Woman and Puppet 1

Woman and Puppet 1

Woman and Puppet

Woman and Puppet; The New Pleasure; Byblis; Lêda;; Immortal Love; The Artist Triumphant; The Hill of Horsel

 

CONTENTS

 

 

PAGE

 

WOMAN AND PUPPET 3

 

THE NEW PLEASURE 51

 

BYBLIS 65

 

LÊDA 89

 

IMMORTAL LOVE 107

 

THE ARTIST TRIUMPHANT 191

 

THE HILL OF HORSEL 233

 

 

 

 

_TRANSLATOR’S NOTE_

 

_About twelve years ago Oscar Wilde dedicated his beautiful SALOME

thus: “À mon Ami Pierre Louÿs.” At that time not many gentlemen in

England knew the name of the writer who was to become famous throughout

the Land of the Mind as author of APHRODITE. His earliest fame here was

to be enshrined in that dedication. Afterwards, in THE SPIRIT LAMP, he

had the honour and pleasure of putting into a French sonnet one of the

prose poems that Wilde used to put into the post as letters. Suddenly,

about ten years ago, every one in the republic of French letters was

praising a new and wonderful book, APHRODITE. It was the most amazing

study of antiquity since the SALAMBO of Flaubert or the Mary Magdalen

of Edgar Saltus. The beautiful girl in the romance by Louÿs captivated

a continent. She was, indeed_, mystérieuse et victorieuse. _But he did

not stop. His waiting world soon had from him the CHANSONS DE BILITIS.

An English wit, one of the few, said they were CHANCES OF DEBILITY. His

phrase saves trouble, but one can say that these prose chansons were

a picture of Sapphic life and love of a very febrile sort. There is

quite a lot of that in modern French literature. It is a mode of the

moment. Louÿs then passed to the writing of the superb little books

LÊDA, BYBLIS, THE ARTIST TRIUMPHANT, and A NEW PLEASURE. They are here

translated. The narrative Louÿs called THE ADVENTURES OF KING PAUSOLUS

was of the whimsy story type. It brought to the minds of well-read

men such things as Uchard’s tale MON ONCLE BARBASSOU. It also clearly

informed the reader that Louÿs was French, and that even in the telling

of a harmless romance the strip of water between England and France is

a strip that also flows between two antipolar view-points. But Louÿs

at last came to the writing of WOMAN AND PUPPET, and wrote something

of deepest human intent. A version of it follows. The very curious

story entitled THE HILL OF HORSEL shows the fusing of fact and fiction,

antiquity and to-day. It is a most interesting effort, and achievement,

in a form of story that Poe, Gautier and D’Aurevilly also perfected._

 

G. F. MONKSHOOD.

 

 

 

 

WOMAN AND PUPPET

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

 

In Spain the Carnival does not finish, as in France, at eight o’clock

on the morning of Ash Wednesday. Over the wonderful gaiety of Seville

the memory that “_dust we are_,” etc., spreads its odour of sepulture

for four days only, and the first Sunday of Lent all the Carnival

reawakens.

 

It is the _Domingo de Pinatas_, or the Sunday of Marmites, the Grand

Fête. All the populous town has changed its costume, and one sees in

the streets rags and tatters of red, blue, green, yellow or rose,

that have been mosquito-nets, curtains or women’s garments, all

waving in the sunlight and carried by a small body of ragamuffins. The

youngsters, noisy, many-coloured and masked, push their way through the

crowd of great personages.

 

At the windows one sees pressed forward innumerable brunette heads.

Nearly all the young girls of the countryside are in Seville on such

a day as this. Paper confetti fall as a coloured rain, fans shade and

protect pretty powdered faces, there are cries, appeals and laughter in

the narrow streets. A few thousands of people make more noise on this

day of Carnival than would the whole of Paris.

 

But, on the twenty-third of February in eighteen hundred and

ninety-six, André Stévenol saw the end of the Carnival approaching

with a slight feeling of vexation, for the week, although essentially

one of love-affairs, had not brought him any new adventure. Some

previous sojourning in Spain had taught him with what quickness and

freedom of the heart the knots of friendship were tied and untied in

this still primitive land. He was depressed at the thought that chance

and circumstance had not favoured him. He had had a long paper battle

with one young girl. They had fought and teased each other with the

serpentine strips of Carnival time, he in the street, she at a window.

She ran down and gave him a little red bouquet with “Many thanks, sir.”

But, alas! she had fled quickly, and at closer view illusions fled

also. André put the flower in his coat, but did not put the giver in

his memory.

 

Four o’clock sounded from many clocks. He went by way of the Calle

Rodrigo and gained the Delicias, Champs-Elysées of shading trees along

the immense Guadalquivir thronged with vessels. It was there that

unrolled the Carnival of the elegant.

 

At Seville the leisured class cannot always afford three good meals per

day, but would rather go without them than without the outside show

of a landau and two fine horses. Seville has hundreds of carriages,

often old-fashioned but made beautiful by their horses, and occupied by

people of noble race and face.

 

André Stévenol made a way with difficulty through the crowd edging

the two sides of the vast dusty avenue. The battle of eggs was on.

Eggshells filled with paper confetti were being thrown into the

carriages, and thrown back, of course. André filled his pockets

with eggs and fought with spirit. The stream of carriages filed

past--carriages full of women, lovers, families, children, or friends.

The game had lasted an hour when André felt in his pocket his last egg.

 

Suddenly there again appeared a young woman whose fan he had broken

with an egg earlier in the combat.

 

She was marvellous. Deprived of the shade and shelter of the fan that

had protected her delicate, laughing features; open on all sides to the

attacks of the crowd and the nearest carriages, she took bravely her

part in the struggle, and, standing panting, hatless, flushed with heat

and frank gaiety, she gave and received attacks. She appeared to be

about twenty-two years old, and must have been at least eighteen. That

she was from Andalucia could not possibly be doubted. She was of that

admirable type that was born of the intermixing of Arabs and Vandals,

of Semites with the Germans. Such mixing has brought together in a

little valley of Europe all the perfection of two races.

 

Her body, long and supple, was expressive in every line and curve. One

felt that even were she veiled one would be able to divine her thought,

and that she laughed with her limbs, even as she spoke with her

shoulders and her bosom, with grace and with liberty. Her hair was of

dark chestnut, but at a distance shone almost black. Her cheeks were of

great softness as to contour. The edges of the eyelids were very dark.

 

André, pressed by the crowd close to her carriage, gazed at her

intently. His heart-beats told him that this woman would be one of

those who were destined to play a part in his life. At once he wrote

with pencil on his Carnival egg the word “QUIERO,” and threw it as one

might a rose into her hands.

 

Quiero is an astonishing verb. It is “to will,” “to desire,” “to love.”

It is “to go in quest of,” it is “to cherish.” In turn, and according

to how used, it expresses an imperative passion, or a light caprice.

It is a prayer or an order, a declaration or a condescension. Often

it is but an irony. André looked as he gave it the look that can mean

“I would love to love you.” She put the curious missive in a sort of

hand-bag, and the stream of traffic took her on. André lost sight of

her after a vain attempt to follow.

 

Saddened he slowly returned. For him all the Carnival was shrouded

and ended. Should he have been more determined and found a way in the

crowd? How could he find her again? It was not certain that she lived

in Seville. If not, it might be impossible to find her. And little

by little, by an unhappy illusion, the image that his mind held of

her became more charming. Certain details of her sweet features that

had only won a moment’s curious notice now became transmuted in the

crucible of memory into the principal things that made up her tender

attitude. There was a certain detail in the dressing of the hair, an

extreme mobility in the corners of the lips. The latter changed each

instant in form and __EXPRESSION__. Often almost hidden, often almost

curved upwards, rounded, slender, pale or darkened, animated, so to

speak, with a varying flame of life and soul. Ah! perhaps one could

blame all the rest of that face--say that the nose was not Grecian, the

chin not Roman; but not to colour with pleasure at the sight of those

little lip-corners was to be past all forgiveness in this world.

 

So his thoughts flew on and on till a voice cried behind him rough but

warning: a carriage was passing quickly in the narrow street. In the

carriage was a young woman who, when she saw André threw gently towards

him, as one would throw a rose, an egg inscribed “Quiero.”

 

But, now, after the word there was a decided flourish. It was as if the

fair one had wished to reply by stressing his own one-word message.