Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕

patience, and unable longer to control the vexation that preyed upon me, I put down the looking-glass I had been holding, and went out angrily without taking leave.

“O! you are going?” she said, turning so as to see her figure in profile. I made no answer, but I listened some time at the door to see what effect my abrupt departure would have.

“Do you not see,” she said to her maid, after a moment’s silence, “that this caraco, particularly the lower part, is much too large at the waist, and will want pinning?”

Why and wherefore that rose is upon my shelf, I shall certainly not explain, for, as I said before, a withered rose does not deserve a chapter.

And pray observe, ladies, that I make no reflection upon the adventure with the rose. I do not say whether Madame de Hautcastel did well or otherwise in preferring her dress to me, or whether I had any right to a better reception.

I take special care to deduce therefrom no general conclusions about the reality, the strength, and the duration of the affection of ladies for their friends. I am content to cast this chapter (since it is one) into the world with the rest of my journey, without addressing it to anyone, and without recommending it to anyone.

I will only add, gentlemen, a word of counsel. Impress well upon your minds this fact, that your mistress is no longer yours on the day of a ball.

As soon as dressing begins, a lover is no more thought of than a husband would be; and the ball takes the place of a lover.

Everyone knows how little a husband gains by enforcing his love. Take your trouble, then, patiently, cheerfully.

And, my dear sir, do not deceive yourself; if a lady welcome you at a ball, it is not as a lover that you are received, for you are a husband⁠—but as a part of the ball; and you are therefore but a fraction of her new conquest. You are the decimal of a lover. Or, it may be, you dance well, and so give éclat to her graces. After all, perhaps, the most flattering way in which you can regard her kind welcome is to consider that she hopes by treating as her cavalier a man of parts like yourself, to excite the jealousy of her companions. Were it not for that she would not notice you at all.

It amounts then to this. You must resign yourself to your fate, and wait until the husband’s role is played. I know those who would be glad to get off at so cheap a rate.

XXXVI

I promised to give a dialogue between my soul and the other. But there are some chapters which elude me, as it were, or rather, there are others which flow from my pen nolens volens, and derange my plans. Among these is one about my library; and I will make it as short as I can. Our forty-two days will soon be ended; and even were it not so, a similar period would not suffice to complete the description of the rich country in which I travel so pleasantly.

My library, then, is composed of novels, if I must make the confession; of novels and a few choice poets.

As if I had not troubles enough of my own, I share those of a thousand imaginary personages, and I feel them as acutely as my own. How many tears have I shed for that poor Clarissa,7 and for Charlotte’s8 lover!

But if I go out of my way in search of unreal afflictions, I find in return, such virtue, kindness, and disinterestedness in this imaginary world as I have never yet found united in the real world around me. I meet with a woman after my heart’s desire, free from whim, lightness, and affectation. I say nothing about beauty; this I can leave to my imagination, and picture her faultlessly beautiful. And then, closing the book, which no longer keeps pace with my ideas, I take the fair one by the hand, and we travel together over a country a thousand times more delightful than Eden itself. What painter could represent the fairy land in which I have placed the goddess of my heart? What poet could ever describe the lively and manifold sensations I experience in those enchanted regions?

How often have I cursed that Cleveland,9 who is always embarking upon new troubles which he might very well avoid! I cannot endure that book with its long list of calamities. But if I open it by way of distraction, I cannot help devouring it to the end.

For how could I leave that poor man among the Abaquis? What would become of him in the hands of those savages? Still less dare I leave him in his attempt to escape from captivity.

Indeed, I so enter into his sorrows, I am so interested in him and in his unfortunate family, that the sudden appearance of the ferocious Ruintons makes my hair stand on end. When I read that passage a cold perspiration covers me, and my fright is as lively and real as if I was going to be roasted and eaten by the monsters myself.

When I have had enough of tears and love, I turn to some poet, and set out again for a new world.

XXXVII

From the Argonautic expedition to the Assembly of Notables; from the bottom of the nethermost pit to the furthest fixed star beyond the Milky Way; to the confines of the Universe; to the gates of chaos; thus far extends the vast field over the length and breadth of which I leisurely roam. I lack nor time nor space. Thither, conducted by Homer, by Milton, by Virgil, by Ossian, I transport my existence.

All the events that have taken place between these two epochs; all the countries, all the worlds, all the beings that