That afternoon, Raoul heard her sing a beautiful love song.1 The voice of the 'divine Margarita' – her parents loved Goethe – sounded different as she evoked the pleasure of the frog when it is drenched by a downpour, similar, according to the song, to that perfume which rejuvenates the forest when the rain washes its face. A slight tremor preceded the idea that eventually, she, Marguerite, would never belong to another man. The sharp unease of jealousy then emerged, cracking the tacit agreement that had governed their embraces in the bedroom since, five months earlier, in love, they had signed their marriage certificate. After violently reviling and insulting each other, "for a yes, for a no," for any reason at all, and like a frenzied prologue, the ardent encounter took place in a sequence that seemed to write the relation between them.
It was still not possible to distinguish whether it was normal, projected or delusional jealousy.2 Still, the following night, at the Théâtre La Bodiniére, where they went to enjoy the performance of Porto-Riche's L'Infidèle3 and, no doubt unsettled by the sweet poison of intrigue, Raoul gestured to a third party, Étienne Grosclaude, a prominent illustrator and journalist, uttering a bitter growl: "Let me know when you're done looking at him." She, entertained as she was, trying to listen to the lively conversation that a handsome Viennese neurologist was having with Yvette Guilbert in the neighbouring box, calmly retorted that when he had finished ogling the great actress Marguerite Moreno, he should please pass her the spyglass.
Imbued with the renewed charm that jealousy lent her, back home, Marguerite set about pricking Raoul's pride, a prelude to a bitter dispute in which they fought like furious cats and which promised the worst. She tried to flee; he pursued her, threateningly, but 'the brilliant flash of supreme anguish' prompted Marguerite to turn back and throw herself into Raoul's arms, imploring his protection.
In the midst of those turbulent days, they each received – separately – an anonymous letter promising them a happy and loving reconciliation if they attended the 'Ball of the Incoherents' at the Moulin Rouge: he dressed as a Templar, she as a Gondola, each forewarned of the other's costume. Captivated by the promise of a felicitous alibi, each one found plausible excuses to be absent that night, which the Echoes of the Lame Devil unanimously rated as an extraordinary evening. At three in the morning, the Templar suggested to Gondola that they retire for a moment to the mountain chalet, a private room intended for greater intimacy, where they might have something to eat. She clung to his outstretched arm without hesitation. Closing the door with the bolt, he quickly removed his helmet and pulled off her mask. "Astonishment: he was not Raoul, she was not Marguerite."4
Both learned a lesson from this misadventure, which put an end to their disputes and paved the way for the couple's happiness.
Freud, mindful of the difficulties imposed by the absence of relation between the sexes, assigned crucial importance to the collective work contributed by social inventions because, among other benefits to alleviate this gap, they offer a context for what he calls "normal or concurrent" jealousy, an affect that ignites the spark of desire by turning the "inevitable inclination to infidelity" into a game, a flirtation or courtship that can even "render it harmless."
[1] Allais,A., Un drame bien parisien, Sigila N° 24, 2009. Available online: cairn.info. [Author's translation.]
[2] Freud S., "On Some Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality" (1922 [1921]), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII, London: Hogarth Press, p. 223.
[3] "The Unfaithful One", a comedy play by Georges de Porto-Riche. [TN]
[4] Cf. Lacan J., "The Other is Missing," Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment, ed. Joan Copjec, trans. D. Hollier, R. Krauss and A. Michelson, New York, Norton, 1990, p. 134. "Horror when they let slip their masks: it was not at all he; she neither, for that matter."
