Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos Part 12

XVIII

When a Woman Is Loved She Need Not Be Told of It

I have been engaged in some new reflections on the condition you are in, Marquis, and on the embarra.s.sment in which you continue. After all, why do you deem it necessary to make a formal declaration of love? Can it be because you have read about such things in our old romances, in which the proceedings in courtship were as solemn as those of the tribunals? That would be too technical. Believe me, let it alone; as I told you in my last letter, the fire lighted, will acquire greater force every day, and you will see, that without having said you love, you will be farther advanced than if you were frightened by avowals which our fathers insisted should worry the women. Avowals absolutely useless in themselves, and which always inc.u.mber a pa.s.sion with several nebulous days. They r.e.t.a.r.d its progress. Bear this well in mind, Marquis: A woman is much better persuaded that she is loved by what she guesses than by what she is told.

Act as if you had made the declaration which is costing you so much anxiety; or imitate the Chevalier; take things easy. The way the Countess conducts herself with him in your presence seems to be a law in your estimation. With your circ.u.mspection and pretended respect, you present the appearance of a man who meditates an important design, of a man, in a word, who contemplates a wrong step. Your exterior is disquieting to a woman who knows the consequences of a pa.s.sion such as yours. Remember that as long as you let it appear that you are making preparations for an attack, you will find her on the defensive. Have you ever heard of a skillful general, who intends to surprise a citadel, announce his design to the enemy upon whom the storm is to descend? In love as in war, does any one ever ask the victor whether he owes his success to force or skill? He has conquered, he receives the crown, his desires are gratified, he is happy. Follow his example and you will meet the same fate. Hide your progress; do not disclose the extent of your designs until it is no longer possible to oppose your success, until the combat is over, and the victory gained before you have declared war. In a word, imitate those warlike people whose designs are not known except by the ravaged country through which they have pa.s.sed.

XIX

Why a Lover's Vows Are Untrustworthy

At last, Marquis, you are listened to dispa.s.sionately when you protest your love, and swear by everything lovers hold sacred that you will always love. Will you believe my predictions another time? However, you would be better treated if you were more reasonable, so you are told, and limit your sentiments to simple friendship. The name of lover a.s.sumed by you is revolting to the Countess. You should never quarrel over quality when it is the same under any name, and follow the advice Madame de la Sabliere gives you in the following madrigal:

Belise ne veut point d'amant, Mais voudrait un ami fidele, Qui pour elle eut des soins et de l'empress.e.m.e.nt, Et qui meme la trouvat belle.

Amants, qui soupirez pour elle, Sur ma parole tenez bon, Belise de l'amour ne hait que le nom.

(Belise for a lover sighed not, But she wanted a faithful friend, Who would cuddle her up and care for her lot, And even her beauty defend.

Oh, you lovers, whose sighs I commend, 'Pon my word, hold fast to such game, What of love Belise hates is only the name.)

But you are grieved by the injurious doubts cast upon your sincerity and constancy. You are disbelieved because all men are false and perjured, and because they are inconstant, love is withheld. How fortunate you are! How little the Countess knows her own heart, if she expects to persuade you of her indifference in that fashion! Do you wish me to place a true value on the talk she is giving you? She is very much affected by the pa.s.sion you exhibit for her, but the warnings and sorrows of her friends have convinced her that the protestations of men are generally false. I do not conceive any injustice in this, for I, who do not flatter men willingly, am persuaded that they are usually sincere on such occasions. They become amorous of a woman, that is they experience the desire of possession.

The enchanting image of that possession bewitches them; they calculate that the delights connected with it will never end; they do not imagine that the fire which consumes them can ever weaken or die out; such a thing seems impossible to them. Hence they swear with the best faith in the world to love us always; and to cast a doubt upon their sincerity would be inflicting a mortal injury.

But the poor fellows make more promises than they can keep. They do not perceive that their heart has not enough energy always to hold the same object. They cease to love without knowing why. They are good enough to be scrupulous over their growing coldness. Long after love has fled they continue to insist that they still love. They exert themselves to no purpose, and after having tormented themselves as long as they can bear it, they surrender to dissatisfaction, and become inconstant with as much good faith as they possessed when they protested that they would be forever constant. Nothing is simpler and easier to explain. The fermentation of a budding love, excited in their heart the charm that seduced them; by and by, the enchantment is dispelled, and nonchalance follows. With what can they be charged?

They counted upon keeping their vows. Dear me, how many women are too happy with what is lacking, since men give them a free rein to their lightness!

However this may be, the Countess has charged up to you the inconstancy of your equals; she apprehends that you are no better than all other lovers. Ready to yield to you, however little you may be able to rea.s.sure her, she is trying to find reasons for believing you sincere. The love you protest for her does not offend her. What am I saying? It enchants her. She is so much flattered by it, that her sole fear is that it may not be true. Dissipate her alarms, show her that the happiness you offer her and of which she knows the price, is not an imaginary happiness. Go farther; persuade her that she will enjoy it forever, and her resistance will disappear, her doubts will vanish, and she will seize upon everything that will destroy her suspicions and uncertainty. She would have already believed you; already she would have resolved to yield to the pleasure of being loved, if she had believed herself really loved, and that it would last forever.

How maladroit women are if they imagine that by their fears and their doubts of the sincerity and constancy of men, they can make any one believe they are fleeing from love, or despise it! As soon as they fear they will be deceived in the enjoyment of its pleasures; when they fear they will not long enjoy it, they already know the charms of it, and the only source of anxiety then is, that they will be deprived of its enjoyment too soon. Forever haunted by this fear, and attacked by the powerful inclination toward pleasure, they hesitate, they tremble with the apprehension that they will not be permitted to enjoy it but just long enough to make the privation of it more painful.

Hence, Marquis, you may very easily conjecture a woman who talks to you as does the Countess, using this language:

"I can imagine all the delights of love. The idea I have formed of it is quite seductive. Do you think that deep in my heart I desire to enjoy its charms less than you? But the more its image is ravishing to my imagination, the more I fear it is not real, and I refuse to yield to it lest my happiness be too soon destroyed. Ah, if I could only hope that my happiness might endure, how feeble would be my resistance? But will you not abuse my credulity? Will you not some day punish me for having had too much confidence in you? At least is that day very far off? Ah, if I could hope to gather perpetually the fruits of the sacrifice I am making of my repose for your sake, I confess it frankly, we would soon be in accord."

XX

The Half-way House to Love

The rival you have been given appears to me to be all the more redoubtable, as he is the sort of a man I have been advising you to be. I know the Chevalier; n.o.body is more competent than he to carry a seduction to a successful conclusion. I am willing to wager anything that his heart has never been touched. He makes advances to the Countess in cold blood. You are lost. A lover as pa.s.sionate as you have appeared to be, makes a thousand blunders. The most favorable designs would perish under your management. He permits everybody to take the advantage of him on every occasion. Indeed, such is his misfortune that his precipitation and his timidity injure his prospects by turns.

A man who makes love for the pleasure he finds in it, profits by the smallest advantage; he knows the feeble places and makes himself master of them. Everything leads his way, everything is combined for his purpose. Even his imprudences are often the result of wise reflection; they help him along the road to success; they finally acquire so superior a position that, from their beginning, so to speak, dates the hour of his triumph.

You must be careful, Marquis, not to go to extremes; you must not show the Countess enough love to lead her to understand the excess of your pa.s.sion. Give her something to be anxious about; compel her to take heed lest she lose you, by giving her opportunities to think that she may. There is no woman on earth who will treat you more cavalierly than one who is absolutely certain that your love will not fail her.

Like a merchant for whose goods you have manifested too great an anxiety to acquire, she will overcharge you with as little regard to consequences. Moderate, therefore, your imprudent vivacity; manifest less pa.s.sion and you will excite more in her heart. We do not appreciate the worth of a prize more than when we are on the point of losing it. Some regulation in matters of love are indispensable for the happiness of both parties. I think I am even justified in advising you on certain occasions to be a trifle unprincipled. On all other occasions, though, it is better to be a dupe than a knave; but in affairs of gallantry, it is only the fools who are the dupes, and knaves always have the laugh on their side. Adieu.

I have not the conscience to leave you without a word of consolation.

Do not be discouraged. However redoubtable may be the Chevalier, let your heart rest in peace. I suspect that the cunning Countess is making a play with him to worry you. I have no desire to flatter you, but it gives me pleasure to say, that you are worth more than he. You are young, you are making your debut in the world, and you are regarded as a man who has never yet had any love affairs. The Chevalier has lived; what woman will not appreciate these differences?

XXI

The Comedy of Contrariness

Probity in love, Marquis? How can you think of such a thing? Ah, you are like a drowned man. I shall take good care not to show your letter to any one, it would dishonor you. You do not know how to undertake the manoeuvres I have advised you to make, you say? Your candor, your high sentiments made your fortune formerly! Well, love was then treated like an affair of honor, but nowadays, the corruption of the age has changed all that; love is now nothing more than a play of the humor and of vanity.

Your inexperience still leaves your virtues in an inflexible condition that will inevitably cause your ruin, if you have not enough intelligence to bring them into accord with the morals of the times.

One can not now wear his sentiments on his sleeve. Everything is show; payment is made in airs, demonstrations, signs. Everybody is playing a comedy, and men have had excellent reasons for keeping up the farce.

They have discovered the fact that n.o.body can gain anything by telling the actual truth about women. There is a general agreement to subst.i.tute for this sincerity a collection of contrary phrases. And this custom has proved contagious in cases of gallantry.

In spite of your high principles, you will agree with me, that unless that custom, called "politeness," is not pushed so far as irony or treason, it is a sociable virtue to follow, and of all the relations among men, the true meaning of gallantry has more need of being concealed than that of any other social affair. How many occasions do you not find where a lover gains more by dissimulating the excess of his pa.s.sion, than another who pretends to have more than he really has?

I think I understand the Countess; she is more skillful than you. I am certain she dissimulates her affection for you with greater care than you take to multiply proofs of yours for her. I repeat; the less you expose yourself, the better you will be treated. Let her worry in her turn; inspire her with the fear that she will lose you, and see her come around. It is the surest way of finding out the true position you occupy in her heart. Adieu.

XXII

Vanity and Self-Esteem Obstacles to Love

A silence of ten days, Marquis. You begin to worry me in earnest. The application you made of my counsel has, then, been successful? I congratulate you. What I do not approve, however, is your dissatisfaction with her for refusing to make the confession you desired. The words: "I love you" seem to be something precious in your estimation. For fifteen days you have been trying to penetrate the sentiments of the Countess, and you have succeeded; you know her affection for you. What more can you possibly want? What further right over her heart would a confession give you? Truly, I consider you a strange character. You ought to know that nothing is more calculated to cause a reasonable woman to revolt, than the obstinacy with which ordinary men insist upon a declaration of their love. I fail to understand you. Ought not her refusal to be a thousand times more precious to a delicate minded lover than a positive declaration? Will you ever know your real interests? Instead of persecuting a woman on such a point, expend your energies in concealing from her the extent of her affection. Act so that she will love you before you call her attention to the fact, before compelling her to resort to the necessity of proclaiming it. Is it possible to experience a situation more delicious than that of seeing a heart interested in you without suspicion, growing toward you by degrees, finally becoming affectionate? What a pleasure to enjoy secretly all her movements, to direct her sentiments, augment them, hasten them, and glory in the victory even before she has suspected that you have essayed her defeat! That is what I call pleasure.

Believe me, Marquis, your conduct toward the Countess must be as if the open avowal of her love for you had escaped her. Of a truth, she has not said in words: "I love you," but it is because she really loves you that she has refrained from saying it. Otherwise she has done everything to convince you of it.

Women are under no ordinary embarra.s.sment. They desire for the very least, as much to confess their affection as you are anxious to ascertain it, but what do you expect, Marquis? Women ingenious at raising obstacles, have attached a certain shame to any avowal of their pa.s.sion, and whatever idea you men may have formed of our way of thinking, such an avowal always humiliates us, for however small may be our experience, we comprehend all the consequences. The words "I love you" are not criminal, that is true, but their sequel frightens us, hence we find means to dissimulate, and close our eyes to the liabilities they carry with them.

Besides this, be on your guard; your persistence in requiring an open avowal from the Countess, is less the work of love than a persevering vanity. I defy you to find a mistake in the true motives behind your insistence. Nature has given woman a wonderful instinct; it enables her to discern without mistake whatever grows out of a pa.s.sion in one who is a stranger to her. Always indulgent toward the effects produced by a love we have inspired, we will pardon you many imprudences, many transports; how can I enumerate them all? All the follies of which you lovers are capable, we pardon, but you will always find us intractable when our self-esteem meets your own. Who would believe it? You inspire us to revolt at things that have nothing to do with your happiness.

Your vanity sticks at trifles, and prevents you from enjoying actual advantages. Will you believe me when I say it? You will drop your idle fancies, to delight in the certainty that you are beloved by an adorable woman; to taste the pleasure of hiding the extent of her love from herself, to rejoice in its security. Suppose by force of importunities you should extract an "I love you," what would you gain by it? Would your uncertainty reach an end? Would you know whether you owe the avowal to love or complaisance? I think I know women, I ought to. They can deceive you by a studied confession which the lips only p.r.o.nounce, but you will never be the involuntary witness of a pa.s.sion you force from them. The true, flattering avowals we make, are not those we utter, but those that escape us without our knowledge.

XXIII