Sarrasine

“‘You are very late,’ she said. ‘Come.’

“She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists’ spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella’s hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness.

“‘Vive la folie!’ he cried. ‘Signori e belle donne, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.’

“After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which – if you will allow me to say so, madame – formerly imparted to a woman’s feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.‘s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy.”

“Somewhat!” exclaimed the marchioness. “Have you read nothing, pray?”

“La Zambinella,” I continued, smiling, “had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess’ attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a panier and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry’s; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope.

“‘What do you fear?’ queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. ‘Go on, you have no rival here to fear.’

“After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine’s heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden’s love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor’s eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man’s love!

“‘You may make use of my power as a shield!’

“Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella’s continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish sequidillas, and Neapolitan canzonettes. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the Bambino. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress’ modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future.

“‘She desires to be married, I presume,’ he said to himself.

“Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger.

“‘If you come hear me,’ she said, ‘I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.’

“‘Ah!’ said Sarrasine, ‘to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are you already so corrupt that, being old in heart, you act like a young prostitute who inflames the emotions in which she trades?’

“‘Why, this is Friday,’ she replied, alarmed by the Frenchman’s violence.

“Sarrasine, who was not piously inclined, began to laugh. La Zambinella gave a bound like a young deer, and darted into the salon. When Sarrasine appeared, running after her, he was welcomed by a roar of infernal laughter. He saw La Zambinella swooning on a sofa. She was very pale, as if exhausted by the extraordinary effort she had made. Although Sarrasine knew but little Italian, he understood his mistress when she said to Vitagliani in a low voice:

“‘But he will kill me!’

“This strange scene abashed the sculptor. His reason returned. He stood still for a moment; then he recovered his speech, sat down beside his mistress, and assured her of his profound respect. He found strength to hold his passion in check while talking to her in the most exalted strain; and, to describe his love, he displayed all the treasures of eloquence – that sorcerer, that friendly interpreter, whom women rarely refuse to believe. When the first rays of dawn surprised the boon companions, some woman suggested that they go to Frascati. One and all welcomed with loud applause the idea of passing the day at Villa Ludovisi. Vitagliani went down to hire carriages. Sarrasine had the good fortune to drive La Zambinella in a phaeton. When they had left Rome behind, the merriment of the party, repressed for a moment by the battle they had all been fighting against drowsiness, suddenly awoke. All, men and women alike, seemed accustomed to that strange life, that constant round of pleasures, that artistic energy, which makes of life one never ending fete, where laughter reigns, unchecked by fear of the future. The sculptor’s companion was the only one who seemed out of spirits.

“‘Are you ill?’ Sarrasine asked her. ‘Would you prefer to go home?’

“‘I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,’ she replied. ‘I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.’

“‘You are so delicate!’ rejoined Sarrasine, gazing in rapture at the charming creature’s dainty features.

“‘Dissipation ruins my voice.’

“‘Now that we are alone,’ cried the artist, ‘and that you no longer have reason to fear the effervescence of my passion, tell me that you love me.’

“‘Why?’ said she; ‘for what good purpose? You think me pretty. But you are a Frenchman, and your fancy will pass away. Ah! you would not love me as I should like to be loved.’

“‘How?’

“‘Purely, with no mingling of vulgar passion. I abhor men even more, perhaps than I hate women. I need to take refuge in friendship. The world is a desert to me. I am an accursed creature, doomed to understand happiness, to feel it, to desire it, and like many, many others, compelled to see it always fly from me. Remember, signor, that I have not deceived you. I forbid you to love me. I can be a devoted friend to you, for I admire your strength of will and your character. I need a brother, a protector. Be both of these to me, but nothing more.’

“‘And not love you!’ cried Sarrasine; ‘but you are my life, my happiness, dear angel!’

“‘If I should say a word, you would spurn me with horror.’

“‘Coquette! nothing can frighten me. Tell me that you will cost me my whole future, that I shall die two months hence, that I shall be damned for having kissed you but once – ’

“And he kissed her, despite La Zambinella’s efforts to avoid that passionate caress.

“‘Tell me that you are a demon, that I must give you my fortune, my name, all my renown! Would you have me cease to be a sculptor? Speak.’

“‘Suppose I were not a woman?’ queried La Zambinella, timidly, in a sweet, silvery voice.

“‘A merry jest!’ cried Sarrasine. ‘Think you that you can deceive an artist’s eye? Have I not, for ten days past, admired, examined, devoured, thy perfections? None but a woman can have this soft and beautifully rounded arm, these graceful outlines. Ah! you seek compliments!’

“She smiled sadly, and murmured:

“‘Fatal beauty!’

“She raised her eyes to the sky. At that moment, there was in her eyes an indefinable expression of horror, so startling, so intense, that Sarrasine shuddered.

“‘Signor Frenchman,’ she continued, ‘forget forever a moment’s madness. I esteem you, but as for love, do not ask me for that; that sentiment is suffocated in my heart. I have no heart!’ she cried, weeping bitterly. ‘The stage on which you saw me, the applause, the music, the renown to which I am condemned – those are my life; I have no other. A few hours hence you will no longer look upon me with the same eyes, the woman you love will be dead.’

“The sculptor did not reply. He was seized with a dull rage which contracted his heart. He could do nothing but gaze at that extraordinary woman, with inflamed, burning eyes. That feeble voice, La Zambinella’s attitude, manners, and gestures, instinct with dejection, melancholy, and discouragement, reawakened in his soul all the treasures of passion. Each word was a spur. At that moment, they arrived at Frascati. When the artist held out his arms to help his mistress to alight, he felt that she trembled from head to foot.

“‘What is the matter? You would kill me,’ he cried, seeing that she turned pale, ‘if you should suffer the slightest pain of which I am, even innocently, the cause.’

“‘A snake!’ she said, pointing to a reptile which was gliding along the edge of a ditch. ‘I am afraid of the disgusting creatures.’

“Sarrasine crushed the snake’s head with a blow of his foot.

“‘How could you dare to do it?’ said La Zambinella, gazing at the dead reptile with visible terror.

“‘Aha!’ said the artist, with a smile, ‘would you venture to say now that you are not a woman?’

“They joined their companions and walked through the woods of Villa Ludovisi, which at that time belonged to Cardinal Cicognara. The morning passed all too swiftly for the amorous sculptor, but it was crowded with incidents which laid bare to him the coquetry, the weakness, the daintiness, of that pliant, inert soul. She was a true woman with her sudden terrors, her unreasoning caprices, her instinctive worries, her causeless audacity, her bravado, and her fascinating delicacy of feeling. At one time, as the merry little party of singers ventured out into the open country, they saw at some distance a number of men armed to the teeth, whose costume was by no means reassuring. At the words, ‘Those are brigands!’ they all quickened their pace in order to reach the shelter of the wall enclosing the cardinal’s villa. At that critical moment Sarrasine saw from La Zambinella’s manner that she no longer had strength to walk; he took her in his arms and carried her for some distance, running. When he was within call of a vineyard near by, he set his mistress down.

“‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘why it is that this extreme weakness which in another woman would be hideous, would disgust me, so that the slightest indication of it would be enough to destroy my love, – why is it that in you it pleases me, fascinates me? Oh, how I love you!’ he continued. ‘All your faults, your frights, your petty foibles, add an indescribable charm to your character. I feel that I should detest a Sappho, a strong, courageous woman, overflowing with energy and passion. O sweet and fragile creature! how couldst thou be otherwise? That angel’s voice, that refined voice, would have been an anachronism coming from any other breast than thine.’

“‘I can give you no hope,’ she said. ‘Cease to speak thus to me, for people would make sport of you. It is impossible for me to shut the door of the theatre to you; but if you love me, or if you are wise, you will come there no more. Listen to me, monsieur,’ she continued in a grave voice.

“‘Oh, hush!’ said the excited artist. ‘Obstacles inflame the love in my heart.’

“La Zambinella maintained a graceful and modest attitude; but she held her peace, as if a terrible thought had suddenly revealed some catastrophe. When it was time to return to Rome she entered a berlin with four seats, bidding the sculptor, with a cruelly imperious air, to return alone in the phaeton. On the road, Sarrasine determined to carry off La Zambinella. He passed the whole day forming plans, each more extravagant than the last. At nightfall, as he was going out to inquire of somebody where his mistress lived, he met one of his fellow-artists at the door.

“‘My dear fellow,’ he said, I am sent by our ambassador to invite you to come to the embassy this evening. He gives a magnificent concert, and when I tell you that La Zambinella will be there – ’

“‘Zambinella!’ cried Sarrasine, thrown into delirium by that name; ‘I am mad with love of her.’

“‘You are like everybody else,’ replied his comrade.

“‘But if you are friends of mine, you and Vien and Lauterbourg and Allegrain, you will lend me your assistance for a coup de main, after the entertainment, will you not?’ asked Sarrasine.

“‘There’s no cardinal to be killed? no – ?’

“‘No, no!’ said Sarrasine, ‘I ask nothing of you that men of honor may not do.’

“In a few moments the sculptor laid all his plans to assure the success of his enterprise. He was one of the last to arrive at the ambassador’s, but he went thither in a traveling carriage drawn by four stout horses and driven by one of the most skilful vetturini in Rome. The ambassador’s palace was full of people; not without difficulty did the sculptor, whom nobody knew, make his way to the salon where La Zambinella was singing at that moment.

“‘It must be in deference to all the cardinals, bishops, and abbes who are here,’ said Sarrasine, ‘that she is dressed as a man, that she has curly hair which she wears in a bag, and that she has a sword at her side?’

“‘She! what she?’ rejoined the old nobleman whom Sarrasine addressed.

“‘La Zambinella.’

“‘La Zambinella!’ echoed the Roman prince. ‘Are you jesting? Whence have you come? Did a woman ever appear in a Roman theatre? And do you not know what sort of creatures play female parts within the domains of the Pope? It was I, monsieur, who endowed Zambinella with his voice. I paid all the knave’s expenses, even his teacher in singing. And he has so little gratitude for the service I have done him that he has never been willing to step inside my house. And yet, if he makes his fortune, he will owe it all to me.’

“Prince Chigi might have talked on forever, Sarrasine did not listen to him. A ghastly truth had found its way into his mind. He was stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine’s direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his protege’s glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor’s name. When he had obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great attention and gave orders to an abbe, who instantly disappeared. Meanwhile Zambinella, having recovered his self-possession, resumed the aria he had so capriciously broken off; but he sang badly, and refused, despite all the persistent appeals showered upon him, to sing anything else. It was the first time he had exhibited that humorsome tyranny, which, at a later date, contributed no less to his celebrity than his talent and his vast fortune, which was said to be due to his beauty as much as to his voice.

“‘It’s a woman,’ said Sarrasine, thinking that no one could overhear him. ‘There’s some secret intrigue beneath all this. Cardinal Cicognara is hoodwinking the Pope and the whole city of Rome!’

“The sculptor at once left the salon, assembled his friends, and lay in wait in the courtyard of the palace. When Zambinella was assured of Sarrasine’s departure he seemed to recover his tranquillity in some measure. About midnight after wandering through the salons like a man looking for an enemy, the musico left the party. As he passed through the palace gate he was seized by men who deftly gagged him with a handkerchief and placed him in the carriage hired by Sarrasine. Frozen with terror, Zambinella lay back in a corner, not daring to move a muscle. He saw before him the terrible face of the artist, who maintained a deathlike silence. The journey was a short one. Zambinella, kidnaped by Sarrasine, soon found himself in a dark, bare studio. He sat, half dead, upon a chair, hardly daring to glance at a statue of a woman, in which he recognized his own features. He did not utter a word, but his teeth were chattering; he was paralyzed with fear. Sarrasine was striding up and down the studio. Suddenly he halted in front of Zambinella.

“‘Tell me the truth,’ he said, in a changed and hollow voice. ‘Are you not a woman? Cardinal Cicognara – ’

“Zambinella fell on his knees, and replied only by hanging his head.

“‘Ah! you are a woman!’ cried the artist in a frenzy; ‘for even a – ’

“He did not finish the sentence.

“‘No,’ he continued, ‘even he could not be so utterly base.’

“‘Oh, do not kill me!’ cried Zambinella, bursting into tears. ‘I consented to deceive you only to gratify my comrades, who wanted an opportunity to laugh.’

“‘Laugh!’ echoed the sculptor, in a voice in which there was a ring of infernal ferocity. ‘Laugh! laugh! You dared to make sport of a man’s passion – you?’

“‘Oh, mercy!’ cried Zambinella.

“‘I ought to kill you!’ shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. ‘But,’ he continued, with cold disdain, ‘if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but – ’

“Sarrasine made a gesture of disgust, and turned his face away; thereupon he noticed the statue.

“‘And that is a delusion!’ he cried.

“Then, turning to Zambinella once more, he continued:

“‘A woman’s heart was to me a place of refuge, a fatherland. Have you sisters who resemble you? No. Then die! But no, you shall live. To leave you your life is to doom you to a fate worse than death. I regret neither my blood nor my life, but my future and the fortune of my heart. Your weak hand has overturned my happiness. What hope can I extort from you in place of all those you have destroyed? You have brought me down to your level. To love, to be loved! are henceforth meaningless words to me, as to you. I shall never cease to think of that imaginary woman when I see a real woman.’

“He pointed to the statue with a gesture of despair.

“‘I shall always have in my memory a divine harpy who will bury her talons in all my manly sentiments, and who will stamp all other women with a seal of imperfection. Monster! you, who can give life to nothing, have swept all women off the face of the earth.’

“Sarrasine seated himself in front of the terrified singer. Two great tears came from his dry eyes, rolled down his swarthy cheeks, and fell to the floor – two tears of rage, two scalding, burning tears.

“‘An end of love! I am dead to all pleasure, to all human emotions!’

“As he spoke, he seized a hammer and hurled it at the statue with such excessive force that he missed it. He thought that he had destroyed that monument of his madness, and thereupon he drew his sword again, and raised it to kill the singer. Zambinella uttered shriek after shriek. Three men burst into the studio at that moment, and the sculptor fell, pieced by three daggers.

“‘From Cardinal Cicognara,’ said one of the men.

“‘A benefaction worthy of a Christian,’ retorted the Frenchman, as he breathed his last.

“These ominous emissaries told Zambinella of the anxiety of his patron, who was waiting at the door in a closed carriage in order to take him away as soon as he was set at liberty.”

“But,” said Madame de Rochefide, “what connection is there between this story and the little old man we saw at the Lantys’?”

“Madame, Cardinal Cicognara took possession of Zambinella’s statue and had it reproduced in marble; it is in the Albani Museum to-day. In 1794 the Lanty family discovered it there, and asked Vien to copy it. The portrait which showed you Zambinella at twenty, a moment after you had seen him as a centenarian, afterward figured in Girodet’s Endymion; you yourself recognized the type in Adonis.”