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The Cross of Berny; Or, Irene's Lovers

by Mme Emile de Girardin · English · Gutenberg #13191 · 563,679 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Cross of Berny; Or, Irene's Lovers

Author: Mme Emile de Girardin
        Théophile Gautier
        Joseph Méry
        Jules Sandeau

Translator: Florence Fendall
        Florence Holcomb


        
Release date: August 15, 2004 [eBook #13191]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13191

Credits: Produced by Curtis Weyant, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROSS OF BERNY; OR, IRENE'S LOVERS ***

THE CROSS OF BERNY

OR

IRENE'S LOVERS

BY MADAME EMILE DE GIRARDIN
MM. THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
JULES SANDEAU AND MERY




PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.


Literary partnerships have often been tried, but very rarely with
success in the more imaginative branches of literature. Occasionally two
minds have been found to supplement each other sufficiently to produce
good joint writing, as in the works of MM. Erckman-Chatrian; but when
the partnership has included more than two, it has almost invariably
proved a failure, even when composed of individually the brightest
intellects, and where the highest hopes have been entertained. Standing
almost if not quite alone, in contrast with these failures of the past,
THE CROSS OF BERNY is the more remarkable; and has achieved the success
not merely of being the simply harmonious joint work of four individual
minds,--but of being in itself, and entirely aside from its interest as
a literary curiosity, a _great book_.

A high rank, then, is claimed for it not upon its success as a literary
partnership, for that at best would but excite a sort of curious
interest, but upon its intrinsic merit as a work of fiction. The spirit
of rivalry in which it was undertaken was perhaps not the best guarantee
of harmony in the tone of the whole work, but it has certainly added
materially to the wit and brilliancy of the letters, while harmony has
been preserved by much tact and skill. No one of its authors could alone
have written THE CROSS OF BERNY--together, each one has given us his
best, and their joint effort will long live to their fame.

The shape in which it appears, as a correspondence between four
characters whose names are the pseudonyms of the four authors of the
book, although at first it may seem to the reader a little awkward, will
upon reflection be seen to be wisely chosen, since it allows to each of
the prominent characters an individuality otherwise very difficult of
attainment. In this way also any differences of style which there may
be, tend rather to heighten the effect, and to increase the reality of
the characters.

The title under which the original French edition appeared has been
retained in the translation, although since its applicability depends
upon a somewhat local allusion, the general reader may possibly fail to
appreciate it.




ORIGINAL PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION.


The Cross of Berny was, it will be remembered, a brilliant tourney,
where Madame de Girardin (née Delphine Gay), Théophile Gautier, Jules
Sandeau and Méry, broke lances like valiant knights of old.

We believe we respond to the general wish by adding to the _Bibliothèque
Nouvelle_ this unique work, which assumed and will ever retain a high
position among the literary curiosities of the day.

Not feeling called upon to decide who is the victor in the tilt, we
merely lift the pseudonymous veil concealing the champions.

The letters signed Irene de Chateaudun are by Madame de Girardin.
  "     "      "   Edgar de Meilhan      "    M. Théophile Gautier.
  "     "      "   Raymond de Villiers   "    M. Jules Sandeau.
  "     "      "   Roger de Monbert      "    M. Méry.

Who are recognised as the four most brilliant of our celebrated
contemporaneous authors.--EDITOR.




CROSS OF BERNY.




I.


IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Hotel de la Préfecture,
GRENOBLE (Isère).

PARIS, May 16th, 18--.

You are a great prophetess, my dear Valentino. Your predictions are
verified.

Thanks to my peculiar disposition, I am already in the most deplorably
false position that a reasonable mind and romantic heart could ever have
contrived.

With you, naturally and instinctively, I have always been sincere;
indeed it would be difficult to deceive one whom I have so often seen by
a single glance read the startled conscience, and lead it from the ways
of insolence and shame back into the paths of rectitude.

It is to you I would confide all my troubles; your counsel may save me
ere it be too late.

You must not think me absurd in ascribing all my unhappiness to what is
popularly regarded as "a piece of good luck."

Governed by my weakness, or rather by my fatal judgment, I have plighted
my troth!... Good Heavens! is it really true that I am engaged to Prince
de Monbert?

If you knew the prince you would laugh at my sadness, and at the
melancholy tone in which I announce this intelligence.

Monsieur de Monbert is the most witty and agreeable man in Paris; he is
noble-hearted, generous and ...in fact fascinating!... and I love him!
He alone pleases me; in his absence I weary of everything; in his
presence I am satisfied and happy--the hours glide away uncounted; I
have perfect faith in his good heart and sound judgment, and proudly
recognise his incontestable superiority--yes, I admire, respect, and, I
repeat it, love him!...

Yet, the promise I have made to dedicate my life to him, frightens me,
and for a month I have had but one thought--to postpone this marriage I
wished for--to fly from this man whom I have chosen!...

I question my heart, my experience, my imagination, for an answer to
this inexplicable contradiction; and to interpret so many fears, find
nothing but school-girl philosophy and poetic fancies, which you will
excuse because you love me, and I _know_ my imaginary sufferings will at
least awaken pity in your sympathetic breast.

Yes, my dear Valentine, I am more to be pitied now, than I was in the
days of my distress and desolation. I, who so courageously braved the
blows of adversity, feel weak and trembling under the weight of a too
brilliant fortune.

This happy destiny for which I alone am responsible, alarms me more than
did the bitter lot that was forced upon me one year ago.

The actual trials of poverty exhaust the field of thought and prevent us
from nursing imaginary cares, for when we have undergone the torture of
our own forebodings, struggled with the impetuosity and agony of a
nature surrendered to itself, we are disposed to look almost with relief
on tangible troubles, and to end by appreciating the cares of poverty as
salutary distractions from the sickly anxieties of an unemployed mind.

Oh! believe me to be serious, and accuse me not of comic-opera
philosophy, my dear Valentine! I feel none of that proud disdain for
importunate fortune that we read of in novels; nor do I regret "my
pretty boat," nor "my cottage by the sea;" here, in this beautiful
drawing-room of the Hotel de Langeac, writing to you, I do not sigh for
my gloomy garret in the Marais, where my labors day and night were most
tiresome, because a mere parody of the noblest arts, an undignified
labor making patience and courage ridiculous, a cruel game which we play
for life while cursing it.

No! I regret not this, but I do regret the indolence, the idleness of
mind succeeding such trivial exertions. For then there were no
resolutions to make, no characters to study, and, above all, no
responsibility to bear, nothing to choose, nothing to change.

I had but to follow every morning the path marked out by necessity the
evening before.

If I were able to copy or originate some hundred designs; if I possessed
sufficient carmine or cobalt to color some wretched
engravings--worthless, but fashionable--which I must myself deliver on
the morrow; if I could succeed in finding some new patterns for
embroidery and tapestry, I was content--and for recreation indulged at
evenings in the sweetest, that is most absurd, reveries.

Revery then was a rest to me, now it is a labor, and a dangerous labor
when too often resorted to; good thoughts then came to assist me in my
misery; now, vexatious presentiments torment my happiness. Then the
uncertainty of my future made me mistress of events. I could each day
choose a new destiny, and new adventures. My unexpected and undeserved
misfortune was so complete that I had nothing more to dread and
everything to hope for, and experienced a vague feeling of gratitude for
the ultimate succor that I confidently expected.

I would pass long hours gazing from my window at a little light shining
from the fourth-story window of a distant house. What strange
conjectures I made, as I silently watched the mysterious beacon!

Sometimes, in contemplating it, I recalled the questions addressed by
Childe Harold to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, asking the cold marble if
she who rested there were young and beautiful, a dark-eyed,
delicate-featured woman, whose destiny was that reserved by Heaven for
those it loves; or was she a venerable matron who had outlived her
charms, her children and her kindred?

So I also questioned this solitary light:

To what distressed soul did it lend its aid? Some anxious mother
watching and praying beside her sick child, or some youthful student
plunging with stern delight into the arcana of science, to wrest from
the revealing spirits of the night some luminous truth?

But while the poet questioned death and the past, I questioned the
living present, and more than once the distant beacon seemed to answer
me. I even imagined that this busy light flickered in concert with mine,
and that they brightened and faded in unison.

I could only see it through a thick foliage of trees, for a large garden
planted with poplars, pines and sycamores separated the house where I
had taken refuge from the tall building whence the beacon shone for me
night after night.

As I could never succeed in finding the points of the compass, I was
ignorant of the exact locality of the house, or even on what street it
fronted, and knew nothing of its occupants. But still this light was a
friend; it spoke a sympathetic language to my eyes--it said: "Courage!
you do not suffer alone; behind these trees and under those stars there
is one who watches, labors, dreams." And when the night was majestic and
beautiful, when the morn rose slowly in the azure sky, like a radiant
host offered by the invisible hand of God to the adoration of the
faithful who pray, lament and die by night; when these ever-new
splendors dazzled my troubled soul; when I felt myself seized with that
poignant admiration which makes solitary hearts find almost grief in
joys that cannot be shared, it seemed to me that a dear voice came to
calm my excitement, and exclaimed, with fervor, "Is not the night
beautiful? What happiness in enjoying it together!"

When the nightingale, deceived by the silence of the deserted spot, and
attracted by these dark shades, became a Parisian for a few days,
rejuvenating with his vernal songs the old echoes of the city, again it
seemed that the same voice whispered softly through the trembling
leaves: "He sings, come listen!"

So the sad nights glided peacefully away, comforted by these foolish
reveries.

Then I invoked my dear ideal, beloved shadow, protector of every honest
heart, proud dream, a perfect choice, a jealous love sometimes making
all other love impossible! Oh, my beautiful ideal! Must I then say
farewell? Now I no longer dare to invoke thee!...

But what folly! Why am I so silly as to permit the remembrance of an
ideal to haunt me like a remorse? Why do I suffer it to make me unjust
towards noble and generous qualities that I should worthily appreciate?

Do not laugh at me, Valentine, when I assure you that my greatest
distress is that my lover does not resemble in any respect my ideal, and
I am provoked that I love him--I cannot deceive myself, the contrast is
striking--judge for yourself.

You may laugh if you will, but the whole secret of my distress is the
contrast between these two portraits.

My lover has handsome, intelligent blue eyes--my ideal's eyes are black,
full of sadness and fire, not the soft, troubadour eye with long
drooping lids--no! My ideal's glance has none of the languishing
tenderness of romance, but is proud, powerful, penetrating, the look of
a thinker, of a great mind yielding to the influence of love, the gaze
of a hero disarmed by passion!

My lover is tall and slender--my ideal is only a head taller than myself
... Ah! I know you are laughing at me, Valentine! Well! I sometimes
laugh at myself....

My lover is frankness personified--my ideal is not a sly knave, but he
is mysterious; he never utters his thoughts, but lets you divine, or
rather he speaks to a responsive sentiment in your own bosom.

My lover is what men call "A good fellow," you are intimate with him in
twenty-four hours.

My ideal is by no means "a good fellow," and although he inspires
confidence and respect, you are never at ease in his presence, there is
a graceful dignity in his carriage, an imposing gentleness in his
manner, that always inspires a kind of fear, a pleasing awe.

You remember, Valentine, when we were very young girls how we were wont
to ask each other, in reading the annals of the past, what situations
would have pleased us, what parts we would have liked to play, what
great emotions we would have wished to experience; and how you pityingly
laughed at my odd taste.

My dream,_par excellence_, was to die of fear; I never envied with you
the famed heroines, the sublime shepherdesses who saved their country. I
envied the timid Esther fainting in the arms of her women at the fierce
tones of Ahasuerus, and restored to consciousness by the same voice
musically whispering the fondest words ever inspired by a royal love.

I also admired Semele, dying of fear and admiration at the frowns of a
wrathful Jove, but her least of all, because I am terrified in a
thunderstorm.

Well, I am still the same--to love tremblingly is my fondest dream; I do
not say, like pretty Madame de S., that I can only be captivated by a
man with the passions of a tiger and the manners of a diplomate, I only
declare that I cannot understand love without fear.

And yet my lover does not inspire me with the least fear, and against
all reasoning, I mistrust a love that so little resembles the love I
imagined.

The strangest doubts trouble me. When Roger speaks to me tenderly; when
he lovingly calls me his dear Irene, I am troubled, alarmed--I feel as
if I were deceiving some one, that I am not free, that I belong to
another. Oh! what foolish scruples! How little do I deserve sympathy!
You who have known me from my childhood and are interested in my
happiness, will understand and commiserate my folly, for folly I know it
to be, and judge myself as severely as you would.

I have resolved to treat these wretched misgivings and childish fears
as the creations of a diseased mind, and have arranged a plan for their
cure.

I will go into the country for a short time; good Madame Taverneau
offers me the hospitality of her house at Pont-de-l'Arche; she knows
nothing of what has happened during the last six months, and still
believes me to be a poor young widow, forced to paint fans and screens
for her daily bread.

I am very much amused at hearing her relate my own story without
imagining she is talking to the heroine of that singular romance.

Where could she have learned about my sad situation, the minute details
that I supposed no one knew?

"A young orphan girl of noble birth, at the age of twenty compelled by
misfortune to change her name and work for her livelihood, is suddenly
restored to affluence by an accident that carried off all her relatives,
an immensely rich uncle, his wife and son."

She also said my uncle detested me, which proved that she was well
informed--only she adds that the young heiress is horribly ugly, which I
hope is not true!

I will go to Mme. Taverneau and again become the interesting widow of
Monsieur Albert Guérin, of the Navy.

Perilous widowhood which invited from my dear Mme. Taverneau confidences
prematurely enlightening, and which Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun had some
difficulty in forgetting.

Ah! misery is a cruel emancipation! Angelic ignorance, spotless
innocence of mind is a luxury that poor young girls, even the most
circumspect, cannot enjoy.

What presence of mind I had to exercise for three long years in order to
sustain my part!

How often have I felt myself blush, when Mme. Taverneau would say: "Poor
Albert! he must have adored you."

How often have I had to restrain my laughter, when, in enumerating the
perfections of her own husband, she would add, with a look of pity: "It
must distress you to see Charles and me together, our love must recall
your sad loss."

To these remarks I listened with marvellous self-possession; if comedy
or acting of any kind were not distasteful to me, I would make a good
actress.

But now I must finish telling you of my plan. To-morrow I will set out
ostensibly with my cousin, accompanying her as far as Fontainbleau,
where she is going to join her daughter, then I will return and hide
myself in my modest lodging, for a day or two, before going to
Pont-de-l'Arche.

With regard to my cousin, I must say, people abuse her unjustly; she is
not very tiresome, this fat cousin of mine; I heard of nothing but her
absurdities, and was warned against taking up my abode with her and
choosing her for my chaperone, as her persecutions would drive me
frantic and our life would be one continuous quarrel. I am happy to say
that none of these horrors have been realized. We understand each other
perfectly, and, if I am not married next winter, the Hotel de Langeac
will still be my home.

Roger, uninformed of my departure, will be furious, which is exactly
what I want, for from his anger I expect enlightenment, and this is the
test I will apply. Like all inexperienced people, I have a theory, and
this theory I will proceed to explain.

If in your analysis of love you seek sincerity, you must apply a little
judicious discouragement, for the man who loves hopefully, confidently,
is an enigma.

Follow carefully my line of reasoning; it maybe complicated, laborious,
but--it is convincing.

All violent love is involuntary hypocrisy.

The more ardent the lover the more artful the man.

The more one loves, the more one lies.

The reason of all this is very simple.

The first symptom of a profound passion is an all-absorbing
self-abnegation. The fondest dream of a heart really touched, is to make
for the loved one the most extraordinary and difficult sacrifice.

How hard it is to subdue the temper, or to change one's nature! yet from
the moment a man loves he is metamorphosed. If a miser, to please he
will become a spendthrift, and he who feared a shadow, learns to despise
death. The corrupt Don Juan emulates the virtuous Grandison, and,
earnest in his efforts, he believes himself to be really reformed,
converted, purified regenerated.

This happy transformation will last through the hopeful period. But as
soon as the remodelled pretender shall have a presentiment that his
metamorphosis is unprofitable; as soon as the implacable voice of
discouragement shall have pronounced those two magic words, by which
flights are stayed, thoughts paralyzed, and hopeful hearts deadened,
"Never! Impossible!" the probation is over and the candidate returns to
the old idols of graceless, dissolute nature.

The miser is shocked as he reckons the glittering gold he has wasted.
The quondam hero thinks with alarm of his borrowed valor, and turns pale
at the sight of his scars.

The roué, to conceal the chagrin of discomfiture, laughs at the promises
of a virtuous love, calls himself a gay deceiver, great monster, and is
once more self-complacent.

Freed from restraint, their ruling passions rush to the surface, as when
the floodgates are opened the fierce torrent sweeps over the field.

These hypocrites will feel for their beloved vices, lost and found
again, the thirst, the yearning we feel for happiness long denied us.
And they will return to their old habit, with a voracious eagerness, as
the convalescent turns to food, the traveller to the spring, the exile
to his native land, the prisoner to freedom.

Then will reckless despair develop their genuine natures; then, and then
only, can you judge them.

Ah! I breathe freely now that I have explained my feelings What do you
think of my views on this profound subject--discouragement in love?

I am confident that this test must sometimes meet with the most
favorable results. I believe, for example, that with Roger it will be
eminently successful, for his own character is a thousand times more
attractive than the one he has assumed to attract me. He would please me
better if he were less fascinating--his only fault, if it be a fault, is
his lack of seriousness.

He has travelled too much, and studied different manners and subjects
too closely, to have that power of judging character, that stock of
ideas and principles without which we cannot make for ourselves what is
called a philosophy, that is, a truth of our own.

In the savage and civilized lands he traversed, he saw religions so
ridiculous, morals so wanton, points of honor so ludicrous, that he
returned home with an indifference, a carelessness about everything,
which adds brilliancy to his wit, but lessens the dignity of his love.

Roger attaches importance to nothing--a bitter sorrow must teach him the
seriousness of life, that everything must not be treated jestingly.
Grief and trouble are needed to restore his faith.

I hope he will be very unhappy when he hears of my inexplicable flight,
and I intend returning for the express purpose of watching his grief;
nothing is easier than to pass several days in Paris _incog_.

My beloved garret remains unrented, and I will there take sly pleasure
in seeing for myself how much respect is paid to my memory--I very much
enjoy the novel idea of assisting at my own absence.

But I perceive that my letter is unpardonably long; also that in
confiding my troubles to you, I have almost forgotten them; and here I
recognise your noble influence, my dear Valentine; the thought of you
consoles and encourages me. Write soon, and your advice will not be
thrown away. I confess to being foolish, but am sincerely desirous of
being cured of my folly. My philosophy does not prevent my being open to
conviction, and willing to sacrifice my logic to those I love.

Kiss my godchild for me, and give her the pretty embroidered dress I
send with this. I have trimmed it with Valenciennes to my heart's
content. Oh! my friend, how overjoyed I am to once more indulge in
these treasured laces, the only real charm of grandeur, the only
unalloyed gift of fortune. Fine country seats are a bore, diamonds a
weight and a care, fast horses a danger; but lace! without whose
adornment no woman is properly dressed--every other privation is
supportable; but what is life without lace?

I have tried to please your rustic taste in the wagon-load of newly
imported plants, one of which is a _Padwlonia_ (do not call it a
Polonais), and is now acclimated in France; its leaves are a yard in
circumference, and it grows twenty inches a month--malicious people
say it freezes in the winter, but don't you believe the slander.

Adieu, adieu, my Valentine, write to me, a line from you is happiness.

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN.

My address is,
Madame Albert Guérin,
Care Mme. Taverneau, Pont de l'Arche,
Department of the Eure.




II.


ROGER DE MONBERT _to_ M. DE MEILHAN,
Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure.)

Paris, May 19th, 18--.

Dear Edgar,--It cannot be denied that friendship is the refuge of
adversity--the roof that shelters from the storm.

In my prosperous days I never wrote you. Happiness is selfish. We fear
to distress a friend who may be in sorrow, by sending him a picture of
our own bliss.

I am oppressed with a double burden; your absence, and my misfortunes.

This introduction will, doubtless, impress you with the idea that I
wander about Paris with dejected visage and neglected dress. Undeceive
yourself. It is one of my principles never to expose my sacred griefs to
the gaze of an unsympathetic world, that only looks to laugh.

Pity I regard as an insult to my pride: the comforter humiliates the
inconsolable mourner; besides, there are sorrows that all pretend to
understand, but which none really appreciate. It is useless, then, to
enumerate one's maladies to a would-be physician; and the world is
filled with those who delight in the miseries of others; who follow the
sittings of courts and luxuriate in heart-rending pictures of man's
injustice to his fellow.

I do not care to serve as a relaxation to this class of mankind, who,
since the abolition of the circus and amphitheatre, are compelled to
pick up their pleasure wherever they can find it; seeking the best
places to witness the struggle of Christian fortitude with adversity.

But every civilized age has its savage manners, and, knowing this, I
resemble in public the favorite of fortune. I simulate content, and my
face is radiant with deceit.

The idle and curious of the Boulevard Italien, the benches of the circus
would hardly recognise me as the gladiator struggling with an
iron-clawed monster--they are all deceived.

I feel a repugnance, dear Edgar, to entertaining you with a recital of
my mysterious sorrow. I would prefer to leave you in ignorance, or let
you divine them, but I explain to prevent your friendship imagining
afflictions that are not mine.

In the first place, to reassure you, my fortune has not suffered during
my absence. On my return to Paris, my agent dazzled me with the picture
of my wealth.

"Happy man!" said he; "a great name, a large fortune, health that has
defied the fires of the tropics, the ice of the poles,--and only
thirty!" The notary reasoned well from a notary's stand-point. If I were
to reduce my possessions to ingots, they would certainly balance a
notary's estimate of happiness; therefore, fear nothing for my fortune.

Nor must you imagine that I grieve over my political and military
prospects that were lost in the royal storm of '30, when plebeian cannon
riddled the Tuilleries and shattered a senile crown. I was only sixteen,
and hardly understood the lamentations of my father, whose daily refrain
was, "My child, your future is destroyed."

A man's future lies in any honorable career. If I have left the
epaulettes of my ancestors reposing in their domestic shrine, I can
bequeath to my children other decorations.

I have just returned from a ten years' campaign against all nations,
bringing back a marvellous quantity of trophies, but without causing one
mother to mourn. In the light of a conqueror, Caesar, Alexander, and
Hannibal pale in comparison, and yet to a certainty my military future
could not have gained me the epaulettes of these illustrious commanders.

You would not, my dear Edgar, suppose, from the gaiety of this letter,
that I had passed a frightful night.

You shall see what becomes of life when not taken care of; when there is
an unguarded moment in the incessant duel that, forced by nature, we
wage with her from the cradle to the grave.

What a long and glorious voyage I had just accomplished! What dangers I
escaped! The treacherous sea defeated by a motion of the helm! The
sirens to whom I turned a deaf ear. The Circes deserted under a baleful
moon, ere the brutalizing change had come!

I returned to Paris, a man with soul so dead that his country was not
dear to him--I felt guilty of an unknown crime, but reflection reduced
the enormity of the offence. Long voyages impart to us a nameless
virtue--or vice, made up of tolerance, stoicism and disdain. After
having trodden over the graveyards of all nations, it seems as if we had
assisted at the funeral ceremonies of the world, and they who survive on
its surface seem like a band of adroit fugitives who have discovered the
secret of prolonging to-day's agony until to-morrow.

I walked upon the Boulevard Italien without wonder, hatred, love, joy or
sorrow. On consulting my inmost thoughts I found there an unimpassioned
serenity, a something akin to ennui; I scarcely heard the noise of the
wheels, the horses--the crowd that surrounded me.

Habituated to the turmoil of those grand dead nations near the vast
ruins of the desert, this little hubbub of wearied citizens scarcely
attracted my attention.

My face must have reflected the disdainful quietude of my soul.

By contemplative communion with the mute, motionless colossal faces of
Egypt's and Persia's monuments, I felt that unwittingly my countenance
typified the cold imperturbable tranquillity of their granite brows.

That evening La Favorita was played at the opera. Charming work! full of
grace, passion, love. Reaching the end of Le Pelletier street, my walk
was blocked by a line of carriages coming down Provence street; not
having the patience to wait the passage of this string of vehicles, nor
being very dainty in my distinction between pavement and street, I
followed in the wake of the carriages, and as they did not conceal the
façade of the opera at the end of the court, I saw it, and said "I will
go in."

I took a box below, because my family-box had changed hands, hangings
and keys at least five times in ten years, and seated myself in the
background to avoid recognition, and leave undisturbed friends who would
feel in duty bound to pay fashionable court to a traveller due ten
years. I was not familiar with La Favorita, and my ear took in the new
music slowly. Great scores require of the indolent auditor a long
novitiate.

While I listened indolently to the orchestra and the singers, I examined
the boxes with considerable interest, to discover what little
revolutions a decade could bring about in the aristocratic personnel of
the opera. A confused noise of words and some distinct sentences reached
my ear from the neighboring boxes when the orchestra was silent. I
listened involuntarily; the occupants were not talking secrets, their
conversation was in the domain of idle chat, that divides with the
libretto the attention of the habitues of the opera.

They said, "I could distinguish her in a thousand, I mistrust my sight a
little, but my glass is infallible; it is certainly Mlle. de
Bressuire--a superb figure, but she spoils her beauty by affectation."

"Your glass deceives you, my dear sir, we know Mlle. de Bressuire."

"Madame is right; it is not Mlle. That young lady at whom everybody is
gazing, and who to-night is the favorite--excuse the pun--of the opera,
is a Spaniard; I saw her at the Bois de Boulogne in M. Martinez de la
Hosa's carriage. They told me her name, but I have forgotten. I never
could remember names."

"Ladies," said a young man, who noisily entered the box, "we are at last
enlightened. I have just questioned the box-keeper--she is a maid of
honor to the Queen of Belgium."

"And her name?" demanded five voices.

"She has a Belgian name, unpronounceable by the box-keeper; something
like Wallen, or Meulen."

"We are very much wiser."

From the general commotion it was easy to perceive that the same subject
was being discussed by the whole house, and doubtless in the same
terms; for people do not vary their formulas much on such occasions.

A strain of music recalled to the stage every eye that during the
intermission had been fastened upon one woman. I confess that I felt
some interest in the episode, but, owing to my habitual reserve, barely
discovered by random and careless glances the young girl thus handed
over to the curious glances of the fashionable world. She was in a box
of the first tier, and the native grace of her attitude first riveted my
attention. The cynosure of all eyes, she bore her triumph with the ease
of a woman accustomed to admiration.

To appear unconscious she assumed with charming cleverness a pose of
artistic contemplation. One would have said that she was really absorbed
in the music, or that she was following the advice of the Tuscan poet:

  "Bel ange, descendu d'un monde aérien,
  Laisse-toi regarder et ne regarde rien."

From my position I could only distinguish the outline of her figure,
except by staring through my glasses, which I regard as a polite
rudeness, but she seemed to merit the homage that all eyes looked and
all voices sang.

Once she appeared in the full blaze of the gas as she leaned forward
from her box, and it seemed as if an apparition by some theatro-optical
delusion approached and dazzled me.

The rapt attention of the audience, the mellow tones of the singer, the
orchestral accompaniment full of mysterious harmony, seemed to awaken
the ineffable joy that love implants in the human heart. How much
weakness there is in the strength of man!

To travel for years over oceans, through deserts, among all varieties of
peoples and sects; shipwrecked, to cling with bleeding hands to
sea-beaten rocks; to laugh at the storm and brave the tiger in his lair;
to be bronzed in torrid climes; to subject one's digestion to the
baleful influences of the salt seas; to study wisdom before the ruins of
every portico where rhetoricians have for three thousand years
paraphrased in ten tongues the words of Solomon, "All is vanity;" to
return to one's native shores a used-up man, persuaded of the emptiness
of all things save the overhanging firmament and the never-fading stars;
to scatter the fancies of too credulous youth by a contemptuous smile,
or a lesson of bitter experience, and yet, while boasting a victory over
all human fallacies and weaknesses, to be enslaved by the melody of a
song, the smile of a woman.

Life is full of hidden mysteries. I looked upon the stranger's face with
a sense of danger, so antagonistic to my previous tranquillity that I
felt humiliated.

By the side of the beautiful unknown, I saw a large fan open and shut
with a certain affectation, but not until its tenth movement did I
glance at its possessor. She was my nearest relative, the Duchess de
Langeac.

The situation now began to be interesting. In a moment the interlude
would procure for me a position to be envied by every one in the house.
At the end of the act I left my box and made a rapid tour of the lobby
before presenting myself. The Duchess dispelled my embarrassment by a
cordial welcome. Women have a keen and supernatural perception about
everything concerning love, that is alarming.

The Duchess carelessly pronounced Mlle. de Chateaudun's name and mine,
as if to be rid of the ceremonies of introduction as soon as possible,
and touching a sofa with the end of her fan, said:

"My dear Roger, it is quite evident that you have come from everywhere
except from the civilized world. I bowed to you twenty times, and you
declined me the honor of a recognition. Absorbed in the music, I
suppose. La Favorita is not performed among the savages, so they remain
savages. How do you like our barytone? He has sung his aria with
delicious feeling."

While the Duchess was indulging her unmeaning questions and comments, a
rapid and careless glance at Mlle. de Chateaudun explained the
admiration that she commanded from the crowded house. Were I to tell you
that this young creature was a pretty, a beautiful woman, I would
feebly express my meaning, such phrases mean nothing. It would require a
master hand to paint a peerless woman, and I could not make the attempt
when the bright image of Irene is now surrounded by the gloomy shadows
of an afflicted heart.

After the first exchange of insignificant words, the skirmish of a
conversation, we talk as all talk who are anxious to appear ignorant of
the fact that they are gazed upon by a whole assembly.

Concealing my agitation under a strain of light conversation,
"Mademoiselle," I said, in answer to a question, "music is to-day the
necessity of the universe. France is commissioned to amuse the world.
Suppress our theatre, opera, Paris, and a settled melancholy pervades
the human family. You have no idea of the ennui that desolates the
hemispheres.

"Occasionally Paris enlivens the two Indias by dethroning a king. Once
Calcutta was _in extremis_, it was dying of the blues; the East India
company was rich but not amusing; with all its treasure it could not buy
one smile for Calcutta, so Paris sent Robert le Diable, La Muette de
Portici, a drama or two of Hugo and Dumas. Calcutta became convalescent
and recovered. Its neighbor, Chandernagore, scarcely existed then, but
in 1842, when I left the Isle de Bourbon, La Favorita was announced; it
planted roses in the cheeks of the jaundiced inhabitants, and Madras,
possessed by the spleen, was exorcised by William Tell.

"Whenever a tropical city is conscious of approaching decline, she
always stretches her hands beseechingly to Paris, who responds with
music, books, newspapers; and her patient springs into new life.

"Paris does not seem to be aware of her influences. She detracts from
herself; says she is not the Paris of yesterday, the Paris of the great
century; that her influence is gone, she is in the condition of the
Lower Empire.

"She builds eighty leagues of fortifications to sustain the siege of
Mahomet II. She weeps over her downfall and accuses Heaven of denying
to her children of '44 the genius and talents that characterized the
statesmen and poets of her past.

"But happily the universe does not coincide with Paris; go ask it;
having just come from there, I know it."

Indulging my traveller's extravagancies laughingly, to the amusement of
my fair companion, she said:

"Truly your philosophy is of the happy school, and the burden of life
must be very light when it is so lightly borne."

"You must know, my dear Roger," said the Duchess, feigning
commiseration, "that my young cousin, Mlle. de Chateaudun, is pitiably
unhappy, and you and I can weep over her lot in chorus with orchestral
accompaniment; poor child! she is the richest heiress in Paris."

"How wide you are from the mark!" said Irene, with a charming look of
annoyance in the brightest eye that ever dazzled the sober senses of
man; "it is not an axiom that wealth is happiness. The poor spread such
a report, but the rich know it to be false."

Here the curtain arose, and my return to my box explained my character
as the casual visitor and not the lover. And what intentions could I
have had at that moment? I cannot say.

I was attracted by the loveliness of Mlle. Chateaudun; chance gave the
opportunity for studying her charms, the fair unknown improved on
acquaintance. Hers was the exquisite grace of face and feature and
winningness of manner which attracts, retains and is never to be
forgotten.

From the superb tranquillity of her attitude, the intelligence of her
eyes, it was easy to infer that a wider field would bring into action
the hidden treasures of a gifted nature. Over the dazzling halo that
surrounded the fair one, which left me the alternative of admiring
silence or heedless vagrancy of speech, one cloud lowered, eclipsing all
her charms and bringing down my divinity from her pedestal--Irene was an
heiress!

The Duchess had clipped the wings of the angel with the phrase of a
marriage-broker. An heiress! the idea of a beautiful woman, full of
poetry and love, inseparately linked to pounds, shillings and pence!

It was a day of amnesty to men, a fête day in Paradise, when God gave to
this young girl that crown of golden hair, that seraphic brow, those
eyes that purified the moral miasma of earth. The ideal of poetry, the
reality of my love!

Think of this living master-piece of the divine studio as the theme of
money-changers, the prize of the highest bidder!

Of course, my dear Edgar, I saw Mlle. de Chateaudun again and again
after this memorable evening; thanks to the facilities afforded me by my
manoeuvring kinswoman, the Duchess, who worshipped the heiress as I
worshipped the woman, I could Add a useless volume of romantic details
leading you to the denouement, which you have already guessed, for you
must see in me the lover of Mlle. de Chateaudun.

I wished to give you the beginning and end of my story; what do you care
for the rest, since it is but the wearisome calendar of all lovers?--The
journal of a thousand incidents as interesting and important to two
people as they are stupid and ridiculous to every one else. Each day was
one of progress; finally, we loved each other. Excuse the homely
platitude in this avowal.

Irene seemed perfect; her only fault, being an heiress, was lost in the
intoxication of my love; everything was arranged, and in spite of her
money I was to marry her.

I was delirious with joy, my feet spurned the earth. My bliss was the
ecstasy of the blest. My delight seemed to color the contentment of
other men with gloom, and I felt like begging pardon for being so happy.
It seemed that this valley of tears, astonished that any one should from
a terrestrial paradise gaze upon its afflictions and still be happy,
would revolt against me!

My dear Edgar, the smoke of hell has darkened my vision--I grope in the
gloom of a terrible mystery--Vainly do I strive to solve it, and I turn
to you for aid.

Irene has left Paris! Home, street, city, all deserted! A damp, dark
nothingness surrounds me!

Not an adieu! a line! a message! to console me--

Women do such things--

I have done all in my power, and attempted the impossible to find Irene,
but without success. If she only had some ground of complaint against
me, how happy I would be.

A terrible thought possesses my fevered brain--she has fallen into some
snare, my marvellously beautiful Irene.

Hide my sorrows, dear Edgar, from the world as I have hidden them.

You would not have recognised the writer of this, had you seen him on
the boulevard this morning. I was a superb dandy, with the poses of a
Sybarite and the smiles of a young sultan. I trod as one in the clouds,
and looked so benevolently on my fellow man that three beggars sued for
aid as if they recognised Providence in a black coat. The last
observation that reached my ear fell from the lips of an observing
philosopher:

"Heavens! how happy that young man must be!"

Dear Edgar, I long to see you.

ROGER DE MONBERT.




III.


EDGAR DE MEILHAN _to the_ PRINCE DE MONBERT,
St. Dominique Street, Paris.

RICHEPORT, 20th May, 18--

No, no, I cannot console you in Paris. I will escort your grief to
Smyrna, Grand Cairo, Chandernagore, New Holland, if you wish, but I
would rather be scalped alive than turn my steps towards that
fascinating city surrounded by fortifications.

Your elegy found me moderately impressible. Fortune has apparently
always treated you like a spoiled child; were your misfortunes mine I
should be delighted, and in your torment I should find a paradise. A
disappearance afflicts you with agony. I was forced to beat a retreat
once, but not from creditors; my debts are things of the past. You are
fled from--I am pursued; and whatever you may say to the contrary, it is
much more agreeable to be the dog than the hare.

Ah! if the beauty that I adore (this is melo-dramatic) had only
conceived such a triumphant idea! I should not be the one who--but no
one knows when he is well off. This Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun pleases
me, for by this opportune and ingenious eclipse she prevents you from
committing a great absurdity. What put marriage into your head,
forsooth! You who have housed with Bengal tigers and treated the lions
of Atlas as lapdogs; who have seen, like Don Caesar de Bazan, women of
every color and clime; how could you have centred your affections upon
this Parisian doll, and chained the fancies of your cosmopolitan soul to
the dull, rolling wheel of domestic and conjugal duty?

So don't swear at her; bless her with a grateful heart, put a bill of
credit in your pocket, and off we'll sail for China. We will make a hole
in the famous wall, and pry into the secrets of lacquered screens and
porcelain cups. I have a strong desire to taste their swallow-nest soup,
their shark's fins served with jujube sauce, the whole washed down by
small glasses of castor oil. We will have a house painted apple-green
and vermilion, presided over by a female mandarin with no feet,
circumflex eyes, and nails that serve as toothpicks. When shall I order
the post-horses?

A wise man of the Middle Empire said that we should never attempt to
stem the current of events. Life takes care of itself. The loss of your
fiancée proves that you are not predestined for matrimony, therefore do
not attempt to coerce chance; let it act, for perhaps it is the
pseudonym of God.

Thanks to this very happy disappearance, your love remains young and
fresh; besides, you have, in addition to the Pleasures of Memory, the
Pleasures of Hope (considered the finest work of the poet Campbell); for
there is nothing to show that your divinity has been translated to that
better world, where, however, no one seems over-anxious to go.

Let not my retreat give rise to any unfavorable imputations against my
courage. Achilles, himself, would have incontinently fled if threatened
with the blessings in store for me. From what oriental head-dresses,
burnous affectedly draped, golden rings after the style of the Empress
of the Lower Empire, have I not escaped by my prudence?

But this is all an enigma to you. You are in ignorance of my story,
unless some too-well-posted Englishman hinted it to you in the temple of
Elephanta. I will relate it to you by way of retaliation for the recital
of your love affair with Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun.

You have probably met that celebrated blue-stocking called the "Romantic
Marquise." She is handsome, so the painters say; and, perhaps, they are
not far from right, for she is handsome after the style of an old
picture. Although young, she seems to be covered with yellow varnish,
and to walk surrounded by a frame, with a background of bitumen.

One evening I found myself with this picturesque personage at Madame de
Bléry's. I was listlessly intrenched in a corner, far from the circle of
busy talkers, just sufficiently awake to be conscious that I was
asleep--a delirious condition, which I recommend to your consideration,
resembling the beginning of haschish intoxication--when by some turn in
the conversation Madame de Bléry mentioned my name and pointed me out. I
was immediately awakened from my torpor and dragged out of my corner.

I have been weak enough at times, as Gubetta says, to jingle words at
the end of an idea, or to speak more modestly, at the end of certain
measured syllables. The Marquise, cognisant of the offence, but not of
the extenuating circumstances, launched forth into praise and flattering
hyperbole that lifted me to the level of Byron, Goethe, Lamartine,
discovered that I had a satanic look, and went on so that I suspected an
album.

This affected me gloomily and ferociously. There is nothing I despise
more than an album, unless it be two of them.

To avoid any such attempt, I broke into the most of the conversation
with several innocent provincialisms, and effected my retreat in a
masterly manner; advancing towards the door by degrees, and reaching it,
I sprang outside so suddenly and nimbly that I had gotten to the bottom
of the stairs before my absence was discovered.

Alas! no one can escape au album when it is predestined! The next day a
book, magnificently bound in Russia, arrived in a superb moiré case in
the hands of a groom, with an accompanying note from the Infanta
soliciting the honor, &c.

All great men have their antipathies. James I. could not look upon a
glittering sword; Roger Bacon fainted at the sight of an apple; and
blank paper fills me with melancholy.

However, I resigned myself to the decrees of fate, and scribbled, I
don't know what, in the corner, and subscribed my initials as illegible
as those of Napoleon when in a passion.

This, I flattered myself, was the end of the tragedy, but no: a few days
afterwards I received an invitation to a select gathering, in such
amiable terms that I resolved to decline it.

Talleyrand said, "Never obey your first impulse, because it is good;" I
obeyed this Machiavellian maxim, and erred!

"_Eucharis_" was being performed at the opera; the sky was filled with
ugly, threatening clouds; I sought in vain for a companion to get tight
with, and moralize over a few bottles of wine, and so for want of a
gayer occupation I went to the Marquise.

Her apartments are a perfect series of catafalques, and seem to have
been upholstered by an undertaker. The drawing-room is hung in violet
damask; the bed-rooms in black velvet; the furniture is of ebony or old
oak; crucifixes, holy-water basins, folio bibles, death's-heads and
poniards adorned the enlivening interior. Several Zurbarans, real or
false, representing monks and martyrs, hung on the walls, frightening
visitors with their grimaces. These sombre tints are intended to
contrast with the waxy cheeks and painted eyes of the lady who looks
more like the ghost than the mistress of this dwelling; for she does not
inhabit, she haunts it.

You must not think, dear Roger, from this funereal introduction, that
your friend became the prey of a ghoul or a vampire. The Marquise is
handsome enough, after all. Her features are noble, regular, but a
little Jewish, which induces her to wear a turban earlier and oftener
than is necessary. She would not be so pale, if instead of white she put
on red. Her hands, though too thin, are rather pretty and aristocratic,
and weighted heavily with odd-looking rings. Her foot is not too large
for her slipper. Uncommon thing! for women, in regard to their shoes,
have falsified the geometrical axiom: the receptacle should be greater
than its contents.

She is, however, to a certain point, a gentlewoman, and holds a good
position in society.

I was received with all manner of caresses, stuffed with small cake,
inundated with tea, of which beverage I hold the same opinion as Madame
Gibou. I was assailed by romantic and transcendental dissertations, but
possessing the faculty of abstraction and fixing my gaze upon the facets
of a crystal flagon, my attitude touched the Marquise, who believed me
plunged into a gulf of thought.

In short, I had the misfortune to charm her, and the weakness, like the
greater part of men, to surrender myself to my good or evil fortune;
for this unhung canvas did not please me, and though tolerably stylish
and pretty well preserved, I suspected some literature underneath, and
closely scanned the edge of her dress to see if some azure reflection
had not altered the whiteness of her stocking. I abhor women who take
blue-ink baths. Alas! they are much worse than the avowed literary
woman; she affects to talk of nothing but ribbons, dress and bonnets,
and confidentially gives you a receipt for preserving lemons and making
strawberry cream; they take pride in not ignoring housekeeping, and
faithfully follow the fashions. At their homes ink, pen and paper are
nowhere to be seen; their odes and elegies are written on the back of a
bill or on a page torn from an account-book.

La Marquise contemplates reform, romances, social poetry, humanitarian
and palingenesic treatises, and scattered about on the tables and chairs
were to be seen solemn old books, dog-leaved at their most tiresome
pages, all of which is very appalling. Nothing is more convenient than a
muse whose complete works are printed; one knows then what to expect,
and you have not always the reading of Damocles hanging over your head.

Dragged by a fatality that so often makes me the victim of women I do
not admire, I became the Conrad, the Lara of this Byronic heroine.

Every morning she sent me folio-sized epistles, dated three hours after
midnight. They were compilations from Frederick Soulié, Eugene Sue, and
Alexander Dumas, glorious authors, whom I delight to read save in my
amorous correspondence, where a feminine mistake in orthography gives me
more pleasure than a phrase plagiarised from George Sand, or a pathetic
tirade stolen from a popular dramatist.

In short, I do not believe in a passion told in language that smells of
the lamp; and the expression "_Je t'aime_" will scarcely persuade me if
it be not written "_Je thême_."

It made no difference how often the beauty wrote, I fortified myself
against her literary visitations by consigning her billets-doux unopened
to an empty drawer. By this means I was enabled to endure her prose
with great equanimity. But she expected me to reply--now, as I did not
care to keep my hand in for my next romance, I viewed her claims as
extravagant and unreasonable, and feigning a strong desire to see my
mother, I fled, less curious than Lot's wife, without looking behind.

Had I not taken this resolution I should have died of ennui in that
dimly-lighted house, among those sepulchral toys, in the presence of
that pale phantom enveloped in a dismal wrapper, cut in the monkish
style, and speaking in a trembling and languishing tone of voice.

La Trappe or Chartreuse would have been preferable--I would have gained
at least my salvation. Although it may be the act of a Cossack, a
shocking irregularity, I have given her no sign of my existence, except
that I told her that my mother's recovery promised to be very slow, and
she would need the devoted attention of a good son.

Judge, dear Roger, after this recital, of which I have subdued the
horrors and dramatic situations out of regard to your sensibility,
whether I could return to Paris to be the comforter in your sorrow. Yet
I could brave an encounter with the Marquise were it not that I am
retained in Normandy by an expected visit of two months from our friend
Raymond. This fact certainly ought to make you decide to share our
solitude. Our friend is so poetical, so witty, so charming. He has but
one fault, that of being a civilized Don Quixote de la Mancha; instead
of the helmet of Mambrino he wears a Gibus hat, a Buisson coat instead
of a cuirass, a Verdier cane by way of a lance. Happy nature! in which
the heart is not sacrificed to the intellect; where the subtlety of a
diplomate is united to the ingenuousness of a child.

Since your ideal has fled, are not all places alike to you? Then why
should you not come to me, to Richeport, but a step from Pont de l'Arch?

I am perched upon the bank of the river, in a strange old building,
which I know will please you. It is an old abbey half in ruins, in which
is enshrined a dwelling, with many windows at regular intrevals, and is
surmounted by a slate roof and chimneys of all sizes. It is built of
hewn stone, that time has covered with its gray leprosy, and the general
effect, looking through the avenue of grand old trees, is fine. Here my
mother dwells. Profiting by the walls and the half-fallen towers of the
old enclosure, for the abbey was fortified to resist the Norman
invasions, she has made upon the brow of the hill a garden terrace
filled with roses, myrtles and orange trees, while the green boxes
surrounding them replace the old battlements. In this quarter of the old
domain, I have not interfered with any of these womanly fancies.

She has collected around her all manner of pretty rusticities; all the
comfortable elegancies she could imagine. I have not opposed any system
of hot-air stoves, nor the upholstering of the rooms, nor objected to
mahogany and ebony, wedgwood ware, china in blue designs, and English
plate. For this is the way that middle-aged, and in fact, all reasonable
people live.

For myself, I have reserved the refectory and library of the brave
monks, that is, all that overlooks the river. I have not permitted the
least repairing of the walls, which present the complete flora of the
native wild flowers. An arched door, closed by old boards covered with a
remnant of red paint, and opening on the bank, serves me as a private
entrance. A ferry worked by a rope and pulley establishes communication
with an island opposite the abbey, which is verdant with a mass of
osiers, elder bushes and willows. It is here also that my fleet of boats
is moored.

Seen from without, nothing would indicate a human habitation; the ruins
lie in all the splendor of their downfall.

I have not replaced one stone--walled up one lizard--the house-leek, St.
John's-wort, bell-flower, sea-green saxifrage, woody nightshade and blue
popion flower have engaged in a struggle upon the walls of arabesques,
and carvings which would discourage the most patient ornamental
sculptor. But above all, a marvel of nature attracts your admiring gaze:
it is a gigantic ivy, dating back at least to Richard Coeur de Lion, it
defies by the intricacy of its windings those geneological trees of
Jesus Christ, which are seen in Spanish churches; the top touching the
clouds, and its bearded roots embedded in the bosom of the patriarchal
Abraham; there are tufts, garlands, clusters, cascades of a green so
lustrous, so metallic, so sombre and yet so brilliant, that it seems as
if the whole body of the old building, the whole life of the dead abbey
had passed into the veins of this parasitic friend, which smothers with
its embrace, holding in place one stone, while it dislodges two to plant
its climbing spurs.

You cannot imagine what tufted elegance, what richness of open-work
tracery this encroachment of the ivy throws upon the rather gaunt and
sharp gable-end of the building, which on this front has for ornament
but four narrow-pointed windows, surmounted by three trefoil
quadrilobes.

The shell of the adjoining building is flanked at its angle by a turret,
which is chiefly remarkable for its spiral stairway and well. The great
poet who invented Gothic cathedrals would, in the presence of this
architectural caprice, ask the question, "Does the tower contain the
well, or the well the tower?" You can decide; you who know everything,
and more besides--except, however, Mlle. de Chateaudun's place of
concealment.

Another curiosity of the old building is a moucharaby, a kind of balcony
open at the bottom, picturesquely perched above a door, from which the
good fathers could throw stones, beams and boiling oil on the heads of
those tempted to assault the monastery for a taste of their good fare
and a draught of their good wine.

Here I live alone, or in the company of four or five choice books, in a
lofty hall with pointed roof; the points where the ribs intersect being
covered with rosework of exquisite delicacy. This comprises my suite of
apartments, for I never could understand why the little space that is
given one in this world to dream, to sleep, to live, to die in, should
be divided into a set of compartments like a dressing-case. I detest
hedges, partitions and walls like a phalansterian.

To keep off dampness I have had the sides of the market-house, as my
mother calls it, wainscoted in oak to the height of twelve or fifteen
feet.

By a kind of gallery with two stairways, I can reach the windows and
enjoy the beauty of the landscape, which is lovely. My bed is a simple
hammock of aloes-fibre, slung in a corner; very low divans, and huge
tapestry arm-chairs, for the rest of the furniture. Hung up on the
wainscoting are pistols, guns, masks, foils, gloves, plastrons,
dumb-bells and other gymnastic equipments. My favorite horse is
installed in the opposite angle, in a box of _bois des iles_, a
precaution that secures him from the brutalizing society of grooms, and
keeps him a horse of the world.

The whole is heated by a cyclopean chimney, which devours a load of wood
at a mouthful, and before which a mastodon might be roasted.

Come, then, dear Roger, I can offer you a friendly ruin, the chapel with
the trefoil quadrilobes.

We will walk together, axe in hand, through my park, which is as dense
and impenetrable as the virgin forests of America, or the jungles of
India. It has not been touched for sixty years, and I have sworn to
break the head of the first gardener who dares to approach it with a
pruning-hook.

It is glorious to see the abandonment of Nature in this extravagance of
vegetation, this wild luxuriance of flowers and foliage; the trees
stretch out their arms, breed and intertwine in the most fantastic
manner; the branches make a hundred curiously-distorted turns, and
interlace in beautiful disorder; sometimes hanging the red berries of
the mountain-ash among the silver foliage of the aspen.

The rapid slope of the ground produces a thousand picturesque accidents;
the grass, brightened by a spring which at a little distance plays a
thousand pranks over the rocks, flourishes in rich luxuriance; the
burdock, with large velvet leaves, the stinging nettles, the hemlock
with greenish umbels; the wild oats--every weed prospers wonderfully. No
stranger approaches the enclosure, whose denizens are two or three
little deer with tawny coats gleaming through the trees.

This eminently romantic spot would harmonize with your melancholy. Mlle.
de Chateaudun not being in Paris, you have better chance of finding her
elsewhere.

Who knows if she has not taken refuge in one of these pretty
bird's-nests embedded in moss and foliage, their half-open blinds
overlooking the limpid flow of the Seine? Come quickly, my dear fellow;
I will not take advantage of your position as I did of Alfred's, to
overwhelm you from my moucharaby with a shower of green frogs, a miracle
which he has not been able to explain to his entire satisfaction. I will
show you an excellent spot to fish for white-bait; nothing calms the
passions so much as fishing with rod and line; a philosophical
recreation which fools have turned into ridicule, as they do everything
else they do not understand.

If the fish won't bite, you can gaze at the bridge, its piers blooming
with wild flowers and lavender; its noisy mills, its arches obstructed
by nets; the church, with its truncated roof; the village covering the
hill-side, and, against the horizon, the sharp line of woody hills.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN




IV.


RAYMOND DE VILLIERS _to_ M. EDGAR DE MEILHAN,
Richeport, near Pont de l'Arche (Eure).

GRENOBLE, Hotel of the Prefecture, May 22d 18--.

Do not expect me, dear Edgar, I shall not be at Richeport the 24th. When
shall I? I cannot tell.

I write to you from a bed of pain, bruised, wounded, burnt, half dead.
It served me right, you will say, on learning that I am here for the
commission of the greatest crime that can be tried before your tribunal.
It is only too true--I have saved the life of an ugly woman!

But I saved her at night, when I innocently supposed her beautiful--let
this be the extenuating circumstance. That no delay may attend your
decision, here is the whole story.

Travel from pole to pole--wander to and fro over the world, it is not
impossible, by God's help, to escape the thousand and one annoyances
that are scattered over the surface of this terraqueous globe, but it is
impossible, go where you will, to evade England, the gayest nation to be
found, especially in travelling.

At Rome, this winter, Lord K. told me seriously that he had set out from
London, some years since, with the one object of finding some corner of
the earth on which no foot had ever trod before, and there to fix the
first glorious impress of a British boot. The English occasionally, for
amusement, indulge in such notions.

After having examined a scale of the comparative heights of the
mountains of the universe, he noted the two highest points. Lord K.
first reached the Peruvian Andes, and began to climb the sides of
Chimborazo with that placidity, that sang-froid, which is the
characteristic of an elevated soul instinctively attracted to realms
above.

Reaching the summit with torn feet and bleeding hands, he was about to
fix a conqueror's grasp upon the rock, when he saw in one of the
crevices a heap of visiting-cards, placed there successively, during a
half century, by two or three hundred of his compatriots.

Disappointed but not discouraged, Lord K. drew from his case a shining,
satiny card, and having gravely added it to the many others, began to
descend Chimborazo with the same coolness and deliberation that he had
climbed up.

Half way down he found himself face to face with Sir Francis P., about
to attempt the ascent that Lord K. had just accomplished. Although
alienated by difference of party, they were old friends, dating their
acquaintance, I believe, from the University of Oxford.

Without appearing astonished at so unexpected an encounter, they bowed
politely, and on Chimborazo, as in politics, went their separate ways.

Betrayed by the New World, Lord K. directed his steps towards the Old.
He penetrated the heart of Asia, plunged into the Dobrudja region, and
paused only at the foot of Tschamalouri, upon the borders of Bootan. It
is fair that I should thus visit on you the formidable erudition
inflicted upon me by Milord.

You must know, then, dear Edgar, that the Tschamalouri is the highest
peak of the Himalayan group.

The Jungfrau, Mount Blanc, Mount Cervin, and Mount Rosa, piled one upon
the other, would make at best but a stepping-stone to it. Judge, then,
of Milord's transports in the presence of this giant, whose hoary head
was lost in the clouds! They might rob him of Chimborazo, but
Tschamalouri was his.

After a few days for repose and preparation, one fine morning at
sunrise, behold Milord commencing the ascent, with the proud
satisfaction of a lover who sees his rival dancing attendance in the
antechamber while he glides unseen up the secret stairway with a key to
the boudoir in his pocket.

He journeyed up, and on the first day had passed the region of
tempests. Passing the night in his cloak, he began again his task at the
dawn of day.

Nothing dismayed him--no obstacle discouraged him. He bounded like a
chamois from ridge to ridge, he crawled like a snake and hung like a
vine from the sharp arêtes--wounds and lacerations covered his
body--after scorching he froze. The eagles whirled about his head and
flapped their wings in his face. But on he went. His lungs, distended by
the rarified atmosphere, threatened to burst with an explosion akin to a
steamboat's. Finally, after superhuman efforts, bleeding, panting,
gasping for breath, Milord sank exhausted upon the rocks.

What a labor! but what a triumph! what a struggle! but what a conquest!
The thought of being able, the coming winter, to boast of having carved
his name where, until then, God alone had written his.

And Sir Francis! who would not fail to plume himself on the joint favors
of Chimborazo, how humiliated he would be to learn that Lord K., more
fastidious in his amours, more exalted in his ambition, had not, four
thousand fathoms above sea, feared to pluck the rose of Tschamalouri!

I remember that the first night I passed in Rome I heard in my sleep a
mysterious voice murmuring at my pillow: "Rome! Rome! thou art in Rome!"

Milord, shattered, sore and helpless, also heard a charming voice
singing sweetly in his ear: "Thou art stretched full length upon the
summit of Tschamalouri."

This melody insensibly affected him as the balm of Fier-à-Bras. He
rallied, he arose, and with radiant face, sparkling eyes and bosom
swelling with pride, drew a poniard from its sheath and prepared to cut
his name upon the rock. Suddenly he turned pale, his limbs gave way
under him, the knife dropped from his grasp and fell blunted upon the
rocks. What had he seen? What could have happened to so agitate him in
these inaccessible regions?

There, upon the tablet of granite where he was about to inscribe the
name of his ancestors, he read, unhappy man, distinctly read, these two
names distinctly cut in the flint, "William and Lavinia," with the
following inscription, in English, underneath: "Here, July 25th, 1831,
two tender hearts communed."

Surmounting the whole was a flaming double heart pierced by an arrow, an
arrow that then pierced three hearts at once. The rock was covered
besides with more than fifty names, all English, and as many
inscriptions, all English too, of a kindred character to the one he had
read. Milord's first impulse was to throw himself head foremost down the
mountain side; but, fortunately, raising his eyes in his despair, he
discovered a final plateau, so steep that neither cat nor lizard could
climb it. Lord K. became a bird and flew up, and what did he see? Oh,
the vanity of human ambition! Upon the last round of the most gigantic
ladder, extending from earth to heaven, Milord perceived Sir Francis,
who, having just effected the same ascent from the other side of the
colossus, was quietly reading the "Times" and breakfasting upon a chop
and a bottle of porter!

The two friends coolly saluted each other, as they had before done on
the side of Chimborazo; then, with death in his heart, but impassive and
grave, Lord K. silently drew forth a box of conserves, a flask of ale
and a copy of the "Standard." The repast and the two journals being
finished, the tourists separated and descended, each on his own side,
without having exchanged a word.

Lord K. has never forgiven Sir Francis; they accuse each other of
plagiarism, a mortal hatred has sprung up between them, and thus
Tschamalouri finished what politics began.

I had this story from Lord K. himself, who drags out a disenchanted and
gloomy existence, which would put an end to itself had he not in present
contemplation a journey to the moon; still he is half convinced that he
would find Sir Francis there.

Entertain your mother with this story, it would be improved by your
narration.

You must agree with me that if the English grow four thousand fathoms
above the sea, the plant must necessarily thrive on the plains and the
low countries. It is acclimated everywhere, like the strawberry, without
possessing its sweet savor.

Italy is, I believe, the land where it best flourishes. There I have
traversed fields of English, sown everywhere, mixed with a few Italians.

But I would have been happy if I had encountered only Englishmen along
my route. Some poet has said that England is a swan's nest in the midst
of the waves. Alas! how few are the swans that come to us at long
intervals, compared with the old ostriches in bristling plumage, and the
young storks with their long, thin necks that flock to us.

When in Rome only a few hours, and wandering through the Campo Vaccino,
I found among the ruins one I did not seek. It was Lady Penock. I had
met her so often that I could not fail to know her name. Edgar, you know
Lady Penock; it is impossible that you should not. But if not, it is
easy for you to picture her to yourself. Take a keepsake, pick out one
of those faces more beautiful than the fairies of our dreams, so lovely
that it might be doubted whether the painter found his model among the
daughters of earth. Passionate lover of form, feast your eye upon the
graceful curve of that neck, those shoulders; gaze upon that pure brow
where grace and youth preside; bathe your soul in the soft brightness of
that blue and limpid glance; bend to taste the perfumed breath of that
smiling mouth; tremble at the touch of those blonde tresses, twined in
bewildering mazes behind the head and falling over the temples in waving
masses; fervent worshipper at the shrine of beauty, fall into ecstasies;
then imagine the opposite of this charming picture, and you have Lady
Penock.

This apparition, in the centre of the ancient forum, completely upset my
meditations. J.J. Rousseau says in his Confessions that he forgot Mme.
de Larnage in seeing the Pont du Gard. So I forgot the Coliseum at the
sight of Lady Penock. Explain, dear Edgar, what fatality attended my
steps, that ever afterwards this baleful beauty pursued me?

Under the arches of the Coliseum, beneath the dome of St. Peter, in
Pagan Rome and in Catholic Rome, in front of the Laocöon, before the
Communion of St. Jerome, by Dominichino, on the banks of Lake Albano,
under the shades of the Villa Borghese, at Tivoli in the Sibyl's temple,
at Subiaco in the Convent of St. Benoit, under every moon and by every
sun I saw her start up at my side. To get away from her I took flight
and travelled post to Tuscany. I found her at the foot of the falls of
Terni, at the tomb of St. Francis d'Assise, under Hannibal's gate at
Spoletta, at the table d'hote Perouse at Arezzo, on the threshold of
Petrarch's house; finally, the first person I met in the Piazza of the
Grand Duke at Florence, before the Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, Edgar,
was Lady Penock. At Pisa she appeared to me in the Campo Santo; in the
Gulf of Genoa her bark came near capsizing mine; at Turin I found her at
the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities; her and no one else! And, what was
so amusing, my Lady on seeing me became agitated, blushed and looked
down, and believing herself the object of an ungovernable passion, she
mumbled through her long teeth, "Shocking! Shocking!"

Tired of war, I bade adieu to Italy and crossed the mountains; besides,
dear country, I sighed to see you once more. I passed through Savoy and
when I saw the mountains of Dauphiny loom up against the distant horizon
my heart beat wildly, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt like a
returning exile, and know not what false pride restrained me from
springing to the ground and kissing the soil of France!

Hail! noble and generous land, the home of intelligence and of liberty!
On touching thee the soul swells within us, the mind expands; no child
of thine can return to thy bosom without a throb of holy joy, a feeling
of noble pride. I passed along filled with delirious happiness. The
trees smiled on me, the winds whispered softly in my ear, the little
flowers that carpeted the wayside welcomed me; it required an effort to
restrain myself from embracing as brothers the noble fellows that passed
me on the way.

Then, Edgar, I was to find you again, and it was the spot of my
birthplace, the paternal acres which in our common land seem to us a
second country.

The night was dark, no moon, no stars; I had just left Grenoble and was
passing through Voreppe, a little village not without some importance
because in the neighborhood of the Grande Chartreuse, which, at this
season of the year, attracts more curiosity-hunters than
believers--suddenly the horses stopped, I heard a rumbling noise
outside, and a crimson glare lighted up the carriage windows. I might
have taken it for sunset, if the sun had not set long since.

I got out and found the only inn of the village on fire; great was the
confusion in the small hamlet, there was a general screaming, struggling
and running about. The innkeeper with his wife, children, and servants
emptied the stables and barns. The horses neighed, the oxen bellowed,
and the pigs, feeling that they were predestined to be roasted anyhow,
offered to their rescuers an obstinate and philosophical resistance.

Meantime the notables of the place, formed in groups, discussed
magisterially the origin of a fire which no one made an effort to stay.
Left alone, it brightened the night, fired the surrounding hills and
shot its jets and rockets of sparks far into the sky. You, a poet, would
have thought it fine. Sublime egotist that you are, everything is
effect, color, mirages, decorations. Endeavoring to make myself useful
in this disaster, I thought I heard it whispered around me that some
travellers remained in the inn, who, if not already destroyed, were
seriously threatened.

Among others a young stranger was mentioned who had come that day from
the Grande Chartreuse, which she had been visiting. I went straight to
the innkeeper who was dragging one of his restive pigs by the tail,
reminding me of one of the most ridiculous pictures of Charlet. "All
right," said the man, "all the travellers are gone, and as to those who
remain--" "Then some do remain?" I asked, and by insisting learned that
an Englishwoman occupied a room in the second story.

I hate England--I hate it absurdly, in true, old-fashioned style. To me
England is still "Perfidious Albion."

You may laugh, but I hate in proportion to the love I bear my country. I
hate because my heart has always bled for the wounds she has opened in
the bosom of France. Yes, but coward is he who has the ability to save a
fellow-creature, yet folds his arms, deaf to pity! My enemy in the jaws
of death is my brother. If need be I would jump into the flood to save
Sir Hudson Lowe, free to challenge him afterwards, and try to kill him
as I would a dog.

The ground-floor of the inn was enveloped in flames. I took a ladder,
and resting it against the sill, I mounted to the window that had been
pointed out to me. On the hospitable soil of France a stranger must not
perish for want of a Frenchman to save him. Like Anthony, with one blow
I broke the glass and raised the sash; I found myself in a passage that
the fire had not reached. I sprang towards a door.--an excited voice
said, "Don't come in." I entered, looked around for the young stranger,
and, immortal gods! what did I see? In the charming négligé of a beauty
suddenly awakened,--you are right, it was she. Yes, my dear fellow, it
was Lady Penock--Lady Penock, who recognised and screamed furiously!
"Madame," said I, turning away with a sincere and proper feeling of
respect, "you are mistaken. The house is on fire, and if you do not
leave it"--"You! you!" she cried, "have set fire to it, like Lovelace,
to carry me off." "Madame," said I, "we have no time to lose." The floor
smoked under our feet, the rafters cracked over our heads, the flames
roared at the door, delay was dangerous; so, in spite of the eternal
refrain that sounded like the crying of a bird,--"Shocking! shocking!" I
dragged Lady Penock from behind the bed where she cowered to escape my
wild embraces, picked her up as if she were a stick of dry wood, and
bearing the precious burden, appeared at the top of the ladder.
Meanwhile the fire raged, the flames and the smoke enveloped us on all
sides. "For pity's sake, madame," said I, "don't scream and kick so." My
lady screamed all the louder and struggled all the worse. When half way
down the ladder she said, "Young man, go back immediately, I have
forgotten something very valuable to me." At these words the roof fell
in, the walls crumbled away, the ladder shook, the earth opened under my
feet, and I felt as if I were falling into the abyss of Taenarus.

I awoke, under an humble roof whose poor owner had received me.

I had a fracture of my shoulder, and three doctors by my side. I have
known many men to die with less. As for Lady Penock, I learned with
satisfaction of her escape, barring a sprained ankle; she had departed
indignant at the impertinence of my conduct, and to the people who had
charitably suggested to her to instal herself as a gray nun at the
bedside of her preserver, she said, coloring angrily, "Oh, I should die
if I were to see that young man again."

Be reassured, France has again atoned for Albion. My adventure having
made some noise, a few days after the fire Providence came into my room
and sat beside my bed in the shape of a noble woman named Madame de
Braimes.

It appears that M. de Braimes has been, for a year past, prefect of
Grenoble; that he knew my father intimately, and my name sufficed to
bring these two noble beings to my side.

As soon as I could bear the motion of a carriage, they took me from
Voreppe, and I am now writing to you, my dear Edgar, from the hotel of
the Prefecture.

I received in Florence the last letter you directed to me at Rome. What
a number of questions you ask, and how am I to answer them all?

Don't speak to me of Jerusalem, Cedron, Lebanon, Palmyra and Baalbec, or
anything of the sort. Read over again Réné's Guide-book, Jocelyn's
Travels, the Orientales of Olympio, and you will know as much about the
East as I do, though I have been there, according to your account, for
the last two years. However, I have performed all the commissions you
gave me, on the eve of my departure, three years ago. I bring you pipes
from Constantinople, to your mother chaplets from Bethlehem--only I
bought the pipes at Leghorn, and the chaplets at Rome.

Do you remember a cold, rainy December evening in Paris, eighteen months
ago, when I should have been on the borders of Afghanistan, or the
shores of the Euphrates, you were walking along the quays, between
eleven o'clock and midnight, walking rapidly, wrapped like a Castilian
in the folds of your cloak?

Do you remember that between the Pont Neuf and the Pont Saint Michel you
stumbled against a young man, enveloped likewise in a cloak, and
following rapidly the course of the Seine in a direction opposite to
yours? The shock was violent, and nailed us both to the spot. Do you
remember that having scrutinized each other under the gaslight, you
exclaimed, "Raymond," and opened your arms to embrace me; then, seeing
the cold and reserved attitude of him who stood silently before you, how
you changed your mind and went your way, laughing at the mistake but
struck by the resemblance?

The resemblance still exists; the young man that you called Raymond, was
Raymond.

One more story, and I have done. I will tell it without pride or
pretence, a thing so natural, so simple, that it is neither worth
boasting of nor concealing.

You know Frederick B. You remember that I have always spoken of him as a
brother. We played together in the same cradle; we grew up, as it were,
under the same roof. At school I prepared his lessons: out of gratitude
he ate my sugar-plums. At college I performed his tasks and fought his
battles. At twenty, I received a sword-thrust in my breast on his
account. Later he plunged into matrimony and business, and we lost sight
of, without ceasing to love each other. I knew that he prospered, and I
asked nothing more. As for myself, tired of the sterile life I was
leading, called fashionable life, I turned my fortune into ready money,
and prepared to set out on a long journey.

The day of my departure--I had bidden you good-bye the evening
before--Frederick entered my room. A year had nearly passed since we
had met; I did not know that he was in Paris. I found him changed; his
preoccupied air alarmed me. However, I concealed my anxiety. We cannot
treat with too much reserve and delicacy the sadness of our married
friends. As he talked, two big tears rolled silently down his cheeks. I
had to speak.

"What is the matter?" I asked abruptly; and I pressed him with
questions, tormented him until he told me all. Bankruptcy was at his
door; and he spoke of his wife and children in such heart-rending terms,
that I mingled my tears with his, thinking of course that I was not rich
enough to give him the money he needed.

"My poor Frederic," I finally said, "is it such a very large amount?" He
replied with a gesture of despair. "Come, how much?" I asked again.

"Five hundred thousand francs!" he cried, in a gloomy stupor. I arose,
took him by the arm, and under the pretext of diverting him, drew him on
the boulevards. I left him at the door of my notary and joined him on
coming out. "Frederick," I said, giving him a line I had just written,
"take that and hasten to embrace your wife and children." Then I jumped
into a cab which carried me home; my journey was over. I returned from
Jerusalem.

Dupe! I hear you say, Ah, no, Edgar! I am young and I understand men,
but there dwell in them both the good and the beautiful, and to expect
to derive any other satisfaction than that found in cultivating these
qualities has always seemed to me to be an unreasonable expectation.

What! you, as a poet, enjoy the intoxication of inspiration, the feast
of solitude, the silence of serene and starry nights and that does not
satisfy you; you would have fortune hasten to the sound of the Muses'
kisses.

What! as a generous man, you can enjoy the delights of giving and only
sow a field of benefits in the hope of reaping some day the golden
harvest of gratitude!

Of what do you complain? wretched man! You are the ingrate. Besides,
even with this view, be convinced, dear Edgar, that the good and the
beautiful are still two of the best speculations that can be made here
below, and nothing in the world succeeds better than fine verses and
noble deeds. Only wicked hearts and bad poets dare to affirm the
contrary. For myself, experience has taught me that self-abnegation is
profit enough to him who exercises it, and disinterestedness is a
blossom of luxury that well cultivated bears most savory fruit. I
encountered fortune in turning my back on her. I owe to Lady Penock the
touching care and precious friendship of Madame de Braimes, and if this
system of remuneration continue I shall end by believing that in
throwing myself into the gulf of Curtius I would fall upon a bed of
roses.

The fact is, I was ruined, but whoever could have seen me at the moment
would have said I was overcome with delight. I must tell you all, Edgar;
I pictured to myself the transports of Frederick and his wife on seeing
the abyss that was about to engulf them so easily closed; these sweet
images alone did not cause my wild delight; would you believe it, the
thought of my ruin and poverty intoxicated me more. I had suffered for a
long time from an unoccupied youth, and was indignant at my uneventful
life. At twenty I quietly assumed a position prepared for me; to play
this part in the world I had taken the trouble to be born; to gather the
fruits of life I had only to stretch out my hand. Irritated at the
quietude of my days, wearied with a happiness that cost me nothing, I
sought heroic struggles, chivalrous encounters, and not finding them in
a well-regulated society, where strong interests have been substituted
for strong passions, I fretted in secret and wept over my impotence.

But now my hour was come! I was about to put my will, strength and
courage to the proof. I was about to wrest from study the secrets of
talent. I was about to reclaim from labor the fortune I had given away,
and which I owed to chance. Until that deed I had only been the son of
my father, the heir of my ancestors; now I was to become the child of my
own deeds. The prisoner who sees his chains fall off and sends to
heaven a wild shout of liberty, does not feel a deeper joy than I felt
when ready to struggle with destiny I could exclaim, "I am poor!"

I have seen everywhere _blasé_ young men, old before their time, who,
according to their own account, have known and exhausted every pleasure;
have felt the nothingness of human things. 'Tis true these young
unfortunates have tried everything but labor and devotion to some holy
cause.

There remained of my patrimony fifteen thousand francs, which were laid
aside to defray my travelling expenses. This, with a very moderate
revenue accruing from two little farms, contiguous to the castle of my
father, made up my possessions.

Putting the best face on things, supposing I might recover my fortune,
an event so uncertain that it were best not to count on it, I wisely
traced the line of duty with a firm hand and joyous heart.

I decided immediately that I would not undeceive my friends as to my
departure, and that I would employ, in silence and seclusion, the time I
was supposed to be spending abroad.

Not that it did not occur to me to proclaim boldly what I had done, for
in a country where a dozen wretches are every year publicly beheaded for
the sake of example, perhaps it would be well also, for example's sake,
to do good publicly. To do this, however, would have been to compromise
Frederick's credit, who, besides, would never have accepted my sacrifice
if he could have measured its extent.

I could have retired to my estates; but felt no inclination to make an
exposure of my poverty to the comments of a charitable province; nor had
I taste for the life of a ruined country squire.

Besides, solitude was essential to my plans, and solitude is impossible
out of Paris; one is never really lost save in a crowd. I soon found in
the Masario a little room very near the clouds, but brightened by the
rising sun, overlooking a sea of verdure marked here and there by a few
northern pines, with their gloomy and motionless branches.

This nest pleased me. I furnished it simply, filled it with books and
hung over my bed the portrait of my sainted mother, who seemed to smile
on and encourage me, while you, Frederick and others believed me
steaming towards the shores of the East; and here I quietly installed
myself, prouder and more triumphant than a soldier of fortune taking
possession of a kingdom.

Edgar, these two years I really lived--. In that little room I spent
what will remain, I very much fear, the purest, the brightest, the best
period of my whole life. I am not of much account now, formerly I was
nothing; the little good that is in me was developed in those two years
of deep vigils. I thought, reflected, suffered and nourished myself with
the bread of the strong. I initiated myself into the stern delights of
study, the austere joys of poverty.

O! days of labor and privation, beautiful days! Where have you gone?
Holy enchantments, shall I ever taste you again? Silent and meditative
nights! when at the first glimmer of dawn I saw the angel of revery
alight at my side, bend his beautiful face over me, and fold my wearied
limbs in his white wings; blissful nights! will you ever return?

If you only knew the life I led through these two years! If you knew
what dreams visited me in that humble nest by the dim light of the lamp,
you would be jealous of them, my poet!

The days were passed in serious study. At evening I took my frugal
repast, in winter, by the hearth, in summer by the open window. In
December I had guests that kings might have envied. Hugo, George Sand,
Lamartine, De Musset, yourself, dear Edgar. In April I had the soft
breezes, the perfume of the lilacs, the song of the birds warbling among
the branches, and the joyous cries of the children playing in the
distant alleys, while the young mothers passed slowly through the fresh
grass, their faces wreathed with sweet smiles, like the happy shadows
that wander through the Elysian fields.

Sometimes on a dark night I would venture into the streets of Paris, my
hat drawn over my eyes to keep out the glare of gas. On one of these
solitary rambles I met you. Imagine the courage I required not to rush
into your open arms. I returned frequently along the quays, listening to
the confused roar, like the distant swell of the ocean, made by the
great city before falling to sleep, listening to the murmurs of the
river and gazing at the moon like a burning disk from the furnace,
slowly rising behind the towers of Notre Dame.

Often I prowled under the windows of my friends, stopping at yours to
send you a good-night.

Returning home I would rekindle my fire and begin anew my labors,
interrupted from time to time by the bells of the neighboring convents
and the sound of the hours striking sadly in the darkness.


O! nights more beautiful than the day. It was then that I felt germinate
and flourish in my heart a strange love.

Opposite me, beyond the garden that separated us, was a window, in a
story on a level with mine; it was hid during the day by the tall pines,
but its light shone clear and bright through the foliage. This lamp was
lit invariably at the same hour every evening and was rarely
extinguished before dawn. There, I thought, one of God's poor creatures
works and suffers. Sometimes I rose from my desk to look at this little
star twinkling between heaven and earth, and with my brow pressed
against the pane gazed sadly at it.

In the beginning it excited me to watch, and I made it a point of honor
never to extinguish my lamp as long as the rival lamp was burning; at
last it became the friend of my solitude, the companion of my destiny. I
ended by giving it a soul to understand and answer me. I talked to it; I
questioned. I sometimes said, "Who art thou?"

Now I imagined a pale youth enamored with glory, and called him my
brother. Then it was a young and lovely Antigone, laboring to sustain
her old father, and I called her my sister, and by a sweeter name too.
Finally, shall I tell you, there were moments when I fancied that the
light of our fraternal lamps was but the radiance of two mysterious
sympathies, drawn together to be blended into one.

One must have passed two years in solitude to be able to comprehend
these puerilities. How many prisoners have become attached to some
wall-flower, blooming between the bars of their cell, like the Marvel of
Peru of the garden, which closes to the beams of day to open its petals
to the kisses of the evening; the flower that I loved was a star.
Anxiously I watched its awakening, and could not repose until it had
disappeared. Did it grow dim and flicker, I cried--"Courage and hope!
God blesses labor, he keeps for thee a purer and brighter seat in
heaven!"

Did I in turn feel sad, it threw out a brighter light and a voice said,
"Hope, friend, I watch and suffer with thee!" No! I cannot but believe
now that between that lamp and mine there passed an electric current, by
which two hearts, created for each other, communicated with and
understood their mutual pulsations. Of course I tried to find the house
and room from whence shone my beloved light, but each day I received a
new direction that contradicted the one they gave before; so I concluded
that the occupant of this room had an object, like myself, in
concealment, and I respected his secret.

Thus my life glided by--so much happiness lasted too short a time!

The gods and goddesses of Olympus had a messenger named Iris, who
carried their billets-doux from star to star. We mortals have a fairy in
our employ that leaves Iris far behind; this fairy is called the post;
dwell upon the summit of Tschamalouri, and some fine morning you will
see the carrier arrive with his box upon his shoulder, and a letter to
your address. One evening, on returning from one of those excursions I
told you of, I found at my porter's a letter addressed to me. I never
receive letters without a feeling of terror. This, the only one in two
years, had a formidable look; the envelope was covered with odd-looking
signs, and the seal of every French consulate in the East; under this
multitude of stamps was written in large characters--"In haste--very
important." The square of paper I held in my hand had been in search of
me from Paris to Jerusalem, and from consulate to consulate, had
returned from Jerusalem to Paris, to the office of the Minister of
Foreign Affairs. There they had let loose some blood-hounds of the
police, who with their usual instinct followed my tracks and discovered
my abode in less than a day.

I glanced first at the signature, and saw Frederick's name; I vow,
unaffectedly, that for two years I had not thought of his affairs, and
his letter brought me the first news of him.

After a preamble, devoted entirely to the expression of an exaggerated
gratitude, Frederick announced with a flourish of trumpets, that Fortune
had made magnificent reparation for her wrongs to him; he had saved his
honor and strengthened his tottering credit. From which time forward he
had prospered beyond his wildest hopes. In a few months he gained, by a
rise in railroad stocks, fabulous sums. He concluded with the
information that, having interested me in his fortunate speculations, my
capital was doubled, and that I now possessed a clear million, which I
owed to no one. At the end of this letter, bristling with figures and
terms that savoured of money, were a few simple, touching lines from
Frederick's wife, which went straight to my heart, and brought tears to
my eyes.

When I had read the letter through, I took a long survey of my little
room, where I had lived so happily; then, sitting upon the sill of the
open window, whence I could see my faithful star shine peacefully in the
darkness, I remained until morning, absorbed in sad and melancholy
thoughts.

Fortune has its duties as well as poverty. _Comme noblesse, fortune
exige_.

If I were really so rich, I could not, ought not to live as I had done.
After a few days, I went to Frederick, who believed that I had suddenly
been brought from Jerusalem by his letter, and I allowed him to rest in
that belief, not wishing to add to a gratitude that already seemed
excessive.

Excuse the particulars, I was a veritable millionaire; I call Heaven to
witness that my first impulse was to go in search of my beloved beacon,
to relieve, if possible, the unfortunate one to whom it gave light.

But then I thought so industrious a being was certainly proud, and I
paused, fearing to offend a noble spirit.

One month later, a night in May, I saw extinguished one by one, the
thousand lights of the neighboring houses. Two single lamps burned in
the gloom; they were the two old friends. For some time I stood gazing
at the bright ray shining through the foliage, and when I felt upon my
brow the first chill of the morning breeze, I cried in my saddened
heart,

"Farewell! farewell, little star, benign ray, beloved companion of my
solitude! At this hour to-morrow, my eyes will seek but find thee not.
And thou, whosoever thou art, working and suffering by that pale gleam,
adieu, my sister! adieu, my brother! pursue thy destiny, watch and pray;
may God shorten the time of thy probation."

I bade also to my little room, not an eternal farewell, for I have kept
it since, and will keep it all my life. I do not wish that while I live
strangers shall scare away such a covey of beautiful dreams as I left in
that humble nest.

To see it again is one of the liveliest pleasures that my return to
Paris offers. I shall find everything in the same order as when I left;
but will the little star shine from the same corner of the heavens?

Thanks to Frederick's care my affairs were in order, and I set out
immediately for Rome, because when one is expected from the end of the
world one must at least return from somewhere.

Such is, dear Edgar, the history of my journeys and my love affairs.
Keep them sacred. We are all so worthless, that, when one of us does
some good by chance, he should remain silent for fear of humiliating his
neighbor.

My health once established, I shall go to my mountains of Creuse and
then come to you. Do not expect me until July; at that time Don Quixote
will make his appearance under the apple trees of Richeport, provided,
however, he is not caught up on this route by Lady Penock or some
windmill.

RAYMOND DE VILLIERS.




V.


ROGER DE MONBERT _to_ MONSIEUR DE MEILHAN,
Richeport,
Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure).

PARIS, 24th May, 18--,

Your letter did me good, my dear Edgar, because it came unexpected, from
the domain of epistolary consolation. From any friend but you I would
have received a sympathizing re-echo of my own accents of despair. From
you I looked for a tranquillizing sedative, and you surprise me with a
reanimating restorative.

Your charming philosophy has indeed invented for mortals a remedy
unknown to the four faculties.

Thanks to you, I breathe freely this morning. 'Tis necessary for us to
take breath during ardent crises of despair. A deep breath brings back
the power of resignation to our hearts. Yet I am not duped by your too
skilful friendship. I clearly perceive the interest you take in my
situation in spite of your artistically labored adroitness to conceal
it. This knowledge induces me to write you the second chapter of my
history, quite sure that you will read it with a serious brow and answer
it with a smiling pen.

Young people of your disposition, either from deep calculation or by
happy instinct, substitute caprice for passion; they amuse themselves by
walking by the side of love, but never meet it face to face. For them
women exist, but never one woman. This system with them succeeds for a
season, sometimes it lasts for ever. I have known some old men who made
this scheme the glory of their lives, and who kept it up from mere force
of habit till their heads were white.

You, my dear Edgar, will not have the benefit of final impenitence. At
present the ardor of your soul is tempered by the suave indolence of
your disposition.

Love is the most merciless and wearisome of all labors, and you are far
too lazy to toil at it. When you suddenly look into the secret depths
of your _self_, you will be frightened by discovering the germ of a
serious passion; then you will try to escape on the wings of fancy to
the realms of easy and careless pleasure. The fact of my having
penetrated, unknown to you, this secret recess of your soul, makes me
venture to confide my sorrows to you; continue to laugh at them, your
railing will be understood, while friendship will ignore the borrowed
mask and trust in the faithful face beneath.

Paris is still a desert. The largest and most populous city becomes
obscure and insignificant at your feet when you view it from the heights
of an all-absorbing passion. I feel as isolated as if I were on the
South Sea or on the sands of Sahara. Happily our bodies assume
mechanical habits that act instead of the will. Without this precious
faculty of matter my isolation would lead me to a dreamy and stupid
immobility. Thus, in the eyes of strangers, my life is always the same.
They see no change in my manners and appearance; I keep up my
acquaintances and pleasures and seek the society of my friends. I have
not the heart to join a conversation, but leave it to be carried on by
others. My fixed attention and absorbed manner of listening convey the
idea that I am deeply interested in what is being said, and he who
undertakes to relate anything to me is so satisfied with my style of
listening that he prolongs to infinity his monologue. Then my thoughts
take flight and travel around the world; to the seas, archipelagoes,
continents and deserts I have visited. These are the only moments of
relief that I enjoy, for I have the modesty to refrain from thinking of
my love in the presence of others. I still possess enough innocence of
heart to believe that the four letters of this sweetest of all words
would be stamped on my brow in characters of fire, thus betraying a
secret that indifference responds to with pitying smiles or heartless
jeers.

The thousand memories sown here and there in my peregrinations pass so
vividly before me, that, standing in the bright sunlight, with eyes
open, I dream over again those visions of my sleepless nights in foreign
lands.

Thought, ever-rebellious thought, which the most imperious will can
neither check nor guide, begins to wander over the world, thus kindly
granting a truce to the torments of my passions; then it works to suit
my wishes, a complaisance it never shows me when I am alone. I am
indebted for this relief to the officious and loquacious intervention of
the first idler I meet, one whose name I scarcely know, although he
calls me his friend. I always gaze with a feeling of compassionate
benevolence upon the retreating steps of this unfortunate gossip, who
leaves with the idea of having diverted me by his monologue to which my
eyes alone have listened. As a general thing, people whom you meet have
started out with one dominant idea or engrossing subject, and they
imagine that the universe is disposed to attach the same importance to
the matter that they themselves do. These expectations are often
gratified, for the streets are filled by hungry listeners who wander
around with ears outstretched, eager to share any and everybody's
secrets.

A serious passion reveals to us a world within a world. Thus far, all
that I have seen and heard seems to be full of error; men and things
assume aspects under which I fail to recognise them. It seems as though
I had yesterday been born a second time, and that my first life has left
me nothing but confused recollections, and in this chaos of the past, I
vainly seek for a single rule of conduct for the present. I have dipped
into books written on the passions; I have read every sentence,
aphorism, drama, tragedy and romance written by the sages; I have sought
among the heroes of history and of the stage for the human expression of
a sentiment to which my own experience might respond, and which would
serve me as a guide or consolation.

I am, as it were, in a desert island where nothing betrays the passage
of man, and I am compelled to dwell there without being able to trace
the footsteps of those who have gone before. Yesterday I was present at
the representation of the _Misanthrope_. I said to myself, here is a man
in love; his character is drawn by a master hand, they say; he listens
to sonnets, hums a little song, disputes with a bad author, discourses
at length with his rivals, sustains a philosophical disputation with a
friend, is churlish to the woman he loves, and finally is consoled by
saying he will hide himself from the eyes of the world.

I would erect, at my own expense, a monument to Molière if Alceste would
make my love take this form.

I have never seen an inventory of the torments of love--some of them
have the most vulgar and some the most innocent names in the world. Some
poet make his love-sick hero say:--

  "Un jour, Dieu, par pitié, délivra les enfers
  Des tourments que pour vous, madame, j'ai soufferts!"

I thought the poet intended to develop his idea, but unfortunately the
tirade here ends. 'Tis always very vague, cloudy poetry that describes
unknown torments; it seems to be a popular style, however, for all the
poetry of the present day is confined to misty complaints in cloudy
language. No moralist is specific in his sorrows. All lovers cry out in
chorus that they suffer horribly. Each suffering deserves an analysis
and a name. By way of example, my dear Edgar, I will describe one
torment that I am sure you have never known or even heard of, happy
mortal that you are!

The headquarters of this torment is at the office of the Poste-Restante,
on Jean-Jacques-Rousseau street. The lovers in _la Nouvelle Héloise_
never mentioned this place of torture, although they wrote so many
love-letters.

I have opened a correspondence with three of my servants--this
torture, however, is not the one to which I allude. These three men, at
this present moment, are sojourning in the three neighboring towns in
which Mlle. de Chateaudun has acquaintances, relations or friends. One
of these towns is Fontainebleau, where she first went when she left
Paris. I have charged them to be very circumspect in obtaining all the
information they can concerning her movements. Her mysterious retreat
must be in one of these three localities, so I watch them all. I told
them to direct all my letters to the Poste-Restante.

My porter, with the cunning sagacity of his profession, imagines he has
discovered some scandalous romance, because he brings me every day a
letter in the handwriting of my valet. You may imagine the complication
of my torment. I am afraid of my porter, therefore I go myself to the
post-office, that receptacle of all the secrets of Paris.

Usually the waiting-room is full of wretched men, each an epistolary
Tantalus, who, with eyes fixed on the wooden grating, implore the clerk
for a post-marked deception. 'Tis a sad spectacle, and I am sure that
there is a post-office in purgatory, where tortured souls go to inquire
if their deliverance has been signed in heaven.

The clerks in the post-office never seem to be aware of the impatient
murmurs around them. What administrative calmness beams on the fresh
faces of these distributors of consolation and of despair! In the agony
of waiting, minutes lose their mathematical value, and the hands of the
clock become motionless on the dial like impaled serpents. The
operations of the office proceed with a slowness that seems like a
miniature eternity. This anxious crowd stand in single file, forming a
living chain of eager notes of interrogation, and, as fate always
reserves the last link for me, I have to witness the filing-off of these
troubled souls. This office brings men close together, and obliterates
all social distinctions; in default of letters one always receives
lessons of equality gratis.

Here you see handsome young men whose dishevelled locks and pale faces
bear traces of sleepless nights--the Damocles of the Bourse, who feels
the sword of bankruptcy hanging over his head--forsaken sweethearts,
whose hopes wander with beating drums upon African shores--timid women
veiled in black, weeping and mourning for the dead, so as to smile more
effectively upon the living.

If each person were to call out the secret of his letter, the clerks
themselves would veil their faces and forget the postal alphabet. A
painful silence reigns over this scene of anxious waiting; at long
intervals a hoarse voice calls out his Christian name, and woe to its
owner if his ancestors have not bequeathed him a short or easily
pronounced one.

The other day I was present at a strange scene caused by the association
of seven syllables. An unhappy-looking wretch went up to the railing and
gave out his name--_Sidoine Tarboriech_--these two words inflicted on us
the following dialogue:--"Is it all one name?" asked the clerk, without
deigning to glance at the unfortunate owner of these syllables. "Two
names," said the man, timidly, as if he were fully aware of the disgrace
inflicted upon him at the baptismal font. "Did you say _Antoine_?" said
the clerk. "Sidoine, Monsieur." "Is it your Christian name?" "'Tis the
name of my godfather, Saint Sidoine, 23 of August." "Ah! there is a
Saint Sidoine, is there? Well, Sidoine ... Sidoine--what else?"
"Tarboriech." "Are you a German?" "From Toulon, opposite the Arsenal."

During this dialogue the rest of the unfortunates broke their chain with
convulsive impatience, and made the floor tremble under the nervous
stamping of their feet. The clerk calmly turned over with his
methodically bent finger, a large bundle of letters, and would
occasionally pause when the postal hieroglyphics effaced an address
under a total eclipse of crests, seals and numbers recklessly heaped on;
for the clerk who posts and endorses the letters takes great pains to
cover the address with a cloud of ink, this little peculiarity all
postmen delight in. But to return to our dialogue: "Excuse me, sir,"
said the clerk, "did you say your name is spelt with _Dar_ or _Tar_?"
"_Tar_, sir, _Tar!_ "--"With a _D?_"--"No, sir, with a _T.,
Tarboriech!_" "We have nothing for you, sir." "Oh, sir, impossible!
there certainly _must_ be a letter for me." "There is no letter, sir;
nothing commencing with T." "Did you look for my Christian name,
Sidoine?" "But, sir, we don't arrange the mail according to Christian
names." "But you know, sir, I am a younger son, and at home I am called
Sidoine."

This interesting dialogue was now drowned by the angry complaining of
some young men, who in a state of exasperation stamped up and down the
room jerking out an epigrammatic psalm of lamentations. I'll give you a
few verses of it: "Heavens! some names ought to be suppressed! This is
getting to be intolerable, when a man has the misfortune to be named
_Extasboriech_, he ought _not_ to have his letters sent to the
_Poste_-Restante! If I were afflicted with such a name, I would have the
Keeper of the Seals to change it."

The imperturbable clerk smiled blandly through his little barred window,
and said, "Gentlemen, we must do our duty scrupulously, I only do for
this gentleman what each of you would wish done for yourself under
similar circumstances."

"Oh, of course!" cried out one young man, who was wildly buttoning and
unbuttoning his coat as if he wanted to fight the subject through; "but
we are not cursed with names so abominable as this man's!"

"Gentlemen," said the clerk, "no offensive personalities, I beg." Then
turning to the miserable culprit, he continued: "Can you tell me, sir,
from what place you expect a letter?" "From Lavalette, monsieur, in the
province of Var." "Very good; and you think that perhaps your Christian
name only is on the address--Sidoine?"

"My cousin always calls me Sidoine."

"His cousin is right," said a sulky voice in the corner.

This, my dear Edgar, is a sample of the non-classified tortures that I
suffer every morning in this den of expiation, before I, the last one of
all, can reach the clerk's sanctuary; once there I assume a careless air
and gay tone of voice as I negligently call out my name. No doubt you
think this a very simple, easy thing to do, but first listen a moment: I
felt the "Star" gradually sinking under me near the Malouine Islands,
the sixty-eighth degree of latitude kept me a prisoner in its sea of ice
at the South Pole; I passed two consecutive days and nights on board the
_Esmerelda_, between fire and inundation; and if I were to extract the
quintessence of the agonies experienced upon these three occasions it
could never equal the intense torture I suffer at the Poste-Restante.
Three seals broken, three letters opened, three overwhelming
disappointments! Nothing! nothing! nothing! Oh miserable synonym of
despair! Oh cruel type of death! Why do you appear before me each day
as if to warn my foolish heart that all hope is dead! Then how dreary
and empty to me is this cold, unfeeling world we move in! I feel
oppressed by the weight of my sorrowful yearning that hourly grows more
unbearable and more hopeless; my lungs seem filled with leaden air, and
all the blood in my heart stands still. In thinking of the time that
must be dragged through till this same hour to-morrow, I feel neither
the strength nor courage to endure it with its intolerable succession of
eternal minutes. How can I bridge over this gulf of twenty-four hours
that divides to-day from to-morrow? How false are all the ancient and
modern allegories, invented to afflict man with the knowledge that his
days are rapidly passing away! How foolish is that wisdom that mourns
over our fugitive years as being nothing but a few short minutes! I
would give all my fortune to be able to write the _Hora Fugit_ of the
poet, and offer for the first time to man these two words as an axiom of
immutable truth.

There is nothing absolutely true in all the writings of the sages.
Figures even, in their inexorable and systematic order, have their
errors just as often as do words and apothems. An hour of pain and an
hour of pleasure have no resemblance to each other save on the dial.
_My_ hours are weary years.

You understand then, my dear Edgar, that I write you these long letters,
not to please you, but to relieve my own mind. In writing to you I
divert my attention from painful contemplation, and expatriate my ideas.
A pen is the only instrument capable of killing time when time wishes to
kill us. A pen is the faithless auxiliary of thought; unknown to us it
sometimes penetrates the secret recesses of our hearts, where we
flattered ourselves the horizon of our sorrows was hid from the world.

Thus, if you discover in my letter any symptoms of mournful gayety, you
may know they are purely pen-fancies. I have no connection with them
except that my fingers guide the pen.

Sometimes I determine to abandon Paris and bury myself in some rural
retreat, where lonely meditation may fill my sorrowing heart with the
balm of oblivion; but in charity to myself I wish to avoid the absurdity
of this self-deception. Nothing is more hurtful than trying a useless
remedy, for it destroys your confidence in all other remedies, and fills
your soul with despair. Then, again, Paris is peculiarly fitted for
curing these nameless maladies--'tis the modern Thebais, deserted
because 'tis crowded--silent because 'tis noisy; there, every man can
pitch his tent and nurse his favorite sorrows without being disturbed by
intruders. Solitude is the worst of companions when you wish to drown
the past in Lethe's soothing stream. However, 'tis useless for me to
reason in this apparently absurd way in order to compel myself to remain
in the heart of this great city, for I cannot and must not quit Paris at
present; 'tis the central point of my operations; here I can act with
the greatest efficacy in the combinations of my searches--to leave Paris
is to break the threads of my labyrinth. Besides, my duties as a man of
the world impose cruel tortures upon me; if fate continues to work
against me and I am compelled to retire from the world, the consolation
of having escaped these social tortures will be mine; so you see, after
all, there is a silver lining to my dark cloud. When we cannot attain
good we can mitigate the evil.

Last Thursday Countess L. opened the season with an unusual event--a
betrothment ball. Her select friends were invited to a sort of rehearsal
of the wedding party; her beautiful cousin is to be married to our young
friend Didier, whom we named Scipio Africanus. Marshal Bugeaud has given
him a six-months' leave, and healed his wounded shoulder with a
commander's epaulette.

Now, I know you will agree with me that my presence was necessary at
this ball. I nerved myself for this new agony, and arrived there in the
middle of a quadrille. Never did a comedian, stepping on the stage,
study his manner and assume a gay look with more care than I did as I
entered the room. I glided through the figures of the dance, and reached
the further end of the ball-room which was filled with gossiping
dowagers. Now I began to play my rôle of a happy man.

Everybody knows I am weak enough to enjoy a ball with all the passion
of a young girl, therefore I willingly joined the dancers. I selected a
sinfully ugly woman, so as to direct my devotions to the antipodes of
beauty--the more unlike Irene the better for me. My partner possessed
that charming wit that generally accompanies ideal ugliness in a woman.
We talked, laughed, danced with foolish gayety--each note of the music
was accompanied by a witticism--we exchanged places and sallies at the
same time--we invented a new style of conversation, very preferable to
the dawdling gossip of a drawing-room. There is an exhilaration
attending a conversation carried on with your feet flying and
accompanied by delightful music; every eye gazed at us; every ear, in
the whirl of the dance, almost touched our lips and caught what we said.
Our gayety seemed contagious, and the whole room smiled approval. My
partner was radiant with joy; the fast moving of her feet, the
excitement of her mind, the exaltation of triumph, the halo of wit had
transfigured this woman; she positively appeared handsome!

For one instant I forgot my despair in the happy thought that I had just
done the noblest deed of my life; I had danced with a wall-flower, whose
only crime was her ugliness, and had changed her misery into bliss by
rendering her all the intoxicating ovations due only to beauty.

But alas! there was a fatal reaction awaiting me. Glancing across the
room I intercepted the tender looks of two lovers, looks of mutual love
that brought me back to my own misery, and made my heart bleed afresh at
the thought that love like this might have been mine! What is more
touchingly beautiful than the sight of a betrothed couple who exist in a
little world of their own, and, ignoring the indifferent crowd around
them, gaze at each other with such a wealth of love and trust in the
future! I brought this image of a promised but lost happiness home with
me. Oh! if I could blame Irene I would console myself by flying in a fit
of legitimate anger! but this resource fails me--I can blame no one but
myself. Irene knows not how dear she is to me, I only half told her of
my love,--I flattered myself that I had a long future in which to prove
my devotion by deeds instead of words. Had she known how deeply I loved
her, she never could have deserted me.

Your unhappy friend,
ROGER DE MONBERT.




VI.


EDGAR DE MEILHAN _to the_ PRINCE DE MONBERT,
St. Dominique Street (Paris).

Richeport, May 26th 18--.

Dear Roger:--You have understood me. I did not wish to annoy you with
hackneyed condolences or sing with you an elegiac duet; but I have not
the less sympathized with your sorrows; I have even evolved a system out
of them. Were I forsaken, I should deplore the blindness of the
unfortunate creature who could renounce the happiness of possessing me,
and congratulate myself upon getting rid of a heart unworthy of me.
Besides, I have always felt grateful to those benevolent beauties who
take upon themselves the disagreeable task of breaking off an
engagement. At first, there is a slight feeling of wounded self-love,
but as I have for some time concluded that the world contains an
infinity of beings endowed with charms superior to mine, it only lasts a
moment, and if the scratch bleed a little, I consider myself indemnified
by a tirade against woman's bad taste. Since you do not possess this
philosophy, Mlle. de Chateaudun must be found, at any cost; you know my
principles: I have a profound respect for any genuine passion. We will
not discuss the merits or the faults of Irene; you desire her, that
suffices; you shall have her, or I will lose the little Malay I learnt
in Java when I went to see those dancing-girls, whose preference has
such a disastrous effect upon Europeans. Your secret police is about to
be increased by a new spy; I espouse your anger, and place myself
entirely at the service of your wrath. I know some of the relatives of
Mlle. de Chateaudun, who has connections in the neighboring departments,
and in your behalf I have beaten about the châteaux for many miles
around. I have not yet found what I am searching for; but I have
discovered in the dullest houses a number of pretty faces who would ask
nothing better, dear Roger, than to console you, that is if you are not,
like Rachel, refusing to be comforted; for if there be no lack of women
always ready to decoy a successful lover, some can, also, be found
disposed to undertake the cure of a profound despair; these are the
services which the best friends cheerfully render. I will only permit
myself to ask you one question. Are you sure, before abandoning yourself
to the violence of an invisible grief, that Mlle. de Chateaudun has ever
existed? If she exists, she cannot have evaporated! The diamond alone
ascends entire to heaven and disappears, leaving no trace behind. One
cannot abstract himself, in this way, like a quintessence from a
civilized centre; in 18--the suppression of any human being seems to me
impossible. Mademoiselle Irene has been too well brought up to throw
herself into the water like a grisette; if she had done so, the zephyrs
would have borne ashore her cloak or her umbrella; a woman's bonnet,
when it comes from Beaudrand, always floats. Perhaps she wishes to
subject you to some romantic ordeal to see if you are capable of dying
of grief for her; do not gratify her so far. Double your serenity and
coolness, and, if need be, paint like a dowager; it is necessary to
sustain before these affected dames the dignity of the uglier sex of
which we have the honor of forming a part. I approve the position you
have taken. The Pale Faces should bear moral torture with the same
impassiveness with which the Red Skins endure physical torture.

Roaming about in your interests, I had the beginning of an adventure
which I must recount to you. It does not relate to a duchess, I warn
you; I leave those sort of freaks to republicans. In love-making, I
value beauty solely, it is the only aristocracy I look for; pretty women
are baronesses, charming ones countesses; beauties become marchionesses,
and I recognise a queen by her hands and not by her sceptre, by her brow
and not by her crown. Such is my habit. Beyond this I am without
prejudice; I do not disdain princesses provided they are as handsome as
simple peasants.

I had a presentiment that Alfred intended paying me a visit, and with
that wonderful acuteness which characterizes me, I said to myself: If he
comes here, hospitality will force me to endure the agony of his
presence as long as he pleases to impose it upon me, a torture forgotten
in Dante's Hell; if I go to see him the situation is reversed. I can
leave under the first indispensable pretext, that will not fail to offer
itself, three days after my arrival, and I thus deprive him of all
motive for invading my wigwam at Richeport. Whereupon I went to Nantes,
where his relatives reside, with whom he is passing the summer.

At the expiration of four hours I suddenly remembered that most urgent
business recalled me to my mother; but what was my anguish, when I saw
my execrable friend accompany me to the railroad station, in a traveling
suit, a cap on his head, a valise under his arm! Happily, he was going
to Havre by way of Rouen, and I was relieved from all fear of invasion.

At this juncture, my dear friend, endeavor to tear yourself away, for a
moment, from the contemplation of your grief, and take some interest in
my story. To so distinguished a person as yourself it has at least the
advantage of beginning in an entirely homely and prosaic manner. I
should never have committed the error of writing you anything
extraordinary; you are surfeited with the incredible; the supernatural
is a twice-told tale; between you and the marvellous secret affinities
exist; miracles hunt you up; you find yourself in conjunction with
phenomena; what never happens has happened to you; and in the world that
you, in every sense, have wandered o'er, no novelty offers itself but
the common-place.

The first time you ever attempted to do anything like other people--to
marry--you failed. Your only talent is for the impossible; therefore, I
hope that my recital, a little after the style of Paul de Kock's
romances, an author admired by great ladies and kitchen girls, will give
you infinite surprise and possess all the attraction and freshness of
the unknown.

There were already two persons in the compartment into which the
conductor hurried us; two women, one old and the other young.

To prevent Alfred from playing the agreeable, I took possession of the
corner fronting the youngest, leaving to my tiresome friend the freezing
perspective of the older woman.

You know I have no fancy for sustaining what is called the honor of
French gallantry--a gallantry which consists in wearying with ill-timed
attention, with remarks upon the rain and the fine weather, interlarded
with a thousand and one stupid rhymes, the women forced by circumstances
to travel alone.

I settled myself in my corner after making a slight bow on perceiving
the presence of women in the car, one of whom evidently merited the
attention of every young commercial traveler and troubadour. I set
myself to examine my vis-a-vis, dividing my attention between
picturesque studies and studies physiognomical.

The result of my picturesque observations was that I never saw so many
poppies before. Probably they were the red sparks from the locomotive
taking root and blooming along the road.

My physiognomical studies were more extended, and, without flattering
myself, I believe Lavater himself would have approved them.

The cowl does not make the friar, but dress makes the woman. I shall
begin by giving you an extremely detailed description of the toilet of
my incognita. This is an accustomed method, which proves that it is a
good one, since everybody makes use of it. My fair unknown wore neither
a bark blanket fastened about her waist, nor rings in her nose, nor
bracelets on her ankles, nor rings on her toes, which must appear
extraordinary to you.

She wore, perhaps, the only costume that your collection lacks, that of
a Parisian grisette. You, who know by heart the name of every article of
a Hottentot's attire, who are strong upon Esquimaux fashions and know
just how many rows of pins a Patagonian of the haut ton wears in her
lower lip, have never thought of sketching such an one.

A well-approved description of a grisette should commence with her foot.
The grisette is the Andalouse of Paris; she possesses the talent of
being able to pass through the mire of Lutetia on tiptoe, like a dancer
who studies her steps, without soiling her white stockings with a single
speck of mud. The manolas of Madrid, the cigaretas of Seville in their
satin slippers are not better shod; mine--pardon the anticipation of
this possessive pronoun--put forward from under the seat an
irreproachable boot and aristocratically turned ankle. If she would give
me that graceful buskin to place in my museum beside the shoe of
Carlotta Grisi, the Princess Houn-Gin's boot and Gracia of Grenada's
slipper, I would fill it with gold or sugar-plums, as she pleased.

As to her dress, I acknowledge, without any feeling of mortification,
that it was of mousseline; but the secret of its making was preserved by
the modiste. It was tight and easy at the same time, a perfect fit
attained by Palmyre in her moments of inspiration; a black silk
mantilla, a little straw bonnet trimmed plainly with ribbon, and a green
gauze veil, half thrown back, completed the adornment, or rather absence
of ornament, of this graceful creature.

Heavens! I had like to have forgotten the gloves! Gloves are the weak
point of a grisette's costume. To be fresh, they must be renewed often,
but they cost the price of two days' work. Hers were, O horror!
imitation Swedish, which truth compels me to value at nineteen
ha'-pennies, or ninety-five centimes, to conform to the new monetary
phraseology.

A worsted work-bag, half filled, was placed beside her. What could it
hold? Some circulating library novel? Do not be uneasy, the bag only
contained a roll and a paper of bonbons from Boissier, dainties which
play an important part in my story.

Now I must draw you an exact sketch of this pretty Parisian's face--for
such she was. A Parisian alone could wear, with such grace, a
fifteen-franc bonnet.

I abhor bonnets; nevertheless, on some occasions, I am forced to
acknowledge that they produce quite a pleasing effect. They represent a
kind of queer flower, whose core is formed of a woman's head; a
full-blown rose, which, in the place of stamens and pistils, bears
glances and smiles.

The half-raised veil of my fair unknown only exposed to view a chin of
perfect mould, a little strawberry mouth and half of her nose, perhaps
three-quarters. What pretty, delicately turned nostrils, pink as the
shells of the South Sea! The upper part of the face was bathed in a
transparent, silvery shadow, under which the quiver of the eyelids might
be imagined and the liquid fire of her glance. As to her cheeks--you
must await the succession of events if you desire more ample
description; for the ears of her bonnet, drawn down by the strings,
concealed their contour; what could be seen of them was of a delicate
rose color. Her eyes and hair will form a special paragraph.

Now that you are sufficiently enlightened upon the subject of the
perspective which your friend enjoyed on the cars between Mantes and
Pont-de-l'Arche, I will pass to another exercise, highly recommended in
rhetorical treatises, and describe, by way of a set-off and contrast,
the female monster that served as shadow to this ideal grisette.

This frightful companion appeared very suspicious. Was she the duenna,
the mother or an old relative? At any rate she was very ugly, not
because her head was like a stone mask with spiral eyebrows, and lips
slashed like the fossa of a heraldic dolphin, but vulgarity had stamped
the mask, making its features common, coarse and dull. The habit of
servile compliance had deprived them of all true expression; she
squinted, her smile was vaguely stupid, and she wore an air of spurious
good-nature, indicative of country birth; a dark merino dress, cloak of
sombre hue, a bonnet under which stood out the many ruffles of a rumpled
cap, completed the attire of the creature.

The grisette is a gay, chattering bird, which at fifteen escapes from
the nest never to return; it is not her custom to drag about a mother
after her, this is the special mania of actresses who resort to all
sorts of tricks ignored by the proud and independent grisette. The
grisette seems instinctively to know that the presence of an old woman
about a young one exerts an unhealthy influence. It suggests sorcery and
the witches' vigil; snails seek roses only to spread their slime over
them, and old age only approaches youth from a discreditable motive.

This woman was not the mother of my incognita; so sweet a flower could
not grow upon such a rugged bush. I heard the antique say in the
humblest tone, "Mlle, if you wish, I will put down the blind; the
cinders might hurt you."

Doubtless she was some relative; for a grisette never has a companion,
and duennas pertain exclusively to Spanish infantas.

Was my grisette simply an adventuress, graced by a hired mother to give
her an air of respectability? No, there was the seal of simple honesty
stamped upon her whole person; a care in the details of her simple
toilet, which separated her from that venturous class. A wandering
princess would not show such exactitude in her dress; she would betray
herself by a ragged shawl worn over a new dress, by silk stockings with
boots down at heel, by something ripped and out of order. Besides, the
old woman did not take snuff nor smell of brandy.

I made these observations in less time than it takes to write them,
through Alfred's inexhaustible chatter, who imagines, like many people,
that you are vexed if the conversation flags an instant. Besides,
between you and me, I think he wished to impress these women with an
idea of his importance, for he talked to me of the whole world. I do not
know how it happened, but this whirlwind of words seemed to interest my
incognita, who had all along remained quietly ensconced in her corner.
The few words uttered by her were not at all remarkable; an observation
upon a mass of great black clouds piled up in a corner of the horizon
that threatened a shower; but I was charmed with the fresh and silvery
tone of her voice. The music of the words--it is going to
rain--penetrated my soul like an air from Bellini, and I felt something
stir in my heart, which, well cultivated, might turn into love.

The locomotive soon devoured the distance between Mantos and Pont de
l'Arche. An abominable scraping of iron and twisting of brakes was
heard, and the train stopped. I was terribly alarmed lest the grisette
and her companion should continue their route, but they got out at the
station. O Roger wasn't I a happy dog? While they were employed in
hunting up some parcel, the vehicle which runs between the station and
Pont de l'Arche left, weighed down with trunks and travellers; so that
the two women and myself were compelled, in spite of the weather, to
walk to Pont de l'Arche. Large drops began to sprinkle the dust. One of
those big black clouds which I mentioned opened, and long streams of
rain fell from its gloomy folds like arrows from an overturned quiver.

A moss-covered shed, used to put away farming implements, odd
cart-wheels, performed for us the same service as the classic grotto
which sheltered Eneas and Dido under similar circumstances. The wild
branches of the hawthorn and sweet-briar added to the rusticity of our
asylum.

My unknown, although visibly annoyed by this delay, resigned herself to
her fate, and watched the rain falling in torrents. O Robinson Crusoe,
how I envied you, at that moment, your famous goat-skin umbrella! how
gracefully would I have offered its shelter to this beauty as far as
Pont de l'Arche, for she was going to Pont de l'Arche, right into the
lion's mouth. Time passed. The vehicle would not return until the next
train was due, that is in five or six hours; I had not told them to come
for me; our situation was most melancholy.

My infanta opened daintily her little bag, took from it a roll and some
bonbons, which she began to eat in the most graceful manner imaginable,
but having breakfasted before leaving Mantes, I was dying of hunger; I
suppose I must have looked covetously at her provisions, for she began
to laugh and offered me half of her pittance, which I accepted. In the
division, I don't know how it happened, but my hand touched hers--she
drew it quickly away, and bestowed upon me a look of such royal disdain
that I said to myself--This young girl is destined for the dramatic
profession,--she plays the Marguerites and the Clytemnestras in the
provinces until she possesses _embonpoint_ enough to appear at Porte
Saint Martin or the Odeon. This vampire is her dresser--everything was
clear.

I promised you a paragraph upon her eyes and hair; her eyes were a
changeable gray, sometimes blue, sometimes green, according to the
expression and the light; her chestnut locks were separated in two
glossy braids, half satin, half velvet--many a great lady would have
paid high for such hair.

The shower over, a wild resolution was unanimously taken to set out on
foot for Pont de l'Arche, notwithstanding the mud and the puddles.

Having entered into the good graces of the infanta by speech full of
wisdom and gesture carefully guarded, we set out together, the old woman
following a few steps behind, and the marvellous little boot arrived at
its destination without being soiled the least in the world--grisettes
are perfect partridges--the house of Madame Taverneau, the
post-mistress, where my incognita stopped.

You are a prince of very little penetration, dear Roger, if you have not
divined that you will receive a letter from me every day, and even two,
if I have to send empty envelopes or recopy the Complete Letter Writer.
To whom will I not write? No minister of state will ever have so
extended a correspondence.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN.




VII.


IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Hotel of the Prefecture, Grenoble (Isère).

PONT DE L'ARCHE, May 29th 18--.

Valentine, this time I rebel, and question your infallibility.

It is useless for you to say to me, "You do not love him." I tell you I
do love him, and intend to marry him. Nevertheless you excite my
admiration in pronouncing against me this very well-turned sentence.
"Genuine and fervid love is not so ingenuous. When you love deeply, you
respect the object of your devotion and are fearful of giving offence by
daring to test him.

"When you love sincerely you are not so venturesome. It is so necessary
for you to trust him, that you treasure up your faith and risk it not in
suspicious trifling.

"Real love is timid, it would rather err than suspect, it buries doubts
instead of nursing them, and very wisely, for love cannot survive
faith."

This is a magnificent period, and you should send it to Balzac; he
delights in filling his novels with such very woman-like phrases.

I admit that your ideas are just and true when applied to love alone;
but if this love is to end in marriage, the "test" is no longer
"suspicious trifling," and one has the right to try the constancy of a
character without offending the dignity of love.

Marriage, and especially a marriage of inclination, is so serious a
matter, that we cannot exercise too much prudence and reasonable delay
before taking the final step.

You say, "Love is timid;" well, so is Hymen. One dares not lightly utter
the irrevocable promise, "Thine for life!" these words make us hesitate.

When we wish to be honorable and faithfully keep our oaths, we pause a
little before we utter them.

Now I can hear you exclaim, "You are not in love; if you were, instead
of being frightened by these words, they would reassure you; you would
be quick to say 'Thine for life,' and you could never imagine that there
existed any other man you could love."

I am aware that this gives you weapons to be used against me; I know I
am foolish! but--well, I feel that there is some one somewhere that I
could love more deeply!

This silly idea sometimes makes me pause and question, but it grows
fainter daily, and I now confess that it is folly, childish to cherish
such a fancy. In spite of your opinion, I persist in believing that I am
in love with Roger. And when you know him, you will understand how
natural it is for me to love him.

I would at this very moment be talking to him in Paris but for you!
Don't be astonished, for your advice prevented my returning to Paris
yesterday.

Alas! I asked you for aid, and you add to my anxiety.

I left the hotel de Langeac with a joyful heart. The test will be
favorable, thought I,--and when I have seen Roger in the depths of
despair for a few days, seeking me everywhere, impatiently expecting me,
blaming me a little and regretting me deeply, I will suddenly appear
before him, happy and smiling! I will say, "Roger, you love me; I left
you to think of you from afar, to question my own heart--to try the
strength of your devotion; I now return without fear and with renewed
confidence in myself and in you; never again shall we be separated!"

I intend to frankly confess everything to him; but you say the
confession will be fatal to me. "If you intend to marry M. de Moubert,
for Heaven's sake keep him in ignorance of the motive of your departure;
invent an excuse--be called off to perform a duty--to nurse a sick
friend; choose any story you please, rather than let him suspect you ran
away to experiment upon the degree of his love."

You add, "he loves you devotedly and never will he forgive you for
inflicting on him these unnecessary sufferings; a proud and deserving
love never pardons suspicious and undeserved trials of its faith."

Now what can I do? Invent a falsehood? All falsehoods are stupid! Then I
would have to write it, for I could not undertake to lie to his face.
With strangers and people indifferent to me, I might manage it; but to
look into the face of the man who loves me, who gazes so honestly into
my eyes when I speak to him, who understands every expression of my
countenance, who observes and admires the blush that flushes my cheek,
who is familiar with every modulation of my voice, as a musician with
the tones of his instrument--

Why, it is a moral impossibility to attempt such a thing! A forced
smile, a false tone, would put him on his guard at once; he becomes
suspicious.

At his first question my fine castle of lies vanishes into air, and I
have to fall back on the unvarnished truth.

To gratify you, Valentine, I will lie, but lie at a distance. I feel
that it is necessary to put many stations and provinces between my
native candor and the people I am to deceive.

Why do you scold me so much? You must see that I have not acted
thoughtlessly; my conduct is strange, eccentric and mysterious to no one
but Roger.

To every one else it is perfectly proper. I am supposed to be in the
neighborhood of Fontainebleau, with the Duchess de Langeac, at her
daughter's house; and as the poor girl is very sick and receives no
company, I can disappear for a short time without my absence calling
forth remark, or raising an excitement in the country.

I have told my cousin a part of the truth--she understands my scruples
and doubts. She thinks it very natural that I should wish to consider
the matter over before engaging myself for life; she knows that I am
staying with an old friend, and as I have promised to return home in two
weeks, she is not a bit uneasy about me.

"My child," she said when we parted, "if you decide to marry, I will go
with you to Paris; if not, you shall go with us to enjoy the waters of
Aix." I have discovered that Aix is a good place to learn news of our
friends in Isère. You also reproach me for not having told Roger all my
troubles; for having hidden from him what you flatteringly call "the
most beautiful pages of my life."

O, Valentine! in this matter I am wiser than you, in spite of your
matronly experience and acknowledged wisdom. Doubtless you understand
better than I do, the serious affairs of life, but about the
frivolities, I think I know best, and I tell you that courage in a woman
is not an attraction in the eyes of these latter-day beaux.

Their weak minds, with an affected nicety, prefer a sighing,
supplicating coquette, decked in pretty ribbons, surrounded by luxuries
that are the price of her dignity; one who pours her sorrows into the
lover's ear--yes! I say they prefer such a one to a noble woman who
bravely faces misery with proud resignation, who refuses the favors of
those she despises, and calm, strong, self-reliant, waters with her
tears her hard-earned bread.

Believe me, men are more inclined to love women they can pity than women
they must admire and respect; feminine courage in adversity is to them a
disagreeable picture in an ugly frame; that is to say, a poorly dressed
woman in a poorly furnished room. So you now see why, not wishing to
disgust my future husband, I was careful that he should not see this
ugly picture.

Ah! you speak to me of my dear ideal, and you say you love him? Ah! to
him alone could I fearlessly read these beautiful pages of my life. But
let us banish him from our minds; I would forget him!

Once I was very near betraying myself; my cousin and I called on a
Russian lady residing in furnished apartments on Rivoli street.

M. de Monbert was there--as I took a seat near the fire, the Countess R.
handed me a screen--I at once recognised a painting of my own. It
represented Paul and Virginia gardening with Domingo.

How horrible did all three look! Time and dust had curiously altered the
faces of my characters; by an inexplicable phenomenon Virginia and
Domingo had changed complexions; Virginia was a negress, and Domingo was
enfranchised, bleached, he had cast aside the tint of slavery and was a
pure Caucasian. The absurdity of the picture made me laugh, and M. de
Monbert inquired the cause of my merriment. I showed him the screen, and
he said "How very horrible!" and I was about to add "I painted it," when
some one interrupted us, and so prevented the betrayal of my secret.

You will not have to scold me any more; I am going to take your advice
and leave Pont de l'Arche to-day. Oh I how I wish I were in Paris this
minute! I am dreadfully tired of this little place, it is so wearying to
play poverty.

When I was really poor, the modest life I had to lead, the cruel
privations I had to suffer, seemed to me to be noble and dignified.

Misery has its grandeur, and every sorrow has its poetry; but when the
humility of life is voluntary and privations mere caprices, misery loses
all its prestige, and the romantic sufferings we needlessly impose on
ourselves, are intolerable, because there is no courage or merit in
enduring them.

This sentiment I feel must be natural, for my old companion in
misfortune, my good and faithful Blanchard, holds the same views that I
do. You know how devoted she was to me during my long weary days of
trouble!

She faithfully served me three years with no reward other than the
approval of her own conscience. She, who was so proud of keeping my
mother's house, resembling a stewardess of the olden time; when
misfortune came, converted herself for my sake into maid of all work!
Inspired by love for me, she patiently endured the hardships and
dreariness of our sad situation; not a complaint, not a murmur, not a
reproach. To see her so quietly resigned, you would have supposed that
she had been both chamber-maid and cook all her life, that is if you
never tasted her dishes! I shall always remember her first dinner. O,
the Spartan broth of that day! She must have gotten the receipt from
"The Good Lacedemonian Cook Book."

I confidently swallowed all she put before me. Strange and mysterious
ragout! I dared not ask what was in it, but I vainly sought for the
relics of any animal I had ever seen; what did she make it of? It is a
secret that I fear I shall die without discovering.

Well, this woman, so devoted, so resigned in the days of adversity; this
feminine Caleb, whose generous care assuaged my misery; who, when I
suffered, deemed it her duty to suffer with me; when I worked day and
night, considered it an honor to labor day and night with me--now that
she knows we are restored to our fortune, cannot endure the least
privation.

All day long she complains. Every order is received with imprecatory
mutterings, such as "What an idiotic idea! What folly! to be as rich as
Croesus and find amusement in poverty! To come and live in a little hole
with common people and refuse to visit duchesses in their castles!
People must not be surprised if I don't obey orders that I don't
understand."

She is stubborn and refractory. She will drive me to despair, so
determined does she seem to thwart all my plans. I tell her to call me
Madame; she persists in calling me Mademoiselle. I told her to bring
simple dresses and country shoes; she has brought nothing but
embroidered muslins, cobweb handkerchiefs and gray silk boots. I
entreated her to put on a simple dress, when she came with me. This made
her desperate, and through vengeance and maliciously exaggerated zeal
she bundled herself up like an old witch. I tried to make her comprehend
that her frightfulness far exceeded my wildest wishes; she thereupon
disarmed me with this sublime reply:

"I had nothing but new hats and new shawls, and so had to _borrow_ these
clothes to obey Mademoiselle's orders."

Would you believe it? The proud old woman has destroyed or hidden all
the old clothes that were witnesses of our past misery. I am more
humble, and have kept everything. When I returned to my little garret, I
was delighted to see again my modest furniture, my pretty pink chintz
curtains, my thin blue carpet, my little ebony shelves, and then all the
precious objects I had saved from the wreck; my father's old
easy-chair, my mother's work-table, and all of our family portraits,
concealed, like proud intruders, in one corner of the room, where
haughty marshals, worthy prelates, coquettish marquises, venerable
abbesses, sprightly pages and gloomy cavaliers all jostled together, and
much astonished to find themselves in such a wretched little room, and
what is worse, shamefully disowned by their unworthy descendant. I love
my garret, and remained there three days before coming here; and there I
left my fine princess dresses and put on my modest travelling suit;
there the elegant Irene once more became the interesting widow of the
imaginary Albert Guérin. We started at nine in the morning. I had the
greatest difficulty in getting ready for the early train, so soon have I
forgotten my old habit of early rising. When I look back and recall how
for three years I arose at dawn, it looks like a wretched dream. I
suppose it is because I have become so lazy.

It is distressing to think that only six months have passed since I was
raised from the depths of poverty, and here I am already spoiled by good
fortune!

Misfortune is a great master, but like all masters he only is obeyed
when present; we work with him, but when his back is turned forget his
admonitions.

We reached the depot as the train was starting, obtaining comfortable
seats. I met with a most interesting adventure, that is, interesting to
me; how small the world is! I had for a companion an old friend of
Roger, but who fortunately did not know me; it was M. Edgar de Meilhan,
the poet, whose talents I admire, and whose acquaintance I had long
desired; judging from his conversation he must be quite an original
character. But he was accompanied by one of those explanatory gossips
who seem born to serve as cicerones to the entire world, and render
useless all penetrating perspicacity.

These sort of bores are amusing to meet on a journey; rather well
informed, they quote their favorite authors very neatly in order to
display the extent of their information; they also have a happy way of
imposing on the ignorant people, who sit around with wide-stretched
mouths, listening to the string of celebrated names so familiarly
repeated as to indicate a personal intimacy with each and all of them;
in a word, it is a way of making the most of your acquaintance, as your
witty friend M.L. would say. Now I must give you a portrait of this
gentleman; it shall be briefly done.

He was an angular man, with a square forehead, a square nose, a square
mouth, a square chin, a square smile, a square hand, square shoulders,
square gayety, square jokes; that is to say, he is coarse, heavy and
rugged. A coarse mind cultivated often appears smooth and moves easily
in conversation, but a square mind is always awkward and threatening.
Well, this square man evidently "made the most of his acquaintances" for
my benefit, for poor little me, an humble violet met by chance on the
road! He spoke of M. Guizot having mentioned this to him; of M. Thiers,
who dined with him lately, having said that to him; of Prince Max de
Beauvau, whom he bet with at the last Versailles races; of the beautiful
Madame de Magnoncourt, with whom he danced at the English ambassador's
ball; of twenty other distinguished personages with whom he was
intimate, and finally he mentioned Prince Roger de Monbert, the
eccentric tiger-hunter, who for the last two months had been the lion of
Paris. At the name of Roger I became all attention; the square man
continued:

"But you, my dear Edgar, were brought up with him, were you not?"

"Yes," said the poet.

"Have you seen him since his return?"

"Not yet, but I hear from him constantly; I had a letter yesterday."

"They say he is engaged to the beautiful heiress, Irene de Chateaudun,
and will be married very soon."

"'Tis an idle rumor," said M. de Meilhan, in a dry tone that forced his
dreadful friend to select another topic of conversation.

Oh, how curious I was to find out what Roger had written to M. de
Meilhan! Roger had a confidant! He had told him about me! What could he
have said? Oh, this dreadful letter! What would I not give to see it! My
sole thought is, how can I obtain it; unconsciously I gazed at M. de
Meilhan, with an uneasy perplexity that must have astonished him and
given him a queer idea of my character.

I was unable to conceal my joy, when I heard him say he lived at
Richeport, and that he intended stopping at Pont de l'Arche, which is
but a short distance from his estate; my satisfaction must have appeared
very strange.

A dreadful storm detained us two hours in the neighborhood of the depot.
We remained in company under the shed, and watched the falling rain. My
situation was embarrassing; I wished to be agreeable and polite to M. de
Meilhan that I might encourage him to call at Madama Taverneau's, Pont
de l'Arche, and then again I did not wish to be so very gracious and
attentive as to inspire him with too much assurance. It was a difficult
game to play. I must boldly risk making a bad impression, and at the
same time keep him at a respectful distance. Well, I succeeded in
solving the problem within the pale of legitimate curiosity, offering to
share with my companion in misfortune a box of bon-bons, intended for
Madame Taverneau.

But what attentions he showered on me before meriting this great
sacrifice! What ingenious umbrellas he improvised for me under this
inhospitable shed, that grudgingly lent us a perfidious and capricious
shelter! What charming seats, skilfully made of sticks and logs driven
into the wet ground!

When the storm was over M. de Meilhan offered to escort us to Pont de
l'Arche; I accepted, much to the astonishment of the severe Blanchard,
who cannot understand the sudden change in my conduct, and begins to
suspect me of being in search of adventures.

When we reached our destination, and Madam Taverneau heard that M. de
Meilhan had been my escort, she was in such a state of excitement that
she could talk of nothing else. M. de Meilhan is highly thought of
here, where his family have resided many years; his mother is venerated,
and he himself beloved by all that know him. He has a moderate fortune;
with it he quietly dispenses charity and daily confers benefits with an
unknown hand. He seems to be very agreeable and witty. I have never met
so brilliant a man, except M. de Monbert. How charming it would be to
hear them talk together!

But that letter! What would I not give for that letter! If I could only
read the first four lines! I would find out what I want to know. These
first lines would tell me if Roger is really sad; if he is to be pitied,
and if it is time for me to console him. I rely a little upon the
indiscretion of M. de Meilhan to enlighten me. Poets are like doctors;
all artists are kindred spirits; they cannot refrain from telling a
romantic love affair any more than a physician can from citing his last
remarkable case; the former never name their friends, the latter never
betray their patients. But when we know beforehand, as I do, the name of
the hero or patient, we soon complete the semi-indiscretion.

So I mercilessly slander all heiresses and capricious women of fashion
that I may incite Roger's confidant to relate me my own history. I
forgot to mention that since my arrival here M. de Meilhan has been
every day to call on Madame Taverneau. She evidently imagines herself
the object of his visits. I am of a different opinion. Indeed, I fear I
have made a conquest of this dark-eyed young poet, which is not at all
flattering to me. This sudden adoration shows that he has not a very
elevated opinion of me. How he will laugh when he recognises this
adventurous widow in the proud wife of his friend!

You reproach me bitterly for having sacrificed you to Madame Taverneau.
Cruel Prefect that you are, go and accuse the government and your
consul-general of this unjust preference.

Can I reach Grenoble in three hours, as I do Rouen? Can I return from
Grenoble to Paris in three hours; fly when I wish, reappear when 'tis
necessary? In a word have you a railway? No! Well, then, trust to my
experience and believe that where locomotion is concerned there is an
end to friendship, gratitude, sympathy and devotion. Nothing is to be
considered but railways, roads, wagons that jolt you to death, but carry
you to your destination, and stages that upset and never arrive.

We cannot visit the friends we love best, but those we can get away from
with the greatest facility.

Besides, for a heroine wishing to hide herself, the asylum you offer has
nothing mysterious, it is merely a Thebais of a prefecture; and there I
am afraid of compromising you.

A Parisian in a provincial town is always standing on a volcano, one
unlucky word may cause destruction.

How difficult it is to be a Prefect! You have commenced very
properly--four children! All that is necessary to begin with. They are
such convenient excuses. To be a good Prefect one must have four
children. They are inexhaustible pretexts for escaping social horrors;
if you wish to decline a compromising invitation, your dear little girl
has got the whooping cough; when you wish to avoid dining a friend _in
transitu_, your eldest son has a dreadful fever; you desire to escape a
banquet unadorned by the presence of the big-wigs--brilliant idea! all
four children have the measles.

Now confess you did well to have the four lovely children! Without them
you would be conquered in spite of your wisdom; it requires so much
skill for a Parisian to live officially in a province!

There all the women are clever; the most insignificant citizen's wife
can outwit an old diplomat. What science they display under the most
trying and peculiar circumstances! What profound combination in their
plans of vengeance! What prudence in their malice! What patience in
their cruelty! It is dreadful! I will visit you when you reside in the
country, but while you reign over a prefecture, I have for you the
respectful horror that a democratic mind has for all authorities.

Who is this poor convalescent whose wound caused you so much anxiety?
You don't tell me his name! I understand you, Madame! Even to an old
friend you must show your administrative discretion!

Is this wounded hero young? I suppose he is, as you do not say he is
old. He is "about to leave, and return to his home;" "his home" is
rather vague, as you don't tell me his name! Now, I am different from
you; I name and fully describe every one I meet, you respond with
enigmas.

I well know that your destiny is fulfilled, and that mine has all the
attractiveness of a new romance. Nevertheless, you must be more
communicative if you expect to be continued in office as my confidant.

Embrace for me your dear little ones, whom I insist upon regarding as
your best counsellors at the prefecture, and tell my goddaughter, Irene,
to kiss you for me.

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN.




VIII.


EDGAR DE MEILHAN _to the_ PRINCE DE MONBERT,
Saint Dominique street, Paris.

RICHEPORT, May 31st, 18--.

Now that you are a sort of Amadis de Gaul, striking attitudes upon a
barren rock, as a sign of your lovelorn condition, you have probably
forgotten, my dear Roger, my encounter upon the cars with an ideal
grisette, who saved me from the horrors of starvation by generously
dividing with me a bag of sugar-plums. But for this unlooked-for aid, I
should have been reduced, like a famous handful of shipwrecked mariners,
to feed upon my watch-chain and vest-buttons. To a man so absorbed in
his grief, as you are, the news of the death from starvation of a friend
upon the desert island of a railway station, would make very little
impression; but I not being in love with any Irene de Chateaudun, have
preserved a pleasant recollection of this touching scene, translated
from the Æneid in modern and familiar prose.

I wrote immediately,--for my beauty, of an infinitely less exalted rank
than yours, lodges with the post-mistress,--several fabulous letters to
problematic people, in countries which do not exist, and are only
designated upon the map by a dash.

Madame Taverneau has conceived a profound respect for a young man who
has correspondents in unknown lands, barely sighted in 1821 at the
Antarctic pole, and in 1819 at the Arctic pole, so she invited me to a
little soirée musicale et dansante, of which I was to be the bright
particular star. An invitation to an exclusive ball, given at an
inaccessible house, never gave a woman with a doubtful past or an
uncertain position, half the pleasure that I felt from the entangled
sentences of Madame Taverneau in which she did not dare to hope, but
would be happy if--.

Apart from the happiness of seeing Madame Louise Guérin (my charmer's
name), I looked forward to an entirely new recreation, that of studying
the manners of the middle class in their intimate relations with each
other. I have lived with the aristocracy and with the canaille; in the
highest and lowest conditions of life are found entire absence of
pretension; in the highest, because their position is assured; in the
lowest, because it is simply impossible to alter it. None but poets are
really unhappy because they cannot climb to the stars. A half-way
position is the most false.

I thought I would go early to have some talk with Louise, but the circle
was already completed when I arrived; everybody had come first.

The guests were assembled in a large, gloomy room, gloriously called a
drawing-room, where the servant never enters without first taking off
her shoes at the door, like a Turk in a mosque, and which is only opened
on the most solemn occasions. As it is doubtful whether you have ever
set foot in a like establishment, I will give you, in imitation of the
most profound of our novel-writers (which one? you will say; they are
all profound now-a-days), a detailed description of Madame Taverneau's
salon.

Two windows, hung in red calico, held up by some black ornaments, a
complication of sticks, pegs and all sorts of implements on stamped
copper, gave light to this sanctuary, which commanded through them an
animated look-out--in the language of the commonalty--upon the
scorching, noisy highway, bordered by sickly elms sprinkled with dust,
from the constant passage of vehicles which shake the house to its
centre; wagons loaded with noisy iron, and droves of hogs, squeaking
under the drover's whip.

The floor was painted red and polished painfully bright, reminding one
of a wine-merchant's sign freshly varnished; the walls were concealed
under frightful velvet paper which so religiously catches the fluff and
dust. The mahogany furniture stood round the room, a reproach against
the discovery of America, covered with sanguinary cloth stamped in black
with subjects taken from Fontaine's fables. When I say subjects I
basely flatter the sumptuous taste of Madame Taverneau; it was the same
subject indefinitely repeated--the Fox and the Stork. How luxurious it
was to sit upon a stork's beak! In front of each chair was spread a
piece of carpet, to protect the splendor of the floor, so that the
guests when seated bore a vague resemblance to the bottles and decanters
set round the plated centrepiece of a banquet given to a deputy by his
grateful constituents.

An atrocious troubadour clock ornamented the mantel-piece representing
the templar Bois-Guilbert bearing off a gilded Rebecca upon a silver
horse. On either side of this frightful time-piece were placed two
plated lamps under globes.

This magnificence filled with secret envy more than one housekeeper of
Pont de l'Arche, and even the maid trembled as she dusted. We will not
speak of the spun-glass poodles, little sugar St. Johns, chocolate
Napoleons, a cabinet filled with common china, occupying a conspicuous
place, engravings representing the Adieux to Fontainebleau, Souvenirs
and Regrets, The Fisherman's Family, The Little Poachers, and other
hackneyed subjects. Can you imagine anything like it? For my part, I
never could understand this love for the common-place and the hideous. I
know that every one does not dwell in Alhambras, Louvres, or Parthenons,
but it is so easy to do without a clock to leave the walls bare, to
exist without Manrin's lithographs or Jazet's aquatints!

The people filling the room, seemed to me, in point of vulgarity, the
queerest in the world; their manner of speaking was marvellous,
imitating the florid style of the defunct Prudhomme, the pupil of Brard
and St. Omer. Their heads spread out over their white cravats and
immense shirt collars recalled to mind certain specimens of the gourd
tribe. Some even resemble animals, the lion, the horse, the ass; these,
all things considered, had a vegetable rather than an animal look. Of
the women I will say nothing, having resolved never to ridicule that
charming sex.

Among these human vegetables, Louise appeared like a rose in a cabbage
patch. She wore a simple white dress fastened at the waist by a blue
ribbon; her hair arranged in bandeaux encircled her pure brow and wound
in massive coils about her head. A Quakeress could have found no fault
with this costume, which placed in grotesque and ridiculous contrast the
hearselike trappings of the other women. It was impossible to be dressed
in better taste. I was afraid lest my Infanta should seize this
opportunity to display some marvellous toilette purchased expressly for
the occasion. That plain muslin gown which never saw India, and was
probably made by herself, touched and fascinated me. Dress has very
little weight with me. I once admired a Granada gypsy whose sole costume
consisted of blue slippers and a necklace of amber beads; but nothing
annoys me more than a badly made dress of an unbecoming shade.

The provincial dandies much preferring the rubicund gossips, with their
short necks covered with gold chains, to Madame Taverneau's young and
slender guest, I was free to talk with her under cover of Louisa
Pugett's ballads and sonatas executed by infant phenomena upon a cracked
piano hired from Rouen for the occasion.

Louisa's wit was charming. How mistaken it is to educate instinct out of
women! To replace nature by a school-mistress! She committed none of
those terrible mistakes which shock one; it was evident that she formed
her sentences herself instead of repeating formulae committed to memory.
She had either never read a novel or had forgotten it, and unless she is
a wonderful actress she remains as the great fashioner, Nature, made
her--a perfect woman. We remained a greater part of the evening seated
together in a corner like beings of another race. Profiting by the great
interest betrayed by the company in one of those _soi-disant_ innocent
games where a great deal of kissing is done, the fair girl, doubtless
fearing a rude salute on her delicate cheek, led me into her room, which
adjoins the parlor and opens into the garden by a glass door.

On a table in the room, feebly lighted by a lamp which Louisa modestly
turned up, were scattered pell-mell, screens, boxes from Spa, alabaster
paper-weights and other details of the art of illuminating, which
profession my beauty practises; and which explains her occasional
aristocratic airs, unbecoming an humble seamstress. A bouquet just
commenced showed talent; with some lessons from St. Jean or Diaz she
would easily make a good flower painter. I told her so. She received my
encomiums as a matter of course, evincing none of that mock-modesty
which I particularly detest.

She showed me a bizarre little chest that she was making, which at
first-sight seemed to be carved out of coral; it was constructed out of
the wax-seals cut from old letters pasted together. This new mosaic was
very simple, and yet remarkably pretty. She asked me to give her, in
order to finish her box, all the striking seals I possessed, emblazoned
in figures and devices. I gave her five or six letters that I had in my
pocket, from which she dexterously cut the seals with her little
scissors. While she was thus engaged I strolled about the garden--a
Machiavellian manoeuvre, for, in order to return me my letters, she must
come in search of me.

The gardens of Madame Taverneau are not the gardens of Armida; but it is
not in the power of the commonalty to spoil entirely the work of God's
hands; trees, by the moonbeams of a summer-night, although only a few
steps from red-cotton curtains and a sanhedrim of merry tradespeople,
are still trees. In a corner of the garden stood a large acacia tree, in
full bloom, waving its yellow hair in the soft night-breeze, and
mingling its perfume with that of the flowers of the marsh iris, poised
like azure butterflies upon their long green stems.

The porch was flooded with silver light, and when Louise, having secured
her seals, appeared upon the threshold, her pure and elegant form stood
out against the dark background of the room like an alabaster statuette.

Her step, as she advanced towards me, was undulating and rhythmical like
a Greek strophe. I took my letters, and we strolled along the path
towards an arbor.

So glad was I to get away from the templar Bois-Guilbert carrying off
Rebecca, and the plated lamps, that I developed an eloquence at once
persuasive and surprising. Louise seemed much agitated; I could almost
see the beatings of her heart--the accents of her pure voice were
troubled--she spoke as one just awakened from a dream. Tell me, are not
these the symptoms, wherever you have travelled, of a budding love?

I took her hand; it was moist and cool, soft as the pulp of a magnolia
flower,--and I thought I felt her fingers faintly return my pressure.

I am delighted that this scene occurred by moonlight and under the
acacia's perfumed branches, for I affect poetical surroundings for my
love scenes. It would be disagreeable to recall a lovely face relieved
against wall-paper covered with yellow scrolls; or a declaration of love
accompanied, in the distance, by the Grace de Dieu; my first significant
interview with Louise will be associated in my thoughts with moonbeams,
the odor of the iris and the song of the cricket in the summer grass.

You, no doubt, pronounce me, dear Roger, a pitiable Don Juan, a
common-place Amilcar, for not profiting by the occasion. A young man
strolling at night in a garden with a screen painter ought at least to
have stolen a kiss! At the risk of appearing ridiculous, I did nothing
of the kind. I love Louise, and besides she has at times such an air of
hauteur, of majestic disdain that the boldest commercial traveller
steeped to the lips in Pigault-Lebrun, a sub-lieutenant wild with
absinthe would not venture such a caress--she would almost make one
believe in virtue, if such a thing were possible. Frankly, I am afraid
that I am in earnest this time. Order me a dove-colored vest,
apple-green trowsers, a pouch, a crook, in short the entire outfit of a
Lignon shepherd. I shall have a lamb washed to complete the pastoral.

How I reached the château, whether walking or flying, I cannot tell.
Happy as a king, proud as a god, for a new love was born in my heart.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN.




IX.


IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Hotel de la Préfecture, GRENOBLE (Isère).

PARIS, June 2d 18--.

It is five o'clock, I have just come from Pont de l'Arche, and I am
going to the Odeon, which is three miles from here; it seems to me that
the Odeon is three miles from every spot in Paris, for no matter where
you live, you are never near the Odeon!

Madame Taverneau is delighted at the prospect of treating a poor,
obscure, unsophisticated widow like myself to an evening at the theatre!
She has a box that she obtained, by some stratagem, the hour we got
here. She seemed so hurt and disappointed when I refused to accompany
her, that I was finally compelled to yield to her entreaties. The good
woman has for me a restless, troublesome affection that touches me
deeply. A vague instinct tells her that fate will lead us through
different paths in life, and in spite of herself, without being able to
explain why, she watches me as if she knew I might escape from her at
any moment.

She insisted upon escorting me to Paris, although she had nothing to
call her there, and her father, who is still my garret neighbor, did not
expect her. She relies upon taking me back to Pont de l'Arche, and I
have not the courage to undeceive her; I also dread the moment when I
will have to tell her my real name, for she will weep as if she were
hearing my requiem. Tell me, what can I do to benefit her and her
husband; if they had a child I would present it with a handsome dowry,
because parents gratefully receive money for their children, when they
would proudly refuse it for themselves.

To confer a favor without letting it appear as one, requires more
consideration, caution and diplomacy than I am prepared to devote to
the subject, so you must come to my relief and decide upon some plan.

I first thought of making M. Taverneau manager of one of my estates--now
that I have estates to be managed; but he is stupid ... and alas, what a
manager he would make! He would eat the hay instead of selling it; so I
had to relinquish that idea, and as he is unfit for anything else, I
will get him an office; the government alone possesses the art of
utilizing fools. Tell me what office I can ask for that will be very
remunerative to him--consult M. de Braimes; a Prefect ought to know how
to manage such a case; ask him what is the best way of assisting a
protégé who is a great fool? Let me know at once what he says.

I don't wish to speak of the subject to Roger, because it would be
revealing the past. Poor Roger, how unhappy he must be! I long so to see
him, and by great kindness make amends for my cruelty.

I told you of all the stratagems I had to resort to in order to find out
what Roger had written to M. de Meilhan about his sorrows; well, thanks
to my little sealing-wax boxes, I have seen Roger's letter! Yesterday
evening, M. de Meilhan brought me some new seals, and among the letters
he handed me was one from Roger! Imagine my feelings! I was so
frightened when I had the letter in my hand that I dared not read it;
not because I was too honorable, but too prudish; I dreaded being
embarrassed by reading facts stated in that free and easy style peculiar
to young men when writing to each other. The only concession I could
obtain from my delicacy was to glance at the three last lines: "I am not
angry with her, I am only vexed with myself," wrote the poor forsaken
man. "I never told her how much I loved her; if she had known it, never
would she have had the courage to desert me."

This simple honest sorrow affected me deeply; not wishing to read any
more, I went into the garden to return M. de Meilhan his letters, and
was glad it was too dark for him to perceive my paleness and agitation.
I at once decided to return to Paris, for I find that in spite of all
my fine programmes of cruelty, I am naturally tender-hearted and
distressed to death at the idea of making any one unhappy. I armed
myself with insensibility, and here I am already conquered by the first
groans of my victim. I would make but an indifferent tyrant, and if all
the suspicious queens and jealous empresses like Elizabeth, Catharine
and Christina had no more cruelty in their dispositions than I have, the
world would have been deprived of some of its finest tragedies.

You may congratulate yourself upon having mitigated the severity of my
decrees, for it is my anxiety to please you that has made me so suddenly
change all my plans of tests and trials. You say it is undignified to
act as a spy upon Roger, to conceal myself in Paris where he is
anxiously seeking and waiting for me; that this ridiculous play has an
air of intrigue, and had better be stopped at once or it may result
dangerously ... I am resigned--I renounce the sensible idea of testing
my future husband ... but be warned! If in the future I am tortured by
discovering any glaring defects and odious peculiarities, that what you
call my indiscretion might have revealed before it was too late, you
will permit me to come and complain to you every day, and you must
promise to listen to my endless lamentations as I repeat over and over
again. O Valentine, I have learned too late what I might have known in
time to save me! Valentine, I am miserable and disappointed--console me!
console me!

Doubtless to a young girl reared like yourself in affluence under your
mother's eye, this strange conduct appears culpable and indelicate; but
remember, that with me it is the natural result of the sad life I have
led for the last three years; this disguise, that I reassume from fancy,
was then worn from necessity, and I have earned the right of borrowing
it a little while longer from misfortune to assist me in guarding
against new sorrows. Am I not justified in wishing to profit by
experience too dearly bought? Is it not just that I should demand from
the sad past some guarantees for a brighter future, and make my bitter
sorrows the stepping-stones to a happy life? But, as I intend to follow
your advice, I'll do it gracefully without again alluding to my
frustrated plans.

To-morrow I return to Fontainebleau. I stayed there five days when I
went back with Madame Langeac; I only intended to remain a few minutes,
but my cousin was so uneasy at finding her daughter worse, that I did
not like to leave before the doctor pronounced her better. This illness
will assist me greatly in the fictions I am going to write Roger from
Fontainebleau to-morrow. I will tell him we were obliged to leave
suddenly, without having time to bid him adieu, to go and nurse a sick
relative; that she is better now, and Madame de Langeac and I will
return to Paris next week. In three days I shall return, and no one will
ever know I have been to Pont de l'Arche, except M. de Meilhan, who will
doubtless soon forget all about it; besides, he intends remaining in
Normandy till the end of the year, so there is no risk of our meeting.

Oh! I must tell you about the amusing evening M. de Meilhan and I spent
together at Madame Taverneau's. How we did laugh over it! He was king of
the feast, although he would not acknowledge it. Madame Taverneau was so
proud of entertaining the young lord of the village, that she had rushed
into the most reckless extravagance to do him honor. She had thrown the
whole town in a state of excitement by sending to Rouen for a piano. But
the grand event of the evening was a clock. Yet I must confess that the
effect was quite different from what she expected--it was a complete
failure. We usually sit in the dining-room, but for this grand occasion
the parlor was opened. On the mantel-piece in this splendid room there
is a clock adorned by a dreadful bronze horse running away with a fierce
warrior and some unheard-of Turkish female. I never saw anything so
hideous; it is even worse than your frightful clock with Columbus
discovering America! Madame Taverneau thought that M. de Meilhan, being
a poet and an artist, would compliment her upon possessing so rare and
valuable a work of art. Fortunately he said nothing--he even refrained
from smiling; this showed his great generosity and delicacy, for it is
only a man of refinement and delicacy that respects one's
illusions--especially when they are illusions in imitation bronze!

Upon my arrival here this morning, I was pained to hear that the trees
in front of my window are to be cut down; this news ought not to disturb
me in the least, as I never expect to return to this house again, yet it
makes me very sad; these old trees are so beautiful, and I have thought
so many things as I would sit and watch their long branches waving in
the summer breeze!...and the little light that shone like a star through
their thick foliage! shall I never see it again? It disappeared a year
ago, and I used to hope it would suddenly shine again. I thought: It is
absent, but will soon return to cheer my solitude. Sometimes I would
say: "Perhaps my ideal dwells in that little garret!" O foolish idea!
Vain hope! I must renounce all this poetry of youth; serious age creeps
on with his imposing escort of austere duties; he dispels the charming
fancies that console us in our sorrows; he extinguishes the bright
lights that guide us through darkness--drives away the beloved
ideal--spreads a cloud over the cherished star, and harshly cries out:
"Be reasonable!" which means: No longer hope to be happy.

Ah! Madame Taverneau calls me; she is in a hurry to start for the Odeon;
it is very early, and I don't wish to go until the last moment. I have
sent to the Hotel de Langeac for my letters, and must wait to glance
over them--they might contain news about Roger.

I have just caught a glimpse of the two ladies Madame Taverneau invited
to accompany us to the theatre.... I see a wine-colored bonnet trimmed
with green ribbons--it is horrible to look upon! Heavens--there comes
another! more intolerable than the first one! bright yellow adorned with
blue feathers!... Mercy! what a face within the bonnet! and what a
figure beneath the face! She has something glistening in her hand ... it
is ... a ... would you believe it? a travelling-bag covered with steel
beads!... she intends taking it to the theatre!... do my eyes deceive
me? _can_ she be filling it with oranges to carry with her?... she dare
not disgrace us by eating oranges.




X.


EDGAR DE MEILHAN _to the_ PRINCE DE MONBERT,
Saint Dominique Street, Paris.

RICHEPORT, June 3d, 18--

It seems, my dear Roger, that we are engaged in a game of interrupted
addresses. For my Louise Guérin, like your Irene de Chateaudun, has gone
I know not where, leaving me to struggle, in this land of apple trees,
with an incipient passion which she has planted in my breast. Flight has
this year become an epidemic among women.

The day after that famous soirée, I went to the post-office ostensibly
to carry the letter containing those triumphant details, but in reality
to see Louise, for any servant possessed sufficient intelligence to
acquit himself of such a commission. Imagine my surprise and
disappointment at finding instead of Madame Taverneau a strange face,
who gruffly announced that the post-mistress had gone away for a few
days with Madame Louise Guérin. The dove had flown, leaving to mark its
passage a few white feathers in its mossy nest, a faint perfume of grace
in this common-place mansion!

I could have questioned Madame Taverneau's fat substitute, but I am
principled against asking questions; things are explained soon enough.
Disenchantment is the key to all things. When I like a woman I carefully
avoid all her acquaintance, any one who can tell me aught about her. The
sound of her name pronounced by careless lips, puts me to flight; the
letters that she receives might be given me open and I should throw
them, unread, into the fire. If in speaking she makes any allusion to
the past events of her life, I change the conversation; I tremble when
she begins a recital, lest some disillusionizing incident should escape
her which would destroy the impression I had formed of her. As
studiously as others hunt after secrets I avoid them; if I have ever
learned anything of a woman I loved, it has always been in spite of my
earnest efforts, and what I have known I have carefully endeavored to
forget.

Such is my system. I said nothing to the fat woman, but entered Louise's
deserted chamber.

Everything was as she had left it.

A bunch of wild flowers, used as a model, had not had time to fade; an
unfinished bouquet rested on the easel, as if awaiting the last touches
of the pencil. Nothing betokened a final departure. One would have said
that Louise might enter at any moment. A little black mitten lay upon a
chair; I picked it up--and would have pressed it to my lips, if such an
action had not been deplorably rococo.

Then I threw myself into an old arm-chair, by the side of the bed--like
Faust in Marguerite's room--lifting the curtains with as much precaution
as if Louise reposed beneath. You are going to laugh at me, I know, dear
Roger, but I assure you, I have never been able to gaze upon a young
girl's bed without emotion.

That little pillow, the sole confidant of timid dreams, that narrow
couch, fitted like a tomb for but one alabaster form, inspired me with
tender melancholy. No anacreontic thoughts came to me, I assure you, nor
any disposition to rhyme in _ette_, herbette, filette, coudrette. The
love I bear to noble poesy saved me from such an exhibition of bad
taste.

A crucifix, over which hung a piece of blessed box, spread its ivory
arms above Louise's untroubled slumber. Such simple piety touched me. I
dislike bigots, but I detest atheists.

Musing there alone it flashed upon me that Louise Guérin had never been
married, in spite of her assertion. I am disposed to doubt the existence
of the late Albert Guérin. A sedate and austere atmosphere surrounds
Louise, suggesting the convent or the boarding-school.

I went into the garden; the sunbeams checkered the steps of the porch;
the wilted iris drooped on its stem, and the acacia flowers strewed the
pathway. Apropos of acacia flowers, do you know, that fried in batter,
they make excellent fritters? Finding myself alone in the walks where I
had strolled with her, I do not know how it happened, but I felt my
heart swell, and I sighed like a young abbé of the 17th century.

I returned to the château, having no excuse for remaining longer, vexed,
disappointed, wearied, idle--the habit of seeing Louise every day had
grown upon me.

And habit is everything to poor humanity, as that graceful poet Alfred
de Musset says. My feet only know the way to the post-office; what shall
I do with myself while this visit lasts? I tried to read, but my
attention wandered; I skipped the lines, and read the same paragraph
over twice; my book having fallen down I picked it up and read it for
one whole hour upside down, without knowing it--I wished to make a
monosyllabic sonnet--extremely interesting occupation--and failed. My
quatrains were tedious, and my tercets entirely too diffuse.

My mother begins to be uneasy at my dullness; she has asked twice if I
were sick--I have fallen off already a quarter of a pound; for nothing
is more enraging than to be deserted at the most critical period of
one's infatuation! Ixion of Normandy, my Juno is a screen-painter, I
open my arms and clasp only a cloud! My position, similar to yours,
cannot, however, be compared with it--mine only relates to a trifling
flirtation, a thwarted fancy, while yours is a serious passion for a
woman of your own rank who has accepted your hand, and therefore has no
right to trifle with you,--she must be found, if only for vengeance!

Remorse consumes me because of my sentimental stupidity by moonlight.
Had I profited by the night, the solitude and the occasion, Louise had
not left me; she saw clearly that I loved her, and was not displeased at
the discovery. Women are strange mixtures of timidity and rashness.

Perhaps she has gone to join her lover, some saw-bones, some
counting-house Lovelace, while I languish here in vain, like Celadon or
Lygdamis of cooing memory.

This is not at all probable, however, for Madame Taverneau would not
compromise her respectability so far as to act as chaperon to the loves
of Louise Guérin. After all, what is it to me? I am very good to trouble
myself about the freaks of a prudish screen-painter! She will return,
because the hired piano has not been sent back to Rouen, and not a soul
in the house knows a note of music but Louise, who plays quadrilles and
waltzes with considerable taste, an accomplishment she owes to her
mistress of painting, who had seen better days and possessed some skill.

Do not be too much flattered by this letter of grievances, for I only
wanted an excuse to go to the post-office to see if Louise has
returned--suppose she has not! the thought drives the blood back to my
heart.

Isn't it singular that I should fall desperately in love with this
simple shepherdess--I who have resisted the sea-green glances and smiles
of the sirens that dwell in the Parisian ocean? Have I escaped from the
Marquise's Israelite turbans only to become a slave to a straw bonnet? I
have passed safe and sound through the most dangerous defiles to be
worsted in open country; I could swim in the whirlpool, and now drown in
a fish-pond; every celebrated beauty, every renowned coquette finds me
on my guard. I am as circumspect as a cat walking over a table covered
with glass and china. It is hard to make me pose, as they say in a
certain set; but when the adversary is not to be feared, I allow him so
many advantages that in the end he subdues me.

I was not sufficiently on my guard with Louise at first.

I said to myself: "She is only a grisette"--and left the door of my
heart open--love entered in, and I fear I shall have some trouble in
driving him out.

Excuse, dear Roger, this nonsense, but I must write you something. After
all, my passion is worth as much as yours. Love is the same whether
inspired by an empress or a rope-dancer, and I am just as unhappy at
Louise's disappearance as you are at Irene's.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN




XI.


ROGER DE MONBERT _to_ MONSIEUR DE MEILHAN,
Pont de l'Arche (Eure).

PARIS, June 3d 18--.

She is in Paris!

Before knowing it I felt it. The atmosphere was filled with a voice, a
melody, a brightness, a perfume that murmured: Irene is here!

Paris appears to me once more populated; the crowd is no longer a desert
in my eyes; this great dead city has recovered its spirit of life; the
sun once more smiles upon me; the earth bounds under my feet; the soft
summer air fans my burning brow, and whispers into my ear that one
adored name--Irene!

Chance has a treasure-house of atrocious combinations. Chance! The
cunning demon! He calls himself Chance so as to better deceive us. With
an infernal skilfulness he feigns not to watch us in the decisive
moments of our lives, and at the same time leads us like blind fools
into the very path he has marked out for us.

You know the two brothers Ernest and George de S. were planted by their
family in the field of diplomacy: they study Eastern languages and
affect Eastern manners. Well, yesterday we met in the Bois de Boulogne,
they in a calash, and I on horseback--I am trying riding as a moral
hygiene--as the carriage dashed by they called out to me an invitation
to dinner; I replied, "Yes," without stopping my horse. Idleness and
indolence made me say "Yes," when I should have said, "No;" but _Yes_ is
so much easier to pronounce than _No_, especially on horseback. _No_
necessitates a discussion; _Yes_ ends the matter, and economizes words
and time.

I was rather glad I had met these young sprigs of diplomacy. They are
good antidotes for low spirits, for they are always in a hilarious state
and enjoy their youth in idle pleasure, knowing they are destined to
grow old in the soporific dulness of an Eastern court.

I thought we three would be alone at dinner; alas! there were five of
us.

Two female artistes who revelled in their precocious emancipation; two
divinities worshipped in the temple of the grand sculptors of modern
Athens; the Scylla and Charybdis of Paris.

I am in the habit of bowing with the same apparent respect to every
woman in the universe. I have bowed to the ebony women of Senegal; to
the moon-colored women of the Southern Archipelago; to the snow-white
women of Behring's Strait, and to the bronze women of Lahore and Ceylon.
Now it was impossible for me to withdraw from the presence of two fair
women whose portraits are the admiration of all connoisseurs who visit
the Louvre. Besides, I have a theory: the less respectable a woman is,
the more respect we should show her, and thus endeavor to bring her back
to virtue.

I remained and tried to add my fifth share of antique gayety to the
feast. We were Praxiteles, Phidias and Scopas; we had inaugurated the
modest Venus and her sister in their temples, and we drank to our model
goddesses in wines from the Ionian Archipelago.

That evening, you may remember, Antigone was played at the Odeon in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain.

I have another theory: in any action, foolish or wise, either carry it
through bravely when once undertaken, or refrain from undertaking it. I
had not the wisdom to refrain, therefore I was compelled to imitate the
folly of my friends; at dessert I even abused the invitation, and too
often sought to drown sorrow in the ruby cup.

We started for the Odeon. Our entrance at the theatre caused quite an
excitement. The ladies, cavalierly suspended on the arms of the two
future Eastern ambassadors, sailed in with a conscious air of epicurean
grace and dazzling beauty. The classic ushers obsequiously threw open
the doors, and led us to our box. I brought up the procession, looking
as insolent and proud as I did the day I entered the ruined pagoda of
Bangalore to carry off the statue of Sita.

The first act was being played, and the Athenian school preserved a
religious silence in front of the proscenium. The noise we made by
drawing back the curtain of our box, slamming the door and loudly
laughing, drowned for an instant the touching strains of the tragic
choir, and centred upon us the angry looks of the audience.

With what cool impertinence did our divinities lean over the seats and
display their round white arms, that have so often been copied in Parian
marble by our most celebrated sculptors! Our three intellectual faces,
wreathed in the silly smiles of intoxication, hovered over the silken
curls of our goddesses, thus giving the whole theatre a full view of our
happiness!

Occasionally a glimmer of reason would cross my confused brain, and I
would soliloquize: Why am I disgracing myself in this way before all
these people? What possesses me to act in concert with these drunken
fools and bold women? I must rush out and apologize to the first person
I meet!

It was impossible for me to follow my good impulse--some unseen hand
held me back--some mysterious influence kept me chained to the spot. We
are influenced by magic, although magicians no longer exist!

Between the acts, our two Greek statues criticised the audience in loud
tones, and their remarks, seasoned with attic salt, afforded a peculiar
supplement to the choir of Antigone.

"Those four women on our right must be sensible people," said our blonde
statue; "they have put their show-piece in front. I suppose she is the
beauty of the party; did you ever behold such dreadful bonnets and
dresses? They must have come from the Olympic Circus. If I were
disfigured in that way, I would be a box-opener, but never would be seen
in one!"

"I think I have seen them before," said the bronze statue; they hire
their bonnets from the fish-market--disgusting creatures that they are!"

"What do the two in the corner look like, my angel?"

"I see nothing but a shower of curls; I suppose _she_ found it more
economical to curl her hair than to buy a bonnet. Every time I stretch
my neck to get a look at her, she hides behind those superb bonnets."

"Which proves," said Ernest, "that she is paradoxically ugly."

"I pity them, if they are seeking four husbands," said George; "and if
they are married--I pity their four husbands."

Whilst my noisy companions were trying to discover their ideal fright in
the corner of the box on our right, I felt an inexplicable contraction
of my heart--a chill pass through my whole body; my silly gayety was by
some unseen influence suddenly changed into sadness--I felt my eyes fill
with tears. The only way I could account for this revulsion in my
feelings was the growing conviction that I was disgracing myself in a
den of malefactors of both sexes. My fit of melancholy was interrupted
very opportunely by the choir chanting the hymn of Bacchus, that antique
wonder, found by Mendelssohn in the ruins of the Temple of Victory.

When the play was over, I timidly proposed that we should remain in our
box till the crowd had passed out; but our Greek statues would not hear
to it, as they had determined upon a triumphal exit. I was obliged to
yield.

The bronze statue despotically seized my arm, and dragged me toward the
stair. I felt as if I had a cold lizard clinging to me. I was seized
with that chilly sensation always felt by nervous people when they come
in contact with reptiles.

I recalled the disastrous day that I was shipwrecked on the island of
Eaei-Namove, and compelled to marry Dai-Natha, the king's daughter, in
order to escape the unpleasant alternative of being eaten alive by her
father. On the staircase of the Odeon I regretted Dai-Natha.

In the midst of the dense crowd that blockaded the stairway, I heard a
frightened cry that made the blood freeze in my veins. There was but one
woman in the world blest with so sweet a voice--musical even when raised
in terror.

If I were surrounded by crashing peals of thunder, rushing waters and
yells of wild beasts, I still could recognise, through the din of all
this, the cry of a beloved woman. I am gifted with that marvellous
perception of hearing, derived from the sixth sense, the sense of love.

Irene de Chateaudun had uttered that cry of alarm--_Take care, my dear!_
she had exclaimed with that accent of fright that it is impossible to
disguise--in that tone that will be natural in spite of all the reserve
that circumstances would impose, _Take care, my dear!_

Some one near me said that a door-keeper had struck a lady on the
shoulder with a panel of a portable door which he was carrying across
the passage-way. By standing on my toes I could just catch a glimpse of
the board being balanced in the air over every one's head. My eyes coul

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