LILAC

Beatrice, being a princess, believed herself obliged to be very severe toward her adorers. A princess—isn’t that a rare fruit, the plucking of which is well worth some torments? She imposed tests upon them. The one, an inveterate smoker, must, during an excursion into the country, refrain from smoking an entire day. Another, who was fond of dancing, must abstain from the most attractive balls for the season. Three leading dandies, one after the other, were forbidden to patronize a certain master of fashions. The tailor conceived a hatred for the princess. Lionel, on the contrary, accepted everything, even ridicule. When he had been deeply humiliated, he would be permitted a few somewhat lingering kisses of her hand; he was favored with discreet smiles; his flowers would occasionally be accepted; he would be chosen as companion for a tour of the Salons or to go and hear one of M. Jules Lemaître’s lectures. Finally, he was granted a tête-à-tête in the little lilac salon, which was the well-known anti-chamber of the definite joys. For a long time thus, seated, standing, on his knees, Lionel declaimed gallant, witty or pathetic speeches upon his passion. One day, after a tender impulse of abandonment, Beatrice suddenly resumed her dignified air:

“Let us be reasonable, my friend. I ought not to fall, and you ought not lead me into temptation. The flesh, even that of princesses,” and she dwelt an instant upon that word, “is weak. But a woman like me knows how to suffer. Born for virtue, I remain faithful to it. Alas! I shall never belong to you. Be my friend, Lionel, be the partner of my renunciation and the confidant of my griefs.”

Lionel had his plans. He knew that at this sentence of the play one must be shocked, plunge into despair and knock his head lightly against the panels of the little old oak library; they were very solid. Then, in order to avoid a greater misfortune, the princess would weepingly yield. She would go herself to bolt the door, as in the gallant prints of yore and, like a grisette, let herself very adroitly be undressed.

Lionel had his plans. He pretended to enter into the arrangements of the astonished princess:

“We’ll weep together. I love you too much to dare to oppose a will that is so dear to me. Let us be friends, alas!”

Beatrice loved Lionel. At the moment in which he spoke thus she desired him with all the secret desires of her soul and of her flesh. As he took his leave, gloomily, she was on the point of clasping very tightly and drawing to her heart the hand that touched hers, but a modesty that she had never known frustrated her desire. She let Lionel depart without finding anything else to say than:

“So soon!”

The door closed, she felt herself enveloped in a mantle of chagrin. It was heavy, it was thick, it hid all objects from her sight,—all life itself. Finally her suffering yielded somewhat to this idea:

“He will come back tomorrow.”

Lionel did not come back on the next day, nor two days later, nor three. On the fourth came a word, from London:

“Dear friend, an unexpected matter.... I hope tomorrow, at the regular hour, to present to you the respectful compliments of your friend Lionel.”

At the regular hour, a blue note: “Suffering....”

Beatrice’s reply:

“I knew very well, my dear friend, that only something unexpected could take you away from me. But why should I have been deprived of news about you so long—three or four centuries? At last I have that news, however, and it’s bad! Tell me that I need not be uneasy? Beatrice.”

Lionel, as he read this, said:

“She is conquered. It’ll be tomorrow.”

During this week Beatrice’s imagination had skipped about a thousand different ways, from branch to branch, like a squirrel. She had passed through deception, hope, fear, boredom, despair, joy, disquietude, and this is the point she had reached when Lionel was shown in.

At sight of him she darted forward, then checked herself, blushing. Lionel opened his arms; she fell into them, closing her eyes, happy, no longer thinking of anything. There were long, mute kisses, tender caresses, then it was Lionel himself who bolted the door. Thus, at the same time that he affirmed his love, he affirmed his authority.

Lionel loved Beatrice, but he held a certain smiling rancor against the princess. Even as he satisfied his love, at the same time he perfected his revenge. After the great liberty, there were the little ones, which are indecent, and the singular ones, which are excessive. He dared all and exacted all. Every day he added a stanza to the voluptuous poem. Beatrice, however, with the air of one who lets herself be vanquished by love, grew more and more exalted as the beads of the chaplet ran through her fingers, and one day when Lionel, at the end of his imagination, had enjoyed simply a mutual and simple happiness, Beatrice, at ease, laughing, invented a mad embrace.

Then he sank to his knees and kissed her feet, not as a lover but as a worshipper, and he mused:

“O Beatrice, thrice woman,—Beatrice of beauty, Beatrice of love, Beatrice of voluptuousness,—with these soft words I entreat your pardon for my stupidity. I tried to humiliate you, follow your example; I thought I would treat you somewhat as an odalisk and it is I, instead, who have done your will; it is I who am the slave.”