The Reinvention of Love

Sometimes, she confesses, she is able to complete a book in as little as thirty days. I admire her industry and her passion. We both believe that one must be moved by what one has written in order for the reader to be moved in turn. Passion is everything.
    George’s real name is Aurore. As Aurore she was married to a man who was unfaithful and she has left him and her two children. The loss of the children pains her and she hopes to be reunited with them soon, but I am heartened by her example of desertion. Perhaps it could serve as a model for Adèle?
    When George and I meet in the Hôtel de Rouen, we always start out by talking about writing, and we always end up by talking about love. One day we are sitting by the open window. It is hot in the room and there is only a tepid breeze to cool us. We have removed our waistcoats. George mops her forehead with a pocket handkerchief.
    “Charles,” she says, “I need a new lover. My independence is a cage that imprisons me.”
    I think hard for a moment, running through the tally of writers I know.
    “What about Mérimée?” I ask. Prosper Mérimée, the novelist, is a bit of a rake, but he is a strong character, and George’s will needs to be matched with a strong character.
    “Can you arrange a meeting?”
    I have dropped out of Victor’s Cénacle, but I am still friends with Mérimée and Emile Deschamps.
    “I can.”
    “Done,” says George, as though we have just completed a business transaction.
    A week later she is back in my room.
    “It was awful,” she says. “He was arrogant and a terriblewomanizer. He tired of me and even had the gall to toss me a five franc tip on his way out the door.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Is there no one else?” George puts her hand on my arm. “I’m fairly desperate, and you’re the only one who will help me. I asked Liszt to advise me on love, and he said that the only love worth having was the love of God.” George smiles at me, knowing in advance that I will agree with what she is about to say. “But if one has loved a man, it is very hard to love God.”
    I envy her assurance and her brilliance, and I know that
Leila
will make her famous. It is a wonderful novel. I anticipate a future for her that is full of lovers and full of books. I tell her so.
    It strikes me that, if the situation were reversed, she would probably have women to put forth to me as possible lovers. But even the thought of this makes me feel guilty. I still love Adèle, and have told George as much. How could I even think of anyone else? And, more importantly, with my secret, how could anyone think of me? Although I’m half-tempted to ask. What if it was someone very beautiful?
    “What about Alfred de Musset?” I ask, ridding myself of treasonous thoughts and getting back to the task at hand. “He’s very handsome.”
    “And very young,” says George.
    “Full of passion,” I say.
    That’s the magic word, for both of us. George nods her head slowly in agreement, and it is done.
    They become lovers practically from their first meeting. She writes to me from Venice, where they have gone together, telling me of their fights, of Alfred’s rashness and accusations. He is jealous of her night writing and leaves her to that while he attends violent orgies, returning to her in the morningsfull of remorse, then flying into a rage and charging her with wanting to have him committed to an insane asylum.
    “I should have known from the beginning,” she says, when we see each other again. “I should have known by the names we called each other that the relationship was doomed.”
    “What were the names?”
    “I called him ‘my poor child’,” George sighs. “It’s embarrassing,” she says.
    “What did he call you?”
    “‘My big George’.”
    I’m not sure George will come to me for advice on love again.
    Later, George writes to me, “I think right now I am incapable of love, but I am capable of friendship.”
    I tell George about Charlotte. I tell her about my condition. I have never told anyone other than Adèle, but George is more sympathetic than I would have guessed.
    “Poor Charles,” she says. “No wonder you mourn the loss of Adèle.”
    It is a relief to confide in someone, but it does not really change anything fundamental. I still suffer because of my strange body. I still fear that I will never find another lover. And there is a limit to what someone can understand from the outside. I remain as alone as ever inside