The Wild Ass's Skin

by Honoré de Balzac

  ‘Although I was encouraged in my restraint and moderation by my noble sentiments, I did not lack reasoning of a more legalistic nature. I fail to understand honesty in money matters without honesty of mind. Deceiving a woman or one’s creditors has always amounted to the same thing in my eyes. Loving or being loved by a girl constitutes a real contract whose conditions have to be clearly understood. We are authorized to abandon the woman who sells her body, but not the girl who gives it, for she is unaware of the extent of her sacrifice. So I could have married Pauline, but it would have been folly on my part. For would that not have delivered up a sweet and virgin soul to frightful misfortunes? My poverty spoke its own selfish language and always came to place its iron hand between this good creature and myself. And then, as I admit to my shame, I cannot conceive of love in a garret. Perhaps this is perverse of me, a result of the human malady we call civilization. But a woman, even one as attractive as the beautiful Helen or Homer’s Galatea,* has no longer any power over my senses if she is in any way less than spotless. Oh, let love be dressed in silk and enjoyed on cashmere, surrounded by the luxuries that wondrously adorn it, perhaps because it is itself a luxury. When I desire a woman I like to crumple her pretty dress between my fingers, crush her flowers, plunge my wanton hand into the elegant confection of a perfumed coiffure. Flashing eyes that blaze beneath a lace veil, like flames through cannon-smoke, these are wondrously attractive to me. My kind of love needs silken ladders climbed in silence on a winter’s night. What a pleasure to climb up, covered in snow, into a perfumed room hung with painted silk and discover the woman herself shaking snow from off her shoulders—for what else should we call those veils of voluptuous muslins through which you can just make out her shape like an angel in its nimbus, from which she will shortly emerge? Besides, I need a fearful happiness, a security at risk. And lastly, I wish to see this mysterious woman again, but dazzling, virtuous, publicly decked out in her lace and diamonds, with all the city at her feet and on so high a pedestal that no one dares woo her. From the midst of her queenly court she throws me a secret glance, a look that belies all this pretence, a glance that sacrifices all other men and the whole world for me!

  ‘I have thought myself ridiculous, certainly, many a time, for loving reams of silken lace, velvet, fine lawns, the confections of a coiffeur, candelabras, a coach, a title, heraldic coronets painted by the makers of stained glass or created by a silversmith, in short, everything that is most artificial and least feminine in women. I have made fun of myself, reasoned with myself, all in vain. I find an aristocratic woman and her subtle smile, the distinction of her manners, and her self-confidence enchanting. When she erects a barrier between herself and the world she flatters all my vanity, and that is halfway to falling in love. My own happiness, being envied by everyone, appears to me all the more piquant. If my mistress does nothing that other women do, does not walk, does not live as they do, if she wraps herself in clothes they cannot possess, and exudes a perfume that is special to her, I feel she is all the more mine. The more she distances herself from the earth, even in the earthly element of love, the more beautiful she becomes in my eyes. In France, luckily for me, we have been without a queen for twenty years* or I would have been in love with the queen!

  ‘In order to act like a princess a woman must be rich. How could Pauline measure up to my romantic fantasies? Could she sell me nights that I would die for, a love that kills and brings into play every human faculty? We do not die for the poor girls who give themselves to us. I have never managed to eradicate these feelings nor these poetic fantasies. I was born for an impossible love, and chance has decreed that I have been given it beyond my wildest dreams. How many times have I not clothed Pauline’s pretty little feet in satin, imprisoned her slender waist in a gauzy dress, thrown a light stole across her breast as I led her down the carpeted stairs of her house and into an elegant carriage; I should have adored her in these circumstances. I was supposing she had a pride she did not possess; I was stripping her of all virtues, of naive graces, of her delightful naturalness, of her candid smile, to plunge her into the Styx of vice and harden her heart,* make of her a sinner like us, a fancy doll of the salons, a slim beauty who goes to bed in the morning and comes alive again at night, in the false dawn of candlelight. Pauline was all feeling, all freshness, and I wanted her to become hard and cold.

  ‘In the latest phases of my madness, memory has shown me Pauline, as clearly as it shows us the scenes of our childhood. More than once I have been deeply moved, thinking of those delightful moments: I would see that delightful girl again seated by my desk, busy sewing, peaceful, not speaking, deep in thought, her face lit only by the light coming from my dormer window, which made little silvery reflections on her beautiful black hair; or I would hear her youthful laughter or in rich tones singing the graceful cantilenas that she so effortlessly composed. Often my Pauline became even more wonderful when she made music; then her face resembled in a striking manner the noble head by which Carlo Dolci* tried to represent Italy. The memory of this young girl, the image of virtue, visited me as cruel remorse about the excesses of my life. But let us leave the poor child to her destiny! However unhappy that may be, at least I will have sheltered her from a terrible storm and avoided dragging her into my particular hell.’

  * * *

  ‘Until last winter I was leading the quiet, studious life which I have attempted, however inadequately, to depict for you. In the early days of December 1829, I met Rastignac* who, in spite of the sorry state of my attire, took me by the arm and, with a truly fraternal interest, enquired what had become of me. Captivated by his manner, I gave him a brief summary of my life and hopes. He began to laugh, treated me like a man of genius and a fool at one and the same time. His Gascon volubility, his experience of the world, the flourishing finances he owed to his savoir faire, had an irresistible effect on me. Rastignac told me I should die in the poorhouse, misunderstood, like an idiot; he would lead my funeral cortège and throw me into a pauper’s grave. He talked to me of charlatanism. With that amiable vitality that is part of his charm, he showed me that all men of genius are charlatans. He declared that I must be witless, I must have a death-wish, to continue living on my own in the Rue des Cordiers. According to him, I should go into society, get my name on everyone’s lips, and do away with the humble monsieur which was not becoming to a great man in his lifetime.

  ‘“Fools”, he cried, “call that scheming, and moralists frown upon it and call it a life of dissipation; but don’t let us bother about them, let’s look at the results. Are you hardworking? … Well then, you will never achieve anything. Look at me, ready for anything and good for nothing, lazy as a dog. I get anything I want. I spread myself around, push myself forward, people get out of my way. I brag and people believe me; I have debts and they pay them! Dissipation, my dear man, is a political system. The life of a man busy getting through his fortune often becomes a kind of speculation. He invests his capital in friends, in pleasure, in protectors, in acquaintances. Does a merchant who has a million take risks with his money? For twenty years he does not sleep or drink or enjoy life. He broods over his million, he sends it all over Europe. He frets, gives himself over to all the devils that have been invented by mankind. Then someone goes bankrupt—I’ve seen it happen—and he is left without a penny, without a name, without a friend. Whereas the one who has squandered his fortune enjoys life, watching his horses gallop in the races. If he has the misfortune to lose his capital, it is quite possible he will be appointed tax-collector, will marry well, be attached to a minister, to an ambassador. He still has friends, a reputation, and some money. Knowing how the world turns, he works it all to his advantage. Is this not logical, or am I a madman? Is that not the morality of the comedy played out every day in the world?

  ‘“Your treatise is finished,” he went on after a pause, “you have enormous talent! Well, you have arrived at where we start from! You must now take charge of your career yourself, it’s safer. Yo
u will go on to make alliances with the cliques and coteries, win over the flatterers. Co-author of your fame, I shall be the jeweller who mounts the diamonds in your crown.

  ‘“For a start,” he said, “be here tomorrow evening. I shall introduce you into a house that is frequented by the whole of Paris, our Paris, the beautiful people, the super-rich, the famous, the men who talk gold, just like St Chrysostom.* When these people take up a book, it becomes a best-seller; if it really is a good book they will have unknowingly given it some certification of genius. If you have any sense, my dear child, you will yourself make your Theory’s fortune by better understanding the theory of your own fortune. Tomorrow night you will meet the beautiful Countess Foedora,* grande dame of fashion.”

  ‘“Never heard of her.”

  ‘“You are a savage,” laughed Rastignac, “Not heard of Foedora! An eligible woman with nearly eighty thousand francs a year, who wants to marry nobody or whom nobody wants to marry. A sort of conundrum in female form, a half-Russian Parisienne, a half-Parisienne Russian! A woman in whose house appear all the romantic works which don’t get published, the most beautiful, graceful woman in Paris! You are not even a savage, you are the intermediary link in creation between a savage and an orang-utan. Farewell, till tomorrow!”

  ‘He executed a pirouette and disappeared without waiting for my reply, not admitting that any reasonable man could refuse an introduction to Foedora. How can one explain the fascination of a name? “Foedora” pursued me like a bad thought with which one tries to come to terms. A voice was telling me: “You will pay Foedora a visit.” I tried in vain to argue with this voice and tell it it was lying, it crushed all my arguments with that name: FOEDORA. That name, that woman, were they not the symbol of all my desires and the theme-tune of my life? The name conjured up the artificial poetry of high society, Parisian life in all its glamour and vanity. The woman was the incarnation of all the problems of passion that had driven me wild. Perhaps it was neither the woman nor the name, but all the worst side of my character that rose up to tempt me anew.

  ‘The Countess Foedora, rich and without a lover, resisting the seductions of Paris, was she not the incarnation of all my hopes and visions? I created a woman for myself, I pictured her in my thoughts, I dreamed of her. I could not sleep that night, I became her lover; I crammed a whole life into a few hours, a lifetime of love, and I drank of its life-giving, fiery delights. The next day, incapable of sustaining the torture of waiting eternally for evening to come, I went to borrow a novel and spent the day reading it, so that I did not have to think or measure out the hours. While I read, the name Foedora echoed through my mind like a sound you hear in the distance which does not disturb you but which you nevertheless notice. Luckily I still had a black suit and white waistcoat, both in quite a decent condition; also from my whole fortune, there remained about thirty francs which I had strewn around amongst the clothes in my drawers, so as to erect between a five-franc coin and my sudden impulses the thorny barrier of having to search for it and the hazards of circumnavigating my room. While getting dressed I pursued my hoard through a sea of papers. The meagre sum may give you some idea of the hole made in my resources by my gloves and my cab: they consumed a whole month’s supply of bread. Alas, we never lack money for what we really want to do, we only dispute the price of useful or necessary things. We carelessly throw away our gold on dancing-girls and yet we haggle with a worker whose starving family is waiting for the payment of a bill. How many people possess a suit costing a hundred francs, a diamond on the pommel of their cane, and yet dine on twenty-five sous! It seems that we can never pay dearly enough for the pleasures of vanity. Rastignac, punctual at our meeting-place, laughed at my transformation and ribbed me about it. But as we were going to see the Countess he gave me charitable advice on how I should conduct myself with her; he described her as mean, vain, and mistrustful; but the meanness went hand in hand with showiness, her vanity with simplicity, her mistrust with good humour.

  ‘“You know my commitments,” he said, “and you know how much I should lose by changing my mistress. As regards Foedora, I am not involved, I am dispassionate, so my observations are certainly accurate. My idea in introducing you to her was that I was thinking about your career; so be careful what you say to her, she has a wicked memory and is clever enough to make a diplomat despair; she would be able to tell the moment he spoke the truth. Between you and me, I don’t believe her marriage is recognized by the Emperor, for the Russian ambassador started to laugh when I spoke to him about her. He doesn’t receive her, and he barely acknowledges her when he meets her in the Bois.* Nevertheless she moves in the same society as Madame de Serizy, visits at Madame de Nucingen’s and Madame de Restaud’s houses. In France her reputation is intact. The Duchess of Carigliano,* the most prim and proper marchioness of all the Bonapartist coterie, often goes to spend the summer on her estate. Many young fops, including a peer’s son, have offered her a name in return for her fortune. She has refused them all, politely. Perhaps she only gets interested in the rank of count or above! But are you not a marquis? So, if you like her looks, go ahead! That’s what I call giving useful information.”

  ‘This made me think that Rastignac was having a joke at my expense and wanted to arouse my curiosity, so my newly induced passion had reached its climax by the time we stopped in front of a peristyle decorated with flowers. My heart beat faster as we climbed a vast, carpeted staircase, where I noticed all the refinements of English comfort. I was ashamed at belying my aristocratic birth, my feelings, my pride; I was becoming besottedly bourgeois. But alas! I had come from a garret after three years of poverty, and not yet learned to rate above life’s trivia the acquired treasures, this huge intellectual capital which enriches a man immediately power falls into his hands without crushing him, the discipline of studying having fitted him in advance for political struggles.

  ‘I saw a woman of about twenty-two, of medium build, dressed in white, surrounded by a circle of men, reclining upon an ottoman with a feather fan in her hand. Seeing Rastignac come in, she rose, came over, gave a charming smile, and in a melodious voice paid me a compliment she had no doubt rehearsed. Our friend had announced me as a man of talent, and his skill, his Gascon eloquence, ensured a flattering welcome for me. I was the object of particular attention, which I found embarrassing. But fortunately Rastignac had spoken of my modesty. In her salon I met scientists, men of letters, former ministers, peers of France. The conversation revived after my arrival, and, feeling I had a reputation to sustain, my confidence grew. Then, without becoming too verbose, when I had the opportunity to speak I tried to sum up the arguments in a series of more or less incisive, profound, or witty remarks. I made quite an impression. For the thousandth time in his life Rastignac had proved he was a prophet. When there were enough people for all to move about freely, he took my arm and we strolled through the rooms.

  ‘“Don’t look as though you are too impressed by the Princess,” he said, “or she will guess why you have come.”

  ‘The salons were furnished in exquisite taste, decorated with well-chosen pictures. Each room had, as in the homes of the richest Englishmen, its particular character, and the silken hangings, the ornaments, the style of the furniture, the finest details were in harmony with the overall concept. In a Gothic boudoir, whose doors were concealed by tapestry curtains, the border of the material, the clock, the designs on the carpet were all Gothic. On the ceiling, made of carved, exposed beams, were panels full of grace and originality, the woodcarvings were artistically worked, nothing marred the effect of this pretty decoration, least of all the casements, whose windows were of costly stained glass. I was surprised to see a small modern drawing-room where some artist had made full use of the resources of our decorative arts, the gilding so light, fresh, and softly subdued. It was soft and amorous, like a German ballad, a real love-nest fit for 1827,* scented by baskets of rare flowers. Beyond this room I perceived another, gilded, where the style of the century of
Louis XIV had been revived; it provided a strange but agreeable contrast with our modern decor.

  ‘“You will be very well lodged here,” said Rastignac, smiling with some slight irony. “Isn’t it charming?” he added, taking his seat.

  ‘Suddenly he rose, took me by the hand, led me into the bedroom, and showed me a voluptuous bed softly lit on a dais of muslin and white watered silk, truly the bed of a young fairy betrothed to a genie.

  ‘“Is it not”, he exclaimed under his breath, “immodest, insolent, and impossibly flirtatious to permit us to gaze upon this throne of love? Not to give oneself to anyone and yet allow every man to leave his visiting-card there! If I were free I should like to see this woman on her knees, weeping at my door.”

  ‘“Are you so certain about her virtue then?”

  ‘“The boldest of our young men, and the cleverest even, admit to having failed with her, but are still in love with her and are her devoted friends. Is not this woman an enigma?”

  ‘These words excited a sort of intoxication in me, my jealousy was already aroused about her past. Thrilled, I rushed back into the salon where I had left the Countess, and encountered her in the Gothic boudoir. She stopped me with a smile, made me sit next to her, questioned me on my work, and appeared to take a keen interest in it, especially when I explained my theory in an amusing way, rather than adopting the language of a professor and expounding it academically. She seemed very amused to learn that human will was a material force similar to steam; that psychologically nothing could resist this power when a man was able to concentrate it, to control the sum total of it, constantly bring to bear this fluid mass on people’s minds; that such a man could modify, as he wished, everything pertaining to the human condition, even the absolute laws of nature. Foedora’s objections revealed in her a certain finesse of intellect, and I was content to agree with her for a few moments, to flatter her; and then I destroyed her female reasoning with one word, by drawing her attention to a daily fact of life—sleep—apparently a commonplace phenomenon, but basically full of problems insoluble for the scientist. I aroused her curiosity. The Countess remained silent for a moment when I told her that our ideas were organic entities, complete in themselves, alive in an invisible world and influencing our destinies; I cited to her for proof the ideas of Descartes, Diderot, Napoleon which had guided and were still guiding a whole century. I had the honour of interesting this woman, and as she left me she invited me to come and visit; she was giving me les grandes entrées,* in the manner of the court.