“Yes, I remember now; wait. …”
“Wait. Ah! I’ve got it.”
“Go on; I’m listening.”
“I was saying that I can find lovers anywhere.”
“How do you do it?”
“I’ll tell you. Follow me closely. When I arrive at a strange place, I take notes and make my choice.”
“Make your choice?”
“Yes, of course. I take notes first. I get all the information. A man must be discreet, rich, and generous before all, mustn’t he?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“And then, he must be pleasing to me as a man.”
“Of course.”
“Then I angle for him.”
“Angle?”
“Yes, like catching fish. Have you never done any fishing?”
“No, never.”
“What a pity; you should. It’s great fun. And instructive too. Well, I angle for him.”
“How?”
“Don’t be silly. A woman catches the man she wants to catch, doesn’t she? As though they had any choice in the matter! And the poor fools still think it is they who choose. But it is we who choose … always. … Women like us, who are not ugly, and no fools, have all men for our suitors, all without exception. We pass them all in review from morning till night, and when we’ve picked one out we angle for him.”
“But you’re not telling me how you do it.”
“How do I do it? … Why, I do nothing. I just let myself be looked at.”
“You let yourself be looked at?”
“Yes. It is quite sufficient. When you’ve let yourself be looked at several times running, a man promptly finds you to be the prettiest and most attractive of women. Then he begins to pay court to you. I let him understand that he’s not such a bad sort, but of course I don’t actually say anything; and he falls at my feet. I’ve got him. It depends on his character how long it lasts.”
“And do you get all the men you want like that?”
“Almost all.”
“Then there are some who hold out against you.”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Why? There are three reasons which make a man a Joseph. Because he is very much in love with another woman, because he is extraordinarily timid, or because he is … how shall I put it? … incapable of carrying the conquest of a woman to its end. …”
“Oh, my dear! … Do you think? …”
“Yes. … I’m sure of it. … There are many, very, very many of the last kind, far more than you’d think. Oh! they look like everyone else … they are dressed like the rest … they parade up and down like peacocks. … When I say peacocks … I’m wrong; … they couldn’t spread their tails.”
“Really, dear! …”
“As for the timid ones, their folly is sometimes invincible. There must be men who can’t undress, even when going to bed by themselves, if they have a mirror in their rooms. With these, you have to take strong measures, and use your eyes and your hands. Even that is sometimes no use. They never know how or where to begin. When you faint in their presence, as a last resort … they try to revive you. … And if you delay returning to your senses … they go and fetch help.
“I prefer men who are other women’s lovers. I carry them off at … at the point of the bayonet, my dear!”
“That’s all very well, but what do you do when there are no men, as here, for instance?”
“I find them.”
“But where?”
“Oh, anywhere. Why, that reminds me of my story.
“Two years ago now, my husband sent me off to spend the summer at his place at Bougrolles. There’s absolutely nothing there, nothing whatever. There are a few revolting bumpkins in the nearby houses; they spend their lives hunting fur, shooting feather, and live in houses with no bathrooms; they perspire, and then sleep with it all, and you couldn’t improve them because their principles are fundamentally filthy.
“Guess what I did.”
“I can’t.”
“Ha! ha! I’d just been reading a pile of novels by George Sand, written in praise of the man of the people, books in which the workmen are sublime and all the gentlemen are criminals. In addition to that, I’d seen Ruy Blas that winter, and it had impressed me frightfully. Well, one of our farmers had a son, a good-looking lad of twenty-two who had been trained as a priest, but had left the seminary in disgust. Well, I engaged him as a servant!”
“Oh! … And what then?”
“Then … then, my dear, I treated him very loftily, and showed him a great deal of my person. I did not angle for the country lad; I just inflamed him!”
“Oh! Andrée!”
“Yes, and very good fun it was, too. They say servants don’t count. Well, he didn’t. I rang for him to get his orders every morning when my maid was dressing me, and every evening when she was undressing me.”
“Oh! Andrée!”
“My dear, he flamed up like a thatched roof. After that, at table, during meals, I spoke of nothing but clean livers, the care of the body, douches and baths. And it was so effective that at the end of a fortnight he was bathing in the river, morning and evening, and using so much scent that he was fairly poisoning the house. I was obliged to forbid him the use of scent, and told him, with an air of being in an awful temper, that men should never use anything but eau de cologne.”
“Oh! Andrée!”
“Then I got the idea of organising a country library. I sent for several hundred moral novels, and lent them all to our farm labourers and to my servants. Into this collection there had slipped a few books … poetical books … the sort of book that disturbs the souls … of schoolboys and undergraduates. … I gave them to my footman. They taught him life … a queer sort of life.”
“Oh … Andrée!”
“Then I began to grow familiar towards him, and address him in intimate terms. I had named him Joseph. My dear, he was in such a state … in an awful state. … He grew as thin as … as a cock, and his eyes were quite wild. I was frightfully amused. It was one of the best summers I ever spent. …”
“And
