V.

ROGER DE MONBERT _to_ MONSIEUR DE MEILHAN,

Richeport,

Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure).

PARIS, 24th May, 18--,

Your letter did me good, my dear Edgar, because it came unexpected, from

the domain of epistolary consolation. From any friend but you I would

have received a sympathizing re-echo of my own accents of despair. From

you I looked for a tranquillizing sedative, and you surprise me with a

reanimating restorative.

Your charming philosophy has indeed invented for mortals a remedy

unknown to the four faculties.

Thanks to you, I breathe freely this morning. 'Tis necessary for us to

take breath during ardent crises of despair. A deep breath brings back

the power of resignation to our hearts. Yet I am not duped by your too

skilful friendship. I clearly perceive the interest you take in my

situation in spite of your artistically labored adroitness to conceal

it. This knowledge induces me to write you the second chapter of my

history, quite sure that you will read it with a serious brow and answer

it with a smiling pen.

Young people of your disposition, either from deep calculation or by

happy instinct, substitute caprice for passion; they amuse themselves by

walking by the side of love, but never meet it face to face. For them

women exist, but never one woman. This system with them succeeds for a

season, sometimes it lasts for ever. I have known some old men who made

this scheme the glory of their lives, and who kept it up from mere force

of habit till their heads were white.

You, my dear Edgar, will not have the benefit of final impenitence. At

present the ardor of your soul is tempered by the suave indolence of

your disposition.

Love is the most merciless and wearisome of all labors, and you are far

too lazy to toil at it. When you suddenly look into the secret depths

of your _self_, you will be frightened by discovering the germ of a

serious passion; then you will try to escape on the wings of fancy to

the realms of easy and careless pleasure. The fact of my having

penetrated, unknown to you, this secret recess of your soul, makes me

venture to confide my sorrows to you; continue to laugh at them, your

railing will be understood, while friendship will ignore the borrowed

mask and trust in the faithful face beneath.

Paris is still a desert. The largest and most populous city becomes

obscure and insignificant at your feet when you view it from the heights

of an all-absorbing passion. I feel as isolated as if I were on the

South Sea or on the sands of Sahara. Happily our bodies assume

mechanical habits that act instead of the will. Without this precious

faculty of matter my isolation would lead me to a dreamy and stupid

immobility. Thus, in the eyes of strangers, my life is always the same.

They see no change in my manners and appearance; I keep up my

acquaintances and pleasures and seek the society of my friends. I have

not the heart to join a conversation, but leave it to be carried on by

others. My fixed attention and absorbed manner of listening convey the

idea that I am deeply interested in what is being said, and he who

undertakes to relate anything to me is so satisfied with my style of

listening that he prolongs to infinity his monologue. Then my thoughts

take flight and travel around the world; to the seas, archipelagoes,

continents and deserts I have visited. These are the only moments of

relief that I enjoy, for I have the modesty to refrain from thinking of

my love in the presence of others. I still possess enough innocence of

heart to believe that the four letters of this sweetest of all words

would be stamped on my brow in characters of fire, thus betraying a

secret that indifference responds to with pitying smiles or heartless

jeers.

The thousand memories sown here and there in my peregrinations pass so

vividly before me, that, standing in the bright sunlight, with eyes

open, I dream over again those visions of my sleepless nights in foreign

lands.

Thought, ever-rebellious thought, which the most imperious will can

neither check nor guide, begins to wander over the world, thus kindly

granting a truce to the torments of my passions; then it works to suit

my wishes, a complaisance it never shows me when I am alone. I am

indebted for this relief to the officious and loquacious intervention of

the first idler I meet, one whose name I scarcely know, although he

calls me his friend. I always gaze with a feeling of compassionate

benevolence upon the retreating steps of this unfortunate gossip, who

leaves with the idea of having diverted me by his monologue to which my

eyes alone have listened. As a general thing, people whom you meet have

started out with one dominant idea or engrossing subject, and they

imagine that the universe is disposed to attach the same importance to

the matter that they themselves do. These expectations are often

gratified, for the streets are filled by hungry listeners who wander

around with ears outstretched, eager to share any and everybody's

secrets.

A serious passion reveals to us a world within a world. Thus far, all

that I have seen and heard seems to be full of error; men and things

assume aspects under which I fail to recognise them. It seems as though

I had yesterday been born a second time, and that my first life has left

me nothing but confused recollections, and in this chaos of the past, I

vainly seek for a single rule of conduct for the present. I have dipped

into books written on the passions; I have read every sentence,

aphorism, drama, tragedy and romance written by the sages; I have sought

among the heroes of history and of the stage for the human expression of

a sentiment to which my own experience might respond, and which would

serve me as a guide or consolation.

I am, as it were, in a desert island where nothing betrays the passage

of man, and I am compelled to dwell there without being able to trace

the footsteps of those who have gone before. Yesterday I was present at

the representation of the _Misanthrope_. I said to myself, here is a man

in love; his character is drawn by a master hand, they say; he listens

to sonnets, hums a little song, disputes with a bad author, discourses

at length with his rivals, sustains a philosophical disputation with a

friend, is churlish to the woman he loves, and finally is consoled by

saying he will hide himself from the eyes of the world.

I would erect, at my own expense, a monument to Molière if Alceste would

make my love take this form.

I have never seen an inventory of the torments of love--some of them

have the most vulgar and some the most innocent names in the world. Some

poet make his love-sick hero say:--

"Un jour, Dieu, par pitié, délivra les enfers

Des tourments que pour vous, madame, j'ai soufferts!"

I thought the poet intended to develop his idea, but unfortunately the

tirade here ends. 'Tis always very vague, cloudy poetry that describes

unknown torments; it seems to be a popular style, however, for all the

poetry of the present day is confined to misty complaints in cloudy

language. No moralist is specific in his sorrows. All lovers cry out in

chorus that they suffer horribly. Each suffering deserves an analysis

and a name. By way of example, my dear Edgar, I will describe one

torment that I am sure you have never known or even heard of, happy

mortal that you are!

The headquarters of this torment is at the office of the Poste-Restante,

on Jean-Jacques-Rousseau street. The lovers in _la Nouvelle Héloise_

never mentioned this place of torture, although they wrote so many

love-letters.

I have opened a correspondence with three of my servants--this

torture, however, is not the one to which I allude. These three men, at

this present moment, are sojourning in the three neighboring towns in

which Mlle. de Chateaudun has acquaintances, relations or friends. One

of these towns is Fontainebleau, where she first went when she left

Paris. I have charged them to be very circumspect in obtaining all the

information they can concerning her movements. Her mysterious retreat

must be in one of these three localities, so I watch them all. I told

them to direct all my letters to the Poste-Restante.

My porter, with the cunning sagacity of his profession, imagines he has

discovered some scandalous romance, because he brings me every day a

letter in the handwriting of my valet. You may imagine the complication

of my torment. I am afraid of my porter, therefore I go myself to the

post-office, that receptacle of all the secrets of Paris.

Usually the waiting-room is full of wretched men, each an epistolary

Tantalus, who, with eyes fixed on the wooden grating, implore the clerk

for a post-marked deception. 'Tis a sad spectacle, and I am sure that

there is a post-office in purgatory, where tortured souls go to inquire

if their deliverance has been signed in heaven.

The clerks in the post-office never seem to be aware of the impatient

murmurs around them. What administrative calmness beams on the fresh

faces of these distributors of consolation and of despair! In the agony

of waiting, minutes lose their mathematical value, and the hands of the

clock become motionless on the dial like impaled serpents. The

operations of the office proceed with a slowness that seems like a

miniature eternity. This anxious crowd stand in single file, forming a

living chain of eager notes of interrogation, and, as fate always

reserves the last link for me, I have to witness the filing-off of these

troubled souls. This office brings men close together, and obliterates

all social distinctions; in default of letters one always receives

lessons of equality gratis.

Here you see handsome young men whose dishevelled locks and pale faces

bear traces of sleepless nights--the Damocles of the Bourse, who feels

the sword of bankruptcy hanging over his head--forsaken sweethearts,

whose hopes wander with beating drums upon African shores--timid women

veiled in black, weeping and mourning for the dead, so as to smile more

effectively upon the living.

If each person were to call out the secret of his letter, the clerks

themselves would veil their faces and forget the postal alphabet. A

painful silence reigns over this scene of anxious waiting; at long

intervals a hoarse voice calls out his Christian name, and woe to its

owner if his ancestors have not bequeathed him a short or easily

pronounced one.

The other day I was present at a strange scene caused by the association

of seven syllables. An unhappy-looking wretch went up to the railing and

gave out his name--_Sidoine Tarboriech_--these two words inflicted on us

the following dialogue:--"Is it all one name?" asked the clerk, without

deigning to glance at the unfortunate owner of these syllables. "Two

names," said the man, timidly, as if he were fully aware of the disgrace

inflicted upon him at the baptismal font. "Did you say _Antoine_?" said

the clerk. "Sidoine, Monsieur." "Is it your Christian name?" "'Tis the

name of my godfather, Saint Sidoine, 23 of August." "Ah! there is a

Saint Sidoine, is there? Well, Sidoine ... Sidoine--what else?"

"Tarboriech." "Are you a German?" "From Toulon, opposite the Arsenal."

During this dialogue the rest of the unfortunates broke their chain with

convulsive impatience, and made the floor tremble under the nervous

stamping of their feet. The clerk calmly turned over with his

methodically bent finger, a large bundle of letters, and would

occasionally pause when the postal hieroglyphics effaced an address

under a total eclipse of crests, seals and numbers recklessly heaped on;

for the clerk who posts and endorses the letters takes great pains to

cover the address with a cloud of ink, this little peculiarity all

postmen delight in. But to return to our dialogue: "Excuse me, sir,"

said the clerk, "did you say your name is spelt with _Dar_ or _Tar_?"

"_Tar_, sir, _Tar!_ "--"With a _D?_"--"No, sir, with a _T.,

Tarboriech!_" "We have nothing for you, sir." "Oh, sir, impossible!

there certainly _must_ be a letter for me." "There is no letter, sir;

nothing commencing with T." "Did you look for my Christian name,

Sidoine?" "But, sir, we don't arrange the mail according to Christian

names." "But you know, sir, I am a younger son, and at home I am called

Sidoine."

This interesting dialogue was now drowned by the angry complaining of

some young men, who in a state of exasperation stamped up and down the

room jerking out an epigrammatic psalm of lamentations. I'll give you a

few verses of it: "Heavens! some names ought to be suppressed! This is

getting to be intolerable, when a man has the misfortune to be named

_Extasboriech_, he ought _not_ to have his letters sent to the

_Poste_-Restante! If I were afflicted with such a name, I would have the

Keeper of the Seals to change it."

The imperturbable clerk smiled blandly through his little barred window,

and said, "Gentlemen, we must do our duty scrupulously, I only do for

this gentleman what each of you would wish done for yourself under

similar circumstances."

"Oh, of course!" cried out one young man, who was wildly buttoning and

unbuttoning his coat as if he wanted to fight the subject through; "but

we are not cursed with names so abominable as this man's!"

"Gentlemen," said the clerk, "no offensive personalities, I beg." Then

turning to the miserable culprit, he continued: "Can you tell me, sir,

from what place you expect a letter?" "From Lavalette, monsieur, in the

province of Var." "Very good; and you think that perhaps your Christian

name only is on the address--Sidoine?"

"My cousin always calls me Sidoine."

"His cousin is right," said a sulky voice in the corner.

This, my dear Edgar, is a sample of the non-classified tortures that I

suffer every morning in this den of expiation, before I, the last one of

all, can reach the clerk's sanctuary; once there I assume a careless air

and gay tone of voice as I negligently call out my name. No doubt you

think this a very simple, easy thing to do, but first listen a moment: I

felt the "Star" gradually sinking under me near the Malouine Islands,

the sixty-eighth degree of latitude kept me a prisoner in its sea of ice

at the South Pole; I passed two consecutive days and nights on board the

_Esmerelda_, between fire and inundation; and if I were to extract the

quintessence of the agonies experienced upon these three occasions it

could never equal the intense torture I suffer at the Poste-Restante.

Three seals broken, three letters opened, three overwhelming

disappointments! Nothing! nothing! nothing! Oh miserable synonym of

despair! Oh cruel type of death! Why do you appear before me each day

as if to warn my foolish heart that all hope is dead! Then how dreary

and empty to me is this cold, unfeeling world we move in! I feel

oppressed by the weight of my sorrowful yearning that hourly grows more

unbearable and more hopeless; my lungs seem filled with leaden air, and

all the blood in my heart stands still. In thinking of the time that

must be dragged through till this same hour to-morrow, I feel neither

the strength nor courage to endure it with its intolerable succession of

eternal minutes. How can I bridge over this gulf of twenty-four hours

that divides to-day from to-morrow? How false are all the ancient and

modern allegories, invented to afflict man with the knowledge that his

days are rapidly passing away! How foolish is that wisdom that mourns

over our fugitive years as being nothing but a few short minutes! I

would give all my fortune to be able to write the _Hora Fugit_ of the

poet, and offer for the first time to man these two words as an axiom of

immutable truth.

There is nothing absolutely true in all the writings of the sages.

Figures even, in their inexorable and systematic order, have their

errors just as often as do words and apothems. An hour of pain and an

hour of pleasure have no resemblance to each other save on the dial.

_My_ hours are weary years.

You understand then, my dear Edgar, that I write you these long letters,

not to please you, but to relieve my own mind. In writing to you I

divert my attention from painful contemplation, and expatriate my ideas.

A pen is the only instrument capable of killing time when time wishes to

kill us. A pen is the faithless auxiliary of thought; unknown to us it

sometimes penetrates the secret recesses of our hearts, where we

flattered ourselves the horizon of our sorrows was hid from the world.

Thus, if you discover in my letter any symptoms of mournful gayety, you

may know they are purely pen-fancies. I have no connection with them

except that my fingers guide the pen.

Sometimes I determine to abandon Paris and bury myself in some rural

retreat, where lonely meditation may fill my sorrowing heart with the

balm of oblivion; but in charity to myself I wish to avoid the absurdity

of this self-deception. Nothing is more hurtful than trying a useless

remedy, for it destroys your confidence in all other remedies, and fills

your soul with despair. Then, again, Paris is peculiarly fitted for

curing these nameless maladies--'tis the modern Thebais, deserted

because 'tis crowded--silent because 'tis noisy; there, every man can

pitch his tent and nurse his favorite sorrows without being disturbed by

intruders. Solitude is the worst of companions when you wish to drown

the past in Lethe's soothing stream. However, 'tis useless for me to

reason in this apparently absurd way in order to compel myself to remain

in the heart of this great city, for I cannot and must not quit Paris at

present; 'tis the central point of my operations; here I can act with

the greatest efficacy in the combinations of my searches--to leave Paris

is to break the threads of my labyrinth. Besides, my duties as a man of

the world impose cruel tortures upon me; if fate continues to work

against me and I am compelled to retire from the world, the consolation

of having escaped these social tortures will be mine; so you see, after

all, there is a silver lining to my dark cloud. When we cannot attain

good we can mitigate the evil.

Last Thursday Countess L. opened the season with an unusual event--a

betrothment ball. Her select friends were invited to a sort of rehearsal

of the wedding party; her beautiful cousin is to be married to our young

friend Didier, whom we named Scipio Africanus. Marshal Bugeaud has given

him a six-months' leave, and healed his wounded shoulder with a

commander's epaulette.

Now, I know you will agree with me that my presence was necessary at

this ball. I nerved myself for this new agony, and arrived there in the

middle of a quadrille. Never did a comedian, stepping on the stage,

study his manner and assume a gay look with more care than I did as I

entered the room. I glided through the figures of the dance, and reached

the further end of the ball-room which was filled with gossiping

dowagers. Now I began to play my rôle of a happy man.

Everybody knows I am weak enough to enjoy a ball with all the passion

of a young girl, therefore I willingly joined the dancers. I selected a

sinfully ugly woman, so as to direct my devotions to the antipodes of

beauty--the more unlike Irene the better for me. My partner possessed

that charming wit that generally accompanies ideal ugliness in a woman.

We talked, laughed, danced with foolish gayety--each note of the music

was accompanied by a witticism--we exchanged places and sallies at the

same time--we invented a new style of conversation, very preferable to

the dawdling gossip of a drawing-room. There is an exhilaration

attending a conversation carried on with your feet flying and

accompanied by delightful music; every eye gazed at us; every ear, in

the whirl of the dance, almost touched our lips and caught what we said.

Our gayety seemed contagious, and the whole room smiled approval. My

partner was radiant with joy; the fast moving of her feet, the

excitement of her mind, the exaltation of triumph, the halo of wit had

transfigured this woman; she positively appeared handsome!

For one instant I forgot my despair in the happy thought that I had just

done the noblest deed of my life; I had danced with a wall-flower, whose

only crime was her ugliness, and had changed her misery into bliss by

rendering her all the intoxicating ovations due only to beauty.

But alas! there was a fatal reaction awaiting me. Glancing across the

room I intercepted the tender looks of two lovers, looks of mutual love

that brought me back to my own misery, and made my heart bleed afresh at

the thought that love like this might have been mine! What is more

touchingly beautiful than the sight of a betrothed couple who exist in a

little world of their own, and, ignoring the indifferent crowd around

them, gaze at each other with such a wealth of love and trust in the

future! I brought this image of a promised but lost happiness home with

me. Oh! if I could blame Irene I would console myself by flying in a fit

of legitimate anger! but this resource fails me--I can blame no one but

myself. Irene knows not how dear she is to me, I only half told her of

my love,--I flattered myself that I had a long future in which to prove

my devotion by deeds instead of words. Had she known how deeply I loved

her, she never could have deserted me.

Your unhappy friend,

ROGER DE MONBERT.