PARIS, _October 5, 1866_.
We are to be, then, like Castor and Pollux, who can never appear upon
the same horizon! I returned several days ago. I have made a trip to the
post-office, and return to pack my trunk for departure. I am obliged to
go, for the first touch of frost is very disagreeable to feel, and I
have begun to cough and strangle.
Besides the pleasure which would have been mine in seeing you, I had
been promising myself that of reading you something which I had
translated from the Russian. At Biarritz they were discussing, one day,
the difficult situations in which one might find one’s self, as, for
example Rodrigue between his papa and Chimène, Mademoiselle Camille
between her brother and her Curiace. That night, having drunk tea which
was too strong, I wrote about fifteen pages on a situation of this sort.
The thing is very moral in reality, yet there are some details of which
Monseigneur Dupanloup might disapprove. There is, also, a begging the
question necessary for the development of the plot: two persons of
different sex go to an inn; this has never been known, but it was
necessary for my story, and while there they have a remarkable
experience. Although written in great haste, it is not, I think, the
worst thing I have ever done. I read it to the lady of the house.
At the same time there was also at Biarritz the grand duchess Marie,
daughter of Nicolas, to whom I had been presented several years ago. We
renewed our acquaintance. Shortly after my reading I received a visit
from a policeman, saying he had been sent by the grand duchess. “What
may I do for you?” “I have come from her imperial highness, to beg you
to come to her house to-night with your novel.” “What novel?” “The one
you read, the other day, to her Majesty.” I replied that I had the
honour to be her Majesty’s jester, and that I could not work for any one
else without her permission. I hastened at once to relate the thing to
her. I expected the result would be, at the very least, a war with
Russia, and I was no little mortified not only to receive permission to
go, but even to go that evening to the grand duchess, to whom had been
given the policeman as factotum. Nevertheless, to console myself, I
wrote the grand duchess a pretty energetic letter, and announced my
visit. I was on the way to carry my letter to her house; there was a
high wind, and in a secluded by-street I met a woman who was in danger
of being blown into the sea by her skirts, into which the wind had
entered. She was in the greatest bewilderment, blinded and dazed by the
noise made by her crinoline, and all the other tumult. I rushed to her
assistance. It was with the greatest difficulty that I succeeded in
giving her any effective aid, and then only recognized the grand
duchess. The windstorm saved her from a number of little epigrams. She
was, moreover, quite friendly with me, and gave me some excellent tea
and cigarettes; for she smokes, as nearly all Russian ladies do. Her
son, the duke of Leuchtenberg, is a handsome fellow, with the manner of
a German student. He seemed to me, as I mentioned before, a good-natured
chap, affable, with a tendency slightly Republican and Socialistic, and
a Nihilist in the bargain, like the _Bazarof_ of Tourguenieff; for in
these days princes do not consider the Republic a form of government
progressive enough for their tastes.
Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me here, but do so immediately. I do not
release you from sending me news of yourself. What say you to the
spectacle of a flood? You have had the experience, with all its
variations. One of my friends scarcely touched food for two days, in the
anxiety of seeing his house dissolve beneath him, like a lump of sugar.
Again good-bye.