No, no, I cannot console you in Paris. I will escort your grief to
Smyrna, Grand Cairo, Chandernagore, New Holland, if you wish, but I
would rather be scalped alive than turn my steps towards that
fascinating city surrounded by fortifications.
Your elegy found me moderately impressible. Fortune has apparently
always treated you like a spoiled child; were your misfortunes mine I
should be delighted, and in your torment I should find a paradise. A
disappearance afflicts you with agony. I was forced to beat a retreat
once, but not from creditors; my debts are things of the past. You are
fled from--I am pursued; and whatever you may say to the contrary, it is
much more agreeable to be the dog than the hare.
Ah! if the beauty that I adore (this is melo-dramatic) had only
conceived such a triumphant idea! I should not be the one who--but no
one knows when he is well off. This Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun pleases
me, for by this opportune and ingenious eclipse she prevents you from
committing a great absurdity. What put marriage into your head,
forsooth! You who have housed with Bengal tigers and treated the lions
of Atlas as lapdogs; who have seen, like Don Caesar de Bazan, women of
every color and clime; how could you have centred your affections upon
this Parisian doll, and chained the fancies of your cosmopolitan soul to
the dull, rolling wheel of domestic and conjugal duty?
So don't swear at her; bless her with a grateful heart, put a bill of
credit in your pocket, and off we'll sail for China. We will make a hole
in the famous wall, and pry into the secrets of lacquered screens and
porcelain cups. I have a strong desire to taste their swallow-nest soup,
their shark's fins served with jujube sauce, the whole washed down by
small glasses of castor oil. We will have a house painted apple-green
and vermilion, presided over by a female mandarin with no feet,
circumflex eyes, and nails that serve as toothpicks. When shall I order
the post-horses?
A wise man of the Middle Empire said that we should never attempt to
stem the current of events. Life takes care of itself. The loss of your
fiancée proves that you are not predestined for matrimony, therefore do
not attempt to coerce chance; let it act, for perhaps it is the
pseudonym of God.
Thanks to this very happy disappearance, your love remains young and
fresh; besides, you have, in addition to the Pleasures of Memory, the
Pleasures of Hope (considered the finest work of the poet Campbell); for
there is nothing to show that your divinity has been translated to that
better world, where, however, no one seems over-anxious to go.
Let not my retreat give rise to any unfavorable imputations against my
courage. Achilles, himself, would have incontinently fled if threatened
with the blessings in store for me. From what oriental head-dresses,
burnous affectedly draped, golden rings after the style of the Empress
of the Lower Empire, have I not escaped by my prudence?
But this is all an enigma to you. You are in ignorance of my story,
unless some too-well-posted Englishman hinted it to you in the temple of
Elephanta. I will relate it to you by way of retaliation for the recital
of your love affair with Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun.
You have probably met that celebrated blue-stocking called the "Romantic
Marquise." She is handsome, so the painters say; and, perhaps, they are
not far from right, for she is handsome after the style of an old
picture. Although young, she seems to be covered with yellow varnish,
and to walk surrounded by a frame, with a background of bitumen.
One evening I found myself with this picturesque personage at Madame de
Bléry's. I was listlessly intrenched in a corner, far from the circle of
busy talkers, just sufficiently awake to be conscious that I was
asleep--a delirious condition, which I recommend to your consideration,
resembling the beginning of haschish intoxication--when by some turn in
the conversation Madame de Bléry mentioned my name and pointed me out. I
was immediately awakened from my torpor and dragged out of my corner.
I have been weak enough at times, as Gubetta says, to jingle words at
the end of an idea, or to speak more modestly, at the end of certain
measured syllables. The Marquise, cognisant of the offence, but not of
the extenuating circumstances, launched forth into praise and flattering
hyperbole that lifted me to the level of Byron, Goethe, Lamartine,
discovered that I had a satanic look, and went on so that I suspected an
album.
This affected me gloomily and ferociously. There is nothing I despise
more than an album, unless it be two of them.
To avoid any such attempt, I broke into the most of the conversation
with several innocent provincialisms, and effected my retreat in a
masterly manner; advancing towards the door by degrees, and reaching it,
I sprang outside so suddenly and nimbly that I had gotten to the bottom
of the stairs before my absence was discovered.
Alas! no one can escape au album when it is predestined! The next day a
book, magnificently bound in Russia, arrived in a superb moiré case in
the hands of a groom, with an accompanying note from the Infanta
soliciting the honor, &c.
All great men have their antipathies. James I. could not look upon a
glittering sword; Roger Bacon fainted at the sight of an apple; and
blank paper fills me with melancholy.
However, I resigned myself to the decrees of fate, and scribbled, I
don't know what, in the corner, and subscribed my initials as illegible
as those of Napoleon when in a passion.
This, I flattered myself, was the end of the tragedy, but no: a few days
afterwards I received an invitation to a select gathering, in such
amiable terms that I resolved to decline it.
Talleyrand said, "Never obey your first impulse, because it is good;" I
obeyed this Machiavellian maxim, and erred!
"_Eucharis_" was being performed at the opera; the sky was filled with
ugly, threatening clouds; I sought in vain for a companion to get tight
with, and moralize over a few bottles of wine, and so for want of a
gayer occupation I went to the Marquise.
Her apartments are a perfect series of catafalques, and seem to have
been upholstered by an undertaker. The drawing-room is hung in violet
damask; the bed-rooms in black velvet; the furniture is of ebony or old
oak; crucifixes, holy-water basins, folio bibles, death's-heads and
poniards adorned the enlivening interior. Several Zurbarans, real or
false, representing monks and martyrs, hung on the walls, frightening
visitors with their grimaces. These sombre tints are intended to
contrast with the waxy cheeks and painted eyes of the lady who looks
more like the ghost than the mistress of this dwelling; for she does not
inhabit, she haunts it.
You must not think, dear Roger, from this funereal introduction, that
your friend became the prey of a ghoul or a vampire. The Marquise is
handsome enough, after all. Her features are noble, regular, but a
little Jewish, which induces her to wear a turban earlier and oftener
than is necessary. She would not be so pale, if instead of white she put
on red. Her hands, though too thin, are rather pretty and aristocratic,
and weighted heavily with odd-looking rings. Her foot is not too large
for her slipper. Uncommon thing! for women, in regard to their shoes,
have falsified the geometrical axiom: the receptacle should be greater
than its contents.
She is, however, to a certain point, a gentlewoman, and holds a good
position in society.
I was received with all manner of caresses, stuffed with small cake,
inundated with tea, of which beverage I hold the same opinion as Madame
Gibou. I was assailed by romantic and transcendental dissertations, but
possessing the faculty of abstraction and fixing my gaze upon the facets
of a crystal flagon, my attitude touched the Marquise, who believed me
plunged into a gulf of thought.
In short, I had the misfortune to charm her, and the weakness, like the
greater part of men, to surrender myself to my good or evil fortune;
for this unhung canvas did not please me, and though tolerably stylish
and pretty well preserved, I suspected some literature underneath, and
closely scanned the edge of her dress to see if some azure reflection
had not altered the whiteness of her stocking. I abhor women who take
blue-ink baths. Alas! they are much worse than the avowed literary
woman; she affects to talk of nothing but ribbons, dress and bonnets,
and confidentially gives you a receipt for preserving lemons and making
strawberry cream; they take pride in not ignoring housekeeping, and
faithfully follow the fashions. At their homes ink, pen and paper are
nowhere to be seen; their odes and elegies are written on the back of a
bill or on a page torn from an account-book.
La Marquise contemplates reform, romances, social poetry, humanitarian
and palingenesic treatises, and scattered about on the tables and chairs
were to be seen solemn old books, dog-leaved at their most tiresome
pages, all of which is very appalling. Nothing is more convenient than a
muse whose complete works are printed; one knows then what to expect,
and you have not always the reading of Damocles hanging over your head.
Dragged by a fatality that so often makes me the victim of women I do
not admire, I became the Conrad, the Lara of this Byronic heroine.
Every morning she sent me folio-sized epistles, dated three hours after
midnight. They were compilations from Frederick Soulié, Eugene Sue, and
Alexander Dumas, glorious authors, whom I delight to read save in my
amorous correspondence, where a feminine mistake in orthography gives me
more pleasure than a phrase plagiarised from George Sand, or a pathetic
tirade stolen from a popular dramatist.
In short, I do not believe in a passion told in language that smells of
the lamp; and the expression "_Je t'aime_" will scarcely persuade me if
it be not written "_Je thême_."
It made no difference how often the beauty wrote, I fortified myself
against her literary visitations by consigning her billets-doux unopened
to an empty drawer. By this means I was enabled to endure her prose
with great equanimity. But she expected me to reply--now, as I did not
care to keep my hand in for my next romance, I viewed her claims as
extravagant and unreasonable, and feigning a strong desire to see my
mother, I fled, less curious than Lot's wife, without looking behind.
Had I not taken this resolution I should have died of ennui in that
dimly-lighted house, among those sepulchral toys, in the presence of
that pale phantom enveloped in a dismal wrapper, cut in the monkish
style, and speaking in a trembling and languishing tone of voice.
La Trappe or Chartreuse would have been preferable--I would have gained
at least my salvation. Although it may be the act of a Cossack, a
shocking irregularity, I have given her no sign of my existence, except
that I told her that my mother's recovery promised to be very slow, and
she would need the devoted attention of a good son.
Judge, dear Roger, after this recital, of which I have subdued the
horrors and dramatic situations out of regard to your sensibility,
whether I could return to Paris to be the comforter in your sorrow. Yet
I could brave an encounter with the Marquise were it not that I am
retained in Normandy by an expected visit of two months from our friend
Raymond. This fact certainly ought to make you decide to share our
solitude. Our friend is so poetical, so witty, so charming. He has but
one fault, that of being a civilized Don Quixote de la Mancha; instead
of the helmet of Mambrino he wears a Gibus hat, a Buisson coat instead
of a cuirass, a Verdier cane by way of a lance. Happy nature! in which
the heart is not sacrificed to the intellect; where the subtlety of a
diplomate is united to the ingenuousness of a child.
Since your ideal has fled, are not all places alike to you? Then why
should you not come to me, to Richeport, but a step from Pont de l'Arch?
I am perched upon the bank of the river, in a strange old building,
which I know will please you. It is an old abbey half in ruins, in which
is enshrined a dwelling, with many windows at regular intrevals, and is
surmounted by a slate roof and chimneys of all sizes. It is built of
hewn stone, that time has covered with its gray leprosy, and the general
effect, looking through the avenue of grand old trees, is fine. Here my
mother dwells. Profiting by the walls and the half-fallen towers of the
old enclosure, for the abbey was fortified to resist the Norman
invasions, she has made upon the brow of the hill a garden terrace
filled with roses, myrtles and orange trees, while the green boxes
surrounding them replace the old battlements. In this quarter of the old
domain, I have not interfered with any of these womanly fancies.
She has collected around her all manner of pretty rusticities; all the
comfortable elegancies she could imagine. I have not opposed any system
of hot-air stoves, nor the upholstering of the rooms, nor objected to
mahogany and ebony, wedgwood ware, china in blue designs, and English
plate. For this is the way that middle-aged, and in fact, all reasonable
people live.
For myself, I have reserved the refectory and library of the brave
monks, that is, all that overlooks the river. I have not permitted the
least repairing of the walls, which present the complete flora of the
native wild flowers. An arched door, closed by old boards covered with a
remnant of red paint, and opening on the bank, serves me as a private
entrance. A ferry worked by a rope and pulley establishes communication
with an island opposite the abbey, which is verdant with a mass of
osiers, elder bushes and willows. It is here also that my fleet of boats
is moored.
Seen from without, nothing would indicate a human habitation; the ruins
lie in all the splendor of their downfall.
I have not replaced one stone--walled up one lizard--the house-leek, St.
John's-wort, bell-flower, sea-green saxifrage, woody nightshade and blue
popion flower have engaged in a struggle upon the walls of arabesques,
and carvings which would discourage the most patient ornamental
sculptor. But above all, a marvel of nature attracts your admiring gaze:
it is a gigantic ivy, dating back at least to Richard Coeur de Lion, it
defies by the intricacy of its windings those geneological trees of
Jesus Christ, which are seen in Spanish churches; the top touching the
clouds, and its bearded roots embedded in the bosom of the patriarchal
Abraham; there are tufts, garlands, clusters, cascades of a green so
lustrous, so metallic, so sombre and yet so brilliant, that it seems as
if the whole body of the old building, the whole life of the dead abbey
had passed into the veins of this parasitic friend, which smothers with
its embrace, holding in place one stone, while it dislodges two to plant
its climbing spurs.
You cannot imagine what tufted elegance, what richness of open-work
tracery this encroachment of the ivy throws upon the rather gaunt and
sharp gable-end of the building, which on this front has for ornament
but four narrow-pointed windows, surmounted by three trefoil
quadrilobes.
The shell of the adjoining building is flanked at its angle by a turret,
which is chiefly remarkable for its spiral stairway and well. The great
poet who invented Gothic cathedrals would, in the presence of this
architectural caprice, ask the question, "Does the tower contain the
well, or the well the tower?" You can decide; you who know everything,
and more besides--except, however, Mlle. de Chateaudun's place of
concealment.
Another curiosity of the old building is a moucharaby, a kind of balcony
open at the bottom, picturesquely perched above a door, from which the
good fathers could throw stones, beams and boiling oil on the heads of
those tempted to assault the monastery for a taste of their good fare
and a draught of their good wine.
Here I live alone, or in the company of four or five choice books, in a
lofty hall with pointed roof; the points where the ribs intersect being
covered with rosework of exquisite delicacy. This comprises my suite of
apartments, for I never could understand why the little space that is
given one in this world to dream, to sleep, to live, to die in, should
be divided into a set of compartments like a dressing-case. I detest
hedges, partitions and walls like a phalansterian.
To keep off dampness I have had the sides of the market-house, as my
mother calls it, wainscoted in oak to the height of twelve or fifteen
feet.
By a kind of gallery with two stairways, I can reach the windows and
enjoy the beauty of the landscape, which is lovely. My bed is a simple
hammock of aloes-fibre, slung in a corner; very low divans, and huge
tapestry arm-chairs, for the rest of the furniture. Hung up on the
wainscoting are pistols, guns, masks, foils, gloves, plastrons,
dumb-bells and other gymnastic equipments. My favorite horse is
installed in the opposite angle, in a box of _bois des iles_, a
precaution that secures him from the brutalizing society of grooms, and
keeps him a horse of the world.
The whole is heated by a cyclopean chimney, which devours a load of wood
at a mouthful, and before which a mastodon might be roasted.
Come, then, dear Roger, I can offer you a friendly ruin, the chapel with
the trefoil quadrilobes.
We will walk together, axe in hand, through my park, which is as dense
and impenetrable as the virgin forests of America, or the jungles of
India. It has not been touched for sixty years, and I have sworn to
break the head of the first gardener who dares to approach it with a
pruning-hook.
It is glorious to see the abandonment of Nature in this extravagance of
vegetation, this wild luxuriance of flowers and foliage; the trees
stretch out their arms, breed and intertwine in the most fantastic
manner; the branches make a hundred curiously-distorted turns, and
interlace in beautiful disorder; sometimes hanging the red berries of
the mountain-ash among the silver foliage of the aspen.
The rapid slope of the ground produces a thousand picturesque accidents;
the grass, brightened by a spring which at a little distance plays a
thousand pranks over the rocks, flourishes in rich luxuriance; the
burdock, with large velvet leaves, the stinging nettles, the hemlock
with greenish umbels; the wild oats--every weed prospers wonderfully. No
stranger approaches the enclosure, whose denizens are two or three
little deer with tawny coats gleaming through the trees.
This eminently romantic spot would harmonize with your melancholy. Mlle.
de Chateaudun not being in Paris, you have better chance of finding her
elsewhere.
Who knows if she has not taken refuge in one of these pretty
bird's-nests embedded in moss and foliage, their half-open blinds
overlooking the limpid flow of the Seine? Come quickly, my dear fellow;
I will not take advantage of your position as I did of Alfred's, to
overwhelm you from my moucharaby with a shower of green frogs, a miracle
which he has not been able to explain to his entire satisfaction. I will
show you an excellent spot to fish for white-bait; nothing calms the
passions so much as fishing with rod and line; a philosophical
recreation which fools have turned into ridicule, as they do everything
else they do not understand.
If the fish won't bite, you can gaze at the bridge, its piers blooming
with wild flowers and lavender; its noisy mills, its arches obstructed
by nets; the church, with its truncated roof; the village covering the
hill-side, and, against the horizon, the sharp line of woody hills.