A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie Clifford Barney

by Natalie Clifford Barney

  What a contrast with the artificial Renée Colette describes in Ces Plaisirs!

  Though I felt her despair was beyond human succor, I wanted to leave my house in Neuilly and wait for her to come back in a different place where no bad memories would assail her. I began to look for, and finally found, a house with a courtyard and garden, in Rue Jacob. There I became the vestal of a little Temple of Friendship. In order to escape the moving process, I went and joined the actress I had been so relieved to see the back of. As soon as I arrived in Saint-Petersburg I learned that I had been ousted: first by an attache at the French Embassy, then by a Russian colonel. When I was about to board the train for the long return trip, an old diplomat friend of mine, who had informed me of my misfortune, brought me a copy of Voltaire's Candide.

  Scarcely was I settled into my new home but I heard that Renée was sick. "Her illness punctuated by a series of anguished fits, and that she did not wish to see anyone." I went to see her anyway that very evening to find out how she was, a bouquet of flowers in my arms. Opening the door a crack, a butler I had never seen before informed me, "mademoiselle has just died." I had only the presence of mind to insist that they lay my violets next to her. Then I staggered away, back to the Avenue du Bois and fainted on the nearest bench.

  When I regained consciousness I went home and shut myself up in my bedroom. Unable and unwilling to see her dead, I needed to get into contact immediately with all that I had left of her. Like a grave robber I fell upon the precious casket she had given me. The key was lost and I had to force the lock. It held so many tangible memories that I felt her presence around me. No one could stop her from joining me now. May I be forever haunted! For if the haunting stopped, what would be left? Oblivion. But what lover, what poet would want that?

  I immersed myself in all those relics: the manuscript of poems she had written for me came back to life—a wavering life—through my tears.

  A cold wind from just before dawn and the rain on the windows interrupted my reverie and awoke me to reality. Flee the confusion of all these ruined treasures? How and why was I to regain my equilibrium? Should I turn away from this past which could not live on without me? from the wandering soul of the dead woman? or welcome her in, live for her as before, and draw inspiration from her, better than before? Did I have the choice? I wrote down what I saw and felt that haunted night, as though I were a medium:

  I fear the sobbing wind and the silence obscure.

  Life is uncertain and death is not secure:

  A ghost stands before me in the shadow of my wall.

  —Oh the Past! throwing shadows on my wall!

  Awakened by this specter wandering from its tomb,

  My heart, which I had thought impregnable and hard,

  My heart has reopened under the wound of old.

  And I say your name again in the pure and fiery breath,

  And I hear the wind blow in like a murmur

  Of your voice: Can the Past become what is to come?

  —What was the Past, can it be what is to come?

  Two days later I attended her funeral as though walking in my sleep, for I would not find what I was looking for at her graveside, but elsewhere and within myself.

  I reread the poem she had written for her tombstone:

  Here is the gate through which I leave...

  Oh my roses and my thorns!

  What matter now days gone by?

  I sleep and dream of things divine...

  Herein lies my ravished soul,

  It is peaceful, sleeping now

  Having for the love of Death

  Forgiven the bitter crime of Life.

  I translated them into English the better to immerse myself in them.

  There were two versions given of her last words: one Catholic, the other secular. In the past she had written:

  If the Lord were to bend over me in death,

  I would say: Oh Christ, I do not know you.

  On her deathbed she is said to have murmured, painfully swallowing the host: "This is the best moment of my life."

  Louise Faure-Favier wrote in the Mercure de France, on the other hand: "She died quite simply, murmuring the name 'Lorely' whom she had loved so much. She was also heard to say: "I do not regret having written beautiful poetry."

  Perhaps these two contradictory accounts, which refer to different periods of her life, were each equally true. Perhaps at the end of her life her extreme debility prevented her from saying anything at all.

  1. In the first of three portraits of Renée Vivien, Marcelle Tillar describes, with a lighter touch, "Her pale chestnut hair which still showed traces of the almost vanished childhood blond."

  2. The illicit liaison between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas outraged the latter's father so much that he left his card at that doubly famous writer's club, covered with slanderous insults. There followed a trial which, as everyone knows, resulted in Oscar Wilde being condemned to hard labour at the height of his popularity.

  3. After her death, these poems appeared under the name Haillons [Rags] for she had made it up with her editor and sent her poems to him with this letter: "I am sending you these poems with the same naive confidence with which the Japanese poets entrusted their poems to the mercy of the current, carefully placed upon the leaf of a water lily." Her poems found a safe harbor and were all collected by Alphonse Lemerre in two volumes entitled, Poésies complètes de Renée Vivien [The Complete Works of Renée Vivien]

  The Woman who Lives with Me

  I.

  She came to me because her life was broken, and nothing mattered much.

  They told me she was unhappy, she told me nothing, she only laughed.

  I understood her because she is beautiful, and because I always understand beautiful things.

  I spoke to her of her beauty and of my understanding, she listened, and sometimes answered.

  Perhaps I told her that I loved her. I do not remember, I say these words lightly, for me there is no meaning left in them.

  I think she knew this, and I felt a little annoyed, and very much more at my ease.

  I was glad she did not care about me, it let me care very much more; if she had noticed this I should not have been pleased—it would have made my feelings responsible. I hate responsibility, she likes it. She has two children. They are not very much like her; they are little boys, and she is almost a woman. I suppose she is almost a mother too, but I never think of her as a mother; perhaps I should, women are generally nice mothers to even those who are not their children. I like her children inasmuch as they are like her, or whenever they behave like little girls. This happens often, for they have sensitive, fantastic natures, and are afraid of almost everything. They do not know why, she does—that is the great difference between them!

  II.

  If she has suffered much she has never told anyone, it has stayed in her silences, in her voice, in her laugh, and in the beauty of her face.

  I hate a beauty that is written in the major key. It is insolent, joyous, it shouts at you; her beauty is always there, but it is like a sphinx, it waits to be spoken to. I do not wish to guess its secret. It is enough that it should have one.

  III.

  I am not curious, neither is she; we never speak about the past, nor wish to read each others letters—those that each of us send to others. Our present is self sufficient, it is complete in itself. In certain moods I pretend to be jealous, and this is foolish, for she loves nothing, and she knows that I know this.

  If some day she should love something, I should lose her, and yet should I be jealous?

  IV.

  For some time she has been my mistress, because she does not care enough to resist, but she has never given herself to me. Perhaps she will never give herself to anybody. Perhaps she is too limitless to be possessed. I fear that this is so, and sometimes I hope it.

  I lie near her for many hours in the day and in the night, but I never dare to kiss her lips, and she never holds me a
gainst her heart. Yet I suppose I am her lover, and she is living with me. She has said this to convince me or to convince herself of its truth: some truths are hard to realize. I wish she would learn to lie to me, it would make things less real: easier.

  If she lied to me I should forget her. I have almost forgotten all the rest... I have loved many women, at least I suppose I have. They occasionally write and tell me so, and that they miss my love. I do not miss theirs, I only love the love I give. I appreciate it—it is mine; the love that others give is never our own, or only for a little while. Yet at times I have wanted it and not found it, and most of all when it was present.

  I love the love of those who are far enough away, it becomes whatever I wish to believe it.

  I love the love of the woman I live with: it is always far enough away.

  V.

  We have no scenes: we do not care about the same things.

  Once in a while she plays to me (she listens to the music—I to the expression of her eyes). We both like this—we have this in common, and the same things make us laugh; and this is enough. In all else one must be alone; it is best so—and yet!

  VI.

  She is going to leave. I asked her why. It is because she is getting fond of me, and may some day miss me when I go away from her. I shall go away from her—I always go away from the things that I love, as well as from the things I no longer like—the former is the easier. There is joy and regret in it. In the latter there is only the regret of habit.

  She likes habit for the very reason I dislike it. She may be older than I… she wishes to avoid suffering. To me suffering is still an inspiration. I prefer it infinitely to pain.

  VII.

  She may go back to her husband, because he is the strongest habit of her life. I do not somehow envy him this—though I wish she were my wife.

  I have asked her to marry me, and in fun she has asked me to marry her. If she did, it would be merely a way of getting rid of me. She may accept it—but then someone else might become her lover. Even her husband might. I could not endure this. It is not a compliment to be asked in marriage. I have asked many women to marry me, and a great many have. It is easier to love than to like. I both love and like the woman who lives with me.

  I love her passionately, for the pleasure it gives me. My love is a selfish, glorious, god-like thing. It is very theatrical. It is very magnificent. It wields words with an eloquence that few people as sincere as I are capable of. It is tearful and tender, persuasive and despotic; it has its moments of genius. She generally sleeps during these, but I am there to listen, to appreciate, and even this is enough. I am drunk, I am mad, I am happy. If she were to understand, to feel with me, we should both be; that would be the only difference. As I said before, my love—the love I give—is self satisfying; I wish nothing else given to me, though I should love her to love it more, so I might get drunk, mad, happy, oftener.

  VIII.

  She has said, "Life is as others spoil it for us." So is love. The only unforgivable thing would be for her to spoil the love I have for her. Nothing else in all the world matters to me while this lives on. I said I liked her as well, I do, but I haven't much time to think about that now, I am too absorbed in loving her, besides the other is there, it will last. Shall I care whether I like her or not when I no longer love her? It is as important to like what one loves, as it is unimportant to love what one likes.

  She worries a good deal over little things, but this is not because her nature is small, but because she is sensitive. Yet I wonder why she isn't in love with me! I often wonder about this, but can find no reason why she shouldn't be, unless that in itself is one!

  IX.

  Last night she said to me, "I never could stand going back to him now.”

  I hoped I had guessed what she meant, but I asked why?

  "Because...," and she held my hands very tightly and kissed them

  ...and then she wept.

  The End

  Part Two: A Lesbian Point of View

  Confidences

  "I am so unhappy, my heart is in torment."

  "Leis, little virgin, give me your torment or I will snatch it from your lips."

  "Don't laugh, my torment is great indeed. I am sad and anxious and full of shame. On my way to meet you here I walked through the town. It was so hot that I took off my veil, contrary to the custom of my people, and the women who saw me... laughed among themselves saying, 'This must be Leika's daughter, the exiled Oriental. She still has no young man.' Then they whispered so I could hear them better, 'She's still a virgin, though she's old enough to know about love.' And they all looked at me with derision. And the men... looked at me too, but in a different way, with strangely tender, cruel little eyes, and they showed their teeth as they whistled, 'She's exquisite!’ And I blushed, feeling hotter still without... my veil, and I covered my face. Tell me, you who know so much, what can I do to stop blushing and how can I lose my virginity?"

  "Stay a virgin, Leis. That's worth more than anything in the world."

  "I beg you, tell me. I don't want to be laughed at when I walk through the town."

  "Don't walk through the town then."

  "Why did they laugh if, as you say, it's better to be like me?"

  "Pity them. That was envy talking."

  "They said I didn't even have a husband."

  "That's because they have had more than enough of husbands, little virgin!

  "Oh little one, how can I make you see that nothing equals the pride of belonging to oneself, to oneself alone? Not to know the degradation of belonging to another; having been the mistress of slaves and the slave of the masters! Every man to whom you give yourself, or... who takes you, takes away a part of you until all you have left is habit and the imprint of the desire of the other. Believe me, life is an expense of self as loathsome as it is fruitless! Leis, little virgin, how I love the un-spoilt freshness of your gaze! and your pure body which has never known the body of another. Oh, to feel that one has served only to slake desire, that one's beauty was given as a grazing right to those who cannot even appreciate it, since their first impulse is to defile it! It's not even that which excites them, but the realization that I am an object of value since I bear its brand: that emblem of vanished beauty. Men desire me most because others have desired me before, and they will desire me even more when there is no longer anything desirable left... I feel so good, lying next to you, Leis! I feel as clear as crystal when I touch you..."

  But either Leis was not listening, or what she heard was something completely different, for after a while she said,

  "Oh! Dorica! If I had your jewels, your men, your glory I would die of joy!"

  Brute!

  She

  You love me! You love me!... If I do not yield to your desire, it is because I love you... entirely because I love you. Please understand, I want so much for you to understand me! So many men have possessed me without understanding me, that I want someone to understand me without possessing me! All the days of my life I have dreamed only of Love, I have lived for Love, for Love pure and simple, and that is the one thing I've never found. I've always embraced one of the forms of love but never love itself. I have looked for it everywhere but believe the aging smile upon my lips which know no more of its kiss than if they had never touched other lips! Do not imagine that I set any limits on my quest. I have searched barefoot in the streets and decked in golden tunics in the houses of kings. I have sought it in crime and in art, and in the one I found only a little courage and in the other so much vanity...

  You want inexpressible joy, you will have it, more exquisite than you can imagine. You will unwind not only the veils from my body but also the veils from my soul; you will watch not only the rhythmic swaying of my hips but all the subtle shifts of my mind. You will possess me in every way except that in which others have possessed me... No, don't come near... No, not that… I want to stay fresh for you and forever virgin like an untapped spring... Do you want that?
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  He

  I want your body.

  Courtesan

  "Do you think you can possess me for two silver plates? You are handsome, son of Ermotes, but your beauty is insufficient for a courtesan. Your mouth is full of kisses and your hair is full of perfume, but kisses and perfume blow away... My youth was cloyed with such things... You offer me your heart; what is your heart, that thing which beats for the pleasure you expect from me?... Your tears then? Morose expression of your frustrated desire. No, no, all this is nothing to me... keep it... and fill my house with your father's wealth instead… Cold stones will inflame me more passionately than your eyes and a floor paved with rubies would delight my feet more than all your blood shed upon it... Remember, son of Ermotes, how much firmer my breasts seem to you through cloth of velvet, how jealous you were as it caressed my flesh like a lover... Keep back, son of Ermotes, only virgins get raped! My weak body, undulating knowingly, slips away from your persistent strength clumsily hardened by desire... Do not squeeze my lips between yours like that, I cannot taste the pleasure of your tongue and I will not look so beautiful when you've licked off my rouge!... Oh no, tears silver your temples... your whole body sobs and you want me to love you! Rather than battering at my closed knees, go and fill your two silver plates with gold... and, in exchange, I will bestow upon you one fake spasm... perhaps!”