Fanfarlo, page 2
– “Please stop, Monsieur!” said Madame de Cosmelly.
She was obviously moved; Samuel noticed that he had put a sword to an old wound, and he cruelly pressed on.
“Madame,” he said, “the beneficial suffering that comes from memories has its charms, and sometimes relief can be found in the intoxication of pain. – At this gloomy warning, all loyal souls would cry out: ‘Lord, take me away with my dream, unbroken and pure: I want to give my passion back to nature in all its virginity, and wear somewhere else my unwilted wreath.’ – Moreover, the results of disillusionment are horrifying. – Sickly children of moribund love are woeful debauchery and hideous impotence: debauchery of the mind, impotence of the heart, which means that the former lives only through curiosity, and the latter dies of weariness each day.
“We are all more or less like a traveler who has passed through a very large country, and who each evening watches, on a flat horizon, the setting sun, which long ago wonderfully used to gild the road’s charms. With resignation he sits on dirty hills covered with unknown rubbish, and tells the odors of heather, that in vain do they rise to the empty heavens; to rare and unhappy seeds, that in vain do they germinate in the parched earth; to birds who believe their marriages are blessed by someone, that they are wrong to build nests in a land buffeted by cold and violent winds. The traveler sadly continues his journey toward a desert he knows to be similar to the one just crossed, guided by a pale phantom we call Reason, who illumines the aridity of his path with a pale lantern, and who, to slake the recurrent thirst of passion that seizes him from time to time, pours him the poison of ennui.”
Suddenly, hearing a deep sigh and a poorly stifled sob, he turned to Madame de Cosmelly; she was crying profusely and no longer had the strength to hide her tears.
He observed her silently for some time, with the most compassionate and unctuous look he could manage; this brutal and hypocritical actor was proud of those beautiful tears; he considered them to be his work and his literary property. He misjudged the intimate meaning of that distress, just as Madame de Cosmelly, drowned in her candid grief, misjudged the intention of his look. It was a remarkable game of misunderstandings, following which Samuel Cramer gave her a final double handshake, which she accepted with tender confidence.
“Madame,” continued Samuel, after a few moments of silence, – the classical silence of emotion, – “true wisdom consists less in cursing than in hoping. Without the purely divine gift of hope, how can we cross that hideous desert of ennui I have just described to you? The phantom that escorts us is truly a phantom of reason: we can get rid of it by sprinkling it with holy water from the first theological virtue.[10] An easygoing philosophy is able to find consolations in apparently the most unworthy objects. Just as virtue is worth more than innocence, and there is more merit in planting in a desert than gathering pollen heedlessly in a fruitful orchard, so it is truly worthy of a superior soul to purify itself and to purify its neighbors through direct contact. Just as there is no unforgivable betrayal, so there is no failing for which we cannot be absolved, no disregard we cannot compensate; there is a science of loving one’s neighbor and finding him pleasant, just as there is a science of good living. The more a mind is sensitive, the more it discovers original beauties; the more a soul is tender and open to divine hope, the more it finds reasons to love others, as stained as they may be; such is the work of charity, and we have seen more than one woman traveler, grieved and lost in the arid deserts of disillusionment, recapture her faith, and love more strongly what she had lost, with more rationality, now that she possesses the science of managing her passion and that of her beloved.”
Madame de Cosmelly’s face brightened bit by bit; her sorrow glowed with hope like an overcast sun, and Samuel had scarcely finished his speech when she asked vigorously and with the naïve fervor of a child:
– “Is it true, Monsieur, that this is possible, and are there branches for people in despair that are so easy to grasp?”
– “Most certainty, Madame.”
– “Oh! then you would make me the happiest of women, if you would deign to teach me your methods.”
– “Nothing easier,” he replied brutally.
In the midst of that sentimental banter, trust had arrived and actually joined the hands of these two players; so much so that, after some hesitation and some prudishness which Samuel took as a good omen, Madame de Cosmelly in turn confided in him and began thus:
– “I understand, Monsieur, everything that a soul can suffer as a result of that loneliness, and how a heartfelt ambition such as yours must be devoured so quickly in its solitude; but your sorrows, which are yours alone, as far as I can untangle from your pompous words, come from weird needs that remain unsatisfied and almost impossible to satisfy. It is true that you suffer; but it could be that your greatness lies in your sorrow and that it is as necessary for you as happiness is for other people. – Now, will you deign to listen and sympathize with griefs easier to understand, – a sorrow of the provinces? I expect from you, Monsieur Cramer, from you, the scholar, the clever man, some advice and perhaps the rescue of a friend.
“You understand that when you knew me, I was a good little girl, a little dreamy already like you, but shy and quite obedient; I observed myself in the mirror less than you, and I always hesitated to eat or put into my pockets the peaches and grapes you would daringly steal for me from our neighbors’ orchard. I never experienced pleasure as truly enjoyable and complete unless it was allowed, and I much preferred to kiss a good-looking boy like you in front of my old aunt rather than in the middle of fields. Only later did I develop the flirtatiousness and the concern for my appearance that every marriageable girl must have.
“When I learned more or less how to sing sentimental ballads at the piano, I was dressed with greater refinement, I was forced to stand straight; I was made to do exercises, and I was forbidden to ruin my hands by planting flowers or raising birds. I was allowed to read things other than Berquin, and I was taken in formal attire to the local theater to see bad operas.[11] When Monsieur de Cosmelly came to the castle, right then I felt a lively friendship for him; besides, comparing his youth with my aunt’s rather scolding old age, he seemed to be noble and honest, and he treated me with the most respectful gallantry. Then people brought up his finest features: an arm broken in a duel for a rather cowardly friend who had entrusted him with his sister’s honor, enormous sums of money lent to impoverished old classmates; and what else? He treated everyone with a commanding air that was both affable and irresistible, which subdued me as well. How did he live before his castle existence with us? Had he known pleasures other than taking me hunting or singing virtuous ballads on my bad piano? Had he had mistresses? I knew nothing of all that, and it didn’t occur to me to find out. I began to love him with all the gullibility of a young woman who didn’t have time to make comparisons, and I married him, – which gave my aunt the greatest pleasure.
“After I became his wife in the eyes of religion and then in the eyes of the law, I loved him even more. – I probably loved him much too much. – Was I wrong, was I right? Who could know? That love made me happy, I was wrong not to know that it might be troubled. – Did I know him well enough before marrying him? Probably not; but it seems that one cannot accuse a respectable girl who wants to get married of making a careless choice, more than a fallen woman for taking a despicable lover. The one and the other, – how unfortunate we are! – are equally ignorant. Those unfortunate victims, which we call marriageable girls, lack a shameful education, by that I mean a knowledge of men’s vices. I would want each one of those pitiful little girls, before being subjected to the conjugal bond, to hear in a secret place, and without being seen, two men chatting amongst themselves about life matters, and especially about women. After that first and fearsome ordeal, they could give themselves over to the horrible vagaries of marriage with less danger, knowing the strong and the weak points of their future tyrants.”
Samuel did not quite know what that charming victim was getting at; but he was beginning to notice that for a disillusioned woman she was speaking much too much about her husband.
After pausing for a few minutes, as if afraid to approach that fateful place, she continued thus:
“One day, Monsieur de Cosmelly decided to return to Paris; according to him, I had to shine in my daylight and have surroundings worthy of my qualities. ‘A beautiful and educated woman,’ he said, ‘deserves Paris.’ She must know how to pose in society and let a few beams of her light fall on her husband. – A noble-minded woman with common sense knows that the only renown she can expect here-below is the renown she shares with her travel companion, that she serves her husband’s strengths, and above all gains respect only insofar as she makes him respected.
– “That was probably the easiest and most reliable way to gain obedience almost joyously; to know that my efforts and my obedience would, quite certainly, embellish me in his eyes, I didn’t need much to make me resolve to approach that terrifying Paris, which I instinctively feared, and whose black and dazzling phantom lurking at the horizon of my dreams gripped my pitiful fiancée’s heart. – Such was the true goal of our trip, as I understood it. A husband’s vanity lies at the heart of the virtue of a woman in love. Perhaps he was lying to himself with a sort of good faith, and deceiving his conscience without noticing it much.
– “In Paris, we had certain days reserved for close friends who in the end bored Monsieur de Cosmelly, just as he became bored with his wife. Perhaps he got a bit sick of her, because she was too loving; she revealed her whole heart. He got sick of his friends for the opposite reason: they had nothing to give him but the monotonous pleasures of conversations devoid of passion. From then on, his activities went in other directions. After friends came the horses and gambling. Society’s buzzing, the sight of those who remained without limits and who endlessly recounted their memories of a crazy and continuously active youth, tore him from his hearth and from long conversations. As for him, who never had occupations other than his heart, he had occupations. Rich and without a profession, he could create lots of busying and frivolous activities that completely filled his time; – conjugal questions: – Where are you going? What time will we see each other? Come back quickly, – I had to stifle those questions in the depths of my bosom; since the life of the English, – that death of the heart, – the life of clubs and circles, absorbed him completely.
– “At first I was shocked by his excessive concern for his personal appearance and the dandyism he assumed; it was obviously not done for me. I tried to do as he did, be more than beautiful, that is, flirtatious, flirtatious for him, as he was for society; in the past, I offered everything, I gave everything; from then on I tried to have others beg me for it.
I wanted to reignite the embers of my extinguished happiness, by shaking them and stirring them up, but apparently I am quite inept at trickery and quite awkward in vice; he did not deign to notice it. – My aunt, cruel like all old and envious women, who are reduced to admiring a play when in the past they were the actresses, and to contemplating the pleasures denied to them, took great care to inform me, through the self-seeking meddling of a cousin of Monsieur de Cosmelly, that he had fallen in love with a very fashionable theater girl. I arranged to get escorted to all the shows, and at the sight of any woman a bit beautiful that I saw on stage, I dreaded to admire her as my rival.
“I finally learned, through the charity of the same cousin, that she was Fanfarlo, a dancer as stupid as she was beautiful. – You probably know her, since you are an author. – I am not very vain nor that proud of my face; but, I swear to you, Monsieur Cramer, that many times, at night, around three or four in the morning, wearied of waiting for my husband, eyes red with tears and insomnia, after long and beseeching prayers for his return to marital fidelity, I asked God, asked my conscience, asked my mirror, if I was as beautiful as that wretched Fanfarlo. My mirror and my conscience answered me: Yes. God forbade me to boast about it, but not to draw from it a legitimate victory. So why, among two equal beauties, do men often prefer the flower that everyone has inhaled to the one who always resisted those passers-by in the darkest paths of the conjugal garden? So why should women overly generous with their bodies, a treasure to which only one Sultan should have the key, possess more admirers than others, unfortunate martyrs of one love? What is the magical charm with which vice hallows certain creatures? What is the awkward and repulsive appearance virtue gives to others? So answer, you, by whose station in society know all of life’s feelings and their various purposes!”
Samuel had no time to answer, because she continued fervently:
– “Monsieur de Cosmelly has very serious things on his conscience, if the loss of a young and maidenly soul interests the God who created her for the happiness of another. If Monsieur de Cosmelly died this very evening, he would have to beg for a great many pardons; for, through his own fault, he has taught his wife horrible feelings: hatred, distrust of the object of her love, and a thirst for vengeance. – Oh! Monsieur, I endure very painful nights, very anxious insomnias; I pray, I curse, I blaspheme. The priest tells me that I have to bear my cross with resignation; but delusional love and shattered faith cannot submit to resignation. My confessor is not a woman, and I love my husband, I love him, Monsieur, with all the passion and all the pain of a mistress who has been beaten and trampled upon. There is nothing I have not tried. Instead of dark and simple fashions that seemed to please him in the past, I wore wild and sumptuous dresses like theater women. As for me, the chaste spouse he sought out deep within some poor castle, I paraded around him in a little girl’s dress; I acted witty and playful when my heart felt dead. I sequined my despair with sparkling smiles. Alas! he saw none of that. I put on rouge, Monsieur. I put on rouge! – You see, it’s a trivial story, the story of all unhappy women, – a novel of the provinces!”
While she was sobbing, Samuel looked like Tartuffe seized by Orgon, the husband unexpectedly leaping from his hiding place, like the virtuous sobs leaping from that lady’s heart, and coming to strangle our poet’s tottering hypocrisy.[12]
The complete surrender, the freedom and confidence of Madame de Cosmelly, had prodigiously emboldened him, – without astonishing him. Samuel Cramer, who often astonished society, was hardly astonished. His life seemed to put into practice and demonstrate the truth of Diderot’s saying: “Disbelief is sometimes a fool’s vice, and credulity the failing of a clever man. The clever man sees far into immense possibilities. The fool scarcely sees anything as possible apart from what exists. Perhaps that is what makes one pusillanimous and the other reckless.”[13] That explains everything.
A few scrupulous readers and lovers of plausible truth will probably find many failings in that story, in which, however, my sole task was to change names and highlight the details; they will ask: How could Samuel Cramer, a tasteless poet with bad morals, approach a woman like Madame de Cosmelly? So swiftly pour out to her, concerning a Walter Scott novel, a flood of banal Romantic poetry? And how could Madame de Cosmelly, the discreet and virtuous spouse, pour out to him just as swiftly, without reticence or distrust, the secret of her sorrows? To which I reply that Madame de Cosmelly was a simple beautiful soul, and that Samuel was as bold as butterflies, locusts, and poets; he threw himself into every flame and entered through all the windows. Diderot’s saying explains why she was so submissive and he so brusque and shameless. It also explains all the blunders Samuel had committed in his life, blunders that even a fool would not have committed. The pusillanimous part of the public will hardly understand the character Samuel, who was essentially gullible and imaginative, to the extent that as a poet he believed in his public, – as a man, in his own passions.
From then on, he realized that this woman was stronger, more arduous than she appeared to be, and that her forthright piety must not be challenged directly. He again paraded before her his Romantic jargon. Ashamed of being stupid, he tried to be a rake; he spoke with her a bit longer, in a seminarian’s vernacular, about wounds to heal or to cauterize by opening new bloody wounds that were painless for the most part. Anyone who has tried to possess a respectable woman who hardly cares, without the absolutist pressure of Valmont and Lovelace, knows that each of them, with laughable and exaggerated awkwardness, says while displaying his heart: Take my teddy-bear; – so that will spare me the trouble of explaining to you how stupid Samuel was.[14]
– Madame de Cosmelly, that affable Elmira with the clear and prudent glance of virtue, immediately saw the advantage she could gain from this neophyte scoundrel, for the sake of her happiness and her husband’s honor.* So she paid him in the same currency; she let him squeeze her hands; they spoke of friendship and Platonic things. She murmured the word vengeance; she said that, in the painful crises of a woman’s life, one would willingly give her an avenger who could easily win over the remainder of the heart that the traitor was willing to leave behind, and other such nonsense and dramatic banter. In short, she flirted for a good purpose, and our young rake, who was simpler than a scholar, promised to tear Fanfarlo away from Monsieur de Cosmelly, and rid him of the courtesan, – hoping to find in the respectable woman’s arms compensation for the commendable deed. – Only poets are innocent enough to invent such monstrosities.
