The Variable Constant

CECILS (125 pp.)--Benjamin Constant --New Directions ($2.50).

Both Charlotta von Hardenberg and Madame de Stael had handsome figures, but the only other thing they had in common was Benjamin Constant. Charlotta was sweet and submissive, Madame de Stael brilliant but tyrannical. Constant couldn't make up his mind. Shuttling back and forth between them, the famed French intellectual debated for 15 years over which one he should take and which he should leave. Cecile is his demonstration of how variable a Constant can be.

Lost for almost a century and a half, Cecile (probable date: 1811) is not the novel scholars were led to believe it might be. It is an autobiographical narrative in which only the names of the characters have been changed. Charlotta von Hardenberg is Cecile, Madame de Stael is Madame de Malbee, and Constant is the narrator.

Cecile begins as the story of a man (Narrator Constant) whose own wife has taken a lover, and who decides to fall in love himself, if he can. He meets Cecile at her home in Brunswick, and the same night, though not in love with her, writes a brilliant note saying he is. Cecile scorns him, and Constant is enraptured; he concludes that he feels "the most violent passion."

Naturally, Cecile eventually agrees to see him, and they decide that they are in love. But it is a talky affair, and Constant is cautious. Opportunities abound, but the hero fears "to chain myself" by bouncing to bed with the lady.

After 13 long years of this, Constant decides he has been a dolt and resolves to "risk all to win all." After 13 years, Cecile scarcely expects a change in tactics, and Constant knows it. Words lead to caresses, and the unsuspecting Cecile submits "as much from surprise as from rapture."

Poor Constant; he now feels as chained as he had once felt to his wife. So he goes back to his other sweetheart, Madame de Malbee. When that redoubtable woman learns about Cecile, the storm lasts all day and all night. It leaves Constant still suspended between the two women. He is too weak to escape from Madame de Malbee and too indecisive to marry Cecile.

With typical irresolution, Constant never finished Cecile, but life worked out an ending of sorts. Madame de Stael found a younger lover who was not so good a conversationalist. Constant married Charlotta, and thereupon fell in love with the beautiful Madame Recamier.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.