Droll Stories, vol 3 | Page 5

women in one? Therefore by the Voice Divine was it
said to the author:

Think of women; woman will heal thy wound, stop the waste-hole in
thy bag of tricks. Woman is thy wealth; have but one woman, dress,
undress, and fondle that women, make use of the woman--woman is
everything--woman has an inkstand of her own; dip thy pen in that
bottomless inkpot. Women like love; make love to her with the pen
only, tickle her phantasies, and sketch merrily for her a thousand
pictures of love in a thousand pretty ways. Woman is generous, and all
for one, or one for all, must pay the painter, and furnish the hairs of the
brush. Now, muse upon that which is written here. /Ave/, Hail, /Eva/,
woman; or /Eva/, woman, /Ave/, Hail. Yes, she makes and unmakes.
Heigh, then, for the inkstand! What does woman like best? What does
she desire? All the special things of love; and woman is right. To have
children, to produce an imitation, of nature, which is always in labour.
Come to me, then, woman!--come to me, Eva!
With this the author began to dip into that fertile inkpot, where there
was a brain-fluid, concocted by virtues from on high in a talismanic
fashion. From one cup there came serious things, which wrote
themselves in brown ink; and from the other trifling things, which
merely gave a roseate hue to the pages of the manuscript. The poor
author has often, from carelessness, mixed the inks, now here, now
there; but as soon as the heavy sentences, difficult to smooth, polish,
and brighten up, of some work suitable to the taste of the day are
finished, the author, eager to amuse himself, in spite of the small
amount of merry ink remaining in the left cup, steals and bears eagerly
therefrom a few penfuls with great delight. These said penfuls are,
indeed, these same Droll Tales, the authority on which is above
suspicion, because it flows from a divine source, as is shown in this the
author's naive confession.
Certain evil-disposed people will still cry out at this; but can you find a
man perfectly contented on this lump of mud? Is it not a shame? In this
the author has wisely comported himself in imitation of a higher power;
and he proves it by /atqui/. Listen. Is it not most clearly demonstrated
to the learned that the sovereign Lord of worlds has made an infinite
number of heavy, weighty, and serious machines with great wheels,
large chains, terrible notches, and frightfully complicated screws and

weights like the roasting jack, but also has amused Himself with little
trifles and grotesque things light as zephyrs, and has made also naive
and pleasant creations, at which you laugh directly you see them? Is it
not so? Then in all eccentric works, such as the very spacious edifice
undertaken by the author, in order to model himself upon the laws of
the above-named Lord, it is necessary to fashion certain delicate
flowers, pleasant insects, fine dragons well twisted, imbricated, and
coloured--nay, even gilt, although he is often short of gold--and throw
them at the feet of his snow-clad mountains, piles of rocks, and other
cloud-capped philosophers, long and terrible works, marble columns,
real thoughts carved in porphyry.
Ah! unclean beasts, who despise and repudiate the figures, phantasies,
harmonies, and roulades of the fair muse of drollery, will you not pare
your claws, so that you may never again scratch her white skin, all
azure with veins, her amorous reins, her flanks of surpassing elegance,
her feet that stay modestly in bed, her satin face, her lustrous features,
her heart devoid of bitterness? Ah! wooden-heads, what will you say
when you find that this merry lass springs from the heart of France,
agrees with all that is womanly in nature, has been saluted with a polite
/Ave/! by the angels in the person of their spokesman, Mercury, and
finally, is the clearest quintessence of Art. In this work are to be met
with necessity, virtue, whim, the desire of a woman, the votive offering
of a stout Pantagruelist, all are here. Hold your peace, then, drink to the
author, and let his inkstand with the double cup endow the Gay Science
with a hundred glorious Droll Tales.
Stand back then, curs; strike up the music! Silence, bigots; out of the
way, dunces! step forward my merry wags!--my little pages! give your
soft hand to the ladies, and tickle theirs in the centre in a pretty manner,
saying to them, "Read to laugh." Afterwards you can tell them some
mere jest to make them roar, since when they are laughing their lips are
apart, and they make but a faint resistance to love.

PERSEVERANCE IN LOVE

During the first years of the thirteenth