CHAPTER XXXIV

OF CONFIDENCES

There is no form of insolence so swiftly punished as that which leads you, in passion-love, to take an intimate friend into your confidence. He knows that, if what you say is true, you have pleasures a thousand times greater than he, and that your own make you despise his.

It is far worse between women--their lot in life being to inspire a passion, and the _confidante_ having commonly also displayed her charms for the advantage of the lover.

On the other hand, for anyone a prey to this fever, there is no moral need more imperative than that of a friend, before whom to dilate on the fearful doubts which at every instant beset his soul; for in this terrible passion, always a thing imagined is a thing existent.

"A great fault in Salviati's character," he writes in 1817, "--in this point how opposed to Napoleon's!--is that when, in the discussion of interests in which passion is concerned, something is at last morally proved, he cannot resolve to take that as a fact once and for all established and as a point to start from. In spite of himself and greatly to his hurt, he brings it again and again under discussion." The reason is that, in the field of ambition, it is easy to be brave. Crystallisation, not being subjected to the desire of the thing to be won, helps to fortify our courage; in love it is wholly in the service of the object against which our courage is wanted.

A woman may find an unfaithful friend, she also may find one with nothing to do.

[Pg 120] A princess of thirty-five,[1] with nothing to do and dogged by the need of action, of intrigue, etc. etc., discontented with a lukewarm lover and yet unable to hope to sow the seeds of another love, with no use to make of the energy which is consuming her, with no other distraction than fits of black humour, can very well find an occupation, that is to say a pleasure, and a life's work, in accomplishing the misfortune of a true passion--passion which someone has the insolence to feel for another than herself, while her own lover falls to sleep at her side.

It is the only case in which hate produces happiness; the reason being that it procures occupation and work.

Just at first, the pleasure of doing something, and, as soon as the design is suspected by society, the prick of doubtful success add a charm to this occupation. Jealousy of the friend takes the mask of hatred for the lover; otherwise how would it be possible to hate so madly a man one has never set eyes on? You cannot recognise the existence of envy, or, first, you would have to recognise the existence of merit; and there are flatterers about you who only hold their place at Court by poking fun at your good friend.

The faithless _confidante_, all the while she is indulging in villainies of the deepest dye, may quite well think herself solely animated by the desire not to lose a precious friendship. A woman with nothing to do tells herself that even friendship languishes in a heart devoured by love and its mortal anxieties. Friendship can only hold its own, by the side of love, by the exchange of confidences; but then what is more odious to envy than such confidences?

The only kind of confidences well received between women are those accompanied in all its frankness by a statement of the case such as this:--"My dear friend, in this war, as absurd as it is relentless, which the prejudices,

[Pg 121] brought into vogue by our tyrants, wage upon us, you help me to-day--to-morrow it will be my turn."[2]

Beyond this exception there is another--that of true friendship born in childhood and not marred since by any jealousy...

* * * * *

The confidences of passion-love are only well received between schoolboys in love with love, and girls eaten up with unemployed curiosity and tenderness or led on perhaps by the instinct,[3] which whispers to them that there lies the great business of their life, and that they cannot look after it too early.

We have all seen little girls of three perform quite creditably the duties of gallantry. Gallant-love is inflamed, passion-love chilled by confidences.

Apart from the danger, there is the difficulty of confidences. In passion-love, things one cannot express (because the tongue is too gross for such subtleties) exist none the less; only, as these are things of extreme delicacy, we are more liable in observing them to make mistakes.

Also, an observer in a state of emotion is a bad observer; he won't allow for chance.

Perhaps the only safe way is to make yourself your own confidant. Write down this evening, under borrowed

[Pg 122] names, but with all the characteristic details, the dialogue you had just now with the woman you care for, and the difficulty which troubles you. In a week, if it is passion-love, you will be a different man, and then, rereading your consultation, you will be able to give a piece of good advice to yourself.

In male society, as soon as there are more than two together, and envy might make its appearance, politeness allows none but physical love to be spoken of--think of the end of dinners among men. It is Baffo's sonnets[4] that are quoted and which give such infinite pleasure; because each one takes literally the praises and excitement of his neighbour, who, quite often, merely wants to appear lively or polite. The sweetly tender words of Petrarch or French madrigals would be out of place.

[1] Venice, 1819.

[2] Memoirs of Madame d'Épinay, Geliotte.

Prague, Klagenfurth, all Moravia, etc. etc. Their women are great wits and their men are great hunters. Friendship is very common between the women. The country enjoys its fine season in the winter; among the nobles of the province a succession of hunting parties takes place, each lasting from fifteen to twenty days. One of the cleverest of these nobles said to me one day that Charles V had reigned legitimately over all Italy, and that, consequently, it was all in vain for the Italians to want to revolt. The wife of this good man read the Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse. (Znaym, 1816.)

[3] Important point. It seems to me that independent of their education, which begins at eight or ten months, there is a certain amount of instinct.

[4] The Venetian dialect boasts descriptions of physical love which for vivacity leave Horace, Propertius, La Fontaine and all the poets a hundred miles behind. M. Buratti of Venice is at the moment the first satirical poet of our unhappy Europe. He excels above all in the description of the physical grotesqueness of his heroes; and he finds himself frequently in prison. (See _l'Elefanteide, l'Uomo, la Strefeide._)

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