If we can observe these likes and dislikes on Myrto’s part, the reason is that Duchess Parthenis not only procures certain advantages for Myrto, but can also love the latter for herself alone; Lalage too can love her for herself, and in any case, as they are colleagues and on the same level, they need each other; and finally, by cherishing Cleanthis, Myrto feels with pride that she is capable of disinterested affection for someone, able to like them sincerely, understand them and love them – that, if necessary, she is elegant enough to do without elegance. Doris, on the other hand, merely expresses her desire for all that is in vogue, without being in a position to satisfy it; she comes to Myrto’s like a little dog lurking near a big dog in the hope of snatching a bone from it; she wants to sniff out her duchesses and see if she can steal one of them for herself; she causes displeasure, as does Myrto, by the disagreeable disproportion between her real rank and the rank to which she aspires; she presents Myrto, in other words, with the mirror image of her vice. Myrto’s friendship for Parthenis is the same as that which Myrto recognizes with displeasure in the attentions that Doris pays to her. Lalage, and even Cleanthis, reminded her of her dreams of ambition, and Parthenis at least was starting to realize them: Doris speaks to her only of her own pettiness. And so, too irritated to play the amusing role of protectress, she harbours for Doris exactly the same feelings which she, Myrto, would inspire in Parthenis, if Parthenis were not above snobbery: in other words, she hates her.
3
Heldemone, Adelgise, Ercole
Having witnessed a rather indelicate scene, Ercole does not dare to relate it to the Duchess Adelgise, but does not feel the same scruples in front of the courtesan Heldemone.
“Ercole,” exclaims Adelgise, “do you really think that such a story isn’t fit for my ears? Ah, I am sure that you would not behave the same way with the courtesan Heldemone. You respect me; you don’t love me.”
“Ercole,” exclaims Heldemone, “don’t you have more of a sense of decency than to tell me that story? Just tell me – would you treat the Duchess Adelgise the same way? You don’t respect me: so you can’t possibly love me.”
4
Inconstancy
Fabrizio, who wants to love – and thinks he will love – Beatrice for ever, reflects that he wanted – and thought – the same when he loved, for six months at a time, Hippolyta, Barbara or Clelia. So he tries to find in the real qualities of Beatrice a reason to think that, once his passion ends, he will continue to frequent her home, since the thought that one day he might live without seeing her is incompatible with his feelings for her, feelings that have the illusion they will last for all eternity. Then, as a prudent egotist, he would not want to devote himself like this – concentrating on her his every thought, all his actions and intentions, and his plans for all possible futures – to the woman who shares only a few of his hours.
Beatrice is keen-witted and a good judge. “Once I have stopped loving her, what pleasure I will have in talking to her about others, about herself, and my dead love for her…” (which will thus revive, converted into a more durable friendship – he hopes). But, once his passion for Beatrice is over, he goes for two years without visiting her, without feeling any desire to do so, and without suffering at the thought that he feels no desire to do so. One day, when he is forced to go and see her, he curses, and stays there for just ten minutes. The reason is that he now dreams day and night of Giulia, who is singularly lacking in wit but whose pale hair smells as nice as some aromatic herb, and whose eyes are as innocent as two flowers.
5
Life is strangely easy and gentle for certain persons of great natural distinction, witty and affectionate, but capable of every vice, even though they exercise none of these vices in public, and even though it is impossible to say for sure that they are guilty of a single one of them. There is something supple and secretive about them. And then, their perversity adds a certain piquancy to the most innocent occupations, such as going for a walk in the garden at night.
6
Cires perdues*
I
I saw you just now for the first time, Cydalise, and I immediately admired your blond hair, which placed as it were a little golden helmet onto your childlike, pure and melancholy head. A dress of a somewhat pale red velvet softened that singular face even more, whose lowered eyes seemed to have sealed up forever some mystery within. But you lifted up your gaze; it rested on me, Cydalise, and into the eyes that I then saw there seemed to have flowed the fresh purity of mornings, the running waters of the first days of spring. They were like eyes which had never gazed on anything which human eyes, are accustomed to reflect – eyes still virgin of earthly experience. But when I gazed at you more intently, you seemed above all to be expressing something full of love and suffering, like a woman to whom, even before birth, the fairies had refused what she would like to have possessed. The fabrics that you wore assumed on you a grace full of sorrow, adding a certain melancholy to your arms in especial, your arms that were just disconsolate enough to remain simple and charming. Then I imagined you as a princess come from far, far away, across the centuries, enduring the tedium of never-ending life here with a resigned languor – a princess dressed in clothes of rare and ancient harmony, the contemplation of which would soon have become a sweet and intoxicating habit for the eyes. I would like to have made you tell me of your dreams and your troubles. I would like to have seen you holding in your hand a goblet, or rather one of those flagons, so proud and melancholy in shape, which, now standing empty in our museums, and presenting in their useless grace the spectacle of a cup drained dry, were in bygone days, like you, a delightful refreshment on the tables of Venice, whose last violets and last roses have left a still floating memory in the limpid currents of their foaming, cloudy glass.
II
“How can you prefer Hippolyta to the five others I have just mentioned, who are the most unquestionable beauties of Verona? To begin with, her nose is too long and too aquiline.” You might add that her skin is too delicate, and her upper lip too thin: it pulls her mouth up excessively when she laughs, making too sharp an angle. And yet her laughter makes a huge impression on me, and the purest profiles leave me cold in comparison with the line of her nose, in your opinion too aquiline, but in my view so touching – it reminds me of a bird. Her head is also rather like a bird’s, so long from her forehead to the blond nape of her neck, and even more birdlike are her piercing and gentle eyes. Often, at the theatre, she will lean on the edge of her box; her arm in its white glove rises erect up to her chin, propped on her bent fingers. Her perfectly formed body fills out her habitual gauze dresses like folded wings. She makes you think of a bird standing dreaming on one elegant and slender leg. It is charming, too, to see her feather fan fluttering next to her, beating its white wing. I have never been able to see her sons or her nephews, who, like her, all have aquiline noses, thin lips, piercing eyes and over-delicate skin, without being struck by the traces of her lineage, which doubtless issued from a goddess and a bird. Through the metamorphosis which today keeps some winged desire enchained in this feminine form, I can recognize the peacock’s petite and regal head, though behind it there no longer billows the sea-blue, sea-green wave, or the foam of its mythological plumage. She gives one the idea of the fabulous, together with a frisson of beauty.
7
Snobs
I
A woman does not hide the fact that she likes balls, races and even gambling. She says it straight out, or admits it quite simply, or even boasts about it. But don’t try to get her to say that she likes whatever is in vogue: she would deny it indignantly, and get really angry. This is the only weakness that she takes care to hide, doubtless because it is the only one that humiliates one’s vanity. She is happy to be dependent on the whim of cards, but not on that of dukes. Just because she commits some extravagance, she doesn’t think
