Character Description
The story includes a rakish seducer of women. Of course, it does, it is a romance, after all. And the rakish seducer at the center of the plot is of a very special quality which is conveyed with the immediacy afforded by metaphor:
“The Duke de Nemours was a masterpiece of Nature; the beauty of his person, inimitable as it was, was his least perfection”
The Object of Their Attention
A married woman is the object of the attention and pursuit of the Duke. Metaphor is used here to describe a particularly intense moment of emotional arrest as the twin pursuits of the heart begin to wear down closer to the bone of self-awareness:
“Madam de Cleves continued alone, and being no longer supported by the joy which the presence of what one loves gives one, she seemed like one newly waked from a dream”
Love’s Crazy Talk
People in love tend sometimes to talk in circles, especially when they are in a kind of love affair that requires scheming. The circular logic of scheming can reach such a level of absurdity as to almost sound crazy and even the introduction of poetic metaphor doesn’t cover up the crazy talk:
“I was of opinion that if anything could rekindle that flame, it would be to let you see that mine was extinguished, but to let you see it through an endeavour to conceal it from you, as if I wanted the power to acknowledge it to you: this resolution I adhered to”
Those Things Happen
The story does not exactly come to a fairy tale happily ever after. The very simple metaphor which describes the end of the relationship is remarkably effective considering how incredibly stripped of poetry it is:
“at last, after several years, time and absence abated his grief, and extinguished his passion.”
Duchess of Valentinois
Though not a major character, at least for most of the book, the Duchess of Valentinois is granted the honor of one of the most interesting of metaphorical descriptions. Much is made in the narrative of appearances being deceptive and her relationship to the King may perhaps be the most emblematic of this:
“though she was no longer in possession of either of youth or beauty, she yet reigned so absolutely in his heart, that his person and state seemed entirely at her disposal.”
