Paris, March 15, 1845.
Yes, dear little sister, I am very well settled, as I have told you in
my preceding letters. I have a pretty room, a good fire, a fine
carriage, servants, and a well-furnished table. I have only to believe
myself rich and a Marchioness, since, scarcely ever out of the presence
of my old lady, I am necessarily a sharer in all the comforts of her
life.
But you reproach me with writing very short letters. It is because, up
to this time, I have had but a few moments to myself. In fact, the
Marchioness, who, I believe, wished to put me a little to proof, appears
now to be satisfied that I am quite sincerely devoted to her, and she
permits me to leave her at midnight. So I can chat with you without
having to sit up till four o'clock in the morning to do it, for the
Marchioness receives till two, and she kept me an hour afterward to
discuss the people whom we had just seen,--a task which, I will confess
to you as I confessed to her, began to be very wearisome to me. She
thought that I was, like her, a late riser. When she learned that I
always awoke at six o'clock in the morning, and could not get asleep
again, she generously respected that "provincial infirmity." So, morning
or evening, I shall be hereafter at your service, dear Camille.
Yes, I love this old lady, and I love her a great deal. She has a great
charm for me, and the influence which she exercises over my mind comes
especially from the sincerity and purity of her own. She is not without
prejudices, it is true, and she has many ideas which are not, and never
will be, mine; but she holds to these honestly, without anything like
hypocritical subterfuge, and the antipathies which she expresses are not
at all formidable; for even in her prepossessions her perfect integrity
is manifest.
And besides, during the three weeks in which I have seen the great
world,--since the Marchioness, without giving formal parties, receives
quite a number of visits every evening,--I have become aware of a
general eclipse, of which, in the remoteness of my province, I never
formed so complete an idea. I assure you that, with the best of manners
and a certain air of superiority, people here are as nearly nonentities
as they can possibly be. They no longer have opinions on anything; they
find fault with everything, and know the remedy for nothing. They speak
ill of everybody, and are nevertheless on the best terms with everybody.
There is no indignation about it, just merely scandal. They are always
predicting the greatest catastrophes, and they seem to enjoy the most
profound security. In a word, they are as empty and shallow as
fickleness, as weakness itself; and in the midst of these troubled
spirits and of these threadbare convictions, I love this old
Marchioness, so frank in her antipathies and so nobly inaccessible to
compromise. I seem to see a personage of another century, a sort of
female Duke de Saint-Simon, guarding the respect of rank as a religion,
and understanding nothing of the power of money against which feeble or
hypocritical protests are made around her.
And as far as I am concerned, you know the contempt of money goes a good
way. Our misfortunes have not changed me, for I do not call by the name
of money that sacred thing, the salary which I now earn here proudly and
even with a little haughtiness. That is duty, a guaranty of honor.
Luxury itself, when it is the continuation or the recompense of an
elevated life, does not inspire me with the philosophic disdain which
always conceals a trifle of envy; but wealth coveted, hunted up and
down, bought at the price of ambitious marriages, by the unwinding of
political conscience, by family intrigues about successions,--these are
what justly wear the villanous name of money, and on that point I agree
heartily with the Marchioness, who has no pardon for interested and
ill-suited marriages, and for all other insipid things, whether private
or public.
That is why the Marchioness without regret and without dread sees all
that she possesses fall day by day into a gulf. I have already said
something to you about that. I told you that the Duke d'Aléria, her
elder son, ruined her, while the younger, the Marquis, the son of her
last husband, came to her support with tender respect, and again placed
her upon a very comfortable footing.
I must now speak of these two gentlemen, of whom I have yet told you but
a few words. I have seen the Marquis from the first day of my
installation here. Every morning from noon to one o'clock, and every
evening from eleven till midnight, he passes with his mother. Besides,
he dines with her quite frequently. I have therefore had time to observe
him, and I imagine that I already know him tolerably well. He is a young
man who appears to me to have had no youth. His health is delicate, and
his mind, which is cultivated and elevated, is engaged in a struggle
against some secret grief, or a natural tendency to sadness. He could
not have an external appearance less striking at first sight, and
exciting more sympathy in proportion to the degree in which his face
reveals itself. He is neither tall nor short, neither handsome nor
homely. There is nothing negligent or studied in his style of dress. He
seems to have an instinctive aversion to everything which might draw
attention to the person. Yet one sees very soon that he is no ordinary
man. The few words which he says to you have a deep or delicate meaning,
and his eyes, when they lose the perplexity of a certain shyness, are so
handsome, so good, so intelligent, that I do not believe I ever met
their equals.
His conduct toward his mother is admirable and paints him at full
length. I saw him pay out several millions, all his personal fortune, to
discharge the rash debts of the elder son, and he never frowned, never
said a word, never showed any vexation or regret. The weaker she was
toward this ungrateful and graceless son, the more tender and devoted
and respectful was the Marquis. You see it is impossible not to esteem
this man, and, as for me, I feel a sort of veneration for him.
His conversation, too, is very agreeable. He scarcely speaks at all in
society; but in intimacy, when the first reserve is worn off, he talks
charmingly. He is not only a cultivated man, he is a well of science. I
believe he has read everything, for upon whatever subject you suggest,
he is interesting, and proves that he has sounded it to the bottom. His
conversation is so necessary to his mother, that when anything prevents
his accustomed visit or lessens its duration, she is restless, and, as
it were, out of her reckoning for the remainder of the day.
At first, as soon as I saw him come in the morning, I took it upon
myself to retire, and I did so the more readily, seeing that this
superior and therefore excessively modest man appeared embarrassed by my
presence. It was doing me great honor, to be sure; but at the end of
three or four days he had so far regained his tranquillity as to ask me
very kindly why he put me to flight. I should not have believed myself
authorised by that to restrain the confidential freedom of the son and
mother; but she herself begged me to stay, even insisting upon it, and
she afterward gave me with her habitual frankness her reason for so
doing. And here is that reason, which is a little singular:--
"My son is of a melancholy spirit," she said; "that, however, is not my
character. I am very much depressed or very animated, never dreamy, and
dreaminess in others irritates me a little. In my son it troubles or
afflicts me. I have never been able to resign myself to it. When we are
alone together it requires constant effort on my part to keep him from
falling into his reveries. When we are surrounded by fifteen or twenty
persons of an evening, he gives himself up to his thoughts without
restraint, and frequently maintains a complete reserve. To enjoy the
full flavor of his mind, which is my peculiar pleasure and greatest
happiness, nothing is more favorable than the presence of a third
person, especially if that third person is one of merit. The Marquis
then takes the trouble to be charming, at first out of politeness and
then little by little out of a fastidious desire to please, though he
may not suspect it himself. In fact, he is a man who needs to be drawn
away from his own reflections, and he is so perfect to me that I have
not the right or the wish to enter upon this contest openly, while the
presence of a person, who even without saying anything is supposed to
listen, forces him to exert himself; seeing that, if he fears to appear
a pedant by speaking too much, he fears still more to appear affected
when he forgets himself in thought. So, my dear, you will do us both a
great service in not leaving us too much alone."
"Nevertheless, Madame," I answered, "if you should have private matters
to speak about, how shall I know?"
Thereupon she promised that in such a case she would give me notice by
asking me _if the clock is not slow._