“'Certainly! Why not? It would have been most unbecoming if I had not had her. She has been of great service to me, and I am very grateful for it.'
“'I do not understand the nature of the services she can have rendered you.'
“'Are you really a fool then?' said De C-, looking at me with the most comical air in the world. 'Upon my word, I am afraid so? Must I tell you the whole story? Madame de Thymines is reputed, and deservedly so, to have special knowledge on certain subjects, and a young man that she has taken up and favored for a while may present himself boldly everywhere, and be sure that he will not remain for long without having an affair on hand, and two rather than one. Besides this unspeakable advantage, there is another no less important, which is, that as soon as the women of the world here see that you are the recognized lover of Madame do Thymines, they will make it a pleasure and a duty, even if they had not the least liking for you, to carry you off from a woman who is the fashion as she is. Instead of the advances and proceedings that would have been necessary, you will not know where to choose, and you will of necessity become the object of all the allurements and affectations imaginable.
“'Nevertheless, if she inspires you with too great a repugnance, do not take her. You are not exactly obliged to do so, though it would have been polite and proper. But make a choice quickly, and attack her who pleases you most, or who seems to afford you most facilities, for delay would lose you the benefit of novelty, and the advantage it gives you for a few days over all the cavaliers here. All these ladies have no conception of those passions which have their birth in intimacy, and develop slowly with respect and silence. They are for thunderbolts and occult sympathies — something marvellously well imagined to save the tedium of resistance, and all the prolixity and repetition which sentiment mingles with the romance of love, and which only serve to delay the conclusion uselessly. These ladies are very economical of their time, and it appears so precious to them that they would be grieved to leave a single minute unemployed. They have a desire to oblige mankind which cannot be too highly praised, and they love their neighbor as themselves, which is quite according to the Gospel, and very meritorious. They are very charitable creatures, who would not for anything in the world cause a man to die of despair.
“'There must be three or four already smitten in your favor, and I would advise you in a friendly way to pursue your point with spirit over these instead of amusing yourself gossiping with me in the embrasure of a window, which will not advance you to any great extent.'
“'But, my dear De C-, I am quite new to this kind of thing. I am utterly without the power to distinguish at first sight a woman who is smitten from one who is not; and I might make strange blunders if you did not assist me with your experience.'
“'You are really as primitive as you can be. I did not think that it was possible to be as pastoral and bucolic as that in the present blessed century! What the devil do you do, then, with the large pair of black eyes that you have there, and that would have the most crushing effect if you knew how to make use of them?
“'Just look yonder a moment at that little woman in rose, playing with her fan in the corner near the fireplace. She has been eyeing you for a quarter of an hour with the most significant fixity and assiduity. There is not another in the world who can be indecent after such a superior fashion, and display such noble shamelessness. She is greatly disliked by the women who despair of ever attaining to such a height of impudence, but to compensate for this, she is greatly liked by the men, who find in her all the piquancy of a courtesan. She is in truth charmingly depraved, and full of wit, spirit, and caprice. She is an excellent preceptor for a young man with prejudices. In a week she will rid your conscience of all scruples, and corrupt your heart in such a way that you will never be a subject for ridicule or elegy. She has inexpressibly practical ideas about everything; she goes to the bottom of things with a swiftness and certainty that are astonishing. She is algebra incarnate, is that little woman. She is precisely what is needed by a dreamer and an enthusiast. She will soon cure you of your vaporish idealism, and she will do you a great service. She will moreover do it with the greatest pleasure, for it is an instinct with her to disenchant poets.'
“My curiosity being aroused by De C-'s description, I left my retreat, and gliding through the various groups, approached the lady, and looked at her with much attention. She was perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. Her figure was small, but well made, though somewhat inclined to embonpoint. Her arm was white and plump, her hand noble, her foot pretty and even too delicate, her shoulders full and glossy, and her bosom small, but what there was of it very satisfactory, and giving a favorable idea of the remainder. As to her hair, it was splendid in the extreme, of a blue black, like that of a jackdaw's wing. The corner of her eye was turned up rattier high towards the temple, her nose slender with very open nostrils, her mouth humid and sensual, a little furrow in the lower lip, and an almost imperceptible down where the upper was united to it. And with all this there was such life, animation, health, force, and such an indefinable expression of lust skilfully tempered with coquetry and intrigue, that she was in short a very desirable creature, and more than justified the eager likings which she had inspired and still inspired every day.
“I wished for her; but I nevertheless understood that, agreeable as she was, she was not the woman who would realize my desire, and make me say, 'At last I have a mistress!'
“I returned to De C- and said to him: 'I like the lady well enough, and I shall perhaps make arrangements with her. But before saying anything definite and binding, I should be very glad if you would be kind enough to point me out these indulgent beauties who had the goodness to be smitten with me, so that I may make a choice. It would please me too, seeing that you are acting as demonstrator to me here, if you would add a little account of them with the nomenclature of their qualities and their defects, the manner in which they should be attacked, and the tone to adopt with them in order that I may not look too much like a provincial or an author.'
“'Willingly,' said De C-. 'Do you see that beautiful, melancholy swan, displaying her neck so harmoniously, and moving her sleeves as though they were wings? She is modesty itself-everything that is chastest and most maidenly in the world. She has a brow of snow, a heart of ice, the looks of a Madonna, the smile of a simpleton, her dress is white, and her soul is the same. She puts nothing but orange-blossoms or leaves of the water-lily in her hair, and she is connected with the earth only by a thread. She has never had an evil thought, and she is profoundly ignorant of how a man differs from a woman. The Holy Virgin is a Bacchante beside her, which, however, does not prevent her from having had more lovers than any other woman of my acquaintance, and that is saying a good deal. Just examine this discreet person's bosom for a moment; it is a little masterpiece, and it is really difficult to show so much while hiding more. Say, is she not, with all her restrictions and all her prudery, ten times more indecent than that good lady on her left, who is making a grand show of two hemispheres, which, if they were joined together, would make a map of the world of natural size, or than the other on her right, whose dress is open almost to her stomach, and who is parading her nothingness with charming intrepidity?
“'This maidenly creature, if I am not greatly mistaken, has already computed in her head the amount of love and passion promised by your paleness and black eyes, and what makes me say so is the fact that she has not once, apparently, at least, looked towards you; for she can move her eyes with so much art, and look out of the corner of them so skilfully, that nothing escapes her; one would think that she could see out of the back of her head, for she knows perfectly well what is going on behind her. She is a female Janus. If you would succeed with her you must lay swaggering and victorious manners aside. You must speak to her without looking at her, without making any movement, in an attitude of contrition, and in suppressed and respectful tones. In this way you may say to her what you will, provided it be suitably veiled, and she will allow you the greatest freedom at first of speech, and afterwards of action. Only be careful to look at her with tenderness when her own eyes are cast down, and speak to her of the sweets of platonic love and of the intercourse of the soul, while employing the least platonic and ideal pantomime in the world! She is very sensual and very susceptible; embrace her as much as you like; but, when most freely intimate with her, do not forget to call her madame two or three times in every sentence. She quarrelled with me because when I was most intimate with her I addressed her familiarly when saying something or other. The devil! a woman is not virtuous for nothing.
“'I have no great desire to hazard the adventure, after what you have told me. A prudish Messalina! the union is monstrous and strange!'
“'It is as old as the world, my dear fellow! It is to be seen every day, and nothing is more common. You are wrong not to have fixed upon her. She has one great charm, which is, that with her a man always seems to be committing mortal sin, and the least kiss appears perfectly damnable, while in the case of others he scarcely thinks the sin a venial one, and often even thinks nothing of it at all. That is why I kept her longer than any other mistress. I should have had her still if she had not left me herself. She is the only woman who has anticipated me and I have a certain respect for her on that account. She has little voluptuous refinements of the most exquisite delicacy, and she possesses the great art of making it appear that she has wrested from her what she grants very willingly-a circumstance which gives each of her favors a peculiar charm. You will find in the world ten of her lovers who will
