Well then, was it surprising that she now had that feeling of embarrassment in the presence of a man, was unable to look anyone in the eye, and no longer knew how to speak or move?
Already for the past six years, it’s true, she had freed herself . from the nightmare created by her father’s ferocious jealousy. She saw people in her home or on the street, and yet… Certainly it no longer was her former childish fear, but rather this feeling of embarrassment, yes, that’s it! However much she tried, she could not stand up to anyone’s gaze, and when she spoke, her tongue became tangled in her mouth. Moreover, without her knowing why, she would suddenly blush, and there was the possibility, therefore, that everyone might think that she was thinking who knows what, while actually she wasn’t thinking about anything. In a word, she saw herself condemned, time and time again, to make a bad impression and to pass for a foolish or stupid young lady. And that she didn’t want. To insist on the contrary was useless! Thanks to her father, she now had to stay locked up and not see anyone, at least if she didn’t want to experience the annoyance of that extremely stupid, that extremely ridiculous feeling of embarrassment that she could not control.
His best friends, the ones he cared most for, the ones he would have liked to consider as a valuable addition to his home and to the small world that six years previously he had hoped he could build around himself by getting married, had already deserted him, one by one. Of course! They would come to the house and ask:
“Where’s your wife?”
His wife had inevitably dashed away at breakneck speed at the first ring of the doorbell. He would pretend to go call her and actually would go to her. He would appear before her with a pained expression on his face and with outstretched hands, though he always knew that it would be useless, that his wife would cast him a withering look with her eyes inflamed with anger, and would shout “Stupid!” at him through clenched teeth. He would turn around and go back to his guest, feeling God only knows what inside, but outside wearing a smile. Then he would announce: “You must excuse her, my dear friend, she’s not feeling well and has gone to lie down.”
This would happen once, twice, three times, and naturally they would finally get tired. Could he blame them?
Two or three of them still remained, either because they were more faithful or more courageous. And these, at least these, he intended to do all he could to keep. This was especially true for one of them in particular, the most intelligent of them all. This friend was really a learned man, and one who loathed pedantry, a trait which might have partly stemmed from his desire to show off. He was also an exceedingly clever journalist and, in a word, a precious friend.
At times his wife had let herself be seen by these few remaining friends. This happened either when she had been caught off guard or had yielded to his pleading in a propitious moment. And… no sir, it wasn’t at all true that she had made a bad impression. On the contrary!
“Because when you don’t think about it, see… when you give in to your natural inclinations… you’re vivacious…”
“Thanks!”
“You’re intelligent”…
“Thanks!”
“And you’re anything but awkward, that I assure you! Pardon me, but what pleasure could I derive from having you make a bad impression? You speak frankly, why yes, sometimes even too much so… Yes, yes, you’re quite charming, I swear it! You completely light up, and you always stand up to another person’s gaze. Why, your eyes sparkle, my dear… And you say… and you even say bold things, you really do… Does that surprise you? I don’t say they’re improper… but for a woman, they’re bold. You say them with ease, with self-confidence, and, in a word, with spirit. I swear it!”
He would be carried away in singing her praises, noticing that, though she protested that she didn’t believe them one bit, all things considered she enjoyed hearing them. And she would blush, not knowing whether to smile or to frown.
“That’s the way it is, exactly the way it is. Believe me, yours is a real fixation…”
The fact that she didn’t protest against the word “fixation,” which he used a hundred times, should have at least put him on guard. Moreover, she had received those praises about her speech being frank, self-confident, and even bold, with obvious satisfaction.
When and with whom had she spoken in that manner?
A few days before, with the “precious” friend, the one whom naturally she had found to be the most disagreeable of them all. It’s true, she admitted that some of her dislikes were unfounded, and she said that the men in whose presence she felt more embarrassed were the most disagreeable.
But now the satisfaction she experienced in having been able to speak, and even with impudence, in the presence of that individual stemmed from this: In a long discussion on the eternal subject of the honesty of women, he had dared to maintain (certainly in a cunning effort to needle her down deep), that excessive modesty infallibly betrays a sensual temperament. Hence, according to him, you should distrust a woman who blushes over nothing, who doesn’t dare raise her eyes for fear of discovering an assault on her modesty at every turn and a threat to her honesty in every glance, in every word. Such behavior signifies that this woman is obsessed by tempting images; she fears she’ll see them everywhere, and the mere thought of them upsets her. How could you doubt it? On the contrary, another woman, whose senses are relaxed, doesn’t have these feelings of modesty, and can even speak about certain amorous intimacies without getting upset. It doesn’t occur to her that there can be anything wrong in a — what should I say? — in a blouse that’s a bit low-cut, in a lacy stocking, in a skirt that scarcely reveals a little flesh right above the knee.
By this, we should note, he wasn’t at all saying that if a woman doesn’t want to be considered sensual, she has to appear to be shameless and vulgar and show what she shouldn’t show. That would have been a paradox. He was speaking about modesty. And modesty for him was the vendetta of insincerity. Not that it was insincere in itself. It was, on the contrary, quite sincere, but only as an expression of sensuality. A woman is insincere if she tries to deny her sensuality by showing the blush of modesty on her cheeks as proof. Moreover, this woman can be insincere even involuntarily, even unwittingly, because nothing is more complicated than sincerity. We all pretend spontaneously, and not so much in the presence of others as in the presence of ourselves. We always believe what we like to believe about ourselves, and we see ourselves, not as we really are, but as we imagine ourselves to be, according to the ideal construction we have fabricated of ourselves. Thus, it could happen that a woman — even one who is quite sensual but doesn’t know it — can sincerely believe that she’s chaste and feel contempt and repulsion for sensuality, for the simple reason that she blushes over nothing. This blushing over nothing, which in itself is an extremely sincere expression of her real sensuality, is taken instead as proof of her presumed modesty, and, thus taken, naturally becomes insincere.
“Come now, my dear lady, that precious friend had concluded several days ago, “a woman by her very nature (save for exceptions) is a thoroughly sensual creature. All one has to do is know how to approach her, excite her, and conquer her. The ones who are too modest don’t even have to be excited; they get excited, they immediately flare up on their own, as soon as they’re touched.”
Not for a moment did she doubt that in all this discussion he was referring to her, and so, as soon as the friend had left, she ferociously turned on her husband, who during the long discussion had done nothing more than smile like a fool and approve.
“For two hours he insulted me in every possible way, and instead of defending me, you smiled and agreed with him, and so you let him believe that what he was saying was true, because you, my husband, yes, only you, could really know whether…”
“Know what?” he had exclaimed, thunderstruck. “You’re talking nonsense… Me? Know whether you’re sensual? What on earth are you saying? If he was speaking about women in general, what’s it
got to do with you? But if he had had even a faint suspicion that you could apply the discussion to yourself, he wouldn’t have opened his mouth! And then, I beg your pardon, but how could he believe that, if in his presence you did not at all show yourself to be that modest woman he was speaking about? You certainly didn’t even blush in the least. You defended your opinion impetuously and fervently. I smiled because it gratified me, seeing the proof of what I have always said and maintained, namely, that when you don’t think about it, you’re not at all awkward, not at all embarrassed, and that all this presumed embarrassment of yours is nothing more than a fixation. What does the modesty he was talking about have to do with you?”
She had been unable to contradict her husband’s justification. She had gloomily withdrawn into herself to brood over why she had felt so deeply wounded in her heart by that man’s discussion. It wasn’t modesty. No! No! No! It wasn’t modesty she had felt! It wasn’t that disgusting modesty he spoke about. It was embarrassment, embarrassment, embarrassment. But certainly a malicious person like him could take that embarrassment for modesty, and thereby believe that she was a… a woman like that, yes, that’s it!
However, if in fact she had not showed herself to be embarrassed, as her husband asserted, she nonetheless did feel embarrassment. At times she was able to overcome it or to force herself not to show it, but she did feel it. Now then, since her husband denied that she had this feeling of embarrassment, that meant that he wasn’t aware of anything. He would, therefore, not even have noticed whether this embarrassment of hers was something else, that is, that same sort of modesty that his friend had talked about. Was that possible? Oh, God, no! The mere thought disgusted and horrified her. And yet…
The revelation came in a dream.
The dream began as a challenge, as a test that that most disgusting man was putting her to, after the discussion he had had with her that evening, three days previously.
She had to prove that she would not blush over anything. She had to show him that he could do whatever he wanted to her without her being at all upset or losing her composure one bit.
And look! He began the test with bold indifference. First of all he brushed her face with his hand. At the touch of his hand she made a violent effort to conceal the chill that ran throughout her entire body. She tried to prevent her eyes from clouding over, to keep them steady and impassible, and to maintain a slight smile on her lips. And look! Now he was drawing his fingers close to her mouth. He delicately turned her bottom lip down and sank a long, warm, infinitely sweet kiss there in that moist recess. She clenched her teeth and gathered up all her strength to control the trembling, the shivering in her body. He then began calmly to lay bare her breast and… What was wrong with that? No, no, nothing wrong. But… Oh, God, no… He lingered wickedly in the caress… No, no… Too much… And… Overcome, helpless, not conceding at first, she then began to give in, not because he was forcing her, no, but because of the spasmodic languor she felt in her own body. And finally…
Ah! She broke out of her dream, exhausted, trembling uncontrollably, and full of repulsion and horror. She looked at her husband sleeping beside her, unaware of the experience she had had. The shame she felt in her heart immediately transformed itself into a feeling of hatred for him. It was as if he were the cause of that disgraceful act about which she still felt pleasure and horror. He, he was responsible for it, because he foolishly insisted on inviting those friends into their home.
Yes, she had betrayed him in a dream. She had betrayed him and felt no remorse. What she felt instead was anger against herself for having allowed herself to be overcome, and rancor against him, also because in their six years of marriage he had never, never been able to make her feel what she had just now felt in her dream with someone else.
Ah, a thoroughly sensual creature… So, was it true?
No, no. It was his fault, her husband’s fault. By refusing to believe that she felt any embarrassment, he was forcing her to control herself, to do violence to her nature, and was exposing her to those tests, to those challenges from which the dream had arisen. How could she hold out against such a test? It was he, her husband, who had wanted it. And this was his punishment. She would have enjoyed it if she could have separated the shame she felt for herself from the malicious joy she felt at the thought of his being punished.
And now?
The clash occurred the following afternoon, after an entire day of strict silence maintained against every single question put to her insistently by her husband, who wanted to know why she was acting like that, and what had happened to her.
It occurred when the usual visit of the precious friend was announced.
Hearing his voice in the entrance hall, she gave a start, and was suddenly thrown into confusion. Her eyes flashed with furious anger. She sprang on her husband and, trembling from head to foot, ordered him not to receive the man.
“I don’t want to see him! I don’t want to see him! Make him go away!”
At first he was shocked rather than simply astonished by that furious outburst. Unable to understand why she felt such great repulsion, now that he had come to believe that his friend had entered a bit into her good graces because of what he himself had said after that discussion, he became fiercely irritated at that absurd, obstinate command.
“You’re mad, or do you want me to go mad! Must I really lose all my friends on account of .your stupid lunacy?”
And freeing himself from his wife, who had wrapped hergelf around him, he ordered his maid to show the man in.
His wife ran to hide in the adjoining room, throwing him a look of scornful hatred before disappearing behind the door. She collapsed in an armchair as if her legs had suddenly given way beneath her. All her blood, however, boiled in her veins, and in her frightfully helpless state she felt her whole being rebel within her as she heard through the closed door the expressions of festive welcoming that her husband directed at the man with whom she had betrayed him in her dream the night before. And that man’s voice… Oh God… The hands, the hands of that man…
All of a sudden, as her whole body writhed in the chair and she squeezed her arms and breasts with stiffened fingers, she let out a scream and fell to the floor, prey to a frightful nervous attack, a real assault of madness.
The two men dashed into the room. For a moment they stood there, terrified at the sight of her. There she was, writhing on the floor like a serpent, whimpering, howling. Her husband then tried to lift her, and his friend hurried over to help him. Would that he had not done so! As soon as she felt those hands touch her, her unconscious body, completely under the domination of her senses where the experience of the dream still lingered, began to tremble all over, tremble voluptuously. Right under her husband’s eyes she took hold of and clung to that man, begging him eagerly and with dreadful urgency for the frenetic caresses she had experienced in her dream.
Horrified, her husband tore her away from his friend’s chest. She screamed, struggled, and then collapsed lifelessly into his arms. She was then put to bed.
The two men looked at one another, terrified, not knowing what to think or say.
The painful bewilderment demonstrated by the friend made his innocence so evident that the husband could not possibly entertain any suspicion about him. He asked him to leave the room, telling him that since that morning his wife had been upset and in a strange state of nervous tension. He accompanied him to the door, begging his forgiveness for having to ask him to leave on account of that sudden, unfortunate incident. Then he rushed back to her room.
He found her lying on the bed, already conscious. She was huddled up like a wild animal and had glassy eyes. All her limbs trembled with jerky motions as if from cold, and from time to time she shuddered.
When he bent down over her gloomily to ask her exactly what had happened, she repelled him with both arms. And clenching her teeth, she sadistically flung the confession of her betrayal into his face. Huddling as she opened her hands, she said w
ith a convulsive, malicious smile:
“In the dream!… In the dream!…”
And she did not spare him a single detail. The kiss on the inside of her lip… the caress on her breast… And she did so with the perfidious certainty that, though he felt that the betrayal was a reality, as she did, and as such was irrevocable and irreparable, having been consummated and relished to the utmost, he could not blame her for it. He could beat, torture, and tear her body to pieces, but like it or not, it had been possessed by someone else in the unconscious state of a dream. The betrayal did not exist as a reality for that other man, but it had occurred, and it remained a reality here, here, for her, in her body that had enjoyed it.
Who was to blame? And what could he do to her?
The Train Whistled…
He was delirious. “The first symptoms of cerebral fever,” the doctors had said, and these words were repeated by all his fellow office workers as they returned in groups of two or three from the asylum where they had gone to visit him.
It seemed that as they passed the news along to the few latecomer colleagues they would meet on the street, they felt a particular delight in using the scientific terms they had just learned from the doctors:
“Frenzy, frenzy.”
“Encephalitis.”
“Inflammation of the membrane.”
“Cerebral fever.”
They wanted to appear saddened, but in the depths of their hearts they were quite happy, if only because they had fulfilled their duty, and because, being in the best of health, they had left that sad asylum and were now outside under the joyful blue sky of that wintry morning.
“Will he die? Will he go mad?”
Tales of Madness Page 12
