I
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.