My Little Darling: So you are crying from morning until night and from night until
morning, because your husband leaves you; you do not know what to do and so you ask
your old aunt for advice; you must consider her quite an expert. I don't know as much as
you think I do, and yet I am not entirely ignorant of the art of loving, or, rather, of
making one's self loved, in which you are a little lacking. I can admit that at my age.
You say that you are all attention, love, kisses and caresses for him. Perhaps that is the
very trouble; I think you kiss him too much.
My dear, we have in our hands the most terrible power in the world: LOVE.
Man is gifted with physical strength, and he exercises force. Woman is gifted with charm,
and she rules with caresses. It is our weapon, formidable and invincible, but we should
know how to use it.
Know well that we are the mistresses of the world! To tell the history of Love from the
beginning of the world would be to tell the history of man himself: Everything springs
from it, the arts, great events, customs, wars, the overthrow of empires.
In the Bible you find Delila, Judith; in fables we find Omphale, Helen; in history the
Sabines, Cleopatra and many others.
Therefore we reign supreme, all-powerful. But, like kings, we must make use of delicate
diplomacy.
Love, my dear, is made up of imperceptible sensations. We know that it is as strong as
death, but also as frail as glass. The slightest shock breaks it, and our power crumbles,
and we are never able to raise it again.
We have the power of making ourselves adored, but we lack one tiny thing, the
understanding of the various kinds of caresses. In embraces we lose the sentiment of
delicacy, while the man over whom we rule remains master of himself, capable of
judging the foolishness of certain words. Take care, my dear; that is the defect in our
armor. It is our Achilles' heel.
Do you know whence comes our real power? From the kiss, the kiss alone! When we
know how to hold out and give up our lips we can become queens.
The kiss is only a preface, however, but a charming preface. More charming than the
realization itself. A preface which can always be read over again, whereas one cannot
always read over the book.
