Correspondence
Madame de X to Madame de Z
Étretat, Friday.
My Dear Aunt,
I am slowly making my way down to you. I shall be at Fresnes on the 2nd of September, in time for the opening of the hunting season, which I am anxious not to miss, because I want to tease the menfolk. You are too indulgent, my dear Aunt, when you are alone with them, in allowing them to appear at dinner, on the plea of fatigue, without changing their clothes or shaving after they return.
So they are delighted when I am not there, but I shall be there, and I shall review them at dinnertime like a general; and if I find any one of them a little untidy, however little it is, I will send him to the kitchen to the servants.
Men today have so little consideration and breeding that one must be strict. We are indeed passing through a period of vulgarity. When they quarrel amongst themselves they abuse each other like pickpockets, and even in our presence they behave much worse than the servants. It is especially noticeable at the seaside. The men are there in large numbers, and one can judge them en masse. Oh! How coarse they are! Just think—in a railway carriage, one of them, a gentleman who at first glance seemed all right—thanks to his tailor—had the exquisite taste to take off his boots and put on a pair of down-at-heel felt slippers. Another, an old man, who must have been one of the New Rich (for these have the worst manners), seated opposite to me, carefully placed both his feet on the seat just beside me. Everybody does it.
At the watering-places, vulgarity runs riot. I should add that perhaps my revulsion arises from the fact that I am not used to mixing with the class of people that one meets there; their ways would not shock me so much if I came across them more often.
In the hotel office I was almost knocked over by a young man who reached over my head for his key. Another, coming out from a ball at the Casino, ran against me with such violence, without apologising or raising his hat, that the blow gave me a pain in the chest. They are all like that. See how they greet women on the terrace; they hardly acknowledge them at all. They simply raise their hands to their hats. However, as they are all bald, it is better so.
But one thing which exasperates and offends me more than anything else is the freedom with which they discuss in public the most revolting intrigues, without any kind of precaution. When two men get together, they tell each other the most dreadful stories as coarsely and disgustingly as possible, without troubling in the least to see whether a woman is within earshot. Yesterday on the beach I was compelled to change my place to avoid hearing any more of a smutty anecdote, told in words so brutal that I felt humiliated, as well as indignant at having heard what I did. Should not the most elementary good taste lead them to speak in whispers of these things when near us?
Étretat is, moreover, a hotbed of scandal, and therefore the home of gossips. From five until seven o’clock you can see them wandering in search of titbits of scandal, which they retail from one group to another. As you told me, dear Aunt, tittle-tattle is the hallmark of mean people and petty minds. It is also the consolation of women who are neither loved nor courted. I have only to look to those who are recognised as the worst gossips to be convinced that you were quite right.
The other day I went to a musical evening at the Casino, given by a remarkable artiste, Madame Masson, whose singing is a delight. It gave me the opportunity of applauding the admirable Coquelin and two charming pensioners from the Vaudeville theatre, Monsieur and Madame Meillet. In these circumstances I was able to see all the bathers gathered together on the beach this year. Few of them have any distinction.
The following day I went to Yport to lunch. I noticed a bearded man coming out of a big house like a fortress. It was the painter Jean Paul Laurens. Apparently not satisfied with putting a wall round the figures he paints, he must wall himself in too.
Later on I was sitting on the shingle beside a young man with a gentle, refined face, and quiet manners, who was reading poetry. But he was reading with so much concentration—so much passion, may I say?—that he never even once looked at me. I felt rather shocked and asked the head of the bathing-tents the man’s name, as if it were a matter of no importance. I smiled to myself at this reader of rhymes who seemed—for a man—somewhat behind the times. There’s someone quite unsophisticated, I thought. Well, Aunt, at present I dote on my unknown friend. Just imagine, his name is Sully Prudhomme. I went and sat beside him again to study him in comfort. His face in particular bears the stamp of refinement and tranquillity, and as someone came up to speak I heard his voice, which was gentle and rather timid. It is obvious that this man is not shouting vulgarisms in public, that he is not knocking against women without apologising. He must be a fastidious soul. This winter I will see if I can manage to have him introduced to me.
There is nothing more, my dear Aunt, so I conclude in haste as it is about post time. I kiss your hands and both your cheeks.
Madame de Z to Madame de X
Les Fresnes, Saturday.
My Dear Child,
You say many things that are true enough but that does not prevent you from being wrong. Like you, formerly, I felt very indignant that the impoliteness of men I esteemed showed a want of respect towards me, but with age and reflection, and having passed the period of coquetry, and formed the habit of observing others in a self-detached manner, I have remarked that if men are not always polite, women on the other hand are always unjustifiably bad-mannered.
We think that we may do anything and everything, and at the same time we feel that we have a right to everything, and with a light heart we indulge in all those lapses of elementary good breeding of which you speak so passionately.
On the contrary, I consider that men are full of consideration for women in comparison with the attitude of women towards men. Besides, my darling, men must be, and are, what we make them. In a society where all the women were really gentlewomen, all the men would become gentlemen.
Watch, observe and reflect.
Watch two women meeting in the street; what affectation! What an air of disparagement, what contemptuous glances! With what a boldness they eye each other from head to foot and sit in judgment! If the pavement is a narrow one, do you think either will give way, or apologise? Never. If two men run into each other in a narrow street, they both raise their hats and make way, whereas we women, we rush ahead full tilt and gaze at each other insolently. Watch two women who know each other meeting on the staircase leading to the door of a friend’s flat to which one is going and from which the other is coming. They begin to talk and block up the way. If there happens to be anyone behind them, man or woman, do you think they will put themselves out in the least? Never! Never!
Last winter I waited twenty-two minutes, watch in hand, at the door of a drawing room. Behind me two men were also waiting without showing any sign of impatience, as I did, because they had long been accustomed to our insolent ways.
The other day before leaving Paris I went to dine—as it happens, with your husband—at a restaurant in the Champs Élysées so as to be in the open air. The waiter begged us to wait awhile. I caught sight of an old lady of distinguished appearance who had paid her bill and seemed about to leave. She saw me, eyed me from head to foot, and did not budge. For over fifteen minutes she stayed there, putting on her gloves, glancing at all the tables, observing with detachment all those who were waiting, as I was. Then two young men, who had just finished, saw me, and, hurriedly calling the waiter for their bill, offered me their place at once. I refused to remain seated while they waited for their change—and remember, my dear, that I am no longer pretty like you, but old and white-haired.
There is no doubt that we are the ones who should be taught politeness; the task would be so great that Hercules himself would not succeed.
You talk about Étretat and the people who gossip on that delightful beach. The place is done for for me, although in the past I have enjoyed myself there. There were just a few of us who were on friendly terms, men and women in society—the real thing—and writers, artists and musicians. Nobody tittle-tattled in those days.
As there was no insipid Casino then where people pose, talk scandal under their breath, dance idiotically, and bore themselves to death, we tried to find some way of spending the evenings cheerfully. Well, guess what one of the husbands of the party thought of? To go and dance at one of the neighbouring farms every evening.
We all went off in a band with a hand-organ which the painter Le Poittevin, wearing a cotton nightcap, generally played. Two men carried lanterns and we followed in procession, laughing and chatting like madcaps.
We woke up the farmer, the servants and the men. We even had onion soup (horror!) made for us, we danced under the apple trees to the strains of the “Music-box.” The awakened cocks crowed in the distant outbuildings; the horses moved about in the stables, the fresh country breeze caressed our faces, full of the scent of herbs and grasses and of newly-mown crops.
How long ago all that happened! How long ago! Thirty years ago! I do not want you to come for the opening of the shooting season. Why spoil the pleasure of our friends by insisting on town dress on such an occasion, a day of real country pleasure and violent exercise? That is the way all men are spoilt, my dear.
I embrace you.