Book of the Courtesans A Catalogue of Their Virtues

Chapter One Timing Ripeness is all. --William Shakespeare It is always wise to begin with a mystery. Translucent, invisible, continually in motion, timing is difficult to discern and just as hard to describe. Nevertheless, the appeal of anyone who possesses this virtue is certainly palpable. Let us suppose, for example, that in the bare beginnings of the twentieth century, in say 1905, you chance to attend a party given at the country estate of Etienne Balsan. You may find yourself smiling at a woman who passes you on the stairs. And though you have not met her yet, you realize you are wishing that you will soon. Later, when you see her talking with a small group across the room, you are almost embarrassed at how often your eyes wander in her direction. What is it about her? She is good-looking but not extraordinarily so. No, it is something else that draws you. An air of indefinable excitement that seems to radiate out in waves around her. You see that her presence affects those who are standing near her. The atmosphere in that part of the room is distinctly electric. The way she is dressed gives you a clue. She is wearing what looks like a man's riding jacket, only cut to follow the lines of her small body. Though the look is eccentric, the style seems to place her at the very edge of the present moment. And the look in her eyes, almost mocking, gives you the intriguing impression that she is seeing just past the precipice of what is happening now, that she is, in fact, fully aware of (and more than ready for) the moment which has not quite arrived yet. Still, she has not given herself to the future. Fully here, her movements and gestures are perfectly syncopated with the soundless rhythm to which you suddenly realize the whole room is moving. As the air fairly crackles around her, you begin to believe that she is helping to bring new possibilities into being, including the new worlds that seem to have emerged in your own imagination since the first moment you laid eyes on her. Only at the end of the day, do you learn that she is your host's lover, a young woman named Gabrielle. When, later, you hear her name spoken all over Paris, you are not so surprised. What was it about her that was so extraordinary? Her timing was brilliant. Still, as compelling as a woman with good timing is, the question remains: Why should this virtue be placed first in our catalogue? Asked what could make a woman so attractive that a man would be willing to spend a small fortune to keep her, one might in all likelihood think of beauty first, to be followed quickly by wit, or that talent indispensable to the art of seduction known as charm. As appealing as it is, timing may not even be on the list. Yet, of all the virtues a great courtesan had to possess, good timing was perhaps the most crucial. Indeed, her very existence depended on it. Had she not been able to move in perfect synchrony with history, no woman would ever have been able to enter the profession. Whether it was poverty or scandal that she faced, her genius was to turn difficult circumstances to immense profit and pleasure. She did the right thing at the right time. Regarding survival, the best choice to be made at one moment will, in another period, not even be a good choice. All things considered, it would not be a wise choice for most women to become courtesans today. Indeed, the ingredients required to become one no longer exist. A courtesan occupied a precise place in society; as independent as she was, circumstance defined her. If, in the middle of the twentieth century, Helen Gurley Brown, future editor in chief ofCosmopolitanmagazine, was kept by a wealthy movie producer, she was not called a courtesan. Like the atmosphere that created the tradition, the word had already become an anachronism. Just as Venus arose from the sea instead of a lake or a river, the courtesan emerged from a very parGriffin, Susan is the author of 'Book of the Courtesans A Catalogue of Their Virtues' with ISBN 9780767904513 and ISBN 0767904516.