Theophile Gautier - Mademoiselle de Maupin

“I often have an idea, that if I had set out an hour earlier, or had increased my pace, I should have arrived in time; that, while I was passing down one street, the object of my search was passing down the other, and that a block of vehicles was sufficient to make me miss what I have been pursuing quite at random for so long. You cannot imagine the sadness and the deep despair into which I fall when I see that all this ends in nothing, and that my youth is passing away with no prospect opening up before me; then all my idle passions growl dully in my heart, and prey upon themselves for lack of other food, like beasts in a menagerie that the keeper has forgotten to feed.

“In spite of the stifle and secret disappointments of every day, there is something within me which resists and will not die. I have no hope, for hope implies desire, a certain disposition for wishing that things should turn out in one way rather than in another. I desire nothing, for I desire everything. I do not hope, or rather I hope no longer;-that is too silly, — and it is quite the same to me whether a thing happens or not I am waiting, and for what? I do not know, but I am waiting.

“It is a tremulous waiting, full of impatience, broken by starts and nervous movements, as must be that of a lover who awaits his mistress. Nothing comes; I grow furious, or begin to weep. I wait for the heavens to open and an angel to descend with a revelation to me, for a revolution to break out and a throne to be given me, for one of Raphael's virgins to leave the canvas and come to embrace me, for relations, whom I do not possess, to die and leave me what will enable me to sail my fancy on a river of gold, for a hippogriff to take me and carry me into regions unknown. But, whatever I am waiting for, it is assuredly nothing usual and commonplace.

“This has reached such a pitch, that, when I come in, I never fail to say: 'No one has come? There is no letter for me? No news?' I know perfectly well that there is nothing, and that there can be nothing. It is all the same; I am always greatly surprised and disappointed on receiving the customary reply: 'No, sir, nothing at all.'

“Sometimes-but this is seldom-the idea takes a more definite form. It will be some beautiful woman whom I do not know, and who does not know me, whom I have met at the theatre or at church, and who has not heeded me in the least. I go over the whole house, and until I have opened the door of the last room-I scarcely dare tell you, it is so foolish-I hope that she has come, and that she is there. This is not conceit on my part I have so little of the coxcomb about me, that several women, whom I believed very indifferent to me, and without any opinion in particular respecting me, have, so others tell me, been greatly prepossessed in my favor. It has a different origin.

“When I am not dulled by weariness and discouragement, my soul awakes and recovers all its former vigor. I hope, I love, I desire, and so violent are my desires, that I imagine that they will draw everything to them, as a powerful magnet attracts particles of iron, even when they are at a great distance from it. This is why I wait for the things I wish for, instead of going to them, and frequently neglect the most favorable opportunities that are opened up to my hopes. Another would write the most amorous note in the world to the divinity of his heart, or would seek for an opportunity to approach her. As for me, I ask the messenger for the reply to a letter which I have not written, and spend my time constructing the most wonderful situations in my head for bringing me in the most favorable and most unexpected light under the notice of her whom I love. A book might be made larger and more ingenious than the 'Stratagems of Polybius' of all the stratagems which I imagine for introducing myself to her and revealing my passion. Generally, it would only be necessary to say to one of my friends: 'Introduce me to Madame So-and-so,' and to pay a compliment drawn from mythology and suitably punctuated with sighs.

“To listen to all this, one would think me fit for a madhouse; nevertheless, I am a rational fellow enough, and I have not put many of my follies into practice. All this passes in the recesses of my soul, and all these absurd ideas are buried very carefully deep within me; on the outside nothing is to be seen, and I have the reputation of being a placid and cold young man, indifferent to women, and without interest in things belonging to his years, which is as remote from the truth as the judgments of the world usually are.

“Nevertheless, in spite of all my discouragements, some of my desires have been realized, and, so little joy has been given me by their fulfilment, that I dread the fulfilment of the rest. You remember the childish eagerness with which I longed to have a horse of my own; my mother has given me one quite recently; he is as black as ebony, with a little white star on his forehead, with flowing mane, glossy coat, and slender legs, just as I wished him to be. When they brought him to me, it gave me such a shock, that I remained quite a quarter of an hour very pale and unable to compose myself. Then I mounted, and, without speaking a single word, set off at full gallop, and for more than an hour went straight across country in an ecstasy difficult to conceive. I did the same every day for a week, and I really do not know how it was that I did not kill him or at least break his wind. By degrees all this great eagerness died away, I brought my horse to a trot, then to a walk, and now I have come to ride him with such indifference that he often stops and I do not notice it. Pleasure has become habit more quickly than I could have thought possible.

“As to Perragus-that is the name I have given him- he is really the most charming animal that one could see. He has tufts on his feet like eagles' down; he is as lively as a goat and as quiet as a lamb. You will have the greatest pleasure in galloping him when you come here; and although my mania for riding has passed away, I am still very fond of him, for he is a horse of an excellent disposition, and I sincerely prefer him to many human beings. If you only heard how joyfully he neighs when I go to see him in the stable, and with what intelligent eyes he looks at me! I confess that I am touched by these tokens of affection, and that I take him by the neck and embrace him with as much tenderness, on my word, as if he were a beautiful girl.

“I had also another desire, more keen, more eager, more continually awake, more dearly cherished, and for which I had built in my soul an enchanting castle of cards, a palace of chimeras, that was often destroyed but raised again with desperate constancy; it was to have a mistress-a mistress quite my own-like the horse. I do not know whether the fulfilment of this dream would have found me so soon cold as the fulfilment of the other; I doubt it. But perhaps I am wrong, and shall be tired of it as soon. Owing to my peculiar disposition, I desire a thing so frantically, without, however, making any effort to procure it, that if by chance, or otherwise, I attain the object of my wish, I have such a moral lumbago and am so worn out, that I am seized with swoonings, and have not energy enough left to enjoy it; hence things which come to me without my wishing for them generally give me more pleasure than those which I have coveted most strongly.

“I am twenty-two years old, and I am not virgin. Alas! no one is so now at that age, either in body, or, what is much worse, in heart. Besides, consorting with the class of females who afford us pleasure for payment, and are not to be counted any more than a lascivious dream, I have gained over several virtuous or nearly virtuous women, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither young or old, such as are to be met with by young fellows who have nothing regular on hand and whose hearts are unoccupied. With a little good-will, and a pretty strong dose of romantic illusions, you can call this having a mistress, if you like. For myself, I find it impossible; I might have a thousand of the kind, and I should still believe my desire as unfulfilled as ever.