Consider
this. Always be a philosopher, even about women.
Few men understand women. Frenchmen, perhaps, better than any one
else. I am a Frenchman.
II.
THE INFANT.
She is a child--a little thing--an infant.
She has a mother and father. Let us suppose, for example, they are
married. Let us be moral if we cannot be happy and free--they are
married--perhaps--they love one another--who knows?
But she knows nothing of this; she is an infant--a small thing--a
trifle!
She is not lovely at first. It is cruel, perhaps, but she is red,
and positively ugly. She feels this keenly and cries. She weeps.
Ah, my God, how she weeps! Her cries and lamentations now are
really distressing.
Tears stream from her in floods. She feels deeply and copiously
like M. Alphonse de Lamartine in his Confessions.
If you are her mother, Madame, you will fancy worms; you will
examine her linen for pins, and what not. Ah, hypocrite! you, even
YOU, misunderstand her.
Yet she has charming natural impulses. See how she tosses her
dimpled arms. She looks longingly at her mother. She has a
language of her own. She says, "goo goo," and "ga ga."
She demands something--this infant!
She is faint, poor thing.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164