High life
Petronella rejected me
Taki
Here we go again. Less than three months ago, I took la bella Petronella to task after she wrote that modern Italian men were wankers. Without trying to make a habit of it, this time I have come to the aid of the French. In last week's Daily Tele- graph, Wyatt wrote that we must not fall for Gallic charms et la Chirac kisses, but stick to awkward Englishmen standing dif- fidently in a corner. What rubbish. Now I'm the first to admit that the French make it very hard for one to defend them. They are arrogant, unfriendly and not terribly nice. They are, however, masters of seduc- tion. Incidentally, probably the nicest and certainly the most intelligent and prolific of Frenchmen lives next to us, in Ireland, yet so parochial are the English that only one of his 40-odd novels has been published here. I am talking about Michel Deon, one of the 40 immortals of L'Academie Frangaise. But back to hand kissing.
Petronella claims only a half-idiotic teenager would succumb to such meretri- cious charms. How was that again? Show me a woman who doesn't like her hand to be kissed, and I'll show you someone whose romantic failures have gone to her head. La Wyatt writes that polished airs mark the beginning of deception. But deception is what romance is all about. The human animal is the most insecure of all species. The reason we have invented devi- ous ways and means is to put this animal more at ease, to slow down the ever pre- sent anxiety. Invention, the withholding of information, makes the object of that deceit more comfortable. C'est tout. Words, after all, were invented in order to veil one's true thoughts. Just think how crude it would be if at a party a man were to tell a woman who was hairy just how hairy she really is. The sexes would get along even less well than they do now.
Talleyrand, she tells us, was an incorrigi- ble womaniser. She prefers Pitt. The latter may have saved his country but he was most likely a homo. Talleyrand believed more in his class than in his country, seduced three generations of the ducal Dino family, and his son, Comte de Fla- haut, was the lover of three queens — simultaneously. Three cheers for l'Abbe d'Autun! Where I come from, a womaniser is looked up to. This is why so many English women go abroad in order to get their share of romance. The awkward Englishman, who doesn't even stand up when a woman comes to the table, may provide fun for his fellow anal invaders at public school, but he's not much good when it comes to the fairer sex. Women love flattery, and romantic men are assidu- ous flatterers. The man who wrote to a woman he was trying to seduce that 'with- out you, Heaven would be too dull to bear, and Hell would not be Hell if you are there' was not only romantic and lyrical, he was also smart. I hope he got his wish.
To use the word womaniser in a pejora- tive way is ridiculous. It has nothing to do with morality, or immorality, for that mat- ter, but defines a difference of habits. The English like to stand around a pool table and guffaw rather loudly. Continental men prefer le cinq a sept. To Continental men, sex is an elaborate game in which the male pursues and the female resists. The actual bedding-down is secondary. To English- men, sex is a task to be performed prefer- ably alone, or, when with a member of the opposite sex, in the dark.
Frenchmen feel that not to try is an insult to a woman. So, I believe, do women. A romantic man will flirt with a woman he finds attractive. Graciously, if grudgingly, he will accept it when she refuses him. Take my case, for example. Every time I meet PetroneIla I try to flirt with her. I once rang her from Budapest and got her mother instead. Yet I have grudgingly accepted the fact that I'm not old enough for her. It is always a lady's choice. No ifs or buts about it. And the man should accept her choice with a courtly flourish. Last, but not least, professing devotion, when only a one-night stand is on his mind, is better any day than blurting it out. Go on, you Englishmen, show agonies of impossible yearning, and, before you know it, wanking will become less important than the weather.
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