Women... — Anastasia, and a Dialogue

Anastasia:

Anastasia... she is from the quarter of the grandees among us... her ancient aristocracy is the root of her haughty being! Her age is not known, and never shall be... so long as she keeps defying its assaults at the bewildered hairdresser's, the biddable dressmaker's, and the mighty masseur's.

Her face... the nursling of regular polishing! In it she has two eyes hedged about with colors and shadows, above which two arcs draw the gaze, propped up by the flowing line of the pencil. As for her figure... it loses itself and thrives among the folds of her lordly gown!

Anastasia... a doll set dancing by a fortune like no other fortune. She is the peacock... of the parties! When she flutters and sweeps through them, a cloud of perfume aged in the casks of Paris attends her... and that perfume has a voice that calls to you: Stop! Stare! I am here... close to you... and above you!!

With the gait of a partridge Anastasia walks... in two dainty shoes that fear for her the cruelty of the tiled floor. And bowed figures press toward her to print their greetings on her bejeweled... withered hand — a kiss... a kiss! And Anastasia folds her gaze away from the first to receive the second with a practiced, weary smile!

Her devotion to the classic style of distinguished luxury is fierce: her speech and her laugh and her walk and her taste are the speech... and the laugh and the walk and the taste of the Anastasias of the quarter of the grandees among us.

And her time? She pays it no heed! It is the idle servant of her pampering. Anastasia greets the dawn with a sullen pout, and her morning remains a doze taken in compensation, her noon a dawdling preparation for the day's activity...

How, and where, does this activity take place?

The Anastasias of the quarter of the grandees know... but I have heard someone say that yesterday she danced at the Golden Club and dozed off at the end of the night over a green table, where Anastasia was toying with her luck — which is never unkind!

She does not care whether she lost or won... for fate — God keep fate! — has denied her all delight in winning and all pain in losing... How wretched her deprivation, if only she knew!

Everything she owns is precious and splendid in everyone's eyes but her own... for whatever is lovely in her possession bores her!

She gives... and her giving is a convention that fills her hand while staying far from her sunken heart!...

Who has ever heard her... talk? Her phrases are manufactured, disjointed expressions with an astonishing share in them of everything but Arabic...

Anastasia is tickled by a complacent grandeur for which the pockets of money have been pressed into service... But where is she — where? She is in the whirlpool of ennui, tossing about in a blessing... a lukewarm one!!

xxxx

A Dialogue!

She... with her friend, the walls of her locked room enclosing them.

Her friend said:

What is the matter with you today?... Be calm... you are not the first to rebel... not the first in whose soul the waves of resentment against everyone... against all... have beaten together, for one particular reason... yes... for one particular reason that escaped everyone!

Is the greedy emptiness still tossing about inside you, devouring your gladness, storming your wishes, and embalming the things around you?

Where has the sweet frame of your days gone? Where is the perfume bottle from the casks of Dior, that breathes its scent yet never... tells? Where is the rustling taffeta dress? Where is the golden bracelet that clasps your wrist so tight? Where is the pearl necklace, every bead of which smiled at you, down to the very smallest... Where is the view from your window, spreading before your eyes pictures of... beauty? Where have you hidden away all your pretty things, you foolish girl? Where? They were lost in your greater emptiness, and your days rolled on without a frame?

Sing! Flutter... we girls are flowers wreathing the smile... we have the balconies of hope, if you but knew... we have sweetness, and the blessing of fresh young beauty!...

In your talks... your whispered ones... I was forever touching the beating heart and the curious eye. And I used to — don't you remember? — warn you against naive...

curiosity... and childishness of heart... and heedless supposing too!

What has angered you today?

Is it a jealousy whose disquiet you pretend not to see? Did they — I know them — tell you he was in the company of one of the girls?... Truly strange, your case... that is an eclipse that will not defy you! What are you saying?... Or perhaps you felt that he sets an ordinary value on you, while you — I know you — insist on being, unlike the rest, a person... who holds the gaze a long while!!

Put all this away from you, you selfish thing... Have I not told you time and again... that what lasts may be crystallized by what passes and goes? Where is your listening?

Tame the contrariness of your soul... tame it... What? Do I read in your eyes something other than what I have said?... Did he fling at you questions more awkward than any answer? I know the weight of those questions... but... where were you while he was gathering up your consenting laughter and your compliant words? And your pride? I forgot to ask you how his affairs are faring now? Listen to me! It is a swelling vanity, and it will not protect you!! Did he take you by surprise... with an invitation you did not want, and you were stunned? Astonishment of that kind... my friend... is the reflex of a child watched over by your dozing intuition!

Do not be unjust to your So-and-so — do not!... Beware of calling him selfish, brazen, encroaching... so long as selfishness is everyone's property...

Your own selfishness has its cries and its impulses and its other audacities... And then do not forget the tale of cowardice among us — you know how certain time-honored conventions have immortalized it!

Only yesterday you were wishing he would deign to ask a favor of you... and I would laugh... hearing you weigh and reckon... your good-natured indulgence leading you into appraisals drawn from the arithmetic of feeling! And when has feeling ever borne with arithmetic? And after that you fancied yourself the cleverest of all at setting up bounds and dams, for yourself and for others... so you wrapped yourself in a strange curtain... which your eye alone can see!!

Your admiration for your So-and-so never delighted me... even if it was a guarded admiration...

My friend... beware of cringing admiration... it drags your hands along... my friend! Beware of servile love — it turns you into a serviceable mount, its bridle held with an indulgent hand... and indulgence is cheap; it shortens distances!

Speak... what is it?

Listen to me... giving lies in more than the one word "take"... and people's eyes are in more than their faces... in their hearts, in their ears... I find myself, in my perplexity with you, repeating what you already know... You rose up against your So-and-so because he asked?

I hold that life, all of it, is tales of asking. You rose up against him because he surprised you with the meanest thing you could have imagined? Do you not know, child, that the soul's answer is sometimes... a material gesture?

Remember, my friend, that his request had a prop he begged of you yourself — believe me — of that flash of consent that may glimmer in your eye and cry out in your speech. In every request there is, after all, a question, whose free answer lies in your hands...

Speak! What exactly did he ask of you?

— Money, she answered; that is all he asked...!