In a word, to appreciate it at its full value, beauty stores up regrets and a mortal weariness for the day when it shall cease to exist.  Would you know the reason?  It is because it drowns out all other resources.  As long as beauty lasts, a woman is regarded as something, she is celebrated, a crowd sighs at her feet.  She flatters herself that this will go on forever.  What a desolate solitude when age comes to ravish her of the only merit she possesses?  I would like, therefore (my expression is not elevated, but it interprets my thought), I would like that in a woman, beauty could be a sign of other advantages.

Let us agree, Marquis, that in love, the mind is made more use of than the heart.  A liaison of the heart is a drama in which the acts are the shortest and the between acts the longest; with what then, would you fill the interludes if not with accomplishments?  Possession puts every woman on the same level, and exposes all of them equally to infidelity.  The elegant and the beautiful, when they are nothing else, have not, in that respect, any advantage over her who is plain; the mind, in that case making all the difference.  That alone can bestow upon the same person the variety necessary to prevent satiety.  Moreover, it is only accomplishments that can fill the vacuum of a passion that has been satisfied, and we can always have them in any situation we may imagine, either to postpone defeat and render it more flattering, or to assure us of our conquests.  Lovers themselves profit by them.  How many things they cherish although they set their faces against them?  Wherefore, let the Countess, while cultivating her decided talent for the clavecin, understand her interests and yours.

I have read over my letter, my dear Marquis, and I tremble lest you find it a trifle serious.  You see what happens when one is in bad company.  I supped last night with M. de la Rochefoucauld, and I never see him that he does not spoil me in this fashion, at least for three or four days.

XXIX

The Misfortune of Too Sudden an Avowal

I think as you do, Marquis, the Countess punishes you too severely for having surprised an avowal of her love.  Is it your fault if her secret escaped?  She has gone too far to retreat.  A woman can experience a return to reason, but to go so far as to refuse to see you for three days; give out that she has gone into the country for a month; return your tender letters without opening them, is, in my opinion, a veritable caprice of virtue.  After all, however, do not despair whatever may happen.  If she were really indifferent she would be less severe.

Do not make any mistake about this:  There are occasions when a woman is less out of humor with you than with herself.  She feels with vexation that her weakness is ready to betray her at any moment.  She punishes you for it, and she punishes herself by being unkind to you.  But you may be sure that one day of such caprice advances the progress of a lover more than a year of care and assiduity.  A woman soon begins to regret her unkindness; she deems herself unjust; she desires to repair her fault, and she becomes benevolent.