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.