Very Woman (Sixtine): a Cerebral Novel
Copyright© 2024 by Remy de Gourmont
Chapter 24: The Color of Marriage
“The dotal husband owes his wife three
nights each month.”
Attic Laws.
“Good,” Entragues said, as he heard the bell ring. “It is the Russian angel ... Ah! I have written a fine blasphemy! ‘ ... in his arms.’ And to think that for want of understanding, people will tax me with impiety, I who make the Roman breviary my daily reading no less than a clergyman who holds the name of Voltaire as an infamous word.”
“My dear Moscowitch, I made you wait. The reason was that I was finishing a phrase and that this phrase ended a chapter.”
The Russian angel drank tea while Entragues breakfasted. He spoke little, seeming to hold himself in reserve.
“Have you your manuscripts, your plans, your theories?” asked Entragues.
“My theory,” said Moscowitch, “is to make a school of pity out of the theater.”
“Orphans, bastards, picked up children, widows, persons condemned to death, serfs of capital, girl mothers, invalids of labor, vagabonds and victims of duty. Well! by dressing them in Russian smocks, by giving the men names ending in itch and the women names ending in ia, with some troikas thrown in, snow, Siberia, a priest or two, policemen in flat caps, some angelic street-walkers, and a studied selection of Darwinian assassins, one can write masterpieces, true masterpieces, while—and here you see what fortune hangs on—were these same tatters passed under a French dye, the most respectable manufacturers and the most influential tradesmen, men wearing the ribbon, people who have country homes at Ville-d’Avray, would not dare to place them in their shop-windows.”
“Why?” Moscowitch asked.
“Because it would not be profitable.”
“I believe,” said Moscowitch, “that you are laughing at me now.”
“Aren’t you rich? Then raillery cannot touch you. In France it is impossible to laugh at riches, this impiety is forbidden by our adulatory customs. Yet, if you had talent, the common law would get possession of you: until then, be content and walk with a high head.”
They entered the Revue spéculative. The presentation of Moscowitch caused no curiosity. Fortier was amiable and Van Baël, absent-minded. Yet when, prompted by Entragues, he declared: “I wish to regenerate the theater through pity,” eyes were uplifted and Renaudeau, diverted, dragged him to the stake. It was one of the most amusing courses of dramatic history ever given for the instruction of a beginner. Renaudeau cited names that no one had ever heard of, and Moscowitch took notes, promised to read, and thanked him.
This facile irony irritated Van Baël, who with a tone of superiority took the Russian under his protection, gave him some good advice, and finally two or three quite useless letters of introduction to directors who never opened, naturally, their doors to strangers.
“Ah! here is the Marquise!” said Fortier, as a woman with an extravagant dress entered. Her temples confessed that she had passed the fortieth year. She was strapped in a black bodice studded by way of buttons with authentic old silver coins; a collar with similar medals on her neck, her curled hair, dyed a rose-colored blond, falling on her shoulders; a hat à la Longueville bristling with rebellious plumes; bracelets as far as her elbows under her large sleeves; a heavy furred gown, opened and thrown back, behind which the two plates of a clasp as large as two shields were suspended as far as the neck. She raised her curving nose and fixed on Fortier her impudent eyes of a woman who has thumbed, without omitting one single page, the album of lust. She spoke affectedly:
“My dear Fortier, and my Lauzun?”
“Madame, I should love to be yours,” Fortier said.
Her eyes responded with lightning rapidity:
“I accept.”
She said:
“Now, you have promised me proofs for this week.”
While Fortier was trying to convince her that the Revue spéculative was unworthy of her qualities, that money, rare everywhere, had a sort of dread of his till, Moscowitch asked:
“Who is this woman?”
“They call her the Marquise, why I do not know. Her coins have earned her better names: the Medal Cabinet, and this one, the Reliquary, most cruel of all. Then, as she signs herself ‘Françoise’ to kitchen recipes, Renaudeau has nicknamed her Françoise the Blue-Stocking. She probably has a real name; it is either ordinary or insignificant.”
“To think that at my age,” Renaudeau said, “I have never seen any blue stockings. The modistes wear them red most often, and it is among them I have my loves.”
“Red? I, too,” the Marquise said.
She camped her foot on a chair, lifting her petticoat as far as the garter.
The leg was still pretty and her repartee clever.
Renaudeau, confessing himself outflanked by the movement, bowed and assumed the air of one wishing to say, “I regret I can do no more.”
“And I, too,” the eyes of the Marquise answered.
Having bowed, not without a certain ironic charm, she departed, certain now that her article would be accepted.
Fortier chided his secretary. She had paid with her person, payment signed and received. Her prose could no longer be refused; but she should get no money.
“Renaudeau, you must sacrifice yourself.”
“Well,” said Renaudeau, “this jade is full of surprises. I accept.”
Moscowitch, very much astonished, found these customs singular. He asked Entragues:
“And will this woman’s article, even if wretched, appear in the Revue simply because she has shown her leg?”
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