Appendix — The Half-World
To prostitution in the wider sense of the term belongs also the “half-world” (“demi-monde”), under which name, first used by the younger Dumas, we include the various categories of “mistresses,” femmes soutenues (kept women), lorettes, cocottes, and fast women.
Alexandre Dumas, in the celebrated passage of his play “Demi-Monde” (Act II., Scene 9), gives by the mouth of Olivier de Jalin the following definition of the half-world:
“All these women have made a false step in their past; they have a small black spot upon their name, and they go in company as much as possible, so that the spot may be less conspicuous. They have the same origin, the same appearance, the same prejudices as good society; but they no longer belong to it, and they form that which we call the half-world (demi-monde), which floats like an island upon the ocean of Paris, and draws towards itself, assumes, and recognizes, everything which falls from the firm land, or which wanders out or runs away from the firm land, without counting the foreign shipwrecked individuals who come no man knows whence.
“Since the married men, under the protection of the legal code, have had the right to banish from the bosom of the family a woman who has forgotten her duty, the morals of married life have undergone a revolution which has created a new world—for what becomes of all these expelled, compromised women? The first of them who found herself shown the door, bewailed her fault, and hid her shame in retirement; but—the second? She sought the first one out, and as soon as there were two of them, they called the fault a misfortune, the crime a mistake, and began to make excuses for one another mutually. Having become three, they asked one another to dinner; having become four—they danced a quadrille. Now round these women there grouped themselves young girls also who had begun their life with a false step; false widows; women who bore the name of the lovers with whom they lived; some of those rapid ‘marriages’ which had lasted as liaisons of many years’ duration; finally, all the women who wished people to believe that they were something else than they really were, and did not wish to appear in their true colours. At the present day this irregular world is in full bloom, and its bastard society is greatly loved by young men. For here love is less difficult than in circles above—and not so expensive as in circles below.”
From the last sentence we see that the original idea of the “half-world” was not so wide as that of the present day; above all, the former notion did not, as it does at present, include the idea of prostitution. The ladies of the half-world of Dumas were “not so expensive” as ordinary prostitutes. Our modern demi-mondaines are characterized by the fact that their price is high. They are prostitutes for the upper ten thousand. And yet they have this in common with the other demi-monde—that they do not, like prostitutes properly speaking, give themselves indifferently to anyone able to pay the price, but they lay stress on the social position of their lover for the time being, and upon his character as a “gentleman.” They can even exhibit something of the nature of love. The modern half-world can most aptly be compared with the Greek hetairism. It forms a characteristic constituent of modern “high life.” Whether this especially manifests itself on the racecourse, at first nights at the theatre, in great charitable bazaars, at masked balls, at fashionable seaside resorts, at Monte Carlo, at floral festivals, and the like, there also we encounter the half-world; and its members, in respect of beauty, toilet, distinguished appearance, cultivation, and conversation, are in no way to be distinguished from the ladies of high society. Certain types of the demi-monde realize, in fact, the ideal of the Greek hetairæ; but even more than these, the modern demi-mondaine represents elaborated enjoyment. These women are thoroughly cultivated, the true law-givers of fashion, the arbiters in every question of taste. Mondaines and demi-mondaines are in outward appearance hardly to be distinguished one from the other; at least, this is the case in Paris, where a witty writer defined the distinction between them in this way—that the former received their lovers only in the daytime, the latter also by night.310 It is only the connoisseur who is able to detect the “half-world aroma,” that indefinable quality which gives the demi-mondaine such an exceptional value in the eyes of the jeunesse dorée.
From what circles do the recruits of the half-world come? The ladies of the theatre, the stars of the variety stage and of the ballet, send their contingent; the aristocracy is also represented in their ranks; but many a distinguished lorette or “fille de marbre” is of low origin, and yet understands admirably how to adapt herself rapidly to all the demands of high life, to drive her dog-cart as smartly as the most genuine Countess, and in Longchamps, Karlshorst, Ostend, or Trouville, to play the part of the fine lady.
The one distinction between them—and it is the distinction of half a world—is the fact that this fashionable life of the demi-monde is not provided out of their own means, but out of the pockets of one, or more often of several, rich galants.
The type of the “grande cocotte” is encountered in its genuine and unadulterated form only in Paris. Here the demi-mondaine plays a great part in public life. The time of the earlier mistresses of princes, with their political intrigues and their far-reaching spheres of influence, is indeed over—a Lola Montez, an Aurora Königsmark is to-day no longer possible; and yet the Parisian demi-mondaine maintains influential relationships with the new great power of our time—the power of the press. The journalists who are in the service of the demi-monde are by George Dahlen termed the “Press-Fridoline,” because “their pens are paid, not with ducats, but with more or less enviable hours of love in distinguished boudoirs”;311 and Victor Joze also describes the advertisements—paid for by a night of love, or perhaps only by a smile—which the writers of Paris give in the newspapers to the distinguished cocottes of the Quartier Marbœuf or of the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, in order to attract the attention of Indian nabobs, Russian Grand Dukes, or American millionaires, to this or that fashionable beauty. This is characteristic of Paris. In other great capitals marketable gallantry does not seek publicity in this way, but pursues a more hidden course.
For what the German, and especially what the Berliners, term the “half-world” is very different from the type we have just described of the true Parisian demi-mondaine. Our half-world (the half-world of Berlin) is recruited for the most part from intelligent prostitutes, who are to be found chiefly in the public gardens, in the Zoological Gardens, in the Lehrter Ausstellungspark, and in the leading restaurants. Here every evening they seek new prey, every evening they sell their charms to a new lover for a definite sum of money; whereas the true lady of the half-world never has at any time more than one or two admirers, who provide for all the expenses of her life, and she never—at any rate in public—practises professional prostitution, as do the women just described.
Finally, there is yet another type, which must not be confused with the demi-monde. This is the international prostitute, who journeys from one place to another, has indeed often the appearance of a distinguished lorette, but leads a much more insecure, unstable life than the true demi-mondaine, and often combines with prostitution the profession of an adventuress. Now she is in Paris, now in London, now at Biarritz, now at Monte Carlo (the principal field of her activity), now in Constantinople, Smyrna, St. Petersburg, or Berlin. Sometimes she undertakes a voyage of discovery to the New World. Germany provides a not insignificant percentage of these international cocottes. Such wanderers are especially well known in the circles of officers and of speculators on the Bourse; by these they are not seldom “recommended,” after the manner in which a traveller is given letters of introduction. They may even be “raffled for,” as recently happened in an officers’ mess in Munich, and so pass to the share of the fortunate (generally much to be commiserated) winner. Abroad they prefer to adopt French or exotic names.
[305, 306] “Animierkneipen.”—Kneipe signifies a drinking-saloon or pothouse, equivalent to the French cabaret. The Animierkneipe is a beer-saloon at which the attendants are women (Kellnerinnen), who are engaged on the terms described in the text, and whose function, therefore, is to attract the male customers of the place, to incite them (animieren) to drink freely, and to play the part of prostitutes when required. Thus they correspond to les inviteuses of the similar drinking-saloons in Paris.—Translator.
Notes
243 Here, in the phrase “man at length become self-conscious,” we have the animating idea of this work, as it is of all fruitful efforts at the amelioration of the human lot. See the admirable development of this idea in E. Ray Lankester’s Romanes lecture, “Nature and Man”; and also in H. G. Wells’s later writings, more especially “A Modern Utopia” and “New Worlds for Old.”—Translator.
244 That this opinion is false, I have proved incontestably as regards syphilis in my book, “The Origin of Syphilis” (Jena, 1901). For the European and Asiatic world, syphilis is a specifically modern disease, not more than 400 years old.
245 Venice, 1534.
246 “La Lozana Andaluza” (“The Gentle Andalusian”), by Francesco Delicado. Traduit pour la première fois, texte Espagnol en regard par Alcide Bonneau, 2 vols., Paris, 1888. Regarding this work, see my book “The Origin of Syphilis,” vol. i., pp. 36-43.
247 Cf. also the interesting work of Salvatore di Giacomo, “Prostitution in Naples in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, based on Unpublished Documents,” revised in accordance with the German translation, and provided with an introduction by Dr. Iwan Bloch (Dresden, 1904).
248 Reprinted in his “Satyræ Medicæ XX.,” pp. 528-549 (Leipzig, 1722).
249 Cf. my work on “Rétif de la Bretonne,” p. 504 et seq. (Berlin, 1906).
250 The contents of this work are enumerated in my above-mentioned book, pp. 505-512.
251 A. J. B. Parent-Duchatelet, “De la Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris,” third edition, 1857 (Paris, 1836).
252 F. F. A. Béraud, “Les Filles Publiques de Paris” (Brussels, 1839, 2 vols.).
253 Dr. Michael Ryan was an acquaintance of Arthur Schopenhauer, who in June, 1829, sent Ryan a copy of his book “Theoria Colorum.” Cf. Eduard Grisebach, “Schopenhauer: the History of His Life,” p. 168 (Berlin, 1897).
254 M. Ryan, “Prostitution in London, with a Comparative View of that of Paris and New York” (London, 1839).
255 Cf. in this connexion also the report from other sources given in my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. iii., pp. 315-319, 440-447 (Berlin, 1903).
256 W. Tait, “Magdalenism: An Inquiry into the Extent, Causes, and Consequences of Prostitution in Edinburgh,” second edition (Edinburgh, 1842).
257 R. Wardlaw, “Lectures on Female Prostitution; its Nature, Extent, Effects, Guilt, Causes, and Remedy,” third edition (Glasgow, 1843).
258 F. I. dos Santos Cruz, “Da Prostituiçao na Cidade de Lisboa” (Lisbon, 1841).
259 “Estabelecimentos de Beneficencia para as Consultas Gratuitas,” pp. 203-206.
260 A. Potton, “De la Prostitution et de ses Conséquences dans les Grandes Villes, dans la Ville de Lyon en Particulier” (Paris and Lyons, 1842).
261 E. A. Duchesne, “De la Prostitution dans la Ville d’Alger depuis la Conquête” (Paris, 1853).
262 “Die Prostitution in Berlin und ihre Opfer” (Berlin, 1846).
263 C. Röhrmann, “Der sittliche Zustand von Berlin nach Aufhebung der geduldeten Prostitution des weiblichen Geschlechts”—“The Moral Condition of Berlin after the Abolition of Tolerated Prostitution of the Female Sex” (Leipzig, 1846).
264 F. J. Behrend, “Prostitution in Berlin, and the Measures it is Desirable to Adopt against Prostitution and against Syphilis,” etc. A work based on official sources, and dedicated to His Excellency the Minister von Ladenberg (Erlangen, 1850).
265 H. Lippert, “Prostitution in Hamburg” (Hamburg, 1848).
266 A. J. Gross-Hoffinger, “The Fate of Women and Prostitution, in Relation to the Principle of the Indissolubility of Catholic Marriage, and especially in Relation to the Laws of Austria and the Philosophy of our Time” (Leipzig, 1847).
267 Josef Schrank, “Prostitution in Vienna in Historical, Administrative, and Hygienic Relations” (Vienna, 1886, 2 vols).
268 “The Moral Corruption of Our Time and its Victims in their Relationship to the State, to the family, and to Morality, with especial Reference to the Conditions of Prostitution in Leipzig” (Leipzig, 1854).
269 W. M. Sanger, “The History of Prostitution” (New York, 1859).
270 J. Jeannel, “Prostitution in Large Towns in the Nineteenth Century, and the Abolition of Venereal Diseases.”
271 W. Acton, “Prostitution in its Various Aspects,” second edition (London. 1874).
272 Hügel, “The History, Statistics, and Regulation of Prostitution” (Vienna. 1865).
273 L. Martineau, “La Prostitution Clandestine” (Paris, 1885).
274 O. Commenge, “La Prostitution Clandestine à Paris” (Paris, 1897).
275 V. Augagneur, “La Prostitution des Filles Mineures” (Paris, 1888).
276 L. Fiaux, “La Police des Mœurs en France et dans les Principales Villes de l’Europe” (Paris, 1888); “Les Maisons de Tolérance, leur Fermeture,” 3me édition (Paris, 1862); “La Prostitution ‘Cloitrée’” (Brussels, 1902).
277 Yves Guyot, “La Prostitution: Étude de Physiologie Sociale” (Paris, 1882).
278 A. Blaschko, “The Problem of Prostitution,” published in the Berliner Klin. Wochenschrift, pp. 430-435 (1892); “Syphilis and Prostitution from the Hygienic Standpoint” (Berlin, 1893); “Hygiene of Prostitution and of Venereal Diseases” (Jena, 1900); “Prostitution in the Nineteenth Century” (Berlin, 1902); “The Dangers to Health resulting from Prostitution, and the Contest with these Dangers” (Berlin, 1904).
279 C. Lombroso and G. Ferrero, “Woman as Criminal and Prostitute.”
280 B. Tarnowsky, “Prostitution and Abolitionism” (Hamburg, 1890).
281 C. Ströhmberg, “Prostitution: a Socio-Medical Study” (Stuttgart, 1899).
282 E. Dühren (Iwan Bloch), “The Sexual Life in England,” vol. i., pp. 201-445 (Charlottenburg, 1901).
283 E. von Düring, “Prostitution and Venereal Diseases” (Leipzig, 1905).
284 Goethe, in the poem “Der Gott und die Bajadere,” has very beautifully described the ennoblement of gross love by means of ideal love.
285 Henry Murger, in his “Vie de Bohème,” also alludes to the “incomprehensible” fact that “persons of standing who sometimes possess spirit, a name, and a coat cut according to the fashion, out of their love for the common will go so far as to raise to the level of an object of fashion a creature whom their very servant would not have chosen as a mistress.”
286 C. Lombroso, “Woman as Criminal and Prostitute,” p. 550.
287 Friedrich Hammer, “The Regulation of Prostitution,” published in The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, vol. iii., No. 10, p. 380 (Leipzig, 1905).
288 H. Kurella, “A Contribution to the Biological Comprehension of Physical and Psychical Bisexuality,” published in the Zentralblatt für Nervenheilkunde, 1896, vol. xix., p. 239.
289 Syphilis is not to be forgotten.
290 This modified Lombrosism is advocated by B. A. H. Hübner in his interesting work concerning prostitutes and their legal relations (Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie, 1907, pp. 1-11). He found that among sixty-four insane prostitutes, under observation in the Hertzberg Asylum in Berlin, not less than 59·45 % were already intellectually defective at the time they had come under police control as prostitutes.
291 C. Lombroso, “Recent Advances in the Study of Criminals.”
292 Schrank observes (“Prostitution in Vienna,” vol. ii., p. 216) that striking physical peculiarities do not appear to be either more or less frequent among prostitutes than they are among the generality of the population.
293 G. Keben, “Prostitution in its Relation to Modern Realistic Literature” (Zurich, 1892).
294 Oda Olberg, “Poverty in the Domestic Industry of Making Ready-made Clothing” (Leipzig, 1896).
295 Anna Pappritz, “The Economic Causes of Prostitution” (Berlin, 1903).
296 Pfeiffer, “Poverty and Overcrowding in Great Towns and in Relation to Prostitution and to Venereal Diseases,” published in The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1903, vol. i., pp. 135-144.
297 P. Kampffmeyer, “Poverty and Overcrowding in Great Towns,” etc., published in The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1903, vol. i., pp. 145-160; “Bad Housing Accommodation in Relation to Prostitution and ‘Night-Lodgers’; the Necessary Legal Reforms,” op. cit., 1905, vol. iii., pp. 165-229.
298 E. v. Düring, “Prostitution and Venereal Diseases.” p. 11.
299 Cf. the description of the astonishing development of the French procurement of that day which is given in my “New Researches concerning the Marquis de Sade,” pp. 88-98 (Berlin, 1904). The Marquis de Sade, in his novel “The One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom,” has very fully described the traffic in girls of his time. Incredible revelations of this traffic, of the almost absolute power of the procuresses, and of their relations to the police, led in October, 1906, to an action against the procuress Regine Riehl, who, under the mask of a dressmaker’s shop, had for years conducted a brothel, in which the girls were entirely robbed of their freedom, were subjected to corporal punishment, and never received payment for their “work.” Cf. A. Blaschko, The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1906, vol. v., pp. 427-433; also Karl Kraus, “The Riehl Trial” (Vienna, 1906).
300 The literature of the “White Slave Trade” is extensive. I shall mention a few works only: Alfred S. Dyer, “The Trade in English Girls” (Berlin, 1881); the celebrated work of Alexis Splingard, “Clarissa, from the Dark Houses of Belgium,” with an introduction by Otto Henne am Rhyn, fourth edition (Leipzig, 1897); Otto Henne am Rhyn, “Prostitution and the Traffic in Girls” (Leipzig, 1903); Julius Kemény, “Hungara—Hungarian Girls in the Market: Revelations regarding the International Traffic in Girls” (Buda-Pesth, 1903). Cf. also the extensive references in The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1904, vol. ii., pp. 207-212 (Report of the Jewish Commission for the Suppression of the Traffic in Girls). Regarding the traffic in girls in Holland, cf. J. Rutgers, “Sketches from Holland,” ibid., 1906, vol. v., pp. 531-355.
301 Cf. regarding the conditions in South America, the report of Major D. Wagner, Secretary of the German National Committee for the Suppression of the Traffic in Girls, published in The Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1900, vol. v., pp. 378-382.
302 Léo Taxil, “La Corruption Fin-de-Siècle,” p. 169 et seq. (Paris, 1894).
303 Louis Fiaux, “Les Maisons de Tolérance: leur Fermeture,” troisième édition, pp. 169 et seq., 248, 250, 251 (Paris, 1892).
304 According to recent statistical data, from 80 to 90 % of barmaids (in Germany) are infected with venereal diseases, so that they perhaps represent the most dangerous class of prostitutes.
307 H. Seyffert, “Die Animierkneipen und ihre Geheimnisse” (“Animierkneipen and their Secrets”), published in Freie Meinung, 1906, Nos. 26 and 27. See also “Impropriety at Inns with Female Attendants in Prussia, with especial Reference to the Conditions in Cologne” (1891).
308 O. Rosenthal, “Alcoholism and Prostitution,” p. 46 (1905).
309 Cf. the elaborate descriptions by Hans Ostwald, “Berliner Tanzlokale” (Berlin and Leipzig); regarding the earlier dancing-rooms of London, see my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. i., pp. 324-334.
310 Victor Joze, “Paris-Gomorrhe. Mœurs du Jour,” p. 173 (Paris, 1898).
311 Georg Dahlen, “Sketches of European Society,” p. 126 (Berlin, 1885).