vain have I waited for the recurrence of such a 
 moment, and I have unsuccessfully endeavoured to force 
 a return of it. We have often ridden down the wood- 
 land avenue during fine sunsets; the trees were green 
 as ever, the birds warbled the same songs, but to us the 
 sun was dimmed, the foliage browned, the song of 
 birds harsh and discordant — harmonv had left us. 
 We walked our horses and tried the same kiss. Alas ! 
 our lips merely met, and it was but the ghost of that 
 former touch. The beautiful, sublime, divine kiss, the 
 one and only true kiss I have ever given and received 
 in my life, had flown forever. Since that day I have 
 always returned from that wood with a deep, inexpres- 
 sible sorrow within me. Rosette, gay and light-minded 
 
 202 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 though she usually is, cannot escape the same feeling, 
 and her thoughtfulness expresses itself by a delicate 
 little pout as pretty as her smile. 
 
 Scarce anything but the fumes of wine and the 
 brilliant light of the tapers can then draw me from my 
 melancholy. We both drink like people condemned 
 to death, silently, glass after glass, until we have swal- 
 lowed the necessary dose. Then we take to laugh- 
 ing, and heartily turn into ridicule what we call our 
 sentimentality. We laugh because we cannot weep. 
 Ah ! what shall call up a tear from my dried eyes ? 
 
 How comes it that I had such pleasure on that eve- 
 ning ? It would be hard to say. Yet I was the same 
 man, Rosette the same woman. It was not the first 
 time either of us had ridden out. We had seen the sun 
 set before then, and the sight had not moved us more 
 than a painting one admires in proportion to the splen- 
 dour of the colouring. There are many avenues of elms 
 and chestnut trees in the world, and that particular one 
 was not the first we had traversed. What was it, then, 
 that made us think it supremely charming, that 
 turned the dead leaves into topazes, the green ones 
 into emeralds, that gilded the flying atoms and changed 
 into pearls the many drops of water scattered over the 
 
 203 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 sward, that transformed into so sweet a harmony the 
 squawking of birdlings and the sounds of a bell usually 
 discordant ? The air must have been full of very 
 penetrating poetry, since even our horses seemed to 
 feel it. 
 
 Yet nothing could be simpler or more pastoral : a 
 a few trees, some clouds, five or six bits of marjoram, a 
 woman, and a sunbeam flashing over it all like a golden 
 chevron on a coat of arms. Besides, astonishment 
 and surprise alike had nothing to do with the sensation 
 I experienced. I was thoroughly aware of my identity. 
 I had never come to that spot, but I perfectly recalled 
 the shape of the leaves, and the position of the clouds, 
 the white dove flying athwart the sky in the same 
 direction; the little silver-toned bell, which I heard for 
 the first time, had often sounded in my ears, and its 
 voice was that of an old friend ; without ever having 
 traversed it, I had often ridden down that avenue with 
 princesses mounted on unicorns ; my most voluptuous 
 dreams had wandered there at nightfall, and my desires 
 had exchanged kisses identical with that exchanged by 
 Rosette and me. That kiss was no new thing to me; 
 it was such as I had thought it would be. That was 
 perhaps the one occasion in my life on which I was 
 
 204 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 not disappointed, and on which reality equalled ideality 
 in beauty. If I could come across a woman, a land- 
 scape, an architecture, anything that corresponded as 
 perfectly with my innate desire as did that moment to 
 the moment I had dreamed of, the gods would have 
 nothing for me to envy, and I would gladly give up my 
 stall in Paradise. But I do not believe that a man of 
 flesh and blood could stand for an hour such penetrat- 
 ing voluptuousness ; two such kisses would drain away 
 a whole life and would wholly exhaust body and soul. 
 This would not stop me, for, being unable to in- 
 definitely prolong my life, I care little about death, 
 and would rather die of pleasure than of weariness or 
 old age. 
 
 But the woman does not exist ! Nay, she does 
 exist, and perchance but a thin partition separates us. 
 It may be that we rubbed elbows yesterday or to-day. 
 
 What does Rosette lack of being that woman ? 
 Merely belief on my part. Why, then, must I always 
 have for mistresses women whom I love not? Her 
 neck is polished enough to set off the most perfectly 
 wrought necklaces ; her fingers are tapered enough to 
 do honour to the handsomest and costliest rings ; a ruby 
 would flame with pleasure at gleaming on the tip of her 
 
 205 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 delicate ear \ the girdle of Venus would fit her waist, 
 but Love alone can tie its mother's girdle. 
 
 Whatever merit Rosette possesses is her very own; 
 I have not added any to it. I have not cast over her 
 beauty that veil of perfection that love wraps around 
 the beloved. The veil of Isis is transparent by 
 comparison with that one ; satiety alone can lift the 
 corner of it. 
 
 I do not love Rosette. At least, the love I feel for 
 her, if I do feel any, in no wise resembles my concep- 
 tion of love. But it may be that my conception is a 
 mistaken one. I dare not venture to decide. The 
 fact remains that she renders me insensible to the merit 
 of other women, and that I have desired no one with 
 any persistency since I possess her. If she has to be 
 jealous, it can be of phantasms only, for which she 
 cares very little, although my imagination is her most 
 formidable rival \ but that is something which, clever 
 as she is, she will probably never find out. 
 
 If women only knew! How often is the most 
 steadfast of lovers unfaithful to the most loved of mis- 
 tresses ! I suppose women treat us the same way, and 
 even worse, but like ourselves they say nothing about 
 it. A mistress is like an unavoidable theme which 
 
 206 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 soon disappears under embellishments and fiorituru 
 The kisses showered upon her are often not meant for 
 her ; it is the image of another woman that is kissed in 
 her person, and she more than once profits (if profit it 
 may be called) by the desires that another has excited. 
 How often, poor Rosette, have you been used to in- 
 carnate my fancies and to make your rivals real ; how 
 often have you been the unwitting accomplice of my 
 infidelities ! Could you have believed, when your 
 arms clasped me most closely, when my lips pressed 
 yours most eagerly, that your beauty and your love had 
 nothing to do with these things and that I was thinking 
 of any one but you ? — that those eyes, veiled in amo- 
 rous languor, looked down only that they might not 
 see you and thus destroy the illusion which you merely 
 served to complete, and that, instead of being my mis- 
 tress, you were but an instrument of lustfulness, a 
 , means whereby I deceived a desire that could not be 
 gratified ? 
 
 O divine ones, O ye fair, delicate, diaphanous vir- 
 gins who from the golden backgrounds of the paintings 
 of the old German masters look down with your violet 
 eyes and clasp your lily hands, saints of the stained- 
 glass windows, martyrs of the missals who smile so 
 
 207 
 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPI1 
 
 softly from amid the sweep of the arabesques, and who 
 spring so fair and so fresh from the bosom of the 
 flowers ! — O ye beauteous courtesans lying nude in 
 the mantle of your hair on rose-strewn couches, 
 under great crimson curtains, with your bracelets 
 and necklaces of large pearls, your fans and your 
 mirrors from which the setting sun calls out, from 
 the shadow, a dazzling flash ; brown-skinned daugh- 
 ters of Titian, who exhibit so voluptuously your 
 rounded hips, your firm-fleshed thighs, your polished 
 navels, and your strong and supple backs! deities of 
 antiquity, whose white forms show against the foliage 
 of the garden, — you all form part of my harem ; 
 I have enjoyed each of you in turn. It was your 
 hands I kissed, Saint Ursula, when I kissed Rosette's 
 fair hands ; never did Rosette have so much trouble in 
 dressing her hair again as when I toyed with Muran- 
 esa's dark locks ; I have been with thee, O chaste 
 Diana, more than Acteon, and have not been changed 
 into a stag ; I took the place of thy beautiful Endy- 
 mion. Numerous indeed are the rivals whom one does 
 not mistrust, and on whom one cannot be revenged — 
 and they are not always painted or carved either! 
 
 When you see your lover more tender than usual 
 
 208 
 
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 IADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 women, when he clasps you with extraordinary 
 feeling, when he hides his face in your lap and then 
 looks up at you with wandering glance ; when enjoy- 
 ment merely increases his desire and his kisses still 
 your voice as though he feared to hear it, you may be 
 sure he does not even know you are there; that he is, 
 at that moment, with a chimera which you have made 
 tangible and whose part you are playing. Many a 
 chambermaid has profited by a passion that a queen 
 had inspired ; many a woman, by a love for a goddess ; 
 and vulgar reality has often served as a pedestal for the 
 ideal idol. That is why poets' mistresses are usually 
 slovenly trollops. You may sleep ten years with a 
 woman without ever having seen her, and such is the 
 story of many great geniuses whose ignoble or obscure 
 connections have amazed the world. 
 
 This is the only way in which I have been unfaith- 
 ful to Rosette; it is only for statues and paintings that 
 
 1 have betrayed her, and she had her full share of the 
 betrayal. I have not the least material sin on my 
 conscience; I am, so far as that goes, as pure as the 
 snow on the Jungfrau, and yet, though I am not in love 
 with any one, I would like to be so. I neither seek an 
 opportunity nor would I regret its coming. If it did 
 
 vol. i — 14 209 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 come, I might not turn it to account, for I am firmly 
 convinced that things would be just the same with 
 another woman, and I had rather things were as they 
 are with Rosette ; for, even putting aside the woman, I 
 have at least in her a lovely companion, — very clever 
 and most charmingly corrupt. This fact is one of the 
 most potent factors which keep me back, for in losing 
 the mistress I should be grieved to lose the friend. 
 
 210 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
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 IV 
 
 DO you know that for some five months, yes, 
 fully five months, five eternities, I have beer*, 
 the acknowledged lover of Mistress Rosette I 
 I never thought I could be constant so long, and she 
 did not think she could be either, I dare swear. We 
 are really a pair of plucked pigeons, for it is only turtle- 
 doves that are capable of such affection. How we 
 have cooed and kissed ! how we have elapsed each 
 other ! how we have lived the one for the other ! 
 Nothing could be more touching, and our two dear 
 little hearts might have been put on top of the same 
 time-piece, transpierced by the same spit, with a twist- 
 ing flame above. 
 
 Five months alone together, as it were, for we meet 
 every day and almost every night, and no one admitted. 
 Is it not enough to make one shudder ? Well, to the 
 glory of the incomparable Rosette be it said, I have not 
 been greatly bored, and I have no doubt it has been the 
 pleasantest part of my life. I do not believe it is pos- 
 sible to occupy more regularly and more amusingly a 
 passionless man, and Heaven knows how great is the 
 
 211 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 weariness that follows upon an empty heart. You 
 cannot have an idea of that woman's resources. She 
 drew them first from her mind, then from her heart, 
 for she fairly worships me. How cleverly she turns to 
 account the least spark, and blows it into a conflagration ! 
 How skilfully she directs the least motions of my soul, 
 turns languor to tender dreaming, and brings back, by 
 a thousand devious ways, the mind that was wandering 
 away from her. It is marvellous, and I admire her as 
 one of the greatest living geniuses. 
 
 I came to her very much out of temper, angry and 
 looking for a quarrel. I do- not know how the witch 
 set about it, but in a few minutes she had made me 
 pay her compliments, though I did not want to do so, 
 and kiss her hands and laugh heartily, though I was 
 horribly wrathy. Can you imagine such tyranny ? Yet, 
 clever as she is, our tite-a-tete cannot be long prolonged, 
 and during the past fortnight I have several times done 
 what I had never done before, — opened some of the 
 books on the table and read a few lines during the 
 pauses in the conversation. Rosette noticed it; it 
 aroused in her a fear she found it difficult to conceal, 
 and she caused all the books to be carried away. I own 
 to regretting them, though I dare not venture to ask for 
 
 212 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 their return. The other day — dreadful symptom ! — 
 some one called while we were together, and instead of 
 raging as I used to do at first, I experienced a sort of 
 joy. I was almost amiable ; Rosette was trying to let 
 the talk come to an end, so that the visitor would go 
 away, and I kept it up. When he was gone I hap- 
 pened to say that he was rather clever, and that his com- 
 pany was pleasant. Rosette reminded me that two 
 months ago I had thought it particularly stupid and the 
 greatest bore on earth, to which I could not reply, for it 
 was true I had said it. Yet I was right, in spite of the 
 apparent contradiction, for the first time he had broken 
 in upon' a delightful tete-a-tete, and the second time he 
 dropped into a conversation that was exhausted and lan- 
 guishing (on one side at least), and saved me, for that day, 
 the performance of a rather troublesome love-scene. 
 
 That is our position at present ; it is serious, espe- 
 cially as one of us is still in love and clings desperately 
 to what is left of the other's passion. I am much per- 
 plexed, for although I do not love Rosette I am very 
 fond of her, and would not for worlds give her pain. I 
 want to make her believe as long as possible that I love 
 her. I mean to do this in return for the many hours 
 to which she lent wings, in return for the love she gave 
 
 213 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 in exchange for pleasure. I shall deceive her, but is 
 
 not pleasant deceit preferable to sad truth ? Never 
 
 • 
 
 shall I have the heart to tell her I do not love her. 
 The vain shadow of love on which she feeds seems to 
 her so adorable, so dear ; she clasps that pale spectre 
 with such intoxication of delight that I dare not dis- 
 pel the illusion ; and yet I fear she will end by per- 
 ceiving that it is nothing, after all, but a phantasm. 
 We had a talk this morning which I shall reproduce 
 in its dramatic form, for the sake of greater accuracy. 
 I<: makes me fear that the ties which bind us at present 
 will not do so much longer. 
 
 The scene is Rosette's bed. A sunbeam shines i 
 through the curtains ; it is ten o'clock. Rosette's arm 
 is under my neck, and she does not move, for fear o 
 waking me. At times she leans on her elbow and 
 bends her face above mine, while holding her breath 
 I can see all this through my half-closed eyes, for I 
 have not slept for an hour past. The Malines lac 
 round the neck of Rosette's nightgown is all torn ; th 
 night has been stormy; her hair escapes at random 
 from under her little cap. She is as pretty as it i 
 possible for a woman to be whom one does not lov 
 and whose bed one shares. 
 
 214 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Rosette (seeing that I am awake). Oh, you naughty 
 sleeper ! 
 
 / (yawning). Ha-a-a ! 
 
 Rosette. Don't yawn like that, or I shall not kiss 
 you for a week. 
 
 /. Ouf! 
 
 Rosette. Apparently you do not much care whether 
 I kiss you or not. 
 
 /. Yes, I do. 
 
 Rosette. One would not think so to hear you. All 
 right ; for the next week you may be sure I shall not 
 kiss you once. This is Tuesday, — well, not again, 
 before next Tuesday. 
 
 /. Bah ! 
 
 Rosette. What do you mean by " bah ! " ? 
 
 /. I mean bah ! On my life, you shall kiss me 
 before night. 
 
 Rosette. On your life ! How conceited you are. I 
 have spoiled you, sir. 
 
 /. I shall live. I am not conceited, and you have 
 not spoiled me ; on the contrary. First, I want you 
 to drop the " sir." I know you well enough to be 
 called by my name. 
 
 Rosette. I have spoiled you, d'Albert ! 
 
 215 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 /. That 's right. Now your lips. 
 
 Rosette. No j not till Tuesday next. 
 
 /. Nonsense. Are we going to time our caresses 
 with a calendar; we are too young for that sort of 
 thing. Now your lips, princess mine, or I shall have 
 a crick in the neck. 
 
 Rosette. No, I will not. 
 
 I. Ah ! you want me to force you, my pet. Very 
 well ; forced you shall be. It is possible to do so, 
 although it may not have been done yet. 
 
 Rosette. You are rude. 
 
 /. Pray mark, my beauty, that I honoured you 
 with a " perhaps," which was very nice of me. But 
 we are straying from the point. Bend down your 
 head. Come, come; what is the matter, O favourite 
 sultana mine ? What a grumpy look we have put on ! 
 It is a smile, and not an angry pout I want to kiss. 
 
 Rosette (bending down to kiss me). I cannot 
 smile ; you say such harsh things to me. 
 
 /. I mean to say very tender things. Why should 
 I say harsh ones to you ? 
 
 Rosette. I don't know, but you do. 
 
 /. You mistake meaningless jokes for harshness. 
 
 Rosette. Meaningless ! You call them meaningless ? 
 
 216 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Nothing is meaningless in love. I had rather you 
 beat me than laugh the way you do. 
 
 /. So you would like to see me weep ? 
 
 Rosette. You always go to extremes. I do not 
 want you to weep, but I do want you to talk sense 
 and to drop that sarcastic tone of yours, which does 
 not become you at all. 
 
 /. It is impossible for me to talk sense and not to 
 be sarcastic y so I shall beat you, since that is to your 
 taste. 
 
 Rosette. Go on. 
 
 / (gently patting her on the shoulders). I would 
 rather cut off my own head than spoil that adorable 
 little body of yours and mar with blue bruises the 
 whiteness of your lovely back. However pleasant it 
 may be for a woman to be beaten, you, my goddess, 
 shall not be. 
 
 Rosette. You do not love me any more. 
 
 /. That does not follow very directly from what 
 you have just said. It is about as illogical as if I said, 
 " It is raining, I do not want my umbrella ; " or, " It 
 is cold, open the window." 
 
 Rosette. You do not love me, and you have never 
 loved me. 
 
 217 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 /. Ah ! matters are getting complicated ; " you do 
 not love me, and you have never loved me." That is 
 pretty contradictory, for how can I cease doing some- 
 thing I never began doing ? You see, my queen, that 
 you do not know what you are talking about, and that 
 you are perfectly absurd. 
 
 Rosette. I so dearly wish to be loved by you that 
 I have helped to deceive myself. One believes so 
 easily in what one wishes. You, too, have deceived 
 yourself; you mistook fancy for love, and desire for 
 passion. That sort of thing happens every day. I 
 am not angry with you on that account ; it was not 
 your fault that you were not in love; the fault 
 lies with my scanty charms. I ought to have been 
 lovelier, more playful, more coquettish ; I ought to 
 have striven to rise to your level, O my poet, instead 
 of trying to make you come down to mine. I was 
 afraid of losing you among the clouds, and of your 
 head taking your heart from me. I made of my 
 love a prison for you, and thought that when I gave - 
 myself unreservedly to you, you would keep some 
 particle of that love. 
 
 /. Rosette, move away a little ; your leg burns me ; 
 you are like a live coal. 
 
 218 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Rosette. If I am in your way, I shall get up. You 
 are stony-hearted ; the drops of water wear away the 
 rock, but my tears have no effect on you. (She 
 weeps.) 
 
 /. If you cry like that you will make a bath-tub of 
 the bed, or rather an ocean. Can you swim, Rosette ? 
 
 Rosette. You wretch ! 
 
 /. Good ! I am a wretch now. You flatter me, 
 Rosette ; I have not that honour ; I am a peaceful 
 citizen, alas ! and have not committed the smallest 
 crime; I may have committed a blunder — that of 
 loving you passionately, that is all. Do you insist on 
 my repenting of it? I have loved you — I love you 
 as much as I can. Since I have been your lover I 
 have clung to your footsteps \ I have given you my 
 whole time, my days and my nights. I have not used 
 fine language to you, because I like it in print only, 
 but I have given you many a proof of my affection. I 
 shall say nothing of my scrupulous fidelity — that is a 
 matter of course. Finally I have lost nearly two pounds 
 in weight since you became my mistress. What more 
 do you want ? Here I am in your bed ; I was in it 
 yesterday, I. shall be in it to-morrow. Does one do 
 that with people one does not care for ? I do every- 
 
 219 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 thing you tell me to do. You say to me," Go," and I 
 go ; " Stay," and I stay ; I am the best lover on earth, 
 it seems to me. 
 
 Rosette. That is exactly what I complain of — you 
 are the most perfect lover on earth. 
 
 /. What have you to reproach me with ? 
 
 Rosette. Nothing ; I had rather have something to 
 complain of. 
 
 I. That 's a queer quarrel ! 
 
 Rosette. It is worse. You do not love me. I can- 
 not help it, nor can you. What are we going to do 
 about it ? I would a good deal rather have to forgive 
 you something. I would scold you, you would excuse 
 yourself to the best of your ability, and we would make 
 it up somehow. 
 
 /. All the profit would be for you. The greater the 
 crime, the greater the reparation. 
 
 Rosette. You know very well, sir, that I am not 
 yet reduced to that resource, and that if I only cared 
 to, even though you do not love me and we are 
 quarrelling . . . 
 
 /. Yes ; I confess that it is wholly the result of 
 your clemency ... so do care to ; it would be better 
 than heaping up syllogisms as we are doing. 
 
 220 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Rosette. You want to break off a conversation which 
 embarrasses you ; but, my fine fellow, we shall, if you 
 please, be satisfied with talking. 
 
 /. Not a very costly entertainment. You are 
 wrong, I assure you, for you are as pretty as pretty 
 can be, and I feel towards you . . . 
 
 Rosette. What you can express some other time. 
 
 /. I say, my beauty, you are a veritable Hyrcanian 
 tigress ! Your cruelty this morning is unexampled. 
 Have you thought perchance of turning vestal ? It 
 would be a funny notion. 
 
 Rosette. Why should it be ? There are funnier 
 notions than that, but you may be sure I shall be 
 a vestal to you. Learn, sir, that I give myself to 
 those only who love me or who I think love me. 
 You do not belong to either class. Please let me 
 get up. 
 
 /. If you get up, I shall get up also. You will 
 just give yourself the trouble of going back to bed, 
 that's all. 
 
 Rosette. Let me alone ! 
 
 /. I '11 be hanged if I do. 
 
 Rosette (struggling). You shall let me go ! 
 
 /. I venture, madam, to affirm the contrary. 
 
 221 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Rosette (seeing she is the weaker). Well, I '11 stop, 
 but you hurt my arm so. What do you want of me ? 
 
 /. You know very well. I shall not allow myself 
 to say what I allow myself to do ; I have too much 
 respect for decency. 
 
 Rosette (already unable to defend herself). If you 
 will promise to love me dearly . . . Then I give in. 
 
 /. It is rather late to give in. The enemy has 
 already entered. 
 
 Rosette (throwing her arms around me and half 
 fainting). Unconditionally, then ... I trust to your 
 generosity. 
 
 /. You are right. 
 
 Here, my dear friend, I think it is better to put 
 a line of full stops, for the remainder of the dialogue 
 can scarcely be expressed save by onomatopoeia. 
 
 Since the beginning of this scene, the sunbeam has 
 had time to travel round the room. The suave, pene- 
 trating scent of the limes is wafted in from the garden. 
 The weather is exquisitely beautiful ; the sky as blue 
 as an English girl's eyes. We rise, and, after break- 
 fasting with an excellent appetite, we take a long walk 
 through the fields. The clearness of the air, the 
 
 222 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 beauty of the country, and the sight of that joyous 
 nature fill me with sentimentality and tenderness 
 enough to cause Rosette to confess that, after all, I 
 do have some sort of a heart, just like anybody else. 
 
 Have you ever noticed the secret and irresistible in- 
 fluence exercised upon us, however depraved we may 
 be and however much we may make fun of it, by the 
 stock in trade of the eclogue and of descriptive writ- 
 ing, — the murmur of brooks, the song of birds, fair 
 prospects, the scent of leaves and flowers ? I confess, 
 under the seal of the deepest secrecy, to having quite 
 recently caught myself listening, with the most pro- 
 vincial emotion, to the warbling of a nightingale. It was 
 
 in 's garden ; although it was quite dark, the sky 
 
 was as luminous almost as on a very fine day, so deep 
 and so transparent that man's glance easily reached God. 
 The disappearing folds of the angels' robes seemed to 
 me to flutter on the white windings of the Milky Way. 
 The moon had risen, but a great tree concealed it en- 
 tirely y it filled its dark foliage with countless little 
 luminous spots, and covered it with more spangles than 
 ever were seen on a marchioness's fan. A silence full 
 of soft sounds and stifled sighs was audible through the 
 garden (this appears to be bathos, but it is not my 
 
 223 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 fault); although I saw but' the bluish beams of the 
 moon, I seemed to be surrounded by a host of unknown 
 yet beloved phantoms, and I did not feel alone, though 
 there was no one but myself on the terrace. I neither 
 thought nor dreamed; I was lost in surrounding nature ; 
 I trembled with the leaves, gleamed like the water, 
 shone as the beams, bloomed as the flower; I was as 
 much tree, water, or night-shade as myself. I was one 
 and all of these, and I do not believe it is possible to 
 separate one's self more from self than I was at that 
 moment. Suddenly, as if something extraordinary were 
 going to happen, the leaf on the branch was stilled, the 
 drop of water of the fountain remained suspended in 
 mid-air and fell not ; the silver beam of the moon 
 reached me not ; my heart alone beat so loud that it 
 seemed to fill with sound that great space. It ceased 
 beating, and so deep a silence fell that one could have 
 heard the grass grow and a word uttered six hundred 
 miles away. Then the nightingale, which had probably 
 waited for this moment to begin its song, sent forth 
 from its tiny throat so piercing and so high a note that I 
 heard as much through my breast as with my ears. The 
 sound spread suddenly through the crystal heaven, void 
 of sound, and filled it with a harmonious atmosphere, 
 
 224 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 in which the succeeding notes flew about fluttering 
 their wings. I understood the song as well as if I had 
 the secret of bird speech. That nightingale sang the 
 story of the loves I have never known, and never was 
 story more accurate and true. Not the smallest de- 
 tail, not the least gradation was omitted. It told me 
 what I had not been able to say to myself; it explained 
 what I had failed to understand, gave to my dreams a 
 voice, and brought a reply from the vision hitherto mute. 
 I knew I was beloved, and the most languorously pearly 
 trill told me I would soon be happy. The white arms 
 of my love seemed, in the shower of notes and the trills 
 of the song, to stretch towards me in a moonbeam. 
 She slowly rose before me with the perfume of the 
 heart of a great rose. I shall attempt no description 
 of her beauty ; there are things which words cannot 
 render. How shall one express the inexpressible ; paint 
 that which has neither form nor colour; note a toneless, 
 wordless voice ? Never was my heart so suffused with 
 love. I would have clasped Nature herself to my 
 breast ; I pressed the void in my arms as if they were 
 wound round a maiden's form ; I kissed the air that 
 touched my lips ; I was lost in the emanations of my 
 radiant frame. Ah ! if only Rosette had been there ! 
 
 vol. i — 15 225 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 What splendid nonsense I should have talked to her ! 
 But women never know how to come at the right mo- 
 ment. — The nightingale ceased its song ; the moon, 
 dead sleepy, pulled on its cloud-cap, and I left the gar- 
 den, for I began to feel the chill of night. 
 
 Feeling cold, I naturally thought I should be warmer 
 in Rosette's bed than in mine, and I went off to sleep 
 with her. I let myself in with my pass-key, for every- 
 body in the house, even Rosette herself, was asleep, 
 and I had the satisfaction of noting that she had dozed 
 off over an uncut volume of verse of mine. Her 
 two arms were rounded above her head, her lips half- 
 opened with a smile, one leg stretched out and the other 
 somewhat drawn up, in an attitude full of grace and 
 ease. She looked so well that way that I was mortally 
 sorry not to be more in love with her. 
 
 As I gazed upon her it struck me that I was as stupid 
 as an owl. I had what I had so long desired : a mis- 
 tress as much my own as my horse and my sword, 
 young, pretty, witty, and in love ; unhampered by a 
 strict mother or a pompous father, by an acid-tempered 
 aunt, a swashbuckler of a brother; with that wondrous 
 delight of a husband duly sealed up and nailed down in 
 a handsome oak coffin with a leaden one inside, the 
 
 226 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 whole business topped by a huge dressed stone — which 
 is not to be sneezed at ; for, after all, it is no great plea- 
 sure to be caught in the very height of a voluptuous 
 spasm and to be compelled to complete the sensation 
 on the street after having described an arc of forty or 
 forty-five degrees, according to the floor on which one 
 happens to be. A mistress free as mountain air, and 
 rich enough to indulge in the most exquisite refinement 
 and elegance ; devoid of any notion of morality, and 
 never talking about her virtue v/hile trying a new pos- 
 ture, or of her reputation any more than if she had 
 never had one, knowing no woman intimately and de- 
 spising all her sex as heartily as if she had been a man ; 
 caring very little for platonic theories and saying so, 
 yet sentimental withal, — a woman who, in another 
 sphere, would unquestionably have been the finest 
 courtesan in the world and would have eclipsed the fame 
 of Aspasia and Imperia. 
 
 Now this woman so constituted was mine. I did 
 what I pleased with her; I had the key of her room 
 and the key of her drawers ; I opened her letters ; I 
 had taken away her name and had given her another. 
 She was my propertv, a thing of mine. Her youth, 
 her beauty, her love, all belonged to me, and I used or 
 
 227 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 abused them as I wished. I made her go to bed dur- 
 ing the day and sit up all night, if I so fancied ; and 
 she obeyed quickly, without seeming to make a sacrifice 
 or putting on the look of a victim resigned to her fate. 
 She was attentive, fond, and — amazing to relate — ab- 
 solutely faithful. In other words, if, six months ago, 
 at the time when I mourned over having no mistress, 
 I had been promised, even far off, such bliss, I should 
 have gone crazy with joy and shied my hat at heaven 
 by way of manifesting my gratitude. Well, now that I 
 do have that bliss, it leaves me cold ; I scarcely feel it. 
 I do not feel it, and the situation in which I am in- 
 fluences me so little that I often wonder whether it is 
 different from my former one. I am absolutely certain 
 that, were I to throw Rosette over, in a month, in less 
 than a month perhaps, I should so completely and 
 perfectly have forgotten her that I could not remember 
 whether I had ever known her or not. Would it be 
 the same with her ? I think not. 
 
 So I was turning these things over in my mind, and, 
 moved by a sort of feeling of remorse, I kissed the fair 
 sleeper on the brow with the most chaste and melancholy 
 kiss that ever young fellow bestowed on a young 
 woman as the clock struck midnight. She moved 
 
 228 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 slightly ; the smile on her lips became brighter, but she 
 did not wake. I slowly undressed, and, creeping under 
 the blankets, I stretched out by her side like an adder 
 seeking warmth. The cold touch of my limbs startled 
 her ; she opened her eyes and, without a word, pressed 
 her lips to mine, and so wound herself around me that 
 I was warmed up in a twinkling. The lyrism of the 
 evening turned to prose, but to poetic prose. The 
 night proved to be one of the finest sleepless nights I 
 ever spent — I cannot look for others like it. 
 
 We still have pleasant hours, but they have to be 
 brought about and prepared by some such external cir- 
 cumstance ; while in the beginning of our affair I did 
 not need to work myself up by looking at the moon 
 and listening to a nightingale in order to enjoy all the 
 pleasure which one can have without being actually in 
 love. The threads of our love-warp are not yet 
 * broken, but here and there are knots, and the woof is 
 not by a long way as smooth as of yore. 
 
 Rosette, who is still in love, does her best to guard 
 against these various disadvantages. Unfortunately, 
 there are two things in this world which cannot be 
 controlled : love and weariness. On my part I make 
 superhuman efforts to overcome the sleepiness which 
 
 229 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 gains the upper hand in spite of me, and like the coun- 
 try bumpkins who fall asleep at ten 'o'clock in a town 
 drawing-room, I keep my eyes as wide open as possible 
 and put back the eyelids with my finger. But in vain ; 
 I get into a free and easy marital way which is most 
 disgusting. 
 
 The dear child, having found the bucolic plan useful 
 the other day, took me to her country seat yesterday. 
 
 I might just as well put in here a short description 
 of that seat, which is rather fine ; it will brighten up 
 all these metaphysics, and, besides, the characters need 
 a background, and figures do not stand out of emptiness 
 or that brown, undetermined background with which 
 painters fill in their canvas. 
 
 The approaches are very picturesque. You reach, 
 along a highroad bordered by old trees, a carfax, 
 in the centre of which rises a stone obelisk sur- 
 mounted by a gilt copper ball ; five roads branch out 
 from here; then the ground suddenly sinks and the 
 road plunges into a rather narrow valley, down which 
 flows a streamlet, which is crossed by a single-arch 
 bridge. The road ascends on the opposite bank, on 
 which is situated the village, with its slate-roofed 
 steeple showing amid the thatched roofs and the 
 
 230 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 rounded tops of the apple-trees. The view is not very 
 extensive, being bounded on both sides by the crest of 
 the hill, but it is cheerful and restful. By the bridge 
 are a mill and a tower-like building of red stone ; the 
 almost incessant baying of dogs and a few setters and 
 bandy-legged bassets, warming themselves in the sun 
 before the door, would suffice to indicate that it is the 
 game-keeper's dwelling, even did the buzzards and 
 ferrets nailed to the shutters leave you for a moment 
 uncertain of the fact. From this point begins an 
 avenue of mountain ash whose scarlet berries attract 
 clouds of birds ; as it is not much travelled, there is 
 but a white strip in the centre, the remainder of the 
 road being covered with a short fine moss, while in the 
 double rut made by the carriage-wheels croak and leap 
 little frogs of a chrysoprase green. Farther on one 
 comes to a gateway, the ironwork of which was once 
 painted or gilded, and the sides of which are adorned 
 with artichokes and spikes. Then the road leads on 
 to the mansion, which is still invisible, for it is sunk in 
 greenery like a bird's nest. The road does not hurry 
 you to the mansion, for it turns aside not infrequently 
 to pass by a brook or a fountain, a pretty kiosk or a fair 
 prospect, crossing or re-crossing the river by Chinese 
 
 231 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 or rustic bridges. The unevenness of the surface, and 
 the weirs built for the benefit of the rich make water- 
 falls four to five feet high here and there, and it is 
 most delightful to hear these little falls close by, often 
 without seeing them, owing to the impenetrable screen 
 of willows and elders which border the river bank. 
 The whole of this portion of the park, however, forms 
 the antechamber, as it were, of the other, for a high- 
 road unfortunately traverses the estate and cuts it into 
 two parts ; the inconvenience thus caused having, how- 
 ever, been remedied in an ingenious manner. Two 
 great battlemented walls, filled with barbicans and loop- 
 holes imitating a ruined fortress, rise on either side of 
 the road, and from a tower covered with huge ivy, on 
 the side nearest the mansion, connect with the bastion 
 opposite by means of a regular drawbridge with iron 
 chains, which is lowered every morning. The donjon 
 is entered by a fine Gothic archway, and thence one 
 penetrates the second part of the park, the trees in 
 which, not having been cut down for more than a cen- 
 tury, are extraordinarily high ; their knotty trunks, 
 covered with parasites, are the handsomest and the most 
 remarkable I have ever seen. The foliage of some of 
 them begins near the top only, and spreads out in the 
 
 232 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 form of a canopy \ that of others is like a plume ; at a 
 certain height on other trees the foliage forms a full 
 clump near the stem, and from this point the naked 
 trunk springs upwards like a second tree planted within 
 the first. These trees are of such curiously varied 
 forms that they give the impression of the foreground 
 of a composite landscape or of the wings of a stage 
 scene. Ivy, passing from one to the other and cling- 
 ing close enough to choke them, mingles its dark, 
 heart-shaped foliage with the green leafage and seems to 
 form its shadow. Nothing can be more picturesque. 
 At this point the river widens and forms a small lake, 
 whose shallowness enables one to see, through the trans- 
 parent water, the beautiful aquatic plants which cover 
 the lakebed. They are nymphoeas and lotus, that 
 float idly in the purest crystal, that reflects both the 
 clouds and the weeping willows that bend over the 
 bank. The mansion is on the farther side, and a 
 light skiff, painted apple-green and scarlet, saves one a 
 longish detour to the bridge. 
 
 The mansion itself is a group of buildings erected at 
 different times, with dissimilar gables and innumerable 
 pinnacles. One building is of brick with stone fac- 
 ings \ the main building is of the rustic order, covered 
 
 233 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 with bosses and vermiculated work. A third portion is 
 quite modern ; it has a flat Italian roof with vases, 
 a balustrade of tiles, and a canvas portico in the shape of 
 a tent. The windows are all of different sizes and do 
 not correspond with each other; they are of all shapes; 
 even the trefoil and the pointed arch are to be met with, 
 for the chapel is Gothic. Some parts of the buildings 
 are trellised, after the fashion of Chinese houses, with 
 trellises painted in different colours, on which climb 
 honeysuckle, jessamine, nasturtiums, and Virginia 
 creepers, the tendrils of which enter boldly into the 
 rooms, and seem to hold out a hand as they wish you 
 good-morning. 
 
 In spite of, or rather on account of its irregularity the 
 aspect of the mansion is charming ; it cannot all be 
 taken in at once; the eye may choose, and something 
 new is always turning up. This place, which I did 
 not know, for it is some sixty miles off, took my fancy 
 at once, and I felt greatly obliged to Rosette for having 
 had the excellent idea of selecting such a retreat for 
 our loves. 
 
 We reached it at dusk, and, as we were tired, we 
 hastened, after supping heartily, to our beds, for we in- 
 tended to have a good sleep. 
 
 234 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I was dreaming a lovely dream, full of flowers, scents, 
 and birds, when I felt a warm breath on my brow, and 
 a kiss alight flutteringly on my lips. A dainty smack- 
 ing of lips and a soft moisture on the spot touched 
 gave me reason to believe that I was not dreaming ; I 
 opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was Rosette's 
 fresh white neck as she bent over my bed to kiss me. 
 I put my nrms round her waist and returned her kiss 
 more lovingly than I had done for a long time. 
 
 She pulled up the blind and opened the window, 
 then came back and seated herself on the side of my 
 couch, holding my hand in hers and playing with my 
 rings. She was dressed with the most coquettish sim- 
 plicity. She wore neither stays nor petticoats, but 
 merely and only a long wrapper of milk-white lawn, 
 very full and falling in many folds. Her hair was 
 brushed up and held by a single white rose on the top 
 of her head ; her ivory feet were shod with slippers of 
 brilliant and contrasting embroidery, and were as small 
 as small could be, though still too large, and, without 
 heel-backs like those of Roman women. I regretted, 
 on seeing how attractive she looked, that I was 
 actually her lover, instead of being just on the poinv 
 of becoming so. 
 
 235 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 The dream I was dreaming at the moment that she 
 came to wake me in such pleasant fashion was not 
 far removed from the reality. My room looked out on 
 the lakelet I described a moment ago. A jessamine 
 plant framed in the window and let fall its starry flowers 
 like a silver shower upon my floor ; great foreign 
 flowers swung their blooms under my balcony as if 
 offering me incense ; a suave, indefinable scent, com- 
 posed of many different perfumes, was wafted to my 
 bed, from which I could see the water flash and sparkle 
 as if covered with spangles ; the birds chattered, 
 warbled, chirped, whistled — making a sound as har- 
 monious and confused as the buzzing of a dance. 
 Opposite, on a hill lighted up by the sun, stretched 
 a sward, golden-green, on which fed, herded by a 
 small boy, a number of great oxen scattered here and 
 there. Away up and farther back, I caught sight 
 of large tracts of woods of a darker green, whence 
 arose in spiral wisps the bluish smoke of the charcoal- 
 burners' fires. 
 
 In this whole prospect everything was calm, fresh, 
 and smiling, and wherever I cast my eyes I saw only 
 youth and beauty. My room was hung with chintz, 
 with matting on the floor, vases of blue Japan china, 
 
 236 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 with round paunches and long narrow necks, full of 
 curious flowers, tastefully arranged on stands and on 
 the dark blue marble mantelpiece, the fireplace being 
 itself filled with flowers. Over the doors, panels repre- 
 senting scenes of pastoral life in cheerful colours and 
 delicate drawing ; sofas and divans in every corner — 
 and, finally, a beautiful young woman all in white, 
 whose skin gave a delicate rose flush to the dress, 
 wherever the latter touched the skin. Nothing more 
 effective could possibly be devised for the delight of the 
 soul and the lust of the eye. 
 
 So my idle, satisfied glance passed with equal delight 
 from a magnificent vase adorned with many dragons 
 and mandarins, to Rosette's slipper, and the bit of 
 shoulder that showed under the lawn ; it lighted upon 
 the trembling stars of the jessamine and the long droop- 
 ing branches of the willows on the shore, crossed the 
 lakeand wandered over the hill, then returned to the 
 room to settle on the rose-coloured knots of some shep- 
 herdess's bodice. Through the interstices of the foli- 
 age gleamed the innumerable blue eyes of heaven ; the 
 water murmured quite softly, and I, I allowed all this 
 joy to lap me, plunged in a tranquil, silent ecstasy, 
 with my hand still between Rosette's hands. 
 
 237 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Do what you please, happiness is pink and white; 
 you can scarcely depict it otherwise ; tender tints 
 belong to it by right. Its palette holds but water-green, 
 heaven's blue, and straw-colour ; its pictures are all 
 painted on a light background like those of Chinese 
 painters. With flowers, light, and perfume, with a soft, 
 silky skin touching yours, a veiled harmony coming 
 one knows not whence, one is perfectly happy ; nor is 
 it possible to be happy otherwise. Even I, who abhor 
 the commonplace and dream only of strange adven- 
 tures, violent passions, mad ecstasies, startling and 
 perilous situations, even I have to be stupidly happy 
 in that way, for do what I may, I can not find 
 another. 
 
 Pray note that none of these thoughts occurred to 
 me at the time ; they came afterwards, while writing 
 to you. At that particular moment I was wholly 
 wrapped up in enjoyment, — the only occupation which 
 becomes a sensible man. 
 
 There is no need to describe the life we lead here ; 
 you can easily guess it. We walk in the great woods, 
 pick violets and strawberries, exchange kisses and little 
 blue flowers, lunch on the grass, read, and forget our 
 books under the trees ; we go out on the water, and 
 
 238 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 the end "of a scarf or a white hand trails in the stream ; 
 our long-drawn songs and laughter are repeated by the 
 echoes on the banks — our life, in short, is the most 
 Arcadian that can be imagined. 
 
 Rosette overwhelms me with caresses and attentions ; 
 cooing more than dove in May, she twines around and 
 enfolds me; she wants me to have no other atmosphere 
 than her breath, no other horizon than her eyes ; she 
 blockades me most carefully, and nothing enters or 
 goes out without her leave ; she has erected a little 
 guard-room next my heart, where she keeps watch 
 and ward night and day. She says the most charm- 
 ing things to me ; she writes me very loving madri- 
 gals, sits on my knee, and behaves towards me exactly 
 as a humble slave towards her lord and master ; which 
 rather suits me, for I like little submissive ways, 
 and I have a leaning towards oriental despotism. 
 She does not take the least step without asking my 
 advice, and she appears to have completely given up her 
 own fancy and her own will ; she seeks to guess and 
 forestall my thoughts ; she bores me with her tender- 
 ness, her complaisance; she is so perfect that I want 
 to throw her out of the window. How 7 the devil can I 
 give up so adorable a woman without seeming to be a 
 
 239 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 monster ? It would be enough to discredit me forever 
 in the world of love. 
 
 I do so wish I could catch her tripping, put her in 
 the wrong. I impatiently await an opportunity to 
 quarrel with her, but the wretch will take good care 
 it does not arise. When I speak slowly and harshly to 
 her, in order to bring about a row, she answers so 
 softly, with so silvery a voice, eyes so full of tears, 
 so sadly and so lovingly that I feel I am worse than a 
 tiger, or at least than a crocodile, and beg her forgive- 
 ness I must, though I rage inwardly. 
 
 She is literally killing me with love, she tortures me, 
 she gives daily an additional twist to the thumbscrews. 
 She probably intends that I shall tell her I hate her, 
 that she bores me to death, and that, if she does not 
 leave me alone, I shall slash her face with my riding- 
 whip. By Jove ! she will succeed, and, the devil take 
 me, it will not be long before she does, either, if she 
 goes on being as charming as now. 
 
 In spite of all this fair outward seeming, Rosette is 
 as sick of me as I am sick of her ; but as she has in- 
 dulged in the most marked follies on my account, she 
 does not want to be held responsible by the worthy 
 corporation of amorous women for the breaking-off 
 
 240 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 of our affair. Every great passion is of course to be 
 eternal, and it is very convenient to enjoy the benefit 
 of this eternity without its disadvantages. Rosette 
 reasons in this way : " This young man cares now very 
 little indeed for me, but as he is rather artless and 
 good-natured, he dares not show it openly, and does not 
 know which way to turn. It is plain that I bore him, 
 but he will die in harness rather than make up his mind 
 to leave me. Being a bit of a poet, his head is full of 
 fine phrases about love and passion, and he believes 
 himself conscientiously compelled to play the part of a 
 Tristan or an Amadis. Now, as there is nothing on 
 earth more unbearable than the caresses of a person 
 whom one is beginning to cease loving (and with a 
 woman that means hating her violently), I shall lavish 
 caresses on him until he is sick of them, and he either 
 will have to send me to the devil, or take to loving me 
 again as at the first, which he will be mighty careful 
 not to do." 
 
 Nothing could be better devised. It is so satisfying 
 to play the part of betrayed Ariadne. You are pitied 
 and admired ; there is nothing bad enough for the 
 wretch who has been so brutal as to abandon such 
 an adorable creature ; you put on an air of resignation 
 
 vol. i — 1 6 241 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 and grief, lean your chin on your hand and your elbow 
 on your knee, so as to show off the pretty blue vein: 
 of the wrist ; you avoid mentioning the ingrate'i 
 name, but you make side allusions to it, and simul- 
 taneously utter little sighs admirably modulated. 
 
 To abandon so good, so beautiful, so loving i 
 woman, one who has made such sacrifices for you, 
 against whom not a word can be said, a chosen vessel 
 a pearl of love, a spotless mirror, a drop of milk, 2 
 white rose, an ideal essence for the perfuming of life : 
 a woman who ought to be worshipped on bended knee, 
 and who, after her death, ought to be cut up into little 
 pieces for use as relics, — to abandon such a woman, 
 shamefully, fraudulently, wickedly ! — why, a pirate 
 would do no worse ! To give her her death-blow, 
 for she is sure to die of it ! A man must have a heart 
 of stone to behave in such a manner. 
 
 O men, men ! 
 
 Thus do I speak to myself, but perhaps I am wrong. 
 Although women are naturally born actresses, I can 
 scarcely believe they are quite as much actresses as that 
 would imply, and it may be that all Rosette's demonstra- 
 tions are but the true expression of her feelings for me. 
 But no matter what the truth may be, the continuation 
 
 242 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 of our solitary mode of life has become impossible, and 
 the fair lady of the castle has at last sent invitations to 
 her acquaintances in the neighbourhood. We are busy 
 preparing to receive these worthy country bumpkins, 
 male and female. Farewell, my friend. 
 
 243 
 
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 V 
 
 I WAS wrong ; my wicked heart, incapable of 
 feeling love, put forth that explanation to justify 
 its ridding itself of a burden of gratitude it refuses 
 to bear; I had joyfully seized upon that notion by way 
 of self-excuse; I clung to it, but it is utterly baseless. 
 Rosette was not playing a part, and never was a woman 
 truer than she is. Well, I am almost angry with her 
 because of the sincerity of her love, which forms one 
 bond the more between us, and makes it harder still and 
 less excusable to break with her. I would rather have 
 her false and fickle. Curious state of thinrs. is it not ? 
 You want to leave, but you stay ; you would like to say, 
 " I hate you ; " and what you do say is, " I love you." 
 The past urges you on, and prevents your staying or 
 turning back. You are faithful very regretfully. A 
 nameless sense of shame prevents your giving yourself 
 wholly to other acquaintances, and makes you com- 
 promise with yourself. You give the one all you can 
 decently rob the other of; the chances, the opportu- 
 nities of meeting, which came so easily before, are now 
 not easy to find ; you begin to recollect that you have 
 
 244 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 important matters to attend to. Such a situation, full 
 of trouble as it is, nevertheless is not as painful as that 
 in which I find myself. It is easier to break away 
 when it is a new love that calls on you to be off* with 
 the old. Hope smiles gently at you from the threshold 
 of the home that holds your love. A fairer and more 
 rosy-hued, white-winged illusion hovers over the scarce- 
 closed tomb of its sister that has just died ; a new 
 flower of finer bloom and more exquisite scent, has 
 suddenly sprung up amid the withered calyxes of the 
 faded bouquet ; fair azure prospects open out before 
 you; avenues of discreet and dewy shrubbery are pro- 
 longed to the very horizon, — gardens with ghostly 
 white statues or a bench against an ivy-covered wall ; 
 lawns diapered with daisies ; narrow balconies on which 
 one leans to gaze at the moon ; shadows broken by faint 
 glimmerings of light, — or drawing-rooms into which 
 the light of day enters, but dimmed by heavy draperies; 
 in a word, the darkness and the solitude that timid love 
 seeks. It is like a renewal of one's youth. And, be- 
 sides, there is the change of habits, the difference of 
 scene and of people. One feels a sort of remorse, no 
 doubt, but desire flutters and murmurs around one, as 
 bees in springtime, and prevents its voice being heard. 
 
 245 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 The void in the heart is rilled ; remembrances are 
 effaced by new impressions. 
 
 But with me the case is wholly different. I am not 
 in love with any one, and I wish to break with Rosette 
 more because I am weary of and bored by myself than 
 because I am tired of her. My old fancies, which 
 had been partially stilled, have re-awakened more mad 
 than before. As then, so now am I tormented by the 
 desire to have a mistress, and now, as then, even when 
 in Rosette's arms, I doubt whether I have ever had 
 one. Again I see the fair lady at her window, in her 
 Louis XIII park, and the huntress, on her white horse, 
 gallops down the forest path. My ideal beauty smiles 
 at me from her cloud-hammock ; I seem to recognise 
 her voice in the song of birds and the soughing of the 
 leaves ; I seem to hear on all sides voices calling to 
 me, and to feel the daughters of the air brush my cheek 
 with the fringe of their invisible scarfs. As in the 
 days of my troubles of mind, I fancy that if I were to 
 post away at once and go very fast, very far, some- 
 where or another, I should reach some place w T here 
 things are going on that concern me, and where my 
 fate is being settled. I feel that I am impatiently ex- 
 pected in some corner of this earth, — which*, I do not 
 
 246 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 know. A suffering soul calls passionately to mine 
 and dreams of me, though it cannot come to me ; 
 hence my anxiety and my restlessness. I am violently 
 dragged from my place. My nature is not of those to 
 which others tend, a fixed star around which other 
 luminaries circle ; I have to wander through the spaces 
 of heaven like an ill-regulated meteor until I meet the 
 planet whose satellite I am to be, the Saturn to whom 
 I am to give my ring. Oh ! when will that union take 
 place ? Until it does I can look for no rest, no stay, 
 and I shall be like the quivering magnet of a compass 
 that is seeking the north. 
 
 I have been caught by the wing in this treacherous 
 lime. I thought to lose a feather or two at most, 
 and to fly away whenever it seemed good to me, but it 
 is most difficult to do so. I am caught in an imper- 
 ceptible net more difficult to break than that Vulcan 
 forged, and the meshes are so fine I cannot escape 
 through them. Aside from that, it is a large net and I 
 can move about in it with apparent freedom ; it is 
 scarcely noticeable unless I try to break through it ; 
 then it resists and becomes as solid as a wall of brass. 
 
 The time I have lost, O ideal mine ! without 
 making the least effort to turn you into a reality ! 
 
 247 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 How shamefully have I yielded to that pleasure of a . 
 night, and how little do I deserve to meet you ! 
 
 Sometimes I think of forming new ties, but I have 
 no one in mind. Generally I promise myself that if 
 I succeed in breaking away I shall never again assume 
 such bonds, yet there is nothing to justify such a re- 
 solve ; this whole affair has been apparently a very 
 happy one, and I have no reason whatever to complain 
 of Rosette. She has ever been kind to me and has 
 behaved admirably well ; she has been a model of 
 faithfulness to me and has not even given cause for 
 suspicion ; the most alert and keenest jealousy would 
 have had nothing to charge her with and would forci- 
 bly have been lulled to sleep. A jealous man could 
 have been jealous of the past alone ; it is true he 
 would have been amply justified in that case, but that 
 sort of jealousy is happily rare, and the present suf- 
 fices without going back to dig in the ruins of 
 former loves so that one may extract from them vials 
 of poison and cups of bitterness. What woman would 
 ever be loved if one thought of all that ? You know 
 in a vague way that a woman has had several lovers 
 before you, but you say to yourself — so full of twists 
 and turns is man's pride — that you are the first she 
 
 248 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 has truly loved, and that an unhappy chain of circum- 
 stances alone bound her to people unworthy of her, 
 or else that it was the vague desire of a heart seeking 
 to satisfy itself, and which changed from one to the 
 other because it had not yet met the right man. 
 
 It may be that one can really love a virgin only — 
 virgin in body and soul — a frail bud as yet caressed 
 by no zephyr and into whose closed bosom has fallen 
 neither the raindrop nor the dewdrop, a chaste flower 
 that exhibits its fair whiteness to you alone, a glorious 
 silver-urned lily which has slaked no desires, on which 
 your sun alone has shone, which has bent to your 
 breath only, which has been watered by no hand but 
 yours. Bitter and shameful it is to think that one is 
 kissing away another's kisses ; that there is perhaps 
 not a single spot on that brow, those lips, that throat, 
 those shoulders, on the whole of that body which is 
 now yours, which has not been reddened and branded 
 by strange lips ; that the divine murmurs heard when 
 speech fails have already sounded in other ears ; 
 that the senses so deeply stirred have not learned 
 ecstasy and delirious delight from you, and that deep 
 down yonder, away in one of those recesses of the soul 
 into which one never looks, there watches an inexo- 
 
 249, 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 rable remembrance that compares the former pleasures 
 with the present ones. 
 
 Although my natural indolence leads me to prefer 
 highroads to untrodden paths and the public trough to 
 the mountain springs, I must absolutely love some 
 maiden as pure as snow, as trembling as a sensitive 
 plant, who can only blush and look down. Perhaps 
 within those clear depths within which no one has yet 
 plunged shall I find a pearl of the first water, a worthy 
 pendant to that of Cleogatra ; but to do that I should 
 have to break with Rosette, for it is not likely to be 
 with her that I shall satisfy that desire ; and indeed I 
 do not feel that I have the strength to do so. 
 
 Then I may as well confess that I have a hidden, 
 shameful motive which dares not manifest itself openly, 
 but which I must nevertheless tell you of, since I have 
 promised to conceal nothing from you ; and a con- 
 fession, to have any merit, must be complete. Now 
 this motive has much to do with my uncertainty. If 
 I break with Rosette, some time will necessarily elapse 
 before her place is filled, easy-mannered as might be 
 the women from among whom I would select her 
 successor, and I have acquired with her a habit of 
 pleasure. It is true that one may have recourse to 
 
 250 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 courtesans. I rather liked them formerly, and did not 
 hesitate to make use of them under analogous circum- 
 stances, but now they disgust me horribly and nause- 
 ate me. They are not to be thought of, and I am so 
 softened by voluptuousness, the poison has so thor- 
 oughly struck in, that I cannot bear the thought of 
 being even a month or two without a mistress. Selfish- 
 ness, of course, and of the dirtiest, but I believe that 
 if the most virtuous of men chose to be frank they 
 would have something very similar to confess. 
 
 That is the tie which most strongly binds me, and 
 but for this fact Rosette and I would long since have 
 hopelessly quarrelled. Then, if the truth must be 
 told, courting a woman is such a mortal bore that I 
 do not feel like undertaking it. To set once more 
 about repeating all the lovely nonsense I have already 
 talked so often, to play again at the worshipping busi- 
 ness, to write notes and answer others, to see fair ones 
 home, six miles off, at night, to freeze my feet and catch 
 cold at windows, while watching the shadow of the 
 beloved ; to calculate on a sofa how many garments 
 separate you from your goddess ; to carry bouquets and 
 to frequent ball-rooms merely to get to the very point 
 I have reached — why, it is not worth the pains ! As 
 
 251 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 well stick to my rut. What is the good of getting out 
 of it to get into another exactly similar, after much 
 work and trouble ? If I were in love there would be 
 no trouble about it at all, and the whole business would 
 strike me as delightful, but I am not in love, much as 
 I wish to be ; for, after all, love is the one thing in this 
 world, and if pleasure, which is but the shadow of love, 
 attracts us so greatly, what must the reality be ? In 
 what state of ineffable ecstasy, in what region of pure 
 delight must not find themselves those whose hearts 
 he has pierced with one of his golden-barbed arrows, 
 and who burn with the sweet flame of mutual love ! 
 
 By Rosette's side I experience the flat calm and the 
 sort of lazy comfort which is derived from the gratifi- 
 cation of our senses, but nothing more. And that is 
 not enough. That voluptuous numbness not infre- 
 quently turns into a torpor, and the calm into weari- 
 ness ; then I fall into objectless distraction and strangely 
 savourless reveries which fatigue and wear me out. I 
 must somehow or another get out of this state of 
 things. 
 
 I should certainly be much happier than I am, I 
 should bore others less and be less bored myself, if it 
 were possible for me to be like some of my friends 
 
 252 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 who passionately kiss an old glove, who are delighted 
 with a pressure of the hand, who would not exchange 
 for a sultana's jewels a few wretched flow T ers half 
 withered by the heat of the ball-room, who weep over 
 and sew in their shirt, over the heart, a note so poorly 
 written and so stupid that it might well have been 
 copied from the " Complete Letter Writer," who 
 adore women with large feet and give as an excuse 
 that they are high-souled ; or if I could follow, trem- 
 bling with emotion, a disappearing dress, wait for a 
 door to open and let pass in a flood of light a 
 beloved fair form ; if a word breathed low made me 
 change colour; if I had the strength of mind to give 
 up dinner in order to be sooner at the try sting-place ; 
 if I were capable of stabbing a rival or fighting a duel 
 with a husband ; if by a special favour of heaven, I 
 could think ugly women clever, and ugly and stupid 
 ones kind-hearted ; if I could make up my mind to 
 dance the minuet or listen to the sonatas played by 
 young ladies on the harp or the piano ; if my powers 
 were equal to hombre and reversis^ — in a word, if I 
 were a man, and not a poet. 
 
 Of women I have never asked but one thing — 
 beauty; I can easily dispense with cleverness and soul- 
 
 253 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 fulness in their case. A beautiful woman is always 
 a clever woman to me ; she is clever enough to be 
 beautiful, and I know of no cleverness that matches 
 that one. It takes many and many a brilliant remark 
 and much sparkling wit to equal the flash of a beauti- 
 ful glance. I prefer a pretty mouth to a witticism, 
 handsome shoulders to any one virtue, even a divine 
 one ; I would exchange fifty souls for a pretty foot, 
 and all poetry and all poets for the hand of Joan of 
 Aragon or the forehead of the Madonna di Foligno. 
 Above all things I adore beauty of form ; to me 
 beauty is the Deity become visible, it is tangible happi- 
 ness, it is heaven on earth. I am carried away beyond 
 the power of words by the curve of certain lines, 
 the delicacy of a lip, the shape of an eyelid, a bending 
 of the head or the long oval of a face, and I remain 
 under the spell for hours. 
 
 Beauty, the only thing that cannot be acquired, 
 never to be had by those who have it not at first, 
 fragile and fleeting flower that grows without having 
 been sown, sheer gift of heaven, Beauty, the most 
 dazzling diadem with which chance can crown a brow, 
 thou art wondrous and precious, like everything beyond 
 man's reach, like the azure of the firmament, the gold 
 
 254 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 of the star, the perfume of seraph's lilies. A footstool 
 may be exchanged for a throne, the world itself may 
 be conquered — many have done it, but who can help 
 kneeling before thee, pure incarnation of the Divine 
 thought ? 
 
 I ask for beauty alone, it is true, but I must have it 
 in such perfection that I shall probably never come 
 across it. I have undoubtedly seen here and there, in 
 a few women, admirable parts in a mediocre whole, and 
 I have loved them for what there was of choice in them, 
 eliminating the remainder ; but it is rather painful and 
 grievous work to thus suppress one half of one's mis- 
 tress, and to mentally cut off whatever in her is ugly or 
 common by keeping one's eyes fixed on what she 
 happens to have beautiful. Beauty is harmony, and 
 a uniformly ugly person is often less unpleasant to 
 look at than a woman of unequal beauty. Nothing 
 worries me so much as an unfinished masterpiece or 
 an imperfect beauty — a spot of oil shocks us less on 
 coarse cloth than on a rich stuff". 
 
 Rosette is not bad ; she may pass for beautiful, but 
 she is far from realising what I dream ; she is a statue 
 several parts of which are finished; the others have 
 not been sufficiently freed from the matrix ; some parts 
 
 255 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 are brought out with much delicacy and charm, others 
 in a coarser and less careful way. To vulgar eyes the 
 statue appears to be thoroughly finished and complete 
 in beauty, but a more attentive observer soon discovers 
 places where the workmanship is not clean enough, and 
 contours which, if they are to attain their proper per- 
 fection, require that the workman's nail be passed and 
 repassed upon them many a time — love has to polish 
 this statue and finish it, which is equivalent to saying 
 that I shall not be the one to do the task. 
 
 Mark, I do not circumscribe beauty within certain 
 curves of lines merely. The port, the gesture, the 
 gait, breath, colour, sound, perfume, all that is life 
 enters, in my opinion, into the composition of beauty ;, 
 all that is scented, all that sings, all that beams, is 
 beauty's by right. I love rich brocades, costly stuffs 
 with full and heavy folds ; great flowers and scent- 
 boxes ; the limpidity of running waters and the gleam 
 and shimmer of handsome weapons ; blood horses and 
 great white dogs like those seen in the paintings of 
 Paolo Veronese. In this respect I am a regular pagan 
 and I do not worship misshapen gods, although at 
 bottom I am not exactly irreligious, as it is called ; but 
 in point of fact there is not a worse Christian than 
 
 256 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I. I cannot understand the mortification of the flesh 
 which is the very essence of Christianity ; to me, strik- 
 ing at God's work is sacrilege, and I cannot believe 
 that flesh is evil since He created it with His own 
 hands and in His own image. I do not much like 
 those long close gowns of dark stuff from which 
 emerges nothing but a head and a couple of hands, 
 and the paintings in which all is lost in shadow save 
 a brow that shines out. I want sunshine everywhere, 
 as much light and as little shadow as possible, bright 
 colours, undulating lines, a proud nudity w T ell displayed, 
 and the flesh not concealing the fact of its existence, 
 since, just as much as the soul, it is an eternal hymn 
 of praise to God. 
 
 I can quite understand the mad enthusiasm of the 
 Greeks for beauty, and I do not myself see anything 
 absurd in the law which compelled judges to hear the 
 pleadings of advocates in a dark place only, lest their 
 good looks and their graceful gestures and attitudes 
 should sway the court. 
 
 I would not buy anything from an ugly saleswoman, 
 and I give alms more willingly to beggars whose rags 
 and emaciation are picturesque. There is a little fever- 
 stricken Italian, green as a lime, with big black-and- 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 17 257 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 white eyes that seem to fill his face, and looking as if 
 he were an unframed Murillo or Spagnoletto which a 
 dealer has stuck up against a post — he always gets a 
 couple of sous more than the others. Never would I 
 strike a handsome horse or dog, and I would not have 
 a friend or a servant of an unprepossessing appearance. 
 Ugly things and ugly people are a torture to me. Ar- 
 chitecture in bad taste, badly designed furniture, pre- 
 vent my enjoying myself in a house, comfortable and 
 attractive though it may be in other respects. The 
 best of wine seems to me almost inferior in a mis- 
 shapen glass, and I own I should prefer the most Spar- 
 tan of broths served in Palissy enamel to the finest 
 game on common earthenware. Externals have always 
 had great influence upon me ; hence I avoid the com- 
 pany of old men. Their wrinkles and deformities 
 sadden and affect me unpleasantly, — though some 
 of them have a beauty of their own, — and my pity 
 for them is largely made up of disgust. Of all ruins in 
 this world, the saddest to behold is assuredly the ruin 
 of man. 
 
 Were I a painter (and I have always regretted that 
 I am not), none but goddesses, nymphs, madonnas, 
 cherubs, and cupids should have place on my canvas. 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 It seems to me that it is a crime of lese-painting to de- 
 vote one's self to painting portraits, save those of beau- 
 tiful women ; and far from desiring to multiply ugly or 
 vile faces, insignificant or vulgar heads, 1 would rather 
 have the originals lose them. I could praise Caligula's 
 ferocity, had he exercised it in this way. 
 
 The only thing on earth I have ever wished for 
 somewhat continuously is to be handsome. By that I 
 mean handsome as Paris or Apollo. Manly beauty 
 does not mean simply that a man is not deformed, has 
 nearly regular features, — nose in the middle of the 
 face, neither flat nor hooked, eyes neither red nor 
 bleary, a mouth of proper size. If that were manly 
 beauty, then I possess it, but I consider myself as far 
 removed from my ideal of virile beauty as if I were 
 one of those figures which strike the hour on church 
 clocks ; if I had hummocks for shoulders, bandy legs 
 like a basset's, a nose and mouth like a monkey's, I 
 should approach as nearly to it as I do now. Many a 
 time have I looked at myself for hours at a stretch, in 
 a mirror, with unimaginable fixedness and attention, to 
 see whether my face had improved at all. I expect 
 the lines to shift or to straighten or to curve more 
 delicately and accurately, mine eyes to light up and to 
 
 259 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 be more brilliantly humid, the deep depression between 
 my brow and my nose to fill up, my profile to thus 
 assume the simplicity and repose of the Greek profile ; 
 and I am always greatly surprised that nothing of all 
 this happens. I go on hoping that some spring or 
 another I shall shed this old outward man of mine as a 
 serpent sheds its old skin. To think that I shall never 
 be handsome, though it would take so little to make 
 me so ! Why, the half, the hundredth, the thousandth 
 part of a line more or less here or there, less flesh on 
 this bone, more on that — a painter or a sculptor would 
 have managed it in half an hour. What could it mat- 
 ter to the atoms of which I am composed whether they 
 crystallised in one fashion or another? What mat- 
 tered it to this contour to swell out here or to sink in 
 there? What necessity was there that I should be 
 thus, and not otherwise ? Upon my word, if I had my 
 hand on Chance's throat I think I should strangle her. 
 Because a wretched atom of something or other took a 
 fancy to falling I know not where, and to stupidly turn 
 into the awkward figure that I am, I am doomed to 
 eternal misery. Is not that the most amazingly stupid 
 and wicked thing on earth ? Why is it that my soul, 
 intensely though it longs to do so, cannot drop the 
 
 260 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 pitiful cadaver it keeps going, and vivify instead one of 
 those statues whose exquisite beauty attracts and de- 
 lights it ? Did I but know the formula of the trans- 
 migration of souls, there are two or three persons 
 whom it would give me infinite pleasure to murder. 
 I have always felt that, in order to do what I want to 
 do (though I do not know what it is), I need very 
 remarkable and perfect beauty, and I fancy that, did I 
 possess it, my life, now such a mass of complications 
 and annoyances, would have flowed on smoothly and 
 peacefully. 
 
 There are so many beautiful faces in paintings — 
 why is not one of them mine ? There are so many 
 lovely heads disappearing under the dust and grime of 
 time in old galleries — would it not be better for them 
 to leave their frames and show radiantly upon my 
 shoulders ? Would Raphael's reputation greatly suffer 
 if one of the angels whom he has set swarming in the 
 ether of his paintings, were to lend me his face for 
 thirty years ? There are so many of the finest parts 
 of his frescoes which have scaled off" and fallen through 
 age. No one would miss what I got. What are all 
 those silent beauties, on whom the common herd of 
 men scarcely casts a passing glance, doing on those 
 
 261 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 walls ? And why is God, or Chance, not clever enough 
 to do what a man manages to do with a few hairs at 
 the end of a stick and a few bits of different-coloured 
 paste thinned out on a piece of board ? 
 
 The first feeling I experience in presence of one 
 of those wondrous heads whose glance, the painter's 
 work, seems to plunge through you into the infinite, 
 is emotion and an admiration not wholly free from 
 terror. The tears rise to my eyes, my heart beats 
 loud. Then, when I have familiarized myself some- 
 what with the face, and have penetrated more deeply 
 the secret of its beauty, I silently compare it with my- 
 self; jealousy writhes within my soul more actively 
 than viper writhes, and I have the greatest difficulty in 
 refraining from springing at the painting and tearing it 
 to pieces. 
 
 To be beautiful, handsome, means that you possess 
 a power which makes all smile upon and welcome you ; 
 that everybody is impressed in your favour and inclined 
 to be of your opinion ; that you have only to pass 
 through a street or to show yourself at a balcony to 
 make friends and to win mistresses from among those 
 who look upon you. What a splendid, what a magni- 
 ficent gift is that which spares you the need to be 
 
 262 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 amiable in order to be loved, which relieves you of 
 the need of being clever and ready to serve, which 
 you must be if ugly, and enables you to dispense 
 with the innumerable moral qualities which you must 
 possess in order to make up for the lack of personal 
 beauty. 
 
 What more could a man desire who should unite the 
 highest beauty to the greatest physical strength, who 
 with the limbs and features of Antinoiis enjoyed the 
 vigour of Hercules ? I am sure that with these two 
 gifts and the soul I possess I should be ruler of the 
 world in less than three months. 
 
 There is one other gift I have yearned for almost as 
 much as for beauty and strength, — the power of pass- 
 ing from one place to another with the speed of thought. 
 Were I fair as the angels, strong as a tiger, swift as an 
 eagle, I would think the world not as badly put together 
 as I do at present. Beauty of face to seduce and fas- 
 cinate my prey, wings with which to swoop down upon 
 it, and talons with which to rend it — as long as I lack 
 these, I shall be unhappy. 
 
 My every passion, my every taste has been but a 
 disguise assumed by these three desires. I have loved 
 arms, horses, and women : arms, to make up for the 
 
 263 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 vigour I lack ; horses, to bear me along as on wings ; 
 women, to possess in some one at least the beauty which 
 I have not. I sought by preference the most ingen- 
 iously murderous weapons, those making incurable 
 wounds. I have never had occasion to use a creese or 
 a yataghan ; nevertheless, I like to have them about 
 me; I draw them from the sheath with an indescrib- 
 able feeling of strength and security ; I practise very 
 energetically with them, and if I happen, at such a time, 
 to catch the reflection of my face in a mirror, I am 
 amazed at its ferocious expression. As for horses, I 
 ride them so hard that if they do not founder under 
 me, I want to know the reason why. If I had not 
 given up riding Ferragus, he would be dead long ago, 
 which would be a pity, for he is a fine horse. What 
 Arab steed can speed as fast as my desires ? In women, 
 I have cared for the outward form only, and as, up till 
 now, those I have seen are far from coming up to my 
 ideal of beauty, I have gone back to statues and pictures 
 — a pretty poor resource, after all, when one is as hot- 
 blooded as I am. There is, however, something noble 
 and fine in loving a statue ; such love is quite disinter- 
 ested, and fears neither the satiety nor the disgust of vic- 
 tory, since the repetition of the story of Pygmalion is 
 
 264 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 not in reason to be expected. The impossible has 
 always charmed me. 
 
 Is it not strange that I, who am still in the bloom of 
 my youth, who, far from having gone to excess in 
 anything, have not made use of the simplest things even, 
 should have reached a state of such weary disillusion- 
 ment that I cannot be stirred save by what is extraor- 
 dinary or difficult ? That satiety should follow pleasure 
 is a natural and intelligible law. Nothing is easier to 
 understand than that a man who has eaten abundantly 
 of every dish at a feast should not be hungry, and should 
 endeavour to excite his fatigued appetite with hot con- 
 diments or heating wines ; but that a man who has 
 barely sat down to table, and who has scarcely touched 
 the first course or two, should at once experience that 
 disdainful disgust, be unable to touch, without feeling 
 nauseated, any dishes not highly spiced, and should care 
 only for meat that is very gamey, for very ripe cheese, 
 and particularly dry wines, — that is a phenomenon due 
 to a peculiar constitution ; it is as if a six-months- 
 old baby were to refuse its nurse's milk and to insist on 
 being given brandy only. I am as weary as if I had 
 performed all the marvellous deeds of Sardanapalus, and 
 yet my life has been outwardly chaste and quiet. It is 
 
 265 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 a mistake to suppose that possession is the only road 
 that leads to satiety \ a desire such as mine is far more 
 exhausting. Its glance embraces and penetrates the 
 object it yearns for and that shines above him, more 
 swiftly and more thoroughly than if it touched it, for 
 what could the use of it teach him further, and what 
 experiment can come up to that constant, passionate 
 contemplation ? 
 
 I have gone through so many things, though it is 
 but few that I have seen all round, that the steepest 
 peaks alone tempt me now. I suffer from the malady 
 which attacks strong nations and strong men as they 
 grow old — the impossible. Nothing I can do inter- 
 ests me. I suffer as you suffered, Tiberius, Caligula, 
 Nero, great Romans of the Empire, so misunderstood 
 and pursued by the yelping pack of rhetoricians, and I 
 pity you with all the power of pity left me. I too 
 would like to bridge the sea and pave the waves ; I 
 have thought of burning cities to light up my feasts ; I 
 have wished to be a woman in order to know new forms 
 of voluptuousness. Thy gilded house, O Nero, is but 
 a filthy stable in comparison with the palace I have 
 built for myself. My wardrobe is fuller than thine, 
 Heliogabalus, and infinitely finer. My circuses are 
 
 266 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 fuller of roars and blood than yours, my perfumes 
 more penetrating and stronger, my slaves mo/e numer- 
 ous and handsomer. I too have harnessed naked cour- 
 tesans to my car and trodden on men as haughtily as 
 you. How many Babels have I not heaped one 
 upon another to reach the heavens, insult the stars, 
 and spit upon the earth from on high ! Why am I not 
 God — since man I cannot be ? 
 
 I believe it will take a hundred thousand centuries 
 of nothingness to rest me after the fatigue of my twenty 
 years of life. God of heaven, what stone shall you roll 
 upon me ? into what darkness shall you plunge me ? of 
 what Lethe shall you make me drink ? under what 
 mountain shall you bury the Titan ? Is it to be my fate 
 to vomit flames out of my mouth, and to cause earth- 
 quakes by rolling over on one side ? 
 
 When I remember what a gentle, meek woman was 
 my mother, with simple tastes and ways, I am quite 
 surprised I did not kill her when she bore me. How 
 comes it that not one of her pure, calm thoughts was 
 transferred into my being with the life she gave me, 
 and why am I the child of her flesh only, and not of her 
 mind also ? The dove has brought forth a tiger that 
 wants the whole world for a prey. 
 
 267 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 I have lived in the quietest and chastest surround- 
 ings. It is difficult to conceive of a life in a purer 
 setting than mine, spent, as it has been, by my 
 mother's chair in the company of my sisters and the 
 house dog. I have seen round me but the kindly and 
 calm faces of the old servants grown grey in our ser- 
 vice, and who had become hereditary retainers, as it 
 were ; serious and sententious relatives and friends, 
 dressed in black, who laid down their gloves, the one 
 after the other, on the brim of their hat; a few middle- 
 aged aunts, plump, clean, discreet, with linen daz- 
 zlingly white, grey skirts, thread mittens, and their 
 hands clasped nun-fashion before them ; furniture so 
 sober as to be gloomy, wainscoting of bare oak, 
 leather hangings, an interior sober and subdued, such 
 as some Flemish painters have represented at times. 
 The garden was damp and shady ; the box that out- 
 lined the beds, the ivy that clothed the walls, and a few 
 bare-limbed firs were expected to represent its green- 
 ery, and failed almost completely ; the house, built of 
 brick, with a high pitched roof, was, though spacious 
 and in good condition, rather gloomy and sleepy. Cer- 
 tainly nothing could be more conducive to a quiet, 
 austere, melancholy life than such a dwelling. It 
 
 268 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 would seem as if children brought up in it could not 
 fail to become priests or nuns. Well, in that atmo- 
 sphere of purity and peace, in that shadow and quiet, 
 I was rotting little by little, without its showing out- 
 wardly, like an apple on straw. In the very bosom of 
 that honest, pious, holy family I had reached a condi- 
 tion of horrible depravation. It was not through con- 
 tact with the world, for I had not seen it, nor through 
 over-excited passions, for I was chilled to the marrow 
 by the good old damp walls. The worm had not come 
 to my heart out of another fruit. It had been born of 
 itself in the very midbt of my being, which it had 
 gnawed and traversed in every direction. Outwardly, 
 nothing was apparent to warn me that I was becoming 
 corrupt. I had neither stain nor mark of sting, but I 
 was hollow within, a thin pellicle, brilliantly coloured, 
 but which the least shock would burst. Is it not amaz- 
 ing that a child born of virtuous parents, brought up 
 carefully and discreetly, kept from every evil thing, 
 should corrupt himself to such a degree and should 
 reach the point I have reached ? I am sure that if one 
 were to go back to the sixth generation of my ances- 
 tors not a single atom like those of which I am formed 
 would be found. I do not belong to my family ; I am 
 
 269 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 not a limb of that noble trunk, but a poisonous mush- 
 room that grew between its moss-eovered roots during 
 a close, stormy night ; and yet no one has more 
 than myself yearned and longed for the beautiful, 
 no one has more striven to rise, though every attempt 
 but made me fall lower, and my salvation became my 
 destruction. 
 
 Although I prefer solitude to society, it is worse for 
 me than the latter. Whatever takes me out of myself 
 is healthful to me ; society bores me, but forcibly takes 
 me from the empty reverie in which I move up and 
 down with folded arms and bent brows. So, since our 
 tete-a-tete has been broken up and there are guests here 
 with whom I am forced to constrain myself somewhat, I 
 am less subject to fits of depression, and less tormented 
 by those exaggerated desires which swoop down on me 
 like a flock of vultures as soon as I am unoccupied for 
 a moment. There are a few rather pretty women and 
 one or two rather pleasant and very jolly fellows ; but 
 of all that swarm of bumpkins, the one who most charms 
 me is a young gentleman who arrived two or three days 
 ago. I took a fancy to him at once, and merely to 
 watch him dismount made me fond of him. No one 
 could be more graceful. He is not very tall, but well 
 
 270 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 turned and of a handsome figure ; he has an indescrib- 
 ably delightful soft undulation in his walk and gestures, 
 and many a woman would be glad to own as small a 
 hand and foot as his. His only defect is that he is too 
 handsome and too delicate-featured for a man. He has 
 a pair of the handsomest dark eyes in the world, with 
 an indefinable expression in them and a look that it 
 is difficult to meet, but as he is quite young and has 
 not a trace of hair on his face, the roundness and per- 
 fection of the lower part of his face temper somewhat 
 the brilliancy of his eagle glance. His long, brown, 
 glossy hair falls in great curls upon his neck and gives 
 a very peculiar character to his face. 
 
 At last I have seen in the flesh and walking before 
 me one of the types of beauty I have dreamed of! 
 What a pity that he is a man, or else that I am not a 
 woman ! This Adonis, who joins to his handsome 
 face a very bright and comprehensive wit, has the 
 further advantage of speaking his clever sayings and 
 his pleasantries in a voice so silvery and striking 
 in tone that one can scarce listen to him without 
 emotion. He is really perfection. He appears to 
 share my taste for fine things, for his clothes are 
 very rich and in the best taste, his horse a spirited 
 
 271 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 thorough-bred, and, in order that the whole thing 
 should be well and suitably rounded off, he had, riding 
 behind him on a cob, a page of fourteen to fifteen, fail, 
 rosy, and as pretty as a cherub, half-asleep and so tired 
 out by the ride that his master had to lift him off his 
 saddle and to carry him in his arms to his room. 
 Rosette received him warmly, and I fancy intends 
 making use of him to awaken jealousy in me and thus 
 cause to flame out whatever fire may yet be burning 
 under the ashes of my dead passion. Yet, formidable 
 as such a rival is, I am little disposed to be jealous of 
 him, and I feel so drawn toward him that I would 
 gladly enough give up my love to gain his friendship. 
 
 272 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
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 VI 
 
 AT this point we shall, with the gentle reader's 
 permission, leave to his reveries the worthy 
 personage who has, up to this time, monopo- 
 lized the stage and spoken for himself, and return to 
 the ordinary form of the novel — without prejudice to 
 our resumption of the dramatic form, if need be; re- 
 serving also the right of dipping again in that manner 
 of epistolary confession which the aforesaid young 
 gentleman addressed to his friend, convinced as we 
 are that, notwithstanding our penetration and sagacity, 
 we know less on the subject than he does. 
 
 The little page was so completely tired out that 
 he slept in his master's arms, and his little head, 
 with its disordered hair, rolled to and fro as though 
 he were dead. It was quite a distance from the 
 outer stairs to the room assigned to the new arrival, 
 and the servant who showed him the way offered 
 to carry the lad in his turn, but the young gentle- 
 man, for whom the burden seemed to be light as a 
 feather, thanked him and refused. He placed the 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 2 73 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 lad very gently on the sofa and took the greatest 
 care not to wake him ; no mother could have done 
 better. When the servant had withdrawn and the 
 door was shut, he knelt before him and tried to pull 
 off his boots ; but the operation was rendered diffi- 
 cult by the little feet being swollen and painful, and 
 the pretty sleeper uttered from time to time inarticu- 
 late half-sighs, like one about to awake \ when this 
 occurred the young gentleman stopped and waited 
 till the lad was asleep again. At last the boots came 
 off and the worst was done, for the stockings were 
 taken off readily. Having completed this, the mas- 
 ter took the lad's two feet and placed them on the 
 velvet of the sofa ; these feet were the shapeliest 
 that could be seen and quite, quite tiny, white as 
 new ivory, and somewhat flushed, thanks to the pres- 
 sure of the boots for some seventeen hours. They 
 were too small for a woman's feet and seemed never 
 to have been walked on. What little was seen of the 
 ankle was round, plump, polished, translucent, and 
 marked by the blue veins, — an exquisitely fair ankle 
 worthy of the foot. 
 
 The young gentleman, still kneeling, looked most 
 lovingly and admiringly upon those two little feet. He 
 
 274 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 bent down, took hold of the left one and kissed it ; 
 then of the right one and kissed it also ; thereafter 
 with successive kisses he proceeded up the leg to 
 near the knee. The page half opened his long eye- 
 lashes, and with a glance at his master at once loving 
 and sleepy, but which did not denote surprise, u My 
 belt hurts me," he said, passing a finger under the 
 ribbon and going to sleep again. His master un- 
 did the belt, put a pillow under the lad's head, and 
 finding that his feet, a moment since so hot, were 
 now somewhat cold, he wrapped them carefully in 
 his cloak, drew up an arm-chair and sat down close 
 by the sofa. Two hours thus went by ; the young 
 gentleman watching the sleeping page and the shad- 
 ows of dreams upon his brow. No sound was heard 
 in the room save the lad's regular breathing and the 
 ticking of the clock. 
 
 Unquestionably the picture the pair made was 
 lovely. A good painter would have turned to ac- 
 count the possibilities of effect in the contrast of the 
 two kinds of beauty. The master was beautiful with 
 a woman's beauty ; the page with a girl's loveliness. 
 His round, rosy face, framed in by his hair, looked 
 like a peach surrounded by leaves ; spite of the fa- 
 
 275 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 tigue of travel having robbed it of some of its bril- 
 liancy, it had all the freshness and bloom of the fruit. 
 The parted lips revealed small, milk-white teeth, and 
 a network of blue veins marked the full and shining 
 temples ; the eyelashes, like to the golden rays that 
 adorn in missals the heads of virgins, came nearly 
 half-way down his cheeks ; his long silky hair was 
 at once golden and silvery — golden in the shadow, 
 silvery in the light. The neck was both slender 
 and plump, and did not appear to belong to the sex 
 the clothing indicated ; two or three buttons of the 
 tunic, unbuttoned to allow of freer breathing, enabled 
 one to catch sight, through a partly opened shirt of 
 fine Holland linen, of the plump and wonderfully 
 white bosom and the beginning of a certain round 
 outline difficult to understand in a youth's chest. 
 Close observation might have led one to think the hips 
 rather full. The reader may draw his own conclu- 
 sions ; we merely suggest, for we are no wiser than 
 he on this point, though we do hope to learn more 
 soon and promise to keep him informed of our dis- 
 coveries. Let the reader, if less short-sighted than we 
 are, glance under the lace of that shirt and decide for 
 himself whether that contour swells too much or not ; 
 
 276 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 but we must warn him that the curtains are drawn 
 and that the room is filled with a semi-obscurity not 
 very favourable to this sort of investigation. 
 
 The gentleman himself was pale, but of a virile, 
 vigorous, golden pallor \ the pupils of his eyes moved 
 in a humid azure ; his thin, straight nose gave to his 
 profile striking pride and strength, and the flesh was 
 so thin as to be translucent at the edges ; his mouth, 
 which smiled most sweetly at times, was usually 
 curved at the corners, but in rather than out, as on 
 some of the heads in the pictures of the old Italian 
 masters. This gave him an adorably disdainful look, 
 a most piquant smorfia, an air of childish pouting and 
 temper at once most striking and most enchanting. 
 
 What was the nature of the bonds uniting master 
 and page ? There certainly existed between them a 
 greater affection than that which may exist between 
 master and domestic. Were they friends or brothers ? 
 In that case why the disguise ? Yet it would have 
 been difficult for any one who had witnessed the 
 scene just described to believe that the pair were 
 really what they appeared to be. 
 
 " The dear one, sound asleep ! " whispered the 
 young man to himself. " I do believe he never 
 
 277 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 travelled so far in his life, sixty miles on horseback, 
 and so frail ! I am afraid the fatigue will make him 
 ill — but surely not ; it will all be gone by morning. 
 His lovely colour will have come back and he will 
 look fresher than a rose after a rain. But is he not 
 a beauty ! If I were not afraid of waking him, I 
 would whelm him with caresses. What a lovely 
 dimple in his chin, and what a delicate, white skin. 
 Sleep sound, dear treasure. I am positively jealous 
 of your mother and I wish you were my child. You 
 are not ill, are you ? No, his breathing is regular, and 
 he does not move. But is not that a knock — ? 5: 
 
 Some one had, indeed, knocked twice, as softly as 
 possible, on the door panel. 
 
 The young gentleman rose, but, lest he should have 
 been mistaken, waited, before opening the door, until 
 the call was repeated. Two other knocks, somewhat 
 sharper, were heard and a woman's soft voice whis- 
 pered very gently, " It is I, Theodore." 
 
 Theodore opened the door, but less eagerly than a 
 young man is wont to open to a soft-voiced woman 
 who comes mysteriously knocking at the close of 
 day. The half-opened leaf gave entrance to — 
 guess whom — to the mistress of perplexed d'Al- 
 
 278 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 bert, to Princess Rosette herself, rosier than her name 
 and with bosoms a's swelled as ever woman's who 
 entered at eve a handsome man's room. 
 
 "Theodore," said Rosette. 
 
 Theodore put his ringer to his lips like a statue of 
 silence, and pointing to the sleeping lad, made Rosette 
 pass into the next room. 
 
 " Theodore," said Rosette, who seemed to take 
 peculiarly sweet delight in uttering the name, and to 
 seek at the same time to collect her ideas, "Theo- 
 dore," she continued, still holding the hand the young 
 man had offered her to lead her to the armchair, " so 
 you have come back at last ? What have you been do- 
 ing all this time ? Where have you been ? Do you 
 know that it is six months since I have seen you ? 
 That is not right, Theodore. You owe to people who 
 love you, even if you do not love them, some atten- 
 tion and a little pity." 
 
 Theodore. What have I been doing ? I do not 
 know. I have come and gone, slept and waked, sung 
 and wept, been hungry and thirsty, too cold and too 
 hot ; I have been bored, I have less money, and six 
 months more to my age — I have lived -> that 's all. 
 And what have you been doing ? 
 
 279 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Rosette. I have loved you. 
 
 Theodore. Nothing else ? 
 
 Rosette. Nothing else. That was a waste of time, 
 was it not ? 
 
 Theodore. You might have used it to better purpose, 
 my poor Rosette. For instance, you might have loved 
 some one who could return your love. 
 
 Rosette. In love as in all else I am disinterested : I 
 am not a usurer in love ; I give outright. 
 
 Theodore. That is a very rare virtue, that can spring 
 up but in a choice soul. I have very often wished I 
 could love you, at least in the way you would have 
 me do ; but there is between us an insurmountable 
 obstacle, which I may not tell you of. Have you had 
 another lover since I left you ? 
 
 Rosette. I have had one, and have him still. 
 
 Theodore. What kind of a man is he ? 
 
 Rosette. A poet. 
 
 Theodore. A poet ? the devil ! And what has he 
 done ? 
 
 Rosette. I do not really know ; some sort of a book 
 that nobody knows about and that I tried to read one 
 evening. 
 
 Theodore. So you have an unpublished poet for 
 
 280 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 lover. Curious ! Is he out at elbows ? Is his linen 
 dirty ? Do his stockings fall round his legs ? 
 
 Rosette. No; he dresses rather well, washes his 
 hands, and has no ink-stains on his nose. He is a 
 
 friend of de C 's ; I met him at Mme. de 
 
 Themines, — that tall woman, you know, who plays 
 at being a little innocent child. 
 
 Theodore. And may I know the name of this fine 
 gentleman ? 
 
 Rosette. Certainly ; he is the Chevalier d'Albert. 
 
 Theodore. Chevalier d'Albert ! Was he not the 
 young man who was on the balcony when I got off 
 my horse ? 
 
 Rosette. The very one. 
 
 Theodore. And who looked so attentively at me? 
 
 Rosette. Exactly. 
 
 Theodore. He is a good-looking fellow. And so 
 you have not forgotten me for him ? 
 
 Rosette. No. Unfortunately you are not of those 
 whom one forgets. 
 
 Theodore. And no doubt he is very deeply in love 
 with you. 
 
 Rosette. I am not so sure of that. There are times 
 when he seems to be very much in love with me, but 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 in reality he does not care for me, and he is not far 
 from hating me, for he is angry with me because he 
 cannot love me. He did just as others, more ex- 
 perienced than he, have done — mistook a lively desire 
 for passion, and was quite surprised and much disap- 
 pointed when his desire was satisfied. It is a mistake 
 to suppose that two people who have been together 
 must necessarily adore each other. 
 
 Theodore. And what do you intend to do with this 
 no-lover lover ? 
 
 Rosette. What one does with old moons and old fash- 
 ions. He has not strength enough to be the first to 
 break away, and although he does not love me in the real 
 meaning of the word, he clings to me through a habit 
 of pleasure, and that is the most difficult kind to shake 
 off. If I do not come to his rescue, he is capable of 
 remaining conscientiously bored by my side until the 
 Last Judgment, and even longer, for he has in him the 
 germ of all noble qualities, and the flowers of his soul 
 are but too eager to bloom in the sunshine of eternal 
 love. I am really sorry I could not be that sunshine 
 to him. Of all my lovers whom I have not loved, he 
 is the one I care for most, and if I were not so kind- 
 hearted I would not let him go free, but keep him. 
 
 28^ 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 This I shall not do, however, and at present I am 
 busy wearing him out. 
 
 Theodore. How long will that take ? 
 
 Rosette. A fortnight or three weeks, but certainly 
 less long than if you had not come. I know I shall 
 never be your mistress, for a reason to which, you tell 
 me, I would yield if you were allowed to reveal it. 
 Yet, though I am forbidden all hope as far as you are 
 concerned, I cannot bring myself to be another man's 
 mistress when you are by ; it seems to me a profanation 
 and to deprive me of the right of loving you. 
 
 Theodore. Keep this lover for love of me. 
 
 Rosette. I will, if it pleases you. But if you could 
 have been mine, how different would my life have been. 
 The world entirely misunderstands me, and I might 
 have died without any one suspecting my real self, ex- 
 cept you, Theodore, the only one who has understood 
 me and who has been cruel to me. I have never wished 
 to have a lover but you, and I have not had you. If 
 you had loved me, Theodore, I should have been a 
 chaste and virtuous woman, worthy of you ; instead of 
 which, I shall leave (supposing any one remembers me) 
 the reputation of a light o' love, of a sort of cour- 
 tesan who differed from the street-walker only in regard 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 of wealth and rank. I was born with the highest 
 aspirations, but not to be loved depraves me more than 
 anything else. Many who despise me have no idea of 
 what I have suffered before becoming what I am. As 
 I knew for a certainty that I could never belong to 
 him whom I preferred to all others, I let myself go, 
 and did not guard a body which could not be possessed 
 by you. As for my heart, no one has it or ever shall 
 have it. It is yours, though you have broken it, and, 
 unlike most women, who think themselves honest 
 because they have not passed from one bed to another, 
 I have, while prostituting my body, always remained 
 faithful to you in heart and soul. I have at least made 
 some men happy ; I have caused fair illusions to flutter 
 around some couches. I have unwittingly deceived 
 more than one noble heart. I was so wretched at 
 being rejected by you that I have always dreaded sub- 
 jecting any one to such torture. That is the real 
 reason of many an affair of mine attributed to sheer 
 wantonness. I a wanton ! oh, Heavens ! If you only 
 knew, Theodore, the deep grief of feeling that one's 
 life is a failure, that one has passed by happiness, that 
 every one misunderstands you and that it is impossible 
 to make people change their opinion of you, that your 
 
 284 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 highest qualities are turned into faults, your purest per- 
 fumes into poisons, that nothing is known of you but 
 what is evil, to have always found the door opened to 
 your vices and closed to your virtues, to have never 
 been able to cause a single lily or rose to bloom 
 amid the hemlock and the nightshade. These are 
 things you do not know, Theodore. 
 
 Theodore. Alas ! Rosette, what you tell me is but 
 every one's story. The better part of ourselves is that 
 which remains within us and which we cannot bring 
 forth. Poets are so made. Their finest poem is the 
 one they have never written ; they take more poems 
 away with them in their coffins than they leave in their 
 library. 
 
 Rosette. I shall take my poem away with me. 
 
 Theodore. And I, mine ; which of us has not com- 
 posed one in his life ? What man too happy or top 
 wretched not to have written one in his head or his 
 heart ? Public executioners have perhaps composed 
 poems wet with the tears of the most exquisite feeling ; 
 poets may have composed some fit for executioners, 
 so bloody and monstrous are they. 
 
 Rosette. Yes, — they might scatter white roses on 
 my grave, for though I have had ten lovers I am a 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 virgin and shall die a virgin. Many of the so-called 
 virgins, on whose graves are constantly strewn jessa- 
 mine and orange blossoms, have been downright 
 Messalinas. 
 
 Theodore. I know your worth, Rosette. 
 
 Rosette. You alone have seen my real self, for you 
 have seen me rilled with a very true and a very deep 
 because hopeless love. And he who has not seen a 
 woman in love cannot tell what she is ; this is my 
 consolation in bitterness. 
 
 Theodore. And what thinks of you that young man 
 who, in the eyes of the world, is now your lover ? 
 
 Rosette. A lover's thoughts are deeper than the 
 sea, and it is hard to tell what lies in a man's heart. 
 Though the sounding line were a hundred thousand 
 fathoms long it would not reach the bottom. Yet I 
 have succeeded occasionally with this man, and the lead 
 brought up sometimes mud, sometimes lovely shells, 
 but usually mud mixed with broken corals. As to what 
 he thinks of me, that has varied a good deal. He began 
 by despising me, which is the way others end ; young 
 men with lively imaginations are subject to that. 
 Their first step is always a big drop, and they cannot 
 pass from fancy to reality without a shock. He de- 
 
 ^86 
 
*|*«§»«4« *§* #A» *§• JU r|» •** **• »A* •!• «X* «A* •*• »JU *!» •!• *4» •*» «4» •*••§• #|* 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 spised me and I entertained him ; now he has esteem 
 for me, but I bore him. During the first period of 
 our love affair he saw but the commonplace in me, 
 and I think the certainty he felt that I would not resist 
 him greatly influenced his resolve. He seemed very 
 anxious to have an intrigue, and I thought at first it 
 was merely a case of a full heart that must needs over- 
 flow, or a purposeless springtime love that makes a 
 man embrace trees and kiss the flowers and the turf 
 for lack of a woman. But it was not that. He 
 merely made use of me to reach something else ; I 
 was a means, not an end, to him. Under the out- 
 ward freshness of his twenty years and the first bloom 
 of his youth, he concealed deep corruption. He had 
 been stung to the heart ; he was a Dead Sea fruit. A 
 soul as old as Saturn, as incurably unhappy as ever 
 was, inhabited his young and vigorous frame. I con- 
 fess to having been frightened, Theodore, and to hav- 
 ing almost felt my head swim as I bent over the black 
 depths of that life. Your sorrows and mine are naught 
 in comparison with his. Had I loved him better it 
 would have killed him. Something that is neither of 
 the world nor in the world calls and attracts him irre- 
 sistibly ; he cannot rest day or night ; and, like a 
 
 287 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 heliotrope in a cellar, he writhes in his efforts to turn 
 towards the sun he does not see. He is a man whose 
 soul has not been dipped enough in the waters of Lethe 
 before being bound to its body, and which retains 
 reminiscences of eternal beauty in the heaven from 
 which it has come, reminiscences which torture and 
 torment it, — a soul that remembers having had wings, 
 and now has but feet. In God's place I should 
 deprive of poetry for two centuries the angel who was 
 guilty of such a blunder. Instead of a house of brightly 
 coloured cards to shelter a fair young fancy for a 
 single springtime, a tower higher than the eight super- 
 imposed temples of Belus was required. I could not 
 provide this and, pretending not to have understood, 
 I left him to crawl on his wings and to find a 
 summit whence he might spring into the vast void. 
 He fancies I have been blind to all this, because I 
 have lent myself to all his caprices without seeming 
 to suspect their object. As I could not cure him, I 
 tried to gladden him at least with the belief that he 
 has been passionately loved, and this, I trust, will one 
 day be accounted to me for righteousness. He excited 
 my pity and interest quite sufficiently to make it easy 
 for me to deceive him by tender tones and ways. I 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 have played my part like a consummate actress ; al- 
 ternately playful and sad, sensible and amorous ; feign- 
 ing anxiety and jealousy, shedding false tears, and 
 smiling at will. I adorned that imitation love with 
 the richest of stuffs; walked with it down the avenues 
 of my park ; summoned all my birds to sing as it 
 passed - y sent it across the lake on the silvery back of 
 my pet swan ; concealed myself within it and lent it 
 my voice, my wit, my beauty, my youth ; made it so 
 seductive that the lie was fairer than the truth. When 
 the time comes to shatter that hollow statue I shall do 
 it in such a way as to make him believe that I alone 
 am to blame ; and to spare him remorse, I shall myself 
 prick the bubble. Now is not that saintly prostitution 
 and laudable deceit ? I have preserved in a crystal 
 urn some tears that were ready to fall. These are my 
 jewels and my jewel case, and I shall present them to 
 the angel who shall come to take me to God. 
 
 Theodore. They are the fairest gems that can sparkle 
 on a woman's neck, and no queen can match them. 
 For myself, I believe the ointment the Magdalen 
 poured out on Christ's feet was composed of the tears 
 shed long ago by those she had consoled ; and I think 
 too that it is such tears that have made the Milky Way, 
 
 vol. i — 19 289 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 and not, as has been claimed, drops of Juno's milk. 
 But who shall do for you what you have done for 
 him ? 
 
 Rosette. No one, alas ! since you cannot. 
 
 Theodore. Would that I could, beloved ! But lose 
 not hope ; you are still very young and you are beauti- 
 ful. You still have to traverse many an avenue of 
 acacia and linden in bloom before you reach the dank 
 road, box-bordered and with leafless trees, that leads 
 from the porphyry tomb which shall hold your fair 
 dead years to the undressed, moss-covered stone tomb 
 in which shall be buried the remains of what once 
 you were, and the tottering, wrinkled ghosts of the 
 days of your old age. You have still to climb a long 
 way up the hill of life, and it will be a long time 
 ere you reach the snow-line. As yet you are in 
 the zone of aromatic plants, of limpid cascades over 
 which the iris hangs its tri-coloured arches, of the great 
 green oaks and the balmy hemlocks. Ascend higher, 
 and thence, on the broader horizon which will be out- 
 spread at your feet, you will perhaps see rising the 
 bluish smoke of the roof where sleeps he who shall 
 love you. You must not begin by despairing of your 
 life ; new opportunities arise which we did not expect. 
 
 290 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Man, as he traverses life, has often recalled to me the 
 pilgrim who climbs the winding stair of a Gothic 
 tower. The granite spiral twists its convolutions 
 serpentlike, in the darkness, the steps being the scales. 
 After the first few turns, the little daylight that comes 
 through the door disappears. The overshadowing 
 houses, not yet overtopped, prevent the light from 
 filtering in through the narrow slits ; the walls are dark 
 and damp ; it seems rather as if one were going down 
 into a prison than climbing the tower which, from 
 below, looked so graceful and tall, and as covered with 
 lace and embroidery as if it were going to a ball. 
 The moist darkness weighs down heavily, so that one 
 hesitates about ascending higher. The stairs wind a 
 few turns more and the golden trefoils of light strike 
 the inner wall more frequently. The crocketed 
 gables of the houses, the carving on the cornices, the 
 quaint shape of the chimneys begin to show. A few 
 steps farther up and the glance takes in the whole 
 town, a mass of slender shafts, steeples, and towers 
 uprising everywhere around, serrated, slashed, open- 
 worked, cut out sharply with the light showing through 
 their numerous openings. Domes and cupolas swell 
 up like the breasts of a giantess or the skulls of 
 
 291 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Titans ; groups of houses and palaces are plunged in 
 shadow or bathed in light. A few steps higher and 
 the platform is reached ; then beyond the city walls 
 are seen the green fields, the blue hills, and the white 
 sail on the shimmering river. There is a flood of 
 dazzling sunlight, and the swallows pass and repass 
 with glad cries. The distant hum of the city comes 
 up like a friendly murmur or the buzzing of a hive 
 of bees ; from every steeple pour forth sonorous, pearly 
 notes ; the winds come laden with the scent of the 
 near-by forest and of the mountain flowers. Had one 
 tired or become discouraged and remained seated on a 
 step lower down, or gone back altogether, one would 
 have missed the prospect. Sometimes, however, the 
 tower has but a single opening, at the top or half way 
 up ; it is so with our tower of life. Then must one 
 have more determined courage, and a perseverance 
 armed, as it were, with stronger claws with which to 
 cling, in the darkness, to the projections of the stones 
 and to reach the resplendent trefoil through which the 
 gaze can wander over the land. Sometimes, too, the 
 loopholes have been closed up, or have been forgotten 
 and left unpierced : then one is compelled to climb to 
 the top ; but the higher one has gone in the darkness, 
 
 292 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 the vaster seems the prospect, the greater the pleasure 
 and surprise. 
 
 Rosette. Heaven grant, Theodore, that I soon reach 
 the place where the window is. I have been long 
 enough like the staircase winding up in the gloom, and 
 I fear the opening has been walled up and I shall have 
 to climb to the very top. Then what if this staircase 
 of many steps should end, after all, in a walled up door 
 or a stone vault ? 
 
 Theodore. Do not say such things, Rosette ; do not 
 think them. What architect would build a staircase lead- 
 ing nowhither ? And why should we think the peace- 
 ful Architect of the world more stupid and improvident 
 than an ordinary architect ? God never makes a mistake 
 and never forgets anything. It is impossible to believe 
 that he has amused himself, just to play us a trick, 
 with shutting us up in a long stone tube without opening 
 or outlet. Why should «you think that he would re- 
 fuse to the pitiful atoms that we are their wretched mo- 
 mentary happiness and the imperceptible grain of millet 
 which is their share in this great creation ? He would 
 have to be as cruel as a judge or a tiger, and, if we are 
 so hateful to him, all he need do is to order a comet to 
 turn slightly out of its orbit, and to strangle us all with 
 
 293 
 
•** *4* •»» *#* *4* •*» •** *ir» *Jf* •*« *5» «S*«S* «S» «S* •§• •*» •»• «S« «9* •9* *»• •«♦ *f* 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 a hair of its tail. How the devil can you suppose that 
 God would take pleasure in stringing us one by one on 
 a golden pin, as the Emperor Domitian spitted flies ? 
 God is neither a janitor nor a church-warden, and 
 though old, is not in his dotage. All such petty malice 
 is beneath him, and he is not fool enough to chaff* us 
 and to play us tricks. Courage, Rosette, courage. If 
 you are morbid, stop for awhile, take breath, and then 
 climb on. It may be that twenty steps higher up you 
 will come upon the embrasure from which you can 
 behold the happiness in store for you. 
 
 Rosette. Never, never ! And if I chance to reach 
 the top of the tower, it will be only that I may cast 
 myself down headlong. 
 
 Theodore. Dear sorrowing one, drive away these 
 gloomy thoughts that sweep around you like bats and 
 overshadow your fair brow with their sombre wings. If 
 you would have me love you", be happy and weep not. 
 (He draws her gently to himself and kisses her eyes.) 
 
 Rosette. Woe is me that I ever knew you ! Yet, if 
 it were to be again, I would wish to have known you ! 
 Your rigour has been dearer to me than the love of 
 others, and though you have made me suffer greatly, all 
 the pleasure I have known has come to me through you. 
 
 294 
 
&£: & & i: & £: i: i: tlr&dhfetfctfetfetsbttrtfcti::*? dlrtir A 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 You have flashed through my darkness and lighted up 
 many a dark corner of my soul ; you have opened up 
 many a new prospect in my life. To you I owe it 
 that I know love, — hopeless love, it is true, but 
 it is most sweet and sad at once to love without 
 being beloved, and to remember those who forget us. 
 It is some happiness, at least, to be able to love 
 even with unrequited love ; many die without having 
 known it, and those most to be pitied are not those 
 who love. 
 
 Theodore. These suffer, and their wounds burn, but 
 at least they are conscious of living. They cling to 
 something ; they have a sun around which they revolve, 
 a pole towards which they ardently turn. They have 
 something to wish for; they may say to themselves: 
 If I attain thither — if I gain that — I shall be happy. 
 Their agony is frightful, but at least they can say, as 
 they expire, " It is for him I die." And to die is to be 
 reborn. Those alone are truly and irreparably unhappy 
 whose mad embrace seeks to enfold the whole world, 
 those who wish everything and ask nothing ; and who 
 would be embarrassed and dumb did a fay or an angel 
 descend and suddenly say to them, " Express a wish 
 and it shall be granted." 
 
 295 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Rosette. Did the fairy come, I know well what I 
 would ask. 
 
 Theodore. Knowing it, Rosette, you are happier than 
 I, for I do not know what wish I would form. Many 
 vague desires' uprise in me and are confounded one 
 with another, bringing forth others which then destroy 
 them. My wishes are like a cloud of birds circling and 
 turning aimlessly ; yours are like the eagle whose gaze 
 is fixed upon the sun, but whom the lack of air pre- 
 vents his rising upon his outspread pinions. Would I 
 could know what it is I want ! Would the idea which 
 pursues me could come out sharp and clear from the 
 mist which envelops it ; a star, lucky or unlucky, ap- 
 peared within my heaven ; the light I am to follow, 
 whether treacherous will-o'-the-wisp or kindly beacon, 
 shone in my night ; my pillar of fire went before me, 
 even through a waterless and foodless desert ; would 
 that I knew whither I go, even if it be to the preci- 
 pice's brink ! To the monotonous and stupid mark- 
 ing time I would prefer the mad gallop of the Wild 
 Huntsman, through copse and hollow. Such a life 
 as mine is the life of the blindfolded horse that turns 
 the mill-wheel and travels thousands of miles without 
 seeing anything or changing its place. I have gone 
 
 296 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 round long enough, and it is time the bucket were 
 at the top. 
 
 Rosette. You are very like d'Albert in many ways, 
 and when you are speaking I often think it is he who 
 speaks. I have no doubt that, when you know him 
 better, you will become greatly attached to him. You 
 cannot fail to agree. Like you he feels aimless aspi- 
 rations; he loves greatly without knowing what he 
 loves; he would ascend to heaven, for earth he counts 
 a footstool scarce good enough for his feet ; and he 
 is prouder than Lucifer before his fall. 
 
 Theodore. I feared at first he might be one of that 
 numerous brood of poets who have driven poetry from 
 this earth, one of those stringers-on of imitation pearls 
 who have no thought but for the last syllable of a word, 
 and who, when they have rimed heart and part, love 
 and dove, shadow and morrow, conscientiously fold their 
 arms, cross their legs, and allow the spheres to complete 
 their revolutions. 
 
 Rosette. He is not of those. His verses are less than 
 he, and do not express him completely. To judge him 
 by what he has done would give a very false impression 
 of him ; he is himself his real poem, and I am not sure 
 that he will ever compose another. He holds within 
 
 297 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 his soul a bevy of lovely thoughts which he surrounds 
 with a triple wall, and of which he is more jealous than 
 ever a sultan was of his odalisques. He puts into his 
 verse those thoughts only that he cares not for or that 
 he is tired of; it is his way of getting rid of them, and 
 the world gets only that which he cares for no longer. 
 
 Theodore. I can understand his reserve and jealousy. 
 So many people own to having loved only when they 
 love no more, and acknowledge their mistresses only 
 when they are dead. 
 
 Rosette. It is very difficult to possess anything to 
 one's self in this world, for every torch attracts so many 
 butterflies, and every treasure so many thieves. I like 
 the silent ones who carry away their thought into the 
 tomb, and refuse to have it soiled by the filthy kisses 
 and obscene touch of the crowd. I like those lovers 
 who never cut their mistress's name upon a tree, never 
 confide it to an echo, and fear, even when asleep, that 
 a dream may lead them to say it. I am of them : I 
 have never told my thought, and none shall know of 
 my love. . . . But it is almost eleven, my dear Theo- 
 dore, and I am keeping you from a much needed rest. 
 When I have to leave you my heart always sinks 
 within me and I feel as if it were the last time we 
 
 298 
 
dbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdb is is dbtfc 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 were to meet. I delay as long as I can, but go I must 
 at last. Now, good-night, for I am afraid d' Albert 
 will come to look for me. Good-bye, dear friend. 
 
 Theodore put his arm round her and led her thus 
 to the door ; then he stopped and long followed her 
 with his glance ; there were at intervals in the corridor 
 little narrow-paned windows lighted up by the moon- 
 light, which produced a very fantastic alternation of 
 light and shadow. As the white, pure figure of Rosette 
 passed each window it shone as if it were a silvery 
 phantom, then it disappeared to reappear more brilliant 
 a little farther away, and finally it vanished altogether. 
 
 Theodore, apparently sunk in deep thought, remained 
 for some time motionless, with folded arms, then he 
 passed his hand over his brow, tossed back his hair, 
 re-entered the room, and went to bed after kissing the 
 page, still sound asleep. 
 
 299 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
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 VII 
 
 AS soon as Rosette was awake, d'Albert hastened, 
 in a way that was unusual with him, to call 
 upon her. 
 
 " I should say you had come very early," said Ro- 
 sette, " if you could ever be early as far as I am con- 
 cerned. So, to reward you for your compliment, I 
 permit you to kiss my hand." 
 
 And she drew from under the sheet of Flanders 
 linen, edged with lace, the prettiest hand ever seen 
 at the end of a plump, round arm. 
 
 D'Albert kissed it devoutly. " And what about 
 the other, the little sister ? " he said. " Is it not to 
 be kissed too ? " 
 
 " Why, certainly, if you wish it. I am in my 
 kindest mood to-day, so there ! " 
 
 And she drew out the other hand, with which she 
 lightly tapped him on the mouth. 
 
 " Am I not the best-natured woman in the world ? " 
 
 " You are grace itself, and white marble temples 
 should be built in your honour in myrtle groves. I 
 absolutely fear Psyche's fate for you, and the jealousy 
 
 300 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 of Venus," said d'Albert, taking the beauty's two hands 
 and raising them to his lips. 
 
 u You recite that like a book," said Rosette, with 
 a delightful little pout. " It sounds like something 
 you have committed to memory." 
 
 u Not at all. You are well worth making a phrase 
 expressly for you, and you ought to have the first 
 
 
 
 hearing of madrigals," replied d'Albert. 
 
 " Now what bee has stung you to-day ? You are 
 so polite that I fear you must be ill ; I am afraid you 
 will die. Do you know that it is a very bad omen for 
 any one's character to change without any apparent 
 reason for it ? And as it is an established fact, in the 
 eyes of all the women who have taken pains to love 
 you, that you are habitually a most sulky person, so 
 is it equally sure that you are at this moment most 
 charming and most unaccountably amiable. The truth 
 is, my poor d'Albert, that vou are very pale. Let me 
 have your arm, I want to feel your pulse." And she 
 pushed back his sleeve and counted the pulsations with 
 comic gravity. " No, you are as well as can be, and 
 have not the least symptom of fever. I must, then, be 
 uncommonly pretty this morning. Fetch me my glass, 
 that I may see how far your compliments are justified. 
 
 301 
 
&±£ & 4: is db & db :£: ^4r^r4?tb4?^rtl:5l:4:ti? tfc tbtfe 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 D'Albert fetched a small mirror from the toilet table 
 and laid it on the bed. 
 
 " No," said Rosette, " you were not so far wrong. 
 Why do you not write a sonnet about my eyes, Sir 
 Poet ? There is no reason why you should not. Am 
 I not most unfortunate ? I have beautiful eyes and 
 a handsome poet, and withal I get just as few sonnets 
 as if I were blind of one eye and had a water-carrier 
 for a lover. You do not love me, sir ; you have not 
 written even an acrostic sonnet. And what of my 
 mouth ? What think you of it ? Yet I have kissed 
 you with that mouth, and may kiss you again, you dark 
 beauty, though you scarcely deserve it — this morning, 
 however, you deserve anything. But do not let me 
 speak of myself all the time ; let us speak of you. 
 You are marvellously handsome and bright this morn- 
 ing, you look like Aurora's brother; and though it is 
 scarcely daylight you are already dressed and adorned 
 as if for a call. Have you perchance any designs upon 
 me ? Are you thinking of treacherously overcoming my 
 virtue ? Do you wish to make a conquest of me ? I for- 
 got, though; that is already done and is an old story." 
 
 " Do not joke like that, Rosette ; you know very . 
 well that I love you." 
 
 302 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 u That depends. I am not so sure of it. Are 
 you ? " 
 
 u Most certain ; and more by token, if you will bi 
 good enough to order no one to be admitted, I shall 
 try to prove it, and shall, I venture to think, prove it 
 conclusively." 
 
 " That I will not do. Much as I should like to be 
 convinced, my door remains open. I am too pretty to 
 be pretty in private; the sun shines for everybody, and 
 my beauty is, with your leave, going to imitate the 
 sun to-day." 
 
 " On my honour, it is not with my leave. But do as 
 you please ; I am your most humble slave and lay my 
 will at your feet." 
 
 " That is very pretty. Keep these sentiments, and 
 do not lock your door this evening." 
 
 " The Chevalier Theodore de Serannes," said, from 
 between the half-opened leaves of the door, a negress 
 with big, round, smiling face, " desires to pay his 
 respects and begs to be received." 
 
 " Show in the chevalier," said Rosette, pulling the 
 sheet up to her chin. 
 
 Theodore first went up to Rosette's bed, made a low 
 and graceful bow, which she returned with a friendly 
 
 303 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 nod, and then turned towards d'Albert, to whom he 
 bowed with an open and courteous manner. 
 
 "What were you saying?" he inquired. "I dare say 
 I interrupted an interesting conversation. Pray go on, 
 and tell me in a few words what it was about." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " replied Rosette, smiling provokingly, 
 u we were talking business." 
 
 Theodore sat down at the foot of the bed, d'Albert, 
 as the first-comer, having sat down at the head, and 
 the conversation went on for some time, passing from 
 one subject to another, very witty, bright, and lively ; 
 therefore we shall not relate it, lest it should lose too 
 much in the transcription. The look, the tone, the 
 vivacity of words and gestures, the thousand ways of 
 saying a thing, all the wit which, like the foam of cham- 
 pagne, sparkles and disappears at once, are impossible 
 to fix and to reproduce. The reader must fill up the 
 blank for himself, and imagine that here follow five or 
 six pages filled with the most delicate, most capricious, 
 most delightfully fantastic, refined, and coruscating 
 conversation. 
 
 We are well aware that we are making use of 
 an artifice which recalls that adopted by Timanthes, 
 who, despairing of painting properly Agamemnon's face, 
 
 3°4 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 cast a cloak over the head ; but we prefer timidity to 
 imprudence. 
 
 It might be well, perhaps, to seek out the motives 
 which had led d'Albert to rise so early, and had 
 induced him to call on Rosette at such an hour, just 
 as if he still loved her. It is probable that he felt, though 
 he would not confess to, a slight feeling of secret jeal- 
 ousy. Assuredly he did not care very much for Rosette, 
 and would even have been very glad to get rid of her, 
 but he wished at least to be the one who gave up, and 
 not the one who is given up, which latter position always 
 hurts deeply a man's pride, absolutely dead though his 
 first love may be. 
 
 Theodore was such a handsome young fellow that it 
 was difficult to see him break in upon a love affair 
 without fearing a result which had already happened 
 many a time, namely, that all eyes turned to him and 
 all hearts too. The strange thing was that, although 
 he had captivated many a woman, none of their lovers 
 had retained that persistent resentment which one 
 usually entertains towards people who have supplanted 
 you. He had such an overmastering charm in all his 
 ways, and was so naturally gracious, gentle, and proud 
 that men, even, felt the spell. D'Albert, who had 
 
 vol. i — 20 
 
 3°5 
 
4* 4* 4. 4* 4* 4. 4. 4. 4*4. 4. 4.4. 4. 4*4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4* 4* 4. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 come to Rosette's room with the intention of being 
 very short with Theodore if he met him there, was 
 greatly surprised at not feeling in the least angry and 
 at yielding so readily to his advances. At the end of 
 half an hour you would have taken them for old 
 friends; yet d'Albert felt internally convinced that if 
 ever Rosette loved, Theodore would be the man, and 
 he had every reason to be jealous, as regarded the future 
 at least, for he did not suspect anything in the present 
 — though had he seen her in a white wrapper glide, 
 like a night-moth on a moonbeam, into the handsome 
 young man's room and not leave it until three or four 
 hours later, and then with many precautions, he might, 
 in truth, have believed himself much more unhappy 
 than he was ; for it is not usual to see a pretty and 
 amorous woman leave the room of a no less handsome 
 man just as she was when she entered. 
 
 Rosette listened to Theodore very attentively, as one 
 listens to a beloved one, but what he said was so bright 
 and entertaining that her attention was quite natural 
 and intelligible, so d'Albert was not in the least of- 
 fended by it. As for Theodore, he was polite and 
 friendly towards Rosette, but nothing more. 
 
 "What shall we do to-day, Theodore ?" said Ro- 
 
 306 
 
«*• •§» *JU «JU «4U •>§* JL* «JU **r» •«• 4* * g*i » «4» »h* *jy» •I* »■» »g» *g* *g* «4* ***et« 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 sette. " Shall we go boating or hunting ? What think 
 you ? " 
 
 u Let us hunt -, it is less doleful than gliding over 
 the water in company with a bored swan, and crushing 
 lily leaves on either side. Do you not think so, 
 d'Albert ? " 
 
 " For my part I had as lief glide with the stream 
 in a skiff as gallop headlong in pursuit of a poor animal ; 
 but where you go, I go. We had best now give 
 Madame Rosette a chance to get up and put on a 
 suitable dress." 
 
 Rosette nodded in assent and rang for her maid. 
 The two young men went off arm in arm, and it was 
 easy to guess, on seeing them so friendly, that the one 
 was the declared lover and the other the real lover of 
 the same lady. 
 
 Everybody was soon ready. D'Albert and Theodore 
 were already on horseback in the outer court, when 
 Rosette, in riding dress, appeared at the top of the 
 steps. Her dress gave her a gay and deliberate look 
 which became her to perfection. She sprang into her 
 saddle with her customary quickness, and touched with 
 her whip her horse, that went off at score. D'Albert 
 spurred his and soon joined her. Theodore allowed 
 
 307 
 
•*» «w\» «vw •*• «**• «nw «** •*• •*!*• ■*» «r» •»* •"*• •*• •»• •*• •** «*• •»• •*• ••» •W» «w» *•• 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 them to get ahead, feeling sure of overtaking them 
 when he pleased. He seemed to be waiting for 
 something and often turned towards the mansion. 
 
 " Theodore ! Theodore ! Come along ! Is your 
 horse made of wood ? " cried Rosette. 
 
 Theodore cantered off and diminished the distance 
 between Rosette and himself, though he still remained 
 in the rear. 
 
 He again looked towards the mansion, which was be- 
 ginning to disappear in the distance. A cloud of dust, 
 in which moved rapidly something not yet discernible, 
 appeared at the end of the road. In a few minutes 
 the cloud was by Theodore's side, and opening, like the 
 classic clouds of the Iliad, showed the fresh and rosy 
 face of the mysterious page. 
 
 " Come along, Theodore ! " cried Rosette for the 
 second time ; " spur up that slow-coach of yours and 
 ride beside us." 
 
 Theodore's steed had been impatiently prancing and 
 plunging, and when Theodore gave it its head he 
 quickly caught up to and passed Rosette and d'Albert, 
 leaving them a few lengths behind him. 
 
 " Who loves me, follows me," called out Theodore, 
 leaping a four-foot fence. " Well, Sir Poet," he said 
 
 308 
 
Aifc 4: 4: & 4: :fc dc 4: 4: tSrdb^rtlbtSrtlr^rrfc^irtfcti? db dfedb 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 on landing on the other side, " you balk at the jump, 
 though a poet's steed is said to be winged." 
 
 " All the same, I had rather look for a gate," said 
 d' Albert, with a smile. " I have but one head to break ; 
 had I more, I should try the jump too." 
 
 u So no one loves me, since no one follows me," 
 said Theodore, drawing down still more the drawn- 
 down corners of his mouth. 
 
 The little page looked at him reproachfully out of 
 his great blue eyes and pressed his knees to his horse's 
 flanks. 
 
 The horse made a prodigious leap. 
 
 u Yes, one does," said the page after clearing the 
 fence. 
 
 Rosette cast a strange look at the lad and blushed to 
 the eyes ; then lashing her mare across the neck she 
 also leapt the bright-green wooden fence which bounded 
 the avenue. 
 
 " And I, Theodore, — do you think I do not love 
 you ? " 
 
 The lad cast a sidelong glance at her and drew 
 nearer to Theodore. 
 
 D'Albert was already half-way down the avenue 
 and missed the whole scene, for it has at all times 
 
 - 
 
 3°9 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 been the privilege of fathers, husbands, and lovers 
 to be blind. 
 
 u Isnabel," said Theodore, " you are crazy ; and so 
 are you, Rosette. You did not take room enough for 
 your jump, Isnabel -> and you, Rosette, nearly caught 
 your dress on the posts. You might have killed 
 yourself." 
 
 "What would that have mattered ? " replied Rosette, 
 with so sad and melancholy an accent that Isnabel 
 forgave her for having also leaped the fence. 
 
 They rode on for some little time and reached the 
 cross-roads where they were to join the pack and the 
 huntsmen. Six avenues, cut in the overarching forest, 
 ended at a little hexagonal stone tower, on each face of 
 which was engraved the name of the road which ended 
 there. The trees rose to such a height that they 
 seemed to seek to catch the light wisps of cloud driven 
 past their tops by a fresh breeze ; the grass was tall 
 and thick ; dense brushwood offered retreats and holds 
 to the game, and everything promised a successful hunt. 
 It was a regular old-fashioned forest, with old oaks past 
 the century mark, such as are not now met with, since 
 trees are no longer planted and one cannot wait for 
 those already planted to grow up ; an ancestral forest, 
 
 310 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 planted by great-grandfathers for the fathers, by the 
 fathers for the grandsons, with roads of marvellous 
 width, an obelisk topped by a round ball, a fountain 
 with rock-work, the inevitable pool, and the keepers 
 with hair powdered white, buck-skin breeches and sky- 
 blue coats, — a thick, dark forest, against which stand 
 out splendidly the white-satin cruppers of Wouver- 
 man's big horses, and the big mouths of the Dam- 
 pierre horns which Parrocel is so fond of putting on 
 the back of huntsmen. 
 
 A multitude of dog's tails, crescent and scythe- 
 shaped, were wagging in a cloud of light dust. The 
 signal was given, the hounds, straining at their leash, 
 uncoupled, and the hunt began. 
 
 We shall not describe in detail the turnings and 
 twistings of the stag through the forest ; we do not 
 even know whether it was a stag of ten tines, spite of 
 all our investigations — which is really a great pity. 
 We are of opinion, however, that in so old, so thick, 
 so lordly a forest there could be royal stags only, and we 
 see no reason why the one after which were galloping, 
 on differently coloured steeds and non passihus aquis, the 
 four principal characters of this illustrious novel, should 
 not have been an antlered monarch of the glade. 
 
 3 11 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 The stag ran like a deer, naturally spurred on to 
 top speed by the twenty-five couples of hounds at his 
 heels. The pace was so fast that the pack gave 
 tongue but at intervals. 
 
 Theodore, being best mounted and the best rider, 
 rode close to the hounds with incredible ardour; 
 d'Albert was not far from him. Rosette and Isnabel 
 followed at a distance which increased every moment, 
 and ere long was such that they could not hope to 
 catch up with the leaders. 
 
 " Suppose we pull up," said Rosette, " and breathe 
 the horses a bit ? The hunt is swinging round the 
 pond, and I know of a short cut by which we can be 
 in at the death as soon as the rest." 
 
 Isnabel reined in his little mountain-horse, which 
 bent low its head, tossing over its eyes the hanging 
 locks of its mane, and pawed the ground. 
 
 This little horse contrasted strongly with Rosette's ; 
 it was black as a coal, the other milk-white ; its full 
 mane and tail were wild-looking ; Rosette's had its 
 mane plaited with blue ribbon and its tail combed out 
 and curled. It looked like a unicorn, and the other 
 like a poodle. 
 
 The same contrast was noticeable in the riders. 
 
 312 
 
tfctt: 4: :fc i: & *k & i: 4: ^4r4rtl?tl?t!bd?d:d:tl:^lr db slrdb 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 Rosette's hair was as dark as Isnabel's was fair ; 
 she had strongly marked eyebrows, while the page's 
 were scarce darker than his skin and resembled the 
 bloom of peach. The complexion of the one was 
 as dazzling and unmistakable as the noon-day light ; 
 the other's resembled the blush and transparency of 
 dawn. 
 
 " Shall we try to catch up with the hounds now ? " 
 said Isnabel to Rosette. " Our horses have had time 
 to get their second wind." 
 
 " Let us away, then," replied the lovely horse- 
 woman > and they galloped off down a rather narrow 
 cross-path leading to the pond. The two horses gal- 
 loped side by side, almost filling up the pathway. 
 
 On Isnabel's side a gnarled and knotty trunk 
 stretched out a great limb which seemed to threaten 
 the horsemen. The lad did not see it. 
 
 " Take care," cried Rosette ; " lie low, or you will 
 be thrown ! " 
 
 The advice came just too late ; the limb caught 
 Isnabel in the waist and he lost his stirrups. The horse 
 galloping on and the limb not bending, the lad 
 was pulled out of the saddle and thrown heavily, 
 fainting with the shock. Rosette, greatly terrified, 
 
 3*3 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 dismounted swiftly and hastened to the apparently 
 lifeless page. 
 
 His cap had fallen off, and his beautiful fair hair fell 
 in waves upon the sandy soil. His small hands, 
 opened wide, seemed to be of wax, so pale were they. 
 Rosette knelt by him and tried to bring him back to 
 consciousness. She had neither salts nor strong waters 
 with her and was greatly embarrassed. At last she 
 perceived a fairly deep rut in which rain water had 
 accumulated and settled. She dipped her fingers in it, 
 greatly to the terror of a little frog, the naiad of that 
 wave, and splashed a few drops on the blue temples 
 of the young page, who did not seem to feel them, the 
 beads coursing down his blanched cheeks like a sylph's 
 tears down a lily leaf. Rosette, thinking his clothes 
 needed loosening, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his 
 tunic, and undid his shirt to enable him to breathe 
 more freely. She then beheld a sight which, to a man, 
 would have been the most delightful of surprises, but 
 which did not appear to cause her pleasure, for her 
 brow bent and her lip trembled slightly — she beheld 
 a very white bosom, not yet fully developed, but which 
 held out the most enchanting promises and already 
 fulfilled many : round, polished, ivory breasts, to speak 
 
 3*4 
 
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 MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN 
 
 like Ronsard's imitators, most delightful to gaze upon 
 and more delicious still to kiss. 
 
 " A woman ! " said Rosette. " A woman ! Oh, 
 Theodore ! " 
 
 Isnabel, as we shall still call her, though it was not 
 her name, breathed again softly and half opened her 
 heavy eyelids.- She was not hurt in any way, — merely 
 stunned ; she sat up, and, with Rosette's help, was 
 able to rise and mount her horse, which, on feeling its 
 rider fall, had stopped short. 
 
 They rode slowly to the pond, where they came up 
 with the hunt, as they expected. Rosette, in a few 
 words, told Theodore what had happened. The latter 
 changed colour more than once in the course of the 
 narration, and during the rest of the ride kept close by 
 Isnabel's side. 
 
 The party returned early to the house, and the day, 
 which had begun so brightly, ended rather sadly. 
 
 Rosette was pensive and d'Albert also seemed sunk 
 in thought. The reader will soon learn the reason 
 of this. 
 
 END OF VOL. I 
 
 3 X 5 
 


This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below 
 
 fcC'Q 
 
 
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 3 7Q7n 
 
 recto Lp-uflS 
 
 tAAB 
 
 BECDLPPC^ ,^7 
 
 JUIU 
 
 JUN 1 6 1977 
 
 DISCftW 
 
 0","- 
 
 o\sc 
 
 » 
 
 
 10m-ll,'50(2555)470 
 
 H0V14 
 
 07-URt 
 
 1979 
 
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 3 1158 00323 4266