Monsieur and Madame de Meroul left the following day.
He is still waiting for them.
How often we hear people say, “He is charming,
that man, but he is a girl, a regular girl.”
They are alluding to the effeminates, the bane of
our land.
For we are all girl-like men in France—that
is, fickle, fanciful, innocently treacherous, without
consistency in our convictions or our will, violent
and weak as women are.
But the most irritating of girl—men is
assuredly the Parisian and the boulevardier, in whom
the appearance of intelligence is more marked and
who combines in himself all the attractions and all
the faults of those charming creatures in an exaggerated
degree in virtue of his masculine temperament.
Our Chamber of Deputies is full of girl-men.
They form the greater number of the amiable opportunists
whom one might call “The Charmers.”
These are they who control by soft words and deceitful
promises, who know how to shake hands in such a manner
as to win hearts, how to say “My dear friend”
in a certain tactful way to people he knows the least,
to change his mind without suspecting it, to be carried
away by each new idea, to be sincere in their weathercock
convictions, to let themselves be deceived as they
deceive others, to forget the next morning what he
affirmed the day before.
The newspapers are full of these effeminate men.
That is probably where one finds the most, but it
is also where they are most needed. The Journal
des Debats and the Gazette de France are exceptions.
Assuredly, every good journalist must be somewhat
effeminate—that is, at the command of the
public, supple in following unconsciously the shades
of public opinion, wavering and varying, sceptical
and credulous, wicked and devout, a braggart and a
true man, enthusiastic and ironical, and always convinced
while believing in nothing.
Foreigners, our anti-types, as Mme. Abel called
them, the stubborn English and the heavy Germans,
regard us with a certain amazement mingled with contempt,
and will continue to so regard us till the end of time.
They consider us frivolous. It is not that, it
is that we are girls. And that is why people
love us in spite of our faults, why they come back
to us despite the evil spoken of us; these are lovers’
quarrels! The effeminate man, as one meets him
in this world, is so charming that he captivates you
after five minutes’ chat. His smile seems
made for you; one cannot believe that his voice does
not assume specially tender intonations on their account.
When he leaves you it seems as if one had known him
for twenty years. One is quite ready to lend him
money if he asks for it. He has enchanted you,
like a woman.
If he commits any breach of manners towards you, you
cannot bear any malice, he is so pleasant when you
next meet him. If he asks your pardon you long
to ask pardon of him. Does he tell lies?
You cannot believe it. Does he put you off indefinitely
with promises that he does not keep? One lays
as much store by his promises as though he had moved
heaven and earth to render them a service.
