I
expected to find libertinism there, but in fact I found none at all. It
is only the scum of libertinism, some blows and drunken women lying in
deathlike stupor on broken bottles.
The first time I saw debauchery at table I heard of the suppers of
Heliogabalus and of the philosophy of Greece which made the pleasure of
the senses a kind of religion of nature. I expected to find oblivion or
something like joy; I found there the worst thing in the world, ennui
trying to live, and an Englishman who said: "I do this or that, therefore
I amuse myself. I have spent so many pieces of gold, therefore I
experience so much pleasure." And they wear out their life on that
grindstone.
The first time I saw courtesans I heard of Aspasia who sat on the knees
of Alcibiades while discussing philosophy with Socrates. I expected to
find something bold and insolent, but gay, free, and vivacious, something
of the sparkle of champagne; I found a yawning mouth, a fixed eye and
hooked hands.
The first time I saw titled courtesans I read Boccaccio and Andallo;
tasting of everything, I read Shakespeare. I had dreamed of those
beautiful triflers; of those cherubim of hell. A thousand times I had
drawn those heads so poetically foolish, so enterprising in audacity,
heads of harebrained mistresses who spoil a romance with a glance and who
walk through life by waves and by shocks like the undulating sirens; I
thought of the fairies of the modern tales who are always drunk with love
if not with wine.
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