The Red Lily, vol 3 | Page 5

the swan's knight. I have asked nothing of you. I have wanted to
know nothing. I have not chided you about Mademoiselle Jeanne
Tancrede. I saw you loved me, that you were suffering, and it was
enough--because I loved you."
"A woman can not be jealous in the same manner as a man, nor feel
what makes us suffer."
"I do not know that. Why can not she?"

"Why? Because there is not in the blood, in the flesh of a woman that
absurd and generous fury for ownership, that primitive instinct of
which man has made a right. Man is the god who wants his mate to
himself. Since time immemorial woman is accustomed to sharing men's
love. It is the past, the obscure past, that determines our passions. We
are already so old when we are born! Jealousy, for a woman, is only a
wound to her own self-love. For a man it is a torture as profound as
moral suffering, as continuous as physical suffering. You ask the
reason why? Because, in spite of my submission and of my respect, in
spite of the alarm you cause me, you are matter and I am the idea; you
are the thing and I am the mind; you are the clay and I am the artisan.
Do not complain of this. Near the perfect amphora, surrounded with
garlands, what is the rude and humble potter? The amphora is tranquil
and beautiful; he is wretched; he is tormented; he wills; he suffers; for
to will is to suffer. Yes, I am jealous. I know what there is in my
jealousy. When I examine it, I find in it hereditary prejudices, savage
conceit, sickly susceptibility, a mingling of rudest violence and cruel
feebleness, imbecile and wicked revolt against the laws of life and of
society. But it does not matter that I know it for what it is: it exists and
it torments me. I am the chemist who, studying the properties of an acid
which he has drunk, knows how it was combined and what salts form it.
Nevertheless the acid burns him, and will burn him to the bone."
"My love, you are absurd."
"Yes, I am absurd. I feel it better than you feel it yourself. To desire a
woman in all the brilliancy of her beauty and her wit, mistress of
herself, who knows and who dares; more beautiful in that and more
desirable, and whose choice is free, voluntary, deliberate; to desire her,
to love her for what she is, and to suffer because she is not puerile
candor nor pale innocence, which would be shocking in her if it were
possible to find them there; to ask her at the same time that she be
herself and not be herself; to adore her as life has made her, and regret
bitterly that life, which has made her so beautiful, has touched her-- Oh,
this is absurd! I love you! I love you with all that you bring to me of
sensations, of habits, with all that comes of your experiences, with all
that comes from him-perhaps, from them-how do I know? These things

are my delight and they are my torture. There must be a profound sense
in the public idiocy which says that love like ours is guilty. Joy is guilty
when it is immense. That is the reason why I suffer, my beloved."
She knelt before him, took his hands, and drew him to her.
"I do not wish you to suffer; I will not have it. It would be folly. I love
you, and never have loved any one but you. You may believe me; I do
not lie."
He kissed her forehead.
"If you deceived me, my dear, I should not reproach you for that; on the
contrary, I should be grateful to you. Nothing is so legitimate, so
human, as to deceive pain. What would become of us if women had not
for us the pity of untruth? Lie, my beloved, lie for the sake of charity.
Give me the dream that colors black sorrow. Lie; have no scruples. You
will only add another illusion to the illusion of love and beauty."
He sighed:
"Oh, common-sense, common wisdom!"
She asked him what he meant, and what common wisdom was. He said
it was a sensible proverb, but brutal, which it was better not to repeat.
"Repeat it all the same."
"You wish me to say it to you: 'Kissed lips do not lose their freshness.'"
And he added:
"It is true that love preserves beauty, and that the beauty of women is
fed on caresses as bees are fed on flowers."
She placed on his lips a pledge in a kiss.
"I swear to you I never loved any one but you.