Three Women in a Mirror by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Alison Anderson

yes.”
    â€œI mean in bed, of course . . . is he a vigorous lover?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œRegular?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œExcessive?”
    â€œSometimes.”
    â€œWell then, so much the better. I envy you, Hanna, as do all the young women in Vienna! You have caught one of our finest young men. And you?”
    â€œWhat about me?”
    â€œAre you eager?”
    â€œI never have time to be, he’s always ahead of me.”
    â€œAnd after those delights, do you beg for more?”
    â€œShould I?”
    She was observing me thoughtfully behind her smile.
    â€œLet me guess, my little Hanna: if you never take the initiative to show your love, it is because you have not yet experienced the dazzling moment. Am I correct?”
    â€œThe . . . ?”
    â€œThe dazzling moment! When your body explodes with pleasure, and you are nothing but a shriek of delight. You do know what I am referring to?”
    I frowned and concentrated on finishing my cup of tea, which unbeknownst to me was a kind of answer in itself.
    Vivi gently took my hand.
    â€œIt’s perfectly normal, my dear.”
    â€œDo you think so?”
    â€œI’m sure of it. You have to relax, let yourself go, you have to think about yourself, your sensations, your happiness . . . because it’s during orgasm that you have the best chance of becoming pregnant.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œIt’s a well-known fact. During the dazzling moment, a woman opens herself entirely, allowing the man’s seed to more easily so that it can arrive safe and sound. If you are tense, you block the egg off.”
    â€œNo one has ever said a word of this to me.”
    â€œWell, that is why I’m speaking to you now.”
    â€œAre you implying that my mother-in-law, Aunt Adelaide, Baroness Karolus, and Frau van Tieck all conceived their heirs in such a state?”
    I had deliberately chosen the sternest dowagers in our midst. Annoyed, Vivi looked at me as if I were a fly that had landed on her
macaron
. I further damaged my case by adding, “And what about children who are born of rape? Are you implying, Aunt Vivi, that the victims of assault gave themselves with exquisite delight to their attackers?”
    â€œMy dear niece, we are not all created equal in this matter. Humanity is divided into two camps: women who breed, and women who love. Breeders do not need to have pleasure, their organism is naturally fertile and is only awaiting the opportunity. Women who love, however, are more subtly structured—you or me, for example—we need ecstasy, arousal, we need to be shaken up in order to accomplish the difficult task of impregnation. Think about it, Hanna, listen to what your aunt Vivi tells you. Make the most of your darling husband and you will soon give birth.”
    In spite of her liberated behavior and free-spirited mannerisms, Vivi’s arguments were just like everyone else’s: the four children she gave her husband the count before she started being unfaithful to him—at any rate I hope it was before—are her honor, her pride and joy, her worth as a female, her passport to morality. How far I feel from all that . . . will I never meet a woman I do not feel different from?
    Aunt Vivi must have passed on our conversation and vaunted the remedy she had proposed, because the very next day the visits started, and they continued relentlessly for a period of twelve days. The ladies of the family drank tea with me and showered me with their secrets; they lavished their advice on me with a nonchalant air, as if the words just had slipped from their mouths, when in fact they had come for the very purpose of sharing them:
    â€œI obliged my husband to stay inside me after . . . you-know-what. In this regard, my dear, nature has been kinder to animals than to us poor human beings. Take canines, for example: the moment his seed is ejected, the male dog cannot come out of the bitch because his .