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By Root 1489 0

The idea of making me acquainted with his wife seemed to fill him with joy, for his own sake as well as for hers, and he led me with a resolute step towards the Marquise. Arriving in front of her, and indicating me with his hand and eyes, with every conceivable mark of consideration, he nevertheless remained silent and withdrew after a few moments, with a wriggling, sidelong motion, leaving me alone with his wife. She had at once given me her hand, but without knowing to whom this gesture of affability was addressed, for I realised that M. de Vaugoubert had forgotten my name, perhaps even had failed to recognise me, and being reluctant, out of politeness, to confess his ignorance, had made the introduction consist in a mere dumb-show. And so I was no further advanced; how was I to get myself introduced to my host by a woman who did not know my name? Worse still, I found myself obliged to remain for some moments chatting to Mme de Vaugoubert. And this irked me for two reasons. I had no wish to remain all night at this party, having arranged with Albertine (I had given her a box for Phèdre) that she was to pay me a visit shortly before midnight. I was not in the least in love with her; in asking her to come this evening, I was yielding to a purely sensual desire, although we were at that torrid period of the year when sensuality, released, is more readily inclined to visit the organs of taste, and seeks coolness above all. More than for the kiss of a girl, it thirsts for orangeade, for a bath, or even to gaze at that peeled and juicy moon that was quenching the thirst of heaven. I counted however upon ridding myself, in Albertine’s company—which moreover reminded me of the coolness of the sea—of the regrets I was bound to feel for many a charming face (for it was a party quite as much for young girls as for married women that the Princess was giving). On the other hand, the face of the imposing Mme de Vaugoubert, Bourbonesque and morose, was in no way attractive.

It was said at the Ministry, without any suggestion of malice, that in their household it was the husband who wore the petticoats and the wife the trousers. Now there was more truth in this than was supposed. Mme de Vaugoubert really was a man. Whether she had always been one, or had grown to be as I now saw her, matters little, for in either case we are faced with one of the most touching miracles of nature which, in the latter alternative especiaily, makes the human kingdom resemble the kingdom of flowers. On the former hypothesis—if the future Mme de Vaugoubert had always been so heavily mannish—nature, by a fiendish and beneficent ruse, bestows on the girl the deceptive aspect of a man. And the youth who has no love for women and is seeking to be cured greets with joy this subterfuge of discovering a bride who reminds him of a market porter. In the alternative case, if the woman has not at first these masculine characteristics, she adopts them by degrees, to please her husband, and even unconsciously, by that sort of mimicry which makes certain flowers assume the appearance of the insects which they seek to attract. Her regret at not being loved, at not being a man, makes her mannish. Indeed, quite apart from the case that we are now considering, who has not remarked how often the most normal couples end by resembling each other, at times even by exchanging qualities? A former German Chancellor, Prince von Bülow, married an Italian. In the course of time it was remarked on the Pincio how much Italian delicacy the Teutonic husband had absorbed, and how much German coarseness the Italian princess. To go outside the confines of the laws which we are now tracing, everyone knows an eminent French diplomat whose origins were suggested only by his name, one of the most illustrious in the East. As he matured, as he aged, the oriental whom no one had even suspected in him emerged, and now when we see him we regret the absence of the fez that would complete the picture.3

To revert to habits completely unknown to the ambassador whose ancestrally thickened profile we have