She received d'Arthez as a woman who expected him, and as if he had already been to see her a hundred times; she did him the honor to treat him like an old acquaintance, and she put him at his ease by pointing to a seat on a sofa, while she finished a note she was then writing.The conversation began in a commonplace manner: the weather, the ministry, de Marsay's illness, the hopes of the legitimists.
D'Arthez was an absolutist; the princess could not be ignorant of the opinions of a man who sat in the Chamber among the fifteen or twenty persons who represented the legitimist party; she found means to tell him how she had fooled de Marsay to the top of his bent, then, by an easy transition to the royal family and to "Madame," and the devotion of the Prince de Cadignan to their service, she drew d'Arthez's attention to the prince:--"There is this to be said for him: he loved his masters, and was faithful to them.His public character consoles me for the sufferings his private life has inflicted upon me-- Have you never remarked," she went on, cleverly leaving the prince aside, "you who observe so much, that men have two natures: one of their homes, their wives, their private lives,--this is their true self; here no mask, no dissimulation; they do not give themselves the trouble to disguise a feeling; they are what they ARE, and it is often horrible! The other man is for others, for the world, for salons; the court, the sovereign, the public often see them grand, and noble, and generous, embroidered with virtues, adorned with fine language, full of admirable qualities.What a horrible jest it is!--and the world is surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile of certain women, at their air of superiority to their husbands, and their indifference--"She let her hand fall along the arm of her chair, without ending her sentence, but the gesture admirably completed the speech.She saw d'Arthez watching her flexible figure, gracefully bending in the depths of her easy-chair, noting the folds of her gown, and the pretty little ruffle which sported on her breast,--one of those audacities of the toilet that are suited only to slender waists,--and she resumed the thread of her thoughts as if she were speaking to herself:--"But I will say no more.You writers have ended by making ridiculous all women who think they are misunderstood, or ill-mated, and who try to make themselves dramatically interesting,--attempts which seem to me, I must say, intolerably vulgar.There are but two things for women in that plight to do,--yield, and all is over; resist, and amuse themselves; in either case they should keep silence.It is true that Ineither yielded wholly, nor resisted wholly; but, perhaps, that was only the more reason why I should be silent.What folly for women to complain! If they have not proved the stronger, they have failed in sense, in tact, in capacity, and they deserve their fate.Are they not queens in France? They can play with you as they like, when they like, and as much as they like." Here she danced her vinaigrette with an airy movement of feminine impertinence and mocking gayety."I have often heard miserable little specimens of my sex regretting that they were women, wishing they were men; I have always regarded them with pity.If I had to choose, I should still elect to be a woman.A fine pleasure, indeed, to owe one's triumph to force, and to all those powers which you give yourselves by the laws you make! But to see you at our feet, saying and doing foolish things,--ah! it is an intoxicating pleasure to feel within our souls that weakness triumphs!
But when we triumph, we ought to keep silence, under pain of losing our empire.Beaten, a woman's pride should gag her.The slave's silence alarms the master."This chatter was uttered in a voice so softly sarcastic, so dainty, and with such coquettish motions of the head, that d'Arthez, to whom this style of woman was totally unknown, sat before her exactly like a partridge charmed by a setter.
"I entreat you, madame," he said, at last, "to tell me how it was possible that a man could make you suffer? Be assured that where, as you say, other women are common and vulgar, you can only seem distinguished; your manner of saying things would make a cook-book interesting.""You go fast in friendship," she said, in a grave voice which made d'Arthez extremely uneasy.
The conversation changed; the hour was late, and the poor man of genius went away contrite for having seemed curious, and for wounding the sensitive heart of that rare woman who had so strangely suffered.
As for her, she had passed her life in amusing herself with men, and was another Don Juan in female attire, with this difference: she would certainly not have invited the Commander to supper, and would have got the better of any statue.
It is impossible to continue this tale without saying a word about the Prince de Cadignan, better known under the name of the Duc de Maufrigneuse, otherwise the spice of the princess's confidences would be lost, and strangers would not understand the Parisian comedy she was about to play for her man of genius.
