Montesquieu (1689–1755). Persian Letters. 1901.
Letter LIIRica to Usbek, at
I
“Good Heavens!” I exclaimed to myself; “must we be forever blind to our own folly? Perhaps, after all,” I argued, “it is a blessing that we should find consolation in the absurdities of others.” However, I was bent on being amused, and I said, still to myself, “This is surely high enough; let us descend, beginning at the summit.” So, I addressed the lady of fourscore. “Madam,” I said, “you are so wonderfully like that lady, whom I have just left to speak to you, that I am certain you must be sisters—I should say about the same age.” “Indeed sir,” she rejoined, “when one of us dies, the other will not have long to live; I do not believe there is two days’ difference between us.” Having left my decrepit dame, I went again to her of sixty. “Madam, you must decide a bet I have made. I have wagered that you and that lady,” indicating her of forty, “are of the same age.” “Well,” she said, “I believe there is not six months’ difference.” Good, so far; let us get on. Still descending, I returned to the lady of forty. “Madam, have the goodness to tell me if you were jesting when you called that young lady at the other table, your niece. You are as young as she; there is even a touch of age in her face, which you certainly have not; and the brilliancy of your complexion…” “Listen,” she said; “I am her aunt; but her mother was at least twenty-five years older than me. We are not even children of the same marriage; I have heard my departed sister say that her daughter and I were born in the same year?” “I was right, then, madam, and you cannot blame me for being astonished.”
My dear Usbek, women who feel that the loss of their charms is aging them before their time, long ardently to be young again; and why should we blame them for deceiving others, since they take such trouble to deceive themselves, and to dispossess their minds of the most painful of all thoughts?
P