CHAPTER XXVI
OF MODESTY
In Madagascar, a woman exposes without a thought what is here most carefully hidden, but would die of shame sooner than show her arm. Clearly three-quarters of modesty come from example. It is perhaps the one law, daughter of civilisation, which produces only happiness.
People have noticed that birds of prey hide themselves to drink; the reason being that, obliged to plunge their head in the water, they are at that moment defenceless. After a consideration of what happens at Tahiti,[1] I see no other natural basis for modesty.
Love is the miracle of civilisation. There is nothing but a physical love of the coarsest kind among savage or too barbarian peoples.
And modesty gives love the help of imagination--that is, gives it life.
Modesty is taught little girls very early by their mothers with such jealous care, that it almost looks like fellow-feeling; in this way women take measures in good time for the happiness of the lover to come.
There can be nothing worse for a timid, sensitive woman than the torture of having, in the presence of a man, allowed herself something for which she thinks she ought to blush; I am convinced that a woman with a
[Pg 82] little pride would sooner face a thousand deaths. A slight liberty, which touches a soft corner in the lover's heart, gives her a moment of lively pleasure.[2] If he seem to blame it, or simply not to enjoy it to the utmost, it must leave in the soul an agonising doubt. And so a woman above the common sort has everything to gain by being very reserved in her manner. The game is not fair: against the chance of a little pleasure or the advantage of seeming a little more lovable, a woman runs the risk of a burning remorse and a sense of shame, which must make even the lover less dear. An evening gaily passed, in care-devil thoughtless fashion, is dearly paid for at the price. If a woman fears she has made this kind of mistake before her lover, he must become for days together hateful in her sight. Can one wonder at the force of a habit, when the lightest infractions of it are punished by such cruel shame?
As for the utility of modesty--she is the mother of love: impossible, therefore, to doubt her claims. And for the mechanism of the sentiment--it's simple enough. The soul is busy feeling shame instead of busy desiring. You deny yourself desires and your desires lead to actions.
Evidently every woman of feeling and pride--and, these two things being cause and effect, one can hardly go without the other--must fall into ways of coldness, which the people whom they disconcert call prudery.
The accusation is all the more specious because of the extreme difficulty of steering a middle course: a woman has only to have little judgment and a lot of pride, and very soon she will come to believe that in modesty one cannot go too far. In this way, an Englishwoman takes it as an insult, if you pronounce before her the name of certain garments. An Englishwoman must be very careful, in the country, not to be seen in the evening
[Pg 83] leaving the drawing-room with her husband; and, what is still more serious, she thinks it an outrage to modesty, to show that she is enjoying herself a little in the presence of anyone _but_ her husband.[3] It is perhaps due to such studied scrupulousness that the English, a people of judgment, betray signs of such boredom in their domestic bliss. Theirs the fault--why so much pride?[4]
To make up for this--and to pass straight from Plymouth to Cadiz and Seville--I found in Spain that the warmth of climate and passions caused people to overlook a little the necessary measure of restraint. The very tender caresses, which I noticed could be given in public, far from seeming touching, inspired me with feelings quite the reverse: nothing is more distressing.
We must expect to find incalculable the force of habits, which insinuate themselves into women under the pretext of modesty. A common woman, by carrying modesty to extremes, feels she is getting on a level with a woman of distinction.
Such is the empire of modesty, that a woman of feeling betrays her sentiments for her lover sooner by deed than by word.
The prettiest, richest and most easy-going woman of Bologna has just told me, how yesterday evening a fool of a Frenchman, who is here giving people a strange idea of his nation, thought good to hide under her bed. Apparently he did not want to waste the long string of absurd declarations, with which he has been pestering her for a month. But the great man should have had more presence of mind. He waited all right till Madame M---- sent away her maid and had got to bed, but he had not the patience to give the household time to go to sleep. She seized hold of the bell and had him thrown
[Pg 84] out ignominiously, in the midst of the jeers and cuffs of five or six lackeys. "And if he had waited two hours?" I asked her. "I should have been very badly off. 'Who is to doubt,' he would have said, 'that I am here by your orders?'"[5]
After leaving this pretty woman's house, I went to see a woman more worthy of being loved than any I know. Her extremely delicate nature is something greater, if possible, than her touching beauty. I found her alone, told the story of Madame M---- and we discussed it. "Listen," was what she said; "if the man, who will go as far as that, was lovable in the eyes of that woman beforehand, he'll have her pardon, and, all in good time, her love." I own I was dumbfounded by this unexpected light thrown on the recesses of the human heart. After a short silence I answered her--"But will a man, who loves, dare go to such violent extremities?"
There would be far less vagueness in this chapter had a woman written it. Everything relating to women's haughtiness or pride, to their habits of modesty and its excesses, to certain delicacies, for the most part dependent wholly on associations of feelings,[6] which cannot exist for men, and often delicacies not founded on Nature--all these things, I say, can only find their way here so far as it is permissible to write from hearsay.
A woman once said to me, in a moment of philosophical frankness, something which amounts to this:--
"If ever I sacrificed my liberty, the man whom I should happen to favour would appreciate still more my
[Pg 85] affection, by seeing how sparing I had always been of favours--even of the slightest." It is out of preference for this lover, whom perhaps she will never meet, that a lovable woman will offer a cold reception to the man who is speaking to her at the moment. That is the first exaggeration of modesty; that one can respect. The second comes from women's pride. The third source of exaggeration is the pride of husbands.
To my idea, this possibility of love presents itself often to the fancy of even the most virtuous woman--and why not? Not to love, when given by Heaven a soul made for love, is to deprive yourself and others of a great blessing. It is like an orange-tree, which would not flower for fear of committing a sin. And beyond doubt a soul made for love can partake fervently of no other bliss. In the would-be pleasures of the world it finds, already at the second trial, an intolerable emptiness. Often it fancies that it loves Art and Nature in its grander aspects, but all they do for it is to hold out hopes of love and magnify it, if that is possible; until, very soon, it finds out that they speak of a happiness which it is resolved to forego.
The only thing I see to blame in modesty is that it leads to untruthfulness, and that is the only point of vantage, which light women have over women of feeling. A light woman says to you: "As soon, my friend, as you attract me, I'll tell you and I'll be more delighted than you; because I have a great respect for you."
The lively satisfaction of Constance's cry after her lover's victory! "How happy I am, not to have given myself to anyone, all these eight years that I've been on bad terms with my husband!"
However comical I find the line of thought, this joy seems to me full of freshness.
Here I absolutely must talk about the sort of regrets, felt by a certain lady of Seville who had been deserted by her lover. I ought to remind the reader that, in love.
[Pg 86] everything is a sign, and, above all, crave the benefit of a little indulgence for my style.[7]
* * * * *
As a man, I think my eye can distinguish nine points in modesty.
1. Much is staked against little; hence extreme reserve; hence often affectation. For example, one doesn't laugh at what amuses one the most. Hence it needs a great deal of judgment to have just the right amount of modesty.[8] That is why many women have not enough in intimate gatherings, or, to put it more exactly, do not insist on the stories told them being sufficiently disguised, and only drop their veils according to the degree of their intoxication or recklessness.[9]
Could it be an effect of modesty and of the deadly dullness it must impose on many women, that the majority of them respect nothing in a man so much as impudence? Or do they take impudence for character?
2. Second law: "My lover will think the more of me for it."
3. Force of habit has its way, even at the moments of greatest passion.
4. To the lover, modesty offers very flattering pleasures; it makes him feel what laws are broken for his sake.
5. And to women it offers more intoxicating pleasures, which, causing the fall of a strongly established habit, throw the soul into greater confusion. The Comte de Valmont finds himself in a pretty woman's bedroom at
[Pg 87] midnight. The thing happens every week to him; to her perhaps every other year. Thus continence and modesty must have pleasures infinitely more lively in store for women.[10]
6. The drawback of modesty is that it is always leading to falsehood.
7. Excess of modesty, and its severity, discourages gentle and timid hearts from loving[11]--just those made for giving and feeling the sweets of love.
8. In sensitive women, who have not had several lovers, modesty is a bar to ease of manner, and for this reason they are rather apt to let themselves be led by those friends, who need reproach themselves with no such failing.[12] They go into each particular case, instead of falling back blindly on habit. Delicacy and modesty give their actions a touch of restraint; by being natural they make
[Pg 88] themselves appear unnatural; but this awkwardness is akin to heavenly grace.
If familiarity in them sometimes resembles tenderness, it is because these angelic souls are coquettes without knowing it. They are disinclined to interrupt their dreams, and, to save themselves the trouble of speaking and finding something both pleasant and polite to say to a friend (which would end in being nothing but polite), they finish by leaning tenderly on his arm.[13]
9. Women only dare be frank by halves; which is the reason why they very rarely reach the highest, when they become authors, but which also gives a grace to their shortest note. For them to be frank means going out without a _fichu_. For a man nothing more frequent than to write absolutely at the dictate of his imagination, without knowing where he is going.
_Résumé_
The usual fault is to treat woman as a kind of man, but more generous, more changeable and with whom, above all, no rivalry is possible. It is only too easy to forget that there are two new and peculiar laws, which tyrannise over these unstable beings, in conflict with all the ordinary impulses of human nature--I mean:--
Feminine pride and modesty, and those often inscrutable habits born of modesty.
[1] See the Travels of Bougainville, Cook, etc. In some animals, the female seems to retract at the moment she gives herself. We must expect from comparative anatomy some of the most important revelations about ourselves.
[2] Shows one's love in a new way.
[3] See the admirable picture of these tedious manners at the end of _Corinne_; and Madame de Staël has made a flattering portrait.
[4] The Bible and Aristocracy take a cruel revenge upon people who believe that duty is everything.
[5] I am advised to suppress this detail--"You take me for a very doubtful woman, to dare tell such stories in my presence."
[6] Modesty is one of the sources of taste in dress: by such and such an arrangement, a woman engages herself in a greater or less degree. This is what makes dress lose its point in old age.
A provincial, who puts up to follow the fashion in Paris, engages herself in an awkward way, which makes people laugh. A woman coming to Paris from the provinces ought to begin by dressing as if she were thirty.
[7] P. 84, note 5.
[8] See the tone of society at Geneva, above all in the "best" families--use of a Court to correct the tendency towards prudery by laughing at it--Duclos telling stories to Madame de Rochefort--"Really, you take us for too virtuous." Nothing in the world is so nauseous as modesty not sincere.
[9] "Ah, my dear Fronsac, there are twenty bottles of champagne between the story, that you're beginning to tell us, and our talk at this time of day."
[10] It is the story of the melancholy temperament and the sanguine. Consider a virtuous woman (even the mercenary virtue of certain of the faithful--virtue to be had for a hundredfold reward in Paradise) and a blasé debauchee of forty. Although the Valmont(13) of the _Liaisons Dangereuses_ is not as far gone as that, the Présidente de Tourvel(13) is happier than he all the way through the book: and if the author, with all his wit, had had still more, that would have been the moral of his ingenious novel.
[11] Melancholy temperament, which may be called the temperament of love. I have seen women, the most distinguished and the most made for love, give the preference, for want of sense, to the prosaic, sanguine temperament. (Story of Alfred, Grande Chartreuse, 1810.)
I know no thought which incites me more to keep what is called bad company.
(Here poor Visconti loses himself in the clouds.)
Fundamentally all women are the same so far as concerns the movements of the heart and passion: the forms the passions take are different. Consider the difference made by greater fortune, a more cultivated mind, the habit of higher thoughts, and, above all, (and more's the pity) a more irritable pride.
Such and such a word irritates a princess, but would not in the very least shock an Alpine shepherdess. Only, once their anger is up, the passion works in princess and shepherdess the same). (The Editor's only note.)
[12] M.'s remark.
[13] Vol. _Guarna_.
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