“Monsieur has young children?”
“I have seven of them,” I replied, with aplomb, “and the eldest isn’t yet nine...”
“Damn!” murmured the concierge, clicking his tongue in a significant manner. “The proprietor doesn’t much like renting to people who have seven young children...”
“That’s sufficient, then; let’s not talk about it any longer. In any case, I think, in truth, that the apartment wouldn’t suit me. Adieu, Monsieur.”
VI
After having told me the preceding story, Méril added:
“I nearly came right away to bring you up to date with my intrigue, but I feared your mockery.”
“You were wrong. I wouldn’t have made fun of you at all. And after all, if I’d have made fun of you then, why wouldn’t I do it today?”
“Today, it’s not the same. There’s something new.”
“Ah!”
“Three days later, I received this letter.”
I took the letter that Méril was holding out to me, and I read a few lines traced in the neat and rounded script that he had mentioned to me:
If I had not seen you in my home the other days and recognized you as the man of the Champs-Élysées, I would have believed that a practical joker had wanted to trick me by responding to my notes. In fact, perhaps you are that practical joker; I hope so, for your sake. I hope that you don’t attach any importance to what you wrote, with a certain conceit and indiscretion, you’ll agree. For you would truly lament at having given your affection to a woman who is worse than dead, to a woman who, for two terrible reasons, can no longer be the object of any man’s amour. Remember that I do not speak; remember that I do not show my face.
“What do you say to that?” exclaimed Méril.
“I find it very singular.
“But what do you understand by it? What dispositions do you think she has in my regard?
“There aren’t two ways of understanding things,” I replied. “It’s obvious that the woman is in the best dispositions in your regard. You please her. She would be ready to love you, if she doesn’t love you already. Her notes told you that; her letter confirms it. Except that, with the common sense that shows that she isn’t mad, she makes the observation to you that, being deprived of speech and obliged to wear a veil, she cannot involve herself in amour.”
“Why can’t she?”
“Oh, my dear friend, you’re priceless. Think about it. I suppose that with a woman who can’t articulate a single word, but shows you a pretty face, you can spend your time giving her kisses and receiving them from her, and that conversation is as good as any other. I suppose too that if you can’t see her face, but she speaks to you and you make charming replies in a sweet voice, that’s worth almost as much as kisses. On the contrary, if the face and the voice are both lacking in a woman, what remains for you? Nothing, or almost nothing.”
“There’s still her hand, which is the most beautiful I’ve encountered.”
“That veil eternally placed over her face and which she doesn’t want to lift at any price, doesn’t worry you? You’re not wondering what it’s hiding, and that question doesn’t make you shiver?”
“Yes, of course. Shut up—you’re frightening me...”
“Admit, however, that curiosity is driving you...”
“I admit it—a ferocious curiosity. There are frightening probabilities, which, by virtue of the mystery that envelops them, attract me toward that woman more that the greatest beauty open to the sky.”
“Then you’re determined...”
“I’m determined,” said Méril, firmly, “to use all means possible to see her again...”
“Seeing her isn’t precisely the right word,” I said, “since she hasn’t uncovered her face before you, and it’s understood that she never will uncover it.”
“So be it—I mean to find myself facing that living enigma again, in order to be able to penetrate it with a gesture, and not to make it; in order to live in anxiety, in the unknown, in I know not what mortal charm. Oh, you don’t understand me. That’s not astonishing; I’m rambling.”
“I understand you very well—and that’s astonishing, because you really are rambling. But what do you expect? I’ve always understood people who are rambling—it’s an idiosyncrasy of mine—rather better than those who claim to be reasoning accurately So all your ramblings don’t catch me out, believe me. Would you like proof? To what you’ve just said, you could easily add this: ‘And I’d experience a ferocious pleasure in being loved by this woman who, for two terrible reasons, to use her own expression, cannot be the object of any man’s amour.’ Isn’t that so?”
Méril allowed one of those prolonged cries of “Yes!” to pass between his teeth that are the marks of a keen passion.
“Do you know that it’s abominable?” I continued. “You’re dreaming about that woman’s unhappiness, neither more nor less.”
“And mine too; that’s my excuse. It’s necessary that we both suffer, equally. It’s necessary that our meetings be tortures, and yet filled with tenderness—but an infernal tenderness.”
“Perfect! When is the first torture? When is the first infernal tenderness?”
“I don’t know. She has my note. Will she come, or won’t she? Would you like to know what I wrote? Here’s a copy of my note.”
“Let’s see...”
Méril handed me a piece of paper, on which I read:
I am not a practical joker; I am an extremely serious man. Forgive me for the “conceit” and “indiscretion” with which I wrote a few words after your notes. Moreover, I attach a great importance to those few words. You are worse than dead, you say, and for two terrible reasons you can never be the object of any man’s amour, because you do not speak and you do not show your face. That is an error. There is one man for who those two reasons are absolutely insignificant, and that man is me. Rue d’Assas, second floor, the door facing the stairway. Every day from two o’clock till six, I’m alone.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, you expect her to come to you?”
“I expect so.”
“The very precise address you give her doesn’t signify anything else, that’s evident.”
“Nothing else, that’s evident.”
“In spite of the desire she has, she might not dare.”
“Bah! A veiled woman—and take note; she arrives at my door, she enters my apartment without asking anything of any intermediary. I’m sparing her the most disagreeable part.”
“You’re a thoughtful fellow.”
“I flatter myself on it. But now I think about it, it’s quarter to two; what if she comes while I’m chatting to you? I have to run. Adieu.”
VII
I don’t believe that there exists in this poor world a role more disagreeable than that of confidant of a fortunate man, especially when one has the same taste as him without the talent to satisfy it. He shows you the way, at a pure loss; he is opening horizons that you cannot attain. He can explain to you how one lays siege to a woman, how she defends herself, how she capitulates, but you, the man with your skylarks ready roasted, nevertheless remain at home, waiting for the woman that will fall amorously into your arms. And you’re enraged, waiting in vain, with your legs crossed and your chin in your hand for what he, the fortunate man, has gone to great pains to obtain. And do you complain about being unlucky? Of course you do!
Amour, the most beautiful of careers, if not the most lucrative, resembles others in that one doesn’t succeed in it without hard work. To enrich oneself, to acquire a reputation, to have success with women, it’s necessary to act, and to do a great deal.
Usually, all kinds of activity go together, like all kinds of idleness, but I believe that in the case of my friend Méril, in the matter of activity, he only has amorous activity. It is, in any case, the sweetest and, all things considered, isn’t the least important or the least profitable. People have been seen who, because they had it, could achieve any
thing. Méril himself, unambitious by nature, doesn’t care about achieving anything…but it’s rare that he doesn’t achieve anything...
Anyway, more than a week after the day when he was hoping to receive a visit from the mute woman, having not received any news from him, I went to see him one morning.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, as soon as he saw me.
That locution I have often experienced; Méril greets me with it regularly every time he is in a bad mood; no matter how courteous his tone might be, I’m never deceived by it. If, on the contrary, he says: “Ah, there you are!” it’s because everything is going as he wishes, that he is well, joyful and content with life. I believe that in both cases he experiences pleasure in seeing me, so I can’t be any more annoyed by his “Oh it’s you,” than by his “Ah, there you are!” but in the former case I know that he will have nothing to relate to me butt disappointments, while in the latter, he will have the satisfaction of telling me some story in which he played an agreeable role.
“Well, how goes it?” I asked him.
“It’s going badly.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Life is decidedly stupid,” he said, after a momentary pause.
“Why is that?”
“Pooh!”
“Your mute has been deaf, eh?”
“I’m not in a mood to hear witticisms, you know.”
“And yet you can’t help laughing, grump. She hasn’t come, then?”
“No.”
“Well, my dear, one might be mute and obliged to wear a veil on one’s face, but running to a young man’s home at the first invitation is a bit strong. It’s necessary to arrange a rendezvous on neutral ground to begin with.”
“It’s a fine time to tell me that. You always give me advice after the fact. It seemed to me that, after her letter, I didn’t have to hesitate—but women are such strange creatures!”
I went into Méril’s small drawing room, while chatting. On the small table in the middle of the room, a large bouquet of roses was lying in a melancholy fashion, already half-faded, and beside it a blank piece of paper with a pencil on top.
“Méril?”
“What?”
“I’ll wager that you had prepared the language of flowers next to the language of handwriting.”
“You’re right, my poor friend, and the paper has remained free of writing, and the flowers are dead.”
He had uttered those words with a certain sadness—but as if he had suddenly been pricked by a needle, he added in a very animated and slightly angry tone: “For a week I’ve been posing; for a week I’ve been staying in my room regularly, like a studious youth. Oh, I’ve had enough; it’s too much. Today, I’m taking back my liberty, I’ll run around the four quarters of Paris...”
“And today is perhaps exactly when she’ll come!”
“Too bad.”
“Believe me, stay at home and renew your bouquet.”
If Lucretius, the great Lucretius, has to conclude this chapter—may his gigantic memory forgive me—he would willingly conclude it, I think, as I began it, but with this variation:
I don’t believe that there exists in this poor world a role more agreeable than that of confidant of a fortunate man whose good fortune turns bad...
Suave mari magno...13
VIII
Well, Lucretius would have been punished for that ungenerous sentiment, on receiving the following day the visit of his friend Méril, triumphant.
“Finally!” he cried. “I did what you said. I waited for her yesterday. It was the good day, apparently.”
At about three o’clock, a brief ring at the door made me shiver. I opened it. She was in front of me.
“How I’ve been longing to see you!” I cried, taking her hand.
She withdrew it, and went straight into my drawing room as if she already knew the way. I followed her there. She stopped in front of each of the objects that furnish or ornament it; she looked at everything through her veil; she leaned over the faded bouquet, which she respired at length. Then she made me a sign that she wanted to write. I showed her the paper and pencil, and this is what she wrote:
I hesitated for a long time before coming to see you; I only decided to do it because of the good opinion I have of you, the confidence that you inspire in me. To lift my veil would be to deliver me a mortal insult; it would be to commit a cowardly act. You have no reason to deliver me a mortal insult; you are incapable, I believe, of committing a cowardly act. Thus, I’m tranquil. But tell me, how is it possible that you could derive pleasure in receiving in your home a woman as disgraced as I am? My first visit might pique your curiosity; so be it. The second would exasperate you. For me, it is different. During the few minutes in which I would sense you near me, it seems to me that the species of tomb in which I am imprisoned would open slightly. Let the dead seek out the living; that is their affair—but the living have reason to avoid the dead.
“I’m a living man of another sort,” I replied to her, “A living man who has always had a weakness for the dead. You will be welcome every time you come, and I will love you as you would like me to love you.”
I sat down at the table, next to her; I squeezed her little hand, which responded to my grip, and I started to take off her glove. She let me do it complaisantly. It’s decidedly one of the prettiest hands there is, of a fleshiness so firm and so bursting with freshness that one cannot suppose it to be more than thirty years old. I saw once again all the rings of the other evening, with the crown of the marquise that she had aimed at my eyes so well in the garden of the Palais-Royal. I looked at that crown for a long time, smiling in spite of myself; the Mute perceived that and she wrote:
Why are you smiling? It seems to me that there is malice in your smile. The concierge will have told you that my name is Madame Peyrol, and you see no relationship, do you, between a Madame Peyrol and a marquise? I am both, however. I chose the name Peyrol in order to hide in its shadow. As for the title, it has been too fatal for me to keep it, and I would much prefer not to have it—but in sum, I have it.
“You’re misinterpreting my smile,” I replied to her. “I was smiling at your hand, as I’m still smiling at it, as one smiles at a child, in order that it might be favorable to me and allow me to give it a few kisses.”
And, indeed, I began to kiss that hand, and I didn’t stop. I don’t stop, personally, when I’m kissing a beautiful hand. From time to time, that one had a few slight movements of recoil, but I kept hold of it and I treated it in the manner in which one treats a runaway prisoner, and inflicted a double punishment…or pleasure.
Then the marquise wrote something very pretty:
You’re kissing me too much. Remember that I have nothing else to offer you, and when you weary of that, nothing more will remain, for you or for me.
“But I’m not a man to weary thus—no, Madame.”
She stayed in my drawing room for an hour. Certainly, there isn’t anyone who wouldn’t judge as painful such a long tête-à-tête with a woman of whom you can only see the hand and who never says a word; nevertheless, I found the hour short. The marquise wrote such fine and profound things, and her hand was so expressive—I say expressive because I saw clearly reflected their confidence, dread, joy and sadness; in sum, all the play appropriate to human physiognomy. It’s a truly curious thing for whoever observes it, and few people have observed it: temporary lineaments, mysterious characters in the language of the soul, tracing themselves in the noblest parts of the body!
*
“Do you want to see,” Méril added, “some of the fine and profound things that she wrote and, I think, improvised, in my home? I reread them so frequently after her departure, and again this morning, that I can flatter myself in knowing them by heart. But I prefer to show them to you, and for you to read them for yourself.”
And Méril took from his pocket a large sheet of paper, folded in four, on which were written in sequence all the questions and all the responses
of the marquise—in sum, her part of the dialogue. He showed me with his fingertip the passages on which to concentrate my attention.
*
You’re about thirty years old, aren’t you? You’re beginning to know life. I’m twenty-two myself; that’s still very young, but certain events have aged my prematurely. Would you like us to talk in all sincerity?
When one has some experience of things, particularly matters of amour, it’s impossible not to mistrust the man or the woman with whom one has made a liaison. You mistrust me.
Oh, there’s no need to try to avoid the issue. You mistrust me. And you’re right, doubly right. First of all, I’m a woman. Secondly, I’m veiled. What is my heart worth? What does my face represent? You’re wondering: Is she a schemer? Is she a monster? At the very moment that you’re taking me by the hand and covering me with tender kisses, those ideas are going through your mind, aren’t they?
Another evasion! I proposed that we speak frankly about life. You’ve said that you wanted that. And already you’re lying. Accuse women of being insincere, then! See that I’m more sincere, myself. I confess that I mistrust you, and greatly.
Because nothing proves to me that you’re good, seriously good; because you might be frivolous, and even because I’m running the risk of loving in you a man who will wash his hands of me as soon as his curiosity is satisfied. That’s why.
Terrible, but sage.
No. When one knows that happiness is precarious, one savors it far more. One doesn’t let anything escape. One is knowingly happy. Dos it not seem to you, as it does to me, that that condition of the soul, anxious as it is, perhaps because of its anxiety, offers the greats compensations in amour?
It is thus that the traveler passing through a beautiful country finds impressions a hundred times more vivid there than the inhabitant of that country. The former feels that what he sees today he will doubtless never see again, and he embraces everything with a passionate gaze. The latter has seen yesterday what he is seeing today, and expects to see it again tomorrow; so the most sublime spectacle produces hardly any effect on him. He enjoys it without enjoying it. He is astonished that the other, the traveler, is uttering cries of astonishment. He wonders what is the matter with him.
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