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<h2> BOOK VII. MODERN TIMES </h2>
<p>MADAME CERES</p>
<p>"Only extreme things are tolerable." Count Robert de Montesquiou.</p>
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<h2> I. MADAME CLARENCE'S DRAWING-ROOM </h2>
<p>Madame Clarence, the widow of an exalted functionary of the Republic,
loved to entertain. Every Thursday she collected together some friends of
modest condition who took pleasure in conversation. The ladies who went to
see her, very different in age and rank, were all without money, and had
all suffered much. There was a duchess who looked like a fortune-teller
and a fortune-teller who looked like a duchess. Madame Clarence was pretty
enough to maintain some old liaisons, but not to form new ones, and she
generally inspired a quiet esteem. She had a very pretty daughter, who,
since she had no dower, caused some alarm among the male guests; for the
Penguins were as much afraid of portionless girls as they were of the
devil himself. Eveline Clarence, noticing their reserve and perceiving its
cause, used to hand them their tea with an air of disdain. Moreover, she
seldom appeared at the parties and talked only to the ladies or the very
young people. Her discreet and retiring presence put no restraint upon the
conversation, since those who took part in it thought either that as she
was a young girl she would not understand it, or that, being twenty-five
years old, she might listen to everything.</p>
<p>One Thursday therefore, in Madame Clarence's drawing-room, the
conversation turned upon love. The ladies spoke of it with pride,
delicacy, and mystery, the men with discretion and fatuity; everyone took
an interest in the conversation, for each one was interested in what he or
she said. A great deal of wit flowed; brilliant apostrophes were launched
forth and keen repartees were returned. But when Professor Haddi began to
speak he overwhelmed everybody.</p>
<p>"It is the same with our ideas on love as with our ideas on everything
else," said he, "they rest upon anterior habits whose very memory has been
effaced. In morals, the limitations that have lost their grounds for
existing, the most useless obligations, the cruelest and most injurious
restraints, are because of their profound antiquity and the mystery of
their origin, the least disputed and the least disputable as well as the
most respected, and they are those that cannot be violated without
incurring the most severe blame. All morality relative to the relations of
the sexes is founded on this principle: that a woman once obtained belongs
to the man, that she is his property like his horse or his weapons. And
this having ceased to be true, absurdities result from it, such as the
marriage or contract of sale of a woman to a man, with clauses restricting
the right of ownership introduced as a consequence of the gradual
diminution of the claims of the possessor.</p>
<p>"The obligation imposed on a girl that she should bring her virginity to
her husband comes from the times when girls were married immediately they
were of a marriageable age. It is ridiculous that a girl who marries at
twenty-five or thirty should be subject to that obligation. You will,
perhaps, say that it is a present with which her husband, if she gets one
at last, will be gratified; but every moment we see men wooing married
women and showing themselves perfectly satisfied to take them as they find
them.</p>
<p>"Still, even in our own day, the duty of girls is determined in religious
morality by the old belief that God, the most powerful of warriors, is
polygamous, that he has reserved all maidens for himself, and that men can
only take those whom he has left. This belief, although traces of it exist
in several metaphors of mysticism, is abandoned to-day, by most civilised
peoples. However, it still dominates the education of girls not only among
our believers, but even among our free-thinkers, who, as a rule, think
freely for the reason that they do not think at all.</p>
<p>"Discretion means ability to separate and discern. We say that a girl is
discreet when she knows nothing at all. We cultivate her ignorance. In
spite of all our care the most discreet know something, for we cannot
conceal from them their own nature and their own sensations. But they know
badly, they know in a wrong way. That is all we obtain by our careful
education. . . ."</p>
<p>"Sir," suddenly said Joseph Boutourle, the High Treasurer of Alca,
"believe me, there are innocent girls, perfectly innocent girls, and it is
a great pity. I have known three. They married, and the result was
tragical."</p>
<p>"I have noticed," Professor Haddock went on, "that Europeans in general
and Penguins in particular occupy themselves, after sport and motoring,
with nothing so much as with love. It is giving a great deal of importance
to a matter that has very little weight."</p>
<p>"Then, Professor," exclaimed Madame Cremeur in a choking voice, "when a
woman has completely surrendered herself to you, you think it is a matter
of no importance?"</p>
<p>"No, Madame; it can have its importance," answered Professor Haddock, "but
it is necessary to examine if when she surrenders herself to us she offers
us a delicious fruit-garden or a plot of thistles and dandelions. And
then, do we not misuse words? In love, a woman lends herself rather than
gives herself. Look at the pretty Madame Pensee. . . ."</p>
<p>"She is my mother," said a tall, fair young man.</p>
<p>"Sir, I have the greatest respect for her," replied Professor Haddock; "do
not be afraid that I intend to say anything in the least offensive about
her. But allow me to tell you that, as a rule, the opinions of sons about
their mothers are not to be relied on. They do not bear enough in mind
that a mother is a mother only because she loved, and that she can still
love. That, however, is the case, and it would be deplorable were it
otherwise. I have noticed, on the contrary, that daughters do not deceive
themselves about their mothers' faculty for loving or about the use they
make of it; they are rivals; they have their eyes upon them."</p>
<p>The insupportable Professor spoke a great deal longer, adding indecorum to
awkwardness, and impertinence to incivility, accumulating incongruities,
despising what is respectable, respecting what is despicable; but no one
listened to him further.</p>
<p>During this time in a room that was simple without grace, a room sad for
the want of love, a room which, like all young girls' rooms, had something
of the cold atmosphere of a place of waiting about it, Eveline Clarence
turned over the pages of club annuals and prospectuses of charities in
order to obtain from them some acquaintance with society. Being convinced
that her mother, shut up in her own intellectual but poor world, could
neither bring her out or push her into prominence, she decided that she
herself would seek the best means of winning a husband. At once calm and
obstinate, without dreams or illusions, and regarding marriage as but a
ticket of admission or a passport, she kept before her mind a clear notion
of the hazards, difficulties, and chances of her enterprise. She had the
art of pleasing and a coldness of temperament that enabled her to turn it
to its fullest advantage. Her weakness lay in the fact that she was
dazzled by anything that had an aristocratic air.</p>
<p>When she was alone with her mother she said:</p>
<p>"Mamma, we will go to-morrow to Father Douillard's retreat."</p>
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