"'This art,'she would say,'is in its infancy.If the women of Paris had a little of the genius which the slavery of the harem brings out in Oriental women,they would lend a complete language of flowers to the wreaths they wear on their head.To please my own taste as an artist I have made drooping flowers with leaves of the hue of Florentine bronze,such as are found before or after the winter.Would not such a crown on the head of a young woman whose life is a failure have a certain poetical fitness?How many things a woman might express by her head-dress!Are there not flowers for drunken Bacchantes,flowers for gloomy and stern bigots,pensive flowers for women who are bored?Botany,I believe,may be made to express every sensation and thought of the soul,even the most subtle.'
"She would employ me to stamp out the leaves,cut up material,and prepare wires for the stems.My affected desire for occupation made me soon skilful.We talked as we worked.When I had nothing to do,I read new books to her,for I had my part to keep up as a man weary of life,worn out with griefs,gloomy,sceptical,and soured.My person led to adorable banter as to my purely physical resemblance--with the exception of his club foot--to Lord Byron.It was tacitly acknowledged that her own troubles,as to which she kept the most profound silence,far outweighed mine,though the causes I assigned for my misanthropy might have satisfied Young or Job.
"I will say nothing of the feelings of shame which tormented me as Iinflicted on my heart,like the beggars in the street,false wounds to excite the compassion of that enchanting woman.I soon appreciated the extent of my devotedness by learning to estimate the baseness of a spy.The expressions of sympathy bestowed on me would have comforted the greatest grief.This charming creature,weaned from the world,and for so many years alone,having,besides love,treasures of kindliness to bestow,offered these to me with childlike effusiveness and such compassion as would inevitably have filled with bitterness any profligate who should have fallen in love with her;for,alas,it was all charity,all sheer pity.Her renunciation of love,her dread of what is called happiness for women,she proclaimed with equal vehemence and candor.These happy days proved to me that a woman's friendship is far superior to her love.
"I suffered the revelations of my sorrows to be dragged from me with as many grimaces as a young lady allows herself before sitting down to the piano,so conscious are they of the annoyance that will follow.As you may imagine,the necessity for overcoming my dislike to speak had induced the Countess to strengthen the bonds of our intimacy;but she found in me so exact a counterpart of her own antipathy to love,that I fancied she was well content with the chance which had brought to her desert island a sort of Man Friday.Solitude was perhaps beginning to weigh on her.At the same time,there was nothing of the coquette in her;nothing survived of the woman;she did not feel that she had a heart,she told me,excepting in the ideal world where she found refuge.I involuntarily compared these two lives--hers and the Count's:--his,all activity,agitation,and emotion;hers,all inaction,quiescence,and stagnation.The woman and the man were admirably obedient to their nature.My misanthropy allowed me to utter cynical sallies against men and women both,and I indulged in them,hoping to bring Honorine to the confidential point;but she was not to be caught in any trap,and I began to understand that mulish obstinacy which is commoner among women than is generally supposed.
"'The Orientals are right,'I said to her one evening,'when they shut you up and regard you merely as the playthings of their pleasure.
Europe has been well punished for having admitted you to form an element of society and for accepting you on an equal footing.In my opinion,woman is the most dishonorable and cowardly being to be found.Nay,and that is where her charm lies.Where would be the pleasure of hunting a tame thing?When once a woman has inspired a man's passion,she is to him for ever sacred;in his eyes she is hedged round by an impreible prerogative.In men gratitude for past delights is eternal.Though he should find his mistress grown old or unworthy,the woman still has rights over his heart;but to you women the man you have loved is as nothing to you;nay,more,he is unpardonable in one thing--he lives on!You dare not own it,but you all have in your hearts the feeling which that popular calumny called tradition ascribes to the Lady of the Tour de Nesle:"What a pity it is that we cannot live on love as we live on fruit,and that when we have had our fill,nothing should survive but the remembrance of pleasure!"'
"'God has,no doubt,reserved such perfect bliss for Paradise,'said she.'But,'she added,'if your argument seems to you very witty,to me it has the disadvantage of being false.What can those women be who give themselves up to a succession of loves?'she asked,looking at me as the Virgin in Ingres'picture looks at Louis XIII.offering her his kingdom.
"'You are an actress in good faith,'said I,'for you gave me a look just now which would make the fame of an actress.Still,lovely as you are,you have loved;/ergo/,you forget.'
"'I!'she exclaimed,evading my question,'I am not a woman.I am a nun,and seventy-two years old!'
"'Then,how can you so positively assert that you feel more keenly than I?Sorrow has but one form for women.The only misfortunes they regard are disappointments of the heart.'
"She looked at me sweetly,and,like all women when stuck between the issues of a dilemma,or held in the clutches of truth,she persisted,nevertheless,in her wilfulness.
"'I am a nun,'she said,'and you talk to me of the world where Ishall never again set foot.'
"'Not even in thought?'said I.