The Angels of Perversity

by Remy de Gourmont

  “Another has such beautiful hair, which carries all the colours of the rainbow, and her belly – how I wish that she were mine! – is as white as a cloth woven out of asphodels … but she is no more mine than the other, and never can be!

  “Green eyes … yes, the one which I see now has green eyes, the eyes of a succubus, the eyes of a phantom, the eyes of a stormy night … but I will never see them opening and raging in the dusk!

  “The others …?

  “There are too many! It is all too much! All those wrapped up against the cold of winter, reminiscent in all their furs of the silken-haired Mongolian goats, disquieting beasts which fascinate men! … All those unhooked and unbuttoned, hardly dressed at all in the summer months, their lukewarm, scented palpitating flesh! … It is too much! It is all too much! … Oh, that unfamiliar female who passes by and goes on her way, whom one might never touch – and who would surely fade away, if one could touch her; for her charm lies in being unknown and untouchable. If one were actually to take them in one’s arms, one would cease to love them; one would think of others, of all the others, of the fugitives … always, always of others!”

  While the lover wept, sad and vexed, he would continue:

  “But if my dream were ever to be realised, if I had had them all, even the others, if I had drunk from the lips of the Only One all of femininity, all love and all life – there would still remain the Unattainables. There would still be Helen of Troy, there would still be Salomé, there would still be Madeleine, there would still be Ophelia – and all the others whom the poets have made eternal!”

  At this the weeping and vexed lover would laugh in her turn. And the lover of infinity, the ostentatious drinker of souls, would pacify his grandiose desires, collapsed upon the complaisant flesh of a very plain girl, who might have been anyone.

  LIMPID EYES

  While I was out rowing one day, I arrived at a place where I had not intended to go.

  I was bound for a house where I was awaited, by a creature whose heart was set to beat faster by every far-off noise, who devoutly desired to see her swan extending its neck from the flowering rushes – but I was unfaithful.

  Two eyes arrested me: eyes of a kind I had never seen before. They were half-grey and half-violet, an acute blue melting into pale amethyst. They were cold and tempting: eyes in which souls must have drowned themselves, while believing that they fell into Heaven.

  It was the eyes and nothing else, for the once-beautiful palace lighted by fake torches was now no more than an elegant ruin. I saw no more there than a safe haven from the storm, a poplar bending in the wind, a sleek boat wrecked and stranded.

  An arbour and a bench, a temporary repose for the morning rower: I berthed my boat and was gently welcomed, as a guest rather than a windfall. As soon as the woman with the limpid eyes appeared, I was possessed by the silent secrecy of her cold gaze, and I took my place, unexpectedly cutting short my journey, forgetful of the other, of the one whose swan would not arrive in actuality.

  A charm distracted me from my former purpose – a charm so enchanting, so haunting, and so uniquely magical that I no longer remembered that I had set out with another goal in mind, and I concluded my excursion under that suburban vine, with a glass of rosé wine before me, in a businesslike manner.

  There was, however, nothing more than the limpid eyes: the face was thin, faded, and worn; the body was supple enough, but like a withered willow. The only other captivating things were her aristocratic hands, long and light, with waxen fingernails,

  … These pale hands

  Which remembered well and were capable of all evil,

  hands equally expert in caresses and crimes!

  But the woman’s hands were merely the consequences of her eyes; there is a necessary harmony between the organ of immediate sensation and the organ of distant sensation, and the eyes demanded my total attention, like those of a famished and jealous sphinx.

  What was she, anyhow? A little more than an innkeeper’s wench, or a little less? The hostess of a riverside tavern, a pleasant and discreet woman – but those eyes undoubtedly knew how to fall shut at the appropriate moment. Those icily limpid eyes were as profound and as cold in their glaucous reflections as the river Calycadnus, tomb of Frederick Barbarossa!

  When she had served me, and seeing that she had crossed her arms, lazy and bored, I begged her to sit down with me. “Come closer,” I said, “and look straight at me, so that I may see your eyes.”

  “My eyes?” she replied, as she approached me. “They are fearful!”

  “Perhaps, but they are fascinating nevertheless. They are eyes which might inspire love – and then inspire more!”

  “They inspire fear, and they are always fearful, my limpid eyes. It is the water: they are two drops of water captured from the river, isn’t that what they say? My mother had the same eyes of water, and when she died – as soon as her heart had ceased to beat – her eyes melted like two pieces of ice, and ran along her cheeks. I saw it happen. I was very young, but I think about it every day, every morning when I set my hair. My eyes have become exactly like those of my mother, and sometimes I fear that they will suffer the same fate, while I still live, returning to the river to run beneath the rushes and over the stones. I have never dared to weep. If they were to shed tears, they would run away, my poor eyes! Once, I envied those who are able to weep – but that was a long time ago. Only once. Ever since, I have hardened my heart so well that nothing any longer frightens or excites it – for I must hold on to my eyes. My eyes are my scarecrow, my weapon against the desire of men. Although I am ugly and old, still I might please them, for a quarter of an hour or so, when they are in their cups and have seen my hands. Often, I intervene in their quarrels and while lowering my eyes, I gently take the hand which is lifted to strike. I command obedience; they are wary of me. Sometimes, one of them kisses my fingers, trying to stir the blood in my veins and magnify my passion, but I straighten myself and lift my head, and I fix that man with my cold eyes, my eyes of water – and he lets go of my hand. I stare at him until his desire freezes within him, a mirror of his heart. As for you, when I saw you come in I knew at once that you were of a better and more brotherly kind, and I have spared you.”

  “No,” I said, “you have not spared me. I too was afraid, but it was a strange kind of fear – because, although I was all a-tremble before your eyes, I love them.”

  “That is not true!” she replied, very vehemently. “No one has ever loved my eyes, nor myself. I am in disgrace because of my eyes, fled into solitude because of the one which might have made me weep had he spoken to me but a single word of love. You love my eyes, do you? Liar! Look straight into them, then, and drown your love in the depths of these two fountains of spite.”

  “My love can swim,” I told her. “And it is you who lies. I am not the first who has been fascinated by those limpid eyes, half-grey and half-violet, those eyes into which – this was my first impression, I assure you – souls must have fallen, believing themselves to be falling into Heaven!”

  “No! no!” she cried, becoming pale with anger. “Everyone knows that my eyes are the road to hell! And what is this falling into Heaven? Are men angels, that they may fall into Heaven? You are mad, my friend.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Oh, me too, Monsieur. I am certainly mad.”

  And suddenly turning on her heel, she fled.

  This strange conversation left me, I must admit, in a state of mind close to distress. My hand trembled when I wanted to refill my glass, and I could not do it until the second attempt, nor could I lift the glass to my lips. That remarkable woman, whose intelligence and language quite belied her social position!

  The proprietor happened to come in just then, and spoke to me confidentially.

  “I hope you didn’t find her too tedious. It’s a pity, isn’t it, that she is so mad? Her companion drowned, but she was saved, several years ago. No one came to claim her, though she had money
on her, and she stayed here. No one has ever recognised her. She’s no trouble, in spite of what she says; she’s useful to us, and we like her. We’re quite accustomed by now to her eyes and her stories. Can’t she talk, though! But all that stuff she told you, she must have got it from books, long ago – ideas above her station. On the other hand, she might perhaps be a lady – you never can tell.”

  THE SHROUD

  For Alfred Vallette

  The rolling waves broke upon the beach, majestically and irresistibly; seagulls danced on the wayward currents of the air.

  Along the line of debris thrown up by the high tide, walking slowly, inhaling the salty odour emanating from the wrack, on the lookout for some tiny piece of wreckage left behind by the tide, something dredged up by a trick of chance from the abyssal depths. …

  (While he wandered thus, Aubert dreamed of a gentle and soothing hand, of contemplative eyes looking into his …)

  … and in the remoter depths of his inchoate vision are stranger and more intimate sexual images: melancholy sirens with breasts rounded like melons, and long, flowing hair like the seaweed which hangs from the rocks, gracefully rippling in the water … their teeth are as hard and white as pearls grown in oyster-shells, and their vivid blue eyes are the colour of anemones. …

  “Ah! if only your damp tresses were wound about my knees, if I could feel the nip of your pearly teeth upon my tender flesh, if the icy coldness of your anemone eyes might transfix my heart …!”

  (While he wandered thus, Aubert dreamed of a gentle and soothing hand, of contemplative eyes looking into his …)

  The blackness of the stranded wrack was unexpectedly interrupted by the whiteness of a hooded cloak, spread out. …

  From whose shoulders had it fallen?

  Blonde tresses displayed themselves in luminous waves.

  The seagulls were no longer playing, the waves broke on the shore in silence; the sandy beach extended as far as the eye could see, like a tedious desert.

  Asleep, almost asleep in the shade of the dunes: a dress flapping in the wind; grains of windblown sand trickling over the silky fabric of an umbrella.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” she said. “And soft, as soft as the feathers of a migratory swan, so soft, so soft. …”

  She spoke with a perceptible accent, in a silky voice, her hand resting on the slender shoulder of a little boy, who was thin and pale, and whose features had the delicate texture of porcelain.

  “Isn’t it, Ted?”

  “Yes, sister Sarah, yes it is!” The manner of Ted’s pronunciation betrayed the fact that he was English.

  Sarah was English through and through, in her soul and in her blood: the soul which could be glimpsed behind the mistiness of her pale eyes; the blood whose colour showed through her translucent skin; and in the blonde hair which spread like flames among the creases of her white cloak.

  It seemed that a fragment of his vision had put on flesh.

  “Surely I’m dreaming!” Aubert said. “Are you an illusion? Have I embarked upon a marvellous adventure?”

  Sarah was startled by his candour in speaking to her thus. She was not used to the frank expression of such sentiments. But her astonishment was pleasant: it was as if some invisible force took hold of her, pressing her down where she rested on her back. It was so utterly unexpected. She looked up, with a blank expression in her anemone eyes and a curious coolness of her bosom. All of a sudden there flared up inside her a fierce desire to be kissed by those lips: oh yes! oh yes!

  She blushed.

  Her dress was flapping in the wind.

  “I believe,” she replied haughtily, “that I am not an illusion – and I am certainly not an adventure.”

  “Your eyes,” said Aubert, “are full of the most delicious mischief.”

  “My eyes? Never mind my eyes! They are as sombre as that far-off northern isle where I was born. They remind me of its skies, its soil, and the sea around its shores! They are sad eyes, lit only by reflected moonlight, and perhaps a fugitive ray of the wan northern sun … and my soul is undoubtedly the same: my soul and my eyes are twins, sharing the same dark, unfeeling nature. I fear that behind the veil of their translucency there is only emptiness – my eyes are empty, and so is my soul!”

  Aubert’s vision semed to flicker like a flame caught by a breath of night air.

  “What can you possibly know, and what can you possibly say, about what lies behind the veil? It is Adventure – in spite of what you say, it is Adventure! Nor is it some passing fancy – some colourful dream which might be tasted briefly, like a brief immersion in a purple sea, before returning to sleep. The path of fate has brought me here, and here I am, between the blue plain and the sad forest of faded greenery. It would not matter now if one of us were to stay while the other went on; all that would matter is that every pace which separated us would measure out another beat of our hearts.

  “You are busy thinking of future encounters, I suppose; you are asking yourself what tomorrow might bring, and all the tomorrows thereafter. The prospect of many pleasures extends itself before you – the nearest are doubtless the vaguest – but I am here now, and the present, alas, has no existence for an unquiet soul – such a soul as yours. If you could only look into my soul your eyelids would close upon that dull vision which presently afflicts you. …

  “I have interrupted your tedium with the pleasure of surprise; you might, perhaps, consent to be distracted for just a little longer. …”

  Aubert’s vision collapsed then, as if vanquished by the cold night air.

  Sarah’s dress flapped in the wind, while she replied: “No, no … I am not bored. I have a definite purpose before me: to live. As for what you call ’future encounters’ – by that, I suppose you mean lovers, and all the corollary pleasures of love – I shall plunge into such encounters as casually as I might plunge into the sea over there, whenever it pleases me. …

  “As for the one who will swim side by side with me, through the hazardous reefs – that is already decided, whether I wish it or not … and I cannot be an Adventure. …”

  She looked up at Aubert, uncertainly. His response was simple and direct: “I must bid you goodbye, then, as it is already too late – since the illusion has fled, to become one more woman among the many.”

  “I will be here again tomorrow,” said Sarah.

  She whistled. Ted responded obediently to her summons.

  “Look at him,” she said, “gathering seashells – such an innocent amusement, and yet so ardent. Poor Ted! Poor scholar! Poor poet! Poor innocent! He is everything … and yet he is nothing at all. …”

  With the utmost compassion she studied the little man who might have been made of porcelain; his hair fell about his shoulders like withered flowers in a Chinese vase.

  The sandy beach, like an infinite desert, extended its tedium and loneliness as far as the eye could see.

  As Sarah had suggested – and certainly intended – Aubert returned the next day to the same spot. The seagulls were dancing lightly on the gentle air-currents.

  Sarah’s dress flapped in the wind.

  A white butterfly alighted on her hand; she took it by the wings and slowly tore it in two. Aubert stared at her in horror – but having committed her little murder she passed her hand sensuously through her flaming tresses, entirely tranquil. Then, as if performing a ritual, she opened her arms wide as if to receive the applause of a crowd of imaginary admirers – and brought them back again to rest upon her bosom. She smiled, very sweetly.

  With consummate audacity and awesome self-confidence, trembling as though with suppressed anger, she said: “Why don’t you make love to me?”

  Aubert shivered in his turn, as though he were some small and tremulous creature mesmerised by a snake. The delicate predator with anemone eyes drew him towards her; he was quite helpless.

  They came together, and he could feel the caress of her alluring tresses against his skin, and the warmth of her perfume … Their lips met
, open-mouthed, and he felt Sarah’s teeth as they nipped his flesh … felt the bite of her pearl-like teeth …

  The pathway of his desire brought Aubert to the gilded gate of ecstasy …

  Sarah, perfectly in control of herself, addressed him in a regal manner, and he heard her haughty words as though in a dream: “Aubert, I give myself to you. Never forget that you also belong to me. I must go; it is over, for now. I must go, but you have my word that I will return.”

  The sandy beach, like an infinite desert, extended its tedium and loneliness as far as the eye could see.

  Asleep, almost asleep in the shade of the dunes: there is no dress flapping in the wind. Amid the blackness of the stranded wrack a dream lay dead: a dream as white as the death of a seagull.

  The seagulls play, and then play no more. The steamships come into dock, smoke curling upwards from their funnels, the quays are bustling with activity. The seagulls play, and then play no more … the melancholy seagulls of the Zuider Zee.

  Down there, in the deserted sands, no dress is flapping in the wind.

  Swans flock about a galley as if it were their mothership, wings fluttering like the dead leaves whirled about the desolate headlands. The swans ride slowly on the winds, like stately sailing-ships … the melancholy swans of Bruges.

  Down there, in the emptiness which extends to the horizon, no dress is flapping in the wind.

  The sparrows chatter in the trees denuded of their leaves. Beneath the turbulent sky, lanterns flicker, more hesitant than hearts in the fog of forgetfulness, the lanterns of melancholy boats on the Seine.

  Oh, how cold and lonely it is down there, where no dress is flapping in the wind!

  Asleep, almost asleep in the shade of the dunes.

  Amid the blackness of the stranded wrack, a dream plays: a dream as white as the awakening of a seagull – but there is no dress flapping in the wind.