Read Online The Woman With the Bouquet by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt - Free Book Online

still less a lady-in-waiting, with the obligations that would imply.”
    “Did you refuse the idea of a marriage?”
    “He didn’t suggest it.”
    “Might you have been waiting for him to propose?”
    “No, that would have proved that he hadn’t understood anything, either about me, or about ourselves, or about his duties. And besides, let’s be perfectly clear, dear sir, a royal heir, whatever his rank regarding accession to the throne, does not wed a woman who cannot have children.”
    That was the confession that cost her so dear. I looked at her compassionately. She went on, relieved, “We took no precautions where love was concerned. After five years, I gave up: my womb was as dry as the Gobi desert. I will never know, anyway, whether it was physiological, or whether the memory of my mother who died in childbirth had caused my womb to be barren.”
    “What happened?”
    “In the beginning, nothing changed. Then he confessed that the royal family was giving him a hard time, and the press, too; it wasn’t enough to see him practicing sports, they were beginning to doubt his virility. In these blue blooded lineages, there are a considerable number of homosexuals, so the true ladies’ men are obliged to procreate in order to reassure the people and secure the monarchy. It was his destiny as a man and as a prince. He had tried to ignore it for as long as possible . . . I urged him to react.”
    “Which means?”
    “To take mistresses, and be seen in public with them.”
    “Did you separate?”
    “Not at all. We stayed together, and remained lovers, but he kept up appearances. He was allowed to have a few escapades, and each time they were so awkward and indiscreet that invariably there were photos in the newspapers.”
    “How could you stand it, knowing he was being unfaithful to you?”
    “It was easy: I was the one who chose his mistresses.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You heard me perfectly well. I chose the women with whom he had his affairs.”
    “And he went along with this?”
    “That was my condition. I would only share him if I could decide whom I was sharing him with. Because he was crazy about me, he consented.”
    “How did you choose his mistresses?”
    “Always very beautiful.”
    “Indeed?”
    “Very beautiful and very stupid. While there are not ten ways to go about being beautiful, there are a thousand ways to go about being stupid—stupid because you have no conversation, stupid because your conversation is boring, stupid because you’re only interested in what excites women and not men, stupid because you think you’re more intelligent than you are, stupid because you have a one track mind. My poor Guillaume, I signed him up for the grand tour of the country of stupid women!”
    “I get the feeling you rather enjoyed it.”
    “Absolutely. Well, I was kind, I only pointed him in the direction of decorative ninnies; if I had wanted to be nasty, I could have set him up with women who were both stupid and ugly!”
    “How did he take it?”
    “Very well. He knew how to appreciate what was best about them, and to flee from what was worst. He left me quickly, but he always came back just as quickly.”
    “Would you swear that he wasn’t angry with you?”
    “We would talk about the ditzy doll of the season; as the ones I chose were always picturesque, he had something to tell me. Otherwise . . . I will have to admit we had a good laugh. It was cynical on my part but we were under a double pressure: on the one hand, society obliged us to hide; on the other hand, it forced him to prove that he was a ladies’ man; we had found a solution. When we were alone together, nothing had changed, we adored each other just as much, if not more, because we went through these difficulties together.”
    “Weren’t you ever jealous?”
    “I wouldn’t let myself show it.”
    “So, you did feel some jealousy!”
    “Obviously. How many times was my brain filled with images of him with his