Collected Works of Eugène Sue, page 738
I made Madame de Pënâfiel laugh when I told her how deeply I had pitied her companion for having to submit to such tyrannical treatment, etc., the night I saw the poor young girl’s annoyance at the Opéra.
I only cite these particulars, as I believe them to be specimens of the absurd rumours which are often absolutely credited in the social world, and which are capable of doing so much injury.
I could not understand this perpetual resentment against a young woman who, the more intimately I became acquainted with her, the less I understood her character; for, although she was always agreeable, and possessed a singularly cultivated mind, she was frequently paradoxical, and had some pretensions to scientific knowledge (this was considered one of her failings). Moreover, she very rarely showed any genial cordiality or real enthusiasm.
As to her innermost sentiments, she appeared to be constrained or oppressed, as though weighed down by some sad secret; then, again, she would evince traits of deep-felt commiseration and kindness, which did not seem spontaneous or natural, but, rather, the result of comparison or the recollection of some great misfortune, as though she said, “I have suffered so much that I am worthy of compassion.”
At other times she gave way to the most violent explosions of contempt for all these spiteful and envious persons, and would break forth with the most cutting sarcasms, sparing no one. This was one of the reasons of her having so many bitter enemies.
A circumstance that I thought strange was that, in spite of all that was said about her levity; I had never seen a single man who appeared to be on terms of intimacy with her, or any one in whom she could be supposed to take any affectionate interest.
If, then, I loved Madame de Pënâfiel, it was not with that fresh, pure, passionate love I had felt for Hélène, it was a sentiment in which love and curiosity were strangely allied to distrust; for, although I condemned the absurd calumnies of the world, I was often quite as foolish and quite as unjust as other people.
Although I had seen Madame de Pënâfiel constantly for nearly three months, I had never breathed a word of gallantry. This was as much through calculation as distrust. I had found her to be so essentially different from the portrait the world had drawn of her, that I could not help thinking at times of what I had heard, and wondering if she were as false as she was accused of being. Therefore, I wished to study her more fully, before allowing myself to be carried away on the current of a declaration, whose refusal I did not wish to risk, for I am ready to declare that Madame de Pënâfiel was very seductive.
Among her other delightful faults, what charmed me most was her coquetry, which was quite peculiar.
It was not shown by any pretended demonstrations of solicitude, or by a flattering way of receiving a friend, flattery which is usually as deceptive as it is encouraging. No; her nature was too proud and independent to permit her to stoop to such means of winning admirers.
Her coquetry was entirely in the perfect gracefulness that she wished, and knew how, to impart to her every motion, to those poses that were apparently the least studied. No doubt all that grace was calculated, reasoned out, if I may say so, but habit had so harmonised the enchanting art with the native elegance of her manners that it was impossible to gaze on anything more charming. Besides, when it is a question of exquisite manners, naturalness can never bear a comparison with studied politeness, any more than the pale wild flower of the eglantine can compare in size, colour, and perfume with the cultivated hothouse rose.
Madame de Pënâfiel admitted, with delightful sincerity, that she took the greatest pleasure in dressing beautifully and tastefully, so that she might look pretty; that she loved to see her graceful attitudes reflected in a mirror; and that she did not see why a woman should be ashamed any more of adorning her body than cultivating her mind, — that people should study how to take an elegant and proper pose as well as to speak properly and wittily.
She declared that she practised these graces more to please herself than others, who, she said, never knew how to flatter her properly, while she herself knew exactly how much she was entitled to; so she preferred her own admiration, and always craved it.
One would scarcely believe to what a point Madame de Pënâfiel carried this art of making pictures.
Thus, as she was very fond of painting, she had a sort of parlour, which was at the same time a salon, library, and studio. It was arranged with perfect taste, and here she preferred to receive. According to the way she felt, her toilet, or the events of the day, by means of shades and a clever combination of old stained glass windows, the room would be more or less lighted, and with the most admirable and poetical knowledge of light and shade and the many intelligent resources of artistically opposed colourings.
For example, if she were nervous and pale, and all clothed in white, her beautiful brown hair with its golden gloss arranged in bandeaux, if she happened to be seated in a half light, which fell from above, and threw great shadows in the apartment, you should have seen how this dim light, falling on her fair forehead, her pale pink cheeks, and her ivory throat, left all the rest of her face in a marvellous half-tone. Nothing could be lovelier to look at than such a white and vapoury figure, shining in soft light upon a very dark background.
Then, besides this, carefully arranged light would glitter here and there like sparks of fire, on the gilded carving of an armchair, on the glossy folds of some piece of satin, on the tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl of a piece of furniture, or on the polished surface of the porcelain vases that were filled with flowers. The light thus distributed not only gave the appearance of a charming picture to this elegant figure, but to all its surrounding accessories. This manner of lighting an apartment pleased me very much, because it coincided with my own ideas, for, if there is anything shocking, it is the complete ignorance, or the deplorable neglect architects show in this matter.
Thus, without taking into consideration the style or the epoch, or, if a woman is concerned, her appearance or the type of her beauty, an architect thinks he has done everything, and has done it to perfection, when, by means of two or three enormous windows, ten feet high, he has thrown a dazzling sheet of light from every side of a room, enough to blind one. Now in this prodigal and unskilful way light is neutralised, and loses its effect; it neither shows off pictures, materials, nor sculptures, because, shining indifferently on all, it gives value to none.
In a word, as résumé, it seems to me that an apartment — not a place of reception, but of intimacy — should be lighted with as careful study, as much art, as though it were a picture.
Therefore, a great many things must be sacrificed in the shadow and the half-tone, in order to bring out the high lights. Then the eye and the mind are refreshed and rested, as they gaze with pleasure, love, and a sort of poetic contemplation, on such an interior. it is a real picture, a living picture, that we admire as though it were painted on canvas.
But it needs a certain elevation of the mind, a certain instinctive ideality, perhaps an exaggerated sense of the beautiful, to cultivate this domestic art, and find in it the constant sources of meditative enjoyment, which are incomprehensible to most people.
If I insist upon speaking of this peculiarity, it is because I was much pleased with this similarity in Madame de Pënâfiel’s tastes with my own, and it showed her coquetry in such a way that I loved her to adoration.
I remember that nothing angered me more than the rudeness of all the men of her acquaintance, who were all perfectly furious on the subject of what they called her intolerable and hateful coquetry. It was, they said, with strange ill-nature, it was a ridiculous pretension on her part, a sort of wager that she had made with herself, to be always gracious and charming. Never was she to be seen unless she was exquisitely dressed; all was prearranged and studied out, from the dim light to the colouring of the curtains, which harmonised with her complexion as though she expected to clothe herself with them. And then, oh, horror! on her writing-table there were natural flowers in a vase, and, could you believe it? they were chosen to match the colour of her hair, as though she meant to wear a head-dress of natural flowers! But that was not all. She had a foot as small as a child’s, the finest arms that ever were seen, and an exquisite hand. Well, was it not intolerable? No one could help noticing and admiring her foot, her arm, or her hand, for she was so clever that these charms were always in evidence. It was odious, scandalous, not to be put up with.
Now, even if all this were true, — and in a certain way it was true, — could there be anything in the world more absurd or idiotic than to hear a lot of men, dressed in the careless and even untidy way that is permissible nowadays for morning visits, and who went like caterpillars — an old expression that might be revived — to pass an hour at a lady’s house, to hear them, I say, complaining bitterly because she had received them surrounded by all that taste, art, and refinement could add to her natural graces?
For my part, on the contrary, I took the greatest pleasure in these delightful coquetries of Madame de Pënâfiel, in the contemplation, even though it were simply as a work of art, of such a delicious living picture, which was sometimes so animated, sometimes so sad and languishing.
I forgot to say that among the most violent detractors of Madame de Pënâfiel were several young Christians of her acquaintance. Since I have written these words, they require some explanation; for the young Christian of the salon, a pretentious and grotesque type, that will soon be displaced by another equally ridiculous, deserves to be properly described, so that his exhilarating personality may be handed down to posterity.
CHAPTER XIX.
ON PARLOUR CHRISTIANITY.
PARLOUR CHRISTIANITY IS divided into two classes: the first, pretentious and grotesque, and the second, respectable, because its members have at least an exterior, a language and manners that are not in too ridiculous a contrast with their specialty.
These mundane apostles can also be divided into two sorts, — the young Christian who dances, and one who does not. This classification will be sufficient to enable one to recognise them at a glance.
The first, the dancing Christians, are more or less plump and rosy, curled, frizzled, cravated, stiffened, starched, and perfumed. They are the beaux, the cavaliers, the lions of parlour Christianity, of tea-table Catholicism; they eat, drink, talk, laugh, sing, shout, dance, waltz, galop, dance the cotillon and mazurka, and make love (when they get a chance) as enthusiastically as the most austere Lutheran or the most hardened sinner. Some of them, remembering that David danced before the ark, have even gone so far as to study the cachucha, no doubt with a view of rendering Christian homage to that adorable dance, which is so popular in Spain, the most Catholic of countries. Some of them, however, more strict than these, before consenting to rival the most agile of the “Majos,” have demanded that cachucha shall be rebaptised “the inquisition.” The question is now under consideration.
However this may be, when we see these young apostles in kid gloves and high pompadours arrive, all panting, from a galop, and abandon themselves to a delirious waltz, devouring their partners with their eyes; when we see them afterwards trying to forget or remembering their charming partners in the exciting intimacy of the Pierettes of the Bal Musard, we can hardly believe that they are very much more Christian than Abd-el-Kadir.
But thanks to certain indiscreet revelations on the topography of divine religions, to certain compromising confessions as to the duration of eternal punishment, and more than all, by their triumphant fatuity, we divine, we almost can see the supernumerary angel under the terrestrial veil of these young Christians.
The only thing I can reproach them with is that they do not take more pains to conceal the fact of their intimacy with Jehovah, their hand - in - glove acquaintance with a kind Providence, that they have lots of influential friends up there, and that the seraphim are their most humble servants.
But, while waiting orders to return to the King of kings, who, in a moment of generosity, kindly loaned us these plump cherubs to lighten our sorrows, these young Christian dancers practise our profane joys faithfully, without, however, neglecting their sacred pleasures. In fact, the young Christian dancer should possess his chronicle of church and sacristy, as an habitué of the Opéra keeps his record of all that goes on behind the scenes. The dancing Christian should know all the fashionable preachers, their manners, their habits, anecdotes of their private life; should be able to tell how the Abbé — does not write his own sermons; how Abbé — has ousted the Abbé — ; how Abbé — is very graceful or very awkward when he preaches; how rudely one of the vicars of St. Thomas of Aquinas squabbled with his curé; how some pious soul discovered, on the hat of a lady who is no longer young, but youthful looking and well preserved, several yards of splendid old lace that she herself had offered to the jovial curé of S — , to make an altar cloth for his church. The dancing Christian should, in a word, know which are the best places in church to see and hear the preacher; he must never lose the first hearing of a sermon or a conference, and must always be on hand afterwards, to report as to its success or failure, exactly as though it were a new opera that was under discussion.
Thanks to this perpetual haunting of the pulpit and the sacristy, and to the vigour of his calves, the young Christian dancer, who is recognised as such, enjoys all the privileges that are attached to his eccentric position.
Always a Christian, everywhere a Christian, at a ball, at the theatre, at the table, in the country, in town, standing, sitting down, in bed, dreaming or awake, he is intolerant, inquisitorial, indignant; he assigns you at once your place, either in heaven or hell; he fulminates fearful anathemas on the new Gomorrah while he drinks his punch, or cries “Babylon! Babylon!” as he sups like an ogre. Finally, with a terrible cry of desolation, he announces the near and threatening probability of the last judgment, and then goes off to dance the cotillon.
After which, worn out, overcome by the fatigues of the sermon and the ball, he goes to bed, and is very soon oppressed by a frightful nightmare. He dreams he is a father confessor, and that his last partner, with whom he discussed the honest modesty of Joseph fleeing from Potiphar’s wife, comes to confess to him that she committed all sorts of ravishing sins with a Jansenist, two Calvinists, eleven deists, and she does not know how many atheists.
Far from the dancing Christians who flourish under the brilliant chandeliers, blooms the young Christian who does not dance. If the former are the Cavaliers of this parlour religion, the latter are its Puritans, — grave, pale, austere, thin, dismal, negligent, more bashful than St Joseph, it would give them real pleasure to cover themselves with ashes, but they go about dragging here and there their melancholy and their religiously pure and transparent lives. Taking no interest in our profane joys, which they witness but do not associate in, they are entirely taken up by their divine aspirations, their celestial visions; they are tolerant, kind, and full of pity for human error; these are the tender Fénelons of this mundane church, while the dancing Christians are the merciless Bossuets, for the dancing Christian is implacable, unapproachable, impossible. As soon as there is any question of human weakness, not in himself, but in another, there is no compromise, no mean term, it is the devil and hell, the devil with his horns and tail; it is perfectly clear, there is no escape.
The Christian who does not dance is extremely fond of purgatory. Extremes disgust his pious soul. He is scrupulous and charitable, he would hesitate a long, long time, he would need the proof of many dreadful iniquities, before he could bring himself to say positively, “Alas, my poor, dear brother, it appears to me that, unless you amend your ways, you will one of these days be claimed by the great devil of hell.”
The dancing Christian, on the contrary, sends you off there at once and for ever, for the smallest little sin, with frightful assurance.
As for the future of the human race, the Christian who does not dance seems still to have some hopes that the world will be saved in spite of the crimes and errors of mankind. He presumes, though he will not assert it positively, that at the last judgment, there may be a general amnesty which will remit the sins of the damned. The Christian who does not dance seems to count on the inexhaustible mercy of God, who is as kind as he is powerful, he says, and one might think that he was very well informed as to celestial politics; but the dancing Christian, who comes to take part in the conversation while eating an ice, overturns with a single word all these pleasant and comforting thoughts. Then he holds forth only threats and menaces. There is no more hope, — nothing but the smell of sulphur and bitumen which give you a foretaste of a future of eternal flames, eternal pitchforks, and everlasting gridirons. There is nothing left for poor human beings but to weep with despair and to moan over their fatal destiny, and so, while awaiting the terrible predictions of the young Christian dancer, they give themselves up to an endless galop, or an orgy in the two worlds of society, worthy of Belshazzar’s feast.
