That very day, he encountered her: the new dress!
She came towards him, slow and proud, with the smiling and mysterious majesty appropriate to the aesthetic realisation of the long-awaited hour, with the teasing grace of an original.
It was definitely she; it was definitely the new dress.
For a week he had lain in wait for her at the corners of the streets: the wide, clear streets where she might deign to disport herself, displaying to watchful eyes all her unexpected glory, turning about, coming to a halt, setting off again, slipping by like a seagull soaring over the beach. Costumes “for the carriage” had no effect on him; all his affection was reserved for the “promenade dress”, and for one occasion only: the first time he saw her.
The new dress, the spring dress, was for him the great annual event; he dreamed of it for months in advance, worrying about the weather forecasts, always hoping for an early warm spell, offering as a Parsee might his prayers to the sun.
In the universal renewal, the rejuvenation of the flesh and the leaf, the flower and the grass, there was nothing of interest to him but the dress, and the dress alone.
The individual details of the dress – the particular style and the particular material; what kind of bodice she had and what kind of skirt; whether she was modelled on the chalice or the cup; whether high-cut or low-cut; whether she was secured by hooks or buttons; whether her shoulders were padded and how she was gathered and where her hemline was – none of that occupied his imagination for an instant. It was sufficient for him that the dress was well made, well carried and new. That she could, by her artifice, hide grave corporeal faults on the part of her wearer was the last of his fears and the last of his cares.
Without a doubt, his love of the new dress was not entirely platonic, nor was it simply the love of a few chiffons agreeably assembled upon some mannequin. He was not one of those fools who became enamoured of some item of lingerie, or of a corset, or of a pair of shoes, nor was he one to stand contemplatively before the window of some great emporium which displayed from top to toe the outfit of a new bride, half chaste and half ostentatious. No, not at all. But even though the woman interested him less than the dress, the wine less than its flagon, he did not separate the dress from the woman – or rather, to put it slightly differently, and to give a more precise account of the tastes of our strange friend, he did not separate the woman from the dress.
A naked woman seemed to him to be an absurdity, an anomaly – something like a bald parrot or a plucked chicken. Such a sight inspired in him a rather painful astonishment, and in certain hospitable houses into which the imprudence of youth had at one time led him, he avowed that he had had the sensation of being in a Dahomeyan cook-shop rather than a palace of pleasure.
Greek and modern Venuses seemed to him equally culpable aberrations, and he could only admire and respect that statuary which conserved for him, if only in marble, the form and the lines of a woman’s indispensible plumage.
That very day, he encountered: the new dress!
She was made of perfectly clear mauve silk, in the form of a cone truncated at the waist. Towards the hem, she was adorned with three hoops of black ribbon – the last of which, almost grazing the ground, seemed to be the minuscule pedestal of a pretty and captious statuette. The precise neckline was also circled with black, and the shoulders and the arms were covered by a mantle of three collars of a darker mauve, from which emerged a pale and blonde flower: a delicate head.
She was a costume which would quickly become irritating, for one would soon have seen too much of her, but her debut was utterly charming. Indeed, his eyes were quite content with the demise of the cloaks and furs, satisfied by the spontaneous flourishing of the feminine shrub.
Having encountered the new dress, he instantly fell in love with her. His heart beat more rapidly; a sudden giddiness made his step lurch; his dream passed by, his joy paraded itself before him. Oh! if only that dress would consent to let him love her! Let her not be one of those insolent dresses which knocked things over, contemptuous of the purest and most sincere desires!
Oh dress, please don’t be shy!
The dress was not shy. Like so many of her peers, she allowed herself to be followed, dawdling while she passed the display-windows. Then she turned discreetly at the corner of a street where no pedestrians walked, and disappeared through a door.
It was a room like many others, seductive to a degree, too heavily scented and rather spoiled by a divan which was too large and too obvious; but the dress was there, beneath his eyes, beneath his hands. He contemplated her, he kissed her, he breathed her in and became drunk.
On his knees before the dear dress, which stood up, rigid and disquieting, he pronounced mad and gentle words, and all kinds of stupidities, in a tone suggestive of prayer.
“As soon as I saw you, I loved you … Oh, such a mad desire! … I would have given I don’t know what … You are so beautiful! …”
His pleasure, however, did not make him delirious to such a degree that he did not discern the quality of his conquest, and the kind of soul which animated the dress which was so exquisite. He withdrew from his ecstasy in order to investigate his purse, and without suffering the distraction of any odious bargaining, he met the demands which were as yet unspoken, and paid for the dress, the pretty new dress, probably as much as she was worth.
Then he recommenced his adorations, and the other let him proceed, accustomed as she was to all the most peculiar – and hence the most dangerous – fantasies. In time, though, she became a little impatient, finding these preliminaries rather long and rather ridiculous. Ordinarily, she addressed her clients directly, and having divined their tastes, briskly satisfied them with skill and precision; but this one was bizarre. She tolerated him for a few minutes more, allowing herself to be admired – as she believed – and somewhat nattered by his delicate manners. At last she became impatient with delay, thinking of what awaited her in the open air: of the sun, of the streets, of all the amours to be plucked by means of the marvellous philosopher’s stone which was her “new dress”. She disengaged him, and demanded with a smile whether she was at least to be allowed to remove her mantle.
“No, no! The dress in its entirety! I want the dress in its entirety!”
And he dragged her towards the divan, already embracing her furiously.
Comprehension dawned, and she cried: “With my dress? Never!”
She made an effort to stand up, and she tried to unhook her collar, but she felt two hands squeeze it closed again, pitilessly. Head bent back, she fell inert upon the divan, and quite unconscious of his crime, ignoring the death of the flesh with which he intended to unite his own flesh, the lover of dresses slaked his lust.