Letters to an Unknown

by Prosper Mérimée · English · Gutenberg #43553 · 811,801 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Letters to an Unknown

Author: Prosper Mérimée

Editor: George Saintsbury

Release date: August 24, 2013 [eBook #43553]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO AN UNKNOWN ***

Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed.
Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text.
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(etext transcriber's note)

[Illustration: image of PROSPER MÉRIMÉE]

WORKS OF

PROSPER MÉRIMÉE

_EDITED BY_

PROF. GEORGE SAINTSBURY, M.A.

LETTERS TO AN UNKNOWN

BIGELOW, BROWN & CO., INC. NEW YORK

_All Rights Reserved_

PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.

PROSPER MÉRIMÉE

I met Mérimée frequently in society. He was a tall man, erect in his
bearing, pale, and, excepting his smile, had the appearance of an
Englishman; he had, at all events, that cold, distant manner which
forbids in advance any attempt at familiarity. Merely to see him one was
impressed by his callousness, either natural or acquired, by his
self-control, by his determined self-repression. On ceremonious
occasions, especially, the immobility of his countenance was
conspicuously manifest.

Even in the society of his intimate friends, and when relating a witty
anecdote, his voice retained its habitual calmness and tranquillity,
with never an outburst, never a sign of enthusiasm. The drollest details
he described in the most precise language, in the tone of a man asking
for a cup of tea. All evidences of sensibility he had mastered until it
seemed a quality absent from his nature. Not that it was so--quite the
contrary; but race-horses there are so well trained that, once under
their master’s hand, they never so much as make a sudden start.

His training, it must be said, had begun early. When ten or eleven years
old, I imagine, having committed some impropriety, he was scolded
severely and sent from the room. Weeping and in great distress, he was
just closing the door when he heard laughter within the room, and some
one said: “Poor child! he believes we are really angry with him!”
Intolerable to him was the idea of being a dupe, and he resolved
thereupon to overcome a sensitiveness which had caused him such
humiliation. He kept his word. “Remember to mistrust,” such was his
motto.

To guard against every manifestation of pleasure, never to abandon
himself unreservedly to the expression of emotion, to be tricked neither
by others nor by himself, in his conduct and his writings to have in
view the constant presence of an unsympathetic, mocking spectator; to be
himself that spectator--these are the most distinguishing
characteristics of his nature, of which every phase of his life, of his
work, and of his talent bears the imprint.[1]

His attitude was always that of an amateur; it can hardly be otherwise
with one who is endowed with the critical temperament. From turning the
tapestry around and around, one ends by seeing nothing but the wrong
side; and thus, instead of lovely figures, gracefully posed, one sees
only the rough bits of embroidery silk. To such a one, it is irksome
with forbearance to engage in any public work; to cast in his lot even
with the party of his choice, with the school of his preference, the
science which he pursues, the art in which he excels; and if, at times,
he descends voluntarily into the contest, more frequently he regards it
from afar.

At an early age he was placed in comfortable circumstances, then in an
employment which was both congenial and interesting, that of Inspector
of Historic Monuments. He then succeeded to a seat in the Senate
Chamber, and later to a post at court.

As Inspector of Historic Monuments, he was capable, painstaking, and
valuable; in the Senate he had the good taste to be usually absent or
silent; at court, he enjoyed perfect freedom of action and of speech. To
travel, to study, to mingle with men and affairs, such was his real
occupation, and his official claims proved no restraint to the
indulgence of his tastes. We must remember, too, that a man of such
genius compels respect, even in the face of obstacles. His irony pierces
the best case-hardened armour. Let us see with what ease and grace he
handles it, even to the point of directing it against himself, thus
making a double shot.

One day, at Biarritz, he had read one of his novels to the empress. “Not
long afterward I received a visit from a policeman, who said he had been
sent by the grand-duchess. ‘In what way may I serve you?’ ‘I come in the
name of her royal highness, to beg that you will attend her this evening
with your novel.’ ‘What novel?’ ‘The one you read to her majesty the
other day.’ I replied that I had the honour to be her majesty’s jester,
and that without her permission I could not accept engagements outside
the court. I flew without delay to tell her the incident, expecting
that the result would be, at the very least, a war with Russia, and I
was no little chagrined not only to receive authority to go, but to go
that very evening to the home of the grand-duchess, to whom the
policeman had been assigned as factotum. However, to soothe my feelings
I wrote a letter to the grand-duchess giving her a piece of my mind.
This letter, ‘giving her a piece of my mind,’ must have been an
interesting composition, and I am sure the factotum did not show himself
again.”

As for formal gatherings, it would be impossible for any one to address
them with more seriousness of demeanour and with less inward deference.
Grave, sedate, of dignified carriage, when making an Academic visit, or
delivering an impromptu address in public, his manner was
irreproachable; but all the while the bird-organ behind the scenes was
playing a comic air which turned both the orator and the audience to
ridicule. “The president of the Antiquarian Society rose from his seat,
all the other guests following his example. He began to speak, saying
that inasmuch as from those aspects I was a man of notable attainments,
he wished to propose my health, as senator, as man of letters, and as a
scholar. There was only the table between us, and I was strongly tempted
to hurl a glass of Roman punch at his head.... The next morning I
listened to the minutes of the proceedings of the night before, in which
it was stated that I had delivered a most eloquent address. I made a
speech, to urge that all the adverbs be omitted from the report, but my
request was not granted.”

While a candidate for the Academy of Inscriptions, he was taken to call
upon some learned persons of formidable aspect; he wrote, on his
return: “Have you ever seen dogs entering a badger’s hole? Before they
have had some experience in this occupation, they make, on entering, a
desperate show of fierceness, and not infrequently come out much faster
than they go in, for the badger is an ugly beast to visit. I never touch
the door-bell of an Academician that I am not reminded of the badger,
and compare myself, in my mind’s eye, to the dog I have just described.
I have not yet been bitten, however, but I have had some ludicrous
encounters.”

He was elected, and had, along with others, his archæological burrow. It
is easy to guess, however, that his was not the temperament to be
restricted to this or to any place of hiding. For him there were always
several modes of exit. In him were two individualities: one which
acquitted himself conscientiously of the essential duties and
ceremonials incumbent upon him as a member of society; the other
dwelling beside or above the first, and in contempt or resignation
observing his actions.

Similarly, in his affections he had within him two distinct
personalities. The first, the natural man, was kind, even tender. In
friendship no one was more loyal, more trustworthy. Once he had extended
his hand, there was no withdrawal. We see an instance of this in his
defence of M. Libri, in opposition to the decision of the judges and to
public sentiment. It was the act of a knight, who single-handed combats
a whole army. Fined, and condemned to prison, he assumed no martyr’s
airs, and in submitting to his misfortune, brought to it all the grace
that he had brought of courage to its provocation. He has never
referred to it, save in a preface, and then only by way of apology,
stating that he had been compelled “during the preceding month of July
to spend a fortnight in a place in which he was not at all
inconvenienced by the sunshine, and where he enjoyed unlimited leisure.”
Nothing more. It is the prudent, subtle smile of a gallant man.

He was, moreover, helpful and obliging. People who approached him to ask
a favour went away discouraged because of his cold aspect, but a month
later he would call upon them with the requested favour in his pocket.
In his correspondence he gives expression to a striking phrase, to the
truth of which all his friends will bear testimony: “It seldom happens
that I sacrifice others to myself, and when this does occur I am
overcome with remorse.”

Toward the close of his life there lived in his home two elderly English
ladies, to whom he seldom spoke and to whom apparently he gave little
attention; yet a friend of mine found him in tears because one of them
was ill. He never spoke of his most profound sentiments. Here we have a
correspondence of love, which developed into friendship lasting for
thirty years; the final letter was written the last day of his life, and
yet no one knows the name of his correspondent. To one who can read
these letters understandingly they are all that is graceful, tender, and
delicate, truly affectionate, and--who would imagine it?--at times
poetic, imaginative even, like a German lyric.

The following incident is so strange, that it must be quoted almost
wholly:

“You have been such a long time writing to me that I began to be very
uneasy. Besides, I have been harassed by an absurd idea, which I have
not dared to tell you before. I was visiting the amphitheatre at Nîmes
with an architect of the department, who was explaining to me at length
the repairs which he had had made there, when I saw ten feet away a
lovely bird, a little larger than a tomtit, with a linen-gray body, and
wings of red, black and white. This bird was perched on a cornice,
gazing at me fixedly. I interrupted the architect, who is a great
sportsman, to ask him the name of the bird. He told me he had never seen
one like it. I approached, and, perching a few steps beyond, and still
watching me, the bird did not take flight until I was close enough to
touch it. Wherever I went the bird seemed to follow, for I saw it on
every tier of the amphitheatre. It had no companion, and its flight was
noiseless, like that of a bird of night.

“The next day I returned to the amphitheatre, and there was my bird
again. I had brought some bread with me, which I threw to it. The bird
looked at the food, but would not touch it. I then tempted it with a big
grasshopper, thinking from the shape of the bill that it would eat
insects, but the bird paid no attention to the grasshopper. The most
learned ornithologist in the city told me that no bird of that species
lived in the country.

“Finally, when I visited the amphitheatre for the last time, I found my
bird again, still pursuing my steps, following me even into a narrow,
dark corridor, where, bird of light that it was, it should not have
dared to venture.

“I recalled then that the duchess of Buckingham had seen her husband in
the form of a bird the day of his assassination, and the thought came to
me that you were dead, perhaps, and that you had assumed this form in
order to visit me. In spite of myself, I could not shake off this
foolish idea, and I was delighted, I assure you, to see that your letter
bore the date of the day when I had first seen my mysterious bird.”

It is thus that, even in a sceptic, affection and imagination are
stirred; ‘tis a “piece of folly,” to be sure, but it is no less true
that he was on the threshold of dreaming and in the highway of love.[2]

But along with the lover dwelt the critic, and the conflict between
these two personages in the same man was productive of strange results.
In such a case, it is better, perhaps, not to look too closely. “Do you
realise,” said La Fontaine, “that I am as blind to the faults of persons
whom I may love never so little, as if I were a mole living a hundred
feet under the ground? No sooner do I feel an atom of love, than I
hasten to moisten it with all the incense of my store-house.” This,
perhaps, is the secret of his charm.

In the letters of Mérimée harsh words fall like rain amidst the soft
ones; “I will admit that you have become much more beautiful physically,
but not morally.... You still have a sylph-like figure, and, although I
am somewhat _blasé_ concerning black eyes, I have never seen any so
large in Constantinople or in Smyrna.

“Now comes the reverse of the medal. In many respects you have remained
a child, and you have become a hypocrite into the bargain.... You
imagine that you are proud, but I regret to tell you that what you think
is pride is only the petty vanity which one would expect in a religious
temperament. It is the fashion nowadays to preach. Shall you follow it?
That would be the finishing stroke.” And a little farther on: “In all
that you say and do, you substitute invariably a conventional for a
genuine sentiment.... I respect convictions, even those that seem to me
the most absurd. You have a great many ridiculous notions (pardon the
word), of which I should hesitate to deprive you since you are so fond
of them, and have no others to take their place.”

After two months of affectionate words, of quarrels, and of meetings he
concludes thus: “It seems to me you become more egotistical every day.
When you speak of _us_, you mean only _yourself_. The more I think of
this, the more deplorable it appears.... We are so unlike that it is
hardly possible to understand each other.” It seems that he had met a
character as restive and as independent as his own, “a lioness, though
tame,” and he analyses it thus: “It is a pity we can not meet the day
after having a quarrel, for I am sure we should be in a perfectly
amiable frame of mind.... Without doubt, my most dangerous enemy to your
heart or, if you prefer, my strongest rival, is your pride. Whatever
wounds that, excites your indignation. This notion you carry out,
perhaps unconsciously, in the most trifling matters. Is it not, for
instance, your pride which is satisfied when I kiss your hand? This, you
have said to me, makes you happy, and to this sensation you abandon
yourself, because a demonstration of humility is gratifying to your
pride.”

Four months later, while he is absent from Paris, after a more serious
misunderstanding: “You are one of those chilly women of the North, who
are governed only by the mind.... Farewell, since we can be friends only
at a distance. When we have grown old, perhaps we shall meet again with
pleasure.” Then, with a word of affection, he recovers his serenity. But
the antagonism of their temperaments is bound to reappear. “Seldom do I
reproach you, except for that lack of frankness, which keeps me
constantly in a rage with you, compelled as I am always to search for
your meaning under a disguise.... Why is it, when we have become all we
are to each other, that you must reflect for several days before
replying frankly to the simplest question of mine?... Between your
reason and your heart, I never feel sure which will win; you do not know
yourself, but you give the preference always to your reason.... If you
have committed any wrong, it is assuredly that preference which you give
to your pride over all the tenderness of your nature. The first
sentiment is to the second as a colossus to a pygmy. And that pride of
yours is at bottom nothing but a kind of selfishness.”

All this ended in a warm and lasting friendship. But do you not consider
admirable his delightful manner of love-making? They met in the Louvre,
at Versailles, and in the adjoining woods; they took long walks, even
in January, several times a week; he admired “a radiant physiognomy, a
splendid bearing, a white hand, superb black hair”; a mind whose
intelligence and attainments were worthy of his own, the charms of an
unusual type of beauty, the attractions of a broad and miscellaneous
culture, the fascinations of a toilet, and a coquetry cleverly directed
and managed; he breathed the exquisite perfume of an education so well
chosen, and of a “nature so refined, that it summed up for him an entire
civilisation”; to sum it all up, he was under the charm. Then the
spectator reappears and resumes his post. He disputed the purport of a
reply, of a gesture; he dissociated himself from his feelings that he
might form an unbiassed judgment; he expressed candidly and
epigrammatically his views one day, to regret them the next.

Such was the man as we find him reflected in his books. As a dilettante
he wrote and studied, passing from one subject to another, as suggested
by the occasion or his own fancy, without devoting himself to one system
of knowledge, without dedicating himself to the worship of one idea.
This was owing to no lack of study or of natural endowment; few men, on
the contrary, have enjoyed a broader mental training. Besides French he
was master of six languages, including their literature and philology:
Italian, Greek, Latin, English, Spanish, and Russian. I believe, also,
that he read German. An occasional phrase, or a reference in his
correspondence, shows the extent to which he had directed these studies.

_Calo_ he spoke in such a manner as to astonish the Spanish gipsies. He
was familiar with the various Spanish dialects, and was able to decipher
the archaic title-deeds of Catalonia. He understood perfectly English
versification. Those only who have studied an entire literature, both in
print and in manuscript, during the several successive periods of its
development, in style and in orthography, are able to appreciate the
skill and perseverance necessary to know Spanish as the author of _Don
Pedro_ knew it, and Russian as the author of _The Cossacks_ and of _The
False Demetrius_ knew it. With a natural gift for languages, he pursued
their acquirement even after reaching maturity. During the latter part
of his life he became interested in philology, and while living in
Cannes devoted himself to the critical studies which compose the
comparative grammar.

To this acquaintance with books he had added that of monuments, his
reports proving that throughout France he was the acknowledged expert in
this branch of learning. He understood not only the purpose, but the
technique, of architecture. Each ancient church he visited in person,
conducting his examinations with the aid of the best architects the
country afforded. His memory of local affairs was excellent by nature
and by careful training.

Born in a family of artists, he was clever in the use of the brush, and
as a water-colourist was equally skilful. In short, in this, as in
everything he did, he went to the very foundations of the subject.
Evasive expression he detested, writing no word until he had reached
definite and absolute conclusions. It would be difficult to find a
historian whose head was so complete a store-house of information
relating to the past, who was himself, indeed, a whole library, a whole
museum of information.

He possessed, besides, the rarer gifts of a knowledge of life and a
clear imagination, by the exercise of which those relics of the past
were revivified and lived again. He had travelled widely, having made
one journey to the Orient and two to Greece; he had visited England,
Spain, and other countries twelve or fifteen times, and wherever he went
he had been a close observer of the manners and customs not only of the
best society, but of the peasantry also: “Many a time have I broken
bread with people whom an Englishman would not notice for fear of losing
his self-respect. I have even drunk from the same bottle with a
convict.”

He had lived on familiar terms with Spanish gipsies and toreadors. Many
an evening he had told stories for the entertainment of a group of
peasant men and women of Ardèche. One of the places where he felt most
at home was in a Spanish _venta_, with the “mule-drivers and peasant
women of Andalusia.”

He sought out types perverted, and types unsullied, “through an
inexhaustible curiosity for every variety of the human species,” and
thus formed in his memory a gallery of living pictures inestimably more
precious than any other kind; for those of books and of edifices are but
empty shells, once tenanted, but whose structure may be known only by
imagining the forms that dwelt therein, from the poems that have
survived. By a sort of divination, keen, accurate, and swift, he made
this mental reconstruction. In the _Chronicle of Charles IX_, in _The
Experiments of an Adventurer_, and in the _Theater of Clara Gazul_ it is
evident that such was his involuntary method. His writings tend
naturally to the demi-dreams of the artist, to scenic effect, and to
romance which clothes the dead past with new life. With splendid
acquirements and talents like these, he might have occupied in the field
of history and of art a position of eminent importance and distinction;
yet as a historian he has taken but a mediocre place, and as an artist,
his rank, while a high one, is of narrow limit.

The bent of his mind led Mérimée to be suspicious, and suspicion carried
to excess is harmful. To obtain from the study of any subject all that
it is able to bestow, one must, I fancy, give oneself to it without
reserve, be wedded to it, indeed, but not treat it as a mistress to whom
one is devoted for two or three years, only to discard and take a new
one. A man produces the best of which he is capable only when, after
conceiving to himself some form of art, some method of science, in short
some general idea of his subject, he becomes so enamoured that he finds
it possessing attractions above all else--himself especially--and
worships it as a goddess, whom he is happy only in serving.

Mérimée, also, was capable of cherishing this affection and adoration,
but after a time the critic within him awoke, bringing the goddess to
trial, only to discover that she was not entirely divine. All our
methods of science, all our forms of art, all our general ideas, have
some weak spot; the inadequate, the uncertain, the expedient, the
artificial, abound therein; only the illusion of love can find them
perfect, and a sceptic does not remain long in love. He put on his
magnifying glasses, and in the enchanting statue discovered a lack of
poise, a vagueness and insincerity of construction, a modernity of
attitude. Becoming disgusted, he turned away, not without reason, to be
sure, and these reasons he explains in passing. He sees in our
philosophy of history an element of speculation, in our mania for
erudition the futility, inutility; he sees extravagance in our taste for
the picturesque, and insipidity in our paintings of realism. Let
inventors and simpletons, through vanity or stupidity, accept, if they
like, such a system, such a style; but as for himself, he rejects it,
or, if he has not rejected, he regrets that he has not done so.

“About the year of grace 1827 I belonged to the Romantic school. We said
to the Classicists, ‘Without _local colour_, there is no hope of
salvation,’ meaning by local colour that which in the seventeenth
century was known as manners and customs. But we were mighty proud of
our word, and imagined that we had invented both the word and the thing
for which it stood.” When, later, he wrote some Illyrian poems which
were construed by the critics beyond the Rhine with the utmost
seriousness, he was able to boast of having, indeed, created local
colour. “But,” said he, “the process was so simple, so easy, that I came
at last to doubt the value of local colour itself, and forgave Racine
for having clothed with civilisation the savage heroes of Sophocles and
Euripides.”

Toward the end of his life, he avoided resolutely the acceptance of all
theories; they were, in his opinion, good only to work on the credulity
of philosophers and as a means of livelihood for professors. He accepted
and repeated only anecdotes and small facts of observation in
philology; for instance, the exact date when one ceases to meet in Old
French the two cases derived from the Latin declension. By dint of his
craving for certainty, knowledge came to be to him but a withered plant,
a stalk devoid of blossoms. In no other way can we explain the
lifelessness of his historical essays, _Don Pedro_, _The Cossacks_, _The
False Demetrius_, _The Social War_, _The Conspiracy of Catiline_,
studies vigorous, exhaustive, well-maintained and well-developed, but
whose characters are not alive, probably because he did not care to give
them life. For in another work, _The Experiments of an Adventurer_, he
has caused the sap to return to the plant, so that it may be seen
successively under its two aspects, dull and rigid in the historical
herbarium, fresh and green in the work of art. In placing his Spaniards
of the nineteenth century as the contemporaries of Sylla in this
herbarium, they were as clearly seen by his inner vision, no doubt, as
was his adventurer; at any rate, this would have been no more of a tax
upon his mental retina. He was reluctant, however, to permit us to see
them thus, conceding only facts which could bear the test of proof,
refusing to give his own assumptions rather than authentic occurrences,
critical to the impairment of his own work, severe to the point of
suppressing the best part of himself, and of placing his imagination
under the ban.

In his artistic works the critic still rules, but in this case his
office is usually one of service, to control and to direct his talent
like a spring which is confined within a pipe that it may gush forth in
a stream slender and compressed. Certain gifts were his by nature which
no amount of application can bestow, and which were never possessed by
his master, Stendhal--the talent for scenic effect, for dialogue, for
humorous situations. He knew the art of introducing two characters, and
by their conversation alone of bringing them in strong relief before the
vision of the reader. Like Stendhal, moreover, he understood personal
peculiarities, and was a skilful story-teller. These clever powers he
subjected to a severe training, and, by a double strain, endeavoured to
compel them to yield the best results from the smallest material.

From the very first he had delighted in the Spanish drama, which is
overflowing with vigour and action; and he borrowed a number of its
situations to compose, under a fictitious name, some short pieces of
deep purport and modern significance; and, a thing unique in the history
of literature, many of these imitations--_The Crisis_ and _Perichole_,
for example--are superior to his original stories. Nowhere else do the
characters stand out so distinctly and so energetically as in his
comedies. In _The Conspirators_, and in _The Two Heirs_, each personage,
according to Goethe, resembles one of those perfect watches of
transparent crystal, in the face of which is visible, not only the exact
time, but also the action of the entire interior mechanism. All the
minutest details are burdened with significance.

It is the attribute of great masters of painting in five or six strokes
of the crayon to sketch in a face which, once seen, can never be
forgotten. Even in his less popular comedies--for example, in _The
Spaniards in Denmark_--there are characters, like the Lieutenant
Charles Leblanc and his mother, the spy, who will remain forever in the
human memory.

If, indeed, so confirmed a sceptic had deigned to have any moral
sensibility, he would have explained, I fancy, that to a good judge of
mankind every individual is reduced to three or four essential
qualities, which manifest themselves completely in a few significant
actions; all else is but acquired, and therefore unimportant, to exhibit
which is but a waste of time. Intelligent readers will take this for
granted, and it is for intelligent readers only that one should write.
Leave idle chatter to chatterers; deal with vital points only, and these
exemplify by none but convincing actions. To condense, to curtail, to
summarise life, is the purpose of art.

Such, at any rate, was his, which he realises even better in his
romances than in his comedies, where the requirements of stage effect
and of humorous situations can not fail to exaggerate incidents, to
caricature truth, and to conceal behind a theatrical mask the living
face.[3] The novelist, less hampered by restrictions and with wider
resources at his command, may draw his characters with a more accurate
and also a freer hand. Many of these novels are masterpieces, and we may
believe that they will continue in the future to be held as classics.

For this assumption there are several reasons: In the first place, they
have lived already for thirty or forty years, and _Carmen_, _The Taking
of the Redoubt_, _Colomba_, _Matteo Falcone_, _The Abbé Aubain_, _Arsène
Guillot_, _The Venus of Ille_, _The Game of Backgammon_, _Tamango_, even
_The Etruscan Vase_, and _The Double Mistake_, are almost all little
structures that stand now as firmly as the day they were erected. This
is explained by the fact that they are built of carefully selected
stone, not of stucco and other popular materials. Here we find none of
those descriptions which pass out of fashion after half a century, and
which to-day we consider so tiresome in the romances of Walter Scott; we
see none of those reflections, disquisitions, interpretations, which we
think so tedious in the novels of Fielding; nothing but action, and
action never fails to be instructive. This is all the more striking
inasmuch as important action only is introduced, intelligible alike to
readers of another country and another century. In the works of Balzac
and of Dickens, where this precaution was not observed, many minute
details of local or technical significance will be lost, like a
plastered wall which crumbles away, or they will be serviceable only to
commentators in their commentaries.

A second reason for their endurance is the brevity of these romances,
the longest of them consuming but half a volume, while one is but six
pages. All, however, stand out clearly and are carefully developed, the
interest centred around a single action and a single purpose. Now we
must consider posterity in the light that we do a foreigner, in that it
does not exercise the forbearance of contemporary readers, and that it
does not tolerate tediousness; for how many persons to-day will submit
to the eight volumes of Clarissa Harlowe? We must remember, in short,
that human attention overtaxed ends invariably in bankruptcy; it is
prudent, therefore, when after a century its consideration is still
sought, to speak in language concise, clear, and open.

It is wise, moreover, in addressing posterity to choose interesting
subjects and to treat them in an interesting way. Interesting subjects:
that would exclude events essentially tame or commonplace, characters
essentially colourless or ordinary. To treat these in an interesting
way: which means situations and passions of sufficient vitality, after
the lapse of a century, to have them serve actual conditions. The types
chosen by Mérimée were sincere, strong, and original. We may compare
them to medallions of durable metal, in bold relief, set in an
appropriate frame and amid harmonious surroundings; an officer’s first
battle, a Corsican vendetta, a slave-trader’s last voyage, a slip from
the path of integrity, the sacrifice of a son by his father, a secret
tragedy in a modern salon. Like the novels of Bandello and the Italian
fiction-writers, almost all his tales are sanguinary, and are painful,
besides, from the cold-bloodedness of the recital, the accuracy of the
action, and the skilful convergence of details.

Far better, each one is, in its little setting, a record of human
nature, a record, complete and of far-reaching import, to which a
philosopher, a moralist, may return year after year without exhausting
its interest.

Multitudes of dissertations on primitive and savage instinct, wise
treatises, like those of Schopenhauer, on the metaphysics of love and
of death, can not be compared in value to the hundred pages of _Carmen_.

The wax taper of _Arsène Guillot_ summarises many volumes concerning the
religion of the common people and of the inmost feelings of courtesans.
I know of no more scathing sermon against the blunders of credulity or
of imagination than _The Double Mistake_, and _The Etruscan Vase_. In
the year 2000 _The Game of Backgammon_ will be read again, probably, to
learn what it costs to cheat.

Notice, finally, that at no time does the author force himself on our
notice that he may emphasise the lesson, but remains in the background,
leaving us to draw our own conclusions. He effaces himself even
deliberately so as to appear altogether absent. Future readers will show
consideration for a host so polite, so graceful, so discreet in doing
the honours of his own home. Good manners are at all times pleasing, and
a more courteous host than Mérimée it would be impossible to find.
Greeting his guests at the threshold, he introduces them and then
withdraws, leaving them at liberty to examine and to criticise
undisturbed. He is not obtrusive; he does not call attention to his
treasures; never will he be caught in the act of a display of vanity.
Instead of exposing his knowledge, he conceals it; to listen to him, it
would seem as if any one at all might have written his book. Now it is
an anecdote related to him by one of his friends, and which he has
transcribed on the spot; now it is “a selection” from Brantôme, and from
d’Aubigné. If he wrote _The Experiments of an Adventurer_, it was
because he had once, for a fortnight, had nothing better to do. For
writing _The Guzla_, the recipe is simple: to procure statistics
referring to Illyria, to get the travels of the Abbé Fortis, and to
learn five or six Slav words. This resolution not to over-estimate
himself comes to be in the end an affectation. So great is his dread of
appearing pedantic that he flies to the opposite extreme, and the result
is his tone of flippancy, his unceremonious manner of the man of
society.

The day may come when this will prove to be his vulnerable point, when
it will be asked whether this perpetual air of irony is not intentional;
whether he is justified in joking in the very midst of tragedy; whether
his apparent callousness is not due to the fear of ridicule; whether his
free-and-easy tone is not the effect of embarrassment; whether the
gentleman has not been harmful to the author; whether his art was
sufficiently dear to him. On more than one occasion, notably in _The
Venus of Ille_, he availed himself of this to mystify the reader.
Elsewhere, in Lokis,[4] a grotesque idea, with double meaning, lies at
the foundation of the tale, like a toad in a chiselled casket. He seemed
to find delight in seeing a woman’s fingers unlock the casket, and a
pretty face terrified by the sight of some object of loathing made him
laugh. It appears that he wrote almost always at random, to amuse
himself, to pass the time, without allowing himself to be swayed by an
idea, with no conception of a great unity of purpose, with no
self-subordination to his work.

In this, as in all else, he was disenchanted, and we find him finally
out of tune with life. Scepticism engenders melancholy; and in this
regard his correspondence is truly depressing. His health failed
gradually; he spent his winters regularly at Cannes, realising that life
was slipping away from him.

He took care of his health; he watched over himself; it is the sole
concern which the man continued to feel until the end. By the advice of
his physician, he practised archery, and as a distraction painted views
of the adjacent country. Every day he might be seen walking in silence
along the country roads with his two Englishwomen, one carrying his bow,
the other his box of water-colours. In this way he killed time and
cultivated patience. Out of kindliness of heart he went to a lonely
cabin half a mile away, to nurse a cat; he collected flies for a pet
lizard; these were his favorite companions. When the railway train
brought a friend to visit him, he recovered his animation and became
once more his charming self; his letters were so always, for his quaint
and exquisite humour he could not repress. But of happiness there was
none; to him the future was dark, almost as dark as it is to us to-day;
before closing his eyes it was his sorrow to witness the complete
destruction of his country’s edifice. He expired September 23, 1870.

If one should endeavour to sum up his character and his genius, he will
find, I fancy, that with a tender heart, the gift of nature, endowed
with superior intelligence, having lived the life of a gentleman and
having worked with somewhat of industry, producing a number of books of
the highest order, Mérimée did not, however, accomplish all the good
that was his to yield, did not attain to all the happiness to which it
was his right to aspire. Through his fear of being a dupe, he was
suspicious in every phase of life--in love, in science, in art;[5] and
yet he was the dupe of his own mistrust. One is sure always of being the
dupe of something, and it may be better, perhaps, to reconcile oneself
to the fact in advance.

H. TAINE.

_November, 1873._

LETTERS TO AN UNKNOWN

_Lettres à une Inconnue_

LETTERS TO AN UNKNOWN

PARIS, _Thursday_.

I received your letter in due time. Everything about you is paradoxical,
and the same reasons lead you to act in a manner precisely contrary to
that of other mortals. You say you are going to the country. Well and
good; that signifies that you will have nothing to do but write, for in
the country the days are long, and idleness is propitious for
letter-writing. At the same time, the watchfulness and solicitude of
your guardian being less interrupted by the customary engagements of the
city, you will have to submit to more catechising when letters come to
you. In a château, moreover, the arrival of a letter is an event. Not at
all; while you may not be able to write, you may, on the other hand,
receive no end of letters.

I am beginning to be accustomed to your ways, and am no longer surprised
at anything you do. I beg you, however, to take pity on me, and do not
put to too severe a test the unfortunate habit I have formed--I know not
how--of thinking everything that you do to be right.

I recall having been somewhat too frank, perhaps, in my last letter, on
the subject of my own disposition. A friend of mine, an old diplomat,
and a very shrewd man, has often said to me: “Never speak ill of
yourself. Your friends will always do that for you.” I begin to fear
that you will interpret literally every word of disparagement I said of
myself. You must understand that my cardinal virtue is modesty; I carry
it to excess, and tremble lest it may prejudice you against me. Some
other time, when I am more happily inspired, I will give you the exact
nomenclature of all my characteristics. It will be a long list. To-day I
am not feeling well, and dare not launch forth into this geometrical
progression.

You can not possibly guess where I was Saturday night, and what I was
doing at midnight. I was on the roof of one of the towers of Notre Dame,
drinking orangeade and eating ices, in the company of four of my friends
and of a matchless moon, all of us attended by an immense owl that
flapped his wings around us. Paris, indeed, in the moonlight and at that
hour, presents a truly beautiful picture. It resembles the cities
described in the _Thousand and One Nights_, whose inhabitants were
enchanted while they slept. Parisians, as a rule, go to bed at
midnight--the more stupid they. Our party was a curious assemblage;
there were four nations represented, each one having a different point
of view. The tiresome part of it was that some of us felt obliged, in
the presence of the moon and of the owl, to assume a sentimental tone,
and to utter commonplaces. To tell the truth, everybody began gradually
to talk nonsense.

I do not know why and by what association of ideas this semi-poetic
evening recalls to my mind another, which was not in the least poetic. I
went to a ball given by some of my young friends, to which were invited
all the ballet girls of the Opera. These women are, as a rule, dull, but
I have observed that in moral feeling they are superior to the men of
their class. The only vice which separates them from other women is
poverty. You will be singularly edified by all these rhapsodies, so I
shall hasten to a close, which I should have done long ago.

Good-bye. Do not bear me a grudge for the unflattering portrait of
myself which I have given you.

PARIS.

Frankness and truth are virtues seldom esteemed by women as desirable;
rather are they qualities to be avoided. For this reason you regard me
as a Sardanapalus, because I attended a ball at which the ballet girls
of the Opera were present. You reproach me for that evening as if it
were a crime, and you reproach me for commending those poor girls as if
that were a still greater crime. I repeat it, give them wealth, and
thereafter only their good qualities will be seen. But an insurmountable
barrier has been raised by the aristocracy between the different social
classes, so that neither class may discover how much alike are the
happenings on each side of the barrier. I want to tell you the story of
a ballet girl that I heard in this same shocking society. In a house in
the rue Saint Honoré lived a poor woman who never left the little attic
room which she rented at three francs a month. She had one daughter
twelve years old, who was always neatly dressed, very demure, and
extremely reserved in manner. This little girl went out three
afternoons in the week and returned alone at midnight. It was known that
she was a chorus girl at the Opera. One day she goes down to the
porter’s room and asks for a lighted candle. It is given to her. The
porter’s wife, surprised not to see her come downstairs again, climbs to
the garret, finds the woman dead on her wretched pallet, and the little
girl occupied in burning unread an enormous quantity of letters which
she was taking from a large trunk. She says: “My mother died last night,
and charged me to destroy all her letters without reading them.” This
child has never known her mother’s real name; she is now absolutely
alone in the world, without any resource but to act the vulture, the
monkey, or the devil at the Opera.

Her mother’s last word of counsel was to urge her to be prudent, and to
continue to be a ballet girl. She is, moreover, very discreet, deeply
religious, and it is with reluctance that she refers to her story. Tell
me, please, if it is not infinitely more creditable for this little girl
to lead the life she does, than for you who enjoy the singular good
fortune of an irreproachable environment, and of a temperament of such
refinement that it seems to me to sum up the qualities of an entire
civilisation. I must tell you the truth. I can endure the society of
ignoble people only at rare intervals, and then only because of an
inexhaustible curiosity which I feel for every variety of the human
species. I can never tolerate low society among men. To me there is
something too repulsive in them, especially in our own countrymen. In
Spain, however, I made friends always with the mule-drivers and the
_toreros_. Many a time have I broken bread with people whom an
Englishman would not notice for fear of losing his self-respect. I have
even drunk from the same bottle with a convict. I must admit that there
was no other bottle, and one must drink when he is thirsty. Do not from
this imagine that I have a preference for the rabble. It is simply that
I like to see other manners, other faces, and to hear another language.
The ideas are always the same, and if one eliminates all that is
conventional, I believe that good manners may be found elsewhere than in
a drawing-room of the faubourg Saint Germain. All this is Arabic to you,
and I do not know why I say it.

* * * * *

_August 8._

I have been a long time finishing this letter. My mother has been
extremely ill, and I very anxious. She is now out of danger, and I
trust that in a few days she will be in perfect health. I can not
endure anxiety, and while her life was in danger I was quite daft.

Adieu.

P.S.--The water-colour which I intended for you is not turning out well,
and I am so dissatisfied with it that I shall probably not send it to
you. Do not let this prevent you from sending me the needle-work you
have made for me. Be sure to choose a trustworthy messenger. As a
general rule, never take a woman as a confidante; sooner or later you
will regret it. Learn also that nothing is more common than to do wrong
merely for the pleasure of doing it. Abandon your optimistic ideas, and
realise that we are in this world to struggle and contend with our
fellows. In this connection I will tell you that a learned friend of
mine, who reads hieroglyphics, says that on the Egyptian coffins were
often found these two words, _Life_, _War_; which proves that I have not
invented the maxim just quoted. In hieroglyphics it is expressed thus:
[Illustration: image of an urn and an arm weilding a sword]. The first
character signifies life, and represents, I believe, one of those vases
called _canopes_. The other is a reduced shield, with an arm holding a
lance. There’s science for you!

Again adieu.

III

PARIS.

Your reproaches please me greatly. I am, indeed, predestined by the
fairies. I ask myself often what I am to you, and what you are to me. To
the first question I can have no reply; as for the second, I fancy that
I love you as if you were a fourteen-year-old niece of whom I were the
guardian. As for your exceedingly moral relative, who has so much ill to
say of me, he reminds me of Thwackum, who is always saying, “Can any
virtue exist without religion?” Have you read _Tom Jones_?--a book as
immoral as all of mine together. If it has been forbidden you, I am
confident you have read it. What a farce of an education is that which
you are getting in England! What does it amount to? People lose their
breath preaching to a young girl, and the result is that this young girl
desires to know the identical immoral being for whom people flatter
themselves they have given her an aversion. What an admirable story is
that of the serpent! I wish Lady M---- could read this letter.
Fortunately, she would faint about the tenth line.

Turning the page, I have reread what I have just written, and it seems
to me that there is very little coherence and connection of ideas. That
is a fault of mine, but I write just as I think, and as my thoughts are
more rapid than my pen, the consequence is that I am forced to omit all
the transitions. I should, perhaps, follow your example, and erase all
the first page; but I prefer to resign it to you for reflection and
curl-papers. I must confess, too, that just at this moment I am deeply
absorbed in an affair which, I avow to my shame, dwells stubbornly in
one-half of my brain, while the other half is entirely filled with you.
The portrait which you draw of yourself I like tolerably well. It does
not flatter you any too much, and all that I know of you pleases me
prodigiously....

I am studying you with the liveliest curiosity. I have theories about
the most trifling things, about gloves, about boots, about curls, etc.,
and I attach great importance to such things, because I have discovered
that there is an actual relation between the temperament of women and
the caprice (or, to express it better, the connection of ideas and the
reasoning) which causes them to choose such and such a fabric. Thus, for
instance, it is for me to have demonstrated that a woman who wears blue
gowns is a coquette, and poses as a sentimentalist. The demonstration
is easy, but it would take too long. How should you like it if I were to
send you a wretchedly bad water-colour, larger than this sheet, and
which could be neither rolled nor folded? Wait until I can make you a
smaller one, that can be sent in a letter.

The other day I went sailing. On the river there were any number of
little sail-boats, carrying all sorts of people. There was one very
large boat in which were several women of questionable manners. All
these boats had landed, and from the largest stepped a man about forty
years old, who was amusing himself by playing on a tambourine. While I
was admiring the musical talent of this creature, a woman of perhaps
twenty-three, approached him, calling him a monster, telling him that
she had followed him from Paris, and that if he would not allow her to
join him he would repent it. All this occurred on the bank, about twenty
feet from our boat. The man with the tambourine continued playing while
the deserted woman was thus holding forth, and with the utmost
indifference replied that he did not intend to have her in his boat;
whereupon she climbed out to the boat moored farthest from the bank, and
threw herself into the river, splashing us abominably. Although she had
extinguished my cigar, indignation did not deter me, or my friends
either, from pulling her out of the water before she had been in it long
enough to swallow two glasses. The beauteous object of all this despair
had not so much as budged, and murmured between his teeth, “Why rescue
her, when she wished to drown herself?” We took the woman to an inn, and
as it was getting late, and it was almost dinner-time, we left her to
the care of the tavernkeeper’s wife.

How does it happen that the most indifferent men are the best beloved by
women? This is what I asked myself as I sailed down the Seine, what I am
still asking myself, and what I beg you to tell me, if you know.

Good-bye. Write to me often; let us be friends, and pardon the
incoherence of my letter. Some day I will explain the reason.

_Mariquita de mi alma_ (it is thus that I should commence if we were in
Granada), I received your letter in one of those moments of melancholy
when one views life only through dark glasses. As your epistle is not as
amiable as it might be--pardon my frankness--it has contributed not a
little to the continuance of my sulky mood. I wished to answer your
letter Sunday, promptly and sharply; promptly, because you had censured
me in an indirect sort of way, and sharply, because I was furious with
you.

I was interrupted at the first word of my letter, and this interruption
prevented me from writing to you. Thank the good Lord for this, for the
weather is fine to-day, and my ill-humour has become mollified to such
an extent that I no longer wish to write to you save in a style of honey
and sugar. I shall not quarrel with you, therefore, about thirty or
forty passages in your last letter, which gave me a terrible shock, and
which I am quite willing to forget. I forgive you, and with so much the
more pleasure because I really believe that, in spite of my wrath, I
like you better when you are pouting than in any other mood. One passage
in your letter made me laugh all by myself for ten minutes. You tell me
short and sweet: “My love is promised” and thus you bring on the great
knock-down blow without any preliminary skirmishes.

You say you are engaged for life as you would say, “I am engaged for the
quadrille.” Very well. I have apparently employed my time to advantage
in discussing with you questions of love, marriage, and the like; you
are still on the point of believing, or at least of saying, that when
you are told to love a certain gentleman, you love him. Have you
promised by a contract signed before a notary, or on vignetted paper?

When I was a school-boy I received once from a seamstress a note
surmounted by two hearts aflame, united as follows: [Illustration: image
of two parallel hearts pierced by an arrow]; there was, besides, a
declaration of the most affectionate kind. My teacher first confiscated
my letter, and then locked me in my room. The object of this budding
passion proceeded to console herself with my cruel teacher.

Nothing is so fatal as engagements to those in whose behalf they are
made. Do you know that if your love were already promised, I should
believe confidently that it would be possible for you to love me? Why
should you not love me? for you have made me no promises, since the
first law of nature is to take a dislike to everything that has the
appearance of an obligation. And, indeed, every obligation is in its
nature irksome. In short, if I had less modesty I should come to the
conclusion that if you have pledged your love to some one, you will give
it to me, to whom you have promised nothing. Joking aside, and speaking
of promises, since you do not care to have my water-colour, I have a
strong desire to send it to you. I was dissatisfied with it, and began a
copy of an infant Marguerite of Velasquez, which I wished to give you.
Velasquez is not easy to copy, especially for daubers like myself. Twice
I have begun my Marguerite, but now I am even more discontented with it
than I was with the monk. The latter is still subject to your orders. I
will send it whenever you wish, but it will not carry conveniently. Not
only this, the spirits which sometimes amuse themselves by intercepting
our letters might possibly take care of my picture. What reassures me is
that it is so bad that no one but I could have made it, and no one but
you be blamed for it. Let me know your pleasure.

I hope you will be in Paris about the middle of October, at which time I
shall have two or three weeks’ leisure. I should not care to spend them
in France, and for a long time I have intended to see the Rubens
pictures at Antwerp, and the Art Gallery at Amsterdam. If I were sure of
seeing you, however, I should renounce Rubens and Van Dyck with the
greatest cheerfulness. You see that the sacrifice costs me nothing. I do
not know Amsterdam. However, it is for you to decide. Here your vanity
will lead you to say: “A great sacrifice, indeed, not to prefer me to
those fat Flemish women, with their white caps and baskets of fish, and
in a picture gallery besides!” Yes, it is a sacrifice, and a great one
too. I give up the certainty, that is, the very great pleasure, of
seeing the paintings of a master, to the very uncertain chance that you
will compensate me. Observe, that leaving out of consideration the
impossible supposition that you might not please me, if _I_ were to
prove a disappointment to _you_, I should have good reason to regret my
works of art and my fat Flemish women.

You seem to be devoutly superstitious even. I am reminded at this moment
of a pretty little Grenada girl, who, on mounting her mule to go through
a mountain pass at Ronda (a spot notorious for robbers), piously kissed
her thumb, and struck her breast five or six times, absolutely certain
after that that the robbers would not show themselves, provided the
_Inglés_ (meaning myself, for every traveller must be an Englishman)
would not swear too much by the Holy Virgin and the Saints. This
shocking manner of speaking becomes necessary on bad roads in order to
persuade the horses to go.

Read “Tristram Shandy.” I should enjoy immensely your opinion of the
story of that person. You are unjust and jealous--two admirable
qualities in a woman, two faults in a man. I have them both. You ask me
about the affair which preoccupies me. To tell you that, it would be
necessary to describe my life and my character, of which no one has the
least idea, because I have never yet found any one who inspired me with
sufficient confidence to tell it. After we have met often we may perhaps
become good friends, and you will understand me. To have a friend to
whom I could express all my thoughts, past and present, would be to me
the greatest blessing. I am becoming sad, and I must not end this letter
in such a mood. I am consumed with the desire to have an answer from
you. Be kind, and do not make me wait long.

Good-bye. Do not let us quarrel again, and let us be friends. With
respect I kiss the hand which you extend to me in sign of peace.

_September 25._

Your letter found me ill, and very dreary, busily engaged with some
extremely troublesome affairs, so that I have not had time to take care
of myself. I have, I think, inflammation of the lungs, which makes me
exceedingly irritable. In a few days, however, I propose to take myself
in hand and get well.

I have decided not to leave Paris in October, in the hope that you will
come then. You shall see me or not, at your pleasure. It will be your
fault if you do not. You mention particular reasons which prevent you
from trying to meet me. I respect secrets, and do not ask your motives;
only, I beg you to tell me, really and truly, if you have any. Are you
not moved, rather, by some childish notion? Perhaps some one has read
you a lecture on my account, and you are still under its spell. You
should have no fear of me. Your natural prudence, doubtless, counts for
much in your disinclination to see me. Be reassured, I shall not fall in
love with you. A few years ago that might have happened; now I am too
old, and I have been too unfortunate. I can never fall in love again,
because my illusions have caused me many _desengaños_.

When I went to Spain I was on the point of falling in love. It was one
of the beautiful acts of my life. The woman who was the cause of my
voyage never suspected it. Had I remained, I might have committed,
possibly, a great blunder, that of offering a woman worthy of enjoying
every happiness that one may have on earth, in exchange for the loss of
all that was dear to her, an affection which I realised was far inferior
to the sacrifice that she would probably have made. You recall my maxim,
“Love excuses all things, but one must be sure that it is love.” You may
be sure that this precept is more rigid than those of your Methodist
friends. In conclusion, I shall be charmed to see you. You, perhaps, may
gain a real friend, and I, it may be, shall find in you what I have long
sought--a woman with whom I shall not be in love, but one whom I may
have for a confidante. We shall both gain, probably, by a closer
acquaintance. Still, you must act as your lofty sense of prudence
dictates.

My monk is ready. At the first opportunity, therefore, I shall send you
the picture framed. The child Marguerite, still unfinished and too badly
begun to be ever completed, will remain just as it is, and will serve as
a blotting-pad for a sketch I shall do for you when I have time. I am
dying of curiosity to see the surprise you have in store for me, but in
vain do I rack my brain to guess it. When writing to you I omit all
transitions, with me a very necessary trick of style.

You will find this letter, I fear, terribly disconnected. The reason is,
that while writing one sentence another comes to my mind, and this
occasions a third before the second one is finished. I am suffering
greatly to-night. If you have any influence Above, try to obtain for me
a little health, or, failing in that, resignation; for I am the most
impatient invalid in the world, and treat my best friends abominably.

Stretched on my couch, I think of you, of our mysterious acquaintance,
with pleasure, and it seems to me that I should be very happy to chat
with you in the same desultory way that I write; besides, there is this
advantage, that words vanish, but writing remains. I am not tormented,
however, by the thought that some day my words, either living or
posthumous, may be published. Good-bye. Let me have your sympathy. I
would I had the courage to tell you a thousand things that make life
sad. But how can I, when you are so far away? When are you coming? Again
good-bye. If your heart prompts you, you have an abundance of time to
write to me.

P.S.--_September 26._--I am even more low-spirited than I was yesterday.
I suffer tortures, but if you have never had gastritis you can have no
conception of what it means to suffer pain that is indefinite and at the
same time intense. It has this peculiarity, that it affects the entire
nervous system. I should like to be in the country with you. I am sure
you would cure me. Good-bye. If I die this year, you will be sorry that
you did not know me better.

Do you know that you are sometimes very kind? I do not say this as a
reproach veiled by a cold compliment, but I should be glad indeed to
receive frequent letters like your last one. Unfortunately, you are not
always so charitably inclined towards me. I have not replied earlier,
because your letter was only delivered to me last night, on my return
from a short trip. I spent four days in absolute solitude, without
seeing a man, much less a woman, for I do not call men and women certain
bipeds who are trained to fetch food and drink when they are ordered to
do so. During my retreat I made the most dismal reflections about myself
and my future, about my friends, and so on. If I had had the wit to wait
for your letter it would have given quite another turn to my thoughts.
“I should have carried away happiness enough to last me at least a
week.”

The way in which you came down on that worthy Mr. V. is delightful. Your
courage pleases me immensely. I should never have supposed you capable
of such _capricho_, and I admire you all the more for it. It is true
that the remembrance of your splendid black eyes counts for something in
my admiration. However, old as I am, I am almost insensible to beauty. I
say to myself that “it amounts to nothing”; but I assure you that when I
heard a man of very fastidious taste say you were very pretty, I could
not repress a feeling of sadness. This is the reason (but first let me
assure you that I am not the least bit in love with you): I am horribly
jealous, jealous of my friends, and it grieves me to think that your
beauty exposes you to the attentions of a lot of men incapable of
appreciating you, and who admire in you only those things for which I
care the least.

In fact, I am in a beastly humour when I think of that ceremony which
you are to attend. Nothing makes me more melancholy than a wedding. The
Turks, who bargain for a woman while they examine her as they would a
fat sheep, are better than we, who have glossed over this vile trade
with a varnish of hypocrisy which, alas! is only too transparent. I have
asked myself often what I should find to say to a wife on the first day
of my marriage, and I have thought of nothing possible, unless it were a
compliment on her night-cap. Happily, the devil will be extremely
clever if he ever entraps me into such an entertainment. The part which
the woman plays is much easier than that of the man. On such an occasion
she models her conduct on Racine’s Iphigenia; but if she is at all
observant, what a lot of droll things she must see! You must tell me
whether the reception was beautiful. All the men will pay you attention
and favour you with allusions to domestic happiness. When the
Andalusians are angry, they say: _Mataria el sol á puñaladas si no fuese
por miedo de dejar el mundo á oscuras!_

Since September 28, my birthday, an uninterrupted succession of petty
misfortunes have assailed me. Besides this, the pain in my chest is
worse and I suffer great distress. I shall delay my trip to England
until the middle of November. If you are unwilling to see me in London,
I must abandon the hope, but I am anxious to see the elections. I shall
overtake you soon after in Paris, where chance may bring us together,
even if your whim persists in keeping us apart. All your reasons are
pitiful, and are not worth the trouble to refute, and all the more since
you yourself know that they are worthless.

You are joking, certainly, when you say so pleasantly that you are
afraid of me. You are aware that I am ugly, and have a capricious
temper, that I am always absent-minded, and often, when in pain, very
irritating and disagreeable. What is there in all that to disturb you?
You will never fall in love with me, so rest easy. Your consoling
predictions can never be realised. You are not a witch. Now the truth is
that my chances of death have increased this year. Do not be anxious
about your letters. All letters and papers found in my room shall be
burned after my death; but to plague you, I shall bequeath you in my
will a manuscript continuation of the _Guzla_, which amused you so much.

You have the qualities of both an angel and a devil, but many more of
the latter. You call me a tempter. Dare, if you will, to say that this
title does not apply to you far more than to me. Have you not thrown a
bait to me, a poor little fish? and now that you have me caught on the
end of your hook you keep me dangling between the sky and the sea as
long as it amuses you; then, when you grow tired of the game, you will
cut the line, I shall drop with the hook in my mouth, and the fisherman
will be nowhere to be found.

I appreciate your frankness in confessing that you read the letter
which Mr. V. wrote me and entrusted to your charge. I guessed it,
indeed, for since the time of Eve all women are alike in that respect. I
wish the letter had been more interesting; but I suppose that, in spite
of his spectacles, you consider Mr. V. a man of good taste. I am out of
sorts because I am suffering.

I am reminded of your promise to give me a _schizzo_--a promise you
would never have given if I had not begged for it--and I feel in better
humour. I await the _schizzo_ with the greatest patience. Adieu, _niña
de mis ojos_; I promise never to fall in love with you. I do not want to
be in love ever again, but I should like to have a woman friend. If I
should see you often, and you are all I believe you to be, I should
become very fond of you, in a truly platonic way. Try, therefore, to
arrange it so that we may meet when you come to Paris. Shall I be
compelled to wait many long days for a reply? Good-bye again. Pity me,
for I am very downcast, and I have a thousand reasons for being so.

VII

Lady M. told me last night that you were going to be married. This being
so, burn my letters. I shall burn yours, and then good-bye. You already
know my principles on this question. They do not allow me to continue in
friendly relations with a married woman whom I knew as a young girl,
with a widow whom I knew as a married woman. I have observed that when
the civil status of a woman has changed, one’s relations with her have
changed also, and always for the worse. In brief, right or wrong, I can
not endure that my friends should marry. Therefore, if you are going to
be married, let us forget each other. I beg of you not to have recourse
to one of your usual evasions, but to answer me frankly.

I declare that since September 28 I have suffered disappointments and
vexations of every description. Your marriage was only another of the
fatalities that were to fall on me.

One night not long ago, being unable to sleep, I reviewed in my mind all
the vexations which have overwhelmed me during the last fortnight, and I
found for them all but one compensation, which was your amiable letter,
and your equally amiable promise to make me a sketch. Yet now I wish I
could stab the sun, as the Andalusians say.

_Mariquita de mi vida_, (let me call you so until your marriage), I had
a superb stone, finely cut, brilliant, sparkling, in every point
perfect. I believed it to be a diamond, which I would not have exchanged
for that of the Grand Mogul. Not so at all! It turns out to be but an
imitation. A friend of mine, who is a chemist, has just analysed it for
me. Fancy my disappointment. I have spent a great deal of time thinking
of this imitation diamond, and of my good fortune in having found it.
Now I must spend as much time, and more even, in persuading myself that
it was not a genuine stone.

All this is only a parable. I took dinner the other evening with the
false diamond, and made but a surly appearance. When I am angry I am
rather skilful with the rhetorical figure called irony, and so I
extolled the good qualities of the diamond in my most bombastic style
and with frigid composure. I do not know, I am sure, why I tell you all
this, especially since we are soon to forget each other. Meanwhile, I
love you still, and commend myself to your prayers--“nymph, in thy
orisons be all my sins remembered,” etc.

Next Friday your picture will leave by mail, and should certainly reach
London by Sunday. You might send for it Tuesday at Mr. V.’s, Pall-Mall.

Forgive the insanity of this letter; my mind is distracted with gloomy
thoughts.

VIII

MY DEAR PLATONIC FRIEND: We are becoming very affectionate. You say to
me, _Amigo de mi alma_, which from a woman’s lips is very sweet. You
give me no news of your health. In your former letter you told me that
my platonic friend was ill, and you should have known that I was
anxious. Be more definite in future. It is all very well for you to
complain of my reticence, you who are mystery incarnate! What more will
you have on the story of the diamond, unless it is the name? Details,
perhaps; but they would be tiresome to write, and some day they may
amuse you, when we shall find nothing to say to each other, seated in
our arm-chairs on opposite sides of the chimney corner.

Listen to the dream that I had two nights ago, and if you are sincere,
interpret it for me. Methought we were both in Valencia, in a beautiful
garden where there was an abundance of oranges, pomegranates, and other
fruits. You were seated upon a bench, resting against a hedge. Opposite
was a wall about six feet in height, separating this garden from another
garden on a much lower level. I was standing facing you, and it seemed
to me that we were speaking to each other in the Valencian tongue. _Nota
bene_, that I am able to understand Valencian with much difficulty. What
sort of a deuced language is it that one speaks in a dream, when one
speaks a language that he does not know? For lack of something else to
do, and from habit, I went and stood on a rock, looking over into the
garden below. There I saw a bench also with its back against the wall,
and seated on this bench was a Valencian gardener playing the guitar,
and my diamond was listening. This sight put me instantly in a bad
humour, but at first I gave no sign of this. The diamond raised her
head, and seemed astonished to see me, but she did not start, or appear
otherwise disconcerted.

After a time I stepped down from the stone, and said to you, casually
and without mentioning the diamond, that it would be a great joke to
throw a big stone over the top of the wall. This stone was very heavy.
You were eager to help me, and without asking any questions (which is
not natural to you), by dint of pushing we succeeded in placing the
stone on the top of the wall, and we were making ready to push it over,
when the wall itself gave way and crumbled, and we both fell with the
stone and the débris of the wall. I do not know what happened then, for
I awoke. That you may understand the scene better, I enclose a drawing
of it. I was unable to see the gardener’s face, which is most
exasperating.

You are very kind. I have said this to you frequently of late. It was
very kind of you to have answered the question that I asked you
recently. I need not tell you that your reply pleased me. You have even
said, unconsciously, perhaps, several things that have given me
pleasure, and especially that the husband of a woman who resembled you
would have your sincere sympathy. I can readily believe you, and will
add that no one could be more unfortunate unless it were a man who loved
you.

You must be cold and sarcastic in your perverse moods, with an
insuperable pride which forbids you to acknowledge when you are in the
wrong. Add to this your energetic temperament, which compels you to
disdain tears and complaints. When in the course of time and of events
we become friends, it shall be seen which of us knows better how to
torment the other. Only to think of it makes my hair stand on end. Have
I interpreted correctly your _but_? Rest assured that, notwithstanding
your resolutions, the threads of our lives are too closely intermingled
for us to fail to find each other some day or other. I am dying to see
and talk with you. It seems to me that I should be perfectly happy if I
knew that I should see you this evening.

By the way, you are wrong to suspect Mr. V. of undue curiosity. Even if
it were equal to yours, which is not possible, Mr. V. is a Cato, and
under no consideration would he break a seal. Therefore send him the
_schizzo_ under cover, and have no fear of any indiscretion on his part.
I should like to see you as you were writing, _Amigo de mi alma_. When
you are having your photograph taken for me, say those words to
yourself, instead of “prunes and prisms,” as ladies say when they wish
to give their mouth a pleasant expression.

Try and arrange it so that we may meet without any secrecy and as good
friends do. You will be distressed, no doubt, to learn that I am not at
all well and am horribly bored. Do come soon to Paris, dear _Mariquita_,
and make me fall in love with you. Then I shall be no longer lonely, and
in compensation I shall make you very unhappy by my whims. For some time
your writing has been very careless and your letters short. I am
convinced that you have no love for any one, and never will have any.
However, you understand well enough the theory of love.

Good-bye. You have my best wishes for your health, for your happiness,
that you may not marry, that you may come to Paris--in short, that we
may become good friends.

_Mariquita de mi alma_: I am grieved to learn of your indisposition.
When this letter reaches you I hope you will have fully recovered your
health, and that you will be in a condition to write me longer letters.
Your last one was maddeningly brief and stiff, a style of writing to
which you formerly accustomed me, but which is now more annoying than
you can imagine. Write me a long letter, and tell me all kinds of
pleasant things. What is your malady? Have you some vexation to endure,
or is it a sorrow? In your last note there are several mysterious
phrases, as all your phrases are which intimated this. But between
ourselves, I do not believe you have ever known the luxury of that organ
called the heart. You have troubles of the mind, pleasures of the mind;
but the organ known as the heart is developed only about the
twenty-fifth year of age, in the 46th degree of latitude.

You will knit your beautiful black brows at this, and say, “The saucy
man doubts that I have a heart!” for this nowadays is the great
assumption. Since so many novels and poems of passion, so called, have
been written, all women affect to have a heart. Wait a little while.
When you have really discovered your heart you will tell me about it;
you will recall regretfully these good days when you were ruled only by
the mind, and you will realise that the vexations you now suffer are
mere pin-pricks compared to the dagger-thrusts that shall overwhelm you
when the days of passion shall have come.

I have been grumbling about your letter, but it really contains some
very agreeable news: that is, the definite promise, graciously given, to
send me your photograph. This gives me great pleasure, not only because
I shall then know you better, but especially because it will be a token
of your growing confidence in me. I see that I am making progress in
your esteem, and congratulate myself. When am I to receive this
portrait? Will you give it to me yourself? If so, I will come to receive
it. Or will you give it to Mr. V., who will send it to me with all due
discretion? Have no fear of either him or his wife. I should prefer to
receive it from your own white hand.

I shall start for London early next month. I am going to see the
election. I shall also eat some whitebait at Blackwall, look over the
cartoons of Hampton Court, and then return to Paris. If I were to see
you it would make me very happy, but I dare not hope for it. However
that may be, if you will send the sketch under cover to Mr. V. just as
you do your letters, I shall receive it promptly, for, if nothing
happens, I shall be in London the 8th of December.

I have censured your curiosity and indiscretion in opening Mr. V.’s
letter, but to tell you the truth you have some faults that I like, and
your curiosity is one of them. If we were to meet often, I am afraid you
would take a dislike to me, and that the opposite would happen with me.
At this moment I am thinking of the expression on your face. It is a
little severe, that of a lioness, though tame.

Adieu. I send a thousand kisses to your mysterious feet.

By all means, by all means, send Mr. V. what you have for so long a time
led me to expect. Enclose a letter too, a long one, for if you were to
send a letter to Paris I should probably cross it on my way. Caution Mr.
V. to take care of the letter and the package, and tell him that I shall
call for them in person the last of next week. What would be on your
part even more friendly, and what you do not suggest in your letter,
would be to tell me when and where I might see you. I am not counting on
this, however, and I know you too well to expect any such proof of your
courage. I rely on chance only, which may give me some talisman or clew.

I am writing to you lying on a couch, suffering tortures; colour that of
a sun-scorched meadow. I refer to my own colour, not that of the couch.
You must know that the sea makes me very ill, and that the glad waters
of the dark blue sea are pleasant to me only when I watch them from the
shore. The first time I went to England I was so ill that it was a
fortnight before I regained my usual colour, which is that of the pale
horse of the Apocalypse. One day when I was dining opposite to Madam V.,
she exclaimed suddenly, “Until to-day I thought you were an Indian.” Do
not be frightened, and do not take me for a ghost.

Forgive me for referring so often to the diamond. What must be the
feelings of a man who is not a connoisseur in gems, to whom the
jewellers have said, “This stone is an imitation,” and who nevertheless
sees it sparkle brilliantly; who sometimes says to himself, “Suppose the
jewellers are not good judges of diamonds! Suppose they are mistaken, or
else wish to deceive me!” I look at my diamond from time to time (as
seldom as I can), and every time I see it it seems to me genuine in
every respect. What a pity that I am unable myself to make a conclusive
chemical analysis! What do you think about it? If I could see you, I
should explain what is obscure in this matter, and you would give me
some wise advice; or, better still, you would make me forget my diamond,
genuine or false, for there is no diamond that can stand comparison with
two lovely black eyes.

Good-bye. I have a terrible pain in my left elbow, on which I am leaning
to write to you; besides, you do not deserve three closely written
pages. You send me only a few lines, carelessly written, and when you
write three lines two of them are certain to throw me in a rage.

You are charming, dear _Mariquita_, too charming even. I have just
received the _schizzo_, and I now possess both your portrait and your
confidence, a double happiness. You were in an agreeable mood the day
you wrote, for your letter was long and kind, but it has one fault, that
is, it is indefinite. Shall I see you, or not? That is the question. I
know well enough how it may be solved, but you do not want to come to a
decision. You are, as you will be all your life, vacillating between
your own temperament and the habits you acquired in the convent. That is
the cause of all the trouble.

I swear to you that if you will not permit me to call and see you, I
shall go to Madam D. and ask her to give me some news of you. In this
connection, Madam D. might give you a satisfactory proof of my
discretion, for I even resisted the desire which made my fingers tingle
to open the package containing the picture. Applaud me.

Why are you unwilling that I should see you on the promenade, for
example, or, better still, at the British Museum or the Ingerstein
Gallery? I have a friend with me who is exceedingly curious about the
large package which I untied while his back was turned, and also about
the change in my spirits due to its arrival. I have not told him a word
that approaches the truth, but I think he is on the scent.

Good-bye. I wished to tell you of the safe arrival of the picture, and
of the very great pleasure it has given me. Let us write frequently in
London, even if we are not to see each other there.

XII

LONDON, _December 10_.

Tell me, in the name of God, “if you are of God,” _querida Mariquita_,
why you have not answered my letter. Your letter before the last, and
especially the picture which accompanied it, threw me into such a
flutter that the note I wrote you on the spot did not have any too much
common sense. Now that I am calmer, and have had several days in London
to refresh my mind, I shall try to reason with you.

Why do you not wish to see me? No one of your friends knows me, and my
visit would seem entirely natural. Your principal motive seems to be the
dread of doing something _improper_, as they say here. I do not take
seriously what you say concerning your fear of losing your illusions
upon closer acquaintance with me. If this were the real ground of your
hesitation, you would be the first woman, the first human being, whom
such a consideration prevented from gratifying her inclination or her
curiosity.

Let us consider the impropriety of it. Is the thing improper in itself?
No, for nothing is more open and above-board. You know in advance that I
shall not eat you. The thing, then, is improper, admitting that it is
improper, only in the eyes of society. Observe in passing that this word
_society_ makes us miserable from the day when we put on clothes that
are uncomfortable, because society so orders it, until the day of our
death....

In sending me your portrait, it seems to me that you gave me a proof of
your faith in my discretion. Why, then, believe in it no longer? A man’s
good judgment, and mine in particular, is the greater the more is
expected of him. This granted, and being fully convinced of my
discretion, you may see me, and society will be none the wiser,
consequently it can not exclaim at the impropriety. I will even add,
with my hand on my heart--that is, on my left side--that so far as I am
concerned I see not the slightest impropriety in it. I will say more: if
this correspondence is to continue without our ever meeting, it becomes
the most absurd thing in the world. All these thoughts I leave to your
reflection.

If I were vainer, I should rejoice at what you say of my diamond. But we
can never fall in love--with each other, I mean. Our acquaintance did
not begin in a manner to lead to that point: it is far too romantic for
that. As for the diamond, my travelling companion, while smoking his
cigar, spoke of it without knowing my interest in the matter, and said
some very deplorable things. He seems to have no doubt of its falseness.
Dear _Mariquita_, you say you would never wish to be a “crown diamond,”
and you are quite right. You are worth more than that. I offer you a
sincere friendship, which, I hope, may some day be of value to us both.

Good-bye.

XIII

PARIS, _February, 1842_.

An hour ago I read your letter, which has been on my table ever since
Tuesday, concealed under a pile of papers. Since you did not disdain my
gifts, I send you some conserves of roses, jessamine, and bergamot. You
might offer a jar of it to Madame de C., with my best respects. It seems
that I once offered you a pair of Turkish slippers, and you have
persisted in refusing them, so that I should like to send them to you
anyway. But since my return I have been robbed. No sign of any
slippers; I can not find them high or low. Will you accept this instead?
Perhaps this Turkish mirror will please you better; for you seem to me
to be even more coquettish than you were in the year of grace 1840. It
was in the month of December, and you wore striped silk stockings. That
is all that I remember.

It is for you to decide the protocol of which you speak. You do not
believe in my gray hair. Here is a sample in proof of it.

I give nothing without expecting a return. Before you go to Naples, you
will be good enough to take my directions and to bring me back what I
shall tell you. I might give you a letter to the director of the
Pompeiian excavations, if you are interested in such things.

You make of your precious self such a dazzling portrait that I see the
time of our next meeting postponed to the Greek Kalends. _Allah kerim!_
I am writing in the midst of such an infernal racket that I do not know
exactly what I am saying. I have a great many things to say, however,
about ourselves, which I shall defer until after I have heard from you.
Meanwhile, good-bye, and preserve that splendid bearing, that radiant
countenance, which I admired.

XIV

PARIS, _Saturday, March, 1842_.

For two hours I have been trying to decide whether I should write to
you. My pride offers many reasons why I should not do so, but although
you are perfectly sure, I hope, of the pleasure your letter gave me, I
declare I can not refrain from telling you so.

So you are rich; so much the better. I congratulate you. Rich, which is,
interpreted, free. Your friend, who had such a happy inspiration, must
have been somewhat of an Auld Robin Gray; he was evidently in love with
you. You will never confess it, because you are too fond of mystery; but
I will forgive you; we write to each other too seldom to quarrel. Why
should you not go to Rome and to Naples to enjoy the pictures and the
sunshine? You are capable of appreciating Italy, and you will return
richer in impressions and ideas.

I do not advise you to visit Greece. Your skin is not tough enough to
resist the multitude of hideous creatures that prey on people there.
Speaking of Greece, since you take such good care of what is given you,
here is a blade of grass which I plucked on the hill of Anthela at
Thermopylæ, the place where the last of the three hundred died. This
little flower has in its constituent atoms probably a few of the
molecules of the late Leonidas. I recollect, besides, that on this very
spot, as I lay stretched upon a pile of straw in front of the
guard-house (what a profanation!), I spoke of my youth to my friend
Ampère, and said that among the tender remembrances which I had
preserved there was but one in which there was no touch of bitterness. I
was thinking at the time of our beautiful youth. Pray keep my foolish
flower.

Tell me, should you like some more substantial souvenir of the Orient?
Unfortunately, I have given away all the beautiful things that I brought
back with me. I could give you quantities of sandals, but you would wear
them for others, thank you. If you wish some conserves of roses and
jessamine, I still have a little left, but let me know at once, or I
shall eat them all. We hear from each other so seldom that we have a
great many things to say concerning ourselves. Here is my history:

I visited my dear Spain again in the fall of 1840. I spent two months in
Madrid, where I witnessed a ridiculous revolution, several superb
bull-fights, and the triumphal entry of Espartero, which was the most
comical parade I ever saw. I was a guest in the home of an intimate
friend who is almost like a dear sister to me. In the morning I went
into Madrid, and returned to dine in the country with six women, the
oldest of whom was thirty-six. In consequence of the revolution I was
the only man at liberty to come and go freely, so that these six
unfortunates had no other protector. They spoiled me terribly. I did not
fall in love with any of them, as I should perhaps have done. While I
did not deceive myself as to the advantages which I owed to the
revolution, I found it very agreeable, nevertheless, to be a sultan,
even _ad honores_.

On my return to Paris I treated myself to the innocent pleasure of
printing a book for private circulation. There were only made a hundred
and fifty copies, with superb paper, illustrations, etc., which I
presented to people whom I liked. I should offer you this rare book if
you were worthy of it; but I must warn you that it is a historical and
pedantic work, so bristling with Greek and Latin, nay, even with Oscan
(do you even know what Oscan is?), that you could not so much as nibble
at it.

Last summer I happened to fall on a little money. My minister gave me
three months’ holiday, and I spent five running about from Malta to
Athens and from Ephesus to Constantinople. During these five months I
was not bored for five minutes. What would have become of you, to whom I
was once such an object of terror, if you had met me during my Asiatic
journey, with a belt of pistols, a huge sword, and--would you believe
it?--a moustache that extended beyond my ears! Without intending any
flattery, I should have struck fear into the heart of the boldest
brigand of melodrama. At Constantinople I saw the Sultan, in
patent-leather boots, and a frock-coat, and again, afterwards, covered
with diamonds in the procession of the _Baïram_. On the same occasion, a
handsome woman, on whose toe I had stepped by accident, slapped me
severely and called me a _giaour_. This constituted my only intercourse
with the Turkish beauties. At Athens, and in Asia, I saw the most
splendid monuments in the world, and the loveliest landscapes possible
to imagine.

The only drawback consisted in fleas and gnats as big as larks;
consequently I never slept. Meanwhile, I have grown old. My passport
describes me as having turtle locks, which is a pleasant Oriental
metaphor for saying all sorts of disagreeable things. Picture to
yourself your friend as quite gray. And you, _querida_, have you
changed? I am waiting impatiently until you become less pretty, so that
I may see you. In two or three years from now, when you write to me,
tell me what you are doing and when we are to see each other. Your
“respectful remembrance” made me laugh, and also that you should presume
to dispute its place in my heart with Ionic and Corinthian columns.

In the first place, I do not care for any but the Doric, and there are
no columns, not even excepting those of the Parthenon, which can be
compared to the memory of an old friendship. Good-bye; go to Italy, and
be happy. I start to-day for Evreux, on a matter of business, expecting
to return Monday night. If you wish to eat rose leaves, say so; but I
warn you there is only a spoonful left for you.

PARIS, _Monday night, March, 1842_.

I have just received your letter, which has put me in a bad humour. So
it is your satanic pride which has kept you from seeing me. It is not
for me to reproach you, however, for I think I saw you the other day,
and was restrained from speaking to you by a feeling quite as paltry.
You say you are better than you were two years ago. It is very well for
you to say that. I admit that you are more beautiful, but, on the other
hand, you seem to have absorbed a good dose of selfishness and
hypocrisy. These may be very useful, but they are not qualities for one
to brag about. As for me, I have become neither better nor worse; I am
not more of a hypocrite than I was, and I may be wrong. Certain it is
that I am not loved more on this account.

Since this purse was not embroidered by your own fair hand, what do you
wish me to do with it? You ought, indeed, to give me some of your own
work; my mirror and my conserves deserve that much. You might at least
have told me whether you received them. When you go to Italy, and pass
through Paris, you will probably not find me here. Where shall I be? The
devil only knows. It is not impossible that I may meet you at the
_Studj_; but then, again, I may go to Saragossa to see that woman of
whom you say that you are worth as much as she. As for a sister, there
will be no other than herself. Tell me, therefore, and that before you
leave for Paris, when you expect to go to Naples, and whether you will
take charge of a volume for M. Buonuicci, the Director of the Pompeiian
excavations. When I go away I shall leave this volume either with
Madame de C. or elsewhere.

I recall having seen, a long time ago, a Madame de C. at a house where
there were some theatricals, in which I played the part of the fool. Ask
her if she remembers me.

Good-bye now, and for a long time, no doubt. I am sorry not to have seen
you. Write to me now and then. It will always be a great pleasure to
hear from you, even though you continue the beautiful system of
hypocrisy upon which you have entered so triumphantly. I will commend
you to Buonuicci, you and your society, as greatly interested in
archæology. You will be pleased with his cordiality.

XVI

PARIS, _Saturday, May 14, 1842_.

You will know, in the first place, that I am not burned to death. “The
railway accident on the left bank of the Seine!” It is thus that we have
begun our letters in Paris for the last four days. In the next place, I
will say that your letter has given me a great deal of pleasure. I found
it here on my return from a short trip I have just taken on business;
that is why I have been so long in replying. To be frank--and you are
aware that I have not yet overcome this fault--I will admit that you
have become much more beautiful physically, but not morally. You have an
exquisite complexion, and lovely hair, to which I paid more attention
than to your bonnet; and this was probably worthy of notice, since you
seemed irritated at my failure to appreciate it. But I have never been
able to distinguish lace from calico. You still have a sylphlike figure,
and, although I am somewhat _blasé_ concerning black eyes, I have never
seen any so large in Constantinople or in Smyrna.

Now comes the reverse of the medal. In many respects you have remained a
child, and you have become a hypocrite in the bargain. You have not
learned how to conceal your first impulses, but you think you can
reconcile them by having recourse to a variety of petty means. What do
you expect to gain thereby? Do not forget that great and beautiful maxim
of Jonathan Swift: That a lie is too good a thing to be lavished about!
Your magnanimous idea of being severe on yourself will carry you far, no
doubt, and a few years hence you will find yourself in the happy
condition of the Trappist, who, after torturing himself again and again,
should discover one day that, after all, heaven has no existence.

I do not know to what promise you refer, and there are also many other
obscure passages in your letter. We can never bear the same relations to
each other that exist between Madame de X. and myself; the first
condition in the attitude between a brother and sister being unlimited
confidence, and in this respect Madame de X. has spoiled me.

I am silly enough to grieve over that scarf-pin, but I am consoled at
the thought that you also are sorry for it. This is still another
beautiful trait in your character. How flattered your stoicism must have
been at this victory over yourself! You imagine that you are proud, but
I regret to tell you that what you think is pride is only the petty
vanity which one would expect in a religious temperament. It is the
fashion nowadays to preach. Shall you follow it? That would be the
finishing stroke. I must drop this subject, for it always puts me in a
bad humour.

I think I shall not go to Saragossa. I may go possibly to Florence; but
I have quite decided to spend two months in the south of France,
examining churches and Roman ruins. We may run across each other,
perhaps, in some temple or circus. I advise you strongly to go straight
to Naples. If you should have to wait five or six hours at Leghorn,
however, you might employ them better by going to Pisa to see the Campo
Santo. I advise you to see The Dead, by Orcagna, the _Vergonzoso_, and
an antique bust of Julius Caesar. At Civita Vecchia you need see only M.
Bucci, from whom you will want to buy some very old gems. You must give
him my compliments. Then you will go on to Naples. You will stop at The
Victoria, where you will spend several days drinking in the air, and
watching the sky and the sea. You will go now and then to visit the
studios. M. Buonuicci will take you to Pompeii. You will go to Paestum,
and there you must think of me. When you stand in the temple of Neptune,
you may say to yourself that you have seen Greece.

From Naples you will go to Rome, where you will spend a month persuading
yourself that it is useless to try to see it all, because you shall
return there in the future. Then you will go to Florence, and remain
there ten days. After that you will do what you like. When you come to
Paris, you will find the book for M. Buonuicci and my final
instructions. At that time I shall probably be at Arles or at Orange. If
you should stop there, be sure and inquire for me, and I will show you
an ancient theatre, which will not interest you especially.

You promised me something in return for my Turkish mirror. I rely
implicitly on your memory. Ah, I have great news for you! The first of
the forty Academicians to die will occasion me to make thirty-nine
calls. Of course I shall be as awkward as possible, and no doubt I shall
make thirty-nine enemies. It would take too long to explain the reasons
for this attack of ambition. Enough that the Academy is now the goal of
my aspirations.

Good-bye. I will write again before leaving. Be happy, but bear in mind
this maxim, that one should never do foolish things unless they please
you. Perhaps the precept of M. de Talleyrand is more to your taste, that
one should beware of first impulses, because they are usually honest.

XVII

PARIS, _June 22, 1842_.

Your letter has been tardy in coming, and I became impatient. I must
reply at once to the principal points. First, I received your purse. It
exhaled a most aristocratic perfume, and is very pretty. If you
embroidered it yourself, it does you credit. But I have recognised in it
your newly acquired taste for the practical: in the first place, it is a
purse to hold money; next, you valued it at a hundred francs at the
stage-coach. It would have been more poetical to declare that it was
worth one or two stars. All the same, I prize it quite as highly. I will
put my medals in it. I should have cared more for it if you had
condescended to put in it a few lines from your fair hand.

Secondly, I do not care for your pheasants. You offer them in a
disagreeable fashion, and, besides, you say unpleasant things to me
about my Turkish conserves. It is you who have the taste of a heretic,
if you are unable to appreciate what the houris eat.

I believe I have answered everything that was sensible in your letter. I
will not quarrel about the rest. I abandon you to your own conscience,
which, I am sure, is sometimes even more severe than I, whom you accuse
of harshness and indifference. The hypocrisy which you practise so well
in sport, will play you a trick some day--that is, it will become
natural to you. As for coquetry, the inseparable companion of the horrid
vice which you extol, you have always indulged in it. It became you very
well when it was softened by frankness, warm-heartedness, and
imagination, but now--now, what shall I say?

You have beautiful raven hair, a lovely blue cashmere, and you are
always charming when you wish to be. Say that I do not spoil you! As for
that essence of which you speak, it is your own kindness which you thus
designate. I like that word _essence_; yes, the real essence of roses,
which is always frozen like that of Adrianople. I will tell you this
Oriental story.

There was once a dervish who seemed to a baker to be a saint. The baker
one day promised to give him white bread the rest of his life. At this
the dervish was enchanted. But after awhile the baker said to him, “We
agreed on brown bread, did we not? I have first-class brown bread. It is
my specialty, is brown bread.” The dervish replied, “I have already more
brown bread than I can eat, but----”

Right here my cat jumped on the table, and I have had all I could do to
keep her from lying down on my paper. She has made me forget the rest of
the story, which is a pity, for it was very pretty. Do you know that,
with my other air-castles, I have built this one: to meet you in
Marseilles in September, to show you the lions there, and have you eat
figs and fish soup. But I am obliged to be in Paris by August 15, to
write a report for my minister; consequently, you will eat fish soup by
yourself, and you will visit the Museum and the caves of Saint-Victor
without me. On the other hand, when you reach Paris you may, if you
like, receive from my own hand the directions I have made for your trip
to Italy.

Since your wishes always are realised, I pray you humbly to wish that I
may become an Academician. This would be a great gratification to me,
provided that you were not present at my reception. However, you have
abundant time for the realisation of your wishes. It will be necessary
for an epidemic to break out among those gentlemen before my chances are
advanced; and to improve them, I should be obliged to borrow a little of
that hypocrisy in which you are now so skilled. I am too old to reform;
if I should try, I should be still worse than I am at present.

I am curious to know what you think of me, but how shall I ever find it
out? You will never tell me, either the best or the worst that you
think. Formerly I had not much of an opinion of my precious self, but
now I have a little more self-esteem; not that I think I have improved,
but it is the world that has grown worse.

In a week I start for Arles, where I intend to drive out a lot of
beggars who live in the old theater. A fine occupation, is it not? It
would be kind of you, before I go, to send me a letter brimful of sweet
things. I am fond of being spoiled; besides, I am horribly sad and
discouraged. I must tell you that I am spending my evenings revising my
books, which are to be reprinted. I find them very immoral, and
sometimes stupid. I am trying to reduce the immorality and the stupidity
without going to too much trouble. The consequence is, a bad attack of
the blue devils. I say good-bye, and kiss your hands most humbly. Can
you guess what I found among my papers? A short blue thread, twice
knotted. I have put it away in the purse.

XVIII

CHÂLON-SUR-SAÔNE, _June 30, 1842_.

You guessed correctly the end of the story: the dervish was imposed upon
by the baker, but, all the same, the holy man did not like brown bread.

I am in a city which is particularly odious to me, alone in an inn,
listening to a frightful south-east wind. It parches everything it
touches, and the harmonies produced as it whistles down the corridors
are enough to bring the devil up to earth. The result is that I am
furious with all nature. I am writing to you in order to cheer me a
little, and I am comforted by the thought that in your approaching
journey you will have many such days as this. I saw in Saint Vincent’s
church an exceedingly pretty young girl making stations. Isn’t that what
you call the prayers, or something of the sort, that are said before a
series of pictures representing the principal scenes of the Passion? Her
mother was near, watching over her with strict attention. While taking
notes on ancient Byzantine columns, I asked myself what this young girl
could have done to merit such a penance. The case must have been one of
deep gravity.

Have you become deeply pious, following the general fashion of the day?
You must be pious for the same reason that you must wear a blue
cashmere. I should be sorry, however, if this were so. Our piety here in
France is repugnant to me. It is a sort of mediocre philosophy, which
springs not from the heart, but from the mind. When you have seen the
devotion of the common people in Italy, you will agree with me, I hope,
that theirs is the only genuine religion; only one must be born beyond
the Alps or the Pyrenees to believe this.

You can not conceive of the disgust which I feel for our society of the
present day. One would suppose that it has tried in every way possible
to add to the burden of suffering necessary to the management of
society. I shall await your return from Italy; you will have seen there
a state of society where, on the contrary, everything contributes to
render existence more agreeable and more tolerable. We shall then resume
our discussions on the subject of hypocrisy, and it is possible that we
shall come to an understanding.

I have spent almost the entire winter studying mythology from old Latin
and Greek archives. It has proved to be extremely entertaining, and if
there should ever come into your head the desire to know the record of
the thoughts of men, which is vastly more interesting than the history
of their deeds, inquire of me, and I will recommend three or four books
for your reading which will make you as wise as I--and this is saying no
little!

How are you employing your time? I sometimes ask myself this question,
without being able to give a satisfactory answer. If I had to cast your
horoscope I should predict that you would end by writing a book; it is
the inevitable result of the sort of life you lead, and which all the
women of France are leading. First, there is imagination, and sometimes
affection; then follows hypocrisy, after which one attains to the pious
stage; and finally, one becomes an author. God grant that you may never
reach that point!

I hope to see Madame de M. in Paris this year. If she comes, I should
like to have you meet her. You would then discover that brown bread is
more difficult to make than you seem to think. If you are willing,
nothing will be easier than to make the acquaintance of this baker.

Good-bye. The wind continues to blow. I am obliged to remain a month in
the country, and if you have any time to spare, and wish to give me a
great deal of pleasure, you have only to write to me at Avignon, where I
shall call for your letter.

XIX

AVIGNON, _July 20, 1842_.

Since you take that view of it, upon my word, I capitulate. Give me
brown bread; it is better than none at all. Only, allow me to say that
it is brown, and continue to write to me. You will observe how humble
and submissive I am!

Your letter reached me when I was steeped in melancholy, caused by the
sad news of the death of the duc d’Orleans, which I had just learned
upon returning from a trip into the mountains. I was sadly in need of a
letter of another character; such as it was, your letter has at any rate
proved a diversion.

I shall reply to it item by item. The figure of rhetoric of which you
think yourself the inventor, has been known for a long time. With the
aid of Greek, one might give it a new and whimsical name. In French it
is called by the less stately name of a lie. Employ it with me as little
as you can. Do not overtax it with others. It should be kept for unusual
occasions. Do not make too great an effort to find the world silly and
ridiculous. It is, alas! only too much so. You ought, on the contrary,
to endeavour to imagine it as it is not. It is better to have too many
illusions than not to have any at all. I still have a few, some of which
are not very sound, but I make strenuous efforts to retain them.

Your story is very familiar. “There was once an idol.” Read Daniel; but
he was mistaken--the head was not of gold; it was of clay, like the
feet. But the idolater held a lamp in his hand, and the reflection from
this lamp gilded the idol’s head. If I were the idol (you will observe
that I do not on this occasion assume the attractive rôle), I should
say: “Is it my fault that you have extinguished your lamp? Is that any
excuse for destroying me?” It seems to me that I am becoming somewhat of
an Oriental. So be it!

If you knew Madame de M. you would love her to distraction. She does not
give me white bread, but she gives me something that takes its place.
She is not a baker’s wife; she is a baker.

I grieve to see that you are becoming more and more affected. I am fully
informed about your piety. I thank you for your prayers, if you do not
mean them for a figure of speech. As to your blue cashmere, I am rather
sceptical of your piety, because piety in 1842 is a fashion, just as
blue cashmeres are. You will fail to understand the connection, but it
is perfectly clear notwithstanding.

I regret very much that you are reading Pope’s translation of Homer.
Read the translation of Dugas Montbel, which is the only one worth
reading. If you had the courage to brave ridicule, and time to spare,
you would get Planche’s Greek Grammar and his Dictionary. For a month
the grammar would put you to sleep, but its effect would be seen later.
After two months you would enjoy looking up the Greek words, translated
usually almost literally by M. Montbel. Two months later still you would
be able to guess fairly well, by the awkwardness of his expression,
when the translator has failed to reproduce clearly the Greek phrase. By
the end of a year you would read Homer as you read a melody with its
accompaniment: the melody being the Greek, the accompaniment the
translation. It is possible that you might then wish to study Greek
seriously, in which case you would have the pleasure of reading many
delightful books.

But I am supposing that your time is not absorbed in the selection of
toilettes, or in displaying them before your friends. Everything in
Homer is remarkable. The epithets, which in the French translation seem
so strange, are wonderfully correct. I remember that he speaks of the
sea as purple. I never understood what he meant until last summer, when
I was in a little boat on the Gulf of Lepanto, going to Delphi. It was
just at sunset. Immediately afterwards, the sea took on a magnificent
deep violet tint, which lasted for ten minutes. To see this effect
requires the atmosphere, the sea, and the sun of Greece. I hope that you
will never become enough of an artist to recognise with pleasure that
Homer was a great painter.

The final words of your letter are full of enigmas. You tell me that you
will write to me no more, which would be a great misfortune. However, I
yield to your decision, and you will hear nothing more from me except
compliments. I believe I have already addressed to you several of these.
You solicit one, I imagine, when you say you have neither feeling nor
imagination. By continually denying their existence you may bring ill
luck on yourself. One should not trifle with such things. But I have an
idea that you intended only to try the experiment of your rhetorical
figure on me. Fortunately I know how much to believe.

If you can think of anything pleasant to say to me, you might write. I
shall remain here for a fortnight still. I want to add one word about
the life I am leading, tramping the fields without meeting any other
obstacle than rocks. Farewell. I hope you find me this time sufficiently
submissive and well-behaved, _Signora Fornarina_?

PARIS, _August 27, 1842_.

I find awaiting me here a letter which is not so fierce as your recent
ones have been. You might have sent it to me down there. Such a rare
treat could not be too soon received. I hasten to congratulate you on
your Greek studies, and to begin with something that interests you, I
will tell you what in Greek are called persons who, like you, have hair
of which they are justly proud. It is _euplokamos_. _Eu_ means well,
_plokamos_, a curl of hair. The two words together form an adjective.
Homer has said somewhere: νυμφη δε εὑπλοκαμοσα Καλυψὡ, _Calypso, nymph
of the luxuriant tresses_. Is it not very pretty? Ah! for the love of
Greek, etc.

I regret exceedingly that you start so late in the season for Italy. You
run the risk of seeing everything through odious rain-storms, which
deprive the most beautiful mountains in the world of half their
splendour; and you will be obliged to take my word for it when I praise
the radiant skies of Naples. Neither will you have any good fruit to
eat, but must content yourself instead with fig-eaters, birds so called
because they live on figs.

I do not at all agree with your version of the parable.

On my return I had an adventure which mortified me not a little, since
it showed me the sort of reputation I enjoy with the public. I was
packing my luggage at Avignon, preparing to start for Paris, when there
entered the room two venerable figures who introduced themselves as
members of the Municipal Council. I supposed they had come for the
purpose of talking about some church, when they announced pompously and
verbosely that their visit had as its object to commend to my honour and
to my virtue a lady who was to be my travelling companion. I replied,
very peevishly, that they need have no fears concerning my honour and my
virtue, but that I was not at all pleased to travel with a woman, for I
should then not be able to smoke on the road.

Upon the arrival of the stage-coach I found within a woman, tall and
pretty, simply and stylishly dressed, who said she was ill, and
despaired of ever reaching Paris alive. We entered into conversation. I
was as polite and agreeable as it is possible to be when I am compelled
to remain long in the same position. My companion talked intelligently
and with no Marseilles accent. She was an ardent Bonapartist, of very
enthusiastic temperament; she believed in the immortality of the soul,
not overmuch in the catechism, and was on the whole an optimist. I could
not help feeling that she had a certain fear of me.

At Saint Etienne the two seated britzska was exchanged for a double
carriage. We had the four seats to ourselves, and consequently
twenty-four hours of _tête-à-tête_ in addition to the preceding thirty.
But although we chatted (what a pretty word!) unintermittingly, I was
unable to learn anything of my opposite neighbour, except that she was
going to be married, and that she was excellent company. To come to the
point, we took on, at Moulins, two uncongenial travellers, and finally
reached Paris, where my mysterious lady precipitated herself into the
arms of a very ugly man who must have been her father. I took off my cap
to her, and was about to get into a cab, when my unknown, leaving her
father, came up to me and in a voice full of emotion, said:

“I am deeply touched, sir, by your kindness to me. I can not tell you
how grateful I am. Never shall I forget the happiness I have had in
travelling with such a _celebrated_ man.” I am quoting her words. But
this word _celebrated_ explained the Municipal Councillors and the
trepidation of the lady. They had evidently seen my name on the
post-office register, and the lady, who had read my books, expected to
be swallowed alive. This most unjust opinion of me must be shared,
doubtless, by more than one of my lady readers. What ever put it into
your head to want to know me? I was in a bad humour for two days
following this incident; then I resigned myself to it. It is a
remarkable fact, that after I became a great scamp I lived for two
years on my former good reputation; but now that I have entirely
reformed I still pass for a scapegrace.

As a fact, my wild life lasted but three years, and even then my heart
was not in it. I threw myself into dissipation not from inclination, but
partly from despondency, and partly, perhaps, out of curiosity. I am
afraid, however, that this fact will injure my chances for membership in
the Academy. I am criticised, also, for not being religious, and for not
going to church. I might act the hypocrite, but I should not know how to
go about it, and, besides, I should not have the patience.

If you are astonished that all the goddesses are fair, you will be
still more astonished at Naples when you see statues with the hair
coloured red. It seems that it was the fashion, formerly, for ladies to
use red powder, nay, even gold powder. On the other hand, you will see
in the paintings at the studios many goddesses with black hair. It is
difficult for me to decide which colour I prefer. Only, I advise you
not to powder your hair. There is a terrible Greek word which signifies
black hair. _Melanchaites_ (Μελαγχαἱτης); this χα has a diabolical
sound.

I shall remain in Paris all the fall, I fancy, hard at work on a moral
book, which will be about as amusing as the social war in which you will
engage in Naples. Good-bye. You promised me some words of affection, and
while I am still waiting for them, I am not very sanguine of receiving
them.

You used to admire my wealth of antique gems. Alas! the other day I lost
my most beautiful one, a magnificent Juno, while doing a kind act; that
is, while carrying home a drunken man who had fractured his thigh. And
that stone was an Etruscan. Juno held a scythe, and there is no other
monument where she is so represented. Do sympathise with me!

XXI

You write charmingly in Greek, and much more legibly than you write in
French. But who is your Greek teacher? You can not make me believe that
you have learned to write that running hand from a book only. Who is the
professor of rhetoric at D.?

Your letter is very gracious. I say this because I know that you enjoy
compliments, and also because it is true. As I shall never learn,
however, to correct my unfortunate habit of saying what I think to
people who are not _all the world_ to me, you may as well know that I
see you are making rapid progress in wickedness, and that I am grieved
thereby. You are becoming ironical, sarcastic, and even diabolical. All
these words are, as you know, taken from the Greek, and your professor
will explain to you what I mean by diabolical; διἁβλος, that is,
calumniator. You ridicule my best qualities, and even when you praise
me you do so with reservations and hesitations which rob the praise of
all its worth.

It is a fact that at one time in my life I frequented bad society, but I
was attracted to it through curiosity only, and I was always there as a
stranger in a strange country. As for good society, I have found it
often enough deadly tiresome. There are two places where I am at ease,
at least, where I flatter myself I am in my proper element: first, among
unpretentious people whom I have known for a long time; secondly, in a
Spanish venta, with mule-drivers and Andalusian peasants. Write this in
my funeral oration, and you will have told the truth.

If I mention my funeral oration, it is because I believe it is time for
you to compose it. I have been seriously ill for a long time, and
especially for the last two weeks. I have attacks of dizziness, spasms
of pain, and frightful headaches. Something terrible must have happened
to my brain, and I fancy that before long I may become, as Homer says, a
companion of the shadowy Proserpine. I should like to know what you
would say then. I should be charmed if you were to grieve for two weeks.
Do you think this is too much to ask?

I am spending part of the night writing, or else in tearing up what I
wrote the night before, consequently I make slow progress. What I am
writing interests me, but the question is, Will it interest the public?
I consider the ancients far more interesting than ourselves; they had no
such paltry aims, nor were they so engrossed as we are in a multitude of
silly trifles. I find that my hero, Julius Caesar, at the age of
fifty-three, committed all sorts of follies for the sake of Cleopatra,
forgetting all else for her; this is why he came so near drowning, both
literally and figuratively. What man of our century, among our
statesmen, I mean, who is not completely callous, completely heartless,
by the time he aspires to a seat in the Senate? I should like to explain
the difference between that age and our own, but how shall I do it?

Have you come to a passage in the _Odyssey_ that I consider wonderful?
It is where Ulysses is living with Alcinoüs, still unknown, and after
dinner a poet comes before him and sings of the war of Troy. The
little that I have seen of Greece gives me a clearer understanding of
Homer. Everywhere throughout the _Odyssey_ is seen that amazing love
cherished by the Greeks for their native land. There is in modern Greek
a charming word: it is ξενιτεἱα, an alien. To be in a strange land is
for a Greek the greatest of misfortunes, but to die there is the most
terrible calamity of which they can conceive.

You scoff at my epicureanism. Have you ever tried to imagine the nature
of the entrails which the Greek heroes ate with such relish? The modern
philosophers still eat them: they are called κονκονρἑτζι, and are
simply delicious. There are little wooden skewers made of the fragrant
wood of the mastic tree, with something crisp and spicy around them,
which makes one readily understand why the priests used to reserve for
themselves this dainty morsel from their victims.

Good-bye. If I were to pursue this subject, you would think me more of
a glutton than I am. I have no appetite at all, and nothing in the way
of little delicacies can any longer tempt me. This means that I am only
fit to throw to the crows. There will be deuced weather all through
October, and that will finish me!

XXII

PARIS, _October 24, 1842_.

You are exceedingly kind to leave me in ignorance of that part of the
globe which is so fortunate as to possess you. Shall I address this
letter to Naples, or to ..., or even to Paris? In your last letter you
say that you are about to start for Paris, perhaps for Italy, and since
then not a single word of news. I have a suspicion that you are here,
and that you will inform me of the fact after you have left; this will
be highly in character.

Since writing to you I went away for several days, when, upon my return,
I found your letter, dated so long ago that I thought it useless to send
an answer to.... I marvel greatly that you have learned without
assistance to write the Greek characters, as you say you have. If you
will only be a little patient, with such talent as yours you will become
a second Madame Dacier. For my own part, I no longer take any interest
either in Greek or in French; I have fallen into a fossil state, and
whether I read or write, the letters dance up and down before my eyes in
a most disagreeable way.

You ask if there are any Greek romances. Certainly there are, but in my
opinion they are very tiresome. You might procure a translation of
_Theagenia and Charicleia_, which the late Racine liked so well. Try to
swallow it, if you can. There is also _Daphnis and Chloe_, translated by
Courier. The latter is affectedly artless, and none too meritorious.
Finally, there is an admirable story, but it is very, very immoral. I
refer to _The Ass_, by Lucian, also translated by Courier. No one ever
admits that he has read it, but it is his masterpiece. About that you
must decide for yourself. I wash my hands of the responsibility.

The trouble with the Greeks is that their ideas of decency, and even of
morality, were very different from ours. There are many things in their
literature which might shock, nay, even disgust you if you understood
them. After reading Homer, you can take up confidently the tragedy
writers, who will amuse you, and whom you will enjoy because you have a
taste for the beautiful, a sentiment which the Greeks possessed in the
highest degree, and which a happy few of us inherit from them.

If you have the courage to undertake history, you will be charmed with
Herodotus, Polybdus, and Xenophon. I find Herodotus enchanting, and know
of nothing more entertaining. Begin with _The Anabasis_, or with the
_Retreat of the Ten Thousand_. Take a map of Asia, and follow the course
of these ten thousand rascals in their journey. It is a gigantic
Froissard. Then read Herodotus, and finally _Polybdus and Thucydides_.
The last two are very serious. Procure also a copy of Theocritus, and
read _The Syracusans_. I would recommend also Lucian, who is the
wittiest of all the Greek writers, according to our standards of wit,
but he is very wicked, and so I dare not.

Here are three pages of Greek. As for the pronunciation, if you wish, I
will send you a page which I prepared especially for you. It will teach
you the best method, that is, the pronunciation used by modern Greeks.
The classical is easier, but it is absurd.

We began our correspondence by telling jokes, then we did what? I
shall not remind you. And now we are becoming erudite. There is a
Latin proverb which eulogises the happy medium. When I began to write
I intended to say all sorts of severe things, and it is to Greek that
you owe the absolute sweetness of my letter. It is not that I bear you
less ill-will for your persistent insincerity, only, while writing, I
have lost some of my bad humour. If you are not in Italy, do not regret
it. The weather there is frightful, with rain, cold, etc. Nothing is
more hideous than a land which is not accustomed to these two plagues.
Good-bye. I should be very glad to know where you are. Ἑῥῥωσο (grow
strong).

This is the end of a Greek letter.

P.S.--Opening a book, I have found these two little flowers, which I
plucked at Thermopylæ, upon the hilltop where Leonidas died. It is a
relic, as you see.

XXIII

_Thursday, October, 1842._

Should you like to hear an Italian opera with me to-night? I have a box
on Thursdays with my cousin and his wife. They are now travelling, and I
have the box to myself. You should come accompanied by your brother, or
by one of your relatives who does not know me. You would please me
greatly by coming. Send me a line before six o’clock, and I will let you
know the number of the box. I think _La Cenerentola_ will be given.
Invent some pretty fiction, which you must tell me in advance, to
explain my presence; but manage it so that I may speak with you there.

XXIV

_Friday morning, October, 1842._

I thank you very much for having come yesterday. You gave me a great
deal of pleasure. I hope your brother saw nothing extraordinary in our
meeting. I have an Etruscan seal for you; I can not endure the one you
are using. I will give you the other the next time I see you. I enclose
the page of Greek which I prepared for you. When you have a relapse into
an erudite mood it may be of use.

XXV

_Tuesday night, October, 1842._

I have lost nothing, as it seems, by waiting for your letter. It is
studiously perverse; but believe me, perverseness is not becoming to
you. Abandon this style, and resume your customary coquetry, which suits
you marvellously.

It would be nothing short of cruelty on my part to wish to see you,
since this would cause you to be so ill that it would require an
enormous quantity of cakes to cure you. I can not imagine where you have
conceived the idea that I have friends in the four corners of the globe.
You know perfectly well that I have only one or two friends in Madrid.
Believe me, I am very grateful for the kindness you showed me at the
Italian opera the other night. I appreciate, as I should, your
condescension in letting me see your face for two hours; and truth
compels me to say that I admired it extremely, as I did your hair also,
which I had never seen so closely before.

As for your assertion that you have never refused me anything that I
asked, you will have to remain several million years in purgatory for
that pretty fib. I see that you are anxious to have my Etruscan stone,
and as I am more magnanimous than you, I shall not say, like Leonidas,
“Come and take it!” but I shall ask you again how you wish me to send it
to you.

I have no recollection of comparing you to Cerberus; yet both have,
indeed, several points of resemblance, not only because, like him, you
love tarts, but also because you have three heads. I mean to say three
brains; one, that of a shocking coquette; another, that of an
experienced diplomatist; the third I shall not tell you, because I am
not going to say anything amiable to you to-day. I am very ill and
miserable on account of several misfortunes that have descended on my
head. If you have any influence with Destiny, pray him to treat me
kindly for the next two or three months. I have just been to see
_Frédégonde_, which bored me to death, in spite of Mademoiselle Rachel,
who has magnificent black eyes, without any white, like the devil’s,
they say.

XXVI

PARIS, _Tuesday night_.

I do not understand you, and I am tempted to believe you to be the very
worst of coquettes. Your former letter, in which you tell me that you no
longer know me, put me in a bad humour, and I have not replied to it
promptly. You say, also, with a great deal of civility, that you do not
care to see me, for fear of becoming tired of me. Unless I am mistaken,
we have seen each other six or seven times in six years, and if we add
together the minutes, we may have passed three or four hours together,
half the time saying nothing. However, we are well enough acquainted for
you to have learned to like me a little, the proof of which you gave me
Thursday. We know each other really better than people who meet in
society, considering the length of time we have conversed in our letters
with a certain amount of freedom.

Confess, then, that it is scarcely flattering to my self-esteem that
now, after an acquaintance of six years, you should treat me thus.
Nevertheless, as I have no means of overcoming your resolutions, it
shall be as you wish in this case, but I think it is rather silly not to
see each other. I beg your pardon for using this word which is neither
polite nor friendly, but which, in my opinion at least, is unfortunately
true.

I did not in any way ridicule you the other evening; on the contrary, I
thought you extremely self-possessed. As for the antique seal, you shall
see an impression from it on this letter, and it is subject to your
orders, when you have told me where I shall give it to you--no, how you
wish it sent to you. Let us not offend the eternal fitness of things.

I ask nothing from you in exchange, for the reason that everything I
have asked you have refused me. If you consider it wrong to see me, is
it not wrong, also, to write to me? As I am not very proficient in your
catechism, there is some confusion in my mind on this point. I speak too
harshly, perhaps, but you have wounded my feelings, and when I am
unhappy I can not escape from it, as you can, by devouring cakes. In
truth, that is quite worthy of Cerberus.

XXVII

PARIS, _Saturday, November, 1842_.

_Das Lied des Claerchens gefällt mir zu gar; aber warum haben Sie nicht
das Ende geschrieben?_

The interest which you manifest in that Etruscan stone is truly
delightful to see! How many cakes do you think it is worth? You have
never even asked about the inscription it bears. It is a man turning a
ewer. I should say an amphora, which is a Greek word and more
high-sounding. In former times, perhaps, the seal belonged to a potter;
there is, indeed, a mythological allusion which I might explain to you
if I would. As for the other seal, it has a strange history. I found it
in the chimney-place, as I was poking the fire, in the rue d’Alger; it
is a very large, heavy bronze ring, and the characters on it are
mystical. It is supposed to have been used by a magician, or even by the
gnostics. You have noticed on it a small man, a sun, a moon, etc. Is it
not a curious thing to find in the ashes in the rue d’Alger? Who knows
if it is not to the mysterious power of this ring that I owe your song
of _Claire_?

I am really ill, but that is no reason why I should not go out. If, for
instance, you wished to receive the Etruscan ring from my own hand, I
would give it to you with the greatest pleasure; while it would be
conspicuous and cause gossip if I should send it in a letter by your
bearer. But I do not want to ask anything more from you, for you become
more despotic every day, and you have acquired the most odious
subtleties of coquetry. It appears that you do not appreciate eyes
without any white, and that you admire blue-white eyes. You take good
care, also, to remind me of your own eyes, which I remember quite well,
although I have seen them so seldom.

Who has taught you this peculiarity, which you dare to tell me you did
not know? Was it your Greek teacher, or your German teacher? Or am I to
believe that you learned by yourself to write German script, as you did
the Greek? Another article of faith to add to your aversion to mirrors!
You ought to cultivate a German flower called _die Aufrichtigkeit_.

I have just written the word _End_ at the close of a piece of very
learned writing, which I composed in the worst possible humour; it
remains to be seen whether this word does not signify dulness and
prolixity. However, now that it is finished, I feel relieved of a
burden and much happier, which explains my blandness and amiability
towards you; otherwise I should have told you some sharp truths about
yourself.

You should see me, if it were only to escape from the atmosphere of
flattery in which you live. We must go some day to the Museum to see the
Italian paintings. It would be a compensation for the journey you failed
to take, and to have me for a guide is an inestimable privilege. This is
not a condition on which I shall give you my Etruscan stone. Say how,
and you shall have it.

XXVIII

PARIS, _November, 1842_.

M. de Montrond says that we should beware of our first impulses,
because they are usually trustworthy. One would suppose that you had
given much consideration to this beautiful maxim, for you practise it
with rare constancy. When a good resolution occurs to you, you postpone
it indefinitely. If I were at Civita Vecchia I should seek among the
gems of my good friend Bucci for some Etruscan Minerva; it would be the
most appropriate seal for you. Meanwhile, my potter is all ready, and I
still say, like Leonidas: Μολὡν λαβἑ. I think I shall keep it for some
time still, until the eve of your departure.

I must tell you that I am feeling much better, and am less a prey to the
blue devils. I find pleasure even in my work, which I have not done for
a long time. I am forming great plans for the winter, which is a sign of
better spirits. This is why I write so cheerfully, for if I had written
immediately after receiving your German letter I should have criticised
your faults in my most severe style. You will not be deprived of this
even now, because if I see the world to-day through rose-coloured
glasses, that is all the more reason why they will soon reflect a darker
hue.

I should be glad to know what you are doing, and how you occupy your
time. When I see you so learned in Greek and in German, I conclude that
you are very lonely at ..., and that you are spending your life among
your books, with some wise professors to explain them to you. Yet I
wonder whether it is not otherwise in Paris, and I fancy the days there
passed in amusements of another kind. If I had not lived so long in the
strictest solitude, I should know all about your actions and movements,
and the reports that I should hear would give me an impression of you
very unlike the one I receive from your letters.

While you love to praise yourself, it pleases me to believe that you are
more natural with me, by which I mean less insincere, than you are in
society. There are in you so many contradictions that I am terribly
puzzled to reach an exact conclusion; that is to say, to the sum total +
so many good qualities, -- so many bad ones = _x_. It is this _x_ that I
find confusing.

When I saw you at the home of our friend Madame V., just as you were
leaving Paris, your extreme elegance and style astonished me greatly.
The cakes that you devour so hungrily, after the fatigue of the opera,
have astonished me still more. Not that I do not place love of
admiration and epicureanism among the chief of your faults, but I
supposed that these faults had a mental rather than a tangible form; I
imagined that you cared very little for dress, and that eating was to
you only a diversion; that you enjoyed making an impression by your
beautiful eyes and your clever sayings, rather than by your gowns. See
how mistaken I was!

But this time you shall not reproach me with pessimism, for while you
have been falling from grace day by day, I fancy that I have improved.
It is unreasonably late and I have abandoned a highly learned company
of Greeks and Romans to write to you.

I am just reminded that I must rise early to-morrow--that is,
to-day--which prevents me from explaining in what way I am better than I
used to be, while you have been amusing yourself teasing me about
Madame.... I will defer my own praises for another time; besides, I have
come to the end of my paper.

XXIX

PARIS, _December 2, 1842_.

There is in some old Spanish romance a very pleasing tale. A barber had
his shop at the corner of the street, and the shop had two doors.
Through one of these doors he used to pass out into the street, stab a
passer-by, then hurrying into the shop, he went out the other door and
bandaged the wounds of his victim. _Gelehrten ist gut predigen._

I bear no grudge against your blue cashmere or your cakes; all such
things are perfectly natural. I even admire coquetry and greediness, but
only when one confesses them frankly. But you, who very justly aspire to
be something more than a mere woman of the world, why should you have
its defects? Why are you never frank with me? To give you an example of
frankness, will you, or will you not, come with me to the Museum next
Tuesday? If you are not willing, or if it will inconvenience or
embarrass you to come, you shall receive your Etruscan seal in a little
box Tuesday evening, and it will be delivered to you as naturally as
possible.

Your propensity for coquetry is very amusing. You chide me for being
indifferent, but if I were not so, or if I did not make a show of
indifference, you would drive me mad. Why does one carry an umbrella?
Because it rains.

Notwithstanding your wishes, Madame de M. will certainly come to Paris.
She has to purchase the trousseau of her daughter, who is to be married
in the spring. Unless an unforeseen revolution occurs, the said
trousseau will be made in Paris, and the marriage, also, may take place
here.

I am not acquainted with the future husband, but by means of intrigue I
had a hand in dismissing a former one whom I disliked, although an
exceptional man in many respects. In the first place, he was not tall
enough; besides, he has no less than five or six grandeeships
accumulated on one small body. This action is in itself a proof of my
amelioration. Formerly, it amused me to see others held up to ridicule,
but now I should like to have almost everyone shielded from derision. I
have also become more humane, and the last time I saw the bull-fights in
Madrid I felt none of the pleasure with which I was inspired ten years
ago by a similar exhibition. In fact, I have a dread of all kinds of
suffering, and for some time I have believed in mental suffering. In a
word, I endeavour as far as possible to forget the _ego_. This, in
brief, is the list of my perfections.

It is not through _vanagloria_ that I am ambitious to become an
Academician. One of these days I shall present myself for admission, but
I am sure to be black-balled. I hope I may have patience and persistence
sufficient to accept the disappointment and to persevere in my
endeavour. If the cholera breaks out again, I may perhaps succeed in
attaining a seat. No, I have not the least bit of _vanagloria_. I take
things too literally, perhaps, but I have been disillusioned of taking a
poetical view of life. However, you may be sure that you will never know
either all the good or all the ill in me. All my life I have been
praised for virtues that I do not possess, and slandered for faults
which are not mine. I imagine you at present as spending your evenings
with your two brothers. Good-bye.

XXX

_December, Monday morning._

Now this is what I call talking. To-morrow at two o’clock, at the place
which you appoint. I hope to see you to-morrow relieved of your
headache, in spite of which you are kinder than usual. Good-bye. I shall
be delighted to see the _Joconde_ with you. I am obliged to hasten to
the four ends of Paris, and I have only time to thank you for your
almost unhoped-for graciousness.

XXXI

_Wednesday._

Is it not true that the devil is not so black as he is painted? I am
rejoiced to learn that you did not catch cold, and that you slept well.
It is more than I can say. Be so good as to consider that the Museum
will be closed January 20 for the exhibition of paintings, and that it
would be a pity not to say farewell to it. Of course, you will find a
thousand-and-one _buts_ to this suggestion. Take care that you do not
regret, on January 21, that you did not recover the courage that you
found yesterday.

XXXII

PARIS, _Sunday evening, December_.

Your letter did not surprise me in the least. I was expecting it. I know
you well enough now to be sure that when you have had a kind thought you
are sure to repent of it, and try to have it forgotten as promptly as
possible. You understand very well, too, how to sugar-coat the most
bitter pills. I owe you this in justice. As I am not as strong as you, I
can say nothing to overcome your heroic resolution not to return to the
Museum. I am confident that you will do exactly as you please; only, I
hope that in a month from now you will be more charitably inclined
towards me. Perhaps, after all, you are right. There is a Spanish
proverb which says: _Entre santa y santo, pared de cal y canto._

You compare me to the devil. I observed Tuesday evening that I did not
pay attention enough to my dull old books, and too much to your gloves
and boots. But, notwithstanding all you tell me with your diabolical
spirit of coquetry, I do not believe that you fear any repetition at the
Museum of our past folly. Frankly, this is what I think of you, and how
I explain your refusal: you like to have some indistinct target for
your coquetry, and that target is I. You do not wish to come too close
to it, because, in the first place, if you should fail to strike it your
vanity would suffer too much; and again, if you should see it too
distinctly, you would discover that it was not worth aiming at. Have I
guessed it correctly? I wished, the other day, to ask when I might see
you again, and perhaps if I had insisted you would have named a day.
Then I thought that after you had said Yes you would write me No, and
that this would have distressed and angered me.

I continue to speak to you with the most absurd frankness, but my
example makes no impression at all upon you.

XXXIII

_Sunday, December 19, 1842._

It is evident that you have had professors in Greek and in German, but
one may be permitted to doubt if you have had any in Logic. Really, was
such reasoning ever heard of!--for instance, when you say you do not
want to see me, because, whenever you see me, you fear you shall never
see me again. By such reasoning, I consider your letter as null and
void. The only thing which I can make out is that you have a
handkerchief to give me. Send it to me, or say that I may receive it
from your own hand, which would suit me much better. I hate surprises
that are announced beforehand, because I imagine them much more
beautiful than they prove to be.

Agree with me, and let us see the Museum once more together. If I bore
you, that will be the end of it, and I shall not take you there again;
if not, what prevents our meeting from time to time? Unless you give me
some intelligible reason, I shall persist in believing that which seems
to vex you so much. I should have written to you immediately, but I had
mislaid your letter, which I wished to read again. I turned my desk
topsy-turvy, and set it in order, which is no trifling matter. Finally,
after burning several reams of old papers, which had seemed destined to
collect dust on my desk, I concluded that your letter had vanished by
some sort of witchcraft. I found it awhile ago in my Xenophon, where it
had hidden itself, I don’t know how; and I have read it again with
admiration. Assuredly you feel very little of that veneration of which
you sometimes speak, else you would not say so many _sinrazones_; but I
will forgive you, if you will let me see you soon, for you are much more
agreeable when you talk to me than when you write.

I am distressingly ill, and cough hard enough to rend rocks apart, yet I
am going Monday evening to hear Mademoiselle Rachel recite from _Phèdre_
before five or six great men. She will believe that my cough is an
intrigue against her. Write to me soon. I am horribly blue, and you
would be doing an act of charity to say something kind, as you do
occasionally.

XXXIV

_December, 1842._

It is some time since I have felt like writing to you. My nights are
passed writing prose for posterity to read. This is because I have been
dissatisfied both with you and with myself, which is most extraordinary.
I find myself to-day in a more indulgent frame of mind. This evening I
heard Madame Persiani, which has reconciled me with human nature. If I
were King Saul I should put her in the place of David.

I am told that M. de Pongerville, the Academician, is going to die. This
grieves me, because I shall not take his place, and I should prefer that
he wait until my time were come. This Pongerville made a metrical
translation of a Latin poet named Lucretius, who died at the age of
forty-three from the effect of a love-potion which he took to make
himself beloved or lovable. But previous to this he had composed a long
poem on _The Nature of Things_, a poem atheistic, impious, abominable,
and so forth.

M. de Pongerville’s health troubles me more than it should, and,
besides, I shall be obliged to start out at ten o’clock day after
to-morrow for the vexatious fatigues of New Year’s Day. Why is it a
matter of course that everybody on this day should either go visiting or
else feel it necessary to raise Cain? I have still other grievances,
which would make you laugh, so I shall not tell them to you.

Do you know that if we continue to write to each other in this tone of
friendly confidence, keeping to ourselves our secret thoughts, we have
only one resource: that is, to be more careful of our style, then to
publish some day our correspondence, as has been done for Voltaire and
Balzac? You have a remarkable habit of considering as non-existent
things of which you do not wish to speak, which certainly does great
credit to your diplomacy. It seems to me that you grow more beautiful.
This I thought impossible, for the boundless sea is not increased by the
addition of a few drops of water. This proves that what you lose in one
direction you gain in another. One improves in beauty when one is in
health; one is in health when one has a wicked heart and a good
digestion. Do you still eat little cakes?

Good-bye. I wish you a happy ending of the old year, and a happy opening
of the new year. Your friends will wear away your cheeks on that day.
When I have finished the writing which I mentioned a while ago I shall
go to London for a two weeks’ holiday. This will be towards Easter.

XXXV

_December, 1842._

You must know that I have been very ill since we met. I have had all the
cats in the world in my throat, all the fires of hell in my chest, and I
have spent several days in bed, meditating on the things of this world.
I seemed to be on the slope of a mountain, whose summit I had barely
crossed, with infinite fatigue and little pleasure. This declivity was
very steep, and tiresome to descend, and it would have been convenient
to come to an opening before reaching the base. The only source of
consolation that I have been able to discover along this descent is a
little sunshine afar off, a few months spent in Italy, in Spain, or in
Greece, in oblivion of the entire world, the present, and, above all,
the future.

All this was not enlivening, but some one had brought me four volumes of
Dr. Strauss’ _Life of Jesus_. In Germany this is called an _exegesis_;
it is a Greek word which they have discovered, and it signifies
discussion or interpretation carried to an extremely fine point; but it
is highly amusing. I have noticed that a subject proves entertaining in
proportion as it is devoid of a profitable conclusion. Do you not agree
with me, _Señora caprichosa_?

XXXVI

_Tuesday night, December, 1842._

It is no longer a question of Jean-Paul; it is a question of French, and
of the French of the period of Louis XV. Fine reasoning that, founded
entirely on selfishness. There are certain people who buy a piece of
furniture the colour of which pleases them; then, because they are
afraid of spoiling it, they hide the article under a linen cover, which
is never removed until the furniture is worn out.

In all that you say and do you substitute invariably a conventional for
a genuine sentiment. This is, perhaps, etiquette. The question is to
know what it means to you, in comparison with something else with which,
in my opinion, it would be silly and ridiculous to compare it.

You know that while I have very little sympathy for false reasoning, I
respect convictions, even those that seem to me the most absurd. You
have a great many ridiculous notions (pardon the word) of which I should
hesitate to deprive you, since you are so fond of them and have no
others to take their place. But we are dreaming. Is it not the realities
of life that awaken us invariably from our dreams? Should we still try
to close the crevice through which we see fairy-land?

What is it you fear? In your letter to-day, among a lot of harsh words
and gloomy, pessimistic thoughts, you say something which is true: “I
think I never loved you so much as I did yesterday.” You might have
added, “I love you less to-day.” I am sure that if you felt to-day as
you did yesterday, you would be full of remorse, as I predicted. Yet you
seem scarcely touched by it. My remorse is of a very different quality.

I repent frequently of sticking too closely to my occupation of being a
statue. You opened your heart to me yesterday; I should like to have
given you the same confidence, but you did not wish it. The linen cover
still conceals the furniture! This is a subject upon which you compel me
to scold you sharply. Yet, never did I feel less in the mood for
scolding before receiving your letter. After all, I am like you:
pleasant memories drive out the disagreeable ones.

By the way, how affectionate you are! You are reserving a surprise for
my departure. You can guess how impatient I am. Last night, while
returning from dinner, I discovered that I knew by heart the speech of
_Tecmessa_ which you had admired; and as I was in a thoughtful mood I
translated it into verse--English verse, of course, for I detest French
verse. I intended giving it to you, but I have changed my mind. Besides,
I found a horrible fault of quantity in the word _Ajax_. It must be
_Ajax_, must it not?

When shall I see you, to tell you what you never tell me? You see that
we rule the weather. It clears for our benefit. Between two storms we
have always one halcyon day. Tell me, please, that it may be two days,
for I am tied down to work now.

XXXVII

PARIS, _January 3, 1843_.

Hurrah! this is what I call talking! You are so amiable when you wish to
be. Why is it that you are so often unpleasant? No, indeed, written
thanks are of no value; and after all my diplomacy in securing such
cordial letters of introduction for your brother, I certainly deserve a
few words of kindness from you. I will forgive you cheerfully for all
your ridicule concerning balloons and the Academy, about which I think
much less than you suppose. If I ever become an Academician, I shall be
no harder than a rock. By that time I shall be perhaps somewhat
shrivelled and mummified, but for all that I shall be a devilish good
fellow.

The only way in which I can have Persiani for my David is to go to hear
her every Thursday. As for Mademoiselle Rachel, I am not gifted with the
faculty for enjoying poetry as often as music, and this--Rachel, not
music--reminds me that I promised you a story. Shall I tell you now, or
shall I reserve it until I see you? I am going to write it, for I shall
have something else, no doubt, to tell you then.

Well, then, about two weeks ago I dined with Rachel at the home of an
Academician. It was to introduce Béranger to her. There were any number
of great men present. She arrived late, and I did not like her entrance.
The men said so many silly things to her, and the women did so many
silly things, that I remained in my corner. Besides, I had not spoken to
her for a year.

After dinner, Béranger, with the kindness and common sense habitual to
him, told her that it was a great pity to fritter away her talents in
the salon, and that there was but one audience worthy of her, that of
the Theater Français, and so on. Mademoiselle Rachel seemed to approve
cordially of the lecture, and, as a proof that she had profited thereby,
she played the first act of _Esther_. An assistant was needed to read
the other parts, and she had a copy of Racine brought to me most
ceremoniously by an Academician who was performing the functions of a
_cicisbeo_. I replied churlishly that I did not understand poetry, and
that there were people in the room who, being in that business, could
scan it much better than I. Hugo asked to be excused on account of his
eyes, some one else for another reason. The host made a sacrifice of
himself.

Imagine to yourself Rachel, dressed in black, standing between a piano
and a tea-table, with a door at her back, assuming her theatrical
expression. This visible transformation scene was highly amusing and
very pretty; it lasted about two minutes, then she began:

“Is it thou, dear Elise?” ... The confidante, in the midst of her reply,
dropped her glasses and her book; ten minutes passed before she had
recovered her place in the book, and her eyes. It is evident to the
audience that Esther is losing her temper. She continues. The door
behind her opens; a servant enters. Some one makes a sign for him to
retire. He hastens out, and can not succeed in closing the door. The
said door, unlatched, swings back and forth, accompanying Rachel with a
melodious creaking which is extremely diverting. As this noise did not
cease, Mademoiselle Rachel laid her hand upon her heart as if she were
ill, but in the manner of one accustomed to expiring in public. This
created an opportunity for several persons to come to her assistance.

During the intermission Hugo and M. Thiers began to dispute on the
subject of Racine, Hugo contending that Racine had a small mind and
Corneille a great one. “You say this,” replied Thiers, “because you
yourself have a great mind. You are the Corneille of an age in which
Casimir Delavigne is the Racine.” At this Hugo shook his head with
assumed humility. I leave you to judge if modesty was in evidence.

By this time, however, she had recovered from her swoon, and the act was
concluded, but _fiascheggiando_. Some one who is well acquainted with
Mademoiselle Rachel remarked, as we left the house, “How she must have
sworn to-night, after going home!” The words gave me food for thought.
This is my story. All I ask of you is, not to compromise me by repeating
it to any Academician.

I did not recognise you Sunday until I was quite near. My first impulse
was to join you, but seeing you with so many others, I went on my way. I
did well, I think. It seems to me that heretofore I have always seen you
with pale cheeks, from which I concluded Sunday that they appeared rosy
in comparison with the solemnity of the day.

Good-night, or rather good-morning. Monday, or rather Tuesday, for it is
three o’clock in the morning.

XXXVIII

_Thursday, January, 1843._

Let us take advantage of the fine weather to-day.

_Onc homme n’eut les dieux tant à la main,_
_Qu’asseuré fut de vivre au lendemain_.[6]

At the appointed place, then, “at two o’clock to-morrow, Thursday.” I
say to-day, for it is now one o’clock. The stars are shining brightly,
and as I returned a while ago from the ministerial assembly, I found the
walking as tolerable as it was the last time we were out. Wear your
seven-league boots, however--it is safer. If by chance you should be out
when this letter arrives, I shall wait for you until half past two; if
you do not come at all to-day, then Saturday. To any one else but you I
should say something else.

I wished to write you a letter to-day, but remembering my promise, I
have decided not to do so. I did wrong. You should have appointed the
day and the hour, which would have saved us the inconvenience of missing
each other. I hope, however, that this will not happen. I suppose you
are really anxious to take this walk, for your letter is colder than
usual. There is a charming equipoise in your actions. You are unwilling
that I should ever be perfectly happy, so you make your plans in advance
to put me in a rage. This will be, perhaps, more difficult than you
think, for although I have been ill for two days, the world to-day looks
rose-colour.

I dined yesterday at a house where, as I entered the room late, among a
lot of women I thought I saw you. Consequently I was struck dumb for a
quarter of an hour. I did not glance in the direction of the person I
supposed to be you, unable to decide, as is always the case when one is
embarrassed, whether to speak to you or not.

Making a desperate effort finally, I walked up to the lady, who turned
out to be a Spanish woman whom I had met several times. It only rests
with her to believe _che ha fatto colpo_. I am sending you Dickens’
_Sketches_, which amused me when I read them. You may have read them
already, but no matter! At two o’clock, then, to-day, Thursday.

XXXIX

PARIS, _Sunday, January 16, 1843_.

I thank you for having thought to reassure me, but I am anxious about
those flushed cheeks of which you speak so lightly. I regret sincerely,
I assure you, that my persuasions brought you out in that frightful
downpour. It happens seldom that I sacrifice others to myself, and when
this does occur I am overcome with remorse. Anyhow, you are not ill, and
you are not angry, which is the most important consideration.

It is a blessing that a small misfortune arises now and then to turn
aside greater ones. We must give the devil his due. It seems to me we
were both depressed, although happy enough at heart. Some joys are so
deep that they do not show on the surface. I hope you felt a little of
what I experienced. Until you tell me the contrary, I shall believe that
you did. You say twice in your letter, “Good-bye, until we meet again!”
You are sincere, are you not? But where and when shall it be? My last
suggestion proved to be so unfortunate, that I am altogether
discouraged. Henceforth I shall trust your inspirations only.

I have a wretched cold this evening, but the rain is not responsible for
it, I fancy. I spent the entire morning in a room without fire,
examining Chaldean and Persian talismans and rings, while the
antiquarian was dying for fear I should steal them. Just to tease him, I
remained in the cold room longer than my wishes inclined me.

Good-night, and may we soon meet. It is now your turn to command. Were
it only to have you assure me that the rain has not given you a cold, or
made you despondent or vexed, I should like to see you.

_Sunday night, January, 1843._

As for me, I was not very tired, and yet when I followed on the map the
course of our peregrinations, I see that we should both have been worn
out. The reason is, that happiness gives me strength, while from you it
takes it away. _Wer besser liebt?_ I dined out, and later went to a
ball. I could not go to sleep for a long time, thinking of our walk.

You are right in saying that it was a dream. But is it not a great
blessing to be able to dream when one wishes? Since you are the
dictator, it is for you to say when you care to dream again. You say we
were not considerate of each other. I do not understand. Is it because I
made you walk too far? But how could we do otherwise? So far as I am
concerned, I am perfectly satisfied with the way you treated me, and I
should compliment you even more, if I did not fear that compliments
might make you less kind in the future.

As for our follies, think no more about them; that is our prerogative.
When you are inclined to find fault with anything, ask yourself if you
would really and truly prefer the contrary. I should like you to answer
this question frankly. But frankness is not one of your most conspicuous
virtues.

You once ridiculed me, and took in an uncomplimentary sense what I said
one day about sleepiness, or, rather, the lethargy that sometimes
overcomes one too happy to find words in which to express his emotion. I
noticed yesterday that you were under the influence of that drowsiness,
which is well worth waiting for. I might in my turn have reproached you
for your own reproaches; but I was too happy to disturb my happiness.

Good-bye, dear friend, but not for long, I hope.

XLI

_Wednesday night, January, 1843._

I have been waiting all day for a letter from you. I thought the
pavements dry enough, and the sky bright. But it appears that now you
must have sunshine like that of last Thursday. Besides, I am sure you
needed a long time to compose the letter which I received a while ago.
It is made up of blame and threats, all very gracefully expressed, as
you understand how to do. In the first place, I must thank you for your
frankness, to which I will reply with a frankness equal to your own.

To begin with the reproaches, I think you make a great deal out of
nothing. You have brooded over the affair until it has assumed an
importance that does not belong to it, so that you have succeeded in
making what even you yourself call _frivolities_ a star-chamber matter.

There is but one point which is worth the trouble of an explanation. You
speak to me of _precedents_, as if you believe that I am scheming with
all the patience and Machiavellianism of an old cabinet minister to
establish them. Refer a little to your memory, and you will see that
nothing is farther from the truth. If it were necessary to discuss the
question of precedents, I might mention that of the salon in the rue
Saint Honoré the first time I saw you again; then our first visit to the
Louvre, which came near costing me an eye. It all seemed a simple enough
matter at the time, but now it is another thing. You must have
discovered that sometimes I act upon impulse, but that I give it up as
soon as I realise that you are displeased; more frequently, however, my
impulses are limited to thoughts rather than to acts. Enough said
concerning reproaches and precedents.

As to your threats, be assured that I am keenly alive to them; and,
although fearing them greatly, nevertheless I can not forbear telling
you once more all that I think. Nothing would be easier than to make you
promises, but I feel that it would be impossible for me to keep them. Be
satisfied, then, to go on as we have in the past, or else let us stop
seeing each other.

I must tell you that even the obstinacy with which you set yourself in
opposition to these _frivolities_, as you call them, renders them all
the dearer to me, and makes me attach to them a new importance. This
seems to be the only proof that you are able to give me of your feelings
towards me. If I must resist the most innocent temptations in order to
see you, it is a saint’s labour which surpasses my strength. It would
be, unquestionably, a great pleasure to see you, but the condition of
transforming myself into a statue, like that king in the _Thousand and
One Nights_, is insupportable to me.

We have now come to a clear understanding with each other. You shall
decide, according to your wisdom, whether we are to postpone our next
walk several thousand years, or to the first bright day. You see I do
not accept your advice to practise hypocrisy. You knew beforehand that
this would be impossible. The only hypocrisy of which I am capable is to
conceal from the people I love all the pain they cause me. I can sustain
this effort for some time, but not forever. When you receive this
letter, it will have been a week since we met.

If you persist in your threats, write to me promptly. This will be on
your part a favour which I shall appreciate.

XLII

_January, 1843._

I am no longer surprised that you learned German so well and so quickly;
you possess the genius of that language, for you write in French
sentiments worthy of Jean-Paul; as, for example, when you say, “My
malady is a sensation of happiness which is almost pain.” In prose this
means, I hope, “I am quite well again, and was not very ill.”

You are right to scold me for lack of consideration for those who are
ill. I have reproached myself bitterly for having made you take that
walk, for having allowed you to sit so long in the shade. As for the
rest, I have no regrets, nor have you either, I hope. Contrary to my
usual habit, I have no distinct recollections of that day, but am like a
cat who licks his whiskers for a long time after drinking his milk.
Admit that the peace of which you sometimes speak with admiration, that
the _kêf_, which is superior even to the best that we know, is as
nothing in comparison to the happiness “which is almost pain.” Nothing
is more insignificant than the life of an oyster, especially of an
oyster which is never eaten.

You profess to spoil me, while the fact is that you yourself have been
so spoiled that you ill understand how to spoil others. You are
pre-eminent in your ability to provoke them; but in point of compliments
I think you owe me several in compensation for the magnanimity with
which I have allowed you to scold me. I marvel at myself. Thus, instead
of your usual sermon, in your next letter tell me something pleasant,
or rather say all those charming extravagances that come to you so
easily.

You have compelled me to take up once more my Asiatic journey better
than I could have done it for myself. A faster train than the railway
affords is waiting for us, and we have it in our minds. I took your
“hint,” and since receiving your letter I have accompanied you to Tyre
and to Ephesus; together we have crept into the beautiful grotto of
Ephesus. We sat beside the ancient tombs, and conversed of many things.
We quarrelled, and made up again; it was all as it was in the country
the other day, only there was nothing to disturb us except several big,
inoffensive, but repulsive-looking lizards. I can not, even in the
mind’s eye, picture you as sympathetic as I should like to have you; at
Ephesus even, I fancied you as a little sulky, and abusing my patience.

The other day you spoke of a surprise that you would have for me, but
how do you expect me to believe you? All that you can do is to yield
when you have reached the limit of your futile excuses. But how is it
possible for you voluntarily to contrive a gift, when you have a genius
for refusing all I ask? I am perfectly sure, for instance, that it would
never occur to you to propose a day for us to go for a walk. Do you
prefer Monday, or Tuesday? I am anxious about the weather; nevertheless,
I trust to our good demon, as the Greeks say.

By the way, I want to read you a passage from a Greek tragedy, which I
shall translate literally, and of which you shall then give me your
opinion. I believe the Spanish comedy has dropped behind, somewhere
between the place we landed and that where we re-embarked. But as I
believe you were reading the history of the count de Villa-Mediana, I
will try and find the little poem of the duke de Rivas for you.

Good-bye. Do not have any second thoughts, and give me a place in your
first. You know in which place I belong. Remind me to tell you a story
of a somnambulist, which I intended telling you the other day.

XLIII

PARIS, _January 21, 1843_.

You are very kind, and I thank you for your first letter, which has
given me more pleasure than the second, for the latter has a flavour of
second impulses. It is not bad, however. But you must write more legible
German. I am sadly in need of the commentaries which you offer
me--verbal ones, of course, for they are the best kind. At first I read
_heilige Empfindung_, then afterwards I thought it should read _selige_.
But there are two meanings. Does it mean a sensation of happiness, or
sentiment that is dead, past? If I had seen you writing, I should have
guessed, probably, from your expression what you intended to say. That
was double coquetry on your part, coquetry in writing, coquetry of
ambiguity.

Alas! you overrate my knowledge in matters of dress. I have, however,
very positive ideas on that subject. I will submit them to you, if you
like; but I do not understand most of the beautiful things that should
be admired, unless they are explained to me. If you will point them out
to me, I shall understand immediately, I assure you. But when, and
where? These two questions engage my attention quite as much as your why
and wherefore.

Do you not look back longingly to the beautiful warm days of the spring?
No danger then of wetting those wonderful little boots! If you will tell
me that you have remembered them, and that you still think of them, you
will give me renewed patience; but you must do something more than
think; you must resolve. I have no desire to recall your promises, for I
hope you will add to your good faith by fulfilling them graciously, and
not keep them waiting too long. I was so utterly overcome with dismay by
that storm, and by its consequences, that I have become entirely sugared
over with suavity and self-sacrifice. I have now sufficient confidence
in you to believe that you will not take advantage of it to become
tyrannical. You have, I regret to say, strong leanings in that
direction. That was formerly a fault of mine--tyranny, I mean--but I
flatter myself I have overcome it. Good-bye, then, dearest! Think of me
sometimes.

XLIV

_January 27, 1843._

Hear what happened to me. I was feeling very ill this morning, but was
obliged to go out on business. Returning about five o’clock in a hideous
mood, I fell asleep before the fire as I was smoking my cigar and
reading Dr. Strauss. Now it seemed to me that I was still seated in my
arm-chair, fully awake, and reading, when you entered the room, and said
to me, “Is not this the simplest way to see each other?” “Not the best
way,” I replied, for it seemed to me there were two or three other
persons in the room. However, we conversed as if that made no
difference; whereupon I awoke, and found that some one had brought a
letter from you. See how lucky it was I fell asleep!

I am not conscious of having written you anything out of the way,
consequently I have no apology to offer. It would be your place rather
to apologise, but you do so with so little penitence, and with so much
irony, that it is very evident you have lost that veneration with which
you formerly honoured me. I can not, however, harbour resentment against
you in spite of my resolutions, so I resign myself to remain your
victim, only do not take advantage of my generosity; that would be
neither handsome nor generous.

You speak of the sunshine, and remind me of it almost as if it were the
Greek calends. Probably we shall have more sunshine next June, but must
we wait until then? It is true that you are _escarmentada_ of cloudy
weather, but while using due precautions, might we not take advantage of
the first fair weather? I would not have you catch cold on my account.
Be sure to wear your overshoes. No matter in what old costume, to see
you is always pleasure enough for me.

What is this pain in the side of which you speak so lightly? Do you
know that pneumonia begins that way? You went to the ball, and probably
caught cold going out into the air. Relieve my mind at once, I beg of
you. I would rather think of you cross, than ill. If you are entirely
well and in good spirits, and if the weather is never so little fine
Saturday, why should we not take that walk? We could go somewhere, far
away from everybody, and then walk and talk.

If you can not, or will not, come Saturday, I shall not be angry, but
anyway, try to come soon. When I ask you for anything, you grant it only
after having kept me fuming for so long that you prevent me from feeling
as grateful as I should, perhaps; and you deprive yourself, moreover, of
all the merit which would have been yours had you been promptly
generous.

To converse together, and--what has sometimes happened--to think
together, is this, then, a pleasure of which you grow weary so soon?
‘Tis true that one can speak only for himself, but each one of our
excursions has been to me more delightful than the preceding one,
because of the memories which it has left with me. I make an exception
of the last one, and that one I should like to forget altogether, and
replace it by another in which you would run no risk of catching cold.
Thus peace is made, and I await your orders to ratify it Thursday
evening.

XLV

PARIS, _February 3, 1843_.

Does not this lovely weather make you think of Versailles, and
consequently does it not make you wish to laugh? If you were the least
logical you would not laugh. I am sure you are aware that Versailles is
the capital of the Department of Seine-et-Oise, where there are officers
for the protection of the weak, and that French is spoken there. In such
a place you would be as safe as in Paris. Moreover, what you wish to do
is to walk without meeting any of your gossiping acquaintances. At
Versailles, on a day when the Museum is closed, you are sure of meeting
no one. I do not remind you of the air, or of the beauty of the grounds,
which have their own value, and which influence always the nature of
one’s thoughts.

I am confident, for instance, that at Versailles you would have had no
sign of that attack of temper of the other day. That you have now
recovered from it I am sure, for the closing words of your letter bore
the inspiration of your good genius. The beginning was suggested by
your evil genius. I write in great haste, for I am overwhelmed in
business matters, which are proving very tiresome. Think of me
sometimes, and do not be angry. Don’t laugh too much when you think of
me.

XLVI

PARIS, _February 7, 1843_.

Allow me, if you please, to make a very simple calculation, and all will
be said on the subject of Versailles. Is an hour’s stroll in that lovely
garden such a difficult thing to imagine? Now, did we not spend two
hours together at the Museum that dreadfully foggy day? I have finished.

You make me laugh at your idea of the commissions to which I am ordered
to attend. Although those are not lacking, the commissions to which I
referred are assemblies where several persons together are unable to
accomplish the task that one alone could do much better.

Do not fancy that you are the only one who does errands. I have run all
over Paris buying gowns and hats, and I have an engagement next
Wednesday to select a rococo shepherdess costume. All this is for Madame
de M.’s two daughters. Give me your advice. What sort of costumes
should they have for a masquerade ball? A Scotch and a Cracovian costume
are now on the way. I have one shepherdess dress, but I need still
another disguise. Here is their description: the elder is a pale
brunette, not quite so tall as you, very pretty and vivacious; the
younger is quite tall, and fair, an unusually handsome girl, with the
sort of hair that Titian adored. I should like to have her go as a
shepherdess, with powdered hair. What would you advise for the other?

I ask myself why you seem to me to be more beautiful than ever, and am
unable to find a satisfactory answer. Is it because your expression is
less startled than it was? Yet, the last time I saw you you reminded me
of a bird that had just been caged. You have seen me under three
aspects. I know of but two of yours--when you are terrified, and again
with a sort of radiant defiance which I have seen on no face but yours.

You accuse me unfairly of being fond of society. I have been out but one
evening in a fortnight, and that was to call on my minister. I found all
the women in mourning, several of them wearing mantillas--no, not
mantillas, but black beards which made them resemble Spanish women. I
thought it was very pretty. I am strangely depressed and morose. I
should like to pick a quarrel with you, but do not know what to quarrel
about. You ought to write me a kind and sympathetic letter. I should try
to imagine how you looked as you wrote it, and that would comfort me.

Does my novel interest you? Then read the end of the second volume, Mr.
Yellowplush. It is a fairly good caricature, in my opinion. Good-bye.
Write to me soon.

I reopen my letter to beg you to observe that the weather has the
appearance of clearing.

XLVII

PARIS, _Sunday, February 11, 1843_.

I am not quite sure whether I should believe implicitly all that your
letter tells me of your indisposition, and of the affairs that detain
you. Among all the pleasant things that you say, I think it is clear
that you are not particularly anxious to see me. Am I mistaken, or is it
that I am so unaccustomed to your soft words that I can not believe them
true? Tuesday, shall you be well, shall you be unengaged, shall you be
as sweet-tempered as you were last Wednesday? The weather yesterday
afternoon was superb; perhaps we shall be as fortunate next Tuesday, if
my barometer does not deceive me.

I have something for you, which you will probably think very silly.
Since seeing you I have run around considerably, and have played a
number of Academic tricks. I am not in good practice, which is to my
disadvantage, but I believe I can soon pick it up again. To-day I have
visited five illustrious writers of poems or prose, and if night had not
overtaken me I am not sure that I could not have finished up my
thirty-six visits at a single stretch. It is ludicrous when rivals
happen to meet. Some of them look at me as if they would like to eat me
alive. I am, indeed, thoroughly worn out with all these dutycalls, and
it would be delightful to forget them all during an hour spent with you.

XLVIII

_February 11, 1843._

Does not this snow-storm take it upon itself to say No, without your
interference in the matter? This should cure you of your bad habit of
refusing. The devil is wicked enough, without your efforts to rival him.
I was very ill last night, suffering from fever and sharp, shooting
pains. I am somewhat better to-night. It seems to me that in your last
note you are trying to find an excuse to quarrel about our walk. What
was wrong about it, unless you caught cold? I made you walk so fast that
I have little anxiety on that score.

There was in your appearance an air of health and vigour that was
delightful to see. Besides that, you are losing gradually your habitual
restraint with me. These walks are an advantage to you in every way, not
to mention the variety of archæological knowledge that you acquire
without taking any trouble at all. Already you are past-mistress on the
subject of vases and statues.

Every time we meet there is a crust of ice between us to be broken, and
it is at least a quarter of an hour before we can take up our last
conversation at the point where we left it. If we saw each other
oftener, however, doubtless there would be no ice at all. Which do you
prefer, the end, or the beginning of our meetings?

You have not thanked me for not mentioning Versailles to you. I think of
it often, I assure you. I have something to show you, which I forgot; it
belongs to _auld lang syne_. Come, guess, if you can. When I see you I
forget all I intended to say. I made a note of a lecture I wanted to
deliver about your jealousy of your brother. In your rôle of sister, as
I conceive it, you ought to wish for your brother to love some good and
worthy woman. Bear in mind that you can not prevent it in any case, and
if you will not be a happy, or at least a resigned confidante, you will
certainly become estranged from him.

Good-bye. My finger is deucedly painful, but I am told this is a good
symptom. By way of diversion, I will think of your hands and feet. You
think of them seldom, I am sure.

XLIX

_February 17, 1843._

It is possible that I was unjust towards you; if so, I ask your pardon.
At the same time, you do not try to put yourself in my place, and
because you do not look at things from my standpoint you insist that I
take your point of view, which is impossible. You do not, perhaps, give
me all the credit I deserve for my efforts to be like you. I do not
understand your present attitude towards me. Not only so, but speaking
literally, I have seen for a long time that you love me better at a
distance than when I am with you.

Let us talk no more of this now. I wish only to say that I do not
censure you, and that I am not offended with you, and that if at times I
am depressed, you must not suppose that I am angry. You have made me a
promise, which you may be sure I shall not forget, and yet I do not know
if I shall remind you of it. There is nothing I dislike so much as
quarrels, but I should have to quarrel with you in order to jostle your
memory. Nothing that pains you would give me pleasure; therefore I will
agree to the programme which you have arranged.

Indeed, that was a happy inspiration of ours the other day. What a snow,
and what a rain! What a pity it would have been to put me off until
to-day! You are always afraid to follow your first impulses; do you not
know that they are the only ones which are worth anything, and which
always succeed? I have an idea that the devil is constitutionally slow,
and decides always on the longest way around. To-night I have been to
the Italian Opera, where, in spite of the constant applause given my
enemy, Madame Viardot, I enjoyed myself.

I have received from Spain the books for which I have been waiting in
order to continue my work, so that temporarily I am in high spirits. I
wish I knew that you were thinking of me, and especially that we were
thinking together. Good-bye. I am charmed that you like the pins. I was
afraid you might disdain them; but, despite the pleasure it would give
me to see you wear them, do not wear the blue shawl next time. You are
right in saying that it is too showy.

PARIS, _Monday night, February, 1843_.

If I were not afraid of spoiling you, I should tell you of the pleasure
I have had from your letter, with its very gracious promise, and, more
than all, your eagerness for the return of dry weather. Is it not great
folly on your part to wish to make fixed dates for our walks, as if we
could ever be sure of a day? Was I not right in saying, “Come as often
as you can”? When we have had two days of fine weather, we may take it
for granted that it will rain for two months afterwards. What matters it
if at the end of a year we find ourselves so much ahead by a few days’
promenade? Indeed, your letter is full of first impulses, that is why I
like it so well. I fear, however, that you are so generously disposed
only because we can not take advantage of your good intentions.
Nevertheless, your promises are somewhat reassuring, and if you do not
keep them you will be very, very sorry.

You made me think of all sorts of things the other evening at the opera,
with your iris-coloured gown. But you need not be coquettish with me. I
love you no better in iris-colour than in black.

Tell me the truth, were you not angry with me when you reflected? If so,
that would have been for me an unfortunate first impulse the other day,
and that would have caused me both pleasure and distress. When I see you
I shall know which.

I know the superstition attaching to knives and sharp instruments, but
not that about pins. I should have thought, on the contrary, that pins
signified attachment, and that is the reason, perhaps, which made me
select them. Do you remember that you would not allow me to pick up
yours at Madame de P.’s? I still cherish this grievance against you,
along with many others. I forgive them all to-day, but when you have
added others to them I shall be as indignant as ever.

It is a great misfortune to be unable to forget. My writing to-day
resembles a cat’s scratching. I can not yet sharpen my pen, and doubt
very much whether you can read my scrawl. It is almost as intelligible
as what you write in blank.

I suppose you are going in society a great deal this carnival season. In
arranging my desk I have discovered that I failed to go to the ball
given by the Director of the Opera. What has become of the happy time
when such things pleased me? Now they bore me to death. Do I not seem
very old to you?

There is some appearance of clearing weather, but I dare not say a word.
I have sworn to leave you perfect liberty. Theodore Hook is dead. Have
you read _Ernest Maltravers_, and _Alice_, by Bulwer? They present
charming pictures of youthful and of mature love. I have them both, when
you wish them.

_Thursday night, February, 1843._

In vain have I tried to find in your last letter some excuse to be angry
with you, for even anger would be a relief. I have burned your letter,
but I remember it only too distinctly. It was very sensible, too
sensible, perhaps, but very kind also. For a week I have had such a
strong desire to see you, that I have even brought myself to the point
of regretting our quarrels. I am writing to you now, and do you know
why? Because you will not reply, and that will make me furious, and
anything is preferable to the despondency in which you have left me.
Nothing is more absurd; we were perfectly right to say farewell.

You and I understand so thoroughly the meaning of reason, that we should
act in the most reasonable way possible. But after all, happiness is
found only in folly and in dreams. It is strange, but I never believed,
until this last time, that our quarrels could be serious. But it is now
ten days since we parted in such a solemn manner that I am terrified.
Were we more angry than usual, more clear-sighted? and did we love each
other less? There was between us that day something, certainly, which I
do not remember distinctly, but which had never existed before.

It never rains but it pours. At the same time that we parted, my cousin
changed his day at the Opera, so I shall not meet you there in future on
Thursdays. I recall, also, that you predicted, prophetically, that I
should forget you for the Academy, and it was before the Academy that we
said good-bye. All this is very silly, but it haunts me, and I am dying
to see you, were it only that we might quarrel.

Shall I send you this letter? I have not quite decided. I went
yesterday, on the strength of a Greek verse, to _Saint Germain
l’Auxerrois_. Do you remember when we used to understand each other?

Good-bye. Write to me. I feel a little comforted from having written to
you.

LII

PARIS, _February, 1843_.

It has happened often during my life to do reluctantly things which I
have been afterwards very glad to have done. I hope that you may have
the same experience. Suppose the contrary had occurred, would you not
have felt some impatience for having come alone? Would you not have
suffered some distress (let me believe you would) for having caused me
sorrow?

Do you now recall with pride that strange influence which you have twice
exerted on my thoughts and on my resolutions? The only mistake made has
been to feel a little uncertainty. Are you not astonished, as I am, with
that strange coincidence (I shall not say sympathy, for fear of
offending you) of our thoughts? Do you recollect that on a former
occasion we had an experience almost as miraculous? and more recently
still, beside a stove in the Spanish Museum, you read my thoughts as
quickly as they came into my mind? For a long time I have suspected
something of the diabolical in you, but I am reassured somewhat,
remembering that I have seen both your feet, and neither one is a
_cloven foot_. It may be, however, that you have concealed beneath those
little boots a tiny hoof. I beg you to relieve my suspense.

Good-bye. Here is the book of which I spoke.

LIII

PARIS, _February 9, 1843_.

I was very uneasy when no word came from you. Not that I feared you had
changed your mind, but I thought you were ill, and chided myself for
taking you that long walk, returning through the wind and rain.
Fortunately, it was the post-office, taking its Sunday holiday, which
kept me waiting for your letter. Although the delay caused me intense
suffering, I did not for a single moment blame you. I am glad to tell
you this, so that you may know that I am overcoming my faults, as you
also are overcoming yours. Good-bye, then, for a little while. My eyes
no longer pain me. Yours, I fancy, sparkle as brightly as ever. What
mountains we make out of molehills! Would it not have been a mistake not
to see each other again?

I am very blue and miserable. One of my intimate friends, whom I
intended to visit in London, has just suffered a stroke of paralysis. I
do not know whether it will be fatal, or, what would be even worse than
death, whether he will linger on in that frightful condition of
unconsciousness to which this disease brings the most brilliant minds. I
am uncertain whether I ought not to go to see him at once.

Write to me, I pray you, and say something sympathetic, so that I will
forget my gloomy forebodings.

LIV

_Thursday morning, February, 1843._

Alas! Yes, poor Sharpe[7] has just been stricken down most suddenly and
painfully. I have had no news from him since the 5th, and if you know
some one in London who can tell you anything authentic, I beg you to
write and learn his condition, and whether there is the least hope for
his recovery. You may, perhaps, be acquainted with his sister. It was
at her house, I suppose, that you met him.

No matter what you say, second thoughts are only too evident in your
letter. A few amiable words, however, slipped from you unconsciously.
You go to a great deal of trouble to be disagreeable, and it is only by
strenuous efforts that you succeed in being so.

Have you ever reflected that it is an admirable plan to place in a
beautiful palace pictures and statuary, and to allow people to go there
to enjoy them? Unfortunately, this superb place is to be closed, in
order to hang there some hideous modern daubs. Does not this grieve you?
Agree with me, and let us go and say good-bye to all those venerable
statues. Saturday is an excellent day, for only Englishmen come then,
and they do not get in the way of those who like to examine the pictures
closely. What do you think of Saturday--that is to say, day after
to-morrow? That will be the last Saturday. This word “last” grieves me.
So, then, Saturday.

You speak of your remorse on account of my eye. What is the character of
your remorse? The accident might have been avoided in two ways: I need
not have exposed the eye to danger, and you might have taken care of it
for me. It is this last fact that causes you remorse--that ought to do
so, at any rate, before your second impulses come to you. If I do not
hear to the contrary, I shall await you Saturday, at two o’clock, in
front of the _Joconde_, unless the weather is bad. But it will be fine
weather, I hope, and if any disappointment comes it will be most
assuredly your fault.

Why do you use such small paper, and why do you write only three lines,
two of which are to quarrel with me? What matters it if one’s life is
short, provided it has been full of happiness! Is it not better to have
rich memories, rather than many years of emptiness which have nothing to
recall?

PARIS, _February, 1843_.

Our letters crossed each other, and my suspense has been relieved sooner
than I had hoped. I am very grateful. Notwithstanding the ambiguity of
its style, I am deeply gratified by what your letter tells me. That verb
of which you have such dread has to me a sweet sound, even when it is
accompanied by all those adverbs which you understand so well how to
weave around it.

Ridicule, if you like, my melancholy mood, aroused by the ruins of
Carthage. Marius, sitting beside them as we were, dreamed, it may be,
that he would enter Rome once more, while in my future I see little to
hope for. You frighten me, dear friend, when you say that you dare no
longer trust yourself to write to me, and that you have more courage to
speak to me. You say the reverse of this when we are together. Will not
the result be that you will neither speak to me nor write to me? You
were vexed with me, you say. Was this just, and had I deserved it? Had I
not your promise, and, in some measure, your example also? Have you
remained blind to this? Have you retained an unpleasant memory? Are you
still angry? All this is what I am anxious to know, and what, I am sure,
you do not intend to tell me.

I am beginning to know you by heart, and this, I believe, is the cause
of my frequent low spirits. There is in you such a strange combination
of contrasts and contradictions that it is enough to provoke a saint....

I heard sad news yesterday. Poor Sharpe died last Wednesday. The news of
his death came at the moment not only when I believed him out of danger,
but about to resume his ordinary occupations. I can not accustom myself
to the thought of seeing him no more. It seems to me that if I were to
go to London I should certainly find him there....

LVI

_Thursday night, March 1, 1843._

I was very much afraid I should not be able to see you Saturday, when I
had been promising myself to give you a good scolding for your
indifference the other day. But I have succeeded in overcoming all the
obstacles. So, then, Saturday. It is a long time since we have had a
falling out. Do you not think this very pleasant, and greatly preferable
to the quarrels we used to have, the only benefit of which was our
reconciliations? You still have one fault, however, that of making
yourself so scarce. We see each other hardly once in a fortnight. Each
time there seems to be a new crust of ice to be broken. Why do I not
find you again just as you were when I left you? If we met oftener this
would not happen. To you I am like an old opera which you must needs
forget in order to hear it again with any pleasure. I, on the contrary,
would love you better, I think, were I to see you every day. Prove to me
that I am wrong, and appoint a day in the near future when I may see
you.

My fate at the Academy will be decided March 14. Reason tells me to
hope, but some vague feeling of presentiment tells me just the opposite.
In the meanwhile, I am making calls most conscientiously. People are
extremely polite, perfectly accustomed to the parts they are playing,
and taking them seriously. I am doing my very best to take mine equally
seriously, but that is difficult for me to accomplish. Do you not think
it comical that some one should say to a man, “Monsieur, I consider
myself one among the forty of the most intellectual men in France--I am
quite your equal,” and other remarks equally as facetious? Of course,
this must be said in a variety of ways, according to the person to whom
I speak. This is my occupation at present, and if it lasts much longer I
shall be perfectly exhausted. The 14th corresponds to the Ides of March,
the day when my hero, the late Caesar, died. This is ominous, is it not?

LVII

PARIS, _March 11, 1843_.

It is a perfect shame, almost a crime, indeed, not to take advantage of
this beautiful weather. What say you to a long walk to-morrow,
Thursday? You should be the one to make the suggestion, but you take
care not to do it. We must positively go out to salute the coming of the
first leaves. You can almost see them grow.

I am thinking, also, that you have told me the sunshine has a happy
influence on your mood. I should like to make the test. I love you in
all sorts of weather, but I think I am happiest when I see you in the
sunshine. Good-bye.

LVIII

PARIS, _Friday morning, March 13, 1843_.

Here is your scarf. It was found last Saturday, in the anteroom of his
Royal Highness, monseigneur le duc de Nemours. No one asked for an
explanation of its presence in my pocket. I should have returned it
sooner, if I had not hoped that the wish to recover your property would
lead you to send me some news of yourself. I perceive that, while you
were very eager concerning the first point, it has not succeeded in
triumphing over your indifference as to the second. Why are you so
afraid of the cold? I recollect that we had one experience in the snow
which did not result disastrously. Now there will be a thaw which will
keep the streets impassable for I don’t know how long. Answer me
quickly. I am grieved to see that you love to torment me.

* * * * *

LIX

PARIS, _Saturday night, March, 1843_.

Your letter does not show the least sign of repentance. I regret the
loss of the amber pipe which you selected. There is something
particularly agreeable in carrying often in my mouth a gift from you.
But let it be as you wish. I say this very frequently, and yet there is
never any reward for my resignation.

I am completely hardened by my present occupation. The Cathedral presses
like a dead weight upon my shoulders, to say nothing of the
responsibility which I accepted in a moment of zeal, and which I now
repent from the depths of my soul. I envy women their lot, for they have
nothing to do but to make themselves beautiful, and to prepare for the
effect which they seek to produce on others. The word _others_ has an
ugly sound, but I imagine that it engages your attention more than it
does mine. I am very much vexed with you, without knowing exactly the
reason, still there must be some good reason, for I could not be in the
wrong. It seems to me you become more egotistical every day. When you
speak of _us_, you mean only _yourself_. The more I think of this the
more deplorable it appears.

If you have not written to London for that book, do not write; it is
absurd to give a woman such a commission. While I value very greatly a
rare book, I should not wish y

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