Tales of Madness (18 page)

By this, we should note, he wasn't at all saying that if a woman doesn't want to be considered sensual, she has to appear to be shameless and vulgar and show what she shouldn't show. That would have been a paradox. He was speaking about modesty. And modesty for him was the vendetta of insincerity. Not that it was insincere in itself. It was, on the contrary, quite sincere, but only as an expression of sensuality. A woman is insincere if she tries to deny her sensuality by showing the blush of modesty on her cheeks as proof. Moreover, this woman can be insincere even involuntarily, even unwittingly, because nothing is more complicated than sincerity. We all pretend spontaneously, and not so much in the presence of others as in the presence of ourselves. We always believe what we like to believe about ourselves, and we see ourselves, not as we really are, but as we imagine ourselves to be, according to the ideal construction we have fabricated of ourselves. Thus, it could happen that a woman — even one who is quite sensual but doesn't know it — can sincerely believe that she's chaste and feel contempt and repulsion for sensuality, for the simple reason that she blushes over nothing. This blushing over nothing, which in itself is an extremely sincere expression of her real sensuality, is taken instead as proof of her presumed modesty, and, thus taken, naturally becomes insincere.

"Come now, my dear lady, that precious friend had concluded several days ago, "a woman by her very nature (save for exceptions) is a thoroughly sensual creature. All one has to do is know how to approach her, excite her, and conquer her. The ones who are too modest don't even have to be excited; they get excited, they immediately flare up on their own, as soon as they're touched."

Not for a moment did she doubt that in all this discussion he was referring to her, and so, as soon as the friend had left, she ferociously turned on her husband, who during the long discussion had done nothing more than smile like a fool and approve.

"For two hours he insulted me in every possible way, and instead of defending me, you smiled and agreed with him, and so you let him believe that what he was saying was true, because you, my husband, yes, only you, could really know whether..."

"Know what?" he had exclaimed, thunderstruck. "You're talking nonsense... Me? Know whether you're sensual? What on earth are you saying? If he was speaking about women in general, what's it got to do with you? But if he had had even a faint suspicion that you could apply the discussion to yourself, he wouldn't have opened his mouth! And then, I beg your pardon, but how could he believe that, if in his presence you did not at all show yourself to be that modest woman he was speaking about? You certainly didn't even blush in the least. You defended your opinion impetuously and fervently. I smiled because it gratified me, seeing the proof of what I have always said and maintained, namely, that when you don't think about it, you're not at all awkward, not at all embarrassed, and that all this presumed embarrassment of yours is nothing more than a fixation. What does the modesty he was talking about have to do with you?"

She had been unable to contradict her husband's justification. She had gloomily withdrawn into herself to brood over why she had felt so deeply wounded in her heart by that man's discussion. It wasn't modesty. No! No! No! It wasn't modesty she had felt! It wasn't that disgusting modesty he spoke about. It was embarrassment, embarrassment, embarrassment. But certainly a malicious person like him could take that embarrassment for modesty, and thereby believe that she was a... a woman like that, yes, that's it!

The revelation came in a dream.

The dream began as a challenge, as a test that that most disgusting man was putting her to, after the discussion he had had with her that evening, three days previously.

And look! He began the test with bold indifference. First of all
he brushed her face with his hand. At the touch of his hand she made a violent effort to conceal the chill that ran throughout her entire body. She tried to prevent her eyes from clouding over, to keep them steady and impassible, and to maintain a slight smile on her lips. And look! Now he was drawing his fingers close to her mouth. He delicately turned her bottom lip down and sank a long, warm, infinitely sweet kiss there in that moist recess. She clenched her teeth and gathered up all her strength to control the trembling, the shivering in her body. He then began calmly to lay bare her breast and... What was wrong with that? No, no,
nothing wrong. But... Oh, God, no... He lingered wickedly in the
caress... No, no... Too much... And... Overcome, helpless, not conceding at first, she then began to give in, not because he was forcing her, no, but because of the spasmodic languor she felt in her own body. And finally...

Ah! She broke out of her dream, exhausted, trembling uncontrollably, and full of repulsion and horror. She looked at her husband sleeping beside her, unaware of the experience she had had. The shame she felt in her heart immediately transformed itself into a feeling of hatred for him. It was as if he were the cause of that disgraceful act about which she still felt pleasure and horror. He, he was responsible for it, because he foolishly insisted on inviting those friends into their home.

Ah, a thoroughly sensual creature... So, was it true?

And now?

"I don't want to see him! I don't want to see him! Make him go
away!"

"You're mad, or do you want me to go mad! Must I really lose all my friends on account of .your stupid lunacy?"

And freeing himself from his wife, who had wrapped hergelf around him, he ordered his maid to show the man in.

His wife ran to hide in the adjoining room, throwing him a look of scornful hatred before disappearing behind the door. She collapsed in an armchair as if her legs had suddenly given way beneath her. All her blood, however, boiled in her veins, and in her frightfully helpless state she felt her whole being rebel within her as she heard through the closed door the expressions of festive welcoming that her husband directed at the man with whom she had betrayed him in her dream the night before. And that man's voice... Oh God... The hands, the hands of that man...

All of a sudden, as her whole body writhed in the chair and she squeezed her arms and breasts with stiffened fingers, she let out a scream and fell to the floor, prey to a frightful nervous attack, a real assault of madness.

The two men dashed into the room. For a moment they stood there, terrified at the sight of her. There she was, writhing on the floor like a serpent, whimpering, howling. Her husband then tried to lift her, and his friend hurried over to help him. Would that he had not done so! As soon as she felt those hands touch her, her unconscious body, completely under the domination of her senses where the experience of the dream still lingered, began to tremble all over, tremble voluptuously. Right under her husband's eyes she took hold of and clung to that man, begging him eagerly and with dreadful urgency for the frenetic caresses she had experienced in her dream.

Horrified, her husband tore her away from his friend's chest. She screamed, struggled, and then collapsed lifelessly into his arms. She was then put to bed.

The two men looked at one another, terrified, not knowing what to think or say.

The painful bewilderment demonstrated by the friend made his innocence so evident that the husband could not possibly entertain any suspicion about him. He asked him to leave the room, telling him that since that morning his wife had been upset and in a strange state of nervous tension. He accompanied
him to the door, begging his forgiveness for having to ask him to
leave on account of that sudden, unfortunate incident. Then he rushed back to her room.

He found her lying on the bed, already conscious. She was huddled up like a wild animal and had glassy eyes. All her limbs trembled with jerky motions as if from cold, and from time to time she shuddered.

When he bent down over her gloomily to ask her exactly what
had happened, she repelled him with both arms. And clenching her teeth, she sadistically flung the confession of her betrayal into his face. Huddling as she opened her hands, she said with a convulsive, malicious smile:

"In the dream!... In the dream!..."

Who was to blame? And what could he do to her?

"Frenzy, frenzy."

"Encephalitis."

"Inflammation of the membrane."

"Cerebral fever."

"Will he die? Will he go mad?"

"Who knows?"

"It seems he won't actually die..."

"But what does he say? What does he say?"

"Always the same thing. He's talking nonsense."

"Poor Belluca!"