Claudia Moscovici Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe
There have been a number of great novels written about seducers, some of which are about psychopathic seducers in particular. Of course, the tantalizing tales of Don Juan and Casanova set the standard. But it’s Laclos’ Dangerous liaisons (1782), an eighteenth-century French epistolary novel that we know now mostly thanks to John Malkovich’s and Glenn Close’s excellent performances in the 1988 movie, that explores the emotional emptiness and the game-like ruses inherent in the process of psychopathic seduction. Dangerous liaisons focuses mostly on the machinations of the seducers themselves. There are also a few classic novels that sketch the psychological profile of the women who are seduced by them. To offer one notable example, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, first published as a serial in La Revue de Paris in 1856, generated a scandal. Flaubert was charged with the corruption of public mores. Many novels depicted with relative immunity middle-class men cheating on their wives with courtesans, mistresses and prostitutes. But the theme of a middle-class woman cheating on her husband shocked the public at the time. Flaubert was nonetheless acquitted in 1857. His novel became an instant best seller and remains to this day a popular nineteenth-century classic. Tolstoy broached the same theme in Anna Karenina, my personal favorite. He published it in installments in The Russian Messenger, between 1873 and 1877. His novel was extremely successful and didn’t cause a scandal. Unlike Flaubert’s morally ambiguous and cynical Madame Bovary, Tolstoy’s novel was presented as a morality tale. Anna Karenina masterfully expressed a popular, if somewhat tired, message. For middle-class women, the novel implied, cheating on their spouses and pursuing passion instead of familial duties results in suffering and an untimely death.
Out of all the novels on seduction I’ve read, I believe that Benjamin Constant’s Romantic classic Adolphe captures best the insidious process of psychopathic seduction in particular. Although this novel is somewhat less well known internationally than Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, it was an instant hit in France. It was first published in June 1816 and reprinted quickly thereafter in three more editions—in July 1816, then again 1824 and 1828—due to its popularity. Part of what made this novel so successful was the fact that it was seeped in gossip. Readers interpreted the work as a roman-à-clef. They believed that Constant described in Adolphe his tumultuous long-term affair with one of the most famous women of the times, Germaine de Stäel, as well as aspects of his on/off relationship with the devoted Charlotte von Hardenberg.
In the preface to the second edition, however, the author vehemently denies any connection between his love life and the characters of his novel. In fact, Constant goes so far as to chastise critics and readers alike for having reduced a complex work of fiction to personal intrigue. The author also claims that his sense of tact and devotion to his friends would preclude him from translating his life into fiction. He explains that his novel shows what happens when love is asymmetrical: when one partner loves too much and the other not enough. Although some literary critics still interpret Constant’s novel as largely autobiographical, I’d have to agree with the author that the personal angle is not the most interesting aspect of this work. I believe that Adolphe stands the test of time above all because of its penetrating insight into pathological relationships.
Constant claims that Adolphe, the (anti)hero of the novel, is too weak to escape a relationship that got too deep too fast with Ellénore, a woman whom he no longer loves. The novel’s detailed and nuanced exploration of human pathology, however, leads me to sketch a different psychological profile of Adolphe. I don’t see him as a weak and sensitive man who got in over his head, as the author claims. Rather, I see him as an emotional predator. Adolphe represents the kind of man who is incapable of genuine love. He regards the seduction and destruction of women as an entertaining way to pass time and to alleviate boredom. As realistic as this novel is in depicting a psychopathic seducer, it’s even more accurate in its depiction of the kind of women who fall in love and stay with psychopaths long after the relationship with them has grown cold and their so-called “love” has turned into indifference.
From a certain perspective, the plot bears out the author’s reading of his own text. Adolphe, the protagonist and narrator of this unhappy romance, is the son of a government minister. He leads an aimless and solitary life until a friend’s success in love induces him to seek a comparable diversion. At a party, he meets Ellénore, a beautiful aristocratic Polish immigrant. She’s the mistress of a certain Comte de P, with whom she has two children. Upon seeing her, Adolphe instantly decides to seduce her. He uses his charm and manipulation skills to achieve this goal. Ellénore resists at first—rather half-heartedly—but eventually gives in to his advances. For her, their physical relationship translates into real emotional bonding. For him, it doesn’t. The difference in their attitudes motivates the plot of the novel, moving it towards its fatal conclusion. The more Adolphe withdraws emotionally from Ellénore, the more she struggles to regain his initial affection. In the end, the heroine is reduced to the shell of the person she once was. True to the Romantic tradition, Ellénore dies of sorrow, feeling unloved and rejected by the lover for whom she has sacrificed everything: her partner, her children, her social connections, her reputation and, ultimately, her whole identity. Although now somewhat neglected in the canon of European literature, Constant’s novel helped consolidate Romanticism in France. It also paved the way for psychological fiction, which would later be pursued by Henry James and Marcel Proust.
For decades, literature has been interpreted by literary critics through the optic of psychology. That’s not, of course, because literary characters are real. It’s because they can represent character traits, motivations, interactions and emotions that drive real human beings. Often, however, such interpretations tend to be archetypal or, more generally, theoretical. Psychoanalytic criticism relies upon Freudian, Lacanian, Jungian and other kinds of broad, and generally abstract, frameworks to read general patterns of behavior, desires, emotions and drives. Rarely are the theories applied to literature drawn directly from current pragmatic psychology, meaning from contemporary research on and experience of real, suffering human beings. In my estimation, reading literature in light of actual human experience, disorders, struggles and problems can be illuminating. They shed light upon pathological characteristics that exist in real human beings and that affect our lives deeply. We have a lot to learn about human nature and behavior from good psychological fiction without erasing the boundaries between fiction and life. Constant’s fictional depiction of the process of psychopathic seduction—from its promising beginning to its pathetic ending—is strikingly modern and, as I hope to show by relying on the latest research on psychopathic seduction, remains relevant to this day.
Since they lack the capacity to form emotional bonds with others, from a very young age psychopaths experience a nearly constant state of restlessness and boredom. They also generally lack the patience to complete any of their tasks, seeking meaning in temporary diversions. Young Adolphe, the narrator of the novel, fits this profile. “Distracted, inattentive, bored, I couldn’t notice the impression I created, and I divided my time between studies that I frequently interrupted, projects which I didn’t complete, pleasures which didn’t really interest me, when an apparently very frivolous circumstance produced in my disposition an important revolution” (Adolphe, my translation, 41). Although a misanthrope by his own admission, Adolphe needs others for entertainment. Almost by accident he stumbles upon a solution to the emptiness he feels within. He observes with interest the excitement of an acquaintance that has fallen in love. Before meeting any actual woman, Adolphe falls in love with the idea of falling in love. “The spectacle of such happiness made me regret not having tried it yet; I didn’t have any affair of the heart that could have flattered my self-love; a new future was revealed to me; I felt a new need at the bottom of my heart” (42). From the very beginning, the narrator regards love as a fantasy of conquest. He doesn’t view it as a shared emotional experience that may result in finding a potential partner in life. As Sandra L. Brown’s research illustrates, psychopaths attach to their targets in order to control them.
With this goal in mind, Adolphe quickly spots his target. He zeroes in on Ellénore, the Polish mistress of Comte de P, one of his father’s friends. From the outset, he assesses her weaknesses and needs. He sets out to seduce her by appearing to provide whatever has been missing from her life. He takes note of the fact that Ellénore’s current lover, with whom she lived for ten years and with whom she has two children, didn’t marry her. In Adolphe’s eyes, the refusal to legitimate her status reveals her partner’s ambivalence towards her. He’ll take full advantage of that division between the two lovers, and especially of Ellénore’s unfulfilled need for more attention and a deeper commitment, to seduce her. Adolphe also notices that Ellénore doesn’t quite fit into any culture. Polish by birth yet living in France, she’s a partial outsider to both cultures. With predatory intuition, he focuses on her tenuous social situation and inner contradictions, which he fully intends to exploit: “Ellénore, in a word, was in a constant struggle with her fate. She protested, we may say, through each of her actions and words, against the class in which she found herself, and as none of her efforts changed anything about her situation, she was very unhappy” (44-5).
Ellénore may be discontented and needy, but she’s by no means an easy prey. She’s proud, well educated, still beautiful and enjoys the protection of a powerful count and his circle of acquaintances. Adolphe decides that this woman has just the right mixture of vulnerability and strength to represent a worthy conquest. “Presented to my attention at a moment when I needed love and my vanity sought success, Ellénore seemed a conquest worthy of me” (45). Although he explicitly reviews his target’s weaknesses and strengths, the narrator qualifies that he’s not assessing Ellénore in a cold and calculated manner. He claims to be genuinely drawn to her. The two attitudes don’t necessarily contradict. As Robert Hare and Paul Babiak illustrate in Snakes in Suits, during the assessment phase, when psychopathic seducers measure up their targets, they also idealize them, to see them as objects worthy of their attention. In other words, for emotional predators, the calculated assessment phase and the process of idealization coexist.
In the beginning, Adolphe sees Ellénore both as a potential conquest, which he can dominate through his presence and charm, and as the fulfillment of his romantic dreams. “I thought I was taking, like a cold and impartial observer, a survey of her mind and character, but each word that she uttered seemed to be cloaked in an inexplicable grace” (46). He remains lucid enough, however, not to confuse his powerful obsession with love: “I didn’t believe I loved Ellénore, but I couldn’t accept not being liked by her. She occupied my mind constantly: I formed thousands of plans; I invented thousands of ways to conquer her” (47).
Psychopaths skillfully mimic, rather than actually feeling, human emotions. Adolphe knows how to flatter his target with simulated words of love, borrowed phrases from romantic novels and from other people’s genuine feelings. He’s stimulated above all by the act of simulation itself. He experiences the “duper’s delight” that psychopaths commonly feel when they convincingly present themselves as something they’re not or express sentiments they lack. “My lack of certainty in the success of my endeavor gave my letter an agitation which strongly resembled love. Heated up as I was by my own style, I began to feel, by the end of my writing, a little of the passion which I tried to express with as much force as possible” (48). The fact that Ellénore doesn’t give in to his desires fuels Adolphe’s artificial fire. For weeks, she refuses to see him. He states, “This response overwhelmed me. My imagination, irritated by the obstacle, took over my whole existence. The love which just an hour before I applauded myself for faking I thought all of a sudden I was experiencing with passion” (48).
The inadvertent cat and mouse game that Ellénore instigates through her initial resistance only increases Adolphe’s predatory focus on her. He becomes consumed by the single-minded goal of seducing her: “I was surprised myself about what I was feeling… I was equally incapable of distraction or study. I walked around constantly by Ellénore’s door… Impatience was devouring me. I checked my watch all the time” (49-50). His passion is intense yet hollow. Sandra L. Brown, M.A. explains that emotional predators can form intense attachments without connecting emotionally with their targets. Attachment means simply seeking proximity. Emotional bonding, on the other hand, implies greater depth: a real connection. Psychopaths are incapable of making real, emotional connections. The psychopathic bond is therefore an inherently mismatched relationship. Brown elaborates:
So within the attachment phase of this relationship we have a woman who tests 97% higher in attachment than other people and who tends to trust automatically, and her partner, the psychopath, who has the equivalent of an adult attachment disorder who is trying to camouflage it by masquerading enormous amounts of zealous affection (Women Who Love Psychopaths, 156-7).
While psychopaths can’t bond with others they can, like Adolphe, become obsessed with pursuing a given woman. For a period of time, they may desire to be in her company day and night. But this dogged pursuit of their target doesn’t imply any feelings of caretaking. On the contrary, it exhibits an inherent lack of empathy and the pathological need to control another person by monitoring her activities. However, since psychopaths lack standards of comparison between genuine, deeper feelings of affection (which they can’t experience) and their intense infatuations, they commonly mistake their temporary obsessions for real love. Adolphe recounts, “I passed the night without sleeping. There was no longer any question of calculation or plans; I felt myself, as sincerely as possible, truly in love” (53).
Not satisfied with admiring her from a distance, the narrator starts pressuring Ellénore to see him. Even in our days such ambiguous circumstances may be regarded as inappropriate. In early nineteenth-century France, this violation of social mores would have been flagrant. Adolphe manifests an obvious lack of empathy for how his behavior would compromise Ellénore in the eyes of her partner, her children and her social circle. However, he skillfully couches his selfish request in the flattering language of passionate love. When Ellénore rightfully objects that seeing him in private would tarnish her reputation, Adolphe switches the focus to himself: “I’m terribly unhappy,” he complains. “I don’t have the strength to endure such prolonged unhappiness; I hope for nothing, ask for nothing, except to see you: but I must see you to survive” (53). Ellénore buys into this inflated rhetoric and agrees to see him. Adolphe, in turn, reassures her that this initial boundary violation will not result in further transgressions that could compromise her reputation and ruin her family life. In other words, he deceives her.
To readers, Adolphe’s promise appears like a transparent ruse to get her alone so that he can make his advances on her. But to Ellénore, who’s yearning for attention and affection, such a request seems relatively innocuous. She relents, but imposes upon him the condition that they see each other only in public. When she gives in to his wishes, Adolphe initially rewards her with further declarations of love and flattery. Shortly thereafter, however, he’s no longer satisfied with this level of control. He needs more. Consequently, he pushes the envelope further, demanding new boundary violations from her. Each time Ellénore gives in to his will, the line she drew in the sand becomes erased. Consequently, her values and boundaries lose meaning. The heroine reflects the psychological profile of women who love psychopaths. Brown’s research suggests that such women are eager to please. They also trust the psychopath’s words rather than paying attention to his actions. In general, women involved with dangerous men tend to be too cooperative with their partners’ desires, even when those go against their best interests. Brown documents, “She feels the magnetic pull into an emotional and sexual vortex that she can’t free herself from. She mistakes intensity for love and passion for bonding. It doesn’t take the psychopath long to test the depths of her love (and tolerance) and to figure out he has a lot of wiggle room in the relationship to abuse” (Women Who Love Psychopaths, 213-4). Soon, Ellénore and Adolphe see each other more frequently, nearly every day. Rather quickly, she becomes addicted to her lover’s lavish flattery, to his intense focus on her as well as to his professed love.
Once their dominance bond is consolidated, Adolphe feels sufficiently confident to ask that they see each other in private. This carries with it the obvious implications of physical intimacy. Wisely, he doesn’t make his request explicit. Instead, Adolphe couches his need for sexual conquest in the more comforting language of an amitié amoureuse, or the ambiguous but supposedly chaste friendship between men and women that was common in France at the time (granted, probably far more common in theory than in fact). He also turns social mores on their head. He asserts that in being cautious and proper Ellénore is actually being frivolous and superficial. “One would say that in asking you to see me, I obtained the same favor for the whole universe. I swear, in seeing you so prudent, I never thought you’d be so frivolous” (55).
Already used to Adolphe’s daily presence and accustomed to giving in to his requests, Ellénore violates her boundaries yet again. By now, she’s emotionally hooked on Adolphe. She’s not prepared to risk losing him by refusing to fulfill his wishes. The emotional predator senses that he’s got his prey firmly in his grasp. He coolly observes, “The idea of breaking up no longer occurred to her: she consented to see me sometimes alone” (55). Inch by inch, Adolphe erodes Ellénore’s boundaries and approaches his goal. Soon enough, she not only accepts his inappropriate declarations of love, but also reciprocates them. At first, Adolphe rewards Ellénore for each concession, to gain her trust. “I spent several hours at her feet, declaring myself the happiest man on earth, giving her thousands of assurances of tenderness, devotion and eternal respect” (56). Of course, in compromising her reputation, Adolphe isn’t manifesting even temporary and conditional respect, much less the eternal, unconditional love he professes. But like so many victims of psychopathic seduction, by now Ellénore feels too attached to her lover to examine his inappropriate actions: especially the disconcerting succession of violated promises.
As they become more intimate, they exchange confidences. Adolphe pays close attention to everything Ellénore reveals about her background, experiences and needs. He wants to find out as much as possible about his target’s vulnerabilities to discover more ways in which he can control her. He also tells her exactly what she wants to hear and gives her the kind of attention she always craved but never experienced before. Adolphe notices, with satisfaction, Ellénore’s growing emotional dependency on him. By now, she listens for his footsteps, hoping that he’d visit her several times a day. Ellénore helps the seducer’s assessment process along by openly admitting to him that she’s obsessed with him. She confesses to Adolphe that she thinks of practically nothing and nobody else. As is the commonly case with psychopaths, however, the more power the seducer gets over his target, the more he wants from her in order to feel the same degree of pleasure from her conquest. Adolphe now wants to possess Ellénore completely, body and soul. Once again, he camouflages his sense of entitlement—the attitude that he should get whatever he wants when he wants it simply because he wants it, no matter what the cost to others—in flattering, romantic terms. “Ellénore, I wrote her one day, you don’t know at all what I suffer. Close to you, far from you, I’m equally unhappy. During the hours which separate us, I walk aimlessly, hunched over from the burden of an existence that I can no longer tolerate” (57).
In The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout states that the phony pity play constitutes one of the give-away signs of psychopathy. Psychopaths make everything in life be about them. By representing themselves as sensitive victims, they induce others to ignore their own needs and obligations in order to cater to theirs. Adolphe hints that Comte de P, Ellénore’s partner, poses an unacceptable obstacle between them. For as long as the count remains in her life, he implies, their romantic future will be precarious. To overcome that barrier, Adolphe suggests, she must belong only to him. “Close to you, I still fear some obstacle, suddenly placed between you and me” (58). He’s careful not to ask Ellénore more explicitly to leave the count. Instead, he relies upon his skill for manipulation to instill in her the anxiety that she might lose his devotion if she doesn’t leave her partner of her own “free will.” Isolated from the count, her family and her social circle, Ellénore will be fully under her predatory new lover’s control and at his mercy. Which is exactly where Adolphe wants her.
