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Another Study Of Woman
by
“She rose, and walked twice round the boudoir in real or affected agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming the new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her hand, and said in a voice broken by emotion, ‘Well, Henri, you are loyal, noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.’
“These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to place herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners, and the look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly assumed dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me along almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a moment’s silence, ‘I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you love me?’–‘Oh! yes.’–‘Well, then, what will become of you?’ “
At this point the women all looked at each other.
“Though I can still suffer when I recall her perfidy, I still laugh at her expression of entire conviction and sweet satisfaction that I must die, or at any rate sink into perpetual melancholy,” de Marsay went on. “Oh! do not laugh yet!” he said to his listeners; “there is better to come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, and said to her, ‘Yes, that is what I have been wondering.’–‘Well, what will you do?’ –‘I asked myself that the day after my cold.’–‘And—-?’ she asked with eager anxiety.–‘And I have made advances to the little lady to whom I was supposed to be attached.’
“Charlotte started up from the sofa like a frightened doe, trembling like a leaf, gave me one of those looks in which women forgo all their dignity, all their modesty, their refinement, and even their grace, the sparkling glitter of a hunted viper’s eye when driven into a corner, and said, ‘And I have loved this man! I have struggled! I have—-‘ On this last thought, which I leave you to guess, she made the most impressive pause I ever heard.–‘Good God!’ she cried, ‘how unhappy are we women! we never can be loved. To you there is nothing serious in the purest feelings. But never mind; when you cheat us you still are our dupes!’–‘I see that plainly,’ said I, with a stricken air; ‘you have far too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer from it.’–This modest epigram increased her rage; she found some tears of vexation. ‘You disgust me with the world and with life.’ she said; ‘you snatch away all my illusions; you deprave my heart.’
“She said to me all that I had a right to say to her, and with a simple effrontery, an artless audacity, which would certainly have nailed any man but me on the spot.–‘What is to become of us poor women in a state of society such as Louis XVIII.’s charter made it?’– (Imagine how her words had run away with her.)–‘Yes, indeed, we are born to suffer. In matters of passion we are always superior to you, and you are beneath all loyalty. There is no honesty in your hearts. To you love is a game in which you always cheat.’–‘My dear,’ said I, ‘to take anything serious in society nowadays would be like making romantic love to an actress.’–‘What a shameless betrayal! It was deliberately planned!’–‘No, only a rational issue.’–‘Good-bye, Monsieur de Marsay,’ said she; ‘you have deceived me horribly.’– ‘Surely,’ I replied, taking up a submissive attitude, ‘Madame la Duchesse will not remember Charlotte’s grievances?’–‘Certainly,’ she answered bitterly.–‘Then, in fact, you hate me?’–She bowed, and I said to myself, ‘There is something still left!’
“The feeling she had when I parted from her allowed her to believe that she still had something to avenge. Well, my friends, I have carefully studied the lives of men who have had great success with women, but I do not believe that the Marechal de Richelieu, or Lauzun, or Louis de Valois ever effected a more judicious retreat at the first attempt. As to my mind and heart, they were cast in a mould then and there, once for all, and the power of control I thus acquired over the thoughtless impulses which make us commit so many follies gained me the admirable presence of mind you all know.”