

E-text prepared by Al Haines



HOW WOMEN LOVE

(Soul Analysis.)

Translated from the German of

MAX NORDAU,

Author of "Degeneration," "The Malady of the Century,"
"The Comedy of Sentiment," Etc., Etc







Copyright, 1898, by F. T. Neely.
Copyright, 1901, by Hurst & Co.
New York
Hurst & Company
Publishers





CONTENTS


   Justice or Revenge

   Prince and Peasant

   The Art of Growing Old

   How Women Love

   A Midsummer Night's Dream




JUSTICE OR REVENGE.


CHAPTER I.

A more unequally matched couple than the cartwright Molnar and his wife
can seldom be seen.  When, on Sunday, the pair went to church through
the main street of Kisfalu, an insignificant village in the Pesth
county, every one looked after them, though every child, nay, every cur
in the hamlet, knew them and, during the five years since their
marriage, might have become accustomed to the spectacle.  But it seemed
as though it produced an ever new and surprising effect upon the by no
means sensitive inhabitants of Kisfalu, who imposed no constraint upon
themselves to conceal the emotions awakened by the sight of the Molnar
pair.  They never called the husband by any other name than "Csunya
Pista," ugly Stephen.  And he well merited the epithet.  He was
one-eyed, had a broken, shapeless nose, and an ugly scar, on which no
hair grew, upon his upper lip, so that his moustache looked as if it
had been shaven off there; to complete the picture, one of his upper
eye-teeth and incisors were missing, and he had the unpleasant habit of
putting his tongue into these gaps in his upper row of teeth, which
rendered his countenance still more repulsive.

The wife, on the contrary, was a very beautiful woman, a magnificent
type of the Magyar race.  She was tall, powerful, only perhaps a trifle
too broad-shouldered.  Her intensely dark hair and sparkling black eyes
suited the warm bronze hue of her plump face, which, with its little
mouth filled with magnificent teeth, its fresh full lips, the
transparent, enamel like crimson of the firm, round cheeks, and the
somewhat low, but beautifully formed brow, suggested a newly-ripe
peach.  This unusually healthy countenance, overspread with a light
down, involuntarily produced in the spectator the impression that it
must exhale a warm, intoxicating, spicy fragrance; it looked so
tempting that one would fain have bitten it.

This had been much the feeling of the Uhlan officers who, with part of
a company of men, were stationed in Kisfalu.  From the first day that
the three gentlemen had entered their village garrison the beautiful
woman had attracted their attention, and they had seen in the husband's
ugliness a pleasant encouragement to make gallant advances.  The
captain, a Bohemian gentleman, was the first to introduce himself to
the fair wife.  The morning of the second day after his arrival in the
hamlet, taking advantage of the absence of the master of the house, he
stole into the miserable clay hut tenanted by the ill-assorted pair,
but remained inside only a few minutes, after which he came out with a
deeply-flushed face and somewhat hasty steps, cast stealthy glances
around him to the right and left, and then hurried away.  In the
afternoon of the same day, the young lieutenant tried his luck, but he
too left the cartwright's hut more quickly than he had entered, and not
exactly with the air of a conqueror.  In the evening the three
gentlemen met in the spare room of the tavern where they took their
meals, and were remarkably taciturn and ill-tempered.  On the third day
the slender, handsome first lieutenant called on the cartwright's wife.
He was a far-famed conqueror of women's hearts, which he was accustomed
to win with as little trouble as a child gathers strawberries in the
woods, and was envied by the whole regiment for his numberless
successes, which he did not treat with too much reticence.  This time
the adventure lasted somewhat longer; those who were passing heard loud
outcries and uproar for a short time, as if a wrestling match were
going on in the hut, and the letter-carrier, an old woman, who was just
going by, even stood still in surprise and curiosity.  The curiosity
was satisfied, for she soon saw the handsome Uhlan officer rush out,
pressing his hand to his cheek as if he had a violent toothache.  He
looked very much dishevelled and made off with noticeable haste.  He
did not appear in the tavern at noon, so in the afternoon his two
comrades sent their