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diff --git a/57423-0.txt b/57423-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..401f80d --- /dev/null +++ b/57423-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7375 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57423 *** + + + + + + + + + +The Book of Love + +By + +Prof. Dr. Paolo Mantegazza + +Professor of Anthropology and General Pathology, Founder of the +first Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology in +Italy, Senator of the Kingdom of Italy + +_A translation of_ + +The Physiology of Love + +_from the Italian text_ + +American-Neo-latin Library + +New York, N. Y. + + +[Illustration: "PROFANE LOVE" _By Caravaggio_ _Berlin Museum_] + + +PAOLO MANTEGAZZA, Italian physiologist and anthropologist, was born at +Monza in 1831. He travelled extensively in Europe, India and America. He +was appointed surgeon at Milan Hospital and Professor of General +Pathology at Pavia. In 1870 he was nominated Professor of Anthropology +at the Istituto di Studii Superiori, Florence. He founded the first +Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology in Italy, and the Italian +Anthropological Society. He was deputy for Monza in the Italian +Parliament from 1865 to 1876, subsequently being elected to the Senate. +He is the author of many well known works, as "The Physiology of +Sorrow," "The Physiology of Pleasure," "Elements of Hygiene," "Pictures +of Human Nature," "Human Ecstasies," "Head," etc. His books are most +popular in Europe, where they have been translated into almost every +language and have reached an enormous circulation. Paolo Mantegazza +ranks with the greatest European medical authorities and the most +brilliant Italian writers. + +Copyright, 1917, by THE AMERICAN--NEO-LATIN LIBRARY + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +INTRODUCTION: GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE 13 + +CHAPTER + I LOVE IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS 29 + + II MORNING CREPUSCULES OF LOVE--THE GOOD AND + EVIL SOURCES OF LOVE 41 + + III THE FIRST WEAPONS OF LOVE--COURTSHIP 64 + + IV MODESTY 72 + + V THE VIRGIN 79 + + VI CONQUEST AND VOLUPTUOUSNESS 89 + + VII HOW LOVE IS PRESERVED AND HOW IT DIES 94 + + VIII THE DEPTHS AND THE HEIGHTS OF LOVE 107 + + IX SUBLIME PUERILITIES OF LOVE 118 + + X BOUNDARIES OF LOVE--THEIR RELATIONS TO + THE SENSES 122 + + XI BOUNDARIES OF LOVE--THEIR RELATIONS TO + OTHER SENTIMENTS--JEALOUSY 133 + + XII BOUNDARIES OF LOVE--THEIR RELATIONS TO THOUGHT 145 + + XIII CHASTITY IN ITS RELATIONS TO LOVE 155 + + XIV LOVE IN SEX 158 + + XV LOVE AND AGE 165 + + XVI LOVE IN RELATION TO TEMPERAMENTS--OF + THE WAYS OF LOVING 175 + + XVII THE HELL OF LOVE 186 + +XVIII THE DEGRADATIONS OF LOVE 198 + + XIX THE FAULTS AND CRIMES OF LOVE 211 + + XX THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF LOVE 219 + + XXI THE COVENANTS OF LOVE 227 + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Mantegazza is to Physiology what Flammarion is to Astronomy. The two +great masters head a brilliant galaxy of modern writers on natural +phenomena who draw their material from science and mould it in an +esthetic form. After the most skilful analysis of the scientific +elements to their minutest components, they proceed to an ideal +synthesis in which the various elements retain their substance, yet +change their outward appearance. It seems as if these elect minds, +having once satisfied their scientific curiosity as to physical and +human phenomena, had been fascinated and inspired by an irresistible +love of creation, and rising above the facts and laws of nature to the +evanescent and melodious world of imagination, they offer us their work +in a harmonious unity of two seemingly opposite and irreconcilable +elements--the real and the ideal, Science and Poetry. + +And thus, I dare say, it is as if, by a generous law of reaction and +equilibrium, while our generation seems to gravitate toward a life of +facts and order, barren of idealism, Science would teach us that she +herself does not benumb or kill sentiment, but, on the contrary, +discloses to the minds of the elect the flowery slopes of an unknown and +infinite world of wonders and sentiment. + +So it must be that those who have attained a high place in intellectual +life will gladly replace the old conception of physical and human +phenomena with a new and more intense representation, which, measured in +the finitude of our reason, is loved in the infinity of our sentiment. +To the uninitiated mind most beautiful is the representation of the sun +in the image of Phoebus crossing the heavens in his flaming chariot +drawn by fiery horses; but still more beautiful for the intellectual +mind is it to think of the immense body of fire, of the energy darting +from a star more than a hundred million miles distant from our planet, +more than a hundred million times larger than the earth, and yet a star +millions of times smaller than millions of other celestial bodies to our +naked eye unknown, unknown to our most powerful telescopes, and whose +existence and fantastic speed in the space of the heavens are divined +only by the abstraction of our faculties in an infinite representation +of the laws of physics. Poetical is the vision of a goddess of Olympus +descending to earth and carrying to a man asleep the message or the +image of a dear, distant person; but immensely more poetical is the +conception of a telepathic force within us, made of us, consciously or +unconsciously created by us, an integral part of our psychical organism, +and by which we instantly communicate over hills and dales, mountains +and valleys, oceans and deserts, with another human being whose spirit +is harmoniously attuned to ours. + +The impersonation of hatred and love by Fury and Cupid is much less +poetical than the conception of an explosion of psychical forces, +powerful and antagonistic, in millions of men at the same time. + +The task of dealing with the natural history, the origin and the +development of the sentiment which underlies the principal phenomena of +human existence, which came into being with the first twilight of +organic life, and which indissolubly binds together the individuals and +the generations, seems to have been reserved to the genius of Paolo +Mantegazza, and with this great subject he dealt in a masterly way, in a +way unimitated and inimitable. He has snatched Love from the Olympus of +the gods of old, from the clutches of classic literature, stripped him +of all his tinsel and garments, and revealed him as part--flesh and +blood of man. + +By a new conception of love, more rational, more human and yet no less +poetical than the classic representations to which we have been +accustomed from times immemorial, Mantegazza gives us a work in which +the scientific foundation and the poetical conceptions are united in +such wealth of colors and harmonies that its reading, rich with true +and romantic charm, is incomparably superior to our best fiction. It is +a daring deed, both in the literary and the philosophical field, and it +opens a new horizon to the idealization of human feelings, discoveries +and events. + +Mantegazza, unlike countless love writers and poets, approaches his +field not with a hoe or a plow to scratch the surface of the ground, but +with a powerful drill that penetrates into the lowest strata of the +earth and reveals its deepest terrestrial composition. In the pursuit of +his aim, carried by enthusiasm in the innermost research of facts and by +admiration for the beauty of his subject, Mantegazza has used all the +wealth of his literary training, skilfully and lavishly drawing upon all +the resources of the Italian language. The task of the translator has +thus been made doubly difficult, as the original language of the book +has more subtlety and artistic abandon than the English language would +allow. Rather than run the risk of betraying either the substance or the +representation of the author's idea, often it has been preferred to +sacrifice the turn of the English phrase to that of the corresponding +Italian, and possibly incur the imputation of exoticism. + +Such is the translation of a beautiful Book of Love offered to the +American public at a time when all the evil passions and degradations of +hatred are unleashed over the world. In striking contrast with the trend +of the human mind today, what a meager chance is awaiting the +contemplation of a sentiment whose mission is to tie all humanity with a +bond of affection! And yet, while time and evolution relegate the memory +of the most fearful cataclysms of the human race to the icy page of +history, the fundamental elements constituting human life cannot be +changed or destroyed. Love will continue to exist as long as the laws of +affinity and procreation seize the human being at his birth and by the +evolution of matter dominate him even after his death. The struggle for +life may become intensified or disappear from the world; hatred among +classes, nations, races may deepen, expand or be altogether eliminated; +passions may gain further ascendancy over humanity, or humanity may +learn to control them; and, in the words of Shelley, + + + "Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change, to these + All things are subject but eternal Love." + + +At the feet of him, procreator and prince of all affections, at once +proud, generous, kind, fair, and weak, avaricious, cruel, deceitful, in +all virtues rich and in all sins, a king and a miser, we shall always +lay, proudly or in shame, the innermost throbs of our heart, our tears +and our joys, the highest aspirations of our mind, the sweetest +ecstasies of our soul, our convulsions, our despairs, our crimes, up to +the very threshold of the great oblivion, when, in the words of the +poet, of the extenuated race one lone man and one woman, among the ruins +of the mountains and of the dead woods, in the wake of the departing +warmth, clasped together in the supreme fate of creation, livid, with +glassy eyes shall see the last sun descend forever. + +ER. BE. + + + + +TO THE READER + + +I have conceived love to be the most powerful and at the same time the +least studied of human affections. Surrounded by a triple forest of +prejudice, mystery and hypocrisy, civilized men know it too often only +through stealth and shame. Poets, artists, philosophers, legislators, +snatch a morsel now and then from the flesh of the great god, and hurry +away to conceal it as a precious booty of forbidden fruit. To study love +as a phenomenon of life, as a gigantic power which moulds itself in a +thousand ways among various races and in various epochs, and as an +element of health for the individual and for the generations, has +appealed to me as a great and worthy undertaking. + +THE AUTHOR. + + + + +THE BOOK OF LOVE + + + "... _this precious jewel + Upon the which is every virtue founded._" + +--DANTE. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE + + +Many years ago I wrote that to live means _nutrition and generation_, +and the deeper I cast the sounding-line into the dark abysses of life, +the more I am convinced that this definition faithfully depicts the most +striking characteristics of all creatures which, from bacteria to man, +come to life, grow and die on the face of our planet. If, however, I +wished still further to simplify my idea, reducing life to its simplest +and most essential form, I would say without fear of betraying the +truth, that _to live means to generate_. + +Every living body is perishable, but before dying it has the power of +reproducing the form that has made it capable of living; and that +whirlwind which absorbs and rejects, which assimilates new atoms and +repels old ones, and which so clearly represents the eternal picture of +life in all its manifestations, is also the most faithful representation +of every form of generation. + +Nutrition is a real genesis, and in the great chemical laboratory of +living beings we have at all times before our eyes the reproduction of +histological elements of organs and individuals. We lose hair, +epithelia, white corpuscles every day; and yet every day we generate +hair, epithelia and leucocytes: this is an every-day generation in the +body of man. A nail falls off, a new one takes its place: this is the +reproduction of an organ. We generate children similar to ourselves: +this is the reproduction of an entire organism, the true _generation_. +But in one of our offspring we see re-repeated a mole which is on our +nose: this is the reproduction of an organ within an organism. On the +other hand, one race generates another race, one species another +species; and here we see a broader genesis by which from the +reproduction of a cell through another cell we gradually pass to the +generating of an organ, of an individual, of a race, of a species. + +The world of living beings is a gigantic tree and from its trunk shoot +forth the branches of classes, orders, species. On the branches leaves +grow, which are the individuals; but each one of these small individuals +generates within itself many cells, true organisms within greater ones. +The world of living beings is but a great laboratory of prolific, +incessant generation. Cells generate cells; organs, organs; species, +species. An intimate brotherhood makes us members of one great +organism--the placenta of living beings; and among ourselves we exchange +the same matter which each of us in turn contributes to the work of +apparent destruction, called _nutrition_, and to that of reproduction, +designated as _generation_. To feed themselves and to generate, living +beings are continually exchanging with each other a part of their own +matter which, passing from one organism to another, seems to acquire new +energy and new life. On the one hand, seaweeds live on mushrooms, +carnivorous animals devour herbivorous, herbivorous feed on herbs, and +man, the highest branch of the tree of living beings, partakes of all. +On the other hand, males and females in continuous succession +interchange part of their matter, remoulding their primitive forms. + +The most elementary form of life is not, however, the cell, since at a +lower stage we find the _protoplasm_, the true _primum vivens_ which, by +scission, generates the individual; and, by nourishing itself, nobody +can tell what mysterious genesis of atoms it induces within its own most +simple organism. The protoplasm cannot live without a continual exchange +of matter, so that the live molecules of yesterday are dead today; and +those which are alive today will be dead tomorrow; therefore nutrition +also, in the last analysis, is an intimate and very mysterious +generation. + +Evanescence of forms is one of the most essential characteristics of +living beings, and we give the name of death to the falling of every +leaf from the tree of life. Man, also, drops some of these leaves every +day--hair, epithelia, cells, which often produce a secretive substance +and fall with it. Before dying, a part of the preëxisting form remains +to re-animate the dead form and follows in its turn the parabolical +cycle through which the mother form has passed. This is the most general +principle and includes all possible kinds of generation, from that of +scission to the highest form of sexual genesis. One would say that the +life of an individual is only a moment of the great life of the species, +of the classes, of the kingdoms of living beings; it is a spark which +shoots off intermittently, passing from one organism to another. + +Powerful and irresistible is the tendency to generate; in a great many +cases the individual sacrifices himself consciously, or is unwittingly +sacrificed by the laws of nature, provided that before death he transmit +life to others. "Let the individual perish, if this preserve the +species!" Such is the eternal cry of nature, which men and infusoria, +oaks and mushrooms alike must obey. If the individual is protected and +possesses preservative instincts and defensive organs, the species has a +hundred bulwarks, a thousand manners of safeguard, more means of +protection than are needed. In fact, living beings generate so profusely +that one species alone would pervade the earth if the various circles of +expansion, falling in with each other, did not struggle among +themselves, like the circles caused on the smooth surface of a lake by a +handful of sand thrown upon it by a child. Apart from the manner in +which life is transmitted, there is an amount of life which passes away, +there is _a certain amount_ of fecundity, and this may seem, at first +glance, most whimsical, while it is governed by the laws of +preservation. + +_To be born and to die--fecundity and mortality_--are so closely +connected with each other that we can consider them as different aspects +of the same phenomenon, as the action and reaction of life. When +reproduction increases beyond measure, the dangers for the individuals +generated increase at the same time, and destruction mows down the +excessive number of those which are born. Now it is food that is no +longer proportionate to the new-born; then parasites and enemies of the +over-expanded species, which, increasing in turn, reëstablish the +equilibrium. The destructive forces and the protective balance mutually, +as happens with many other forces, simpler and better known. + +The Malthusian problem, however, is much more intricate. If all species +were equally prolific and had a life of equal length, the problem would, +in fact, be reduced to a question of space and food; but, on the +contrary, the duration of life and the various degrees of fecundity +serve in turn to reëstablish the equilibrium by other ways. If the +reproduction of mice were as slow as that of man, they would all be +destroyed before another generation could be born; and even if they +could live fifteen or sixteen years, not one of them, perhaps, would +ever attain that age, surviving all dangers. And on the other hand, +should oxen multiply in the same proportion as infusoria, the entire +species would die of hunger in a week. + +In order that an organic form be preserved, the individual must preserve +itself and generate other individuals. Now these forces must vary +inversely. If the individual, through its simple organization, is little +fit to resist danger, it must countervail this weakness with reaction, +generating intensely. If, on the contrary, high qualities give it a +great capacity for self-protection, it should then diminish its +fecundity proportionately. If danger is reckoned as a constant quantity, +inasmuch as capacity for resistance should be equal in all species, and +does consist of two factors (faculty to maintain individual life and +power to multiply it), these factors cannot but vary in opposite +directions. This most simple and sublime law, which Herbert Spencer read +in the great book of nature, is one of those that rule with the most +inflexible tyranny the elementary phenomena of reproduction, as well as +the highest and most complex phenomena of human love. + +In the _Diatomaceæ_ the fecundity by scission is gigantic: Smith +reckoned that a single gnat could create a thousand million individuals +in one month. A young _Gonium_, capable of scission after twenty-four +hours, can produce in a week 268,435,456 individuals equal to itself. In +other cases, the process of multiplication is not scissiparous, but +endogenous, as with the _Volvox_; but the reproduction is always +extraordinary. If all the individuals generated should survive, a +_Paramecium_ would, by scission, produce in the course of a month +268,000,000 individuals. Another microscopic animal can produce +170,000,000,000 individuals in four days. The _Gordius_--the entozoön of +an insect--lays 8,000,000 eggs in less than a day. An African termite +lays 80,000 eggs in twenty-four hours, and Eschricht reckoned at +64,000,000 the number of eggs in the adult female of an _Ascaris +lumbricoides_. + +If, from the minute microscopic creatures exposed to every danger and +which consume very little matter--if, from these living atoms of which +you could gather as many in your hands as there are men on earth, you +pass to the elephant, you have there a giant of flesh that requires +thirty years of its life to become fecund, and then, after a long +gestation, produces but one offspring. And above the elephant you find a +giant of thought, Man, who requires the third part of his average life +to reproduce himself, and after nine long months generates one child +only; and, what is worse, he sees half of his offspring mowed down +before they are able to bear flower and seed. + + +The methods of transmitting life are manifold, since nature in no other +function has been so inexhaustibly rich with forms as in generation; but +we, dealing here with the general physiology of love, will reduce all +the various generative forms to these few: + + + _Separation or Scission._--The individual dissevers into two parts, + and each of these, made independent, reproduces the generator. This + is the most simple form of genesis, in which the function of + reproduction is not distinct from the other functions, but merges + into them. + + _Endogenesis._--Within an individual many other individuals are + formed; the parent opens, and, destroying its own individuality, + dissolves in its offspring. + + _The individual by itself alone generates other individuals._--The + parent generates through special organs and without dissolving in + its offspring. The individuals generated and separated from the + generator are eggs, seeds, perfect organisms; but in every case + these are always elements evolved within the generator through + special organs. The generative function is already marked and + distinct in a laboratory which detaches and prepares some of the + elements of the individual, so that they may reproduce it. + + _Monoecious Sexual Generation._--A step higher, the generative + laboratory becomes complicated and divides into two parts, one of + which brings forth the egg, the other the fecundating element. + Each, for its own account, prepares the element destined for the + reproduction of the individual; but if both do not come in contact, + the new being is not generated. We have the sexes quite distinct, + but enclosed within a single individual. Strange to observe, + however, we behold an individual that generates an egg which cannot + be fecundated by that individual's seed; or an individual that + produces a seed which cannot be of any service to the egg. A duplex + embrace of two hermaphrodites which interlace a quadruple love, and + the appearance of winds, insects, or birds, as fecundatory + paranymphs, resolves these problems of a most singular generation. + + _Dioecious Sexual Generation._--Finally, the generating organs, + too, separate and fix themselves each upon a single individual, + which is sterile in itself, produces but one of the generating + elements, and, therefore, must combine with the other; and by such + union they may produce the new creature: the sum of two + individualities, the male and the female, the father and the + mother. Man loves in twain; but although, like the other superior + animals akin to him, he presents a dioecious sexual generation, + yet in his inmost tissues he also possesses the _endogenous_ + genesis and the genesis by _scission_, and presents in this regard + the remains also of the elementary forms of life enclosed within + him. + + +In this rapid course through all the forms of generation we see +delineated the same laws by which nature rules the other functions. +Gradually new forces appear and new organs are brought forth to +represent the subdivision of work. First, it is the whole individual +that generates, then an organ of the individual, then again two organs +in the same individual, and again two organs in separate individuals. In +the many forms of genesis, the unity of the plan is more than ever +manifest, and we, the highest of all living creatures, while, like the +amoeba, we have in our protoplasm and scattered all through the mass of +our body the faculty to generate, recognize in man and woman the two +distinct laboratories which prepare the seed and the human egg. + +While the pathology of love, in many cases of lasciviousness, shows the +last declining remains of a promiscuous hermaphroditism, imagination, a +forerunner of science, causes us to divine that in more complex +creatures sexes may be more than two, and generation presents a deeper +subdivision of work, in the same manner as in the cynical or skeptical +distinctions between platonic and sensual loves and in the most daring +polygamies of soul and senses we perceive in the distance other lights +which disclose to us the horizon of new and monstrous generative +possibilities, some of them reaching the suprasensible and some as base +and brutal as the most repelling atavic regressions. + + +When the science of the future will permit our posterity to connect all +the phenomena of nature, from the most elementary to the most complex, +from the simplest motion of a molecule to the flash of the most sublime +genius, in an uninterrupted chain of facts, then perhaps the first +origins of love will be sought in the elementary physics of dissimilar +atoms which endeavor to find each other and combine, and with opposite +motion generate the equilibrium. The positive electric body seeks the +negative, the acid seeks the base, and in these conjunctions, with great +development of light, heat and electricity, new bodies are formed, new +equilibriums obtained; it seems that Nature renews her forces and, +rejuvenescing, prepares herself for new combinations and new loves. + +And is not love perhaps the combination of two dissimilar atoms which +seek each other and combine, notwithstanding all the adverse forces of +heaven and earth? And in the same manner as the molecule of potassium +snatches the oxygen away from water with a great development of light +and heat, is not the union of those two molecules, which we call man and +woman, accompanied by a hurricane of passion, by flashes of genius, by +infinite glittering of flames and ardor? Do we not perceive a +pandemonium of physical and psychical forces accumulating, battling and +equilibrating around that point where a man and a woman are attracted +toward each other, to rejuvenate the human matter and rekindle the torch +of life? + +A particular motion, originated in the ovary and in the testis, +accumulates such energy in the nervous centers as eventually to bring +the masculine element in contact with the feminine, so that the +generative gemmulæ produced in the slow laboratory of two different +organisms reunite in that nest which is the maternal womb and where the +fecundated egg must transform into a human being. + +The poet and the metaphysician may define love in whatever manner they +choose. There is only one definition for science: Love is the energy +which must bring in contact the egg with the seed; without ovary and +without testis there can be no love. + +That forward movement which is called generation is so powerful as to +oppose and even destroy the minor motion, that is, the preservation of +the individual; and while each individual rotates, it is carried forward +with a movement a hundred times more irresistible and powerful through +space and time. The first motion represents the narrow life of the +individual and is protected by egotism; the second is the great life of +the species, and love defends it. + +The most superficial study of the generative function is sufficient to +convince us that love is always a phenomenon of high chemistry, in which +the generating atoms, in order to combine, must be neither too similar +nor too dissimilar. No sooner has sex manifested itself in animals than +we have in the same individual, but in two distinct laboratories, the +formation of two generative elements. Sex, which, at first thought, +appears to us as one of the deepest mysteries of life, is nothing but a +laboratory which attracts the elements generated by every element of the +organism, and encloses and preserves them in itself in order to pour +them into the bosom of other elements, similar but not equal, generated +in another laboratory, that is, the opposite sex. When the two +generative laboratories are separated in two distinct organisms, it is +probable that the diversity of their gemmulæ is greater. If in +individuals closely resembling each other, but of different races, we +combine the generative elements, we still will probably have fecundity; +while, if we pass to different species, fecundity will be more +difficult; if we pass to different genera it will in most cases become +impossible. + +But let us set aside the words _species_ and _genera_, which, in nature, +have not the same value as we assign to them in our museums and in our +books, and let us, instead, take from the world of the living a handful +of animals, haphazard, so that we may gather together brothers, cousins, +nephews, individuals of the same or affinitive classes, genera, orders, +and let us place them in line, in the order of their degrees of +similarity. Should we try to couple them, or study their spontaneous +loves, we would find cases of sterility in beings too similar and in +beings too dissimilar; therefore, generation moves between these two +opposite poles, too great similarity and too great dissimilarity. That +is the reason why we may see a woman with a mustache, atrophied breasts +and deep voice remain sterile with a robust man: they do not generate +because they have too close a resemblance. That is the reason why a dog +and a cat are sterile: they do not generate, because they are too +dissimilar. Nature said to living beings: "If you wish to love, be +neither too similar nor too dissimilar." + +Let us try and discover the reason of this law. Germs that are too +similar cannot concur in fecundation, or fecundate unsatisfactorily, +perhaps through the same laws of elementary physics and chemistry which +cause bodies to repel other bodies equally electrified or with which +they have too close a resemblance in their physico-chemical +characteristics. Try the combination of sulphur with phosphorus, of +iodine with bromine, and, on the other hand, observe the ardent loves of +chlorine and hydrogen, of potassium and oxygen. The fecundity of two +different organisms is, besides, an energy bearing in one direction; it +is the sum of resistances all of them equal, while two quantities, +different but susceptible of being summed, give a greater number of +diverse resistances and have, therefore, a greater possibility of living +and resisting external enemies. An individual is the sum of many +victories over exterior elements, the result of many and infinite +adaptations to the ambient which surrounds it. Two individuals +dissimilar, but not enough to impede generation, will bring together +those adaptations and those victories through which the new creature +enjoys the possibility of resistance and will meet with fewer dangers. + +It is much easier to explain why forms too dissimilar cannot love each +other. This impossibility is one of the most powerful means of +preserving the living forms, extremely varied, in those conditions which +are useful to their existence. When a living being has come out of the +struggles of life, when it has yielded to external agents and enemies in +a certain way, it transmits itself to future generations in that form +and nature which are the fruit of a long and successful battle. +Precisely for the same reason, an herbivorous animal, which is the +offspring of another that has gained its flesh with herbs, cannot grow +and multiply except by feeding on herbs. Imagine for a moment that +organs and tissues feeding on meat should be grafted on to the organs +and tissues of an herbivorous animal. What disorders would not arise! A +fragment of carnivorous animal closed up in an organism which has teeth +to chew herbs, gastric juice to digest herbs, intestinal tube to +assimilate herbs, and olfactory nerves which find leaves and flowers +delectable! The apparent stability of the species, which in fact +resolves itself in a slow mutation, is nothing therefore but the +unavoidable necessity for male and female to pour into the crucible of +generation elements that can combine, metals that can fuse, forming a +homogeneous and compact alloy. + +From the elementary physics of generation you may jump to the most +ardent sympathies, to the juxtaposition of human characters in the nest +of love, and you will see that the same law rules all and each of these +facts. _Neither too similar nor too dissimilar._ Love is the sum of +analogous but not identical forces; it is the complement of complements; +it is the square of squares; it tolerates neither subtractions nor +divisions. + +We shall see at every step of our studies the same laws which govern +generation, or the so-called _physical love_, re-appear in the high +spheres of love. For us, love is simply one function which, to be +understood, must not be barbarously mutilated and disrupted so as to +have one part of its limbs sent to the laboratory of physiology, and the +other left in the library of the philosopher. Love is such energy that +from the lowest grades of the most automatic instinct it ascends to the +highest regions of the suprasensible, and perhaps no other psychical +element reaches to more distant poles. + +Think of the shepherd of the high Apennines who loves a goat, and of +Heine, who in the clutches of death wants to be brought to the Louvre to +see the Venus of Milo once more, and you will have a pallid idea of the +frontiers which this ardent, tenacious, violent, multiform passion +called love seeks to conquer. + +While in the field of chemical facts generation marks the highest point +of molecular chemistry, in the psychological field love reaches the +loftiest summits of the ideal. Love is the force of forces; it makes its +appearance when man is strongest; it vanishes when age has weakened him. +Love is the joy of joys, it is at the bottom of every desire, of all +riches, on every horizon of pleasure; it is always the highest aim. If +we except men who were born without gentle feelings, in every human sky +love is the brightest star; it is the sun of every firmament. It is the +strongest, the most human, the richest of passions. + +In all forms of generation, whether agamous or sexual, by scission or by +endogenesis, whether we consider the son in comparison with the father, +or with far Adam, we behold the generated preserve a part of the last or +of the first generator, so that the motion communicated from the first +to the last generation is transmitted without interruption. Take as the +starting-point the Adam of the Bible or the Adam of progressive +evolution, the clay breathed into by a God or the Darwinian _ascidia_: +each one of us has still within himself a material part belonging to the +first man or first father of all men, so that an immense brotherhood +unites all living beings. To the divination of the poet who, beholding +the flowery meadows, the forests, the swarming of animals, cries out +with emotion: "O Mother Nature!" science answers in accord, as it +contemplates a quantity of matter and a quantity of life pass from one +to the other of those organisms called individuals. For every life +extinguished a new life is born, and within us, who occupy the loftiest +place among all the living beings on this planet, quiver and vibrate the +molecules which have passed through thousands and thousands of +existences and thousands and thousands of loves. + +If love is the warmest and the most human of passions, it is also the +richest. To its altar every faculty of the mind carries its tributes, +every throb of the heart carries its fire. Every vice and every virtue, +every shame and every heroism, every martyrdom and every lewdness, every +flower and every fruit, every balm and every poison may be brought to +the temple of love. Everything human can be carried away in the +whirlwind of love; and more than once man regrets that he possesses but +one life to offer as a holocaust to this god. And yet this gigantic +force is the least governed of all the passions. It would seem that +before it man feels too small and too weak; and just as the savage falls +on his knees before the lightning and weeps, or flees, the civilized +man, even today, is terrified before the unexplored hurricane of this +sovereign force, and acknowledges his powerlessness and his ignorance. +In the delirium of voluptuousness and in the storm of desperation, he +lets himself be carried away by a force which he considers superior to +reason, too powerful in comparison with his weakness. In his codes he +writes, timidly, laws which he violates every day; opprobrious +punishments which the juries always cancel; and a dense fog of ignorance +surrounds the temple of love, which he enters nearly always as a thief +and from which he emerges nearly always as an outcast. Our legislation +on love is a wretched connubiality of hypocrisy and lechery, and as we +know not how to look love in the face, we disguise it with the garments +of the buffoon and the prostitute. Our laws are so perfect that many +must not love, and very many cannot love; and while we all weep over the +few victims of hunger, we shrug our shoulders at the hundreds of +thousands who die in celibacy for not having been able to gather the +straw for their nests, and we laugh at the millions of celibates who +know nothing of love save masturbation and prostitution. In the presence +of love we are still more or less savage--the basest brutishness before +the most powerful of human forces! + +Yet love also should be conquered like all other forces of nature; and +without losing a fraction of its energy, or a flower of its garden, it +also must be governed by science, which understands and directs all +things. The lightning which prostrates the savage in the dust of fear is +guided by us on the small wire of the conductor, gilds the ornaments of +our women and transmits our thoughts from one hemisphere to the other. +This other lightning, also, which, more powerful and more dangerous, +explodes in the hurricanes of the human heart, must be studied, guided +and reduced to a live force that can be measured, weighed and governed. +Love should be the dearest, the most precious, the most powerful of +civilized forces. No other passion can claim supremacy where it appears; +no other can solve the sublime problem of combining the greatest +voluptuousness with the greatest virtue, of generating the good of +future beings through the joy of the living ones, of transmitting +civilization to posterity in the spasm of an embrace. + + +LOVE IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +LOVE IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS + + +Arcadians, metaphysicians, and all adorers of the past are cursing every +day and every hour the modern mania of comparing human things to living +beings and call for anathemas against this absurd and sacrilegious +profanation of the man-God. Comparative anatomy, physiology and +psychology are for these gentlemen nothing but different forms of a +strange aberration of the human mind; something capricious and morbid +which, by the continual comparison of man and beast, brutalizes us, +prostitutes us, and sends us back with a new insanity to the bestial +Olympus of men with animal members and of human grafts set on the flesh +of the son of God. According to those most exalted and supercilious +gentlemen, these are psychic maladies not to be discussed, but cured by +contempt and ridicule; they are the hysterics of thought, which +disappear with the generation that has seen them rise from the corrupt +entrails of the human family. But man does not lower himself by +comparing himself with beings that are the matrix from which he came; he +does not degrade himself by scenting the earth from which you, also you, +O super-gentlemen, say we have been moulded and which is ever the frame +supporting us. + +The true metaphysics, if this word has still any meaning, was created by +modern science, which, by the boldest comparisons of the simplest things +with the most complex, of the smallest with the greatest, extracts the +subtile from the subtile, and under the motley appearance of the form +reveals the only law that governs them. We are going to seek in the +limbus of living beings the crepuscules of the highest human things. +Bowing our head modestly before the simplicity of laws which govern and +control such a wealth of forms, let us return to the reality of things, +feeling neither dejected nor ashamed of ourselves, but satisfied with +having known how to read the notes of harmony written in the world of +dwarfs and giants. Our pride will find sufficient satisfaction, after so +many comparisons, in realizing that we are first among all living +beings. + +No spectacle of nature is more splendid, more admirable than that of the +loves of plants and of animals. Nature could not write more fascinating +music with a less number of notes, and no other phenomenon of life can +resemble that of generation in profusion of forms, lavishness of +artifices, inexhaustible conception of mechanisms. One would say that +where the reproductive gemmulæ are attracted, where life reconcentrates +its best part to renovate itself with a new impetus, there new and +strange energies are developed, and the forces of nature appear with the +most gigantic pomp, the most gorgeous luxury. In every other function, +Nature, like an economical housewife, seeks the useful and often is +satisfied with the necessary; she simplifies the mechanisms, removes the +attritions and through the simplest ways attains her aim. But she is not +content with the good and the true for generation, and, surrounding the +nest of love with a large profusion of esthetic elements, she exhausts +every resource to prepare a feast for the life which renews itself. It +is around the flower that, nearly always, the most exquisite beauty of +form, the most inebriating seductions of perfume, the most varied tints +of the painter's palette are interwoven. How many treasures of esthetic +force in a lily and in a rose! And all that luxury to do honor to the +love of a day, the love of an hour; and all the splendor of a nuptial +robe, a thousand times more beautiful than human industry could produce, +to screen the virginal kiss of an anther and a pistil! + +And jumping from the lily and the rose to the summits of the animal +world, how many splendors of fancy, how many flashes of passion, what an +interlacement of elements, to make a garland for the kiss of a man and a +woman. Run, fly, on a spring day, among the blossoming beds of a +garden, among the thousand amorous corollas of the flowers; shake the +severe boughs of the cypress and of the pine; plunge your feet into the +soft, wet carpet of vallisnerias; let your eyes penetrate into the humid +recesses of the barks and the mossy labyrinths of the granite; and +everywhere a warm circumfusion of pollen, spores and antheridia will +tell your flaming heart that in the world of plants, among the perfumes +of the corollas and the emeralds of the seaweeds, love exists in a +thousand ways, and the atmosphere is all pervaded with the warm, +inebriating sparks which, on the wings of the winds and of the insects +and in the rays of the sun, diffuse everywhere an amorous, voluptuous +wave. + +The love of flowers is mute in the soft perfume of their corollas, but +in many of them silence does not prevent tender blandishments and +fervent embraces; many plants, always immovable, have convulsions in +their flowers; always cold, they flame up in the calyx of their loves. +Often they love only once a year; but what a profusion of embraces, what +a fecundity of pollen and seed! Shake with your hand a single branch of +the juniper or of the blossoming pine, and you will immediately see the +air darken with a cloud of fruitful dust; entire forests love at one +time, and for miles and miles they fill the air with voluptuous murmurs; +more than once do the winds carry clouds of pollen, and the wanton rain +washes and purifies the atmosphere, and tinges itself all with the +amorous dust. + +And without jealousy or rancors, in the shade of the blossoming pines, +and among the stamens of the enamored flowers, in every clod of grass, +in every cavern of mountain, in every fissure of rock, in every bed of +seaweeds, in the deep waves of the ocean, and in the drops of water +oozing from the glaciers, in the somberest darkness of mines and in the +infinite sky, the animals interweave their loves; so that in every part +of the globe, and in every hour of the day and of the night, every ray +of the sun warms and contemplates millions of embraces, while every ray +of the moon guides the nocturnal lovers to a thousand more intimate +blandishments. If it is true that a leaf falls from the tree of life +every second and dies, then at every moment a new gemma is born, and +for every gemma how many embraces, for every new-born how many loves! +The flowers planted in the ground of a cemetery appeal to me as the +noblest form of the cult of the dead; for, if our planet is a vast +cemetery, where every atom of time buries an atom that was living once, +this earth is all a nest of love, in which every zephyr carries to our +ear a sigh of voluptuousness, and the harmony of the ether, a dream of +the ancient poets, is nothing, perhaps, but the sum of all the kisses +exchanged among the living creatures. + +If the anatomist and the physiologist discover in the study of +generation in the various animals some precious materials to mark the +highest laws of the morphology of the living beings, the psychologist +finds in the loves of brutes sketched nearly all the elements that man +has gathered under his robust wings. No function is more adapted than +love to contemplate the unique type and the infinite legion of its +forms, to admire a unique conception developed in a thousand different +tongues. + +No sooner has sex made its appearance than the male quickly +distinguishes himself by his aggressive character. With few exceptions, +it is the male that seeks, conquers, keeps the prey. Glance over the +pages of Darwin's work on sexual selection and you will see how many +weapons nature has given to males to conquer and keep their mates. Even +in plants, it is the pollen that goes in search of the ovulum, the +ovulum that awaits the spark that is to fecundate it. In the most simple +of animal forms, where the male and female live and die fettered to the +spot that saw their birth, it is the virile element that is always +carried there, where the germ awaits it. This is the first dogma that +governs the religion of love in the entire world of the living; and when +all high races look with contempt upon the woman who attacks and the man +who flees, they only protest against the violation of one of the most +tyrannical laws which men and mollusks, women and pistils, cannot evade. + +Man summarizes all the forms of the living nature; so that we are +frequently tempted to affirm that whatever of human is in him is the +greatest synthesis of all the minor forms of the living, and that he is +precisely the first because under the bark of his individuality all the +forces are gathered within him, from the secondary to the last; and the +same phenomenon we observe in the psychical elements of his loves. + +Pigeons, even when intermingled with the most varied breeds, are seldom +unfaithful to their mates; and although the male, in a rare whim, may +break the vow of fidelity, he quickly returns to the dear nuptial bed of +his spouse. Darwin kept some pigeons of different breeds shut up in the +same place for a long time, and there was never a bastard among them. Do +we not also find among men splendid examples of the most faithful +monogamy and do you not recognize it as the social basis in almost all +the superior races? + +The antelope of South Africa has up to a dozen mates, and the _Antilope +saiga_ of Asia more than a hundred. But have we not the small and +hypocritical polygamies of modern society, and those, most splendid and +impudent, of the Orientals? Have we not in man, as in very many animals, +females who submit to love as to a duty, and males on whom love must be +imposed? Have we not libertinism at the very side of chastity? Have we +not in the world of man all the lasciviousness, all the ardors, all the +possibilities of lewdness of the animals' world? + +Several fulmineous forms of love which last no longer than the flash of +the lightning not infrequently occur among men, as the cold, +long-lasting kisses of many insects are an amorous practice of various +human temperaments. And fiery, cruel jealousies and bloody battles are +scenes common to men and brutes; nor is death for love an exclusive +privilege of man. The few and coarse passions of animals are all carried +as a holocaust to the altar of generation, while man carries to it all +the ardors of his rich nature, all the infinite forces which he has +drawn from the great womb of the living beings and which he has +centuplicated with the accumulations of his hundred civilizations. The +chaffinch, in the contests of amorous song, more than once falls from +the tree on which he is singing his erotic hymn, smothered by pulmonary +apoplexy; just as many a poet beholds the lyre of his genius and the +chords of his life break at the feet of a woman. In the silence of the +shady thickets, the nightingale, exhausted, swoons with love and +fatigue, and dies for having been unable to vanquish a more fortunate +rival in melody and strength of notes; and hundreds and hundreds of +times, in the somber labyrinths of life, the human lover dies in the +battles of an unhappy love, and he too dies because he could not sing +louder and sweeter than his rival. Nor is coquetry peculiar to the human +female only; no woman in the world will ever be the equal of a female +canary in the wicked art with which she resists the impatient ardors of +her companion; and the thousand travesties with which in the feminine +world a "yes" is concealed under a "no" are but pallid imitations of the +refined coquetry, the simulated flights, the amorous bitings and the +hundred thousand cajoleries of the world of animals. + +As to the esthetic elements which nature has lavished upon the loves of +living beings, they are such and so many that the richest palette would +be insufficient to depict them or the poet's words to describe them. +Here are two pictures from my meager collection. + + +I + +I am in the garden, lying down upon a wall so low that I can +voluptuously scent the soft aroma of the earth damped by a storm; I have +no rugs under my body or pillows under my head; a slate, furrowed and +shining, is my bed. With one hand extended above the wall, I am nipping +the petals of a lemon flower, while with the other I am frightening the +ants which hustle about in the sandy path. All at once, two little +shadows, two brown sprites, pass before my eyes and alight, facing me, +in the middle of the path. They are two children of heaven, all wings +and all beauty; the organs of terrestrial life are reduced to a thread, +but a thread that sucks the nectar from the flowers, and four gigantic +wings to conquer the skies. Their hours are numbered; they must love and +die, and nature made them warm and swift for intense love: organs of +sense greater than the venter, organs of beauty greater than the +entrails. They are butterflies, but I know not their names, and I feel +disappointed. I look around in vain for an entomologist to name them for +me: man does not feel that he possesses a creature unless he has +sprinkled it with the ink of his dictionaries. They will die, as far as +I am concerned, nameless; and in vain will they knock at the gates of +paradise, to enter the place where dear and beloved things are +remembered. Can you imagine ever having loved a woman whose name you +know not? As in religion, so it is in love: baptism is the first and +holiest of sacraments. + +But these butterflies love each other without baptism; they are +frolicking on the pebbles of the path, and running after each other. +They do not suspect that the greatest tiger of our planet is watching +them, and that a great lizard is creeping down slowly from the little +wall and turns its head to left and right sullenly, licking its own lips +with its forked tongue and anticipating the savory taste of the delicate +flesh of those pretty creatures. They are too happy to think of enemies +that surround them; and life and love are flowers which are picked in +the midst of hurricanes and battles. They have found a stalk of withered +grass which, under the footsteps of many pedestrians and in the sand +strewn by the gardener, has succeeded in living and blossoming. That +microscopic bush is an entire world for those two lovers, and the little +female resorts to it as to a defense against her sweet assailant and +runs around it like a child who flees from blows by running around a +table. But, after a few impatient circumvolutions, the lover jumps over +that little tree and with his wings shakes those of his companion. A +pinch of golden dust spreads through the air, and a slightly spiteful +shrug, a rebuff and a voluptuous quiver close that first scene of love. +At times the little female seems about to yield to the impatient +embraces of her companion; and when he, with the trepid anxiety of him +who is about to grasp happiness, is very close to her and on the point +of touching with his pubescent and loving antennæ the velvety body of +his beloved one, she flies two yards away, and he after her and again +and again is met with mockery and cajoleries. The heat increases and the +surcharged desire has become as ardent as the sun. The coquette has +turned her back to her pursuer and opens her wings slowly in order to +show the splendor of her gems, her silver, her velvet, in all their +pomp; and having shown them, she folds and raises her wings and +instantly hides all the most splendid dress with which nature has made +her so beautiful. Nor is the male less of a seducer, as with a little +bound, which resembles a flight, he places himself in front of his +companion, and in turn opens his wings, showing his thousand colors and +the charm of his golden eyes. But too restless is the impatience of +those two lovers who exchange their first kisses. Whoever has witnessed +but once the caresses of two butterflies can certainly imagine how the +angels love; but does any planet shelter a human creature that lives +with wings also in heaven? + +Now those two butterflies come near to each other, so near as to touch, +to kiss with their antennæ; then in a wink one bounds upon the other and +with a leisurely, sweet, prolonged caress, fondly they kiss each other +with their wings. And then they repose, as though they wished to relish +the sweetness of that grand and voluptuous caress, in which the wing of +the one softly and slowly kisses the silk and velvet of his companion. +How sweet, how sensual must be the caress of two wings which with a +thousand scintillating papillæ touch each other in a perfect +juxtaposition, and yet in this intermingling of nerves and velvet do not +lose one single speck of that golden dust which adorns them! + +Many and many a time I saw those happy creatures prance around and kiss +each other; many a time I stood with beaming eye, envying that angelic +kiss of two wings. Man may, indeed, envy the butterfly which in its rich +loves of glittering inspiration puts to shame our corporeal embraces. +Two creatures, nude yet clothed, passionate and chaste, that love but +once and one creature only, that kiss on earth and unite in the skies; +that, inebriated with the nectar of flowers and the rays of the sun, +caress each other with their wings and fall in love with such beautiful +hues as Titian and Rubens strove in vain to obtain from their art and +their chemistry; two creatures that abandon life in a long love and from +the spasms of a leisurely embrace return to nature their bodies +extinguished by love! + +After long kisses and many caresses, my two angels exchanged a last, +more ardent rebuff, and then away in the sky to relight the torch of +life which was soon to be extinguished in them. Sighing, I followed +them, now united in a whirling flight, until they were lost in the azure +of the skies. Why do we not also love in that way? + + +II + +On my neighbor's roof the first rays of the sun have stirred up an +infernal racket. Among the tiles, tawny and corroded by the black +wartwort, there are some soft cushions of moss, and on the eaves, with +edges frayed by rust and twisted by the alternating of sun and ice, +grows some grass that, more frugal than an anchoret and happier than a +king, lives on light and dew. On those tiles and on those eaves all the +sparrows in the neighborhood have their rendezvous; and, sprightly, +petulant, noisy, they pursue each other, intermingle with their wings, +and clash, peck, play with their little feathered bodies. They speak a +common and inharmonious language, but they seem to narrate the dreams of +the night, and to have many and important things to tell each other. One +shrieks, another warbles, a third is chirping; not one is still. Happy +because they have slept well, having already forgotten yesterday, and +unmindful of today, they are basking their feathers in the first rays of +the sun, and, beaks hidden under their wings, waging war upon some +importunate acarus. There are some small and some big. The gray, the +coppery, and the black with slight variations of hues indicate, perhaps, +to the naturalist age and sex, perhaps even varieties of species; but in +this moment they are all kindred chattering and enjoying themselves +together. No difference of caste seems to humiliate one and elate +another; no infirmity produces pain in some of them and compassion in +others; here is neither etiquette of rank nor hypocrisy of compliments. +Have they, those dear and happy young sparrows, carried into effect the +republic of Plato? + +But, lo! in that crowd of thoughtless, happy creatures I behold a +sparrow of a deeper black, a darker chestnut hue, and more high-chested +than the others. Frequently he stands upright on his small legs, +stretches his neck, his body, his head, like a child about to have his +height measured, and, without moving from his place, he looks to the +right and to the left with an air of indefinable, vain complacency. And, +lo! among his neighbors he sees a female sparrow, of a plain gray color, +with an elongated body, delicate and pretty. She seems to have been made +for the ivory hand of a lady to hold, thrusting out her loving head from +that nest of intelligent folds that is the hand of a woman. The impudent +sparrow sees her and, without approaching, utters a cry of conquest +which in force and petulance already seems to be a cry of victory. It +appears to me that in the sparrow's dictionary that sound must be a word +with great significance and important consequences, because the pretty +little female with a short flight leaves the noisy crowd of her +companions and draws near to the edge of the roof. But the bold lover +impatiently flies after her and repeatedly renews his insistent, +petulant cry; he is already very close to her, but the little female +flies to the roof of the house on the opposite side of the street. She +has hardly reached it when the male overtakes her, and at short distance +they both face and defy each other; and, twittering in different voices, +they hurl at each other a world of words which seem to me insolence and +tenderness at the same time. The one whines, the other shrills; the one +implores, the other commands, and frequently the prating is so closely +intermingled that it seems like the sound of one instrument. But the +bickering appears to have fatigued them, and the pretty little female +withdraws, running to an eave, while the male looks up at the sun and +awaits new strength. And strength seems to be restored to him very soon, +for the warbling and shrieking begin anew. Nor is the insolent lover +satisfied with his voice, but runs by leaps and flights to peck his +companion; and a hasty retreat, a confused crying, a continual clashing +succeed each other at brief intervals through the mossy labyrinths of +that roof. Already many battles have been fought between the two lovers; +the anxiety to escape and to defend herself from wanton desires seems so +sincere in that winged little female that I almost begin to believe that +she does not want to be loved that morning. But, if this be really so, +why does she not open her wings and fly away into the infinite sky? And +if she does not love that too obstinate persecutor, why does she call +him when he, piqued, flies to the top of the roof, almost simulating +indifference or vexation? But desire cannot stand that war any longer, +and the male is now decided to seize the sweet prize of victory, and as +if sliding down on those tiles, with short leaps that seem steps he +pursues his companion, who withdraws to a corner of the roof where it +projects over the street. Behind her she has not an inch of space left: +she must either fly away and lose, perhaps, her lover, already tired of +so many refusals, or capitulate. Fractions of an inch seem to have +become infinite space, measured as they are by male and female with +steps and leaps; and the female raises her voice louder and louder at +intervals, but does not succeed in drowning the more robust and +courageous voice of the lover who is now so close to her as to touch her +with his beak and shake her with his wings. The two little warm bodies +come into contact, clash, commingle. There, on the extreme brink of the +eave, with her little body suspended over the abyss, the female concedes +the crowning voluptuousness to her companion, and a sweet inspiration +and a rebuff which seems like a flash of lightning attend an ardent, +intimate, fulmineous love, a love caught over the abyss of space. + +The two lovers fall in a swoon; they rise slowly and stare at each +other, amazed and languid; then, with a shiver, they adjust their +feathers, disarranged by the embrace; with a second shiver they absorb +slowly, slowly the last quaver of the vanishing voluptuousness, and away +they fly to hide in some hospitable tree their happy lassitude and to +restore their strength for new battles and new loves. + + +These two pictures, which I have rapidly sketched from nature, are only +poor specimens from an immense collection, rich in the warmest tints and +in the most singular designs. In no function does life multiply its +forces as in love, and the queerest phenomena are interlaced around the +union of the sexes, which, unique in essence, assumes the most varied +forms. The philosopher, the poet, the artist, should study with interest +the thousand ways in which living beings exchange the germinative +gemmulæ, and they would find subjects for profound meditation and a +strong incentive to inspiration. Only in the eyes of the hypocrite or of +the idiot many loves of living beings may seem brutal battles or +lascivious embraces. Nowhere does Nature manifest herself more powerful, +more inexhaustible, more admirable than where she teaches the living how +to perpetuate life. It is well to conceal, as far as possible, from the +eyes of our children, especially from little girls, the too obscene +intercourses of those domestic animals which most resemble us. However, +the most rigorous morals in the world and the most puritanical modesty +would be unable to hide the kisses of doves, the amorous duets of +canaries, the sublime embraces of butterflies. More than one maiden had +in these pictures of nature her first lesson of love; and many years +before the lips of a lover taught her the life in two, doves, canaries, +butterflies had caused her heart to throb, disclosing to her a corner in +the realm of infinite and glowing mysteries. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +MORNING CREPUSCULES OF LOVE--THE GOOD AND EVIL SOURCES OF LOVE + + +A human being of a low order or of a simple nature does not feel the +energy of that new sentiment called love rise within him until the +development of the germinative glands has marked in him the character of +the sex and made of that being a man or a woman. On the other hand, in +rich and powerful natures, many years before sex has impressed its deep +mark on the organism, a vague, mysterious and chaste sympathy attracts +the young boy toward the young girl. There, where the sun of the +infinite azure of the skies is to rise, one notices a rosy tint lightly +projected on the horizon, but sufficient to warn us: "There must the +greatest star shine some day, the father of all light." The sun is ever +the most beautiful among all the beautiful things of the skies, and I +have studied with warm and constant affection, watched with religious +attention the first crepuscules of that other sun which we are now +studying in this book. They appear without being invited by the +precocious corruption of books and of neighbors, they rise spontaneously +in the heart of the most unconscious innocence; they shine like serene +and calm rays of a light that later will be ardent and fascinating. They +appear and disappear, like flashes of lightning, flashes which +noiselessly illuminate the clouds and then leave them darker than +before. A vulgar and coarse malignity repeats a blasphemy every day when +it asserts that no child is ignorant of the secrets of love. The +innocence of childhood is truer, more sincere and deeper than is +supposed, and lasts limpid and adamantine even when it has been splashed +with the mud of social corruption. The rosy lips of a child may repeat, +with an expression of lascivious malice, a jest learned by chance from a +maid-servant or from a libertine, but that stain does not penetrate into +the crystalline nature of the child, and the spray of a fountain will be +sufficient to wash the trace away. The malignant rabble is wont to doubt +of the innocence of others, just as the wicked is to deny all virtue. + +In the infantile songs, in the noisy and turbulent games which form the +delight of the first age, suddenly a young boy beholds a little girl +among a hundred, among a thousand; and an instantaneous sympathy ties +the rosy knot of a nameless affection, of an innocent, unwitting love, +which may seem at the same time the caricature and the miniature of a +sublime picture. I remember having seen an angelic little girl, blonde +as an ear of wheat and rosy as the aurora, throw her arms around the +neck of a little boy as haughty as a brigand and as dark as a pirate. +And the impudent little thing would cover him with kisses, and he would +disdain and resent these cajoleries; and she would tell him that she +loved him very much, that she wanted to make of him her little +bridegroom. A reversed world, a microscopic scene of a chaste Joseph who +did not know what woman was, and a Lilliputian woman who, in the +innocent ardors of a childish embrace, seemed to be the wife of Potiphar +and was nothing but an angel. However, this sudden movement of affection +between two children of different sex conceals sometimes a true and real +passion which has haughty jealousies, tears and sighs, delirious joys, a +history, a future. + +The beautiful young girls whom a kind or a cruel nature has destined to +arouse at every step of life a desire or a sigh, often ignore the fact +that in the multitude of their adorers there are boys so small as to +seem babies and who kiss in secret the flowers that have fallen from +their bosoms; who furtively and mysteriously, like domestic thieves, +steal into the little room that shelters their angel to kiss her bed, to +kneel on the carpet which that woman treads--that woman whom they +already distinguish above all the creatures in the world, whom they dare +already to place on the same level as their mother. And how often a +woman who playfully runs her fingers through the locks of a boy laying +his head upon her knees, is unconscious of a little heart that beats +loudly, loudly, under those caresses; unconscious, when the child raises +his curly head, of the cause of his flush, which does not come from +congestion, but from burning with a fire of which he himself is +ignorant, but which is love. + +These rosy phantoms, which gild some of the most beautiful hours of our +child-life, seem to last only as long as the morning twilight; and +certainly the battles of youth often cause them to be forgotten. And +many, with slippery memories and skeptical hearts, when they hear them +mentioned have only words of contempt and gestures of pity for what they +are pleased to term infantile lullabies to be relegated among the +horrors of the witches and the caresses of the nurse. And yet how often +these fleeting phantoms announce the storms of the future, reveal a +deeply enamored nature and weave the first threads of a long fabric of +delirious joys and torments! Some very, very fortunate mortal, on his +death-bed, could press the hand of the only woman he had ever loved, +whom he had loved when still a child, before he even knew she was a +woman. The trembling lips of the dying man could link the last kiss of +life with the first noisy, insolent, clumsy kiss on the soft cheek of a +ten-year-old girl. And without trying to reach this loftiest sphere of +an ideal too far removed from our existence, how often, after a long +life hardened by the tortures of a hundred passions, after having lost +faith and love, in the dusk of the early evening a last rosy flash of +sunset awakened a dear memory, buried many years since, and the heart of +an old man throbbed and a tear ran down his wrinkled face! Before the +weary eyes a little straw hat had passed, with two blue streamers, but +in the depths of the heart what an abyss of dear memories had opened in +an instant! In the night of the past, a limpid ray of light had +illumined a picture all life and all beauty; an antique cameo had +appeared under the pick of the gravedigger, among ruins and dust! And +that picture was a childish love, a flower carried away by the turbid +torrent of a storm, but preserved by the friendly hand of memory, +which, after all, is not always ungrateful or cruel. + +If you ask a boy why he loves a little girl, he will blush and run away; +if you ask the little girl, her face will flush and she will answer with +a sublime impertinence. They love--_and they know not why_! Ask a +precocious rosebud why it wanted to bloom in March, instead of awaiting +the warm and voluptuous air of May; ask a July cyclamen why it did not +await the cool breezes of September to perfume the mossy bed in which it +had made its nest. _They love, and they know not why!_ In passionate men +the first light of love appears sooner, because Nature, fruitful and +impatient, longs to give her flowers, and an entire life will be for +them too short a day to satisfy the intense thirst of love which +consumes them. They love soon because they love much; as men of genius, +at ten years of age, often conceive that which the masses will never +conceive at thirty. + +And why, my boy, do you prefer that little girl to all the others? And +why, my pretty girl, do you allow yourself to be kissed only by the lips +of that dark, impertinent little beau? Because that little girl differs +from all the others; because that dark lad is unlike any other boy. +Love, from its first and most indistinct appearance, is selection, a +deep and irresistible sympathy of different natures, the recomposition +of discomposed forces, the equilibrium of opposites, the complement of +dissociated things; the harmony of harmonies; the most gigantic, the +most prepotent of the affinities ties of attraction! + +Aside from the precursory crepuscules of natures most powerful in love, +this sentiment, in ordinary men, rises when a new want springs forth +under the rod of that magical transformer which is puberty. At that +time, on the smooth, pubescent, roundish surface of the infantile +nature, a deep crevice opens; a void is formed which woman alone can +fill; then, that little, round, smooth fruit called _little girl_ also +sheds its childish skin, disclosing the juicy and delicate flesh of the +fruit which was hidden in it. Then, from every developed muscle of the +virile organism, from every sound of its strengthened voice, from every +hair that makes its skin hirsute, there rises a powerful cry which +demands in the loudest tone: _A woman!_ And from every flexuous limb of +the girl who has become a woman, from every quiver of the hair which +makes her proud, from every pore of the young girl who has become a +crater of burning desires, arises a cry which demands: _A man!_ + + +The passage of the fatal bridge that separates adolescence from youth is +one of the epochs most burdened with anxieties, most merry with +convulsive joys, and for this I call it the _hysterical period of life_. +I shall illustrate it, perhaps, some day, in a work which I am preparing +on the ages of man. I shall here describe with few, wide strokes of the +pen how the necessity of loving makes itself felt to most men. And if I +have referred to woman most of the time, it is because she, more chaste, +more reserved, and yet a hundred times more in need of love, feels more +deeply the shudder which announces to her the appearance of the new god; +more innocent than we are, she does not know his nature; more timid, she +has a greater fear of him. Nature conceded to man common resources +almost unknown to woman, and only too often precocious vice makes him +acquainted sooner with voluptuousness than with love. When he is chaste, +virtuous and impassioned, he also feels the same raging tumult, which +stirs his soul; he too, somber, melancholy, frantic, demands of nature, +with the accents of wrath and plaintive lamentations: _A woman!_ + +To this cry answers, alas! only too often, the first comer. It is +impossible for certain natures to resist a long time the tortures of +robust and vigorous chastity: the frail human shell would fall to pieces +if it persisted in keeping imprisoned an accumulation of forces, all +gigantic, all fresh, all ready for the battle. The first love is not +slow to appear; and if the neophyte who appears on the horizon lacks +more than two-thirds of the desired virtues, Love is such a magician +that he can create them and transform a worm into a god. + +The maiden in her dreams, by looking at the pictures in the church and +within the domestic walls, had fancied a winged man with nothing earthly +and material but two lips to kiss. The object desired by her was an +angel, all love and all ether, who would gather under his large folded +wings the soul of the young girl and carry it away, through the space of +heaven, to a golden region, all light and warmth. The quivering of the +wings and the velvet of a kiss were all the voluptuousness which the +chaste virgin ever thought of dreaming; and beyond it, an obscure and +infinite mystery of which she knew neither name, nor confines, nor form. +And instead of this angel, she beholds a man in trousers, with +mustaches, who smokes much and slanders women; perhaps his hair is +already turning gray, already he may be a husband and a father--but he +is a man. + +And the youth, too, had dreamed of his angel. She should have been all +eyes, all locks of hair; divinely slender, with feet which would hardly +touch the earth, eternal smile wreathed in an aureole of light, a soul +ardent as fire and an innocence as pure as the snow that falls upon the +summits of the Jungfrau. And, instead, she who wakes us from the dream +of the night is the provocative, stout maid-servant who by her contours +only, distinct and strong as they are, shows nothing but that she is +much of a woman, and instead of wings she has two sinewy arms and two +hands hardened from the use of pot and broom; and, far from having +winged feet, she pounds the floor with pattens that seem to be soled +with iron--but she is a woman. + +Anything is good and enough for a first love, which is nearly always a +million of hunger and a penny of bread. How vulgar is the object of that +enamored young girl's thoughts! The heart of a grocer in the body of a +porter! But he is pallid, and the hebetude of his stare seems +sentimental languor to her; he is ill, and to her his illness appears +poetic; he is robust, and for her he is the god of strength; he is +arrogant, but to her he is passionate; he is an egotist, and so much the +better, for he will love but her, who alone will know how to make him +happy. How much poetry that ardent youth has launched to the skies, when +he sang the exciting form of a strong peasant woman! How many elegies +has he not wept, thinking of the bluish paleness of a cholerotic +working-woman! Woe, if seduction accompanies all this texture of lies +with which too often the first love builds its nest! Woe, if to the +inexperienced maiden the aged libertine says, with the accent acquired +from long practice: "I love you!" Woe, if the lascivious old woman, +satisfying her old appetite with unripe fruit, knows how to warm the +innocent youth at the fire of new voluptuousness! Then the fire is +kindled, the flames spread, and the first object loved is placed on the +altar with vows of eternal fealty, and perfumed with the incense of the +maddest, most unrestrained idolatry. + +The first love is not always born so evilly, but it too closely +resembles, alas! these first loves which I have just described. Let us +be sincere from the very first steps in our studies, for hypocrisy is +the wood-worm that in modern society cuts into and corrodes the highest +and strongest tree in the garden of life. The original sin of love +appears to us with its first cry, and even when we have been forced to +use all the artifices of the galvanoplastic to gild our idol, even when +the bellows of imagination have worked to inflame the first love, the +very first thing we say is a lie: "I love you above everything in this +world; I shall love you forever. You are my first love, and one can love +but once." And a second vow answers the first, perhaps more sacred and +more ardent; and in a kiss, that is often the sum of two lies, the first +hypocrisy is sealed, which down to the last generation of the loves of +those two beings will seal with an everlasting mark all the expressions +of affection, all the cravings of the heart. + +Be sincere with the first kiss, if you desire love to be the chief joy +of life, not a shameful trade of voluptuous lies. Yes, yours is the +first love, but because it is the first it is neither true nor just nor +natural that it should be the greatest, the one, the only love. Do not +swear falsely, do not perjure yourselves before you know what truth is. +To the eternity of your vows, the indifference of tomorrow will answer +with a sardonic, mocking grin. Before you have really loved, you will +sing in every tune that virtue does not exist, that love is a dream, +and, children and elders at the same time, you will forswear a god whose +temple you have never seen. + +You are two: a man and a woman; and you say that you love each other, +and perhaps it is first love for both. Well, then, during the first days +do not swear, if you still value the word of an honest man, and if +perjury still has terrors for you. Rarely is the first love true love, +as the first book of an author rarely is the true expression of his +genius. One is weak from excessive youth as from old age; and the one +and first and only love, like many other dogmatic formulas which delight +so much that pedantic and hypocritical biped called man, has made more +victims in modern society than many crimes and many maladies of body and +mind ever did. If your love is the first, so much the better; with hands +chastely clasped and lips modestly conjoined, do not pronounce any other +words but these: "Let us love each other!" If you are among the few and +happy mortals who will love but once; if you are among the very few who, +in the first woman or in the first man, have found the angel seen in +their first dreams of youth, thousand and thousand times blessed! The +fidelity of the future will cement for life the virtues of your souls. +As for myself, if the increased progress of true and healthy democracy +should eliminate from juridical institutions the formula of the oath, I +would wish that the man and the woman who love each other should never +swear. An adjuration less and a caress more, what a delight! An eternity +less, and a longer caress, what voluptuousness! Nor should chaste and +chosen souls throw my book away, feeling hurt by my cynic advice. If +they will read the pages that follow, they will clearly see that no one +more than I intends to elevate love to the most serene regions of the +ideal, and that, however high sentiment can ascend, I, also, feel the +strength to follow it. The triple and thick skin of hypocrisy that +enwraps us from infancy, the Arcadic varnish which makes us look +polished and brilliant, nearly always forbid us to see the true nature +of things, and in love we are all unmistakably counterfeiters. The +greatest liberty, the greatest sincerity alone can cure us of this +malady, which is civil rather than national, because it penetrates every +race, every social class; it does not spare the highest and strongest +natures; it has become an integral part of every fiber of our hearts, of +the framework of all our institutions. + + +Which are the true sources of love? Which are the paths that lead to the +sacred temple? There should be an only source, an only path, but so many +are those who throng and crowd to enter there, where all expect the +greatest joy, that not all enter by the great highway of nature, but +through secret gates and oblique ways reach their aim; they are unhappy +because the original sin of their loves condemns them to a dangerous +life sown with despondency and bitterness. + +All the natural flows of the true and great love collect in one source. +They are drops which slowly trickle into the depths of our body, and +there they gather and form rivulets and streamlets that, in turn, +collect in the channel of our veins until they effuse as the warm, +quivering wave of _sympathy_. + +Sympathy is the only and true source of love. _Sympathy_, most beautiful +among the beautiful words of human speech! To suffer together, a +melancholy vaticination of life lived in two; but better still, to feel, +laugh and weep together! Two organisms, but one sense; two exterior +worlds, but which unite around a unique center; two nerves that by +various ways carry various sensations, but which interweave and run +together in one heart. To see, to gaze at, to desire each other. A spark +shoots forth from the contact of two desires: such is the first fact of +love. Two solitary ships in the desert of the ocean were plowing through +the waves, unknown to each other; the wind propelled one near to the +other; a shiver of sympathy ran through the sails and the shrouds and +caused them to creak simultaneously; they felt pressed by a common need, +and cast out a hawser which should tie them together. From that moment +they shall plow the same waters, expose themselves to the same dangers, +and long and sigh for the same land. + +The most rapid and ardent sympathies have their sources in the +admiration of form, that is to say, in the sentiment of the beautiful +which is satisfied by the object which we desire and are about to love. +Among the four definitions of love that Tasso was wont to discuss, there +are three which express or suggest this idea: "Love is a desire of +beauty; Love is the cupidity of embrace for the pleasure of those who +covet a particular beauty; Love is the union through pleasure of +beauty." And, in fact, what is love if not the choice of the better +forms in order to perpetuate them? What is love if not the selection of +the best in order that it may triumph over the mediocre, a selection of +youth and strength in order that it may survive the old and weak +elements? Woman, the custodian of germs, the vestal of life, must be +more beautiful than we, and man loves in her the form above all other +things; and mediocre forms can, if elevated by a gigantic genius and an +impassioned heart, still excite ardent passions. But these are always +unstable sympathies, and where a real deformity appears, love is dead, +or lives only as a prodigy of heroism, or as an esthetic malady. Woman +also is immediately affected by the beauty of virile forms and can love +a man merely because he is handsome; but in her the field of sympathy +expands and is much higher, and character and genius will seduce her +more frequently than is the case with men. The ugliest men enjoyed the +superhuman voluptuousness of being loved; but in the attitude of their +characters, in the power of their genius, in the greatness of their +position, they possessed a fascination which belonged, nevertheless, to +the world of beauty. Woman has within herself such a power of +transmission of the germinative elements and such an accumulation of +beauty as to be capable of doing without the power and the beauty of her +companion; but she wants to feel conquered by a superior force, +fascinated by something that shines or flashes or thunders. + +In love, genius and character exercise very little influence if they do +not assume a beautiful form, and esthetics dominate and govern all +amorous phenomena. This is not enough: even those who believe that their +judgment in making a selection soars to the loftiest spheres of the +ideal world, and despise the beautiful as a vulgar fascination of dull +and clouded minds, seek, involuntarily, unknowingly, some virtues that +bear a deep sexual mark. There may be a philosopher who boasts of having +loved a homely but intelligent and sensible woman; but let him search +the depths of his heart, let him study the sources of his love, and he +will find that he admires and loves in his companion those virtues which +are essentially feminine: the flexuous grace of tenderness and the kind +intelligence of the heart, or the insuperable cleverness of affection, +or the coquettish forms of a refreshing and modest intellect. In other +words, the proud despiser of form was seduced by the form, all beautiful +and all feminine, of a character or of an intelligence. And woman, when +she happens to love an ugly man, is conquered either by dominating +intellect, by dazzling ambition, by heroic courage, or by the power of +some virtues that bear a deeply virile mark. Sex is too great a portion +of the economy of life to be eliminated from our calculations by our +caprice, and love is a stream too large to be dammed and directed +between the paper dikes of our sophisms and our reticences; and if some +one should not be convinced yet that beauty is the supreme inciter of +every amorous sympathy, let him remember that love is the passion of +youth, and this is always a chosen form of beauty. + +It rarely happens that two flashes from the eyes of a man and of a woman +who meet for the first time should kindle one fire only. This is the +ideal of the most ardent sympathies, the most fortunate combination in +the great, hazardous game of life. To meet suddenly, to see, to admire, +to desire each other at once and to embrace with such a look as if it +came from above; to feel inundated by a gaze, equally warm and +penetrating; to blush together and to feel all at once that two hearts +beat louder and mutely make this sweet confession: "I love you, and you +are mine!"--all this is a joy too rare, too beautiful, one which few +mortals have known and few will know. + +It happens more frequently that nascent sympathies proceed unequally, so +that the one has already carried a man to the highest summits of desire +and passion, while the other hardly begins to stir; the one already +throbs, the other only faintly vibrates. Even when two loves are called +to high and fortunate destinies, even when they will soon spread their +robust wings together in the space of bliss, a task is reserved to woman +in the vicissitudes of love, so different from ours that she cannot feel +with us the same sudden and violent emotions. Man says everything with a +look; unhesitatingly and proudly he acknowledges his defeats. Woman, +even under the spell of the most ardent sympathy, lowers her eyelids, +refuses the too intense light and protects her heart with all the +refrigeratives and sedatives at her command. Man has already said to +woman a hundred times with the flash of his eyes: "I love you!" The +woman, trembling, hardly dares to say: "Perhaps I will love you!" And +away run those two happy beings, fleeing from each other, until the +sympathy of the one equals that of the other, until the supreme languor +of a long battle is smothered in two notes which vibrate together with +the sweetest harmony, while they say to each other, with a sigh, "I love +you!" and to nature repeat with another sigh: "Thanks!" + +The energies of amorous desire, which the longer they last the larger +they grow, follow the laws of elementary physics governing the forces. +The most instantaneous love is not the most durable, and if an +unexpected satisfaction follows a sudden desire, love may sometimes +resemble a glorious rape rather than a true and real passion. It is true +that love is not a battle but a long war, and when the first victory is +followed by a hundred, a thousand victories, the fulmineous sympathy +also may take deep roots in our hearts, and rallying after nearly every +struggle, may pervade us all and reach the ideal perfection of coupling +intensity with extensiveness, of twinkling at the same time with the +light of those stars that never set and that of the lightning flash +that plows the skies. The most perfect love is a sun that never sets, +but does cast forth now and then more scintillant flashes. In ordinary +cases, however, loves that rise slowly, slowly die away; and those of +the nature of lightning last as long as lightning. In all cases, a +healthy love, well constituted and destined for a prolific existence, +whether born suddenly or slowly, should begin with a violent shock that +measures the depths from which the warm sympathy sprang forth. All other +affectionate sentiments arise in a manner different from love, whose +nature it is to be born amidst thunder and lightning, as gods or demons +should be born. Princes cannot come into the world like the masses; and +the Prince of Affections cannot come to light with the assistance of an +intelligent and affectionate midwife and the domestic cares of +relatives. Where a coruscation of the skies and a trembling of the earth +do not attend the birth of the new love; where nature does not rend the +air with a cry of voluptuousness or of pain, no one can deceive me: a +friendship, an affection, some sort of a sentiment, may have come into +existence; but I shall certainly not christen the new-born with the +sacred baptism of love. + +And thus, naturally, we have arrived at those frontiers which separate +the only legitimate way by which we may enter the temple from those ways +that lead to it through oblique and unused paths. Friendship can be a +source of love, and a very good one, but it is always a pathological, +unnatural origin, which leads step by step to the worst of the sources +of love, such as gratitude, compassion, vanity, lust, revenge. + +When one has been able to see a woman during a long time, talk to her +and perhaps live with her without calling her by any other name but that +of sister or friend, if he feels some day that he loves her, such love +resembles those tropical fruits grown in our climate by means of manure +and hothouse. Whether friendship is possible between man and woman is an +old problem which will never be solved, because many give that name to +true, real loves, which, approaching the threshold of desire, held +back, perhaps, by the rigid hand of duty, oscillate suavely and +lingeringly in front of the temple without ever entering it. It is by a +conventional politeness that to these loves we give the name of +friendship, and I will certainly not condemn such innocent +falsification; but a true and real friendship, with all the specific +characteristics that distinguish this serene affection between man and +woman, is not possible except on one condition: to obliterate every +sexual mark in the two beings that have shaken hands. And the +elimination of the sex in an individual is such a cruel mutilation, both +physical and moral, that it destroys more than half of man. If +friendship unites two eunuchs of this kind, I shall say that their +affection is no longer that which exists between man and woman, but that +of two neutral beings. However, as long as a single desire of the +other's person is possible in them, as long as the most chaste, the most +innocent of desires may arise in them, friendship becomes love. How many +are these moral eunuchs? How many men and women can love without desire? +Count them and then I shall be able to tell you how many are the cases, +well ascertained, of _friendship without love_ between man and woman. + +I wish, nevertheless, to be more explicit, so that I may not seem to go +on beating about the bushes without attacking and solving the question +because I find it difficult. Are there in this sublunary world a man and +a woman glad to see each other, who love each other and who have never +desired even a kiss from each other? Yes; those two angels, then, are +friends and I admit the possibility of the psychological phenomenon of +friendship between two persons of different sex. + +From any form of mild affection one can pass to love, and therefore much +more easily from that friendship between man and woman knowingly +admitted by us as possible. Long-lasting and healthy loves may arise in +this way, but they always have a cold skin and a somewhat lymphatic hue. +They require restoratives, a hydropathic cure, and, sometimes, cod-liver +oil as well, because from the lymphatic they may also pass to the +scrofulous stage. A common variety of this kind of loves is that which +originates from gratitude. + +"Love who to none beloved to love remits" sang the poet, and he told the +truth; but this goes on one condition, that between the two who love +each other there shall be no other difference but in the length of the +step; that is to say, that one should arrive first and the other join +him afterward; otherwise they would never meet on the main road of +sympathy. You, O tutors, who believe in the love of a pupil; you, +gentlemen, who believe in the love of the orphan girl whom you have +helped out of her poverty; you, old bachelors, who believe in the love +of the grateful chambermaid, remember that gratitude alone did never +generate a legitimate love. If gratitude takes you by the hand and leads +you on the road of sympathy, it may be a good guide, but nothing more. +There are men and women who very much resemble cold-blooded animals, +which have the same temperature as the ambient that surrounds them, but +can generate little or no heat. They know not how to love of themselves, +and it is necessary that another love descend upon them to soak them, to +saturate them, like cake dipped in wine. Their sympathies are cold and +equal for all; they often ask of books and men what is love, and compare +the descriptions by others to what they feel in their hearts, like the +naturalist who turns and turns an insect in his hands, compares it to +the pictures before him, and finally exclaims: "It really seems to me +that this insect is the _Amor verus_ of the entomologists. I, too, do +love, really love." For all these gentlemen, whose number is much +greater than supposed, the verse of the poet is most true, and they +always love out of gratitude or compassion, which is almost the same. + +That mild and sweet affection which is love out of gratitude must not be +confused with that commiseration which women especially feel for those +who love them desperately, and to whom they often concede not love, but +love out of pity. Woman is easily moved; she cannot look on +apathetically when a man suffers, and frequently yields, not out of +lewdness but of pity, which is also coupled with the legitimate pride +of being able to transform a wretched being into a happy man. And man +often takes advantage of this weakness of Eve and wickedly abuses it, +and is ready, later, to calumniate her who has made him happy. Man, too, +can love out of compassion, but more frequently concedes himself without +affection and through pride, as we shall see further on in the course of +our studies. + +Woman, however, sometimes concedes love, together with voluptuousness, +to him who weeps, sighs and suffers for her. Compassion is the +benevolent chord which vibrates even in natures brutally egotistical; +while in woman, rich in so many affections, it can vibrate until it +tortures her. This sentiment, however, is, of its own nature, tender and +mild, and by placing a hand on him who suffers, keeps him always in a +state of subjection, so that true equality can never exist between the +one who inspires compassion and the one who feels it. This is the +essential character of compassion; and even when, by narrow, long and +thorny paths, it leads us to love, this is always under the influence of +its bastardly origin. All loves out of compassion are forms of +affectionate commiseration, of benign protection, and lack the highest +notes of passion. They strongly resemble the verses of him who is not a +poet; the god of fire does not pervade, does not inflame them; they do +not know the sacred agitation of the sibyl; and if they can live long in +a mild climate, they can, however, be suddenly overthrown by the +appearance of the true god, who demands his rights, his tributes of +blood and of ardors. The woman who, unfortunately, has not yet +experienced any love other than that inspired in her by compassion, may +deceive herself, may believe that she loves truly and deeply; but woe to +her, if a real and warm sympathy should awake in her heart, that she may +make a comparison between the true love and the false one! The weak +little plant of an affection long guarded by commiseration will fall and +be carried away by the fury of the impetuous stream, and the poor +creature, who really loves for the first time, may suffer the most +excruciating pain, and be made to fight the bloodiest struggles between +duty and passion, between commiseration and love. I know only too well +that among the thousand forms of cowardly love there is also the +cowardice which begs love on bended knees, but I would prefer to be +loved by caprice, revenge or lechery, rather than by compassion. The +woman who loves us in that way has always her heel on our heads; and +although the sweet pressure of a woman's little foot may be as dear as +the caress of her hand, in the face of nature we commit an act of +cowardice and invert the most elementary laws of the physiology of the +sexes. The man who waives the primacy of conquest is a lion that allows +his mane to be shorn, a Samson with clipped hair, always a mild and +disguised form of eunuch. May fortune protect you all from love out of +compassion! + +A still more turbid source of love is vanity; to hear that a woman is +very beautiful and chaste, that she has never permitted herself to be +loved, is an immediate stimulus of sudden ambition to the man who knows +that he is strong and adores the daughters of Eve. And the daughters of +Eve, in turn, very willingly persist in throwing the baited hook to +catch the cold, lonely fish who lives in the most dark recesses of +solitude and chastity. Hence many challenges sent and taken which lead +oftener to a conquest of bodies than to true love. The great +woman-lovers, who have long since renounced the virtue of sublime love, +are accustomed to conquer all the conquerable solely for vanity's sake, +solely to tie with amorous chains to their triumphal chariot a new slave +and a new victim. They nearly always like to conquer the most difficult +and different characters, and you may find them ardently wishing to give +the first lesson in voluptuousness to the innocent as well as to +subjugate the most cunning and oldest libertines. Besides vanity, the +goad of morbid curiosity has its share in this choice of victims, as +curiosity is one of the strongest threads in the psychological web of +woman. A tart, wild fruit may stimulate the appetite of a palate too +dull, as would the mordant pungency of cheese too old; the frivolous +woman is passionately fond of this alternating of sour and burning +tastes, of this succession of men inexperienced in love and men only too +well versed in it; and lechery may go so far in these natures as to +cause them to love through mere curiosity of the unknown, even excluding +lust, which is not always necessary in these pathological tastes. At any +rate, even when vanity alone has brought a man and a woman together, a +posthumous sympathy may awaken a real love with healthy members and a +long life. It is, however, always a love that resembles the rich man who +was born a peasant and, true upstart that he is, may, in the midst of +luxury and pleasure and in the most courteous manner, kick you out of +his presence when you least can afford it. To be born well is really the +first problem of life in all cases, and democracy itself cannot succeed +in overthrowing the ancient aristocracy unless it can boast of a +legitimate and noble birth. + +Man, who daily accuses of vanity his female companion, shows oftener +than the latter the most grotesque and clownish forms of that sentiment; +and we rarely see him renounce the puerile ostentation of those of his +loves which had the bastardly origin of vanity. How often has he reached +the lowest stage of cowardice by casting up to the woman who blessed him +with love, that he sought her love only to adorn with another trophy his +triumphal chariot! Woman, instead, almost always, even when she has +desired to be loved out of vanity alone, even when she is about to +dismiss the servant who has wearied her, will give him a testimonial +which makes him happy, does not humiliate him, and will satisfy him that +he pleased--for a day, a month, a year--the woman who, perhaps, feigned +to love him, or loved him very blandly. No man feels humiliated in +thinking that he was the sweet victim of a caprice; all feel dejected if +made the target of a vainglorious speculation. And many other times, +woman, with a very refined and generous tact, pretends not to understand +that she is desired and loved solely out of vanity, and gradually +succeeds in making men love her for herself, and for herself alone. The +_friendly enemy_ not perceiving it, she succeeds with subtle art in +substituting a sincere and warm passion for the narrow ambition that had +inspired the attack and the conquest: one of the thousand proofs that +woman is superior to us in sentiment in the same degree as we are +superior to her in mental strength; one of the thousand proofs that +woman always endeavors to elevate even the basest loves, while we so +often want to force under the Caudine Forks of voluptuousness even those +loves which, like the eagles, were born on the highest rocks of +psychology. + +Lust is the prolific mother of most vulgar loves; nay, this sentiment is +to many only the necessity of drinking at a spring found to be sweeter +than any other. Nude love, without the splendid garments of imagination +and heart, stripped even of the robust flesh lent to it by the sentiment +of the beautiful, is reduced to a skeleton which is lust and which for +very many is all they think of love. What a poor, wretched thing! A +practice of lasciviousness! Woman converted into a cup which we prefer +to any other because we have long been accustomed to satiate our thirst +out of it. To have possessed before having loved, to have been possessed +before having given the kiss of love! What ignominy! What baseness! And +yet love is such a magician that, at times, it can perform the prodigy +of being born of lechery. + +Loves born of lust are the most difficult to preserve, and every day of +their life is a difficult and rare conquest. Even the most perfidious +cunning of the arts of pleasing blunts against insurmountable +difficulties, and woman, after having brought into play all the witchery +of body and heart, may see her victim snatched away from her by the +first comer. Love may be warm, ardent, thirsty, but the glass that +satisfies it is always made of the most fragile crystal and may at any +moment fall and be shattered into a hundred pieces. + +Revenge, which is a form of hatred, may, by incestuous nuptials, become +a mother, or better, a stepmother of love. To be deceived and to know +it, to wish to humiliate the guilty by flaunting in the latter's face a +new love, to seek it, finding it in one day: there is the source of love +out of revenge. The unfortunate paranymph who acts as the call-bird of a +degraded passion does not always perceive the trap, allows himself to be +loved, loves, and often amuses the person who pretends to love him and +those who unconcernedly witness the shameful spectacle. Vanity makes us +blind, and it does not permit us to see that, perhaps, in the period of +a day we have been seen, desired, conquered; and while, inflated with +pride, we display our feathers like a peacock, we do not realize that we +are actors in a comedy staged to humiliate him or her who is loved +always and more than ever. In some very humiliating cases we serve as +rubefacient and sink so low as to be placed on a level with a mustard +poultice or a leech; and the cure effected at our expense is so quick +and perfect that we are immediately dismissed, like a physician who is +impatiently paid and impatiently taken leave of because his services are +no longer required. + +These, however, are the most unfortunate cases, and belong to the +ugliest pathology of the human heart; in other instances love out of +revenge becomes, through the virtue of either or both of the lovers, a +true and real love which cures the old wound and opens a wide horizon of +happiness to the man and to the woman who have become acquainted in such +a strange manner, and it may then be said that he who was to be the +revengeful executioner, the unconscious minister of the justice of love, +becomes, instead, first the physician and afterward the lover of the +offended, and a new love arises on the ruins of the old one. + +I certainly do not claim to have studied all the pure and impure sources +of love, but I would feel satisfied if I had touched upon the most +important ones, and outlined the genealogy of this sentiment. In an +analytical work, however great may be the care exercised in order not to +detach adherent things, it is next to impossible to avoid breaking some +fiber or destroying anything. It frequently occurs that the source of +love is not one, but double, or is formed by the collecting of various +streamlets, so that it would be difficult to state whether the new-born +is a legitimate son or a bastard. A slight but sincere sympathy may be +associated with great vanity, but the desire for revenge may, +fortunately for us, fall in with a warm and violent affection. Thus, +lust, vanity, compassion, gratitude, may meet at the same time and +fecundate a love which later may flow limpid and pure in its bed, +although its source was an impure, muddy stream. + +Sometimes a human being loves another not for the latter's sake, but out +of a strange resemblance which the latter bears to a person long loved +and, perhaps, already lost; thus it happens that one may love the +daughter after having loved the mother; and there have been cases in +which one has loved even three successive generations. The excessive +disproportion in the age of the lovers, a certain mummy effluvium +exhaled even by the most carefully embalmed bodies, gives to those loves +a character that induces me to place them at least on the frontiers that +separate physiology from pathology; I would, therefore, term them +"physio-pathological." + +Loves of mixed origin are the purer and warmer, the larger the part +played in them by sympathy, and this element alone would suffice to +allot a place to them in the hierarchical scale of nobility. The +influence which the first origin exercises over love is so lasting and +so prepotent that more than once affections suffering from a dangerous +illness recovered suddenly at the tender remembrance of these thoughts: +"You really loved me one day of your life." "You are mine by love and +nothing else." "And yet I loved you!" Often a man born in the highest +place and of noblest blood sinks gradually into the mire, loses his +dignity, his fortune, even the most superficial appearance of manners +and behavior; yet if you observe him attentively you will certainly find +in the nobility of some gesture, in the majestic tone of his voice, in +some refined taste, such traces of his ancient origin as may have +survived the shipwreck. And so it happens with a well-born love. I have +seen passions dragged in the mire of abjection, tattered and foul, like +a velvet rag picked up in the gutter; I have seen loves sold and bought +again, and passed through the hands of a hundred hucksters at the public +auction of vice and infamy; but in those poor shreds I have always found +something that had remained intact and revealed its ancient and noble +origin; and with my own eyes I have witnessed fabulous resurrections +that seemed miracles, and redemptions that caused me to think of the +divine intervention and of the galley-slaves too arcadically +rehabilitated through the rose-water bath of our modern philanthropists. + +When love begins we may entertain some doubts as to the reality of the +passion before our eyes. The heart beats more quickly than usual, and in +the serene sky some clouds pass and evanesce in the deep azure; perhaps +in the distant mist we behold, at times, a lightning flash; but will we +have a storm or fine weather? If the heart is forced to answer, it may, +in these cases, make the same solemn mistakes as the meteorologists in +their almanacs or from the university chair. Embryos in their first +stage are all similar, and even the most powerful microscope cannot +distinguish today the egg of the lion from that of the rabbit. Incipient +sympathies, growing friendships, affinities about to become loves, are +all crepuscular things faintly delineated on the gray horizon, and the +human eye may be easily deceived; but we cannot cast any blame upon it. +And love, too, assumes so manifold and varied disguises as to render it +difficult for us to make a good diagnosis in many cases. However, it is +always easier to recognize love in our own home than in that of others, +notwithstanding the fact that it is much more important for our +happiness to know whether we are loved than to realize that we really +are in love. To distinguish in others the true love from the mendacious, +you may be helped by this physio-psychological essay, while in order to +explore your own heart scant attention to the phase of your sentiments +will suffice. + +One truly loves when to the agonizing cry: "A man!--A woman!" a friendly +distant voice replies: "Do not weep; I am here!" One loves when, after +hearing that voice, the cry subsides and the deep void of desire is +filled. One loves when the desire of the beloved is placed above +everything else. One loves when one suddenly blushes or pales if he +hears a name or the familiar swish of a garment that approaches. One +loves when one involuntarily has on one's lips one name only a hundred +times in a day, or when one ceases to pronounce a word which one was +pronouncing a hundred times before. One loves when one's eyes are always +fixed on one point of the star-map where the creature dwells who has +become half of ourselves. One loves when one hurries to the mirror at +every instant to ask of oneself, "Am I beautiful enough?" and when one +restlessly explores the abyss of one's own conscience with the query, +"Can I be loved?" One loves when in every fiber of the heart, in every +atom of the organism, the sap of life is stirred and rushes through +every vein and every nerve, so that an intimate, penetrating, deep +commotion warns us with thrilling voice that something great and unusual +is in us, as though God had visited us. This is the true love, that is +not appeased by lust, nor quieted by ambition, nor cooled by distance, +that does not even lose itself in the dreams of the night; the love +that, to abandon us, must carry away with itself a large piece of +bleeding flesh and tortured nerves. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FIRST WEAPONS OF LOVE--COURTSHIP + + +How subtle and mysterious must that high chemistry be which unites the +germinative elements of two organisms of different sex to renew life and +generate a new organism! It does not suffice that in the calm and long +silence of thirty or forty years, half lived by a man and half by a +woman, the gemmulæ have prepared and made ready to call and attract each +other; it does not suffice that the powerful energies of sexual +affinities have accumulated; it still does not suffice that a sudden +sympathy shall prepare the spark and the conflagration. All this long +activity of nature has prepared things in order that the great +phenomenon may occur; but the atoms that seek each other and ardently +desire to unite must long oppose each other in order to rekindle the +ardors and centuplicate the energies. To the human male the aggressive +mission has been assigned; to the human female, the difficult task of +defending herself. The part assigned to man is simple and requires only +strength, physical or moral, intellectual or made complex by many +elements; yet always an energy of attack and seduction, to assail and +overthrow, one after the other, curtain-walls and ramparts, barricades +and lunettes, all the intricate system of fortifications which woman +erects against man to defend herself; or rather, to let herself be +defeated slowly and chastely. + +To woman, on the other hand, nature has assigned a task much more +difficult and cruel. She must repudiate what she desires; she must +struggle against the voluptuousness which invades her, repel him whom +she loves, exact sacrifices when she would ask only for kisses, be +avaricious when everything urges her to be generous. She must collect +all her meager strength to defend a gate vigorously attacked, and cry +out aloud, "Wait!" to him whom she would like to press sweetly to her +bosom. + +The battles of desire and coquetry, of ardor and modesty, impatience and +reticence are fought in the various countries and in the various epochs +with widely different strategy and tactics, but all may be reduced to +this general formula. Even when the sweet chain of sympathy prepares a +sure love for two lovers, the one says, "Immediately," and the other +answers "Later." When the sexes exchange their strategy and tactics, and +invert their amorous missions, there invariably arises a violent +disorder, and virtue and esthetics are submerged in the same shipwreck. + +In Paraguay, where laxity of customs prevails, a most impatient young +man, who had reasons to believe himself loved, would repeat in every +key, from the most tender to the most impassioned, with sobbing voice +and tyrannical accent, this one word: "Today!" And the beautiful Creole, +who knew nothing of Darwin and sexual selection, would reply smilingly: +"But why today? You have known me for ten days only; in two months, +perhaps." In this artless reply that Paraguayan girl was evolving the +philosophy of seduction and coquetry, the fundamental lines of the +physiology of the sexes. + +Every day the most beautiful half of the human race throws in our faces +the rude accusation that we are much less exacting in our tastes, and +that, satisfied with the external forms, we rarely seek to determine the +substance. And it is natural that it should happen this way; the +different missions assigned to each of the two sexes in the amorous +strategy require that this should be done. If certain contours exercise +so great and immediate a sway over us, it is because we seek in them, +unwittingly and involuntarily, the good mother and the good nurse; and, +more than it seems, voluptuousness prepares the future generations for +the good and the better. To fructify a human female, who shall become a +good mother and a good nurse, the flash of a desire and the +instantaneous ardor of a battle will suffice; but woman does not seek a +fecundator only; she wants her companion to be the defender of her +future children, the protector of her weakness; she wants to assure +herself as to the deep energy of the passion of him who says he loves +her; she wants to sound the abysses of heart and mind. The man shall +build the nest: is he an architect? He shall defend it from rapacious +animals: is he courageous? He shall train and enrich his children: has +he talent, ambition, tenacity of purpose? He must know all this. For +some time she has been aware that she is young and beautiful; many a +time the ardent rays of a thousand desires have showered upon her; at +her command numerous adorers would fall at her feet, all young, perhaps, +handsome and robust; but she does not want a man; she wants the man who +will be lastingly, powerfully and ardently hers. This is how, in the +initial web of love, we read the inexorable laws which govern it; how +clearly nature explains to us the inevitable fickleness of human males, +their polygamic wanderings and their unreasonable requirements; just as +modesty, chastity and the sublime reticence of woman are the faithful +guardians of the destinies of the future family. Much of this elementary +strategy was lost in the stormy vicissitudes of modern civilization; it +is necessary to scrape off much varnish and snatch away many rags in +order to touch the robust members of the primitive passions; +nevertheless, through multiform hypocrisy, we succeed in finding the +kernel of the thing. + +Even in the rarer and more fortunate cases of two lovers suddenly and +simultaneously struck by a sympathy equally warm and energetic, it is +necessary that man and woman should court each other for a longer or +shorter period of time. They should show to each other, in a hundred +ways, their physical, moral and intellectual beauties. After having been +rapidly conquered through their glances, they must re-conquer each other +every day, every hour, with the seductions of the heart, grace and +talent. It is necessary that the great god should receive the homage of +all our beauties, all our virtues, all our perfections. From morning +till night, we go on gleaning from the fields, picking from gardens and +orchards and roaming through forests and over mountains, in order to +carry to the altar of our idol every leaf, every flower, and every fruit +which our hands can snatch away from fruitful nature. Sublime contest of +homages and tributes, sublime profusion of riches and forces! The woman, +also, who feels sure of being already loved brings to the altar a fresh +sheaf of corn ears, a fresh bouquet of flowers, and exultantly exclaims: +"This, too, is yours!" And man, although not doubting that he is the god +of his companion, approaches every moment the door of the temple, he +also carrying a new fruit, a new treasure, and always repeats: "This, +too, is yours!" + +These reciprocal seductions especially succeed where dissimilarities are +deeper between the two lovers, whether proceeding from different +sympathy, age, beauty, or from any other difference of some importance +between the two that must unite to make one individual. It is then +necessary that the increased energies of the one should conquer by +degrees the treasures of the other, so that the differences may vanish +or diminish and an equilibrium be brought about without which perfect +love is impossible. One hundred volumes would not suffice to describe +the craftinesses with which man conquers a woman's love, to enumerate +the hundred thousand arts with which woman warms tepid sympathies or +carries to delirium a great passion. In many cases the intriguant holds +off a step further every day "the aim of his warm desires," and while +the avid and ardent hand is on the point of picking the fruit, this is +withdrawn by an invisible and cruel hand. "Higher, higher, still +higher," the young girl seems to say to the puppy which jumps to catch +the cracker from her rosy hands; and "Higher, still higher," cry and +should cry the women of the entire world to the man who sighs and asks +for their love. + +Longer, more persistent, more fiery is the battle between desire and +conquest, and richer is the trophy of victory. The daughters of Eve +never regret the time lost in the first fights of love; not only do long +wars prepare the most splendid victories, but the first struggles are of +themselves, and for themselves alone, a better part of love's paradise, +and a long string of easy conquests is not worth one fierce and bloody +battle of enticements. If, however, O daughters of Eve, you have the +brilliant but dangerous mission of defending yourselves from a compact +phalanx of adorers, you must redouble your arts of strategy and tactics. +If you are really powerful, victory cannot fail you, and you will choose +the best among the best. Train your impatience and kill the weak with +time. The first to withdraw are the pallid loves and the desires of +libertinism. True and deep passions ignore impatience and weariness, +and, fighting every day, and every day advancing, they leave the +disputed field strewn with corpses; and when you, tired in turn, proffer +your hand to those who have long waited and long struggled, you may rest +assured that you are among the blest. + +Physiological seduction, or conquest of love by nature's law, is called +by the English-speaking people _courtship_, and Darwin, by using this +word in a much broader sense and for all animals, has impressed upon it +the precious and wholly scientific mark. _Coquetry_ is only a form of +this art of seduction and conquest, and belongs already to the field of +pathology. Much more frequent in woman, it is also seen in man; and it +is so deeply rooted in some natures that it springs up before puberty +and disappears only with death. Self-esteem, however, plays in it a part +so great that its history belongs rather to the domain of pride than of +love. Physiological seduction is a necessity; coquetry is a vice; the +need of pleasing is one of the most fundamental elements of love, one of +its most useful tools; coquetry has only itself for aim. When the +conquest is made, physiological seduction lowers its weapons and +withdraws; coquetry, on the contrary, is immortal and every day it grows +afresh with new ardor and new yearning. To satisfy it, it is necessary +to awaken daily a new desire in those who have already been vanquished, +and new passions in those who have not been conquered yet, no matter +whether we share the passion or not. Above all, woman wishes to be loved +by many; and, in the less reprehensible cases, around true love she +wishes to entwine a garland of sympathies. While the heart is given to +one alone, she dispenses smiles, sighs--perhaps, also, half-chaste +kisses and semi-libertine caresses--to those she does not wish to lose +as adorers and whom she deems it opportune to keep in bondage, tying +them to herself with the subtle but strong thread of hope. In the +gravest cases the heart cannot be given to any one, because it has been +promised to all, and the huge task of pleasing many wearies the +sentiment and breaks the vertebræ of character in such a way as to make +impossible the development of any sincere and ardent affection. The most +indefatigable coquettes and the most worn-out flirts never love; and if, +in questions of love, not falling means to be virtuous, then coquetry +can be said to be most pure and most holy. Every day the moral sense +rebels at seeing many women selling smiles and desires every hour and, +posing as Lucretias, impunely playing with lasciviousness which they do +not feel, and with love which does not burn them, while they hurl +anathemas at the woman who may, perhaps, have fallen but once, torn, as +it were, by a true and strong passion, guilty of no other wrong than +believing mendacity and treachery impossible. The virtue of the coquette +is like that of the asbestos, which resists the fire by its fire-proof +nature; it is a virtue entirely physical, anatomical, and he who values +it does not possess a shadow of moral sense, nor has he even read a page +of the physiology of the human heart. + +Readers, if you have the misfortune of loving a coquettish woman, never +forget that coquetry belongs to the history of the lust of sentiment; +and if you thirst for love, go and seek it elsewhere, for you have taken +the wrong road to it. Where you are, do seek play and folly, +pyrotechnics, acrobatism, the tintinnabulation of the fool's bells, the +laughter of the masquerader; but do not seek ardent voluptuousness, or +the sublime palpitations of an affection which never was the companion +of coquetry. + +True love, which does not seek voluptuousness only, but the full, +absolute, complete possession of all the beloved, cannot bring into play +the subtle arts of the diplomacy of coquetry, because it cannot have the +patience to study them, or the calmness to learn them. It is a genius +that knows not how to adapt itself to the domestic cares of the home +life; a general who knows how to win battles, but does not waste any +attention on the buttons of the uniforms and on barrack regulations. +Love shines, thunders, weeps, fulminates, threatens and prays; +overthrown, it overthrows; wounded, it kills. It curses and blesses, but +is wrong in one thing only: it does not know the game of chess. +Coquetry, on the contrary, is the most famous chess-player ever known. + +Natural seduction is the art of making all our values well appreciated +by presenting them with the best possible appearance. To please, we +better ourselves as much as we can, and, made beautiful by nature and +art, knock at the door through which affections enter. Man, who is the +stronger of the two who love, and from strength derives his most +irresistible seductions, after having tossed his leonine hair throws +himself habitually at the feet of the woman and begs an alms of love. +And woman, who is the weaker of the two, loves to disarrange with her +gentle hands the mane of the king of animals, to tease him and to enjoy +the superhuman voluptuousness of placing her foot on strength, to feel +it quiver underneath and be able to say: "It is mine!" This is one of +the most general forms of the reciprocal seduction of the sexes; and +when man, on his knees and, perhaps, weeping, pleads for love, he obeys +one of the most inexorable laws of nature and does not appear a coward, +nor does he debase himself. Before throwing himself down in the dust, he +must have shown flashes and thunder. "Lion for all, lamb for +myself!"--such is the man who claims a woman; she wants only to be the +Franklin of the human lightning and to attract it to herself and conduct +it along the most subtle wires of her nervous organism. And when grace +has conquered strength the daughter of Eve feels complete; and when the +man feels the rough skin of his herculean nature caressed by the soft +contact of a woman's body, he also feels as though redoubled; and both, +in the fullness of bliss, feel changed into that perfect being which is +the sum of a man and a woman. + +When a difficult problem belonging to the moral world presents itself +to us, the only way to resolve it is that of simplifying it by leading +it again to the broad highway of physiology. To read and re-read the +great book of nature, trying to follow blindly its laws in the human +world: there is art. This is manifest at every step in our studies on +the sentiment of love. Which are the elements that make a woman +seductive above all others? Beauty, grace, affection. Which are the +virtues that make a man fascinating above all others? Strength, courage, +talent. There is seduction, there is sympathy, which seem the most +foolish and the most mysterious things in the world, taken back to the +virgin source of the physiology of the sexes; there is an opening +through which we see much of the light of future progress. Man must make +himself more manly than ever in order to seduce and conquer the love of +the daughters of Eve; and woman must always make herself more womanly in +order to please the sons of Adam. And both must refine and elevate the +type of their respective sexes, higher and higher, to the greatest +sublimity which human hands and poet's wings may attain. Woman may +dress, if she likes, with all the allurements of art; she may adorn her +hair with the fragrant flowers of sentiment, assume all the classic +graces and consume us with the fire of all her physical and moral +seductions; but, at the bottom, there should ever remain a female, and +under the wings of an angel and a cherub there should always be an Eve. +And man may torture his ambition in order to bend it under the heel of +love, and spur his talent so that it may throw its treasures at the feet +of his idol; he may be a hero or a martyr, Spartacus or Cæsar, a tamed +lion or a roaring lion; but in his loves let him always be as manly as +ever, so that woman, after having stripped her hero, may always find an +Adam. Seduction is never baseness, never violence, never treachery, +never tyranny, when it is inspired by a true and great love, when it is +the alliance of all our forces guided by the most legitimate, the most +powerful, the most ardent of our desires, that of loving and being +loved. Without love, seduction is a rape of voluptuousness, or a bargain +in mordant vanities; it is either a crime or a vice. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MODESTY + + +Modesty is one of the psychical phenomena the physiological study of +which is more difficult because that phenomenon is very indistinct and +vague, although prepotent and most exacting in some of its forms; +because it is very variable in the different races; and because, though +a part of the energies which develop in the reciprocal approaching of +the sexes, it seems to keep them apart, and, born of love, seems to have +a tendency to frustrate its supreme end. + +I, too,--I must admit it,--through the various periods of life, have +changed the idea I first had of modesty. At first it seemed to me a +sentiment that rises within us in childhood and during adolescence, as +spontaneous as egotism, self-esteem and love; but, later, I became +convinced that modesty is taught first and learned afterward; therefore, +it is one of those sentiments which I term _acquired_ or _secondary_. + +Modesty is an _extra-current_ of love, and has its principal source in +those powerful energies which, through a battle or a choice, must +relight the torch of life. Animals demonstrate to us some rudimentary +forms originating from modesty. Many of them conceal themselves when +offering a sacrifice to voluptuousness; very many females, sought by the +male, begin by fleeing, resisting, hiding that which they desire to +concede. And this is probably an irreflective, automatic act; it is, +perhaps, a form of fear which rises before the aggressive demands of the +male; but the aim of these resistances, of these pretenses of modesty is +to excite the male as much as the female and to make the ground better +fitted for fecundation. It is possible that animals conceal their loves +from our sight to protect themselves from danger, knowing that in those +supreme moments they are exposed to every attack; but until the +psychology of brutes is so limited we will be allowed to assume that +among them also the first light of modesty has penetrated. If this be +so, then we will find justification in the fact that, in superior +animals also, this sentiment appears first in the female, for whom the +anatomy of the organs and the defensive mission in the battles of love +make the actions of modesty more spontaneous and natural. And to the +human female, too, nature has assigned the same mission, making her +characteristically a hundred times more modest than the male. + +The first hand brought by woman to cover parts which the male wished to +see gave origin to the first energies of the sentiment of modesty, which +arose, therefore, at the same time as the first forms of coquetry. Man +and woman, then living together in the family or in the tribe, were +naturally forced to become, independently of their greater psychical +development, the most modest animals, because woman is subject to +repulsive periodical infirmities and man shows other genital phenomena +which, if not concealed, would attract too much attention from all and +excite perturbation in males and in females. It is therefore natural +that almost all, not to say all, races of the earth present some form of +modesty, and that also in the human race the female should be more +modest than the male, because the aggressive mission, which is reserved +to him by nature, makes modesty dangerous and almost impossible, at +least in the last battles. + +Modesty, born in this way, is taught, together with many other things, +by men to children, as the latter cannot, until they reach puberty, +distinguish the special importance of copulative organs, or the +aggressive mission of the male, or the thousand offensive and defensive +vicissitudes of love. Modesty, however, is perhaps born spontaneously, +or, to use a better expression, by heredity in the more perfect and +elevated natures. Hence modesty is taught to those who, of themselves, +would not know it, and we determine its limits in such a way as to +circumscribe it within the purely genital field or to widen it beyond +the amorous boundaries. The Sherihat prescribes that Turkish women +should cover the back of the hand, but permits them to expose the palm. +The Armenian women of the population of southern India cover their +mouths wherever they happen to be, even in their own homes, and when +they go out they wrap themselves in a white cloth. The married women +live in strict seclusion, and for many years they cannot see their male +relatives, hiding their faces even from the father-in-law and the +mother-in-law. And these two examples, selected from a thousand that +might be quoted, should be sufficient to persuade us that accessory and +conventional elements often accompany true modesty, to which, +physiologically, they do not belong. We, ourselves, in our own +countries, find that the boundaries of modesty are, in many places, +marked by the various fashions of dress, and that they stop from the +knees down or from the breast up and not according to the national mode +of dress. He who mistook these conventional elements for modesty could +write the great psychological heresy, that this sentiment had its origin +in the custom of covering the body. + +We must not confound with true modesty those other esthetic needs which +compel us to conceal some repulsive actions of our animal life. The true +sentiment of modesty defends from profane eyes the organs and the +mysteries of love and those parts of the body that are directly or +indirectly related to it. We behold almost all races conceal first the +genitals, afterward the sides, the breast, the legs, the arms, then the +entire trunk, and finally the head; but here modesty yields the place to +the requirements of social intercourse or of jealousy. + +The sentiment of modesty is among the most changeable in form and +degree. Its ethnical history is written in the volume which I have +dedicated to the ethnology of love. It will suffice here to point out +that I divide the nations into immodest, semi-modest and modest, +according to the traces of modesty and the greater or less development +of this sentiment. Modesty is unlike intelligence, or the sentiment of +the beautiful, or other psychical phenomena, which show an ascending +and regular progress as we gradually proceed from the lowest races to +the highest; therefore, it cannot be considered alone as a dynamometer +of progress. The Tehuelches of South America bathe very often, generally +before dawn: but the men go into the water separately from the women; +they are very modest people who never, in any case, take off their +_chirípas_. And the Japanese, with a civilization a hundred times +superior to that of the Tehuelches, are much inferior to them in the +matter of modesty. The Malaysians are very modest, but the Greeks and +the Romans were none too much so. Without leaving our own race and +times, we have women who would die rather than subject themselves to an +examination with the speculum, while men of great intelligence and lofty +passions admit that they hardly feel a shadow of modesty. + +In the higher races, however, if we neglect a few exceptions and take +human groups in great masses, we may say that modesty, like all +psychical phenomena of a high order, grows, refines and presents more +delicate forms proportionately to the growth of the moral and +intellectual importance of a people. The nations which are the most +advanced in civilization and morality are also the most modest. Modesty +is one of the most elect forms of the seductions and the reticences of +love; an extra-current of the great fundamental phenomena of generation; +a physical self-respect; one of the psychical phenomena of the highest +order. Faithful companion of love, it is a sentiment which in superior +natures possesses infinite mysteries, ineffable delicacies, gestures +deserving a virtue prize, glances which are a paradise, words and sighs +which deserve to be immortalized by the pen of an artist. He who +possesses the immodest or semi-modest nature of the Fuegian or the +Japanese loses more than half of the treasures of love, and is like a +man who, deprived of the olfactory sense, admires the flowers of a +garden. + +Woman is the vestal of modesty, the queen of its most elect forms, and, +when a virgin and as pure as crystal, she possesses intact the entire +treasure of the most exquisite chastity. Wandering through the garden of +love, she loses some of its gems, and she loses more if her companion +helps her to disperse the treasure. It very rarely happens, however, +that a woman, even in the exciting and wearing races of a thousand +loves, loses all the wealth of modesty with which nature has enriched +her. Even in the most gay and libertine life, even in the filth of +libertinism, we see with infinite wonder some diamonds flash, which the +fire of lust was incapable of destroying and the mud of amorous simony +could not soil. We remain astonished and moved at such a power of +resistance in a sentiment that seems so fragile and delicate. And as +long as a corner of sacred earth remains to woman upon which a humble +flower of modesty grows, virtue is not all dead and resurrection is +still possible. Bow your head before this flower, you, jeering deniers +of every feminine virtue! you, insatiable tormentors of lust. Respect +that clod of sacred earth; do not pluck that humble and last flower of a +garden, which you so brutally have stripped of all leaves and reduced to +desolation! + +Modesty is never excessive when it is sincere; it is never too exacting +when it rises spontaneously from the heart of a lofty nature; it is a +sentiment that can inspire only noble things and prepare us for sublime +joys. Modesty has such power that it can elevate ignorance and +simplicity to the highest spheres and encircle with a halo the most +common loves as well as the most exalted; it is possessed of such +esthetic energies as to smother with flowers the most bestial roar of +the most brazen man and hide with an impenetrable veil the most immodest +secrets of the animal man. Without any need of cloth or garments, this +sublime wizard will cover a nude body with a mantle that will make it +invisible and impenetrable to lust. Guardian and priest of love, it +follows it at every step and defends it from the mire and from the fire, +and, causing it to direct its eyes upward, elevates and sanctifies it. +Parsimonious trainer of the forces of love, it preserves them always +fresh and always young; and when the first kiss causes the first virgin +flower to fall from the brow of a woman, modesty brings forth new and +ever virgin flowers before the steps of the two lovers. Texture that +conceals, glass that covers, balsam that stops every putrescence, +modesty is the most powerful preserver of the affections; and, perhaps, +more loves are killed by immodesty than by infidelity. + +If the sentiment of modesty were not a great virtue, it would be the +most faithful companion of voluptuousness, the greatest generator of +exquisite joys. An ardent thirst and an inebriating cup! What joy, but +what danger of satiety! Now the cup is full, foaming with lust; the lips +are burning and half open to the most voluptuous kisses of the sweet +liquor; but the cup is held by the hands of modesty, who with the +suavest art satisfies the thirst and renews it, so that the lips +eternally remain half open and thirsty, and in the chalice the liquor +will last forever. Admirable prodigy of an immense wealth, which finds +in itself the sources of renovation and perpetuation; stupendous +spectacle of the most gigantic of forces confided to the hands of a +child who guides and governs it! + +We should teach modesty to our children, and above all to our little +girls, as clearly as possible, and refine it, so that it may be all +sincerity and delicacy, and not a conventional hypocrisy. + +We may be chastely nude, and we may be cynically immodest with the body +as fully covered as an onion. We teach our young girls to lower their +eyes before the glance of him who seeks and desires them, and then we +take them to the theater, where the ballet-dancers are more than nude +from the waist down and the ladies are nude from the waist up; so that, +adding together the two immodest halves of the two very different +classes of women, we may easily have one woman, all nude and all +immodest. We teach our daughters to conceal even the foot from the eager +eyes of man, and then we trust them to the hands of the dressmaker, that +she may perfect with her sartorial art the too modest curves allotted by +nature, and mould in an alluring way the contours which innocent youth +still left chaste and modest. True Tartufes on a reduced scale, with one +hand we hide our face, while with the other we go on exploring +lasciviousness. As long as this profound hypocrisy continues to +penetrate into the marrow of our modern society, modesty, too, will not +be very sincere or will be able to exercise only the weakest influence +toward elevating and refining our loves; nor do I know whether, with all +the unchaste chastity that forms our distinction, we are entitled to +class ourselves proudly among the modest nations. If it be true that +hypocrisy is a homage paid to virtue, let us wait until the epoch of +transition is past, and we shall then feel that we really are as +virtuous as we pretend to be. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE VIRGIN + + +Since, according to the grammar, adjectives may be either masculine or +feminine, it consequently follows that man also can be virgin; but +between his and woman's virginity there is an abyss which we in vain try +to sound. A virgin male is a man who does not know the mysteries of the +embrace; but of this innocence, or of this ignorance, he bears no trace +in his body and often neither in his heart nor in his mind, since vice +with its thousand subterfuges and Nature with her thousand pitfalls may +have made him more impure than a courtesan, although he may boast of +having never violated a vow made to a caste, to a prejudice, or to any +of the many tyrannies of the will. The virgin female, on the contrary, +is an entire world; she is a temple to which peoples from all parts of +the world bear the tribute of their religion, their follies and their +adoration; so that to write its story is to write the greater part of +the ethnography of love. In this book, however, we will confine +ourselves to consider the virgin, just as nature has carved her in the +secrets of the maternal bosom, and as the civilization of our times +sacrifices her on the altars of greed, of love, or of lust. + +Nature, in creating the human virgin, has left to the torment of our +meditations one of the most obscure and tremendous problems. It was not +enough that sixteen long years should be required to turn a child into a +woman; not enough that all moral bulwarks which keep us far from the +temple of love should fall only through long and cruel battles; strategy +and tactics of defense, the impenetrable veils of modesty, were deemed +insufficient to push to folly the impatience of desire. All this still +seemed little to avaricious and cruel nature; and when your "yes" is +answered by another "yes," when barricades and bulwarks fall, when the +long coquetry of refusal is wearied and modesty blushingly withdraws to +a corner to relish the delights of an anxiously hoped for +defeat,--there, just there, at the doors of the sacred temple, a +terrible angel with a sword of fire bars the entrance and says to you: +"There is a virgin here!" The rose is near to your lips, closed, it is +true, but beautiful and fragrant as the dawn of spring, all collected in +the chaste involutions of its hundred small leaves; but to impress a +kiss on it, you must let your lips bleed, because _the virgin is the +thorn of a rose_. Profound mystery! There, at that threshold, two +natures widely different, and yet so ardently enamored, have arrived +through a thousand obstacles and a thousand battles: there was their +rendezvous, for them to empty together the cup of voluptuousness; but +there, on that very threshold, they find the angel of sorrow, and +through a wound, through a torture, they must attain joy. Cruel mystery! +The poor creature who shall be a mother and the nurse and vestal of the +temple of the family, the woman who in the long sleepless nights of +adolescence had imagined love as the most fragrant flower, as the +sweetest fruit in the orchards of life, must reach the goal of her +desires through pain, as though nature from the first kiss had reminded +her: "Daughter of Eve, you will love and be a mother with great pain!" +And happy because she belongs to one man, happy because she is possessed +and does possess, she must behold in her bleeding hands the delicate +petals of the first flower which she picked in the garden of +voluptuousness. + +And yet there, among those torn petals, warm with innocent blood, man +has erected a temple where the three most formidable passions of the +human heart receive adoration, and there he has accumulated as many +elements of idolatry, passion, fury, virtue, as his brain could +comprehend. There self-pride, love and the sense of ownership have found +themselves bound together to conspire against human happiness and at the +same time to prepare the most ardent voluptuousness. "Mine!--mine for +the first time!--mine forever!" Three cries, one more formidable than +the other, which love, pride and the sense of ownership utter in unison, +in the apotheosis of delirium and in the quivering of the flesh. + +There is a unit for all the series, there is a virgin for all human +things: to be the first means to be vastly different from being the +second. Now, nature wished to consecrate anatomically the first kiss, +the first embrace; to incarnate in a physical fact that tremendous unit +which is called the first love. And civilized man, suspicious, jealous, +avaricious, gives thanks to Nature for having come and borne testimony +to the purity of a woman, and blesses her for having known how to bind a +covenant of faith which no one can ever violate with impunity. The +Longobards used to give the _morgincap_ to the bride immediately after +the first night of matrimony; and this famous gift, the prize of +virginity, often equaled the fourth part of the husband's estate. Some +shrewd spouses (adds the malicious historian) had the good sense of +stipulating beforehand the conditions of a gift which they were too sure +of not deserving. However, although we are not Longobards, we promise to +all our young girls a _morgincap_ to induce them to guard intact, until +the supreme day of the official first love, the sacred will. This +_morgincap_ is a husband; it is the esteem, the veneration, the +adoration of all. With that veil intact, you are a saint, a virgin, an +angel; the goal of all desires; you may entertain the most foolish +ambitions; you may become a queen tomorrow. If that flimsy veil is rent, +you are young, beautiful, perhaps, as pure as you were yesterday, but +you are nothing more than a human female. The temple has been violated, +the idol overthrown, the priests have fled, hurling anathemas and +invoking the vengeance of their god upon the head of the victim. What a +tangle of mysteries and injustices! I really feel as if I were in the +world of exorcism and necromancy! + +The poet finds not one, but a thousand theories to explain the virgin. +The thorn beside the rose, the temple guarded by the wings of an angel, +the first voluptuousness consecrated by a first pain, the destinies of +the lives of future beings marked from the first kiss, all spasm and +sweetness; and an infinite mystery which covers with its crepuscules one +of the grandest and most beautiful scenes of the human world: such is +the virgin of the poet. + +And the moralist, too, finds in his theological theories a hundred +reasons for the explanation of the virgin. The protection of virtue +consecrated by a material defense, a kind admonition that love will lead +us to a thousand sorrows, a sure guarantee of the honesty of the bride +given to the bridegroom in the most solemn manner, a precious pledge of +future faith, of everlasting domestic happiness,--there is the virgin of +the theologian. + +But the naturalist shakes his head and rejects the virgin of the poet +and scoffs at the virgin of the theologian. Every organ must have its +function; every effect must have its cause; every "why" must be answered +by a "because." The virgin is for me an inceptive angel; she is the +first shadow of a future separation of two things which are still +brutally coupled in us: the organs of love and the organs of a bodily +function. The more the living beings elevate themselves, the more they +subdivide their labors; and in a creature higher than we, love will +certainly have a determined and reserved ground. From the "cloaca +maxima" we have arrived at two smaller ones; a step further, and we +shall have three organs and three apparatus; one of the greatest +physical disgraces of our body will be eliminated. + +A virgin is a creature who does a great deal more of good than evil, and +very few among the men, if asked to vote for or against her, would +blackball her. I do not know whether all women would vote with us, but I +believe that the best, the most virtuous, the most beautiful, the most +poetical of them would side with us. Open temples are always less sacred +than closed ones, and a mystery and a _sanctum sanctorum_ help to +elevate and revive idolatry. And is not love the greatest of idolatries? + +A virgin is ours a thousand times more than any other woman; she must +love us much, or at least she must desire an embrace much, to descend +from the pedestal of the idol and come to us; to descend from the altar +and tread the vulgar ground of earthly life. And the mystery of the +unknown, and the fascination of primitiæ, and of being the first teacher +of the art of love, centuplicate for us the sweet joys of a first +embrace. Even the dreadful trepidation of finding the temple violated +holds us suspended over the abysses of desperation and voluptuousness, +of which, at very short intervals, we sound the somber sorrows, the +ineffable delights. And a woman, too, who knows that she is a virgin +will fathom the immensity of her sacrifice, and if she has the fortune +of finding it equal to the immensity of her affection she feels one of +the greatest ecstasies that can vibrate simultaneously nerves and +thoughts, senses and sentiments. She had already given her heart and all +her affections to her god; today she gives him the seal which attests +the possession of her entire self; and divides with her companion all +that she has, all that she feels, all that she desires. An angel +yesterday, she allows her lover to tear away her wings and becomes again +a woman in order to be a wife, a friend, a mother. Priestess of a +temple, she burns on the altar of love the niveous robe of the vestal +and cries, sobbing with joy and sorrow: "I am thine, all thine! Is there +anything more that I can give thee? Tell me and I will give it to thee. +I have clipped my wings, that thou mayst carry me aloft on the wings of +thy genius; I have burned my temple, that I may live only in the temple +of thy heart; I have forsworn the religion of my dreams, that I may be +nothing but thy companion. Do not deceive me; I was thy virgin, and I +shall be only thy wife. Have an immense love, an immense sympathy for +me!" + +And yet, we must say it to cause some one who will read these pages to +turn pale with animosity, there are men who dare accept the sacrifice of +the virgin without any right to be priests of love. And there are men +who bite and defile her with the slime of the viper. Miserable, a +hundred times miserable wretches! Amidst tears of shame and humiliation, +may the woman dream of an infinite adultery; may human dignity, +insulted, avenge itself by making the man a cuckold a thousand times; +may the profaned virgin reascend to heaven, hurling anathema at the +sacrilegious profaner of the temple; may the jury of entire humanity +rise with the full majesty of its omnipotence and spit in the face of +the enervated who has dared to ask of heaven an angel and of man a +virgin, and may a horde of sneering demons scourge him, tie him to the +great pillory of ridicule and, in the loudest voice, proclaim him the +most dastardly, the last among men! + +The anatomical fact which constitutes virginity has, however, the great +inconvenience of being understood by all, so that the mass of the +people, proud and happy to be able to solve a question of virtue with +the eyes and with the hands, brutally throw upon the most delicate +scales of the world the sword of Brennus. Let philosophers and +sentimentalists prattle at will about purity of heart and the frontiers +of virtue; for the common people there are but virgin women or violated +women; and physics, with its resistances of elasticity, and geometry +with its diameters, solve a problem over which the minds of many +thinkers were hard at work. And from this point of view, a large part of +civilized men are common people, and many who weep through tenderness of +heart and soar very high, stop wondering in the presence of the +brutality of a fact, acknowledge defeat and empoison their own lives, +thinking that the woman whom they have chosen for their companion had +already sacrificed at the altar of love. + +Science openly affirms that virginity, even anatomically, has many +varied forms, and may be lacking in women who never felt the breath of +man. In my medical capacity, I have myself seen, with my own eyes, some +little girls who were lacking that seal with which nature seems to +consecrate the virgin; and as I contemplated the little creatures I was +distressed by the thought that, though having kept virtuous and +innocent, virtue would some day be unavailing for them in the presence +of an ignorant and brutal man. In vain these poor girls will some day be +as pure as an angel. And even when anatomy does not practise such an +imposition upon a woman, a fall, a blow, a contortion may, in the most +innocent way, break the fragile seal which for many is the only and +secure guarantee of virtue and purity. Nor is this all. Often, in early +childhood, when vice and libertinism are words unknown in the dictionary +of a little girl, the lascivious jest of a too precocious boy, or the +posthumous lechery of a wretched old man, may violate the palladium of +anatomical virginity without dimming in the slightest degree the mirror +of the heart; and later, when the mysteries of love shall be unveiled, +the still chaste maiden may feel pure and proud of herself and raise her +head high, not knowing that she does not possess the star of physical +purity. How many domestic misfortunes have happened in this way! How +many first nights of love have become infernal nights, and how many ties +have been dissolved by a prejudice, a suspicion, a calumny, when they +should have been a garland of the purest and most sublime joys! + +How many existences have been cruelly empoisoned through the elasticity +of a veil more fleeting than the cloudlet that dissolves under the first +rays of the sun! + +And all of you, jurors of feminine honesty, who with so much assurance +and brutality pass your judgment upon hearts and virginity, have you +ever thought of the thousand and one aggressions which a young, +beautiful and courted woman must pass through, and that, before becoming +a bride, she must struggle with her own ignorance and others' lechery, +with the surprises of the senses and with the cunning artifices of lust? +A moment of weakness, an instant of morbid curiosity, may dim but not +stain the virtue of a woman who can be, before and after, as pure as +rock-crystal. No; virginity is a great thing, it is the largest diamond +in the crown of youthful virtue; but it is not all the woman, it is not +all the virtue. + +How many wretched women were never pure except in the maternal womb, and +yet with studied lasciviousness and infinite art preserved intact the +physical seal of virtue, through the lechery of a hundred lovers, and, +full of profound wisdom and prudent libertinage and weary of carnal +lust, carried their virginity to the altar of the official first love! +Beautiful treasure, indeed! A diamond fallen a hundred times into the +mud and a hundred times picked up and washed! Beautiful gem! A piece of +flesh preserved pure in a prostituted body; a flower grown on a clod of +earth in the midst of a fetid marsh! And men often picked that flower +with sacred devotion and kissed it and adored it, perhaps after having +hurled an insult at the pure and virtuous girl who lacked only a seal, +like a registered letter refused by the post-office clerk because it +lacked a drop of sealing-wax. How often have I wept in wrath, listening +to mothers teaching their daughters this one dogma of virtue: "Preserve +physical virginity!" How often have I cursed modern morals which teach +the bride: "Above all, no scandal!" These, then, are the morals of this +hypocritical century: "Virgin first, prudent afterward." There is the +virtue of woman! An eye on the seal first, an eye to the keyhole later +on: such is the perfect woman of our times! + +The excessive, brutal and bestial importance given to virginity by +modern society has created the infamous art of manufacturing virgins; +and many times virginity has had two, five, ten different editions, not +all improved, but always correct and revised, while the idiotic mass of +husbands and lovers have been tricked into applauding the new virtue, +the purest virtue, heaven knows how acquired! + +The debasement of this hypocritical time could not be more cynically +avenged. Of the virtue of a woman you have an idea utterly physical and +chemical. Now, this advanced civilization is all at your service; it +manufactures a chemical and physical virginity for your convenience, and +calls to its aid some acrobatism, hocus-pocus and natural magic. _Mundus +vult decipi, ergo decipiatur._ Curse, then, the pure and holy woman +whose heart is virgin, who never has loved, but to whom the Longobards +could never have awarded the prize of the _morgincap_! + +Virginity exists; it exists in the physical nature of the human female, +it exists in the sanctuary of civil morals, but it does not begin and +end with an anatomical condition: it is also virtue. The anatomical fact +must be accompanied by the moral fact; with the purity of which the +senses are the judges, we want purity of heart, the adamantine +transparency of character. The human virgin, the virgin of the civilized +man, is not the virgin of the savage, an oyster that can be opened only +with a knife. She is a creature whom no social mud has ever soiled; she +is a woman who was loved, perhaps, and desired by many, but who never +belonged to any man. She knows no lasciviousness, no art of hiding vice +under a shining varnish of virtue; she blushes at an impure word, at a +too ardent gesture, at an impertinent pressure of the hand. The virgin +knows that she is all intact, because she, too, has had longings and +desires, but has never given her heart to any man; she knows that she is +pure, because no profane hand has ever penetrated into the sanctuary of +her purity. She has not opened any part of her robe, any fissure of her +heart, any tabernacle of her treasures. She is white as the snow of the +Alps, on which no foot of marten and no wing of insect have ever rested; +she is pure as the water which spouts from the granite in a cave never +explored by human foot; she knows everything, or is ignorant of +everything, but she blushes for wisdom as well as for ignorance, if only +her heart pulsates faster at the sight of a man. She is a virgin because +she is modest; she is modest because she is a virgin; she is a virgin +and modest because she is a woman. + +And you, mothers, who were virgins, when you teach your daughters what a +treasure virginal purity is, give them, together with a lesson of +anatomy and physiology, which perhaps they need, a lesson of high +morals. Tell them that to the man they love they should give everything; +to the man they do not love, nothing; tell them that a woman can be +physically a virgin and a prostitute morally; tell them that to the +first kiss they owe all their treasures untouched, not one gem only, and +that the future of their love will depend on the preservation of the +centuple virginity enclosed in the one virgin as the masses conceive +her. If nature, with a sad mystery, has prescribed that woman should +love her first love with much pain, it is incumbent on us to crown the +virgin with so many flowers of virtue, to scent her with so many +perfumes of grace, as to turn a martyr into a happy spouse. It is our +task to elevate the physical virgin to a very high region of purity and +grandeur, so that she may appear to us like an angel of Beato Angelico, +all illumined by the iridescent light of the rainbow, where, amidst +tears of a first defeat, should shine the light of the sun of love; and +that after the hurricane of conquest there may be announced the bright +calm of a day all beauty and delight. The Christian religion, in +offering to man a virgin-mother to worship, wished, perhaps, to +consecrate the purity of the virgin with the affections of the bride; to +create an ideal of perfection in which the two chief virtues of woman +should shine; to suggest, perhaps, that one can be a virgin and a +mother, as another can be a virgin and a courtesan. That this ideal +creature has been a sublime creation of the human mind, and not a riddle +or a myth, will be clearly proved by the influence which she has +exercised upon Christian art, by gazing at the Madonnas of Raphael, of +Murillo and of Correggio. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +CONQUEST AND VOLUPTUOUSNESS + + +If man elevates his loves to the highest spheres of the ideal; if he can +be called the most sublime lover on the terrestrial planet, he can boast +of having had from nature the largest cup at the banquet of +voluptuousness; he can also boast of being able, alone among the living +creatures, to die of pleasure and to end his life with lasciviousness. +Certainly, a tremendous thing is the embrace of a man and a woman who +love each other! So tremendous that, before this hurricane of the +senses, the painter lets the brush fall from his hand, the physiologist +loses the thread of analysis, and the philosopher is bewildered by the +ferocious grandeur and the brutish sublimity of that act, in which every +human force seems to be offered as a holocaust to animal fecundation. +The avowed or secret aim of every love, the dream of every virgin and +rage of every lust, the torment and delight of every man, voluptuousness +is the greatest pleasure of the senses; but it is also the deepest abyss +into which vulgar loves fall at every step, and where the great ones too +are submerged. Voluptuousness! Tremendous word that recalls the most +ardent scene of life and the greatest chaos, which concentrates wherever +an organism is born or destroyed; formless chaos, from which flashes +radiate and where elements quiver and earthquakes rumble and thunder; +chaos in which good and evil are so near as to mingle, confuse and melt +together; chaos in which angel and brute join in close embrace, and +human individuality vanishes for a moment to give way to a fantastic +monster, half man and half woman, half god and half demon; chaos from +which a man is born, just as from another chaos arose the cry that +generated light. I open the book of human deeds and read: + + + "In Sardinia the San Luri belle killed with her exuberance of + carnality the young King Martin II. of Sicily, of the House of + Aragon, him who gave the last blow to the independence of Sardinia, + subjecting to his dynasty that part of the island which was still + free. In 1409 he had gained a splendid victory over Brancaleone + Doria and the Viscount of Narbonne, when he himself was defeated in + turn by the belle of San Luri, who, modern Judith, killed the + Aragonese king with the fury of her kisses." ("La Marmora, + Itinerario in Sardegna," etc., p. 270.) + + "The Empress Theodora was the source of such exquisite delight that + it was said that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating + the matchless excellence of her form. The satirical historian has + not blushed to describe the naked scenes which Theodora was not + ashamed to exhibit in the theatre. After the mention of a narrow + girdle, which she wore, as none could appear stark naked in the + theatre, Procopius adds: [Greek: anapeptôkuia]. After exhausting + the arts of sensual pleasure, she most ungratefully murmured + against the parsimony of nature, wishing a _fourth altar_, on which + she might pour libations to the god of love. After having been + possessed by everybody, she seduced Justinian, who made her his + wife and called her _a gift of the Deity_." (Gibbon, "Decline and + Fall of the Roman Empire.") + + "The old age of David was warmed by the young Shunammite, and + Hermippus lived to be one hundred and five years old, sustained by + the spirit of many young women." (Bible.) + + +These few examples will be sufficient to delineate in a general way the +frontiers within which human voluptuousness struggles, an insatiable +author of so much good and so much evil. And yet, in the eyes of +science it is nothing but "the most powerful of chemical affinities +comprehended by the most perfect of living brains." Prepared in the slow +laboratory of a man and a woman, the gemmulæ of life intensely seek each +other and are reciprocally attracted; and when love gathers them by +millions and millions, they kiss and join and, quivering, restore one of +the most prodigious equilibriums of nature and generate a man. + +If it is true that at every second a leaf detaches itself and falls from +the human tree, it is most true that in the same unit of time ten +existences at least are fused in order to relight the torch of life; and +if all the gigantic forces which are condensed in those aggregations +could be summed up, they would certainly be sufficient to send the world +through infinite space without the aid of the laws of Newton. In the hut +of the savage and in the gilded halls of the prince, on the soft +cushions of new-mown hay and on the glaciers of the Sorata; on the swift +train and on two camels crossing the desert, within the damp walls of +the prison and in the deep mines where the rays of the sun never +penetrate, in the forest and on the sands of the sea-shore, wherever a +man and a woman find themselves near and can desire each other, +voluptuousness wreathes its garlands and says to the man and the woman: +"Be gods for an instant!" + +There is no love without voluptuousness, but voluptuousness alone is not +love, as that is not love which is ridiculously termed platonic. Lust +and platonic love are maladies or monsters of love and are possible, +nay, even too prevalent, like the deaf-mutes, the lame, the deformed, +the giants and the dwarfs. + +There is no conquest without possession of the thing conquered, just as +there can be no love without voluptuousness. Take the flower from the +tree, the fruit from the flower, and you will have a faithful image of +all those amorous reticences which hypocritically stop at the threshold +of the temple and, incapable alike of chastity and courage, of vice and +virtue, drag a wretched existence in the limbo of bastardly affections. +Often duty must be stronger than love, and, the principles of honesty +forbidding, love must be conquered with a cruel and incredible torture; +but it is better to be heroes of duty than brigands acquitted for lack +of proofs, often despised, despicable always. If you truly love, if you +can love, then love in the name of the most powerful of the gods of +Olympus, love in the name of nature, in the name of the most sacred of +rights. Leave aside all amorous casuistry, the worst of human +hypocrisies; leave aside the hope of winning with your reticences and +your compromises with conscience the Goliath of the sentiments. How many +have I beheld, after long sentimental tirades on platonic love, and +after bitter tears and vows of virtue, sink from hypocrisy into +hypocrisy and down to lasciviousness! How many guilty lovers did not +wish sin and had vice, did not wish guilt and had prostitution! All or +nothing: such is love's command. Break down the tree that you cannot +cultivate, be everything to somebody; demand to be everything to your +companion; do not try to divide the indivisible; do not attempt to +overthrow the omnipotent, to win over the invincible. With love you +cannot jest; any compromise is impossible. + +Voluptuousness, even in its purest and simplest forms, without love is +always lasciviousness; it is immoral even when it seems hygienic. With +love, even lust is virtue; and the studied casuistry of theologians is +more immodest than the most ardent kiss ever exchanged between two +lovers educated by a long experience of embraces. Voluptuousness is as +penetrating as light, as inexhaustible as the sun, and, enclosed between +two infinities, one of desire and the other of languor, it will never be +all known by the human family, were it to live for millions of +centuries. All forms of the beautiful are conquered by the blandishments +of art; all forms of virtue are the delight of the sentiment of the +good; every great and true idea is the joy of our thought; but +voluptuousness relishes simultaneously all the joys of the senses, of +sentiment and of intellect, calms all morbosities, extinguishes all +fires, intoxicates itself with all inebriations, high and low, with all +languors, all human flashes. Voluptuousness is a light which gilds +every object it strikes and encircles it with a halo of celestial +iridescence. Nor is the embrace of love alone voluptuous; for +voluptuousness is in every contact of quivering robes, of glossy hair; +voluptuousness is in every quiver of the skin, in every shock of the +nerves, in every kiss of the flesh. Unfortunate he who has tasted +voluptuousness only out of the one cup of Venus! Let him take lessons of +woman, wisest teacher of every exquisite and sublime sensuality. A +Boeotian in art, let him go to Athens and study the beautiful. There is +no worse enemy of voluptuousness than lust, no sister more faithful than +chastity. If the poet, the painter, the sculptor could conceive this +divine group, "the joy of Love guided by the hand of Chastity," that +representation, whether due to pen, brush or chisel, would be as holy a +thing as an altar, a lesson in virtue and a great work of art; fire +enclosed in alabaster, the sun abducted by the wave, enamored and +jealous; Hercules led by a child! + +Lovers who love and possess each other, lovers whom voluptuousness +inebriates every hour, if you still have an instant to devote to +prudence, remember that voluptuousness should not be the bread but the +wine of love; that if you wish that your lips be eternally thirsty, your +voluptuousness must be chaste and modest; you must swim, but not drown; +you must quiver, but not fall into convulsions; you must be in the grasp +of death, but not dead. Modest voluptuousness, this priceless treasure, +was given by nature to woman, that she may restore it to you with +unbounded joys; and you should respect it as a palladium of domestic +happiness and nurture it in your daughters, because verily I say unto +you that in modern society there is often more pudicity in the lowest of +courtesans than in some married women whose nuptial education has been +imparted by an aged and libertine husband. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HOW LOVE IS PRESERVED AND HOW IT DIES + + +The man who, through fault of the trees he sprang from or through his +own, lives on the bestial frontiers of the human kingdom, is like the +brute for which love is a desire that rises, is satisfied and falls +asleep. If his affection for woman is not a passion of spring or autumn, +it is always an erotic and intermittent love which dies every time a +need is satisfied and revives with every renewed desire. The stimulus of +the flesh announces in him the dawning of sentiment, and the obesity of +the flesh puts an end to the passion of love. The new desire may have +the same person or another as its object: this is for him a secondary +and merely accidental question, and, according to the manner in which +circumstances force him to solve it, he will be a monogamist or a +polygamist, a virtuous man through habit or a libertine through caprice. +Oftener than it seems this is the way in which many dark-skinned nations +love, as well as many white-skinned men, who nevertheless believe that +they faithfully love one woman at a time. The history of their love is a +necklace of Venetian beads, to which a new bead is added for every +desire satisfied; and if the hues of the glass corpuscles are not too +diverse, one may have before his eyes a pretty ornament that may spangle +the neck of a decent virtue and an honest passion. Between the desire +that dies and another that is born, you can set a gentle remembrance of +gratitude for the pleasure enjoyed, a sweet hope of a greater joy for +the future; and the garland of your passion will then acquire greater +beauty and new flowers and perhaps stimulate a true and great love. The +most sublime heights of sentiment, the summits of thought, are reached +by few; while hundreds and hundreds of lowly sheep ruminate on the +plains, where thousands and thousands of bees are buzzing, and millions +and millions of ants are swarming. Upon the sapphire summits of the Alps +two lone eagles represent the world of the living. + +Love, although a most powerful affection, always follows the laws of +elementary physics, which govern all the energies accumulated in our +nervous centers and which we call sentiments. As long as passion remains +in a condition of desire, that is to say, as long as force is potential +and is not turned into a product, energy lasts and sentiment lives, +vigorous and ardent. All the art of preserving love is, therefore, +reduced to this alone: to preserve desire and to cause it to spring up +again almost immediately after it is spent. And as even love, with all +its omnipotence, cannot evade the physical laws, and every spark that +springs forth must always be followed by a period of repose, it is +indispensable to act in such a way that while a part of the force is +transformed into labor, another be accumulated, preparing a new spark in +such a short time that it should be nearly impossible to perceive any +interval between the two sparks. To transform the intermittent electric +current into a continuous one constitutes the great secret of +protracting the existence of love. + +As long as desire is not satisfied, and the struggle has not become a +conquest, love is not only preserved but increased; and not in vain does +woman provide for her happiness in asking for time and prolonging the +battle. A love must be either very weak or very brutal if it withdraws +from the struggle before victory; and as it happens very seldom that a +woman yields everything at once, the small and great favors which from +time to time she concedes to the conqueror mark a continual renewal of +ever ardent desires and a continuous revivification of love. Finally, +sooner or later, the day of the wished-for victory arrives, and one +embrace makes two lives one, melts in a single crucible two volcanic +rocks and two feelings of voluptuousness. However, even when love is so +base as to be only a thirst for pleasure, it seldom dies with the first +embrace. And who can say that he has possessed a woman entirely in one +night of love? Human charms are such and so many, and our esthetic +needs so exquisite and ardent, that even the acquisition of +voluptuousness alone is, fortunately, very slow, and in the sweet +occupation of new provinces love is preserved or revivified. The various +treasures of beauty and sensuality of two lovers, the art of loving, so +neglected even after Ovidius' times, mark the limit of duration of those +loves that derive their energies only from the worship of form or from +the ardor of voluptuousness; and if in some cases that duration is +long-lasting, it never is infinite. The hour comes when, alas! the wing +of time smites the fresh cheeks of youth, and the northern winds wrinkle +them, and the storm scatters over the ground the rosy petals of human +beauty; the hour comes when the cup of lust no longer contains a drop of +nectar, and then, if nothing is left, love is dying, and no miracle in +the world can save it from a certain death. The energy of passion had +its only source in voluptuousness and beauty; one has vanished, the +other one is withered and the strength is spent. No force in the world +is produced without the transmutation of matter; no energy is increased +without transformations of equilibrium and decompositions of affinities. +If man and woman do not revive an affinity of sympathy, no combination +can take place; no light, no heat can spring forth from their contact. +Let them sing the psalms of death and together bury the remains of a +love which, kept alive by voluptuousness alone, was inexorably to perish +with it. + +This is the most general way in which vulgar loves die, and the duration +of their life can be calculated with fair precision by weighing the +beauty of the two lovers, their youth, their lust, their art of loving. +Those loves may last an hour, a day, a month, a year, ten years; they +may, in rare cases, last for the entire period of human youth. Men, and +especially women, do not fall without a struggle under the blows of +time, and with incredible art repair the ravages of age; and not only +are forms daily adulterated, denatured and counterfeited, but into the +cup of love, as well, spices and drugs and philters are poured, that the +silent hunger may receive the stimulus of an artificial appetite, and +soft blandishments and morbid temptations of the flesh substitute the +ardor and impetus of passion. Long lasts the battle before defeat is +acknowledged and love changes its nature but still lives. It was a +volcano, it is now a Bengal light; it was as nude and chaste as an +Uranian Venus, it is now as clothed and immodest as a courtesan; it was +love of every hour, it is now periodical, intermittent, like the tertian +or the quartan; it impunely defied the rays of the sun at midday, it now +prefers the twilight; but, when all is said, in spite of so much +reticence and so much tinkering, it is still and always love. Women, you +who behold with horror the gradual extinction of that fire which for so +many years has warmed your enamored members, if you were happy through +beauty alone, remember that that fire will be extinguished with the +withering of the last attraction of your body; and when the heartrending +cry which invokes the stimulus of a desire will not be answered, prepare +for the funeral psalmody. As long as you can, with the galvanism of +lust, arouse a desire in the flaccid flesh of your lover, love will not +be dead. You see, then, to what a low level the art of preserving love +has sunk, when love has its origin only in the desire of bodily form: it +sinks to a question of hygiene; I would nearly say, it transforms itself +into a problem of taxidermy and preservation by chemical process! It is +necessary to study the antiseptic virtue of deliberate refusals and +libertine reticence; to submit lust to a chemical research and fatigue +to a physiological investigation; to meditate upon the economy of +energies and visit the pharmacy for the purpose of discovering the +aphrodisiacal virtues of the various silken fabrics, of the various +smiles, and of the sensual movements of the body. To these basest +studies we have lowered the woman who would so gladly have wished to +soar aloft with us through the numberless spheres of the beautiful and +not only embrace the world of exterior forms, but also the infinite +worlds of sentiment and thought. + +You will tell me, perhaps, that I aspire to an ideal love, impossible, +therefore, to reach; you will tell me that a man with a good +constitution can be handsome for forty years of his life, and that +woman, too, is entitled to thirty years of beauty and ten more years of +gracefulness; so that a love which should last but these thirty or forty +years would still be a most beautiful and most enviable thing. A spring +and a summer of forty years, ending with a mild autumn, in which a sweet +remembrance, a suave reciprocal gratitude, and an intimate friendship +prepare the last twilight of old age, may seem to us a worthy triumph of +a long and splendid life of love. And I am with you if you mean the +common loves of the common people; but we must have a high, a very high +aim, and we all should desire a love lasting as long as life and which +shall be buried alone in its grave. And then every healthy man can offer +to woman the thyrsus of love, and every healthy woman can offer the cup +of voluptuousness to man; but how many men are handsome, how many women +can be called beautiful? Perhaps not ten in a hundred; and all the +others who in various degrees are removed from the type of perfection of +form, shall they not love, can they not be loved? Certainly. + +In man, rich in so many physical elements, the beautiful does not end +with the exterior form, nor should love spring from the source of +voluptuousness alone. No deformity, no disease in him who would +procreate men: this is hygiene; but the hundred forms of moral and +intellectual beauty, relieved only by a soft shade of sex, can and +should awaken ardent and tenacious passions that do not vanish with the +sun of youth. Thus, while love can dispense its delights to every man +and every woman, perfect love should be born of the contemplation and +adoration of every type of beauty; and when that of the form begins to +fade, let moral beauty shine in all its power, and, later still, let the +beauty of thought appear to us in all its brilliant majesty, so that +while one star disappears, another twinkles, and from the slumbering +desires of the senses we feel a stronger yearning awaken, the yearning +for possessing the treasures of sentiment and thought of a creature who +is all ours, and whom, if we suddenly loved her for the beauty of form, +we now love and will continue to love for her beauty of kindness, +culture, ideas, and everything that a human being can boast of beauty +and greatness. Even character and thought have a profoundly sexual type, +and feminine kindness can be adored by us, just as virile courage is +admired by the sweet and tender nature of woman. When we have loved in a +woman not only the beautiful female, but a whole nature imbued with all +the beauties and graces of the human Eve, the longest life will not +suffice to satisfy our desires of possession, and at the last hour of +extreme old age we have still some new conquest to make, and some desire +is reawakened, while the accumulation of most sweet memories fills the +void which youth, by fleeing, has left behind itself. Sublime triumph of +human nature, in which love survives the senses exhausted, +voluptuousness which is mute, the beauty of forms which is buried, while +a warm ray of light shines on the silvery heads of two old beings who +still love each other because they still desire each other and because +heart and mind unite in an embrace, sexual by origin, but ideal for the +heights attained. Our study on love in old age will complete this +picture, certainly one of the most beautiful and seductive in the great +museum of love: a picture which we should all desire to represent in the +late years of our life. + +When the sources of love are many, while one dries up another swells so +that love never lacks a flow of water to quench its insatiable thirst. +All passions follow in their movements a parabolic line, and those that +have risen the highest descend the most rapidly; hence the weariness so +close to strength; the tediousness that follows enthusiasm; the thousand +dangers of the death of sentiment. More than any other passion, love +presents these phenomena and dangers, and it is impossible for all to +make voluptuousness, ecstasy and apotheosis last beyond a very short +flash of a few instants. Intermittence is one of the most inexorable +laws of the nervous system, and he who would increase enthusiasm and + + + "Only breathe the life of kisses and of sighs," + + +dies consumed by his own fire, and, what is worse, before dying, +beholds love dead at his feet. We cannot rebel against the laws of +nature, nor can we subjugate them; but it is conceded to us to direct +them to our advantage. And thus it is in our case. Between ecstasy and +ecstasy we can sow joy and suppress tediousness; between voluptuousness +and voluptuousness we can suppress weariness and pick the flowers of +sentiment, and from too ardent and sensual contemplations we can repair +to the cool temple of thought to meditate and remember together. This is +perfect love, this is ideal love, which keeps pure, unaltered, brilliant +as a diamond in the tormented sand of a river. A few reach it; many, +however, can approach it, and for human happiness and human greatness it +is enough to see it even from afar, like the promised land, which, as +the poet says, "is always beyond the mountain." + +The man who brutally opposes the holy and noble aspirations of woman for +a higher participation in mental work signs his own sentence; and when +he cynically sends her back to the bed or to nursing cares, he resigns +himself to knowing only the coarsest and most brutish part of the joys +of love. You may be the strongest male and the wisest libertine; but +Venus herself, descended from the heaven of the ideal, would tire you, +and for you, too, would arrive the hour of dislike; then you would curse +the vanity of love and execrate life, reciting the litany of +lamentations and disappointments which, from Adam down, has been +repeated by all those who know not how to love and are bestially +ignorant of the laws of the economy of strength. We must elevate woman +more and more in order not only to fulfil an act of justice but also to +enlarge the field of our joys and increase the value of our +voluptuousness. A great step has been made in this direction, by +transforming the _female_ of the polygamous gyneceum into the mother of +a family; but this new "freedman" of modern civilization is merely +tolerated, not considered equal to us, like an orphan taken from the +street and living with the members of a family but not forming an +integral part of it. If the _concubine_ has become a _mother_, a great +step still remains to be made in order that she may become a woman, or, +to put it in a better way, become a _female-man_, a most noble and +delicate creature, who shall think and feel as we do and think and feel +in a _feminine way_, thus completing in us the aspect of things, of +which we see only a part, and bringing to us, in the meditations and +struggles of life, that precious element which only the daughter of Eve +can give us. If from woman you want nothing but the joys of love, then +sow sentiments and ideas in her. She is like the bee that changes sugar +and nectar and the fluid of every flower into honey: make her wise, and +wisdom will be transformed into caresses; make her strong, and she will +use her strength to enrich you; make her great, and she will place her +greatness at your feet for a kiss. Fear not; she will never place her +foot upon the neck of man, because she loves him too much, and because, +to become a tyrant, she would be compelled to amputate the better part +of herself, abdicating her omnipotence. + +Where man and woman are bound together by the three natures of sense, +sentiment and thought, love is easily preserved by its own nature and +without any need of artifice. Some fortunate individuals ask with +astonishment why their love should ever cease; and love lives in them, +warm, tenacious, invincible, and only with death is extinguished, +instantaneously, like the porcelain bowl, very old but always new, which +falls from the hands of the inexperienced servant and perishes as it was +created, beautiful and brilliant. + +It is not so when voluptuousness is all, or nearly all, of love; then +the easiest way to preserve it is to keep always some drops of desire in +the cup of love, so that, between embrace and embrace, voluptuousness is +never quite extinguished, giving a deeply sexual character to the common +relations of habits, conversations and family intercourses. This is an +indirect but sure advantage, ever produced by chastity between two +creatures that love each other without having the fortune to participate +in any treasures beyond those of the senses. It is opportune to remember +that every virtue is the fruitful mother of other virtues. + +The preservation of love is one of the most sacred rights or duties +incumbent upon woman, although we cannot refuse with impunity to take an +active part in this mission. We, however, are too light-minded, too +polygamous, too exacting in our sudden desires to find prudence and +economy of love easy virtues for us. To see all, to touch all, to want +all and at once: such is the childish appearance of many virile loves. +Woman loves more than we, but she foresees, presurmises, fears. In love, +too, she is a good provider, and, while she picks the flower for the joy +of today, knows how to preserve the fruit for the dreary winter. Woe to +her, if she joins in the thoughtlessness of her prodigal companion! They +will make together a splendid bonfire of their affections, of their +voluptuousness, renewing, alas! too soon, the thousandth edition of the +story of the grasshopper and the ant. + +If the women who will read my book should learn nothing but this one +thing, I would believe that they have had a just compensation for the +tediousness which they may have experienced; and I shall be happy for +not having written in vain to promote the welfare of the dearer part of +the human family. With the right given to me by a long and troublesome +experience, by a deep, untired study of the human heart, I pray and +entreat and conjure them to close with their white little hands and +their rosy lips the lips of the man who too ardently begs their love. +Let them say "no" and "no" again, and bury the "yes" of the friend under +a shower of flowers, reserving the desire for other supplications and +other battles. Every sacrifice will be compensated a hundredfold, and +for a caress denied today, they will receive ten tomorrow. Woman is an +old teacher of sacrifice, and let her use this practical wisdom in +preserving love, which is the air she breathes, the blood which gives +life to her, love which is her dearest treasure. Never should she say +"yes" before having said "no" at least once; if she truly loves the +prodigal friend, she should save for the days of famine the crumbs which +now fall from his hands and which today he despises; let her be the +stewardess of love as she already is that of the household; let man +fecundate and woman preserve; let him conquer and let her keep the +booty. + +If genital chastity is the virtue which, better than any other, +preserves vulgar loves, a certain chastity of sentiment and thought, a +certain reserve of manner and forms are also indispensable if sublime +loves are to last. The man must never see his wife nude, nor should the +woman ever behold her companion nude before her; veils and mists, leaves +and flowers must shade the man and woman in sense, sentiment and +intellect. The infinite is the only thing that man never tires of +loving, contemplating, studying, just because it is neither weighed nor +measured. And so it is in love: the beautiful, the true, the good of the +creature whom we love must be infinite, because they must not be seen, +weighed or measured by us. A sun that passes from the crepuscule of the +morning to the evening twilight and never entirely reveals itself: such +is eternal and immutable love, that fears no frost of winter or +hurricanes of summer; that dies standing like the ancient heroes. + +Study the fortunate men who are not only capable of arousing, but also +of preserving great passions, and you will behold in them all those +exalted virtues which may be grouped under the name of _crepuscular +politics_. A beauty that has more grace than splendor, more seduction +than heat; a flexibility that retains strength; an authority that can be +made to smile, and a nature that is smiling rather than laughing; a deep +and tender kindness, and a genius that has more spirit than grandeur: +such are the great preservative powers of love. Grace more than beauty +preserves love, because it has more crepuscular hues; sympathetic +natures more than beautiful ones preserve love, kind natures more than +grand ones, wit more than genius. There are men and women who at first +sight do not make any great impression, but on every hair of their head +they seem to have a hook and in every pore of the skin a leech, so that +no sooner have you come into intimate contact with them than you find +yourself seized by a thousand grapnels and absorbed by a thousand +cupping-glasses, as though a gigantic polyp had seized you in the +absorbing coils of its manifold tentacles. + +Love is dead without possibility of resurrection when, unlike all living +things, there is no galvanism to awaken the slumbering nerves, no wave +of blood to rouse the heart. But love also has swoons and syncopes and, +like the rotifer, may die provisorily and desiccate, awaiting a +beneficial rain to restore it to life. Whoever denies this virtue in +love, then believes that love is baser than the rotifer and has never +known the most elementary physiology of life and affection. There is for +love, as for any other organism, a real death and an apparent one; the +former is inexorable, the latter curable, like any other malady, by +having recourse to skill and knowledge. + +How often has a love apparently dead resuscitated as live as ever, +probably more alive than before; and this, heralded as a miracle, is one +of the usual mysteries of the heart, for life was not extinguished, but +only latent, as no dead, really and truly dead, with the exception of +Lazarus, has ever been seen to rise again. A nerve was still sensitive, +a desire could still be resuscitated, and the apparently dead comes to +life again. Physicians remark that apparent death is much more frequent +in cases of hysteria, catalepsy and in all forms of neurosis; it is then +natural that many loves, alive but believed to be dead, have been +interred through a most cruel mistake, since an organism more nervous, +more cataleptic and more hysterical than love is difficult to find in +the entire world of the living. In our case, however, the burial is less +dangerous, because love itself opens every coffin, every grave, +overturns every clod and appears to you saying: "Do not weep; here I +am!" + +Very rarely does love die a violent death, and cases called by that name +are wounds, ruptures, syncopes and nothing more. Real death occurs +through senility and after long illness. Duty frequently commands not to +love him or her who suddenly has seemed base and infamous to us; but +love, sentenced to death, weeps, despairs, but does not want to die. +Sent back to prison, without light, without food, it defies hunger, +darkness, cold, but does not die. The public, perhaps, believes that it +has disappeared from the face of the earth, as has happened with +illustrious prisoners plunged into the stillness of a castle; but love +lives in those depths and groans, convulsed by a prolonged agony, until +at last, with him who feels it, it dies a merciful death. + +If the appearance of a new creature on the path of life seems to kill +love violently, it is because it was not true love; and if it really +were such, the battle will be relentless and long, and the Prince of +Affections will die, as in other cases, a lingering death. When we shall +once and forever have ceased to call love that which is the desire of +the flesh and the pride of possession, that sentiment will appear to us +as a much more beautiful thing, greater and more honorable than is +ordinarily supposed; many miracles will at last be explained as very +simple physical phenomena, and many obscure mysteries will be exposed to +light. + +To cause love to gush forth from the rock of indifference is a +fascinating prodigy; to rouse it from its slumber is a desirable power; +to sow the path of our life with love and desires may be the splendid +pride of every living creature; but to cherish the conquered love, to +preserve it pure and bright, to bring it impunely through the cyclones +of life, the fogs of November and the frost of December, to guide it, +healthy and robust, from the spring of youth to the border of the grave +that it may die, like the Mexican victim, amid choruses of admiration +and adorned with flowers of eternal freshness, is one of the highest +ambitions to which we can aspire. It is as beautiful a thing as to +create a work of art; it is as useful an achievement as to become rich; +it is as great a feat as to reach glory. It is said by many that the +most natural way for love to die is to transform itself into friendship; +but several times already I have made clear to the reader what I think +of sexual friendships. Perhaps, in some very rare cases, neither of the +two lovers remembers that the beloved one belongs to the other sex: but +how can the loves of the entire past be forgotten? How can we suddenly +obliterate the ardent remembrances of the many years of love? If for a +dead love the sweet custom of friendly visit can be substituted, if a +man and a woman can forget that they are man and woman, what name will +this new and singular affection deserve? Perhaps that of automatic +habit; and I will send this psychical phenomenon back to the laboratory +of the physiologist, that he may study it together with the unconscious +and reflected motions. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE DEPTHS AND THE HEIGHTS OF LOVE + + +Whenever I see a flower that opens and shows its cheerful petals on the +border of an abyss, the same thought ever recurs to my mind: there is +love, which always seems to live between two infinities, height and +depth. While its aspirations carry it aloft, while it seems to ask of +heaven space and light, it projects its roots into the most intricate +mazes of the rocks, into the most somber mysteries of the abyss. Star +that glitters in the infinity of the ideal, root that dissolves the +stones in the infinity of depth, it reaches all altitudes and all +profundities, is the most human of passions and always placed among the +divine passions; it is inmost in us and the most ethereal. Thought on +the summit of a mountain, strength in the valley below, it guides the +poet when he ascends to paradise, accompanies man when he plunges into +the hot sea of sensuality; virgin and father in heaven, lover and spouse +on earth. If to live means to exist in the most beautiful form of life, +then love is richness, luxury, splendor of life; love is whatever is +divine in human beings. + +No one will ever be able to say where love penetrates when it lifts the +bottom of human nature, where pearls and corals are intermixed with mud. +It is a diver that brings to light strange and unknown things and +reveals to the astonished eye of the observer new things never before +conceived; it is the most daring and the most fortunate of excavators. +How many simple natures of young girls, how many vulgar talents of men +are perturbed, agitated and renovated by the contact of the new god, who +seems to evoke from the abysses all silent passions, all dormant ideas, +all the phantoms of heart and thought! The deep simmering of psychical +elements at the contact with love almost always announces the birth of a +second moral nature and, revivifying life, marks a new era in it. Of our +birth we are always ignorant, and of our death almost always +unconscious; between the "to be" and the "not to be" only one third and +great thing is possible--"to love." While the common people judge from +the hair on the face and from the deepened voice that a boy has become a +man, a tremendous profound earthquake warns him that he must love, that +he already loves; and while mothers behold with affectionate trepidation +the rounding of their daughters' form to womanhood, another profound +earthquake warns the girl that she must love, that she already loves. + +In the loving season many animals change color and shape, adorn +themselves with new feathers, or arm themselves with new weapons; with +the nuptial robe they assume different habits and singular abilities; +mutes, they become clever singers; obtuse, they are transformed into +skilled architects; granivorous, they become carnivorous; if the earth +is their habitat, they become winged messengers of the skies; if +caterpillars, they are metamorphosed into butterflies. So it is with +man, although such transmutation hardly affects his epidermis, but sinks +into the veins and the meanders of his physical nature. The phase of +puberty deserves to be dealt with separately; it will suffice here to +remark that every force redoubles, every vigor refines, and while, with +our growing to manhood, forces and energies prepare and grow, love calls +forces and energies into action. Puberty declares us in a state of war; +love calls us to the battle. Defenseless if we have not reached puberty, +we are armed if we have reached it; armed and combative if we have +reached it and are in love. + +Not all human forces are good, not all the resources of mind are +beneficial to the good, and, therefore, love calls into action bad +elements as well, which had not been seen before. For the first time, +from the deep abysses of the moral man, specters of crime and vice, +phantoms of revelry and prison appear. In defective organisms, +predestined for the prison or the madhouse, together with first love +often the first crime or the first mania reveals itself. To the great +summoner of profundity and sublimity every human element answers, +"Present"; and the sudden anger in natures erstwhile mild, the first +tears on faces till then smiling, the first poetic outburst in natures +hitherto utterly prosaic, the first hysterical paroxysms in a body that +seemed to have no nerves, the first ambitions in the most timid youth, +the first meditations at the mirror, the first impulses, the first war +declared against an invisible enemy, the first follies, the first +flashes of genius, the first lies and the first heroisms, are all new +specters called from the abysses by the magic wand of the sorcerer among +sorcerers, by the greatest conjurer of spirits that the blessed age of +wizards and exorcisms might have boasted of. + +The man who loves is twice a man, because for the first time he feels +not only that he is alive, but also that he has the power of creating +living beings, of procreating. Nor is woman the sole generator, because +in man's blood is half of a future creature, and the seed of a second +existence within us doubles us and makes us almost as proud as the +ancient prophets, to whom God entrusted, as to a tabernacle, the supreme +truth, the prophecy of future events. A man who loves has within him a +part of that which will live in the future, the fruitful germs of a new +generation. + +While all the psychical forces are still confused and indistinct at +first contact with the new sentiment, Love will march them in procession +and muster them under his orders. Every beauty must transmute itself +into flowers for a garland, every passion must lend its fire, every +energy must don the livery of a servant or a slave. Many to serve, one +to command; many strong, but only one supremely strong; many subjects, +but only one tyrant. No objection, no discussion; where love is present, +who would give suggestions or counsel? O virgin and rising forces of +youth, bow your head before your god; splendid beauties of human nature, +lay your tributes upon the new altars. Are you not satisfied with the +glory of doing homage to love? Rarely does avarice find place in the +first and deep meditations of a heart in love, but the question is +continually repeated: "Have I something else, something better, to +offer? Have I really given my whole self to my king?" + +A most singular and heartrending voluptuousness of love is to feel that +everything leaves us and that we no longer belong to ourselves. It seems +as though we were witnessing a satanic phantasmagoria in which we behold +limbs, organs, senses, affections, thoughts fleeing from us, running +madly toward a new center, where a new organism is being moulded with +our remains. Even time appears to be ours no longer, since it is no +longer measured by the watch, but by the impatience of desire or the +flashes of voluptuousness; thought, too, no longer belongs to us, as it +is tyrannically ruled by one image alone. To find ourselves again, to +remember that we have still intimate relations with the man of +yesterday, we must go and seek another creature who has robbed us of +everything. Hence a vague unrest which invades the body, the senses and +the thoughts of every lover; hence the undertaking, most difficult even +for the ablest dissembler, to conceal the new god who invades and +penetrates every part of us. Every hair, every pore, every nerve, every +part of the epidermis of the man who loves sings and says to the +universe of the living: "I love, and who loves me?" Day and night, in +the calm and in the storm, all the nature of a lover sings its note +until another song responds in the same tone. Not a moment of peace, not +an instant of truce, until the new energy has found a sister energy. +Love is like the sea: here it is as calm as the surface of an Alpine +lake, still and smooth as a sheet of lead; but there, among the rocks or +upon the coast, it is eternally in motion, and, roaring or sighing, +howling or caressing, agitates with incessant motion the land it kisses. +Man and woman who meet and love are the sea and the land, which are +perpetually at war--a war in turn sweet and bitter, tender and cruel, +voluptuous and merciless. + +Look at that young girl seated at the window, bending over a piece of +white linen which she is sewing. How attentive she is to her work! She +seems, between one stitch and another, to be meditating on the solution +of the quadrature of the circle, so absorbed is she in her arduous task. +But if I only could write the volume of thoughts that pass through her +brain between two stitches! She is fishing in the deep abysses of love. + +And at a short distance thence, she unaware of it, a young man, too, is +at the window, his hair disheveled, his hands firmly thrust into his +pockets, his breast swelling as by a threat. He has been staring at the +sky for the last hour. Is he meditating, perhaps, upon the tremendous +problem of the proletariate or on that of human liberty? Is he, perhaps, +dreaming of glory, of wealth? No; he, too, is fishing in the deep +abysses of love. + +Woman more than man dives deeper and soars higher in the regions of +love; society generally withholds her from the field of action, and an +infinite time is left to her for penetrating into the abysses of the +heart. How often an innocent young girl, who, perhaps, hardly knows how +to write, for many long hours feels in her imagination the sweetness of +a kiss which lasted but a second; how often she is tortured during a +whole night by the bitterness of a cold salute or of a rude word! Here +is a deepness of sense which, nevertheless, is nothing in comparison +with the queer and transubstantial process of sentimental analysis with +which woman pulverizes, analyzes, distills a look, a word, a gesture. +Hide, O chemists, your ignorance before the profundity of the analytical +art of an enamored woman; to her the spectroscope is a coarse instrument +of prehistoric science; homoeopathic draughts are poisons; atoms are +worlds; she has measured them many centuries before Thomson. A billionth +part of a milligram of rancor diluted in an ocean of voluptuousness is +detected by her process of analysis; an atom of indifference in the lava +of desire is instantaneously traced by the thermo-electric apparatus +which she uses in her laboratory. She is a priestess of the ideal, of +the infinite, of the incommensurable, and will continue to be religious +many centuries after man will have buried the last god. Even in love, +the infinite is insufficient for her. + +Love always elevates the lover above the average man; and as his +increased strength makes him capable of greater undertakings, the +horizon widens before him more and more because he sees men and things +from a greater height. Each one of us has a different capacity of +soaring to the regions of the ideal; but rabble and genius, prose and +poetry, always raise themselves, by the action of love, to a world which +is nobler, more beautiful, more serene than that in which we drag out +our daily uneventful existence. How many vulgar, despicable natures are +redeemed by the action of love; how many inert intellects are guided +through the paths to glory; how many of the vulgar herd reach the height +of the Olympus of thoughts with the aid of a loving hand! And still the +ignoble proverb is daily repeated, that science and glory must guard +against love as against a bitter enemy, and the examples are +pedantically quoted of great men who loved but art and to chastity alone +owed their greatness. Strange disorder of ideas, in which hygiene is +confused with morality, chastity with the incapacity of loving; but a +man healthy in sense and sentiment will always be elevated by love, if +he does not make an unworthy creature the object of his affection, if he +does not confound love with lust. For one genius killed by love, you +have a hundred who owe to love their greatest inspirations, who drew +from it the strength to live, who blessed it as superior to glory, who +in it alone found the fresh wave that tempered the burning ardor of +enthusiasm and passion. It is an old habit of the human beast to trample +under its feet the rind of the fruit from which it has just sucked the +last drop of juice! + +If love does not work in all creatures the same miracles which we +expect, if it is not always a virtue that elevates and refines, it is +because we have lowered woman to the level of our lasciviousness, +because even we, civilized men, feel for her more desire than esteem, +more lust than love. And yet woman thirsts more than man for the ideal, +and, like all oppressed creatures, looks upward with more faith. Her +exquisitely sensitive nature, open to the raptures of enthusiasm, easily +inflamed by the warmth of poetry, attracts her irresistibly to higher +and higher altitudes, and she would have helped us also to soar if we +had not made of her a sweet concubine or a good housewife. Woman feels +the ideal, aspires to every sublimity, but she has neither courage nor +strength to ascend; and if she is not supported by the robust arm of her +lover, she will become easily prostrated and sit down to rest on the +path that leads upward. To her nature has assigned the task of +indicating the high aim, to us the duty of accompanying and sustaining +her. In a magnificent painting by Schoeffer, Dante is standing below, +Beatrice above. Dante gazes at her, contemplates her and is inspired by +her; and Beatrice, her eyes turned to heaven, seems to say to him: +"Upward, upward! There it is where we shall go together!" Nothing is +more contagious than enthusiasm; nothing more fascinating, more +irresistible than the enthusiasm of woman. Without arguments that induce +one to believe, without the strength of hoping, sustained only by love, +she is always full of faith in great and beautiful things, and at every +step of life, now handsome by her sublime imprudence, now affecting by +her youthful enthusiasm, seems to say to us: "Onward, onward!" And with +her tender little hands she draws us upward, guides us and lends us her +ever fresh strength, even when she would appear fatigued. + +When Christ made faith the corner-stone of his religion, when he said +that with faith we could move the mountains, he was inspired, perhaps, +by that ardent faith which woman is possessed of and which makes her +strong in her weakness. Woe to us, if before preparing for an +undertaking we should be obliged to weigh with mathematical precision +all favorable and unfavorable probabilities; woe to us, if we were to +launch only into those enterprises of which we are sure! More than +three-fourths of the great achievements would never have been performed. +There is always an element which evades calculation, and it is in the +capricious hands of destiny; it is the lacuna which must be filled by +faith, by that faith which lifts the mountains, and which woman so +deeply feels and so tenderly infuses into our hearts. You may point at +the most celebrated eunuchs of the heart, who, without the aid of woman, +reached the prodigious heights of fame; but I most solemnly affirm that, +had they been guided by a loving hand, they would have soared still +higher. Love is a second sight, and woman sees things from a point of +view which nearly always escapes the synthetic survey of man; she +discovers many hidden elements of things which we, through excessive +haste or excessive pride, do not see; and helping us with the light of +love, she assists us in penetrating more deeply into the substance of +every problem and, above all, into the knowledge of human nature. In +small and great things, after having consulted science and art, +experience and imagination, after having read the book of history and +the book of the human heart, you should never fail to consult the woman +who loves you; whether about a book, or a law, or a work of art, or +commerce, or industry, or poetry, woman will always have something new +to tell you, she will always have her revelations, and through the +action of love you will feel elevated. + +Some men of talent lack the coefficient of ambition to ascend, and you +will often see them die before producing the fruit of their gigantic +forces; only woman and love can give them that energy which they cannot +obtain from the stimulus of self-love. Eve knows how to infuse faith +into the skeptic, ambition into the disheartened, strength to all; +unaspiring for herself, she is intensely ambitious, haughty, proud, if +necessary, for the man she loves; and thrones and political power, civil +and martial crowns, glories of art and science, were won through the +ambition lent or inspired by a beloved woman. In heroic and chivalrous +ages this was publicly proclaimed and boasted of; today, when women are +sold in houses of prostitution or at the counter of matrimony, it has +become fashionable to blush at owing one's glory to a woman, and the +chivalrous element, alas! sank and perished together with many other +evil things which we would not like to see come back again. Chivalrous +love vanished and its place was taken by the cicisbeism of our +great-grandfathers, while today in the limbo of a new rising generation +we feel that we begin to discern the germs of a more beautiful epoch for +the amorous life of man. + +The more ballast love throws away which keeps it near to the ground, the +higher we soar in the regions of the ideal. This ballast consists all of +lust and self-pride, and it is woman's duty to help us throw it out of +our car. She should not assist with her lasciviousness and her vanity in +further debasing man's loves, already so brutish and vulgar. In the +rapture we feel when inhaling the pure air of the loftiest mountains, we +may sometimes forget that night is drawing near and home is far away; +and thus in love we may feel so carried away by the fascination of the +ideal as to desire a love without contact, the spirit without the +matter. These are sublime derangements of the brain, only too rare, but +reaching the extreme limits of human possibilities; they lead to +delirium, to self-sacrifice; they drag us to folly or to martyrdom. If a +desire continues durable and pure upon the highest summits of human love +and is not perturbed by the contact of matter, men from beneath will +contemplate that statue as a fantastic monument erected by the morning +clouds of the mountain. Not knowing whether it is an effect of the mist +or the imagery of a dream, they contemplate and admire. + +The pure and intimate communion of thought and sentiment, with nothing +of the senses but two clasping hands and two pairs of eyes which blend +together, is certainly a voluptuousness among the greatest of the sexual +world; and without any need of platonic love, it may so happen that two +creatures in that moment will forget that one of them is a man and the +other a woman. Then feminine nature shines with all the halo of its +celestial light; from that source of poetry, genius may draw its +greatest energies. Then coarse natures undergo the influence of +refinement in that pure air, social scrofula disappears and all human +soil is washed off. Women, you should take advantage of those fleeting +instants to regenerate the human family and urge it on to higher +destinies! The influence of the ecstasy of sentiment on man is of +shorter duration than on woman, and your angel will soon fall at your +feet, imploring of you the kiss of the terrestrial creature. You are +omnipotent then, for you have the lion at your feet; and if man is +strong, you are stronger still, since his strength is all for you. Guide +it toward the good and the better; direct it to the beautiful. In that +lion which roars with a subdued voice at your feet there is still much +of the beast; in that conquered Hercules there is still much of the +human brute. Silence the beast by running your slender fingers through +his disheveled mane, summon forth from the depths holy energies, noble +inspirations and a thirst for the ideal. We wish to be great for your +sake; we wish to be strong in order to give you all our strength; we +desire the conquest, but only to place it at your feet. To every kiss of +yours may the human family owe a great attainment; to every endearment +of yours, a useful deed! May your love be the highest and dearest prize +to every ambition! True, you are weak; but when you are desired you are +very strong. Who dares assert that he is stronger than the "no" of a +woman? What phalanx attempts to advance when the finger of woman +threatens and commands: "Stand back!"? + +Woman sins at least four times less than man; she fears crime, she is +horrified at the very thought of crime. Let us, then, disarm the man who +too often wounds or strikes; let the coward find no woman who loves him, +let him have no cup but that of the coarsest voluptuousness; let the +ignorant, the debased, the social parasites, all the fiends of the moral +world, find no bosom of woman on which to rest their heads! As the +Church once would banish excommunicated persons, so that they could find +no bread, no shelter, it should so be with moral monsters: let them be +banished from the region of love! And the elect women, whom nature +favored with the fateful gift of beauty, should preserve their treasures +for the strong and the immortal; their smiles should be the crown of +triumphing genius and magnanimous heart, for genius and beauty are the +most sublime interlacement of human forces, one of the most splendid +pictures of the nature of living beings. + +Love, after having spread the minute fibrils of its tiny roots into all +the deep fissures of the human world and absorbed every drop of liquor, +every throb of energy, sends up to the branches of the robust tree every +sap and every energy; and there, high in the air, leaves, flowers, and +fruits drink from the rays of the sun the sweetest and most inebriating +voluptuousness. There, in those regions full of light and heat, and +which no worm of the soil, no atom of dust, no miasmatic exhalation ever +attain, profundity becomes sublimity, and man and woman, blended in the +ecstasy of an ardent contemplation of the beautiful and the good, ask of +themselves: "And what is God?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SUBLIME PUERILITIES OF LOVE + + +Like the butterfly, which, when just emerged from the involucre of the +chrysalis, still bears on its folded wings some strips of the wrapping +in which it was long enveloped, so Love, the youngest of human passions, +carries remnants of the robe of childhood which he has just discarded. +In his caprices and in his follies, in his games full of grace and +strength, in his blind idolatries and in his childish sorrows, you would +say that you behold before you a child genius. Now he surprises you with +his violence, then he awakens your sympathy for his weakness; now all +powerful, then most timid; now a hero, then a coward; today he defies +heaven with closed fists; tomorrow he will with tears implore a caress. +Love is childish because he is a child; childish because he is a poet; +childish because, unleashing all the impulses of the moral world, and +agitating in a convulsive kaleidoscope all the images of thought, he is +more often lyric than epic, and writes more dithyrambs than stories, +more poems than philosophical treatises. + +Furthermore, Love is puerile because he is also so religious as to be +superstitious and subject to all the nonsensical ideas that may pass +through the brain of a timid and ignorant woman. Love, even in northern +countries, delights in the pomp of the idolatry which is most +characteristic of the south, protests against the severe worship of +certain religious sects and, being a great admirer of churchly +gorgeousness, demands incense, images, tinsel, altars, insignia, +canopies and tabernacles. + +No religion ever had more senseless idolatry than Love, no Olympus had +more gods, more altars and more priests. He accepts every belief, every +worship, from the fetish of the savage to the omnipotent, invisible God +of nobler religions. Full of faith and fears, Love would himself have +invented idolatry if this had not had an infinity of other roots to +sprout from through the human brain. + +When man feels, desires, loves very much, and has reached the +furthermost boundary of the human field, he always erects an altar with +the richest and most beautiful material at his command and there, on his +knees, prays and adores; often he prays and adores at the same time. To +that altar he brings the amber and the coral gathered on the sea-shore +and the gold found in the sands of the stream, the poetry found in his +erratic wanderings through the heaven of the ideal, the most beautiful +flowers of his thought, and offers all as a tribute to a creature of +earth or space, of nature or imagination. And to love, also, man erects +his altar, at the furthermost boundary of the human world, and, on his +knees, solemnly asserts that beautiful, good and holy above everything +is the creature whom he loves. Not satisfied with this, he raises +himself upon the altar and casts avidious glances into the darkness of +the unknown, where no form appears to him but the expansion and the +reflection of the rays of this world; and there he is suspended over the +abysses of nothingness. In that darkness live all the infinities, all +the gods, all the human loves carried into the farthest regions of the +ideal. + +To love, everything is holy that has been touched by the hand, the eye, +or the thought of the beloved, everything in which the dear image is +reflected. All these become an object of worship, all is transformed +into a magic mirror in which we contemplate our god. Who does not +remember the adoration for a rosebush from which _she_ had plucked a +flower, and the idolatry for a petal which _she_ had scented; and who +does not remember the thousand various and foolish relics of love? + +In the reliquary of love have found a place the beautiful and the +grotesque, the horrid and the graceful. I had a friend who used to weep +for long hours with joy and emotion, kissing and contemplating a thread +of silk which _she_ had held in her hands, and which was for him the +only relic of love. Another kept on his desk for long years the skull of +his sweetheart as his dearest companion. There are those who have slept +for months and years with a book, a dress, a shawl. And who can +enumerate all the sublime puerilities, all the ardent tendernesses, all +the insensate acts of the idolatry of love? + +Sensations accumulate such mysterious and deep energies in the brain of +man, that, at a sign from us, they can all spring up and erect an +edifice before us, greater and more beautiful than the reality of +things. No woman was ever as beautiful as the image which her lover sees +in the calm of his solitary adoration, or pictures upon the black ground +of a night of dreams, a comparison which would often be dangerous, if +the magic brush of imagination did not also overcolor the beauty of the +things seen by the eye and caressed by the hand; but it is a comparison, +however, which often sows the lives of artists and poets with sorrow, +delusions and even crimes. + +If every beautiful woman could know all the kisses, all the caresses, +all the hymns offered to her by the multitude of men who admire and +desire her, she would certainly feel proud that she possessed the power +of calling forth so many energies from the world of the living. Who +knows where all those rays end, where the heat of so many motions +accumulates, where such a scattered force gathers again? If it is true +that nothing is lost of all that is generated, what transformation takes +place in so many ardent desires that extend in the infinite void of +space? + +Modesty imposes a great sobriety of behavior on woman, often a +tyrannical reserve. She conceals from our eyes the most intimate +adorations, the revels of the heart and the strange hysterics of +sentiment. We, always less enamored than she, give vent more freely to +our effervescence; and if a beautiful and fortunate woman should +describe the scenes which she has witnessed in her youth, she would +present a collection of caricatures before which all others would grow +dim and mawkish; a collection which would combine the grotesque with the +sublime, folly with passion, impudent threats of death and impossible +fasts; sudden abandonments of one's dignity, abdications of common +sense, stupid sacrifices of one's own personality, orgies of fancy and +hurricanes of the senses, humiliations worthy of a Franciscan friar and +braggart rodomontades. How much misery, how many carnivals and +bacchanalia, and how much baseness has woman to witness! Fortunately for +us, she is merciful and modest; for our honor's sake, she covers us with +a corner of her queenly mantle, hiding our puerilities from the eyes of +the profane, and often from our own. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BOUNDARIES OF LOVE, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO THE SENSES + + +A country cannot be surveyed without tracing exactly its boundaries, +without following them in their capricious and serpentine lines, without +marking the point where its individuality ends and the influence of the +neighboring country begins to be felt. You may have trampled every clod; +wandered through every path, scented the soil of every field, and drunk +the water of every spring and every stream; but if you have not sketched +the confines of a country, you know less than half its history. +Everything is important for what it is and what adjoins it. Not one, +then, in this world can impunely be near to another, and all things act +and react reciprocally. So it is with love, which has frontiers as vast +as the human world, as indented as the coast of Dalmatia or of Norway, +capricious, irregular, changeable. It is a land which projects into all +adjacent countries, and with it sense, sentiment and thought come into +close and complicated contact. + +Every sense, every passion, every force of the mind is an instrument of +love; but this, in turn, bends in a thousand different ways to senses, +passions and thoughts. It is a continual interlacing of factors and +instruments, of causes and effects; and while this gigantic power warms +and agitates the inmost fibers of the human organism, it radiates its +penetrating light to the furthermost confines of the world. + +Love, which by the supreme right of existence requires the contact of +two different natures, which is but the kiss of two creatures who blend +for an instant and fuse together the germs of their power, must have +most varied, numberless relations to the sense of touch. It could even +be said, without departing from strict scientific truth, that physical +love is a sublime form of contact and touch. In inferior animal forms, +as well as in human natures of a low and bestial type, love is nothing +but touch and contact; but ascending to the high spheres of the animal +world and of the human microcosm, the other senses also add their +flowers to the garland of love, with the exception of taste, which takes +no part in the pleasures of love, except in peculiar cases, which can, +without any scruple, be entrusted to the clinic of pathological +psychology. Of the other four senses, touch has the greatest part in +love, hearing the smallest; sight and smell range between the two former +in very different degrees. + +The senses, however, differ more in the nature of the joys and sorrows +with which they take part in the greatest of human passions than in the +various quantities of elements which they yield to love. Touch conquers, +and twinges with delight; sight reveals and charms; hearing impassions +and conquers; smell cherishes and inebriates. We can easily have a +comparative idea of the various parts which the four senses take in love +by comparing these four moments: To see the beloved woman and gaze at +her for a long time; to embrace her passionately; to hear her voice +without seeing her; to inhale voluptuously the aroma with which she is +wont to scent her robe. + +A thousand, a hundred thousand, a million notes would be insufficient to +express all the harmonies and melodies of amorous contact; and as the +most voluminous dictionary in the world would decline to enter upon such +an undertaking, the pen of the writer would slip into the field where +science becomes lasciviousness. I regret at times that one of the +greatest poets did not sing the sublime voluptuousness of love with such +loftiness of style as to leave his pen uncontaminated. Perhaps man would +like to know also the limits of the genius of lust, to mark the +confines, too, of this human possibility; but I find some consolation +for this sublime ignorance of ours, for this glorious lacuna left by +modesty in the field of human knowledge, in thinking that where poetry +kept silent and science inactive, where an intimate contact of two +kisses creates a new existence, an unknown current transmits to the new +man, together with the sparks of life, all the treasures of past +voluptuousness; and the son of Adam, with a second kiss, will transmit +the innate science of love, pour all the nectar of the chalice of +voluptuousness into the lips of the daughter of Eve. Sublime science, +which was never written on papyrus nor sculptured in marble or bronze, +but is transmitted in the flash of a kiss through thousands of +generations that loved, love, and will love! + +From the purest caress on a mass of hair to the greatest hurricane of +voluptuousness, touch always keeps the character moulded for it by its +anatomy. Touch, in love, is always made oversensitive by voluptuousness, +always deeply sensual, is always a positive, definite, uncontrasted and +uncontrastable possession. Woman may delude herself into believing that +she is unblemished by man's contact when his hand has but touched the +hem of her garments or the leather of her shoes; but when skin has +touched skin, when a finger has touched a finger, something is already +lost of that waxy varnish which nature spreads upon the virginal fruit +still preserving the perfume of the tree that nourished it. A hand that +clasps a hand means, in love, two fires that blend in one; a mass of +hair that touches a mass of hair means two streams of voluptuousness +rushing into the bed of one river; two feet that come in contact are +always two sparks that fly. A molecule of a man who loves can never +touch impunely a molecule of the woman who returns his love; and +although the contact may be more rapid than lightning, every molecule +that returns to the spheres of its own individuality carries away +something that does not belong to it, and leaves with the other +something of itself. Touch soft iron with the loadstone and you will see +it magnetized; touch a molecule of a man with that of a woman and the +two molecules will not be what they were before. Touch is always the act +of possession, and the thousand contacts can, gradually, steal so much, +that we may find ourselves carried into the sphere of the woman we love, +while she has entirely passed into our sphere. Not in vain the modest +woman trembles and rebels at every innocent contact. Every sensation of +touch, in love, means a boundary that is eliminated between two +properties; it means the loss of a property. + +It is not hypocrisy alone that makes modesty more exacting in higher +races; in exquisitely elevated natures a contact is more dangerous +because it radiates rapidly into the field of voluptuousness, into that +of the other senses and that of sentiment. Vulgar natures begin where +refined natures end; and while too elevated natures live long together, +held back by the barrier of a handshake, the bold and uncouth rustic +throws a kiss to the girl and embraces her at the first declaration of +love. It is typical of this most powerful passion to perform a hundred +miracles a day and thus arrest voluptuousness at the last boundary of +kissing; but adroitness and fortune are necessary to make it possible to +stop there for a long time. From handclasping to the kiss the path may +be very long and even endless; but beyond a kiss given and returned, +every definite boundary has vanished and everything is possible. Even in +touch love has but two principal stations before the goal is reached; +handclasping and kiss. Whoever believes she has remained a virgin after +a kiss given and returned is a hypocrite, like him who believes that the +studied reticence of lust may still leave something to conquer. O women +who have the dangerous fortune to be beautiful and to be desired, do not +let your adorers go beyond handclasping; you may in rare cases arrive at +the kiss that you may receive; but remember that a kiss returned is a +tremendous bond, which you should never sign,--never, of course, unless +you intend to change your name. + + +Sight is the first messenger of love, and in elect natures it is so +prodigal of joy to lovers as to excel, in extensity if not in intensity, +even the insuperable heights of voluptuousness. Sight possesses +everything save the delirium of possession, and rapid and penetrating as +it is, it sounds at a stroke the abysses of infinite beauty, over which +is suspended, as in a halo, the object of our love. What one +contemplates with the eyes of love from head to foot always ends in two +infinities into which desire hurls itself with frenzied audacity and +insatiable curiosity. Sight is made to accompany us in that delicious +excursion; and as it can tarry long and suavely at a dimple of the +cheek, at the little vortex of a curl or at the opalescence of a nail, +it can also compel us to pass and repass with vertiginous speed, a +thousand times in a minute, through the divine lines that enclose our +treasure. + +The eyes of love have all the virtue of the telescope and the +microscope, and while not a single curve of the thousand labyrinths +through which the mobile feminine beauty seems to flutter and flicker +can escape them, they also attain the most sublime summits of ideal +beauty. When the eye admires and conquers, it invites to the picture +which it draws from nature all senses, all passions, all thought, all +psychical energies of man. No other sense possesses this gigantic +faculty of elevating us to the highest regions of the ideal, compelling +the minor senses, the animal instincts and the lower passions to +contemplate its panoramas. The eye is the first minister of the mind, +and while it refines desire and frees passion from the coarsest +lasciviousness, it elevates the man and woman who love to the highest +spheres of human possibility. Touch likes to remove the veils that cover +the beautiful; sight need not divest the object it contemplates, for its +light illumines every shade, penetrates through opaque bodies and makes +them transparent, threads its way through the most intricate folds, and +while it sees it also surmises, inspects, divines, analyzes, measures, +compares and controls with incredible agility all the elements of the +esthetic world. + +The eye which rests the rays of its light on a loving eye illumines it, +is illumined in turn and shows to us the phenomenon of two brilliant +stars exchanging their lights and rendering themselves more beautiful. +If one does not lower the chaste eyelids, it may so happen that the fire +will spread from the high spheres of the esthetic ideal down to the vile +and brutish instincts. This, in fact, happens in all men of a base type; +every emotion of love is rapidly transferred to the regions of touch. +In elect natures, on the contrary, sight has ever some beauty to +discover, a region to explore, a world to conquer. The richest man in +the world can always count the dollars and the stocks he possesses; the +most powerful king can always know the extent in square miles of his +dominions: but he who loves a beautiful creature dies without having +seen, contemplated or admired all. In the last day of his life there is +always some "unknown land" which the eye has not yet discovered or +sufficiently explored. And this is just the intimate difference which +distinguishes touch from sight. While the former has well determined +boundaries and a definite task, the latter widens the limits of its +dominions to include a number infinitely greater in esthetic +combinations. In a flash of the eye you have seen a beautiful being and +immediately said: "Oh, the angelic creature!" A chaos of sensations, a +world of beautiful things have surprised, enraptured, enamored you; but +how many days, how many months, how many years will be required for your +eyes to roam through the thousand paths of that garden, to study every +flower, every petal of each flower. What intensity of voluptuous +analysis, how many poems of delight, in order to say again, five or ten +years after: "Oh, the angelic creature!" + +Nature was very generous in distributing attractions in the bodies of +man and woman, and the short, sad day of our life always vanishes before +we have been enabled to see all the forms of human beauty. But to the +esthetic treasures of nature, man succeeded in adding those of art; and +with the thousand artifices of garment and ornaments, we have added to +our forms such and so many beauties that it is easier to imagine than to +enumerate them. Perhaps I will some day attempt to write a "Physiology +of Beauty," in which, if I do, I intend to point out the general laws +which govern the esthetic world. Here I must only describe the confines +where love and beauty meet and, in turn, kiss and fecundate each other. +When the eye has love for a companion it finds a new world to +contemplate in the cerulean star-thistle which our sweetheart +interweaves for the first time in her golden hair, or in the crimson +geranium which gives a magnificent relief to her raven locks; a naughty +little muslin apron may become a new continent, and a glove, which too +cruelly and too tightly squeezes a rosy little hand, may enclose in the +nest of its little buttons of mother of pearl so many new beauties as to +stir our senses or infuse an unknown voluptuousness into us. The man who +loves a beautiful woman laughs compassionately at the polygamist pasha +who needs a hundred women to find the hundred beauties of the human +Venus; and the beautiful woman, in the arsenal of her garments, in the +variety of her smiles, in the thousand undulations of her flexuous body, +evokes before the eyes of her lover not a hundred, but a thousand women, +all beautiful with a different beauty. + +Sight is the only sense which, in love, proceeds to effect moral and +intellectual discoveries in the person beloved; and we not only +contemplate to admire and to enjoy, but also to discover, by the flash +of the eye and the throbbing of the facial muscles, how many affections, +how many thoughts we can find in the one whom we intend to make ours +forever. However, beauty is such a powerful tyrant in love that it +forces us under its yoke and usurps the rights of the highest needs. A +beautiful woman who is desired seldom seems to us frivolous and +heartless, and the fascination of beauty may impel us to pardon every +crime, to accept the most shameful compromises with our conscience, and +may cause in us the most ridiculous and farcical hallucinations. +However, this fault is not of the eyes, that see, but of the senses, +that desire too ardently; and, above all, of nature, which has such a +loving care of the forms in which germs are moulded into living bodies. +Nature defends and protects the beautiful above everything else, perhaps +because it is the crucible in which the good and the true are melted +together. + +If I wished to indicate by an ideographic sign all the varied and +essential parts which the sense of sight assumes in love, I would use +the figure of a winged messenger, a sort of Mercury, with the left hand +leading Voluptuousness on the earth, and with the right directing our +gaze toward the highest regions of the ideal, where in holiest and most +tender company live the good and the beautiful, the true and the +sublime, where are preserved all the variform archetypes of sublimity. + + +Hearing has a small but interesting part in the story of love, if we set +aside the prominent part it has as an instrument of thought. We are not +to discuss here music or the value of ideas communicated through words, +but the purely sensual influence of the ear in amorous phenomena. + +Hearing yields some pleasures almost tactile, and always very sensual, +such as are brought to us by some sounds which may be termed lascivious +(the swish of a silk gown, the warbling of some birds, the murmur of +certain waves, etc.); but beyond these rare exceptions, hearing has a +tender, affectionate part. We would say that it stirs affections, +predisposing them to vibrate with the sweetest, most impassioned notes. +Man and woman have each a peculiar voice, and the sexual character of +the feminine voice affects man, while the virile timbre of his voice +causes woman's heart to throb with the most deeply sexual desires. There +are some feminine voices that cannot be heard with impunity, so suavely +do their notes penetrate into the greatest depths of the heart, which +throbs with excitement and emotion. The voice of some women resembles a +caress by the wing of a swan; and while it delights us, it perturbs and +confuses us, affects us deeply and lastingly. Man and woman, through the +notes of their voices, chastely reveal their sex, and the heart +palpitates violently, as that of a girl bathing, who, before trusting +her little foot to the wave, looks around as though frightened by the +rustle of the leaves. + + +The sound of the voice, beyond the idea it represents, cannot say, "I am +beautiful, I am intelligent," but it can say, alone, many other sweet +things: "I am a woman, I am very much of a woman, I desire much, I am +languishing with love, I am alone, I want you at once, I await you +ardently," etc. + +The seduction of the voice has some of the characteristics attributed +to ancient sorcery; it surprises, fascinates and conquers us, and we are +unable to discover the cause of such a storm roused by a few sounds, a +few words. We feel ourselves almost humiliated at being vanquished +without a battle, carried off without our consent; and the fascination +of a voice seems to us the work of a witch. More than once we have +resisted the seductions of sight, the violence of touch; but the voice +conquers us, delivers us, bound, hand and foot, into the arms of a +mysterious power which demands from us the blindest submission, against +which rebellion is impossible. And this influence of the voice lasts a +long time, is never forgotten, often survives love itself. + +After long years of silence, indifference, contempt, the wind carries to +us the sound of a voice; and we feel ourselves disturbed, surprised, +reconquered, as in the first day of our love. Hearing will cast its +fishing-line into the deepest waters of our affection; and more than one +love has been resuscitated miraculously from the coldest ashes by a dear +voice which we had, perhaps, long since forgotten. + + +Love has many mysterious relations to the olfactory sense. In the animal +world perfumes are often the more direct and powerful instigators in +amorous struggles; and even before the female has seen the companion by +whom she desires to be conquered, the wings of the wind have carried to +her nostrils a perfume that inebriates and fills her with +voluptuousness. + +This sense may be a powerful excitant in inferior races, or in the lower +type of men of high races, but it exercises, in love, a powerful +influence even in the most refined natures, by means of perfumes which +we have conquered from nature and which, by the omnipotence of +chemistry, we know how to reproduce without having recourse to the power +of life. We have brought into our power the essence of every petal, the +perfume of every calyx, of every leaf, of every bark, the repugnant +smell of many enamored animals, and, with impudent art, mixing the odors +of flowers with exciting aromas, we have concentrated in a few drops of +essence so much olfactory voluptuousness as warm spring could hardly +concentrate in a flowering meadow or in a tropical forest. Now the deep +and intense voluptuousness of perfumes is the daughter of a remote +atavism which makes us susceptible of the sexual exhalations of many +living beings and, solely for this reason, no sense has more intimate +ties with animal voluptuousness than smell. + +If you study the expression on the face of a woman who is scenting a +very odorous flower and feels as though inebriated, you will see that +such a picture resembles, more than anything else, a sublime scene of +love. Ask many over-sensual men and they will tell you that they cannot +visit with impunity the laboratories where essences and perfumes are +made. Ask the art of the perfume-maker, and it will answer that, after +having mixed a hundred essences of flowers and leaves, it gives relief +to and improves all those perfumes by adding an infinitesimal quantity +of a matter, fetid in itself, but taken from the organs of love of some +animal. Ask why women love perfumes so much, and perhaps a few will be +able to tell you, or will answer with a blush. And if by a long +experience they have already learned the most subtle mysteries of the +senses, all the finest arts of coquetry, they will tell you that +perfumes are a powerful weapon in the arsenal of love and that some of +them possess an irresistible charm over the senses of man. + +It is difficult to remain a long time in the warm atmosphere of +voluptuousness without sacrificing a great part of those noble forces +which are destined for higher attainments; and this explains why no +impassioned mania for perfumes can have a moral influence over us. He +who plunges into the tepid, titillating and morbid wave of odors no +longer measures his strength in relation to a chaste and robust +virility, but squeezes from the fruit the last drop of juice, and in the +rapid convulsion of weariness imagines new delights. But between this +human debasement and the contempt for perfumes there is an abyss, and by +abandoning them to the courtesan, or to the savage woman who anoints +herself from head to foot, we throw away, without any reason, much of a +dear and sweet voluptuousness which could be enjoyed and cultivated by +us without any offense to morals. + +Do you believe that a kiss given to that one whom you love and who is +yours, through the petals of a rose, is a sin of lust? Do you ever +believe that love gathered in a shower of violets, hyacinths and +narcissus, between the crepuscules of two sighs, could be called +lasciviousness? Nature is eternally rich, and the garlands we weave with +her flowers around our joys do not deplete her inexhaustible gardens. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +BOUNDARIES OF LOVE--THEIR RELATIONS TO OTHER SENTIMENTS--JEALOUSY + + +In the Apollo room in the Vatican you will see an ancient bas-relief +representing two bacchantes with the Dionysian thyrsus; one is standing, +while the heat of voluptuousness is flaming within her; she bears the +thyrsus, lust transpires on her face, and a bull is beating his horns +against her legs; the other falls exhausted from intoxication. These are +two moments of the voluptuousness of love, but they are also the two +most elementary forms of the sentiment that bind man to woman. Now an +ardent energy, then calm possession; now struggle that conquers, then +affectionate blandishment that restrains. The most sublime, most +constant, most perfect love that a man of superior race can desire or +dream of, is a hot, bright flame, lasting as long as life, and at which, +from time to time, are kindled the sparks of a desire that flares up, +wavers and disappears. + +Love, in comparison with all other sentiments, is such a thing that, +when it comes in contact with them, it rules, attracts and draws them +into the orbit of its movements, like a small fragment of cosmic matter +which, having come too near to the sun, is attracted and devoured by +that body. The sentiments are forces, each controlled by certain laws in +its own sphere; when they come together, they conglomerate or eliminate +each other, or exercise a mutual influence which causes them to deviate +from the line followed by them a moment before. When an affection +approaches love it is so powerfully influenced by it as to seem to +disappear from the sight of the common people, while neither matter nor +force can ever be destroyed, but can only change in form. + +On this subject many fallacious arguments are advanced every day. It is +said, for instance, that love is the most egotistic of sentiments, +because we seek in it the greatest voluptuousness; but love and egotism +are two affections that follow very different orbits, since the former +causes us to love another creature and has as its object the +preservation of the species, while the latter makes us love ourselves +and tends to preserve the individual. If by egotism we mean the desire +of satisfying a need, then all the sentiments, even the most generous +ones, could be considered as forms of egotism, since even the martyr +satisfies a very high need of a generous sentiment. + +Love is, on the contrary, at perpetual war with egotism; and although +the latter is a gigantic affection, yet it pales before the brilliant +light of the Titan of the Affections. Many animals prefer death to +abandoning the faithful companion. Even the toad suffers himself to be +tortured, burned, to have his limbs amputated, his eyes gouged; but as +long as he has one limb intact, he uses it to embrace the female in an +amorous clasp. And do we not, too, offer as holocaust to love wealth, +glory, science? Does not woman offer to love the long illness of +gestation, the tortures of childbirth, the pains of nursing, the anxious +cares of domestic and educational struggles? And how many think, in the +intoxication of love, of the bitterness and the thorns which they are +sowing in that moment; the history of sorrow which, perhaps, by an +inexorable law, they are preparing for themselves? + +Even the most perfect egotist, if he be a healthy man, desires and loves +a woman. Apart from a few elect creatures to whom the supreme joys of +the creations of thought are permitted, love represents the greatest of +energies, the crowning of every edifice. We may thirst for wealth and +glory as the greatest of joys, but in the background we behold the +outline of a feminine creature at whose feet the trophies of victory +must be laid. I do not speak of woman, because, for her, every satisfied +vanity, every hoped for glory, all riches desired, every flower and +every fruit of the garden of life must be laid at the feet of somebody, +and this somebody is always a man. The fireworks with which every +festivity of life ends must always be a woman; at the bottom of every +vulgar revelry and on the horizon of every sublime glory there is ever +an Eve. To love and to be loved is of all human things the best; and +even in the world of the suprasensible, the religions of every country +have always promised to the good and the believer an eternity of love in +the harem of voluptuousness, or in a mystic but amorous ecstasy. Read +the burning pages of the mystic writers, and you will be able to tell me +if all that fantastic world is not, too, a transubstantiation of love. +The gods of every Olympus also have a sexual form, and there are +feminine forms for the males and masculine forms for the females. From +the cradle to the grave, love is for all and always the highest promise. +Between the automatic lust of adolescence and the studied and covetous +lecheries of old age, we pass, through the feverish hysteria of early +youth, to the deep passions of virility; but for every age love is the +sweetest joy. The tocsin of old age begins to sound when, with the first +white hairs, we fear that we are no longer able to love; and every one +ardently, anxiously hopes that the hour, the minute will never come for +him in which he shall be compelled to say the tremendous words: "I +cannot." + +I do not deny that in some human monsters egotism, as a sacrifice made +to the god "Myself," is so powerful as to exclude love; but such cases +are very rare if they last the whole life, rare when they last for a +shorter period. It often occurs that a man, trained to and living in the +most sordid egotism, falls in love when old with a poor young girl, and +becomes expansive with her, generous, prodigal, perhaps; and he too +pays, at one time and in a very ridiculous way, the debt which nature in +vain claimed from him during his young and mature age. + +Great egotists also love, but in a selfish manner, denying the most +prodigal and most splendid of the passions that tribute which they +cannot refuse to themselves. They are ignorant of the most sublime joys, +of the most inebriating enthusiasms of love, of the holy voluptuousness +of loving a woman more than oneself; but they also love, they love in +their own way. If you wish to study the physiognomy of egotistical love, +compare man's with woman's love and you will find it easy to penetrate +into the mysteries of this part of psychology; and if you desire a more +striking contrast, that the differences may be represented in a bolder +relief, compare the love of an old man with that of a young woman: you +will have in the former an egotistical type of love, in the latter a +generous one. + +More complex are the influences which the sentiment of possession and +that of self-esteem exercise upon love, and the importance given to +jealousy is sufficient to prove this. + +The physiological study of jealousy would be sufficient, if it were +still needed, to demonstrate the queer confusion of language in relation +to psychical facts. One would say that it is the language of the +alchemists, employed to express the chemical composition of bodies; one +would believe that we are still dealing with the "nothing white," the +"philosophic wool" and the "tetrascelitetraoxicoquindodeca" of our good +ancestors. + +Jealousy really signifies a pain of the sentiment of love, or, to be +more specific, the sentiment caused by the offense done us through the +infidelity of the person we love. This pain is natural in all men, in +all times and in almost all races. It is the injury to our property +applied to love. The child scratches and bites him who touches or spoils +its fruits or its toy; it grieves us to be robbed of our books, of the +flowers of our garden. It is natural, then, that he who touches our +sweetheart, our dearest thing, should be hated. And, in fact, this +jealousy is but a form of hatred, the most natural, the most legitimate +of all hatreds. It is not necessary to create a new energy or a new word +to express this hatred. We may beat or kill a man because he has +brutally offended our son, our father, our friend, our country, our +sweetheart; five offenses given to five different sentiments, but always +hatred aroused by grief, energy developed by the same mechanism. The +paternal, the filial, the friendly sentiment, the devotion to our +country, love have been offended in us, and we have responded with a +centrifugal hatred, with blows or death. But in these various cases, was +the presence of a new sentiment deemed necessary in order that the crime +might be committed? Certainly not. It was said that the paternal +affection, injured, had aroused such distress in us as to lead to +assault or assassination; it was simply asserted that an insult to the +flag of our country had rendered us blind and led us to commit violence; +and why, then, when love is offended, should we create a new +sentiment--jealousy? All sentiments, when satisfied, lead us to close +friendships, to endearments, to be of assistance to those who have given +us these satisfactions. All injured sentiments lead us, on the contrary, +to repel those who have offended them, to harm those from whom we have +received that pain. + +Is it jealousy, then, the hatred that an animal manifests toward any +creature which interrupts it in its loves? Well, for many savages, to +whom love is nothing but sexual intercourse, all the phenomena of +jealousy are reduced to this single form. When the instinct is +satisfied, as the unions are promiscuous and woman is considered common +property, there can be no jealousy. If woman is a cup out of which every +one may drink, why should there be jealousy? A Bolivian woman once +cynically told me: "Woman is the water of a stream. Throw a stone into +it: will you be able to tell me a minute afterward where the stone broke +that water? You are very foolish, you man, to make distinctions between +identical things!" + +In polygamous races, man only can be jealous; in polyandric ones, woman +alone can be jealous legally. With various nations, woman is a property +like any other; hence she can be voluntarily offered to the friend or to +the guest, like a horse or a dog. They do not want anybody to steal her, +but she can be given away without either disgrace or jealousy. Only in +the higher and monogamous races the sentiments of love, self-esteem and +property, forming a triple armor around our woman, incite us to defend +her "with claws and beak"; and to this unyielding body, consisting of +the union of three sentiments, we give the name of "jealousy"; and here +we have a second psychical form, another thing called by the same name. + +But, as though such confusion were not already excessive, we have called +jealousy a special psychical individual organization by which we become +suspicious and tyrannical toward the person we love and whom we offend +without any reason and from whom we withhold all legitimate liberty. And +after having confused three different things, that is to say, the grief +of injured love, the triple combination of three sentiments--love, +self-pride, possession--and a pathological irritability of suspicion, we +discuss at length, and always in vain, in order to decide whether all +men are jealous and whether jealousy measures love with an exact ruler +and whether anyone can love without being jealous: vain, not to say +puerile, discussions, which would not take place if words were +previously defined. If by jealousy you mean the sorrow caused by not +being loved or by being deceived, then every heart that loves must be +jealous; thus, whoever loves country, mother, son, cannot witness +without sorrow an offense offered to son, mother, country. But if by +jealousy you mean that form of tyrannical suspicion which tortures the +person possessed by it, then I shall tell you that we very well can and +should love without ever feeling that jealousy, and that we can be +jealous even without loving. Let us proceed to an elementary analysis, +and we shall understand each other. Under the name of a single +sentiment, of a single effective energy, the most dissimilar phenomena +are grouped, to wit: + + + (1) The sorrow caused by a love offense; + + (2) The sorrow for an injury to property; + + (3) A sorrow born of the sentiment of self-esteem; + + (4) An habitual, constitutional suspicion, which centers on the + person beloved or possessed. + + +The only common ties among these psychical phenomena are these: that all +apply to a love offended, or alleged to be offended, and that they are +all accompanied by grief. Such an empiricism, such a coarse empiricism! +Is this not actual alchemy, that which called all volatile bodies +"spirits," and the oxide of zinc "philosophic wool"! + +As jealousy is not an elementary psychical phenomenon, but simply an +empirical mixture, it has many and varied ethnical forms, and becomes +necessary in all countries where polygamy prevents man from physically +and morally satisfying a woman, and where the husband, merely because he +is rich and powerful, selects his wife and forces his love upon her. The +jealousy of many Oriental nations is proverbial, and perhaps monogamous +peoples become jealous through contact with polygamous ones, as in +Sicily and in certain parts of Spain. It seems to me, however, that in +some cases jealousy has not a clear historical origin, but assumes an +ethnical character, according to the special constitution of a race. In +any case, in Europe, Italians, Spaniards, and, above all, Portuguese are +very jealous; and, as I learned, in America the most jealous of all are +the Brazilians. + +The common people will certainly not be persuaded by my psychological +analysis, and will continue to measure the force of love by the +unreasonableness of suspicion; and many dear and lovely women will +continue, heaven knows for how many centuries, to taunt their lovers +with this foolish plaint: "You do not love me because you are not +jealous. How can you love me if you do not feel for me the slightest +jealousy?" Foolish lamentations, often uttered by happy creatures who, +perhaps, finding it strange and against nature to be too happy, look for +some occasion of sorrow and regret. Can anyone love anybody on earth +more deeply than one's own children? Certainly not; and yet we are not +jealous when others love them, and father and mother sublimely vie with +each other in adoring and fondling them. You should love your companion +in love in the same manner; and if you fear to lose him, that fear must +not be the wrath of the inquisitor nor the clutch of the miser. Vain +counsels! Words thrown to the winds! Jealousy is one of the most +constitutional psychological maladies, and, if one is born with it, it +is very difficult to cure. May a benign fate keep it from you! It +poisons the dearest joys of life; penetrates every pore of the skin; +pours its gall into every drop of water, into every mouthful of bread; +it transforms the man who loves into a policeman, always armed, with +alert ear and prying eyes. And the jealous man is always spying, +doubting, suffering; he investigates the past, the present and the +future; he seeks the lie in a caress, indifference in a kiss; in love he +always fears hypocrisy. What a hellish life! It is a hundred times +better not to love than to love in this way. The punishment of the few +jealous men with exquisitely gentle heart should be this: to know that +those who are as jealous as they generally entertain more self-love than +love, and that the highest and noblest creatures have always loved +without jealousy. The day when we perceive that we are no longer loved, +when we are deceived, let love die without replacing it with jealousy. +From suspicion to condemnation or acquittal, between sincere lovers, the +path cannot and must not be a long one; to a frank question, a frank +answer; let suspicion or love die, but they should die in a hurricane or +in a battle, die a violent death; they should not drag a miserable +existence between the courts and the prisons. A hundred times better a +lightning that kills us than the feverish jaundice which consumes the +stamina of our lives, poisons all sources of our joy. + +Jealousy, besides, as it has already largely declined in monogamous +society, will continue to decrease in the future, when matrimony shall +be but the sanctification of love, when the choice shall be always +reciprocal, when in the moral relations between the two sexes all trace +of hypocrisy shall have disappeared. To know that we are loved, +esteemed, and to love and esteem our companion, deeply and sincerely, is +the surest guarantee of defense against that sordid parasite, that +wood-worm of love which is jealousy. Let woman cease to be a slave or a +freedwoman, let the husband or lover cease to be the proprietor of a +woman, and all those lepers of love, the jealousy-mad, will disappear at +once. + +Self-esteem, independent of jealousy, has many legitimate relations to +love, of which it enriches the treasures. No man, no woman in the +world, knowing that he or she is loved by a most noble creature, can +help feeling proud; and if a delicate reserve prohibits our heralding +our good fortune, we can, however, relish the secret joy of knowing that +the world envies us. It is almost always beyond human strength to +renounce these joys, which can be delighted in without humiliating +others and without any shadow of rancor. Woman, especially, with +admirable art, knows how to say countless things silently; and when she +is proud of a noble love, she radiates such an aureole of light as to +dazzle the adorer and the apathetic. With the majesty of a queen and the +reserve of a woman, and without opening her lips, she can say to all: +"Envy me; I am loved!" Holy and just and chaste pride, which I wish all +the daughters of Eve who shall have deserved love should feel. + +Lovers and sweethearts, choirs of adorers and famous beauties may be +objects of luxury, as are horses and palaces; and it is natural for +human vanity to seek those things and to appreciate and utilize them to +humiliate those who have them not. Vanity uses love, then, as a pretext; +and many women, incapable of loving, may conquer men solely as trophies +of war, just as men oftener than women may, through pure vanity, +undertake a war of conquest. All these facts, however, belong to the +history of pride and vanity, and we have already dealt with them in our +study on the sources of love. + + +In that study we have seen by what paths one is led to love, and we were +therefore obliged to consider friendship, compassion and many other +sentiments as sources of love. But all endearing sentiments may have +relation to the Prince of Affections; that is to say, take the place of +love that wanes. When the sun shines in the heavens, the light of the +moon and that of the minor stars are invisible; and in the same way, +when love glows above the horizon of life, friendship, compassion, and +all other tender affections can no longer be seen or felt; but when love +disappears we can see the minor sentiments take its place. + +Esteem, veneration and all other analogous sentiments may be companions +of love; but only too often they are bestowed upon a creature who little +deserves them. Love is a wizard that transforms and beautifies and +magnifies everything he touches; and we can have immense esteem and deep +veneration for the most despicable man, for the most abject, most wicked +woman. It does not reflect much honor upon us, but it is true. No +brigand ever stood in need of loves, often deep and ardent, and no +beautiful courtesan ever lacked illustrious lovers. What does it matter +if the object of love is a disgrace in everybody's eyes, spat upon by +public contempt, set in the pillory of universal hatred? + +We love him, we love her; that is enough. And why do we love him? Why do +we love her? Because it pleases us. Before the inappellable rudeness of +this explanation what can science say, what can morality suggest? + +Science recognizes the fact and explains it. A creature despicable in +every respect must please us very much to inspire us with love; and this +sentiment must be really gigantic if it conquers human +conventionalities, vulgar prejudices and the most persistent habits. It +has been said with much truth that no woman was more ardently loved than +a homely woman; and the same may be said of a brutal or criminal man, a +woman of the street or abject for any reason. A great man, if accused of +loving a debased or silly woman, could often, blushing with shame, strip +her before the world, like ancient Phryne, saying: "Let him dare throw +the first stone at me, who feels himself incapable of loving this +beautiful creature!" And the man who, through crime or baseness, has +been banned from civilized society, has in his heart, for the woman who +loves him, some pure and virgin oasis in which his love is lying; he +still has some untainted place reserved in his soul for the beloved one; +and this love, concealed and bitter, possesses, for certain natures, all +the perilous seductions of strong aromas and intoxicating poisons. No +man in the world is entirely wicked; and some of the ferocious +kindnesses of the assassin, some of the generous impulses of the thief +are preserved for the companion of love. Such is the omnipotence of +this sentiment, which, like an ancient alchemist, transmutes the vilest +metals into liquid gold and discovers the only diamond buried in the +sand of a great alluvium! Science, then, admits loves without esteem, +and, bowing its head with a blush of shame, acknowledges that they are +only too frequent. + +Where science is still and humiliates itself, morality erects its head +and flagellates. Love without esteem is a crime--and a crime which +breeds other crimes. Woe to us when, bold avengers of public contempt, +we dare boast of loving a vile creature, and impudently parade such +love, as though intending by our arrogance to impose silence on +indignant decency, or by our insolence to act as pedestal for the +offended paramour! Liars in our own eyes, we defy, alone, the holiest +and most inviolable laws of beauty and honesty; and proud, first, then +bold and insolent, we end by becoming truly ribalds, and all encircled +and hidden by mire, we permit no gentle creature to approach us who +could inspire us with a pure and noble affection. Human passions may try +many stunts and tricks, but, in the end, natural sentiments, like normal +situations, are the healthiest and most enjoyable. We can raise, for an +instant, the vilest creatures on the shield of pride, but our arms will +tire and we will roll into the mire, together with our idol of a day. + +The woman we love must not only be the companion of our voluptuousness, +but also the mother of our children; the man a woman loves must be the +husband and the father of the family. We should not consecrate the blush +of our face in that of our children, who will curse our wicked loves, +and will, perhaps, execrate the name of the father or the memory of the +mother. When pride has lost its keenness, and the hour of revenge has +passed, woe to us if we shall find ourselves alone with a creature whom +we cannot hold in estimation! + +If Love is really the holiest thing of life, the most ardent affection, +the most voluptuous joy, we must erect a temple to him, with our own +hands, and with our most sublime sentiments decorate his tabernacle, in +which we can worthily adore him as a god. Love born among crimes and +turpitudes is a nest woven with thorny shrubs and thistles, while we +should weave it with the most aromatic leaves and the most beautiful +flowers. Men and women, we should vie with each other in gleaning fields +and gardens and in bearing to love every gentle affection, every noble +aspiration, every impulse of lofty ambition. Lust and pride, when +coupled, become the step-parents of every love without esteem, which, +like every organism born of evil, lives a scrofulous and rachitic life, +full of sorrows and calamities. + +If love is really the most precious gem, we should enclose it in a +casket which, for richness of material, artistic skill and inimitable +esthetic conception, should be worthy of its contents. Nothing but +noblest things should touch it; no breath, unless perfumed with +sandalwood and roses, should be exhaled near it; no hand but that of an +angel should caress it; no heat should warm it but that of the kisses of +two loving lips. + +If woman should concede her love only to the honest and industrious man, +if it were possible that man loved no woman but a modest one, we would +see the human family regenerated in the course of a generation, we would +see men educated through voluptuousness. For the prison that terrifies, +for the hell that threatens, we would then substitute the caresses of a +woman, the kisses of a man, as educative energies. Shall this eternally +be a dream? Shall we always threaten and assault men to make them +better? Shall we not have a medicine less cruel than sorrow to cure men +of vice and crime? + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +BOUNDARIES OF LOVE--THEIR RELATIONS TO THOUGHT + + +Thought may, for very different reasons, now be an ally and now a victim +of love. First instrument of seduction, next to the external form of the +body, thought revives, flares up in contact with the new sentiment, as +occurs with every other energy condensed in our brain; and while it +becomes purer, it strengthens itself, exhibiting some of its rarest, +most exquisite fruits. Many torpid intellects do not awake except by the +kiss of love, and then only to fall back into the previous lethargy the +moment they are left without the stimulus of desire; but healthier +brains, too, rise above themselves when called upon to offer an unusual +tribute on the new altar. For very many, poetry is the song of spring, +and, prosaic and mute before having loved, they return to their prose +and taciturnity when the season of loves is past. As they are men, they +may continue to possess a woman; but being poor in moral energy, in the +May of their life they have only a smile of poetry, lasting as long as +the petals of a rose. Their cold and indolent imagination indulges in a +little flight among the bushes of the garden or the orchard; emits its +feeble trill, then falls wingless on the highroad, plodding until death. +How often a woman, who has been loved by one of these spring lovers and +who remembers having once seen him, an ardent creature, full of +imagination, finds it very difficult to persuade herself that the man +who today is all prose, from head to foot, living between his chocolate +and his nightcap, wearing seven varieties of flannels, and using ten +different kinds of lozenges, once wrote verses and fell on his knees at +her feet, which he covered with bitter tears! + +More fortunate men, instead, derive from their loves a continual and +powerful stimulus to the works of thought, which seems to reshape and +renew itself at each different phase of passion, at each change of love. +These influences upon the lives of many artists, poets, and even +statesmen can be studied in their works, and have a stronger power when +the artist, the poet, the head of the state is a woman. + +The influence of love upon the forces and forms of thought is twofold, +and is derived from self-love and from the psychical nature of the +person loved. Being a sentiment born during youth or rejuvenated during +old age, it especially excites the imagination and refines the aptitude +for reproducing the beautiful; in a few words, it warms those mental +aptitudes that generally reach their climax at the same age when love +manifests its greatest energies. Very rarely a man can be a poet or a +great artist without having loved intensely, without having had at least +a great capacity for loving. Chastity, forced or voluntary, may conceal +love; but down in the depths of the heart some images, resembling an +angel more than a woman, have sway, rising at every inspiration of +genius, at every song of the lyre, at every touch of the brush, and +reviving or kindling the sacred fire of art. The genius of many among +the greatest poets, artists and writers of the world had love as its +first companion and supreme inspirer; and without this sentiment their +names might be totally unknown to us. The love that is born in a sublime +brain accumulates gigantic forces, and chastity, always imposed by great +passions in their first stage, refines and intensifies them; so that +love seems to transform into genius, and genius dyes with splendid hues +every amorous manifestation. A chaste genius which loves is a legion of +fighting forces, a whole host of winged geniuses, and therefore no +difficult question, no irresistible force can oppose it. Thought, when +the companion of love, offers to it the richest tributes of its energy, +just as the enamored bird sings its most harmonious notes for its +companion, the flower condenses all its perfumes and the fascination of +its most beautiful colors around the nest in which plants love. And +with thought, intensified, transformed, adorned with all its splendors, +goes the stimulus of self-esteem, which in the satisfaction of pride of +the person loved finds always new incitement and new incentive to work. +Nor does the creature loved receive only the tribute, but from the +enthusiastic eloquence with which gratitude is expressed by that +creature, it is manifest that the latter also feels the same inciting +influence, and the most modest and stillest tongue finds splendors of +form and savoriness of style unknown to that day. + +A long experience in every country of the world demonstrates the +superiority of woman over man in the epistolary style and especially in +love-letter writing, which is the effect not only of the peculiar nature +of the feminine mind but also of the powerful excitement created in +woman by the stimulus of love. A letter is nearly always an exchange of +affections, and woman more than man feels the intimate relations between +two affections; she loves more and better than we. Man has a hundred +different ways of exerting his talents when excited by love; art, +ambition, science open to him a thousand avenues to manifest his new +energies; to woman, on the contrary, no literary path is open other than +amorous correspondence, and she uses and abuses it in a surprising +manner. In the numberless hecatombs, in the daily pyres of many perfumed +letters, real treasures of art are being destroyed, which should be +saved from the conflagration that consumes so many volumes of words and +phrases; for the commonplace always dominates every field of good and +evil, and commonplace, like all things human, are most loves. Was it not +Balzac who said: "It is recognized that in love all women have some +'esprit'"? + +The eloquence of love, a real song of a gifted mind in love, is not +contradicted by the timid and often dull silence which invariably +accompanies the first declarations, the first skirmishes. Fear in all +its forms desiccates the mouth and the pharynx, suspends nearly +instantaneously the secretions of mucus and saliva, and many are made +physically unable to speak, in the same manner as when a violent mental +perturbation disconcerts ideas and words, so that eloquence is reduced +to an absolute silence, possibly interrupted only by disconnected +phrases. That man so mute in love, however, has hardly returned to the +quiet of his solitary room when he suddenly becomes a new Demosthenes, +and pours out into space or on paper the rivers of a fiery eloquence, +which a few moments before would have proved so opportune and so +beautiful. Happy love, in the stage of attainment, raises all brains +above medium temperature, continually infusing new energies into them. +Even during the intoxication, the thyrsus of the dithyramb never falls +from the hand of the happy mortal who loves or hopes to be loved. When, +on the contrary, our affection vibrates with the notes of sorrow, a +sublime elegy may be produced as the outburst of thought; one can become +poet or insane. Brains better organized are cured of the great sorrows +of the heart with a book, or a musical creation, or a picture; but many +human brains submerge in the hurricane of an unhappy love, and the +statistics of the hospitals for the insane always show a large number of +cases of insanity produced by love, while in the secrecy of the domestic +walls are concealed many other brains withered or fallen into lethargy +through unfortunate loves. + +I am writing in these pages a modest essay of general physiology, or, as +it is usually termed, psychology, and have neither the right nor the +strength to undertake the work of literary critic, which still remains +to be done, notwithstanding the very beautiful things written by many +upon the influence of love in art. Not only has every poet and every +artist (and I consider the writer the greatest of all) left in his works +the imprint of his loves, but he has felt and interpreted love in a way +entirely his own, and which in some cases became the style of a school +or an epoch. The woman loved by Byron is quite different from the woman +loved by Burns; Laura is not Beatrice, and the woman dimly discerned by +Leopardi is not Vittoria Colonna. To study the influences of the times +and the mind over the particular mouldings of the loves of great men--in +a few words, to draw the comparative psychology of celebrated loves and +of the amorous types of art--is a gigantic labor, in which the artist, +the psychologist and the literary man should join hands in order to +produce a work worthy of the subject. For me it will suffice to have +prepared in the present essay some materials for this work of the +future. + +Love ceases to be an impulse for thought and becomes its first assassin, +not only when it is unhappy, but also when it sinks into the mud of +lust. Chastity is an almost entirely hygienic question, and here we +should mark the place where the hygienic branch shoots out from the +great trunk of physiology. No embrace has ever debased thought when +voluptuousness was only love; but when lasciviousness is stronger than +sentiment and the animal man regrets having given too much of himself to +the future, then the individual rebels against the excessive tribute +paid to the preservation of the species. Then the animal man is diseased +and the moral man has fallen into libertinism. No; nature never punishes +him who wisely obeys its laws, and after the sacrifice of love man is as +happy and intelligent as before, since, in the blessed languor of a +brief repose, nature stills even the pain of weariness. + +"Lay waste the entire forest of concupiscence, not one tree alone. When +you shall have felled every tree, cut every branch, you can then +pronounce yourselves free, pure, virtuous," exclaims the Dhammapada, and +science utters the same cry, but instead of the word "concupiscence" it +writes the more precise term "lust." In our organism every function is +so well regulated that we, like the citron, can always bear leaves, +flowers and fruits, provided we do not sacrifice the fruit to the flower +and do not imitate the monstrous flowers with over-expanded petals or +seedless fruits. Wise chastity is the ablest administrator of vital +harmonies and energies; love and labor do not oppose each other, as many +too exacting or hypercritical moralists are continually repeating with +too rigid severity. + +I have previously stated that the influence of love over thought is +twofold, and we have still to study its second manifestation, namely, +the influence exerted by the psychical nature of the person loved. Two +creatures who love each other are two bodies differently electrified, +continually exchanging currents of energy in order to reëstablish the +equilibrium of forces and obey the law of universal affinity. But, since +no two identical creatures, no two identical brains, no two identical +sentiments ever exist in nature, it follows that, of the two thoughts +brought face to face by love, one exercises an influence of attraction +greater than the other, and consequently one of the two gives more than +it receives. Generally the stronger mind exercises a greater +fascination; and as the mind of man is oftener greater than that of +woman, the latter more easily follows the ideas, the theories, the +intellectual tastes of man. It is not always true, however, that a +greater attraction betokens a greater mental force, since some peculiar +characteristics of certain intellects render them more fascinating, +their contact more dangerous and richer in elective affinity. Thought +may be robust, original; but if rigid, rude and without any weapon of +conquest, it lives alone, in solitary loftiness, and the person loved +contemplates it with admiration, but feels no attraction. It is like a +star, too cold and too distant for us to desire. Some other talents, on +the contrary, seem to be magnetized, so strongly do they adhere to men +and things; and when we approach them, we feel ourselves absorbed and, +after their contact, carry away some influence of contagion, of +fascination, of imitation. These magnetic brains combine with the other +amorous seductions another and most powerful one, that of subjugating +and bending the mind of the person loved, so that to the sweet chain of +affection is added the chain of thought. + +A most peculiar and little studied influence of fascinating talents is +seen in some women, who add to their other admirable qualities the power +of conquering the thought of men whose minds are stronger and swifter +than theirs. Living with them, breathing their moral atmosphere, it +becomes impossible, even for the most tenacious opposers of the ideas of +others, not to think as they think, not to write as they write, not to +acquire certain psychical tastes which constitute their delight. The +style of certain writers, the manner of certain painters have +unconsciously yielded to these slow and mysterious influences; and the +masses, investigating the origin of these esthetic mutations, seek it in +mysterious causes and in evolutions of art and science, while, instead, +they have a humbler but more natural source. The style and manner +changed when the head was resting on the bosom of a blonde friend, or +the hand playing among the curly labyrinths of raven hair. In the +history of arts and of literature, mention of these influences is nearly +always omitted because nearly always they are unknown to the biographer, +and often unknown to the artist and the poet who was subject to them. +Woman always confesses, and frequently with pride, that she has moulded +her thought on that of her friend; man hardly acknowledges this, and if +warned by criticism, rebels and feels hurt by such an odd accusation. +How and when should the king of the universe ever change the style and +the direction of his thought through the influence of a kiss or a +caress? "Mine, and only mine!" exclaims the man who loves. "His, and +only his!" always sighs the woman who loves; and I must, although with +different words, have frequently said the same thing in this book. + +It is not only the robust and attracting nature of human brains that +measures their various influences in the struggles and the caresses of +love, but it is the degree that causes the high influences of thought to +be differently felt. The more one loves, the more one yields to the +fascination of another's talent; the more one loves, the more one is +disposed to abdicate one's own ideas and esthetic tastes in order to +assume the ideas and the tastes of the person loved. Man, proudly +awkward, constantly repeats in every tone that in politics, morality, +religion, woman thinks always like her lover; and by this he deludes +himself into believing that he affirms with the most eloquent proof the +uncontrasted superiority of his mind. However, in our case he fails to +mention a reason, most honorable for woman and little for us: woman +generally feels more deeply the influence of a virile thought, not only +because she is weaker than we, but because she loves us much more than +we ever could love. She sacrifices instantly and willingly even +self-pride to love; man rarely and with difficulty makes this sacrifice. +"She is silly, but beautiful," we say, feeling very happy. Woman, on the +contrary, says oftener than we: "How can Democracy be respectable if he +insults it every day? And how cannot Socialism be a sacred thing if it +is his religion?" Man is always right for the woman who loves him, +because she can seldom love without esteem. We, indeed, allow ourselves +to love with all our senses a woman whom we cannot or must not hold in +estimation. This difference would be sufficient to demonstrate that, in +the psychical evolution of the two sexes, woman is ahead of us in the +esthetic of sentiment, as we outrun her in intellectual development. +Woman has already attained perfect love, which is the fusion of all +human elements, the selection of selections; we see the concubine even +in the sweetheart and in the wife; and the highest talent does not +disdain to pour out the molten metal of its thoughts into the mould of a +Venus who hardly could be called heavenly. In matters of love we are +disciples oftener than masters on the field of sentiment. + +Whatever be the reason for which a brain in love bends its love +companion with a larger power of influence, the tyrant, too, undergoes +the influence of the victim. Two thoughts cannot impunely be enclosed in +the same atmosphere, they cannot follow the orbit of the same planetary +system. The one gives much, and the other gives little; the one receives +more than it gives, the other gives more than it receives; but they both +alter and exchange influences and energies. This is a consequence of the +most elementary laws of physics: two loves and two brains are two +systems of forces; and, however powerful one may be in comparison with +the other, they both must undergo, in their contacts, a molecular +modification of their movements. To the direct influence of love add the +automatic power of imitation, the tyranny of habit, the epicurism of the +compromise of ideas and of conscience, and many other minor causes, and +you will see how inexorably thought must change when we think in two. + +Not all intellectual phenomena undergo the influence of love in equal +measure, but those feel it most who by contacts and origins are nearer +to the energies of sentiment or are interwoven with them, constituting +binary bodies, composed of affection and thought. Religion and morality +are more easily modified than esthetic tastes, and these change more +frequently than philosophical theories or the method of study. There is +a certain architecture in our brains that constitutes their framework +and can be destroyed only by death or insanity. Against it love is +powerless; furthermore, certain intellectual antitheses between a man +and a woman are enough to render love impossible, even when the sympathy +of forms and a certain community of affections violently rouse the +sovereign of sentiments. + +To scorn influences of love over thought may be the fruit of pride, but +it is also, more frequently, an incontrovertible proof of crass +ignorance,--pride and ignorance which we shall bitterly expiate, +because, if we today may be contented with the beauty of form, and if +robust youth, comforted later by coquetry, may prolong the life of love +founded on voluptuousness only, the day will come, sooner or later, in +which, when the great disparity of brains shall destroy every hope of +common intelligence, we shall find ourselves in the presence of this +horned dilemma: either to renounce dual thought--horrible amputation of +intellectual life--or lower ourselves more every day in order that the +voice of a person who speaks in a subdued tone may reach our ear. Hence +a continual toil, a weary and sad exertion, the impairment of lofty +intellects and the disorders of weak brains; hence the inevitable death +of a love which should have submerged only with the last plank of +shipwrecked beauty; hence the veiled polygamy of our modern society, +profoundly hypocritical, because it is so impatient that it wants to +run, when it has only the strength to walk slowly; because it is so +petulant that it wants to jump while its legs are still tied by the +sacred straps of the middle ages. + +We must all inexorably yield to the influence of thought in love. If our +robust brain can elevate in some little measure the smaller one of the +person we love, we must always descend from our lofty plane, lowering +the level of our thought and wasting many of the nobler forces of human +progress. A certain disparity of levels is inevitable, but it should +never be excessive, because, in the continual efforts to equalize them, +in the sorrowful struggles to reach them, a great part of love may be +wretchedly dissolved. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHASTITY IN ITS RELATIONS TO LOVE + + +This chapter may to many readers seem utterly useless in a psychological +work, since chastity is a question of hygiene or a negation of love; and +in any case, someone could whisper in my ear: "_Non est hic locus_." Let +the enemies of chastity, or those who do not know what chastity is, jump +this chapter, which will be among the shortest in the book, and allow +us, when we speak of light, to say at least what shade means. + +Chastity is the shadow of love, and the most enthusiastic among the +adorers of the sun seeks always the friendly shade of a tree where, +among the labyrinths of the knotty roots, or on the soft carpet of a +meadow, he can slowly drink in the light of which he went in search; he, +too, must love a tranquil shade from which to contemplate without injury +the distant splendors of the supreme father of every energy and every +heat. Even in the desert of sand called the Sahara, or in the desert of +grass called the Pampas, man feels the necessity of resting in the +shadow of his camel, or of his horse, to brood voluptuously over the +long and fiery suns absorbed. Repose you, also, then in the shadow of +the hair, of the eyebrows of your sweetheart to relish the long memories +of the lightning flashes of love. + +Chastity is not only repose, but also a wise and powerful creation of +new energies and infinite poetry. Voluptuousness is a hurricane or +thunderbolt, but always a superior force which brutally rends and +brutally bends the tree of life, dashing the leaves against the ground +that nourishes them. Chastity is a boundless temple, in which the fresh +and silent atmosphere dries the sweat of the struggles, refreshes the +sultry air of the battle and restores calm to every turbulent and +stormy brow. The chastity of two lovers is a real temple in which the +animal man collects himself, prays and invokes an unknown god that he +may make him an angel; and love is purified, cleansed of all mire, and +soars on its wings to the highest regions of the ideal. Desire, when +subdued without violence but without hesitation by chastity, lowers its +eyes, bows its head and kneels before the statue of love, and, quivering +but subdued, caresses with its long neck and warm hair the soft knees, +like an enamored swan fondled by the gentle hand of a nude but chaste +woman. + +Have you ever noticed two lovers who, sitting on one chair, read the +same book together, while a little child, the fruit of their first +loves, sits at their feet, chattering and prattling? When that little +angel raises its head too petulantly or screams too boisterously, the +fondling hand of the mother or that of the father will silence him. Thus +must desire long remain under restraint at the feet of the two lovers, +obeying an amorous voice and not the rod of the schoolmaster of old. + +No more odious virtue exists than chastity taught by the intolerant and +often not very chaste prude; no more delicate, more sublime virtue than +chastity taught by love and by the noblest faculties of the human mind. +An immodest love, an unchaste love may be happy for a time; it may laugh +and smile, let itself be carried away by the maelstrom of voluptuousness +into a revel of unrestrained dances; but it is always an inebriated +love, and inebriety ends quickly and, generally, very badly. Chaste love +is ardent but serene; a love always armed and always cheerful; a +sapphire illuminated by electric light. Self-imposed chastity is a +hidden form of onanism, disease or mania; the evidence of something +lacking in a man, or of a violent amputation, of a cruel mutilation. The +free and sweet chastity of two lovers is a most wise lust, which +sacrifices the daily bread to the splendors of a Sardanapalian banquet; +an education of senses and affections; a most holy worship of the +noblest joys of thought; one of the most precious gems that can adorn +the crown of life. Blessed are those who know how to be chaste in this +manner, to turn love into an energy that educates and etherealizes, and +who find in it the greater coefficient of noble ambitions and +magnanimous purposes! + +And you, women, you who have the "intellect of love," teach chastity to +us, for whom this holiest of virtues is difficult to acquire. Prize +dearly this delicate mission, because you will be the first to enjoy its +fruits. Through an ignoble and vulgar calculation, you prefer to disarm +your lovers in order that they may not strike other victims than +you,--perhaps, also, that they may not hurt their own hands; but your +calculation is groundless. From the nausea of satiety more infidelity +has sprung than from the prudent restraint of desires; and to leave a +desire always lighted, and a flower in your garden always untouched, is +one of the most precious secrets for reigning eternally, for being +always loved. + +There is an absolute chastity imposed by the cruel laws of sects or of +society, but this is not the place to speak of it. And there is another +absolute chastity imposed by ambition, by a misinterpreted virtue, or +even by egotism; a chastity which, at the bottom, is nothing else than +self-idolatry, a rabid concentration of forces to reach lofty or +insensate ends. The fruit which human voluptuousness reaps is, however, +generally beneath its desire or expectation, and nature wreaks its +vengeance in a thousand ways upon those who outrage it. In many cases, +however, true, sincere chastity, imposed by an iron will, is an +admirable thing, deserving a place among the rarest and most valuable +things in a museum. Not one case in a hundred of those upon which +history has bestowed veneration deserves the praises which are +habitually offered to them, because many of these forms of chastity are +false, or easy through impotency; they are, therefore, false virtues. +Other chastities are as sterile as the sands of the desert, they are +clouds that rise without shape and without aim in the imagination of the +human heart, and vanish without leaving any trace. Be that as it may, +they do not belong to the history of love, and to discuss them here +would entitle the gentle reader to whisper in my ear a second time: +"_Non est hic locus_." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +LOVE IN SEX + + +Man and woman can love with the same degree of force, but they will +never love in the same manner, since to the altar of their passion they +carry two greatly different natures beside their different genetic +missions. As long as there shall live on our planet a man and a woman, +they will eternally exchange and counterchange this innocent reproach: +"Ah, you do not love me as I love you!" And the lament will be forever +true, because woman will never love like man, and man will never be +capable of loving like woman. In a complete essay on the comparative +psychology of the two sexes we could delineate the distinctive +characteristics of virile love and feminine love, and I may try it some +day; be it sufficient for me here to sketch in a general way the two +figures of passion, one in essence, but rendered so variform by the two +different natures called Adam and Eve. + +Listen to two spontaneous cries, uttered by two nations very distant and +well-nigh uncivilized, and you will find the first lines of a physiology +of the sexual characters of love. The Munda-Kols of Chota Nagpur have +some popular songs which express the psychical difference between man +and woman. The women sing: + + + "Singbonga from the beginning has made us smaller than you, + therefore we obey you. Even if it were not so and from the + beginning we had overburdened you with work, still we would not be + your equals. To you God has given with two hands, to us with one; + and for this we do not plough the ground." + + +And the men sing to the women: + + + "As God has given us with two hands, so has He made us bigger than + you. Have we made ourselves big? He Himself has divided us into + big and small. If you do not obey now the word of man, you + certainly disobey the word of God. He himself has made us bigger + than you." + + +And flying to a very distant land, we find a Kabyle song, in which a +chorus of young women alternates with a chorus of sturdy youths. + + + _The women_: "Let him who wants to be loved by a woman march with + his weapons; let him put the butt-end of the gun to his cheek and + cry: 'Come to me, O maidens!'" + + _The men_: "You do well to love us. God sends us war and we will + die, and keep at least the memory of the happiness that you have + given us." + + +Rising from the Munda-Kols and the Kabyles to the higher and more +civilized races, we always find, however, an echo of this wild cry of +nature, in which man proclaims his strength or imposes it, and woman +acquiesces in or invokes it. Hence the very unequal part of joys and +sorrows, of rights and duties, which man allows his companion in the +world of love; hence an ever increasing usurpation of joys and rights by +the strong as we descend to the lower strata of humanity; hence +civilized nations continually struggling to divide good and evil in a +more equitable proportion between the two sexes, which still so unfairly +share light and darkness, joys and sorrows. + +Where muscular strength is the criterion of hierarchies, where it +constitutes the first of human forces, the difference between man and +woman in the rights and joys of love is immense, and woman becomes +little more than a domestic animal which is bought, sold or killed +according to the necessity of the moment. Setting civilization aside, +polygamy exists where morality is uncertain and lust is ardent; and +woman, guarded as a treasure of voluptuousness, falls morally lower than +in a wandering tribe of nude but monogamous savages, where woman is the +companion of the labors and joys of man. For this, perhaps, Solomon used +to cry out in his harem: "And who will find me a strong woman?" Among +us, also, woman does not play in love the part assigned to her by +nature; and here also she can without scruple class herself among the +oppressed who await their "jacquerie" or their constitution; here also +she is a legitimate pretender who, by right or might, will have some day +to conquer her place in the sun. + +But I will speak of rights in another chapter; here we must remain +within the confines of physiology, which still is, or should be, the +legitimate mother of every human legislation. If anthropology should put +in our hands all the moral and intellectual elements which separate man +from woman, then science could most safely establish in its laws and +customs the right place for each sex, without any danger of usurpation, +abuse or imposition from any quarter. + +Nature has given woman the greatest part of love, and if this difference +could be expressed with figures, I would say that we were allotted one +fifth, or one fourth at most, of love's territory. Only a woman could +write Mme. de Staël's sublime words: "Undoubtedly, in the mysteries of +nature, to love and still to love is what we have retained of our +celestial inheritance." Neither civilization in any of its most varied +phases, nor customs in their numberless forms, nor impositions of +tyrants, nor power of genius could alter this immutable law. In the rank +and fetid hut of the Eskimo, or in the palace of the prince, woman gives +all of herself to man, first as daughter, then as lover, as wife, as +mother. She is the great placenta of human beings, the bosom from which +we draw blood, voluptuousness, love, every delight of our soul, every +heat that warms us. Woe to us, if we should poison the source of human +life with a pseudo-education; woe to us, if we should deny Eve the most +sacred of rights! For woman, love is the first, the uppermost necessity, +and all her organism and her psychology are softened and moulded by the +influence of love. Van Helmont said too rudely, "_Tota mulier in +utero_," but thinkers of all epochs applauded the aphorism of the Dutch +physician. Woman physically desires for long time; she possesses for +long time and can enjoy her conquest every day, every hour, and turn it +into a warm and scented atmosphere in which she lives as in a nest; +woman nurses in her bosom an angel who always ardently desires and who +does not quench in her the affection for her companion; she moulds the +man, nourishes and caresses him, and as the years pass she sees herself, +her flesh, her loves transformed into a group of little angels who dance +around her, who are bits of her heart, petals of a rose fallen from the +flower of her beauty, all calling her "mother," which has the meaning of +"placenta of life." From the ardent embrace of the man whom she loves +she flits to the endearments of her little children; voluptuousness does +not fatigue, nor ardor wither, nor passion weary her; she is all, from +her hair to her feet, imbued with love, the fluid that flows in her +through every vein and moistens every fiber; so that when she is +deprived of it she is like the tree shattered by the hurricane and which +sees every leaf wither, every flower fall. The love of man is a +lightning that flashes, thunders and vanishes; the love of woman is a +ray of sun which, slow and warm, penetrates her heart and fecundates +her; and she absorbs it, languidly and voluptuously, and every little +root of her sentiments, her joys, her thoughts imbibes and feasts upon +it; so that, even after the sun has disappeared, its fruitful rays +remain, hidden in the earth which it has warmed. + +Many have contradicted my opinion, which I expressed several years ago +in my "Physiology of Pleasure," that woman has received from nature a +larger cup to drink at the inexhaustible spring of the voluptuousness of +love; and inasmuch as joy cannot be measured or weighed yet, the problem +must wait for its solution a long time still. Nobody, however, can deny +that, lasciviousness and sensibility being equal in both sexes, Eve can +thirst much longer than man, and, without experiencing fatigue, realize +the happy dream of a voluptuousness which, changing its form, is +eternally renewed. But while for many men voluptuousness is all that is +in love, for a woman, be she the most libertine among the sensual women, +it is only a sweet episode. And if you do not believe such a bold +assertion, send heralds through the whole civilized world and assemble +all those, men and women, who can love and invite them to a singular +love tournament; ask them whether they would accept an eternal and most +faithful love without voluptuousness in exchange for voluptuousness +without love. For every hundred women who will vote for love, ten, +perhaps five, men will decide for the sublime refusal of the embrace. + +O you, all of you who have studied the heart of woman in the most abject +places and believe that you are making your companion happy because you +give her luxuriousness and gold and dresses, remember that woman wants +to love above all, to be warmed by the spirit of man, to lean all upon +the faithful arm of man, to feel that she is needed by a companion of +whom she wants to be proud; she wants to be the first for someone. You +may behold a woman unhappy amid the splendors of luxury, caressed by the +sweet affection of a husband, satisfied in all her desires; and you may +see another happy in poverty, amid the storms of life, oppressed by the +brutal whims of a lover. "Mysteries of the heart," you say. "A very +natural thing," I say. The first woman does not love her husband; the +second loves her lover. This is another essential difference between +man's and woman's loves: man wants to be loved; woman wants, above all, +to love. The sentiment which burns in her is more active, more expansive +than in man. Little she demands of her companion, because she is too +rich and her affection is too strong to need the support of self-esteem +to fight the battles of life. Certain it is that perfect love is the sum +of these two most beautiful things, "I love--I am loved"; but often +woman is satisfied when able to exclaim, "I love," while man needs only +to expand his chest and say, "I am loved." + +Do not ask woman why she loves. She can love such ugly, poor, deformed +creatures as to astonish and horrify us. If that creature can only be +hers, she will know how to adorn him with the flowers of imagination, +illumine him with the brilliant light which comes from her heart. When +woman loves she almost never doubts of being loved. Has Cæsar ever +doubted of winning a battle? Has Napoleon ever doubted of being +immortal? So it is with woman's love; she will creep like a reptile at +the feet of her companion, or roar like a lion which wants what it +wants; she will be a pet rabbit caressed in the bosom of a child, or an +eagle that carries aloft the prey in its claws; but her love will be +reciprocated. The ardent faith of the neophyte, the proud faith of +infallibility, the immeasurable arrogance of the fortunate conqueror, +are virtues that are more frequently found in woman's loves, more rarely +in man's. + +In order to love, woman needs only find talent, strength and even crime +in the man she wants to have for herself; she can love the ugliest, most +wicked, most deformed of men. She elevates every man she touches; she +believes she can heat even the ice. Man loves the beautiful above all +and pardons everything else; man often lowers even the highest loves. +Woman carries even luxuriousness aloft into the big regions of +sentiment; man lowers even affection into the mire of lasciviousness. +Pardon my cynical phrase, but do not reject it, because it is too true: +man in his loves is more of a brute than of an angel; woman is more of +an angel than of a human being. + +An essay on the comparative psychology of love cannot be written unless +based upon a complete physiology of the two sexes. Every thought, every +word, every gesture of man or woman in love receives the imprint of the +sex; and when the characters are inverted a most disgusting spectacle +takes place and we behold a caricature, a monster, or even a crime. At +times, however, women of manly inclinations love manly, and men of +docile disposition manifest in their loves sublime tenderness, softness +and sentiments which should be found in woman only. We are again in the +domain of pathology, but the psychical forms may, from the unusual +combination of figures and strange coloring, derive an esthetic element +which astonishes us and invites us to meditation. + +However variform the sexual elements of love may be, our modern +civilization is stained by a most heinous sin because we allow woman, +who is the true and great priestess of love, but a small tribute and a +trivial part. We have for ourselves ambition, glory, science, the morbid +thirst for gain; we have granted to man all the energies of sentiment, +all the conquests of genius, all the victories of passion; to woman we +have refused every nourishment of heart and thought, representing to her +that she must only love. After having robbed her of nearly every field +of human activity, we have left the garden of love to her as her only +possession, her only solace. And when this poor prisoner, with all the +ardent curiosity of her nature, wished to pick the flowers and the +scented herbs of her garden, when she proceeded to cultivate the garden +in her own way, we interfered there, too, setting up the posters of our +restrictive regulations and erecting the fences of our laws: "That +flower-bed is reserved; that flower must not be picked. No +thoroughfare." The selection of the plants to cultivate must also be +made by us,--by us, who possess the orchard and the field, the meadow +and the forest, the ice-fields of the Alps and the water of the ocean. +Thus we have a woman slave who murmurs and conspires against us; thus we +have made sterile and barren the garden where a proud and noble lady +would have splendidly received us, where we could rest from our glorious +labors; thus, instead of being welcomed by a lady of our station, in +gilded halls, brilliantly decorated with gems, we have a woman prisoner +or slave who reclines her head on our knees and weeps. We have measured +the bread and wine of her life as the jailer does with the thief; and, +tyrants in love as well, we have kept the lion's share both in +voluptuousness and in the free choice of the sovereign affection. But +every injustice must be paid for, just as the equilibrium is +reëstablished every time it has been disturbed; and the continual +deceptions, only too well justified, of our slaves, seraglio +conspiracies and palace plots, are every day evidence that we erect upon +a false foundation the edifice of family, and loudly proclaim that it +will soon be necessary to give woman what belongs to her, the free +choice of loves, the equality of rights in the affections as well as in +the family. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +LOVE AND AGE + + +In studying the morning crepuscules of Love, we have involuntarily +outlined the first phases of Love. We have seen him timid and spasmodic, +exerting himself between the swaddling clothes of infancy and the first +weapons of arrogant youth, like a boy warrior armed with a wooden sword +and a pop-gun. During the age of adolescence this sovereign affection +shows the most sublime puerilities, the maddest hysterias, the most +fanciful vows of an infinite without limits of time or space. Side by +side with the most ideal aspirations we find, however, the impetuous and +automatic outbreaking of the first lusty actions; and a youthful +imagination, inflaming the first fevers of lust, agitates and shakes the +tender and fragile organism. Happy those who in the first storms of life +find a friendly hand as a guide and solace to preserve them from +thousands of dangers which threaten health and morality at the same +time. + +The first, impatient acts of lust in adolescence are generally followed +in elect natures by a period of reaction, during which heroic vows of +chastity are made together with extraordinary endeavors to learn to hate +woman. Just at that time, in the diary of the boy who is about to become +a man, we may read these vows and aspirations for chastity which I +literally reproduce here for you: + + + " ... Tremendous dilemma of life; the cosmos less the woman--the + woman less the cosmos." + + "I have been able to pass an entire day without embracing a woman + and without any fervid aspiration for her; and yet I have passed a + very happy day! Try and do without the evil-born race of Eve, for + all time." + + "I took a seat near a Creole young lady and found her beautiful, + inebriating, voluptuous. I thought of a paradise of delights in + looking at her, and wavered. The most Creole embrace in the world, + however, is not worth the cosmic synthesis as I have conceived it + and as I will expose it to men." + + "No pleasure is shorter than the erotic delirium; no sacrifice more + fruitful of useful consequences than the disdain for this + voluptuousness." + + "Instinct, with the fury of its power, is for you the outward + manifestation of pleasure in its most attractive aspect; it is only + a faculty of yours, and tends to draw into its whirlpool all your + activity. + + "It is only one of your faculties and that which you have in common + with the lowest creatures at the bottom of the series of creation, + and this faculty wants to be the first; the first and only for a + few moments; but in these moments the least noble of your powers + wants to, and can, take a great part of yourself, of your _ego_. It + is a sovereign who rules only for a few seconds, but who has power + enough during the period of his reign to destroy half of the state + and leave his throne upon a heap of ruins, firebrands and ashes; it + is easy to destroy, but from a mass of ruins and ashes to rebuild a + state is a hopeless task." + + +These few expressions are but the thousandth reproduction of a psychical +phenomenon which is reiterated in all men when they pass from the +threshold of adolescence into the gardens of youth. An historical fact +and a proverb embodied this truth in two great monuments: in the Council +of Trent those who voted for celibacy were the youngest priests; and the +French language has a proverb which says: "If youth but knew; could age +but do!"--a vote and a proverb deserving a volume of meditations, and +springing forth from the deepest roots of the human heart. + +Exuberance of forces prepares us for the battle; but, at the same time, +it leaves us calm and serene, because true force is always calm. Rarely +a braggart is strong, and a frequent intimation of one's own energy is +nearly always a symptom of decline and weakness. The invalid who fears +death often says that he feels very well, even before being asked about +his health, and endeavors to delude himself and others with respect to +the danger that threatens him. + +A young man is, in love, always more timid than an adult or an old man; +and this fact originates from so many and mysterious causes as to occur +in many animals as well. Birds, among others, the older they are, the +quicker they go at their amorous undertaking. A young man, however deep +his love may be, still trembles. He is a ripe and fragrant fruit, but +the rude contacts of the gardener and the store have not deprived him +yet of his untouched varnish. He has foregone the useless and too +unequal struggles against love and flung himself into its arms; but he +still trembles when the currents of the god pass through his body and +cause his nerves to vibrate. He is a priest initiated into the mysteries +of the temple, but still trembling when in the _sanctum sanctorum_, and +a gentle and sublime timidity tempers in him the too virile expression +of strength. Before our eyes we have one of the most sublime pictures of +the moral world: the apex of beauty without the mannerism of pride, the +maximum of strength without a shadow of convulsion; an ever lively +force, a serene but definite energy, ready to spring, ready for action +and reaction. + +A young man with a good physical constitution belongs entirely to love, +and love is the property of youth. All the energies of sentiment, all +the powers of thought at that age are moulded by that sovereign +affection, which absorbs and carries away everything into its hot and +turbulent whirlpools. He is less than a eunuch who does not love at +twenty, because even a eunuch can love, and there is an amorous +sterility which has its seat in the brain and in the heart, and which +is more humiliating than any mutilation of organs, than any lack of +functions. If, at twenty, a man does not encounter a woman in the social +world, he loves the picture or statue of a woman, he loves the heroine +of a story or of a poem, and the young girl adores the angels whose +wings flutter around her virginal bed. + +At twenty, one should possess the physical energy to love a hundred +women, and even the most modest maiden finds in the air, at every step, +a spark darting from her contact with a man. Notwithstanding, however, a +gigantic and fruitful possibility of polygamy, man and woman are, in +their robust youth, essentially monogamous, and in their most senseless +idolatries they are still monotheists. One god, one temple, one religion +only. One must be born with singular perversity to be polygamous from +the first steps in love, and the young girl who already loves more than +one man at a time must have been conceived in a bawdy-house by the +kneading of the blood and the flesh of a bacchante. + +Yet against this virtuous, energetic, holy monogamy there rise on all +sides enormous obstacles; formidable adversaries move against it from +every quarter, opposing the first steps. Adam has found his Eve; Eve has +seen her Adam; but in the embrace of those two lovers, how many enemies, +how many barriers, how many abysses! Adam loves Eve; Eve loves Adam; +what can be more simple, what affinity more intense, what affection more +inevitable than their union? Still before they can embrace each other, +these two unfortunate creatures must ask permission of prejudice, +hypocrisy, conventionalities, hygiene, morality, religion, and above +all, finance; and there is scarcely one chance out of a hundred that the +answer will be a "yes" from all these superior authorities that have the +right of vetoing their affection. The nightingale has seen and loved his +modest companion; in the deep shadow of a mysterious alder he has sung +to her his tenderest song and infused his love into her. Today they +sleep, happy in their love, and tomorrow they will find flexuous +branches and soft moss to weave their nest. No need of civil matrimony, +of religious matrimony, of financial matrimony. But woe to the man who +shall rely upon nature to have his nest prepared! The morrow of his +loves would be cursed by hunger; and scrofula and rachitis would kill +his children, born of a union which lacked the consent of finance. + +From the clash of two contrary forces there arises a decomposition of +movements, a transformation of energies; and this phenomenon occurs in +love when, pure, virginal, powerful and hardly issued from the hot bosom +of nature, it finds the sharp rocks of social obstacles, and, like a +wave, breaks against them, raises a mass of foam and withdraws dragging +away a congeries of stones, splinters and mud scattered by the turbulent +clashing of so many forces and resistances. Would fortune that in that +first shock love should suffer nothing but sorrow! Tears have blessed +thousands of loves and bathed them in a sweet dew; very few have they +killed. But in the dashing of the first love against the cruel rock of +social resistances many new forces, all of them ruthless, spring from +the decomposition of the two contrary motions, and a thousand +compromises with conscience stain in its swaddling clothes the new-born +love, humiliating it under the shame of an original sin. + +The very first compromise with his own conscience on the part of a pure +and enamored youth, when prevented by society from being monogamous, is +that of decomposing love into sentiment and voluptuousness; thus he +strives to preserve his heart pure and to erect one temple only, while +sacrifices are offered to lust on the hundred altars of the wandering +Venus. + +And still this decomposition of love seems to the most refined and most +virtuous lovers a very wise move, a miracle of art, the ideal of +morality coupled with the most urgent needs of a heart and senses; and +after a few skirmishes and lamentations every one adapts himself to this +compromise and tries to make himself as comfortable as possible, as +though in an uncomfortable carriage in which one must journey for a long +time. The most considerate, the most virtuous lovers, however, are +continually looking forward to the fortunate day when all hypocrisy +will be eliminated and physical and moral loves united will give them +the right to build a nest in which sentiment and voluptuousness will +keep faithful company. And in the meantime we just go on between a +reticence and a lie; the heart to the wife of another, the body to the +courtesan. + +Those young men who adapt themselves too easily to this ignominious and +degrading compromise with their conscience are cruelly punished for +their crime, since they will not know the richest and most splendid +treasures of youthful love. Do not lie, do not betray; do not seek your +love in the mire, but in the sky; and then abandon your heart and senses +to the wave that carries you to paradise. Inhale all the perfumes, pick +all the flowers of a garden over which no winter breeze ever blows, and +where for every petal that falls a hundred new corollas blossom. Be +rich, be recklessly rich; be gods at least once in your life: nature +concedes a day of spring even to the most miserable creature and weaves +a garland on the head of the lowliest of men. Remember, there is no +coffer in which an hour of sunlight can be kept, no artifice of chemical +science that can preserve a blooming rose. + +The fortunate young man who has not subjected his love to the process of +decomposition we have described loves ardently, recklessly, splendidly. +His love is a sunny day in May, without clouds, without chills, without +sorrows; it is a feast where weariness, fatigue and delusions are +unknown. He lives because he loves, and he loves because he lives. He +burns his incense to the goddess, but he is chaste and knows very little +of lasciviousness. He is sometimes so pure as to call a blush on the +face of a woman who, being in her thirties, already loves too knowingly. +He neither measures nor weighs; and who has ever dared to reduce to a +mathematical formula the force of a thunderbolt or the kilogrammeters of +an earthquake? And the loves of a young man are thunderbolts or +earthquakes. A young man is not very jealous; he is less so, in any +case, than the adult and the old; he is too confident, too happy to +doubt; and, besides, he has no time! His lips are wreathed in a +perpetual smile; a golden ray of sunlight rests on his brow like a halo +of bliss. There is no tomorrow for him except under the form of a +continuation of the happiness of today; he does not remember the past, +and in good faith believes himself to have always loved his goddess, +even when he did not know her. He believes in inborn loves, as the +philosopher of old used to believe in congenital ideas. O happy youth! + +If the young man is the most powerful, the most ardent lover, the adult +is the most skillful. The use and abuse of life have somewhat dulled his +spirit, almost extinguished the flames of passion; but no excessive +impatience, no needless timidity, no sudden explosions of desire oppose +any obstacle to the blissful perfection of his loves. He loves with +shrewdness, with passion, with a most subtle art; he is a hundred times +more libertine than the youth, but also more delicate, richer in +exquisite tastes belonging to the world of thought. The youthful lover +is a nude and often ferocious savage; the adult has become civilized +from long experience and is clothed with the blandishments of his art. +His most spontaneous sympathies are for unripe fruit, for the flowers +still enclosed within the untouched and thorny calyx of innocence and +ignorance; but he likes to love the independent woman as well, the widow +and the matron; he is essentially eclectic. His joys are scarcer than in +the days of youth, but they are more precious, because rendered more +savory by a certain economy almost verging on avarice. He knows that his +hours are numbered and follows with a caress every coin he spends; +before parting with it, he bestows upon it a look of affection and +regret. Rich in memories, but poor in hopes, he concentrates all his +cares, patience and attention on the present. He is the ablest, the +wisest master of love; and when health and freshness of heart do not +desert him, he can awaken ardent and lasting passions and preserve them +for a long time. Woman much less than man is bent on inquiring about +white hair and birth certificates; and if she only feels that she is +loved deeply and ardently, she willingly forgets half a score of years, +and more, of the age of her companion. + +In the love of the adult man for the young woman one feels always a +benevolent and sympathetic protection, an almost paternal affection, +full of tenderness and generous impulses. This characteristic tends to +deprive mature love of some of the warmest and most voluptuous +expansions, to cool down the volcanic explosions of youthful love; but +the paternal affection, which might easily tend to become authority and +eliminate the perfect equality between the two lovers, is tempered in +adult man by a deep and hidden mistrust of himself. + +The young man asks for love on his knees, but knows that he is +legitimately entitled to it, and often from the humble position of a +beggar of alms, prostrated in the dust, he leaps to his feet, demanding +with the force of beauty, genius, passion, that which he could not +obtain by humility. A mature man, on the contrary, has lost many rights, +and his requests are made with greater constraint, with a reserve full +of grace and delicacy; he often implores with a tenderness so ardent and +a tone so supplicatory that it is difficult to answer with a refusal. +The continual alternation of an authority that teaches and an authority +that implores gives the adult love the most characteristic hue, the most +conspicuous mark. And when poor nature, medicated by art, has succeeded +in attaining love, the precious affection firmly fixes itself on it and +thrusts its roots into the deepest recesses of the heart. The adult has +tenacious passions, and none is more faithful in love than he; often, +conditions being equal, he is the best husband, and not only through +egotism does the bridegroom seek a bride a few years younger than +himself. Man grows old later than woman, and two ignorant and very young +people seldom wed without exposing themselves to the most serious +dangers. + +The woman of thirty, also, loves with modesty, with deep tenderness, +with religious fidelity, with avaricious sagacity. + +The man who is growing old is the trunk of a tree on which every day a +branch withers, and from which every gust of wind detaches a handful of +yellow leaves. When the entire tree is dead, then upon the ruins of love +rises an implacable hatred for those who love and are loved; the cruel +domestic inquisitions and a posthumous, ridiculous ostentation of forced +continence or mummified modesty will then poison the existence of the +intolerant old man, who avenges himself upon the young people for his +misfortune in not being longer able to love. It is an inexorable law +which condemns those old men to mystic and wrathful meditations, because +in all times and in all countries the last spark of lust serves to light +the bilious taper on the altar of superstition. Most unfortunate is the +poor young girl who must have as a confidante of her first loves an +irascible and bigoted old woman, to whom love is a synonym of lechery +and affection a sin. Less monstrous and less cruel is the deformity of a +Chinese foot than the contortions which a youthful love must undergo in +the hooked and yellow clutches of intolerant bigotry. + +Man, however, is a tree so robust and vigorous that it rarely dies all +at once, and in the old man there often remains flourishing the only +branch of lust. It is then that the economy of the adult turns into real +avarice, lust becomes lasciviousness, and love assumes unheard-of forms, +worthy of Tiberius and Caligula. The lust of the old man, warmed by the +stifling atmosphere of vice, is like a mushroom produced by the fetid +artifices of horticulture and bears fruits which give out in the +distance the stench of the manure in which they were raised. Nor can the +name of love be given to those lusts, but they should be given that of +erotic mercature, of prostitution of innocence to the calculus of +probability of life, or to the expectation of an inheritance. And yet +some powerful lovers maintain ghosts of desire until their extreme +decrepitude and, like eels, go on rubbing their frothy paunches in the +hot mire of the lowest social strata; to their last breath, with their +ossified hands they strip of leaves the rosebushes and purchase at +fabulous prices an "I love you" icier than snow, more deceitful than +Tartufe. + +The man of high type, too, can love until old age; but then, lust being +spent, every right of conquest having been abandoned, love soars to the +highest spheres of the ideal world and becomes a sublime contemplation +of feminine beauty. Whether before the maiden and heroic greatness of +Joan of Arc, or the startling sensuality of the statue of Phryne by +Barzaghi, hearing the lively prattling of a girl of fourteen or at the +side of a calm and plump matron, even a venerable old man, without any +offense in words or acts, feels moved; and, perhaps, under the childlike +or compassionate caresses of a woman, his eyes will fill with tears and, +if he is a believer, he will invoke the benedictions of Heaven on the +most beautiful half of the human family. + +If even the old man can love a young woman, the old woman also can love +a young man; but their love should be a serene contemplation of the +beautiful, a suave remembrance of joys possessed for a long time and +ardent aspirations for an ideal which is ever loved, because it is never +attained. Even the white-haired old man can, without offending the +modesty of her who cannot be his any more, caress with paternal +affection the curls of Eve, adore in her the most splendid manifestation +of the esthetic forces of nature, warm his cold imagination again at the +ardent fire of others' loves; and, without envy and without regrets, but +with sweet satisfaction he can say: "I, too, have done my duty; do yours +now. I, too, have loved without sowing the seeds of remorse for my old +age; try you, and follow my example!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +LOVE IN RELATION TO TEMPERAMENTS--OF THE WAYS OF LOVING + + +I shall not repeat in these pages for the hundredth time the criticism +of temperaments as they were described by the ancient schools, and which +I have expounded in many of my works, small and large. Not everybody has +accepted my standards of classification, but all agree with me in the +belief that temperaments have had their time, and that hygiene, +medicine, psychology await from the progress of modern physiology the +elements to determine, as science requires, the physical and moral +characteristics of a human individual. Against this impotency of modern +physiology I have protested, changing the name of "temperament" to that +of "individual constitution": innocent revenge of all men who, when +powerless to change a thing, satisfy their rage by changing its name. + +Every man loves in his own way and, as we bring to love the greatest +possible tribute of psychical elements, it follows that human loves +differ more than hatreds, more than the manners of eating, of motion, of +will. The lower we descend from the branches to the trunk, the more +human elements resemble each other; the higher we ascend to the loftiest +branches of the tree, the more the elements diverge and differ. Ask a +woman of easy virtue, or a Don Juan, how many are the methods of loving, +and they both not only will answer that every one loves in a different +manner, but will add that the manners themselves are so extraordinarily +different that calling all these most variform ways of loving by the one +name of the same sentiment excites repugnance. + +It is true that some authors have amused themselves by describing a +"sanguine love," a "nervous love," a "lymphatic love," a "hepatic love"; +but these pictures are innocent pastimes, arabesques traced on the +epidermis of human nature, and the schools of psychology and literature, +which succeed each other, so completely obliterate these arabesques that +not the least trace of them is left. Even when, instead of the +caricatures of temperaments, we should succeed in delineating a true +family of human constitutions, it would be very difficult to class under +it all forms of love. The thousands and thousands of color cases of the +Roman mosaic-maker are sufficient to classify the innumerable tints that +an expert eye succeeds in discerning; but who will give me a palette so +gigantic that I may spread on it all the polychromic mixtures, all the +simple and compound colors, all the proteiform iridescences offered by +the human light when it strikes the powerful prism of love? + +The question as to the quantity of love which an individual may feel is +the easiest to solve; but it is also one of the most important. In every +psychological problem there is an element of quantity; and as it is the +simplest, it is also the most visible. It is, I would almost say, the +skeleton of the phenomenon and we should grasp it eagerly, as the thread +which guides us through the labyrinth of these studies. + +Many men, even if possessing a lofty mind and a gentle heart, have asked +themselves seriously, and more than once, whether they were capable of +loving, unacquainted as they were with all that world of mysteries and +passions which they found described in many books and heard from the +mouths of some enamored friends. To those men my book, although I have +striven to contain it within the limits of a physiological study, may +seem an exaggeration, a caricature of nature. Now, all those men are +petty and weak lovers. To them love is an intermittent prurience that +begins at eighteen years and ends, perhaps, at forty, or fifty at the +latest; a prurience that stands somewhere between pleasure and bother +and which can be morally cured by only one medicine, woman. This +medicine, so they say, is sometimes worse than the disease, and it is +necessary to reflect at length and with great care whether preference +should be given to that prurience which poets call "love," or to that +other load which naturalists call "the female of man" and the courteous +dictionaries "woman." When these eunuchs of the sentiment of love prefer +the woman, they may find that this animated object, so like ourselves, +is also tolerably pleasing and congenial, and a sweet and tender habit +of benevolence may tie them to this companion whom they love, and truly +love, in their own way, that is, calmly, prudently, suavely. These +unhappy creatures have more than one reason to ask of themselves whether +what they feel is love, and a thousand reasons to inquire of true +lovers: "But tell me now, will you explain to me what this love is!" The +moon radiates heat; frogs, too, develop heat: well, then, these +gentlemen, too, do love! + +Peaceful love, petty or cold love (call it what you will) does not +exclusively belong to the male; but, on the contrary, it offers, +although more rarely, its most perfect forms in woman. Man, however weak +a lover he may be, cannot renounce the mission of sex, which compels him +to attack, assault, declare that war which must lead him to conquest. +Woman, on the contrary, if she be born a _eunuch_, need not attack her +companion in the slightest way; she can, if she so wishes, avoid the +trouble of directing her gaze toward her lover or opening her lips to +say "yes." To let herself be loved will be enough. How many romantic +delights in these few words! To let herself be loved; to leave to others +every labor of conquered timidity, of injured modesty; every strategy, +every tactic of moral violence; to let the others struggle and reserve +for herself alone the voluptuousness of slightly opening the door or +even letting others open it! To let herself be loved! What esthetic, +heavenly beatitude, what voluptuousness of soft undulations and carnal +prurience, what wonderful warmth of sweet caresses! And, then, no +responsibility for the future of a passion which has never been +confessed; no storm; a calm lake without tempest, without tides. And if +the heart, full of sentiment, would take the liberty of a restless +throb, to apply then and there a cataplasm to bring it back to its +duty, and modesty to justify the perpetual ice, and virtue to apologize +for the absence of aroma. Oh, why did not heaven make us out of this +blessed, soft, sweet paste? Oh, why can we not reduce love to a problem +of hygiene and régime? + +From this zero of the amatory scale we gradually rise to the maximum +degree of the pyrometer, where every metal is melted and volatilized and +the entire human organism is transformed into a red and incandescent +vapor that burns everything it touches. There are tremendous lovers, who +have loved before they were men, who will love, too, when they are men +no longer; there are women who have loved, perhaps, since they were +closed in the maternal womb, and will love even the sexton who will nail +down the cover on the cold coffin which contains their morbid flesh; +there are men and women in whom every affection takes a sensual form and +love absorbs them like a sponge born, grown and dead in the saline +depths of a tropical sea. Having neither time nor patience to wait, they +love the first comer, to whom they lend their affections and their +imagination; then, discouraged but not wearied, they love the next comer +and, always loving more than they are loved, they remain with their +thirst forever unquenched. Happy they are when they succeed, although +rarely, in being satisfied with consecutive loves; but oftener they +precipitate quickly into polygamy, where, through sophisms, reticences +and compromises with conscience, they love this one with the heart, that +other one with the mind, and all of them with the senses. They have a +_first_ love, an _only_ love, a _true_ love; but too frequently they +forget the names of such loves and use them to designate too many +different lovers, and, like the octopus, they stretch forth their +numerous, avid, sucking arms to reach the hot, succulent flesh of the +feminine cosmos. Among these polygamists there are some who love only +with the heart, others only with the senses; while to a few giants +nature concedes the sad gift of a twofold thirst for affection and +voluptuousness. + +Between these two poles, which mark the extreme degrees of amatory +intensity, plods the innumerable mass of those men who are neither Don +Juans nor chaste Josephs; the numberless women who are neither +Messalinas nor Joans of Arc. + +Besides the variform force of amorous needs, the sentiment which we are +now studying together assumes a different character, according to the +passion which predominates in the individual and by which love is marked +as proud, humble, egotistical, vain, furious, jealous. And around these +binary compounds of love and pride, of love and egotism, of love and +vanity, there are grouped many other minor elements, which, although +with less energetic affinity, still form a homogeneous whole that might +be called a "temperament of love" or a "constitutional form of love." I +shall try to sketch some of them from nature. + + +_Tender Love._--This love is more frequently felt by men of mild and +gentle character; it has shaded outlines and little relief. Emotion +surprises them for the slightest cause; tears are always ready to gush +forth at the first impulse of joy or sorrow; a perennial compassion and +an inexhaustible tenderness drown declarations of love, ardors of +voluptuousness and outbursts of affection in a most sweet sea of milk +and honey. Tender love is suppliant, lachrymose and faithful; it often +touches the boundaries of sensual love, but never enters that sea under +full sail. It is a love that is frequently constant and trustworthy, +almost as immutable as an old and serene friendship; it has, however, a +tendency to being disconsolate and mournful, if not querulous, and it +sighs, sobs or weeps too often. Nevertheless, it is capable of wonderful +expansiveness which, however interminable, is pregnant with intense joy +and sweet solace and predisposes us to universal benevolence, to +philanthropy, to forgiveness. It is a Christian, evangelical love that +delights more in a caress than in a kiss, and in lingering kisses more +than in sudden battles. Its most esthetic forms are found in the woman, +whom we readily exculpate from a certain weakness and who may even swoon +without making herself ridiculous. Persons with fair complexion, +Germans and lymphatic creatures love in this way. + + +_Contemplative Love._--A high, esthetic sense, an irresistible tendency +to inertness and limited genital needs constitute the soil in which +germinate and grow the various forms of contemplative love. It is a +lofty love--too lofty; it has something of the mystic and the +supernatural; the lover places his idol very high and prostrates himself +before it, lavishing upon it every kind of adoration and incense. +Contemplative love is situated in the anterior lobes of the brain; it +affects but slightly the somber depths of the heart and hardly skims +over the warm wave of voluptuousness; it lives on ecstasies and +contemplations and, making of the creature it loves a god or a goddess, +it forgets too frequently that the god comprehends a human male, the +goddess a human female. This sublime forgetfulness makes of this love +the greatest cuckold ever known, because nature can neither be forgotten +nor offended with impunity; and while one adores and is absorbed in +admiration in the temple, the warlike and rapacious love profanes the +tabernacle and carries off the god. Contemplative love lives on the +frontiers of pathology, and properly belongs to Arcadic, fanatic and +mystic persons. Disillusioned and betrayed, they accuse love of simony +and falsehood, when they themselves are only too guilty of having caused +their own sorrows and their own bitter disappointments. + + +_Sensual Love._--This is one of the most ardent, most inebriating, most +tenacious of loves, because it springs from the most fruitful and +spontaneous source of sensual affections. It is the most sincere and +most powerful of loves, because it satisfies one of the most natural and +most irresistible needs of man; but its foundation rests on a shifting +ground: beauty; and its ardors are indicated by too deep a note: desire. +It never lies; it does not wrap itself in the hundred cloaks of amorous +hypocrisy, but is nude, entirely nude and, in its nudity, often modest. +Brazen or tender, insatiable or satisfied, rash to the point of +insolence, it is, however, always itself: the tremendous attraction of +two great and opposite organic units; a burning thirst that seeks the +cool water of the Alpine spring; the most vigorous clash of the two most +gigantic forces in the world of the living. From voluptuousness to +voluptuousness, if youthful strength does not accompany it, it usually +slides into lasciviousness, where it sinks deeper each day that passes +and with the decline of each force; and down, down it plunges until it +reaches the filth of domestic libertinism or that of the wandering +Venus. It is inexhaustible in discoveries and inventions, indefatigable +in voluptuousness; it is also a sublime artist; it may emit high musical +notes of tenderness and show warm and fascinating tints. Born in the +lowest depths of the animal man, it rarely rises to the high spheres of +the ideal and knows no dignity, no delicacy, no heroism; rather, it is +often suppliant to the point of baseness, impure to nausea. It accepts a +bone to gnaw, just as it accepts voluptuousness without love. It does +not matter to sensual love whether voluptuousness is reached by the sole +moral path of love, but it accepts it also through this way, it seeks it +by all possible ways. And it conquers, steals, buys love; it goes even +so far as to borrow it, to commit forgery, provided it gets it. Let its +insatiable prurience be but appeased and sensual love will act as +mediator or pander for the loves of others, become usurer, thief and +forger with the same callousness. This love is generally masculine: in +women, even licentiousness always dons a splendid robe of sentiment and +hides its too insolent nudity. + + +_Ferocious Love._--Perhaps the term which is applied to this love is +stronger than it should be; but in painting a psychical picture one is +irresistibly inclined to exaggerate the coloring or the outlines and +give the subject more relief than it has in nature. Abnormal development +of the sense of ownership, amplified by conceit and joined to a certain +impetuosity of character: such is the most natural source of all those +violent loves which I class under the common name of "ferocious love." +Its birth is nearly always like the eruption of a volcano and +accompanied by so many storms and fits of affection and such clashing of +energies that one would suppose that, instead of a love, a hatred had +come into existence. And this original sin follows it through life, and +ends only with death. We see this love distribute handshakes with such +strength that we say they are tetanic convulsions, kisses that seem +bites, embraces that look like homicides; and we behold it as a tyrant +without jealousy, a fury without anger, insatiable even after +possession, because voluptuousness does not calm nor fidelity always +satisfy it. Venus triumphant and not disarmed would represent this love +in all the sublime greatness of its forces. If kindness of habits or the +patient file of education does not succeed in smoothing its angles, it +often becomes rugged and even brutal. So must have loved our most remote +ancestors of the caves and the palisades, who continuously bathed in the +blood of hunt and war and stained their hands with blood in love as +well, as woman also was the prey belonging to the strongest and most +audacious. As it is easy to imagine, man generally is the one who loves +ferociously; but woman, too, occasionally feels this cruel form of love; +and the more attached she is to her lover, the more she torments him and +the deeper she plunges the claws of her passion into the depths of his +body to feel its heat and to say with voluptuous fury: "This, too, is +mine!" + + +_Proud Love._--This form is a binary combination of one part of love and +ten parts of self-love. When proud love is satisfied, when it is in all +the pomp of its happiness, it may appear as a pure, great, sublime love; +but as soon as self-love suffers a sting it froths and swells like a +snail or a basilisk and shows the dual nature of its energy in all its +nudity. Even in the few moments when this affection is entirely happy, +it never betokens it nor does it abandon itself to an unrestrained +confession of beatitude or bliss, for the same reason that the rustic +never admits that he admires new and great things. Proud love thinks +more of being loved than of loving; it always speaks of rights and +often does not know of duties. Rich in exactions and poor in +consideration, it swells up with pride if fortunate, and murmurs at the +slightest suspicion; it is the most jealous of loves and among the most +unhappy, among the poorest in sweet abandonments and ingenuous +voluptuousness. Even in the most secret intimacy it never unfolds its +thoughts for fear of ridicule or of spoiling a crease of the starched +paludament in which it has wrapped itself; it is never the first to +concede a caress, but expects it as a right and a duty. It is a love +which, to be approached, requires infinite attentions, ceremonies, +formalities; which quickly becomes tiresome and often disgusting. It +exacts fidelity, not as a dear reciprocation of affection, but as a +right of its own dignity, and easily pardons such sins as the world does +not become aware of. It is a sterile, barren, sickly love. + + +_Excoriated Love._--Because of its origins, this form of love is often +confounded with the preceding; but it is still more unhappy and +rightfully belongs to the pathology of the heart. It is a love that can +be sincere, tender and passionate; but it is so irritable and such a +grumbler that a mosquito would annoy it and a pebble in its path cause +it to cry against misfortune and treachery. Like the Epicurean of old, +it cannot sleep unless a folded rose-leaf is placed in its bed. It also +seeks, like all human affections, the goal of its aspirations; but never +reaches it, because suspicion, susceptibility and fear stop it at every +step, freeze the words on its lips, weaken its arms in the embrace, +extinguish its flame when hardly lighted. I compare this affection with +a St. Bartholomew obliged to walk among brambles and over rocks +bristling with points, and for this reason I have given it the strange +and new name of _excoriated love_; the French would call it _un amour +mauvais coucheur_. It is perhaps the most wretched of loves, because, +besides the natural misfortunes which are the inevitable lot of every +daughter of Eve and every son of Adam, it creates its own troubles and +enlarges them with the lens of the most unhappy imagination. Excoriated +love is a fatal still which transforms rose-petals into poison-ivy, +honey into wormwood, aroma into fetidness, nourishment into venom. If +kissed, it murmurs because the kiss was too violent or too cold; if +caressed, it suspects that the caress may have had a second end in view. +Even in the ecstasies of creation it would ask of the Creator why He had +made the light so soon or so late. Whoever is loved by these +unfortunates has always the right to address them with the words of the +courtesan of Venice to the unhappy and mad philosopher of Geneva: +"_Zaneto, Zaneto, ti non ti xe fato per far a l'amor!_" ("Johnny, +Johnny, you are not made to make love!") And yet these unfortunate +creatures love, and love deeply; and it is the enviable glory of +powerful lovers to cure and win them over to the point of making them +confess that at least once in their lives they were truly, faithfully +and passionately loved. It is one of the most admirable triumphs of the +amatory art to find a fabric so fine that it can touch the excoriated +flesh of those poor unfortunates, and create for them an artificial +atmosphere, in which they may be able to move without groaning, breathe +without coughing, and live without cursing life. + + +These forms of love, which I have poorly outlined, are but rarely found +in nature in a simple state, but are complicated and interwoven with +each other, forming a thousand pictures: a real mine of resources for +art, a veritable treasure of torments for the psychological thinker. + +No man loves like another and no man loves perfectly, in the manner in +which the type of a sublime love can be idealized in the regions of +thought of our brain. + +The perfect harmony of one love lacks a note of sensuality, that of +another a tone of energy; one is too restless, another too languid, a +third too violent. Even the most fortunate creatures, those who possess +a just measure of voluptuousness, of sentiment and of poetry,--even +those, who know they are loved ardently and faithfully, aspire to a love +more perfect than that which they feel and better than that which they +receive; and when this thirst for the ideal does not induce us to +violate the compact of fidelity, we should not complain, because love, +too, must obey the common law, which compels us ever to aspire to purer +regions, richer in splendors and warmer with ardors. At early dawn love +awaits the promise of a warm noon, and in the burning sultriness looks +forward with eager anticipation to the cool twilight of the evening; it +is spurred by that impulse which drives forward men and things, matter +and force, and the bliss of today expects a more intense voluptuousness +for tomorrow. If this unquenchable thirst for the better should cease in +us, it would be simply because life is spent in us; if the irresistible +desire for a higher love should cease, it would be simply because, as +light to the blind, the heavenly regions of the ideal--those regions +where numberless targets are gathered at which are aimed the glances and +the arrows of the human family--have all at once been closed to us. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HELL OF LOVE + + +Pain, so rich in afflictions and tortures, in its varieties as infinite +as the grains of sand in the ocean, and as deep as the ocean's abysses, +has reserved its greatest bitterness, its most cruel torments for love. +And so it was to be; the warmest passion was to turn into the most +inflexible frigidity; the deepest was to precipitate itself into the +somberest depths; the richest in joys to be the most fecund in sorrows. +From the fleeting breeze of a suspicion more rapid than the lightning, +more evanescent than a word written in the soft sand of the seashore, to +the certain consciousness of an unexpected betrayal; from the impatience +of him who for one instant awaits his beloved, to the prolonged +desperation of him who can no longer wait, love evinces all the notes of +affliction, all the torments of the senses, all the tortures of +sentiment. Of the bones which are scattered every day on the long path +through which the human family passes on this planet, many were left by +love; and suicide, homicide and insanity count in cemeteries and +hospitals a much greater number of victims than are reckoned in the +summary statistics of our sociologists. All this, of course, is for +those who love with heart and mind and not with senses only. He who sees +in love a question only of régime and hygiene recovers from the loss of +his sweetheart with a tear and a new conquest; cures betrayal with +betrayal, and with licentiousness heals every malady of the heart and +drowns all his sorrows in his libertinism. + +I certainly have neither strength nor courage sufficient to accompany +the reader into the lower regions of the amorous hell. If you have +already passed your thirtieth year, you surely must have among the +memories of your past some half hour of desperation and some sleepless +night which make you shudder only by recalling them; you must have +suffered certain torments, compared to which Dante's infernal region +will seem blooming flower-beds to you, and you must imagine that nature +rarely torments one man with all the tortures of the amorous passion. In +human nature some sorrows make the heart incapable of suffering certain +others, and the morbid rage of jealous pride protects us against the +bitter sob of a generous sorrow, just as the chaste reserve of a modest +nature deprives us of the possibility of suffering the ardent thirst for +certain pleasures. + +If you wish to open just a little the door of this hell, if you want to +sound its abysses with a passing glance, imagine on one side all the +hopes, all the voluptuousness, all the riches of love, and on the other +all the fears, all the bitternesses, all the miseries. And after this +cruel exposition of the joys and sorrows of love, you will not have +ended yet, because the fields of sufferance are a hundred times larger +than those where joy is sown. The physical possession of a woman is one; +the tortures of a man beholding the fruit near without his being able to +touch it are thousands; and this example will suffice for all. + +Thus, as the antithesis of life is death, in its presence all the arrows +of our pride lose their sharpness, all our hopes are torn, all our joys +shattered. In the delirium of passion and pride we all repeat hundreds +of times: "I would have her dead rather than belonging to another--a +thousand times buried, but not unfaithful." And frequently the man who +utters this blasphemy, his lips livid and his hair standing on end, +stains his hands with blood by plunging them into the bosom of a victim. +Folly and delirium! Hurricanes of the heart where love and hatred, pride +and love, crime and torture clash and blend in the tumult of a dreadful +storm. But love, which truly loves, infinite love which transforms man +into the half of a creature that suffers and desires, ideal love that +few feel and few see dimly in the twilight of a suprasensible region +which their hands cannot reach, recognizes no greater torture than the +death of the beloved. Oh, yes; let indifference, contempt, hatred, +betrayal come, but that the dear one may live. Let others have this +creature whom we have believed to be ours, into whose veins we have +poured our blood; let this temple, perfumed with the incense of our +thoughts, with the durable love of all our passions, become the temple +of another god; let our flowers be trampled upon, our crowns broken, +ourselves driven away by the rough broom of the sexton, but let the god +live who sojourns there, let the idol of our life shine on the altar. +Dejected like a fugitive, despised like a criminal, vituperated like a +spy, in the cold and distant solitude we drink drop by drop a bottomless +cup of gall, and every drop is bitterer than the last; but we know that +she breathes the air of our planet, which we too breathe; we know that +she is inebriated by the same sun that warms us; we know that among the +numberless shadows that wander through the spaces of the invisible there +is a creature around whom the air becomes mellower and the light +brighter; that there are certain clods of earth which yield to the +weight of a body that we love. No; as long as the woman we love lives, +hope does not lose all its feathers, and far, far away, less tangible +than a dream, more invisible than the regions of heaven, more +inconceivable than eternity, it still soars on our horizon, perhaps not +believed, not confessed, but it still lives and keeps us alive. + +But when we still live and she is dead; when we are still so cowardly as +to live, to breathe, to eat, and she is buried in the humid miasma of a +wooden coffin; when all the world still exists and she is dead; when the +joy of a thousand flowers that blossom in every ray of light, the trills +of a thousand birds that sing of love, the groups of the fortunates who +embrace each other, and the benedictions of so many happy creatures are +nothing but a frame to a gelid void, a dark world; when we remain +suspended between an infinity of joy that _was_ ours and an infinity of +sorrow that _is_ ours and shall be ours tomorrow and as long as we are +so cowardly as to live,--then we may look upon suicide as the supreme +joy of life, as the most sublime of human prides; then we may understand +how man can in a flash dream of the great voluptuousness of mingling his +bones with those of another creature; then we can understand how +imagination can smile at the idea of the embrace of two corpses, of the +fusion of two ashes, of the resurrection of two existences extinguished +in the perfume of two flowers grown upon a human grave and which the +wind blandly brings together that they may kiss again. + +In the silence of the cemeteries there are some flowers that kiss each +other and to which, perhaps, from under the earth responds the quivering +of certain bones; there are certain lips on our planet, which closely +pressed against each other one day, which death cruelly separated and +which a second death has reunited forever. And when we survive, it is +because a new organism has been created in us, and today we are no +longer what we were yesterday. The thoughts of the past, the limbs of +the past, all that we were yesterday is dead, dead forever; from the +withered trunk of our existence, science, duty, friendship, paternal or +maternal or filial love cause a new branch to shoot forth, which +reproduces the ancient tree; and the common passer-by, seeing the same +leaves, the same flowers, the same fruits, believes that only one corpse +is buried there--but he is in error. We can survive certain sorrows on +one condition only: to accomplish the miracle of dying today in order to +be born anew tomorrow with the same name, but with a new life. And for +the honor of human nature, these survivors remain the faithful and +silent priests of the vanished god, like those Peruvians who, on the +summits of the Andes, amidst the eternal glaciers of the Sorata or of +the Illimani, still worship the god of their fathers. To understand +certain sorrows is the proof of a lofty mind; to have experienced them +is the glory of a martyr which exalts and purifies us. + + +I feel very sure that many who weep for love, either because their love +is not returned or because they fear deception--if they have not already +been deceived--or because of their bitter disappointment when they +found that they had burned their incense to an idol of clay or a statue +of marble, will repute my description exaggerated, yet it is +nevertheless a pallid picture of a sorrow which pen of man will never be +able to portray from nature, but succeed only in divining from afar. To +many death, the absolute evil, in the presence of which every hope +perishes, seems preferable to the torture that threatens life yet does +not kill, which opens the wounds and hinders the work done by nature to +heal them. I wish that these gentlemen may never have the opportunity of +making the cruel comparison for themselves, of experiencing the effects +of an assimilated anatomy of two great sorrows, one of which is termed +death, the other desperation. If they truly love, may they die earlier +than their beloved! This is the sweetest blessing that I can offer them +from the pages of my book. + +Love is a passion so fervid and so deep that we must not wonder if it +has abrupt convulsions and sudden swoons. Accustomed to dwell always in +lofty regions, to have but extreme voluptuousness for nourishment, to +vibrate with the highest notes of sentiment and the delirium of the +senses, it may instantaneously become possessed, when it least expects +it, by unreasonable fears, idiotic suspicions, inexplicable +restlessness. By this I do not mean diffidence, jealousy, disgust, weary +libertinism, or bitter disappointments, but a vague and shapeless fog +that invades the heart which, by feeling too deeply, has become languid +and congeals the nerves exhausted from excessive quivering. It is an +indefinable hysteria which from a slight disorder may develop into a +most intense bitterness. + +An immense love, whatever the source of the heart from which it springs +forth, is always followed by the shadow of an infinite fear. You adore +your child; you have left him for five minutes on the lawn or in your +garden, intent on filling his little cart with sand; he was as rosy and +fresh as the flowers near him; as bright as the sun that gilded his +curly locks. Now, while you are seated at your table, you have wished to +call him, I know not why, perhaps to hear the sweet sound of his +silvery voice; and he does not answer you. You call him again, and again +silence. He is utterly absorbed in the ponderous care of his wagon; but +you, flying in a few seconds over a thousand miles of thought, have +imagined that he was dead, that a snake had bitten him, that he had +fallen in a swoon--who knows the fantastic visions that have passed +through your mind! With your heart throbbing, your skin in a +perspiration, you are afraid to rise and wish to defer for a moment the +spectacle of a cruel loss. Of these and greater follies we are given a +sad spectacle every day by that love of loves which alone was called by +this name as the prince and god of all the amorous sentiments. + + +Neither the most patient and long observation of human phenomena nor the +most lively imagination could enable us to divine all the petty tortures +that lovers inflict upon themselves, perhaps to obey that cruel law +which, according to some persons, has decreed that no one shall be happy +on this planet. + +In this field of evil, temperament is everything; to some individuals +the phrase of Linnæus concerning the loves of the cat may be applied: +"_Clamando misere amat_." For these unfortunates (we have already +described them) love is imbued with so much bitterness and surrounded by +so many nettles that it actually resembles a bramble, all thorns and +wormwood. Suspicious, fastidious, melancholy, they fear everything, +scrutinize everything; they pass everything through the sieve, they +pulverize everything, looking for the mite or the poison. In the kiss +they suspect ice, in the caress indifference; of the impulses they feel +only the shock, only the blows. And then, even that little honey that +love has for all they wish to keep under watch in so many tabernacles +and under so many seals that they are very fortunate when they can find +and relish it! From a jealous jeremiad they fall into an hysterical +soliloquy, and have hardly emerged from a gloomy meditation on the +infidelity of man when they fall into the autopsy of a love-letter. +These creatures were certainly born under an unlucky star, and even if +nature should make them a gift of a Venus draped by the Graces, or an +Apollo with the brain of Jupiter, they would still be always unhappy, +because bitterness is on their lips and not in the cup of love. + + +There is perhaps no greater torture than that which a woman must suffer +when compelled to submit to the caress of a man whom she does not love. +I do not mean by this the brutal violence that assimilates an embrace to +homicide, and relegates it to the criminal code and the prison. In this +case we would have a human beast that strikes, bites, sheds the blood of +a poor creature who swoons with terror or struggles powerlessly in the +clutches of a tiger: they are sorrows which belong to the story of +terror, to the bloodiest pages of supreme tortures. I intend to speak +here of the caresses that a woman must accord to a man because law, +money or a surprise of the senses has sold her to him without love; I +intend to speak of torture bitter, somber, deep as infinity, and which +assimilates the prostitute to the martyr. + +These sorrows, among the greatest that the human heart can suffer, were +by a cruel nature almost exclusively reserved for woman. Man, by the +special nature of his aggressive sex, must be spurred to the embrace by +a sudden enthusiasm; his senses must be clouded by intense lust. In him +voluptuousness can do without love, and physical love has a joy that is +sufficient to conceal mercifully all his lack of sentiment and passion. +For if indifference, hatred, contempt permeate him entirely, invading +even the last intrenchments of love, then no caress in the world can +revive it, no law, human or divine, can force him to accept a caress +which to him is repugnant. There is no case in which the ancient theory +of freedom of the will shows its ridiculous falsity as plainly as in +this. + +Woman, however, may be as cold as ice, feel chilly shivers of aversion +and loathing run through her entire body, hate a man to the desire of +death, despise to abhorrence a man who is near to her; and yet in many +cases she can, and in very many she must, submit to his caress. Frigid, +with grief in her heart and hatred on her lips, she beholds the ardor +of that man which burns but does not warm her; she looks on the +sublimity of enthusiasm only as the culmination of ridicule; she +discerns passion, but finds it simply grotesque; she perceives +impetuosity, and for her it is nothing but violence; instead of love, +with its flashes, its light, its perfumes, she sees, smells, touches +simply a brutal force which debases, prostitutes, pollutes her; an +infinity of repugnance in an ocean of nausea! + +When woman has fallen into that mire through her own fault, she cannot +be more cruelly punished. The immensity of prostitution is avenged with +an infinity of outrage; the holiest thing is plunged into the most fetid +mud; the greatest joy gives place to the greatest shame. But when, on +the contrary, the daughter of Eve is brought to this sacrifice of the +body by the tyranny of the law, by the perverted tendencies of our moral +education, when she finds herself led to that cruel misfortune through +ignorance or through the fault of others,--then, if she does not yet +possess that skepticism which heals the heart or that cynicism which +shields it, if she still knows what modesty is, if she still remembers +the trepidations of love, then that poor woman drinks drop by drop the +most cruel torture that any creature can endure; then she passes through +a long and merciless agony. + +To have dreamed for years and years of the promised land of love, to +have conquered it, inch by inch, through the reveries of childhood and +the rosy aurora of adolescence; to have felt an immense, horrible fear +of dying before having loved; to have loved and to love, to be aware of +a volcano in the heart, to be at the gates of paradise and inhale +through the portal its inebriating perfumes--and then, after all this, +to become conscious of having been transformed into a vessel which +satisfies the thirst, to feel in the bosom a roaring beast--to be a part +of the régime of a man, like magnesia or leeches--truly this is more +cruel torture than the inquisitors ever invented; it is really too great +a sorrow for a lonely weak creature! + +What mass of meditations, what abysses of desperation are gathered in a +few seconds in the head of a woman caressed by a man whom she does not +love! What eloquence in silence, that silence which Ovid, the libertine, +eagerly advised women to avoid! Often does a man press to his bosom a +creature who does not love him and whom he too heedlessly prostitutes, +while the victim meditates a long, cruel revenge. More than one +adultery, more than one assassination was conceived, discussed, vowed in +that moment when man, enjoying the supreme bliss, believed to have in +his arms a happy creature. More than one embrace has generated twins, a +new man and a new hatred; a tenacious and bitter hatred, which only the +death of the one who hates can extinguish, since it often survives the +death of its object. + +O men, you who see in love a cup to empty, and find in matrimony only an +association of two capitals or a mechanism for reproducing the species, +remember that for many creatures love is the first and the last of +passions, the first and the last of joys; and remember that for very +many women, whom you neglect and perhaps despise, love is all of life. + +There is no nature so unhappy that its distress could not be relieved by +another nature capable of mending the shreds of the heart, tempering the +bitterness, straightening the rachitic limbs. There is no man, born weak +or sickly, who could not become robust if he only should live in a +climate, be supplied with food and surrounded with the physical and +moral atmosphere that agrees with him. And I believe that the same can +apply to love. If we could dedicate half a century to the search for the +right woman, if Diogenes' lantern could be fitted with the electric +light which modern science concedes to us, certainly among the thousand +millions of human beings who tread this planet we could and should be +able to find the woman who would be happy with us and make us happy. +Unfortunately, life is too short and love is too rapid and exacting in +its desires to make such a search possible; and even for the most +fortunate and wisest creatures a part of happiness is always among the +unknown quantities determined by chance and not by reflection. Hence +many and beautiful natures are tied by love-knots, and still are not +happy because characters fit each other on many sides of the human +polygon but not on all. + +The study of these contrasts, of these partial incompatibilities would +require the moral analysis of the entire man, of all his social +vicissitudes, while many of those sorrows do not belong solely to love, +but spring from all human affections and poison friendship, fraternal, +filial and paternal loves; some of them, however, are peculiar to the +love of loves. + +To feel at the same hour, at the same moment, in the same degree, the +stimulus of a desire or the thirst for a caress is a rare thing, a +fortunate coincidence which gilds with the most beautiful rays the +happiest hours of life; but it can never be the bread of a daily bliss. +In all other cases, thirst arises in one of the two and is communicated +to the other, so that a spark draws a spark, a caress generates +caresses. It is an invitation of lips, a fluttering of wings, a +harmonious note which calls from a bough to another bough; but it is +always the invitation to a rendezvous, the awakening of one who +slumbers. In these invitations, in these first skirmishes, the +ridiculous always runs parallel and very near to the sublime. Love +stands between them, it is true, and never permits them to unite; but +the least inadvertence, the least unscrupulous or heedless movement may +bring the two elements into contact; and the ridiculous, wherever it +touches, wounds self-love and, with it, love. + +Even upon the most impatient, the most ridiculous, the most grotesque +desires you should throw at once the mantle of love to cover them. Every +threat of ridicule then vanishes like vapor; no wounding of self-love is +possible. I address myself to woman, because she oftener than we has the +opportunity of healing these unsightly wounds, because she has her hand +suavely ready to aid. Woe, if your companion should blush through your +fault, because you knew not at the proper time and place how to close +your eyes or shield them with the merciful veil of your hand or your +love! + +How much bitterness, how much rancor and spite, how many nettles and +thorns are found on the blooming paths of the most fervid passion, just +because delicacy of sentiment does not always know how to reconcile the +inequalities of the senses, because a too exacting modesty repels a too +live ardor of temperament, or because woman does not decide with wise +perception that the too exacting demands, prompted by selfish love and +not by love, should be allowed to starve! By fleeing one may lose or +conquer; by standing one's ground one may lose or conquer: but many flee +when they should not recede, many stand firm when they should flee; +hence many defeats which disappoint both conquerors and conquered, and +love often lies on the ground drenched with its own blood. + + +The tortures, the spites, the bitternesses, the wearinesses, the stings, +the torments of love should be deeply studied because they always move +side by side with joy and voluptuousness, and very few are so fortunate +as not to stumble against them. Much luck, a thorough knowledge of man, +great experience can defend us from them, so that at the end of our +career we may bless love, which, though with some slight sorrow, has +perfumed our life with its most beautiful flowers. + +I have alluded only to some of the torments which populate the hell of +love; but their number is infinite, their names are countless. In every +field of sentiment, of senses and of intellect man possesses a much +greater possibility to suffer than to enjoy; and when bliss is attained +and the veins are cut from which oozes the bitter sap of sorrow, it is +always after a long, fierce battle, in which we defend ourselves with +all the weapons of nature and art. Here also--and here more, perhaps, +than anywhere else--the weight of mental virtues is revealed in all its +power, the influence of a noble and generous character in all its +strength. The ardent and impetuous heart is not a source of greater +amorous bitterness when the calm light of reason burns within it, when +the sublime incapacity to commit base actions accompanies the desire +for the good, when we enjoy more the pleasure we give than that which we +receive. + +Weak and defective natures are strengthened and straightened when they +have for support the robust column of an affectionate and noble nature; +even the rabid rancors of small hearts lose their bitterness in the calm +blue ocean of a character which is all sweetness and sympathy. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE DEGRADATIONS OF LOVE + + +Love, being the most powerful agitator of human elements that was ever +known, stirs the slime which is always found even in the noblest +natures; while in men whose souls have been kneaded with sludge it +becomes the greatest coefficient of vice and crime. Love, like all other +sentiments, has a pathology of its own, a superior pathology, because it +so widens its sphere of action as to enclose a larger field and has more +prepotent needs to satisfy. A man incapable of a base deed even though +dying of hunger, even though about to lose all that he holds most dear, +may compromise with his conscience when a question of love arises, and +many, many blemishes stain the texture of the noblest and loftiest +natures. Love wants to possess us bound hands and feet, and this is an +inexhaustible source of disgrace, guilt, mean cowardice and great +crimes. + +The degradations of love are as numberless as the grains of sand in the +sea, as many as love's own delights; they are of every size and adapt +themselves to the infinite degrees of human baseness. It seems to me, +however, that in a general study of physiology they can be reduced to +two principal forms, that is to say, _impotency_ and _prostitution_. + +Impotency is not only a disease that should receive the care of the +physician or the hygienist; it is not only a case which requires the +attention of the legislator: but it is a moral shame that must be +thoroughly studied by the psychologist who endeavors to outline the +natural story of love. + +In the very simplest organism of inferior animals every desire of love +ceases when age, disease or a wound has exhausted the energy of the +genital organs. In man, instead, the most irresistible and bestial +needs are so teeming with psychical elements of the moral and the +intellectual world as to survive the disease of the organ. An innocent +man loves even without being aware of his manhood, and a woman can die +of love although knowing nothing of the existence of the womb. True it +is, no amorous note arises in the eunuch, or if the phantoms of a +strange lasciviousness are noticed wandering here and there, they are +specters that belong to the limbo of the most transcendent pathology. +These poor pariahs of nature are, however, very rare; while our rachitic +civilization makes by hundreds the semi-eunuchs who fill with cuckoldly +ornaments the sanctuary of the family and the low world of wandering +loves. Statistics, fortunately, cannot obtain the exact number of these +"half-men" and consign them to their inexorable files; be it enough for +us to know that they are many, very many, much more numerous than +feminine virtue and patience could tolerate. + +Nature's whole love, true love, nude but innocent love, is not all +sentiment or thought, but also a function of reproductive life, a need +of the senses. Martyrs and saints could mutilate themselves and die in +the beatitude of their mutilations; but the majority of men does not +consist of saints or martyrs. Every mutilation of love is a shame and +the most fecund generator of many other minor shames. In the chaste and +cool dawn of early youth, more than one woman consented unwittingly to +an infamous compact by which a man offered her a great name and great +wealth in exchange for a "yes." The wretched man loved her, desired her, +but could not possess her as nature commanded man to possess woman; he +wished to own the temple and feel the emotion of owning it without +having the right to enter it. Sometimes the eunuch was not an abject +being and did confess his shame before his betrayal, but the innocent +maiden did not understand and accepted the compact. And who does not +believe himself a hero or a martyr at that age? And the eunuch embraced +his precious prey, inundated her with sterile kisses, and endeavored to +warm her with his impotent caresses; and the marmoreal statue of +adolescent virginity trembled with new and, to her, incomprehensible +emotions. Later on, the virgin realized that she was a woman, that in +vain she was a woman, and love attacked and seized virtue, and felled it +despairing and imploring, and the covenant sworn in good faith was +broken by the most powerful of affections. How many domestic +misfortunes, what a fruitful stream of bastards, how many brigands +spring from this contaminated source! + +O you, real eunuchs, half-eunuchs, quarter-eunuchs, do not hope to be +loved by a woman on whom you have imposed an infamous contract! No +virtue, no oath can resist the sacred laws of love; nobody is stronger +than nature. And if you have found a heroine, why make a martyr of her? +Do you want to be the executioner of her whom you say you love? + +And you, generous women, noble women, who can elevate to the highest +regions even the lowest passion, do not accept any compact involving a +mutilation of love. You, teachers of every kind of sacrifice, you think +that you will make happy an outcast of nature, you impose upon +yourselves, smiling perhaps, the sublime mission of redeeming a +desperate man: but I assure you that neither virtue nor sacrifice nor +heroism can stifle that formidable cry of the universe of the living +that wants you to be wives and mothers. While the martyr, with the palm +of sacrifice tightly pressed to her bosom, will try to smile, a cruel, +deep, painful stab in her heart will warn her: "You, Eve and daughter of +Eve, will become a mother only through a crime, will enter the sanctuary +of sanctuaries, the tabernacle of maternity, only through the door of +domestic treason." + +No; love is not all senses and all lust. Sentiment can be such a great +part of it as to conceal voluptuousness in the most secluded recess of a +hidden region. No; woman can be happy even without voluptuousness if she +only feels herself loved: but she wishes to love, and should love, "a +man." I appeal to all the daughters of Eve, and, to be spared blushing, +they may reply with a nod of the head and without moving their lips: Is +it not true that you would prefer a hundred times to be loved by a +"real man," even with a vow of chastity, rather than to be profaned and +satiated with lust at the hands of a eunuch? Is it not true that above +all you want to have for support that firm column called "an honorable +man"? And certainly he is not an honorable man who claims the possession +of a woman and demands to be loved by her when he is not a man. + +The half-men who at forty, at fifty years of age aspire to have a +family, after having dragged their half-virility through the +lasciviousness of prostitution and the dainties of the erotic kitchen, +should never suppose that lechery can take the place of true love in a +woman. They can prostitute their spouse, but they can never make her +love them earnestly and deeply. They are foredoomed by the inexorable +laws of nature to figure largely in the population of cuckoldom. + +When impotency falls like a thunderbolt on the head of two happy lovers, +it is only a disease, a misfortune that concerns the physician and the +pharmacist; but when it precedes love, it is cowardice, degradation, +infamy. The honest man should never attempt to conceal it from himself +or justify it; he should either courageously renounce love, a thing that +does not concern him, or expose the sore and ask the armed hand of the +surgeon to cut and cauterize it. Let him become a man again, and then +see if he can aspire to the delights of sentiment. Before becoming a +farmer, he should possess a farm. + +The complicated mechanism of our social organism, in the same manner as +it offers to the thirst of ardent youth voluptuousness without love, +imposes on many lovers, with a more cruel amputation, love without +voluptuousness. Here we have the two chief sources of the thousand +sorrows which human society prepares for those who love: "Voluptuousness +without love," that is, all the degradations and shames of prostitution; +"Love without voluptuousness," that is, all the tortures of enforced +chastity. Between these two hells the enamored youth remains a long time +suspended, until, to avoid death, he takes lechery and imagination into +a somber old boat and flees away with them to hide in the reedy marshes +and among the miasmas of self-abuse--the lowest of the degradations of +love, and one which occupies a proper place between impotency and +prostitution. Yes; as man enjoys all the Olympus of love, he must also +submit to all its degradations. + +In the book which I will dedicate to the hygiene of love this problem +will be thoroughly studied. Here I shall refer to it only so far as it +concerns the physiology of sentiment. It is painful to admit it, but it +is true: our modern society has rendered love so difficult to many +unhappy creatures as to make them pass under the Caudine Forks of this +cruel dilemma: either to buy voluptuousness and counterfeit love with +it, or dream of love in the mire of solitary lasciviousness. In one way +or the other, we are forced to become counterfeiters and to blush for +ourselves at the manner in which we satisfy the most powerful of human +needs. + +Solitary love is not only a sin against hygiene, and one which kills +health and vigor, but it is also an offense against morals, a poison of +happiness. He who repeatedly falls into the crime and is frequently +obliged to blush, tarnishes more every day the limpid purity of his own +dignity, weakens the strong spring of virile resolutions and becomes a +greater coward in all the battles of life. While he blushes for himself +and curses himself and the love that condemns him to a continuous +debasement, he blushes more than ever in the presence of the woman of +whom he does not feel worthy and of whom he becomes less worthy at each +fall. He poisons the wave of love at its very first source and, even +when he later succeeds in loving, has spoiled the purity of his tastes +and his aspirations and in the arms of a woman who loves him complains +of the solitary twinges of a morbid voluptuousness, like one who, having +burned his mouth with the pungent tastes of pipe and brandy, can no +longer relish the flavors of pineapple and strawberry. + +Love is the greatest of conquests, the sweetest of delights, the joy of +joys; to renounce it in order to replace it with degradation is worse +than a crime, it is an infamy. Better a hundred times chastity with its +sublime tortures, prostitution with its filth. True and complete love +is a splendid banquet under the fragrant trees of a garden, amidst the +glittering of the chalices, the harmonies of music and the witty jests +of friends; solitary love is a furtive meal with a bone picked up in the +fetidness of a dunghill and gnawed in the dark. + +Prostitution is, after solitary abuse, the greatest degradation of love, +and, what is worse,--it should be said at once,--a necessary one in +modern society. Tibullus hurls at it a splendid malediction: + + + "Jam tua qui Venerem docuisti vendere primus + Quisquis es, infelix urgeat ossa lapis!" + + ("Whoever thou art who first hast taught to sell the pleasures of + love, may an ill-boding stone crush thy bones!") + + +This imprecation, repeated by all moralists of every succeeding age, +could not prevent for one day the sale of love, and universal experience +demonstrates that St. Augustine was a sounder philosopher when he wrote: + + + "Aufer meretrices de rebus humanis, turbaveris omnia libidinibus; + constitue matronarum loco, labe ac dedecore dehonestaveris." + + ("Take the prostitutes out of human things, and you will disturb + the whole world with lust; put them in the place of wives, and you + will defile home with disease and dishonor.") + + +If St. Augustine had written but this sentence, I would proclaim him a +great psychologist; in a few words he has shown all the sides of the +tremendous problem, given a lesson of toleration to the intolerant, of +social science to economists, and today, after so many centuries, his +words are as true, profound, inexorable as when he addressed them to a +world so different from ours. + +Difficult problems are not solved by fleeing from or by concealing +them; and yet many physicians, many philosophers attempt to solve the +most burning questions of modern society after the manner of a child who +by closing his eyes believes that he is fleeing from the dog that +threatens him. To Dr. Monlau in Spain and Dr. Bergeret in France, who +thought that they would be able to save society by abolishing +prostitution, I replied in a few words which I wish to save from the +shipwreck of the newspapers in order to gather them in the shadow of +this book: + + + "I have never wondered at finding philosophers who study man in + Fichte or in Kant without having ever touched his palpitating body, + or examined any of his fibers with the microscope; who advise the + legislator to destroy in the social organism, with iron and fire, + that livid and cancerous spot called prostitution; neither have I + given the alarm or extolled it as a miracle when I heard the + _auto-da-fé_ invoked against the houses of ill fame by moralists + who have had the rare fortune of having been born without the sixth + sense, or the still rarer merit of smothering it with the + extinguisher of an iron will. But when I hear these intolerant + cries from the mouth of a physician, I shake my head diffidently, + and with a compassionate voice I ask myself: 'Is he really a + physician? Has this moralist actually seen a man in convulsive + delirium and cut into his cold and rigid flesh on the chilly marble + slab of the anatomical cabinet? He who hurls the anathema at + prostitution, is he really the physician who should act as a kind + link between the legislator, who in man sees only a defendant to + punish, and the philanthropist, who in him considers only an + unhappy creature to heal and help?' + + "These and other questions I addressed to the illustrious Spanish + physician Monlau when he proposed to his government the absolute + suppression of the houses of ill fame; and then I had the pleasure + of seeing my poor words printed in the progressive Spanish medical + journals. Now I make the same reproach to Dr. Bergeret, who, in + one of his memoirs on prostitution in the country places and small + towns of France, went so far as to fling the anathema against that + caustic wound which civilization has opened in the diseased flesh + of the modern social organism; and I, with a sad air, repeat to the + French physician a melancholy: '_Tu quoque, fili mi_?' + + "Bergeret lost much of his time and ink in narrating lurid stories + of what occurred in some villages of France. And who does not know + similar stories? We have them in Italy, in Germany; we can find + them in every country where humanity loves and suffers, gets drunk + and prostitutes itself; wherever the eyes of the authorities cannot + penetrate into the most secret fissures of the social edifice where + lie concealed the lurid parasites that sting and devour us. But + between deploring the evils that are the results of clandestine + prostitution and destroying all toleration on this ground there is + an abyss over which the physician and the legislator should not + pass on the waxen wings of an Arcadian flight, but which should be + crossed over the solid bridge of a wise criticism. + + "Then, my dear moralist, my dear theorist, you say that men learn + vice in the houses of ill fame; but, then, without taverns would + there be no assassins, without pharmacists would there be no + poisoners, without manufacturers of gunpowder and bayonets would + there be no wars? And who, pray, is the cause of the existence of + houses of ill fame, taverns, daggers, poisons, firearms, if not man + himself, that man whom you ought to be able to understand if it is + true that you also are made of the same dough? Your morals are + those of the inquisitor who burns the sinner whom he cannot + convert; they are as false and coarse as those of the legislator + who has only the prison and the scaffold for the education of the + guilty; as those of the surgeon who barbarously amputates the + member which, with a wiser and more merciful science, he should + preserve. Modern civilization substitutes the school for the + inquisitor's stake, has more faith in books than in prisons and + halters, more in preservative medicine than in the surgeon's + knife. And as long as the social organism is diseased, as long as + it is a poor creature imbued with evil humors, with many curious + bones and many scrofulous tumors, we will kindly cauterize its + flesh to keep it alive, to divert into more ignoble parts those + acrid humors that would poison the sources of life, until we shall + succeed with the tonic cure of education in renewing the blood in + the veins of this old invalid and in pouring this new blood into + his flesh, his bones and his nerves, to rebuild them. + + "This is why we still preserve the cautery of prostitution, and we + wish to guard it with the same jealous care with which a physician + keeps a precious wound open to save the life of a diseased + organism. + + "And believe me, O egregious colleague of the country beyond the + Alps, when life shall be no longer threatened and the organism + shall have new blood, then we will close this wound, too, together + with many other ones which are still bleeding. We will close the + house of voluptuousness when every man will have his nest and love + will not be considered a crime any longer." + + +There are some savage races among which prostitution is unknown, while +no civilized nation is without prostitutes; on the contrary, every +country, even the most moral, has the high prostitutes and the very +high, the low and the very low. Not in all countries are prostitutes +cynically named according to the price they ask for their favors, as in +Persia, where they are termed "the fifty _tomani_," "the twenty +_tomani_," etc.; but everywhere a tariff is the index of the hierarchy +of vice and a scale of lechery. Alexander Severus did not want the money +collected through taxes on houses of prostitution to be paid into the +treasury; and Ulpian, his minister, used it for the maintenance of the +theaters and the public health. With Juvenalian sagacity, the government +of Brazil devotes to the regulation of vice the money received from the +sale of decorations and titles of nobility. We find everywhere women who +sell themselves, but we also find, to our honor, that society is +everywhere ashamed of this stain, conceals and does not mention it, and +a mysterious mephitic air hangs heavily over the simony of love. + +A thousand muddy streamlets carry their tributes to prostitution; but at +the first source the cause is one and powerful: in man an imperious +appetite for voluptuousness, in woman an imperious want of bread or +licentiousness, or licentiousness and bread at the same time. +Unfortunately woman can always sell five minutes of voluptuousness +without love, without desire; she can sell herself with disgust in her +heart and hatred on her lips. And the joy she sells is paid for +according to the requirements of beauty, luxury, fashion, according to +the infamous art with which she knows how to feign pleasure and +counterfeit love. Procurers and procuresses hasten to the market of +lechery to test the flesh of the precious victims, to fatten the lean +and buy the plump for the higher bidder; and panders and bawds, keeping +within the shadow of the law, conceal in the lurid or gilded prisons of +prostitution that quivering herd of youth and shame. And prisoners in +the same gloomy atmosphere are martyrs of love and nymphomaniacs; +victims of hunger and of ignorance; fallen angels and foul demons; all +the lowest strata of feminine society, all the bloody carrions of the +great social battles. + +There, in those dark haunts of licentiousness, man forgets how to love, +loses the holy poetry of the heart and the mysterious quivers of +sentiment, prostitutes the most gigantic forces of thought and +affection. Without hunger, he partakes of savory food; thirstless, he +becomes intoxicated; without the necessity of overcoming modesty, he +obtains everything, and money levels all virtues and concedes the +maddest polygamy; and there one sees the nude and chaste statue of Love +dragged in the fetid bog by a frolicsome tipsy crowd. Such is the love +that modern civilization offers to all those hundred thousand pariahs +who cannot find the straw to weave the chaste nest of the family, to all +those who cannot make a vow of chastity and do not wish to deceive an +innocent maiden or steal another man's woman. + +Our civilized society can really be proud of this; the philanthropists +with their tearful dirges, the economists with their wise reflections, +the legislators with their elaborate codes, can join in a chorus to sing +hosannas to this stupendous solution of the problem. Either a starving +family or prostitution; either children cast into the depth of misery or +faith betrayed in the house of a friend; proletariate or infamy; +degradation or crime. Stupendous dilemmas that crown our society with +numberless horns and sow deception, hunger and corruption everywhere. If +a thick bark of hypocrisy did not cover the rotten trunk of our modern +civilization, what a horrible spectacle should we behold! And when a +sincere moralist or a true philosopher attempts to cut the bark away and +show to us through a little fissure how deep the decay is, then we flee +horrified and clamor against such impudence, such sacrilege! + +The government should, therefore, deal with prostitution as a malady to +be treated, not because there is any hope of cure, but because society +owes to every sick person a physician and a bed. It should not be +permitted to grow, to spread, to parade its lurid sores, to cover itself +with tinsel and paint; but it should be watched tenderly as in a +hospital, so that in the passer-by it may awaken compassion rather than +lechery. + +And while the state keeps a good vigil, writers and teachers should +raise the level of general culture and teach the elect the paradise of +chastity, which contains a treasure of delights for the future of him +who waits (this, alas! the libertine will never be able to understand), +and preserves for true love, which all may hope to attain, the infinite +joys of a virgin voluptuousness. The sale of love should neither be +proclaimed as a feast of the human family, nor officially suppressed, +because it then overflows and inundates all the paths of society; it +should be tolerated and pitied, as we already tolerate and pity many +other maladies of our social organism. + +To reach this sublime goal, to hope at least to attain it, we must above +all scrape off from modern love the hundred coats of hypocrisy; we must +not have our children learn love as a crime in the house of vice; but +immediately, at the first dawn of youth, they should be taught that it +is a sublime delight conceded to the good and the noble and is to be +conquered in the same manner as glory and wealth. Not the chambermaid or +the prostitute, but a modest and pure girl should be the first teacher +of love; a woman who should teach us love before voluptuousness, to be +chaste in our desires in order to possess her some day. + +We conceal and believe that we are able with silence to suppress the +passions and suffocate the desires; but we have concealed too much and +have been silent too long. In the most puritanical country in the world, +England, one of the most honest and wisest physicians of London +published a book--that has already reached the ninth edition--in which +he frankly dared assert that free love, without fecundation, is the only +remedy against the proteiform corruption that invades modern society, +because of the impossibility for most of the people of morally +satisfying one of the most powerful needs. This book was a distressing +surprise to me. When they can write such a book as this in England and +devour nine editions, when an honest physician can calmly discuss +_preventive intercourse_, when Malthus finds such an eloquent and daring +commentator who brings his theory from the field of economy into that of +morality, of hygiene and even of religion, I believe it my duty to +affirm that society is thoroughly diseased and (I say it loudly) should +be cured. + +Yes; modern society, infected with so much prostitution and adultery, +and incessantly proclaiming itself monogamous while it is largely +polygamous, demands a physician to cure its sores, to cleanse it from so +much degradation, to concede loves virtuous and more free, or at least +less soiled with filth and lies. And this physician must be a less +hypercritical and less exacting morality, but at the same time more +exalted, because more human; a morality that should teach us never to +separate voluptuousness from love, and that chastity is the most +beautiful and holiest of joys and the most watchful guardian of love. + +The elect never prostitute themselves, not even in these times, because +they love, and because, having once entered the paradise of love, they +feel too great repugnance to descend to the mire of the simony of +voluptuousness. They should exert all their faculties with all their +strength in order that the masses, too, may elevate themselves to the +high spheres in which they dwell, and where they breathe a purer air and +cull the most delicate and beautiful flowers. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +FAULTS AND CRIMES OF LOVE + + +If you ask a hundred women what is the most common fault of love, +probably the same reply will be repeated a hundred times: "Love is +inconstant; love is a liar." If, on the other hand, you consult the +gloomy volumes in which man gathers the statistics of his crimes, you +will find several columns bristling with figures indicating the large +number of suicides and homicides for love; you will find no records of +inconstancy, and but rarely, scattered here and there, some cases of +adultery. The jurymen, then, that amorphous and chaotic mass in which +every idea of right and wrong dissolves and vanishes, always deal very +leniently with crimes for which the code would send the culprit to death +or to prison for life, and they often acquit the man who has turned +murderer for love. + +In none of the human institutions is such impenetrable darkness as in +the field of love, where an intricate mass of reticences, +contradictions, tolerations and cruelties causes common sense to stumble +at every step and, what is worse, offends and wounds the sentiment of +justice. It is a written law that adultery is a crime to be punished +with the gravest penalties, but in actual life adultery is the most +common and most venial sin ever known; it is not only tolerated, but +fêted and almost accepted as a social institution. The incitement to +prostitution is considered a very serious crime, but many legislators +sell their daughters to a rich husband who cannot love her, never will +love her and will drive her to adultery with the force of irresistible +necessity. And is this not prostitution? Man is either not worthy of the +laws which he has imposed on himself, or he is rambling in a labyrinth +of maniacal vertigo; he is either an arrogant blockhead or a shameless +liar. + +Man is a little of all this, but he is chiefly a hypocrite. He proclaims +solemnly to the four winds that he is a son of God and that he inhabits +the earth by chance and temporarily; born in Olympus, he will return +there soon and forever. He is a god on vacation who condescends to play +and eat with the peasants, but he is winged and lives only on ideals. A +moment later he forgets his proclamations, his braggardism and shows +more than ever that he is an animal of the soil; he sees the painful +contrast between what he has said and what he has done, covers himself +and goes into hiding. Such is the eternal formula of his eternal +contradictions. In love he lies more frequently and more brazenly than +in any other case. He has supposed for a moment that love, too, could be +just and hence measured on the same scale as the other sentiments, and +above all leveled by the common yoke of the other affections. And yet +love may possess all virtues; it may be merciful, heroic, kind, +generous, but it can never be just; born in injustice, it lives on +injustice and dies of injustice; it has but one right--strength; it +possesses only one weapon--arrogance. + +When deceived love arms itself with an homicidal knife, I class that +crime among the most inevitable effects of instantaneous hatred and +natural revenge; when love is imposed as a duty on a girl, and instead +of love hatred is born, instead of affection contempt springs up, I +remark that love cannot be ordered for a fixed hour like a dinner, and +that, if infamies and bastards are born from the obscene nuptials of +gold and vanity, love has nothing to do with it, because love was +absent, and he who can prove an alibi is at once acquitted by the most +cruel and most stubborn of public prosecutors. When I see love kill +dignity, friendship, the holiest affections of the heart; when I see it +breaking with furious rage the iron bars of the cage in which a cruel +code of laws has imprisoned it, I acquit it instantly because love is +not a wild beast that can be shut up in a menagerie, but a creature as +free as air, that lives on bright light and burning suns, on the aroma +of the forest and the fragrance of the meadows. You have made it +hydrophobic with hunger and thirst; you have made it furious with your +own violence; and you complain because the mad creature bites and kills? +This is admitted to be true by universal consent; and as there is an +immense inequality between what the laws require and that of which human +loves are capable, men shrug their shoulders and forgive, forgive +always, forgive all, even where human justice should rise in all the +solemn grandeur of its majesty to protect the most sacred rights of +family and society. In the codes, love is often a crime; in the paths of +life, for the most rigorous individuals, it is at most a weakness--a +dear, a sympathetic weakness. + +For me hypocrisy is a chain that ties and chokes love in modern society, +and I dare affirm that the only fault, the only crime which this +sentiment can commit is falsehood. Let us begin by freeing it from the +leprosy which infects, devours, disgraces it, and then we shall see what +remains sound beneath in that dear, nude and virginal love that Mother +Nature has conceded us. Let us first save the life of this poor +creature, and then we shall attend to the rest; we shall find out +whether it has other misfortunes, whether it can commit other crimes +besides that of lying. + +In my opinion, love is today a liar from head to foot; a liar when it +swears and when it forswears; a liar when, a hundred times a day, it +pronounces the words _eternal_, _eternity_, _eternally_; it is a liar in +law and in life; it is unfaithful, a thief, a traitor, solely because it +is a liar. I may have a _Scipionian mania_, the fixed idea of a _delenda +Carthago_; but if I should have to answer the questions: "Which are the +true, the great loves?" "Which are the happy loves?" I would reply +without hesitation: "The sincere." All the faults of love are all lies; +almost all the misfortunes of love are the offspring of untruth; and, +finally, adultery is nothing but the most infamous of love's lies. "What +is," I will ask in turn, "the only remedy for unhappy loves, the only +anchor of salvation for betrayed loves?" "Sincerity, sincerity, nothing +but sincerity." + +At the risk of seeing many disciples and many masters of love smile +skeptically, I will say at once that woman, from the first day she +loves, lies less than we do, and during the life of love she is less +unfaithful than we are. Man, in his first declaration, even when quite +sure that he loves, swears instantly, swears an eternity of infinite +affection; while woman, more modest, more timid, more reserved, answers +that she does not love yet; that she has not yet consulted her heart; +that, perhaps, she will love. The less one swears, the less one +forswears; and if a holy horror may deprive speech of some fiery accent +and some amorous expansion of inebriating expressions, it nevertheless +stamps it with virile dignity which makes it blessed among women, while +it gives the sexual relations a character of tender reserve and delicate +serenity. Man often uses the "eternal oaths" as weapons of seduction, +and parades them at every hour as a measure of the bottomless depths of +his love; but sometimes he swears sincerely, honestly, because nothing +so boldly generates eternity and infinity as does armed desire. It is +only too true, however, that the hasty and imprudent vow is a fruitful +father of lies and most fruitful grandparent of infidelity. + +Very few are the eternal loves, as are geniuses, Venuses, and Apollos. +We all anxiously climb the mountain of the ideal, but few can get a +branch or a leaf of the sacred tree. Some loves of the lower orders last +years; others, months; some of them are as transient as the ephemera, +for which long is the life of a day. Now, frankness can give all loves +the baptism of honesty, and even a frivolous man can die without amorous +remorse if his loves were all honest. He has loved much and fleetingly, +but he has never lied, never betrayed anybody, never perjured himself. + +Sometimes lies are told through compassion, and woman, more frequently +than we, striving in vain to keep alive a dying love, is loath to +inflict a cruel wound on the companion who still loves her, and +endeavors with a mighty effort to deceive herself and him, until through +habit of hypocrisy she succeeds in feigning a love that no longer +exists; and from lie to betrayal the road is short and slippery. The +lie at first was merciful, then it grew into a habit, and at last became +transformed into a crime. + +No; lovers or husbands, companions of voluptuousness or vestals of the +family, never tell an untruth, even when it is suggested to you by pity. +It is hard, cruel, to see the blooming tree of a happy passion felled by +a sudden hurricane; tremendous is the rending of a heart that breaks in +a day under the shock of an atrocious blight; but these sorrows do not +debase us, and, although capable of killing, do not humiliate us. Love +killed by violence remains stretched on the ground as beautiful as a +thunderstruck angel, and memory weaves a wreath for him and with the +most precious aromas and balsams preserves him from putrefaction. Love +killed by the lingering tabes of a secret betrayal, is a leper who dies +in the fetidness of a hospital, a horror to himself and to the others; a +corpse slowly corroded by phthisis and scrofula, leaving no trace +whatever of the time when he, too, was a young and robust organism. + +False and cruel is the pity that causes us to simulate a love which no +longer exists. No sorrow is greater than that which deception inflicts +upon us; love, self-esteem, self-love, love of ownership, all the +warmest and most powerful of human affections, are pierced with a +hundred stabs at the same time, and the pain is so intense that it +poisons all our life with wormwood and gall. How beautiful, instead, how +sublime is a love that, without swearing eternity or infinity, lasts +eternal and infinite as long as two human hearts throb together; how +beautiful is a love that needs no chains and lives on faith and liberty! + +To love means to be all of another; to be loved means to have become a +living part of another: the lie begins when, with cynical +licentiousness, the man or the woman is divided in two parts, and the +body is given to one, the soul, as it were, to the other. Love is a +whole that cannot be divided without being killed, and, unless +voluptuousness is reduced to a plain question of hygiene, one cannot +love two human creatures at the same time with that sentiment which for +its superiority over all other affections is called love, without +betraying both. I hold in much higher estimation a woman who, after a +long career of facile loves, can say, "I have never loved two men at the +same time," than a bigoted matron who boasts of having never betrayed +her duties as a spouse because with wise and cautious lechery she knows +how to sell voluptuousness without seriously compromising the property +reserved for the husband. + +Lies are all infamous; but in love there are some venial and some +perfidious: it is one thing to deceive an old libertine and another to +betray a faithful husband; one to lie to a frivolous coquette, another +to deceive a virtuous woman. Further on we shall outline the rights and +duties of love; but here we must point out the stem from which they +hang, like the grapes from their stalk. Woman belongs to man, man +belongs to woman; Love is the son of the most free selection; it is born +when it wants and as it wants; it appears on the plains or on the summit +of the mountains; it is born nude and as free as the air; it does not +ask for passports, because it passes with impunity through all the +police lines. + +Men and women, free and pure, you should seek and love each other; study +true love, and consecrate it with the only vow that love should make +when it would close itself in the temple of the family. If you truly +love, if you are worthy of each other, if your love offends no superior +duty, no human force can oppose your powerful attraction, and nature and +men will bless your selection. Read and read again all that I have +written on the first loves; swear seldom; never swear if you possess +this virtue; at most swear but once, the first and last oath that will +unite you in wedlock. The compact violated in the first steps of the +life of love is a murder and prepares the career of a brigand tolerated +by civilization. To betray a virgin is, in so far as the law is +concerned, a question for the public prosecutor or for the mayor of your +town; to betray her without dishonoring her is an anonymous infamy that +poisons two existences and two loves, that leaves in you an eternal +bitterness, in the woman an eternal rancor. Love, seek, study each +other, but never swear, never lie to the maiden who at the dawn of youth +demands of the first sun a ray to enlighten and warm her. + +There is, however, a lie in love that excels all lies, a betrayal that +surpasses all others; there is a perfidiousness that outclasses every +assassination, every homicide, every rape: love with the wife of +another, a crime which, protected by the law, cherished by consuetudes, +fêted by our infamously hypocritical customs, avoids prison and scaffold +only because it takes the simple and easy precaution not to be termed +adultery. To introduce ourselves into the sanctuary of a happy family, +to become a friend to him whom we wish to betray, to cover him with the +mantle of our benevolent protection; to seduce slowly and pitilessly the +wife of another; with surprise, with the thousand pitfalls of moral +violence to open for her an abyss into which she will fall; to acquire +with the first conquest the impunity of a long series of crimes and open +in the family a large spring of gall that will poison two or three +generations: to do all this without expense and without danger,--these +in our century are termed the deeds of astute men, the consolation of +unhappy wives; and it can be done once, twice, ten times without the +perpetrators losing either the love of women or the esteem of men. + +To be seized by a vertigo of the senses, to embrace publicly the wife of +another, or to let oneself be seen by her husband, is called adultery, +and, according to the circumstances and, above all, the gravity of the +scandal, it means a journey to prison or to some other rigorous penal +institution; it means disgrace to one's name and to that of one's +children. Modern society particularly recommends prudence; it does not +want any scandal; it does not want to be disturbed in its loves so amply +polygamous, but so piously cautious; modern civilization does not wish +to behold publicly any nudity whatever; it wishes to be believed moral, +respectful and respected. It matters little and is none of its concern +if an astute libertine spends his youth in filling families with +bastards, awaiting the day when he can abandon the betrayed wives for a +convenient marriage. It is a private affair with which husbands and +wives should occupy themselves individually. It is recommended to do +things nicely, to make no noise, to take good care of the keyholes and +listen attentively to the footsteps of those who walk in the apartments. +The meshes of the law are wide, very wide; he must be more than an idiot +who falls into them and cannot extricate himself. The flag of matrimony +covers all contraband; to try to establish one's paternity is +prohibited; the sons born of a legitimate couple are legitimate. Onward, +onward! For heaven's sake do not bother with your whims and your +embarrassing declarations of foreign merchandise. The customs, officers +close their eyes and do not see, shut their ears and do not hear; why +are you such an idiotic crowd as to wish to awaken them with your +imprudent cries? Onward, onward! The meshes of the law are wide. +Bastardize families, falsify names and surnames, spread mendacity and +sow deception in all the paths of social and civil life! Disseminate +lies and scatter deceptions everywhere! See to it that there shall be no +wall against which to lean, no road that can be trod without injuring +the foot with a sharp stone or a piece of poisoned glass! Make the name +of father a senseless word, that of mother a blasphemy! + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF LOVE + + +"Love me! You must love me!" This is a cry of sorrow that often man +utters, and oftener a forsaken woman; but it generally is a vain cry. To +demand love as a right is one of the greatest follies; it is like asking +poetry of the slave of thought, or expecting to find the perfumes of the +rose and the cedar in the frigid zones that glaciate the head and the +feet of our planet. Lovers, however, have always the right to hurl into +space another cry of sorrow: "You must not betray me!" Better to snatch +from one's hand the cup of love and shatter it into a thousand pieces +than stealthily to pour into it the poison of betrayal or the wormwood +of indifference. Love bursts forth spontaneously from the human heart, +and draws all its beauty and strength from the infinite freedom of the +horizon in which it moves. The laws that govern it are as simple as the +simplest law of elementary physics: to attract, to unite, to render love +for love, sweetness for sweetness, to give joy to those who give us so +much joy, make happy those who make us happy: such is its law. If love +were only a contact of hearts and thoughts; if, having ascended to +heaven, you have descended from it without an angel; if in your embraces +you have not rekindled the torch of life, greet each other as friends, +bless the happy hours that your love has conceded you, and preserve in +the most precious casket and among the dearest things the memory of the +time that is no more. Never close a day of paradise with a blasphemy or +a remorse; the tears of regret for what you have lost can be the dew of +a summer night that tempers the ardor of the enamored corollas; but your +tears should not be cursed by a lie, a betrayal, an insult. + +The only right--that of not being deceived--has its counterpart in a +very simple duty--that of making oneself beloved. You cannot command +love, but through beauty of form, quickness of mind, voluptuous grace of +movements or virtues of the heart you have awakened the affection of +affections; if you know how to preserve it, you will be loved forever. +On the very first page of every code of love, at the beginning of every +gospel of two lovers, I would always write this sentence: "Not to be +loved is always a great fault." And you will find this sentence written +in a hundred different forms in the pages of my book. + +Ask the most fortunate of women if she has not often felt impelled to +reconquer a love that threatened to fly away. She jealously conceals the +numberless stratagems with which she warmed the tepid, aroused the +sleeping, caused the wearied to smile, made hungry and thirsty him who +had the happy misfortune of overgorging himself at the banquet of +voluptuousness. Man is, by nature, polygamous, more unfaithful, more +brutal, more capricious, more licentious than woman, and it is her duty +to make him monogamous, faithful, constantly tender and modestly virile. +If it is true that man attacks and conquers, it is also very true that +nature assigns to woman the more difficult task of keeping the conquest, +of being the vestal of that fire which man has nearly always been the +first to kindle. This is perhaps the most common formula that expresses +the different missions which man and woman have in love. To us to kindle +the fire, to our companion to keep it burning. + +By all that you hold most sacred on earth, do not be so brutal as to +record the embrace among the rights and duties of love. This is written +in the code, and is daily repeated by those Boeotians for whom love is +but the union of male and female. Voluptuousness should be inebriating +foam that floats on the quivering wave of passion and overflows and +falls irresistibly into those abysses where man loses the consciousness +of existence and believes in the infinite; it cannot be a feast ordered +for a stated hour, much less a tribute exacted with the rudeness of a +tax collector. How many delicate loves were extinguished by the +sacrilegious hand of an arrogant desire, which would assume the air of +command and tread the ground with the iron boot of an alleged right! No; +the embrace is not a right and much less a duty: it is a unanimous +consent of two powerful energies that seek each other through infinite +space and, suavely struggling against each other, die together in an +ocean of sweetness. + +Sincerity and fidelity, which are after all an identical thing and +constitute the entire code of love, should never be on the lips of two +lovers, and the words _right_ and _duty_ should be debarred from the +amorous vocabulary. Who ever loses his time in discussing the beauties +of the sun? Who doubts that air is necessary to live? When certain +things begin to be discussed, they are already in serious danger of +being lost; and if a continuous, vexatious investigation should at every +hour cast the shadow of doubt upon the faithfulness of one's companion, +the latter would have the right of feeling wretchedly loved or at least +cruelly loved. I do not fear sudden anger between two lovers, or the +querulous and tender lamentations; but I have a deep horror of every +question about right and duty. When these discourses appear on the +horizon, I always see at the same time dark clouds massing; I see +looming up the horns of Balzac's tawny moon. + +Are the rights of love equal in man and woman? No! a thousand times no! +I say so in a loud voice and after the first white hairs and a wide +experience permit me to believe that I speak without anger or love. No; +the sin of infidelity is not the same in Adam and in Eve: in the latter +it is a hundred times greater. As a right and before the courts all +parties are equal, but man and woman differ too greatly to be punished +in the same measure. If the code is one, the jurors are a thousand; many +are the accusers, many the lawyers; and the sentence of amorous betrayal +has already been pronounced by all civilized nations and always in the +same manner. This unanimous consent was not imposed by the arrogance of +men, who alone were the legislators before the courts and judges in the +forum of public opinion. No; this unanimous consent was dictated by a +deep consciousness of social necessities, by a more profound and subtler +justice that descends into the inmost recess of things to find the roots +of that awkward and superficial justice which asserts that all men are +equal before the law. How false this dogma is can be sufficiently proved +by the history of the jury system, one of the institutions on which our +century seems to pride itself. + +From man society exacts a hundred different and difficult virtues: he +must give his blood for his country and the sweat of his brow for his +family and for society; he must be strong, ambitious; he must not allow +himself to be corrupted by gold or the seductions of vanity. A +physician, he must throw himself into the inglorious and tremendous +battle of epidemic; a soldier, he must hold his head high in the face of +murderous fire; a lawyer, he must resist the temptations of gold and +ambition; a statesman, he must fight against himself, against his +family, for the welfare of his country. Defender of the weak, of the +shipwrecked, of the poor, natural defender of the female half of the +human species and of all the individuals who are of no value to society, +he is a warrior perpetually under arms, and should he neglect one of his +duties, he is branded as a coward; society despises him, woman does not +want him, everyone ignores him. + +Woman, on the contrary, can be a coward in the face of fire, of work, of +contagion, and of all the battles of life; she can be ignorant and +timorous and still be loved and esteemed by all; for in her weakness +approaches grace, and it is so sweet to us to take the faint-hearted +dove to our bosom and comfort her with our courage, defend her with our +strength! + +And even blunders are amusing when pronounced by the beautiful lips of a +beloved woman! We forgive her if she very rarely reaches the height of +genius and more rarely than we attains the average height of the great +intellectual minds; we forgive her if she has no profession, if she does +not earn her bread with work. Of her we ask only one thing: _fidelity_; +from her we exact only one virtue: _fidelity_! Pray, O most gentle and +divine companions, on what side does the scale of the balance fall? +Certainly not our side. + +Woman may be humble, ignorant, tremble at every leaf that quivers, at +every wing that vibrates in the air; but she should be faithful to him +who loves her. She may yield to everything, but must resist the +seductions of defiant glances and the corruptions of gold and vanity; +she should be the heroine of sentiment, as we are the heroes of all the +battles of life. She is the vestal of our heart and blood. While we are +fighting in one field for her, for the name she bears, for the honor of +our children, she should assiduously and faithfully watch the sacred +fire of fidelity, that it may not die out through neglect or be +overthrown and extinguished by the hurricane. This virtue only we ask of +her; is it, perhaps, too much? What is her duty, then? What is the +difficult struggle that shall give her also the mark of character and +make her equal to us, worthy to be our companion? If she is beautiful, +we are strong; if she is graceful, we are gifted. For her we have +conquered our planet, subdued the lightning, destroyed the beasts of +prey, invented arts, created sciences. But neither beauty nor grace nor +wit is sufficient for a man to deem himself civilized; there are imposed +on us a thousand dangers, on her but one: that of seduction. We are +dragged into a hundred battles; she has only to gain victory over the +senses. From us the world expects a hundred virtues; from her but one: +_faith_. Are we, then, tyrants? Are we too exacting with her whom we +love so much, for whom we do everything, to whom we dedicate all our +thoughts, our glories, our dreams and our labors? + +But there is another powerful reason for which the duties of love are +differently distributed between man and woman. Man, by the special +mission which his sex imposes on him, is a sudden aggressor and has +organic necessities which are unknown to woman, and which he can satisfy +with the rapidity of lightning. Without losing his love, he may have a +caprice more fleeting than the lightning flash, and which, once +vanished, leaves behind not even a pinch of ashes. I neither praise nor +justify these sudden surprises of the senses, these passing +infidelities; but I describe them because I find them frequently in the +aggressive and petulant nature of the virile sex. Woman, instead, must +defend herself. Man loses a great part of energy in the tooth that bites +and in the claws that firmly hold the prey. Woman draws in her horns, +like the snail does in the spires of its labyrinth, and, languidly and +voluptuously concealed in the foam of her shell of love, allows herself +to be caressed. She loses nothing in the struggle for conquest, and she +is wholly consumed in the delights of letting herself be loved. Woman +also may have caprices of the senses, but they are light clouds which no +sooner appear than they are dissolved in the deep azure of the skies, +and do not become ardent desires until the human claws press and +condense them. Woman is silent even when she desires. Very weak in the +attack, she is formidable in the defense, and has in herself so much +energy as to stop and disarm a legion of combatants. With much +shrewdness she defends her weakness every day, telling us that +seductions wage war upon her from all quarters, while we are the first +to seek the opportunities of sin. This is one of the most insidious +sophisms, but it is also one of the weakest arguments of defense. Man +attacks and assails simply because he is a man and could not wait for +the seductions to come to him without condemning himself to be a eunuch +and without inverting the most elementary and most inexorable laws of +nature. Nor would a woman commit less of a sacrilege in turning from the +defensive to the offensive, profaning her sex and violating nature in +that which it holds most sacred and immutable. + +Not in vain has nature made the human female a virgin, and denied us the +sorrowful virtue of virginity. The woman who yields to the first amorous +pruriency is a Messalina; the man who darts the first arrow of love is a +warrior who with wise prudence prepares the weapons for the long battle +that awaits him. Man begins with "yes" and "I will"; woman begins and +ends with "no" and "I will not." The sudden caprice of the senses is in +her harassed by so many physical, social and religious impediments that +she must really be more than an Amazon to overthrow them in a single +dash. Everything incites man to a swift assault which perhaps does not +even bruise the epidermis of his heart; everything defends woman from +these caprices. To yield she must have had a long struggle against +nature and society; laws and religions offer her a thousand allies for +defense, and not once in a hundred times she can say without touching +the frontiers of prostitution: "I had a caprice." No one believes in the +efficiency of overbearingness, much less woman herself, unless she +should need this faith to justify her own sin. In love every fault, +every crime, even patricide and incest, are possible--but not theft. Let +woman never profane herself nor spoil the cause, often very just, which +she defends, by speaking of seduction and violence. Let her rather speak +of the irresistible impulse of vengeance, of the law of retaliation; let +her discuss the natural right, because there she is on the ground of +truth and justice; let her complain aloud because in the human organism +she is the left side, the weakest, the least honored and the most +oppressed. Let her demand the right to love and to be loved, but never +ask equality of punishment for sins too disparate. + +Nor does society measure human guilt only according to the reckoning of +the natural right; but the more sorrow a crime generates and the more it +offends human needs, the more severe the punishment inflicted by +society. Have you ever thought of the various consequences of a caprice +of infidelity, according as a man or a woman is guilty? For man the +caprice of an hour is a stain that tarnishes the bright mirror of a +sworn faith, of an immaculate and sublime love; but a few moments +afterward a new kiss, more ardent and pregnant with the pungent aroma of +remorse, revives love perhaps more intensely and makes impossible for +long years, perhaps forever, another sudden infidelity. The amorous +caprice may be a blasphemy that breaks forth from the lips of a saint, +but which is immediately deterged by a wave of holy prayer; it is the +weakness of a robust runner who stumbles against a stone, but proudly +resumes his way and with energetic steps recovers the space lost a +hundredfold. The amorous caprice of a woman may in a single instant +procreate a bastard, poison the wave of milk and honey of an entire +family, sow a generation of fraternal hatreds, of infinite sorrows, +overflow into a vast field, inundating everything with wormwood and +gall. In man such a caprice is a stain, in woman a gangrene; in man a +wound by a pin, in woman the caries of a bone; in man a leaf that falls, +in woman a hurricane that fells a whole forest; in man a misdemeanor, in +woman a felony; in man the remorse of an hour, in woman a monument of +infamy that time will never efface. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE COVENANTS OF LOVE + + +Love is not only a voluptuousness given and returned, the interweaving +and untying of instantaneous knots, but a compact between two creatures +who, after having given themselves to each other, may in a single +instant have created a family, perhaps a nation. In man, love is +fecundation as well, but is, above all, the interweaving of two +existences, a combination of new relations, a deep modification of the +manner of existence for a man and a woman. + +Even in the lowest races, even where morality is only interest defended +by strength and sacrifice is a folly, where phantoms of religious +sentiment scarcely exist, where they bury the old mother alive, or +celebrate victories and vintage with a sea of blood; even there love is +bound by a compact, silent or sworn. Prostitution also is a compact that +may last an hour or a minute, but is always a compact. In any case, the +sale and purchase of voluptuousness cannot found a family, a tribe, a +people; and even the loosest libertine and the wildest savage feel other +needs than that of fecundating a female: they feel the necessity of +loving a woman. And to love does not mean to unite the members of two +bodies in a single knot, but to possess each other a long time, and to +desire, to defend, to protect each other; it means to hold oneself +responsible to nature for the weakness of one creature and the violence +of another, for the future of the being whom we have procreated together +and brought into the world. + +Woman, when fecundated, is for nine months weaker and more vulnerable; +the woman who is in travail is a wounded creature; the woman who nurses +can neither flee nor defend herself, and the man-child is for a long +time defenseless and very weak. The man, then, who has loved a companion +even for one day becomes for a long time her friend and protector +without ceasing to be her lover. This is the simplest form of the +nuptial compact, which is found in many of the lower nations. While the +savage female leans affectionately and confidingly on the male who has +made her fruitful, he often finds himself to be a man when his companion +cannot be a woman, and he then fecundates other females, who are added +to his possessions and whom he protects with the same devotion and +affection with which he protects and defends the first woman who was +his. The very weak man can have but one female, or he must often do +without her, because the strong men have more than one and the very +strong have many, who often dwell merrily under one roof without being +in the least jealous of one another. A polygamy limited to a few females +is the most common form of human society in the lower races, and our +organism is so imbued with this custom that even in the highest forms of +civilization, where morality and religion do not lend their valid +support, monogamy slips and falls, to give place to a polygamy more or +less acknowledged or concealed. + +We, however, must occupy ourselves only with our own society, where the +compact of love has but one moral form: _matrimony_; while it has +various forms that belong to the world of pathology, namely, +_prostitution_, _rape_, _concubinage_. + +We have already studied prostitution. It is the sale of voluptuousness, +the possession of bodies without love, the swindling and deceiving of +nature; and if nature, only too often cruel, causes a new creature to be +generated through a purchased embrace, that creature will enter the +world with the mark of infamy on its brow, and, anonymous child of vice, +will be cast by society into the most obscure corner of the social +vaults, where the things lie which we wish to efface, forget and allow +to die. Prostitution is a safety-valve only too necessary in our immoral +and hypocritical society, wretchedly constituted, and it exists to prove +with most cruel eloquence that many men cannot love, that very many men +should not love. + +We have also dealt with rape in the house of others. Even this greatest +of the crimes of love we have been compelled to discuss: secret +agreement of two traitors who, in the shadow of a social and holy +compact, violate the faith of the family and bastardize the world; vile +contract of the thief with the procurer, who assassinate in the dark and +conceal the victim in the wide folds or the deep fissures of our written +codes. + +Concubinage in many imperfect societies, and even among us, is a form of +matrimony which lacks only religious and civil consecration. It is more +despicable for its origin than for the nature of the compact that binds +it, because if it lasted eternally, supported only by the word of honor +of two creatures who love each other, it would be a true and proper +marriage, sealed by the faith of two lovers. Only too often, however, +concubinage has an obscure and even shameful origin: it is domestic +lechery which has become a habit; it is a vulgar custom that has a +periodical type: mustiness of the kitchen or stench of the hospital. +Born between the Turkish babooshes and the nightcaps, between the +after-dinner yawns and the advices of the hygienist, it has a tinge of +prostitution and rape, but knows neither the inebriation of the one nor +the pungent remorse of the other. It is a vulgar pickpocket, who begs +pardon of the public and is ashamed of himself and weeps when caught in +the act; it is something low, plebeian and shameful, that does not admit +of public confession, and hides like a wound in the leg or a false +tooth; it debases love to pygmy proportions, lowers the level of the +spouse and elevates that of the chambermaid. It is an upstart who can +dress well, but smells of the stable; a despicable, often even +ridiculous creature, who is merely tolerated. + +When one refrains from assuming all moral responsibility; when, through +sluggishness, ignorance or skepticism, or for all these reasons, one +abdicates the supreme primacy of husband and father, a right which not +even the nude cannibal will relinquish, one becomes in modern society a +sort of convict freed on parole, to whom liberty is granted on condition +that he will regularly report to the police; a sort of brigand allowed +at large, who, for lack of proof, cannot be sentenced to prison. A +hundred times better, prostitution with its degradations and vile +infirmities! Public opinion, laws, books should scourge and place in the +pillory of ridicule and opprobrium this bastard compact of concubinage, +denying it all assent, consent and toleration. And women too, who, more +than the laws, can be the avengers of these social degradations, should +flagellate these amphibia of love, denying them caresses and esteem, and +showing to them at every hour, with cruel art, how different are the +voluptuous aromas of true love from the daily slop of domestic +concubinage. + +The man of a high race, who aspires to be called a civilized man, should +be monogamous, and cannot consecrate his love with any other compact +than matrimony. + +Matrimony should be a free, a very free selection, for the woman as much +as for the man; it should be the selection of selections, the typical +selection. + +As long as we deny the young woman a free and wise education so that she +may choose well; as long as we deny her the same right of selection as +man possesses, we never will be able to elevate matrimony. The common +consciousness in two creatures that they have chosen each other freely +and that they love each other without any bond of interest, any pressure +of authority, of prejudice, of ambition, is the sacred corner-stone on +which the most splendid temples of conjugal happiness are erected, and +it has sufficient power to preserve that happiness amidst the greatest +domestic storms. + +Neither do I believe in sudden and irresistible loves, nor in the future +happiness of a married couple who, without straw to weave the nest, in +the open country, amid the frosts of misery, wish to erect a temple to +Love. No; matrimony is love and should be nothing except love. But love +is nude and wants to be clothed; love is delicate, and wants to be +nourished and protected from the winds and the frosts; love is +fruitful, and should have bread and wine to keep alive the little angels +that will bloom in its garden. All this should be known by our young +girls; our authority should go no further than temporizing; we should +never impose anything on lovers except patience; and this in itself is +sufficient to cause many transient desires to vanish, while it +invigorates true loves. But in any case, and always, selection should be +free, and to prepare for it the education of our daughters should be +more sincere, more frank, less hypocritical, less false. Teach your +child modesty and personal dignity, and you will see that with such +sentiments the fortress you wish to guard will very rarely capitulate. +Perpetual diffidence rouses many false alarms, stirs up in many +frivolous and touchy natures the desire for spite and revenge. +Diffidence always in arms gives one a pessimistic idea of the virtues of +mothers; perhaps they remember how weakly they resisted temptation and +they try by every art to avoid it, instead of strengthening the forces +that should defend virtue. + +The free selection of woman is much more important in our society, +because she is not ignorant of the fact that in marriage she will find +an immense liberty; perhaps she also divines that, even though she +should not love the official spouse, she can still love and be loved. +When a society is entirely saturated with adultery and hypocrisy, even +the chaste and ingenuous maiden is dimly prescient of certain things +which she dares not acknowledge to herself. Without leaving the domestic +nest, she may perhaps know with what infamy a family may become sullied; +she has, perhaps, more than once repeated to herself: "I will not sin, +but--I, too, could sin with impunity." + +Free selection is the best guarantee of faith; it is the only touchstone +by which the true natural rights of mutual fidelity are tried. No one +has the right to cast the first stone at the adulteress if she, +ignorant, was dragged to the altar; no wife can be condemned if she was +forced to sign the compact like a victim and a slave instead of as a +woman and a lover. + +All these reforms which must elevate matrimony will be but slowly +secured through the progress of education and customs, through morality +strengthened by science and not by fear, through greater respect for the +liberty of woman, who must be raised from the low level where modern +society has still left her. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book of Love, by Paolo Mantegazza + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57423 *** |