My dress,which dazzled me as I paraded alone in my white-and-gold drawing-room,was barely noticeable amidst the gorgeous finery of most of the married women.Each had her band of faithful followers,and they all watched each other askance.A few were radiant in triumphant beauty,and amongst these was my mother.A girl at a ball is a mere dancing-machine--a thing of no consequence whatever.
The men,with rare exceptions,did not impress me more favorably here than at the Champs-Elysees.They have a used-up look;their features are meaningless,or rather they have all the same meaning.The proud,stalwart bearing which we find in the portraits of our ancestors--men who joined moral to physical vigor--has disappeared.Yet in this gathering there was one man of remarkable ability,who stood out from the rest by the beauty of his face.But even he did not rouse in me the feeling which I should have expected.I do not know his works,and he is a man of no family.Whatever the genius and the merits of a plebeian or a commoner,he could never stir my blood.Besides,this man was obviously so much more taken up with himself than with anybody else,that I could not but think these great brain-workers must look on us as things rather than persons.When men of intellectual power love,they ought to give up writing,otherwise their love is not the real thing.The lady of their heart does not come first in all their thoughts.I seemed to read all this in the bearing of the man I speak of.I am told he is a professor,orator,and author,whose ambition makes him the slave of every bigwig.
My mind was made up on the spot.It was unworthy of me,I determined,to quarrel with society for not being impressed by my merits,and Igave myself up to the simple pleasure of dancing,which I thoroughly enjoyed.I heard a great deal of inept gossip about people of whom Iknow nothing;but perhaps it is my ignorance on many subjects which prevents me from appreciating it,as I saw that most men and women took a lively pleasure in certain remarks,whether falling from their own lips or those of others.Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve.It is a perfect maze of intrigue.Yet I am fairly quick of sight and hearing,and as to my wits,Mlle.de Maucombe does not need to be told!
I returned home tired with a pleasant sort of tiredness,and in all innocence began describing my sensations to my mother,who was with me.She checked me with the warning that I must never say such things to any one but her.
"My dear child,"she added,"it needs as much tact to know when to be silent as when to speak."This advice brought home to me the nature of the sensations which ought to be concealed from every one,not excepting perhaps even a mother.At a glance I measured the vast field of feminine duplicity.Ican assure you,sweetheart,that we,in our unabashed simplicity,would pass for two very wide-awake little scandal-mongers.What lessons may be conveyed in a finger on the lips,in a word,a look!
All in a moment I was seized with excessive shyness.What!may I never again speak of the natural pleasure I feel in the exercise of dancing?
"How then,"I said to myself,"about the deeper feelings?"I went to bed sorrowful,and I still suffer from the shock produced by this first collision of my frank,joyous nature with the harsh laws of society.Already the highway hedges are flecked with my white wool!
Farewell,beloved.
