[Mimi the Simpleton writes a brief note to Madame the Princess Hélène
of Ilidze and we translate it.]
The Riviera Palace Hotel, Monte Carlo,
March 3d, 1906.
Dearest Mother,--We return to Paris to-day, and Harry says that I may
write to you. I have wished to write so many times, but he has
forbidden me. We are to go to Paris and then to London to see that
great big Monsieur Paddy, who loves me.
Dearest mother, there has never been anyone in my life to whom I could
speak as I have spoken to you. All the secrets have been locked in my
own heart, but you have shared them. When I was in Paris at the cafés
and the circus, I knew that someone would come some day and open the
secret place of my love. You only in all the world can do so. Many,
many years I carried my hope with me and never dared to speak of it.
How much, dearest mother, is a woman alone among men. We bear our
burdens and none knows of them.
Will you write to me, dearest, to the château; and I will have the
letters sent to London, if we go there. I know that I may not see you
often, but I will count the days until I see you again. Our jewels do
not shine less brightly because we do not look at them, and I know
that you think of me as your child. So often have I said she is my
mother, and that is the sweetest word. The years were long, dearest,
until I learned it; but I would live them all again if the end might
be like this.
Harry writes so well that they wish him to go to England. He has
promised to go there to see his cousin, Madame Martha, who is in
trouble. She has lost all her money and Harry is going to give her
some, for her husband the clergyman cannot preach without money, and
that would make the people unhappy, she says. Afterwards we wish to
buy the Château of Marcey-le-Rideau and to go there for all our
holidays. Harry says that he does not wish to write any more for the
newspapers. It makes him so angry when they leave his work out and put
someone else’s in. And it is never so good as Harry’s.
Dearest mother, will you come to Marcey-le-Rideau and let me call you
mother there? It will not be my home if you do not.
All the lonely, lonely years forgotten! Dearest, will you say that
they must never return?
Your loving daughter,
Mimi.