by Claude Cahun
She let fall one of her glass slippers, which the Prince
carefully picked up.
PERRAULT
My father remarried and I was very happy about it all. I’d always
dreamed
of having a stepmother. But heaven overwhelmed me, giving me two sisters
by marriage. They were deliciously cruel. I especially loved the elder,
who
despised me delightfully: When she saw me always sitting in the cinders
by
the fireplace, whose warmth penetrated me with delight (sometimes even
burning me), did her dear familiar voice not call me Kitchenella? Never
was a
word so sweet to my ears.
Sadly, they were pretty girls, marriageable maidens; they left us soon,
leaving me with my parents, who, devoted to one another, regarded the
world
with a drunkard’s tenderness—and included me in their superb universal
indifference. I will do anything to avoid a marriage like that . . . But
how
would I do it? I with my loving nature, and so submissive? . . .
Moreover, I was feeling my pleasure diminishing day by day, and my
feelings
of ecstasy growing weak. I understood the reason for it (being devoted,
for lack of anything better, to solitary reveries, I reflected a great
deal on it):
Such pleasures grow dull from force of habit. I was too lowly at
present, too
humiliated, to enjoy, vigorously, my daily humiliation. One has to climb
up
on the shores, on a high bank, to plunge again into the infinite sea of
human
pleasures. Daughter of a king, ah! if I were queen! . . . To wed,
publicly to wed,
the lowliest of my vassals, to make it seem that he forced me to
abdicate, he
mistreated me, he preferred the chattel of his village to me! . . . How
to make
such fantasies real?
My very wise godmother, Fairy Godmother, to whom I confessed my
desires, came to my rescue. She knew our Prince very well (once upon a
time,
she’d assisted at his baptism), and revealed to me by which curious
particularities
one could seduce him:
He had a passion for women’s shoes. To touch them; to kiss them; to let
himself be trampled underneath their charming heels (pointed heels
painted
scarlet to look like splashes of blood); it is a modest joy that he has
sought
since he was a child. On this, though, the ladies of the court have not
satisfied
him: clumsy and timid, afraid of harming the heir to the throne, they
dressed
up in slippers. And, fearing he would kiss them in a vulgar manner, with
every
sign of respect they raised a foot up to his august but bitter mouth
with its
fixed smile . . . For this royal lover one must be the haughty mistress,
the pitiless dominatrix in hard heels, someone I could be—I who understand! . .
.
“Godmother, you demand the most terrible sacrifice of me! This man is
the opposite of what my heart wants.”
—“I know that very well, my little one. But there’s a reason. Every
sacrifice
has its own reward: You will feel in
playing your part an emotion more profound
than those you’ve so far known all too well. But blasé Cinderella,
believe me: the most acute sweetness on earth (for you, the most vivid
happiness)
is to oppose this instinct, to violate and to chastise by turns. . . .”
Persuaded by my good godmother, I accepted her presents: three pairs of
gray horses the color of cinders, a carriage, a coachman, six footmen;
clothes of
velvet and gold, dainty delicate slippers of squirrel fur (he adores
fur) that she
entrusted specially to me. . . .
She recommended that I be proud and fierce, as mysterious as the ideal,
and to flee without fail on the stroke of midnight, the second night
losing
(but in full view of the Prince, who would be following me), my little
left
slipper.
(I have such small and compact feet, they seem stunted—because I
regularly
squeeze them into a vise of stiff linen and rigid lace, as the Chinese
do.
This exquisite, and habitual, torture fills me with pleasure . . . )
I obey. I saw the Prince, yesterday, and he importuned me vociferously.
Alas! I guessed only too well his thoughts! and noticed the essential
details
. . . He blushes at the subject of boots. He blushes, he naively
told me, if he passes in
front of a display of shoes, which seems to him the worst indecency; but a display of
flesh does not touch his tolerant and modest soul: It amazes him that
anyone
could complain about games so silly, and even a little repugnant.
I agree with him. And perhaps I could truly love him if he wanted
sometimes
to reverse our roles . . . One must not even dream of that: If I
destroyed his illusions, he would quite quickly return the cricket to the
hearth!—I must
deceive him to the grave.
What’s important is to be Princess. When I become Princess, godmother
helping it, I know quite well that I will have myself beaten by the
least of my
manservants.
Then I will don again my garb of the slovenly maid, those precious rags,
with their color and smell of cinders, and every day, secretly, I will
cover my
crazy head; I will go out into the night. I will approach passersby
(there’s no
lack of poor men or ugly men or even dishonest men), and the better I
play
my role for the dear Prince, the more marvelously intense for me will be
this
contrast and these humiliating encounters.
