EDGAR DE MEILHAN _to the_ PRINCE DE MONBERT,
St. Dominique Street (Paris).
RICHEPORT, June 23d 18--.
You place a confidence in the police worthy the prince you are, dear
Roger; you rely upon their information with a faith that surprises and
alarms me. How do you expect the police to know anything concerning
honest people? Never having watched them, being too much occupied with
scoundrels, they do not know how to go about it. Spies and detectives
are generally miserable wretches, their name even is a gross insult in
our language; they are acquainted with the habits and movements of
thieves, whose dens and haunts they frequent; but what means have they
of fathoming the whimsical motives of a high-born young girl? Their
forte is in making a servant drunk, bribing a porter, following a
carriage or standing sentinel before a door. If Mademoiselle de
Chateaudun has gone away to avoid you, she will naturally suppose that
you will endeavor to follow her. Of course, she has taken every
precaution to preserve her incognita--changing her name, for
instance--which would be sufficient to mystify the police, who, until
applied to by you, have had no object in watching her movements. The
proof that the police are mistaken is the exactitude of the information
that they have given you. It is too much like the depositions of
witnesses in a criminal trial, who say: "Two years ago, at thirty-three
minutes and five seconds after nine o'clock in the evening, I met, in
the dark, a slender man, whose features I could not distinguish, who
wore olive-green pantaloons, with a brownish tinge." I am very much
afraid that your expedition into Burgundy will be of none avail, and
that, haggard-eyed and morose, you will drop in upon a quiet family
utterly amazed at your domiciliary visit.
My dear Prince, endeavor to recollect that you are not in India; the
manners of the Sunda Isles do not prevail here, and I feared from your
letter some desperate act which would put you in the power of your
friends, the police. In Europe we have professors of æsthetics,
Sanscrit, Slavonic, dancing and fencing, but professors of jealousy are
not authorized. There is no chair in the College of France for wild
beasts; lessons expressed in roarings and in blows from savage paws do
very well for the fabulous tiger city of Java legends. If you are
jealous, try to deprive your rival of the railroad grant which he was
about to obtain, or ruin him in his electoral college by spreading the
report that, in his youth, he had written a volume of sonnets. This is
constitutional revenge which will not bring you before the bar of
justice. The courts now-a-days are so tricky that they might give you
some trouble even for suppressing such an insipid fop as Léon de
Varèzes. Tigers, whatever you may say, are bad instructors. With regard
to tigers, we only tolerate cats, and then they must have velvet paws.
These counsels of moderation addressed to you, I have profited by
myself, for, in another way, I have reached a fine degree of
exasperation. You suspect, of course, that Louise Guérin is at the
bottom of it, for a woman is always at the bottom of every man's
madness. She is the leaven that ferments all our worst passions.
Madame Taverneau set out for Rouen; I went to see Louise, my heart full
of joy and hope. I found her alone, and at first thought that the
evening would be decisive, for she blushed high on seeing me. But who
the deuce can count upon women! I left her the evening before, sweet,
gentle and confiding; I found her cold, stern, repelling and talking to
me as if she had never seen me before. Her manner was so convincing that
nothing had passed between us, that I found it necessary to take a rapid
mental survey of all the occurrences of our expedition to the Andelys to
prove to myself that I was not somebody else. I may have a thousand
faults, but vanity is not among them. I rarely flatter myself,
consequently I am not prone to believe that every one is thunder-struck,
in the language of the writers of the past century, on beholding me. My
interpretation of glances, smiles, tones of the voice are generally
very faithful; I do not pass over expressions that displease me. I put
this interpretation upon Louise's conduct. I do not feel an insuperable
dislike to M. Edgar de Meilhan. Sure of the meaning of my text, I acted
upon it, but Louise assumed such imposing and royal airs, such haughty
and disdainful poses, that unless I resorted to violence I felt I could
obtain nothing from her. Rage, instead of love, possessed me; my hands
clenched convulsively, driving the nails into my flesh. The scene would
have turned into a struggle. Fortunately, I reflected that such
emphasized declarations of love, with the greater part of romantic and
heroic actions, were not admitted in the Code.
I left abruptly, lest the following elegant announcement should appear
in the police gazettes: "Mr. Edgar de Meilhan, landed proprietor, having
made an attack upon Madame Louise Guérin, screen-painter, &c."--for I
felt the strongest desire to strangle the object of my devotion, and I
think I should have done so had I remained ten minutes longer.
Admire, dear Roger, the wisdom of my conduct, and endeavor to imitate
it. It is more commendable to control one's passions than an army, and
it is more difficult.
My wrath was so great that I went to Mantes to see Alfred! To open the
door of paradise and then shut it in my face, spread before me a
splendid banquet and prevent me from sitting down to it, promise me love
and then offer me prudery, is an infamous, abominable and even
indelicate act. Do you know, dear Roger, that I just escaped looking
like a goose; the rage that possessed me gave a tragic expression to my
features, which alone saved me from ridicule! Such things we never
forgive a woman, and Louise shall pay me yet!
I swear to you that if a woman of my own rank had acted thus towards me,
I should have crushed her without mercy; but Louise's humble position
restrained me. I feel a pity for the weak which will be my ruin; for the
weak are pitiless towards the strong.
Poor Alfred must be an excellent fellow not to have thrown me out of
the window. I was so dull with him, so provoking, so harsh, so scoffing,
that I am astonished that he could endure me for two minutes. My nerves
were in such a state of irritation that I beheaded with my whip more
than five hundred poppies along the road. I who never have committed an
assault upon any foliage, whose conscience is innocent of the murder of
a single flower! For a moment I had a notion to ask a catafalque of the
romantic Marquise. You may judge from that the disordered state of my
faculties and my complete moral prostration.
At last, ashamed of abusing Alfred's hospitality in such a manner, and
feeling incapable of being anything else than irritable, cross-grained
and intractable, I returned to Richeport, to be as gloomy and
disagreeable as I pleased.
Here, dear Roger, I pause--I take time, as the actors say; it is worth
while. As fluently as you may read hieroglyphics, and explain on the
spot the riddles of the sphinx, you can never guess what I found at
Richeport, in my mother's room! A white black-bird? a black swan? a
crocodile? a megalonyx? Priest John or the amorabaquin? No, something
more enchantingly improbable, more wildly impossible. What was it? I
will tell you, for a hundred million guesses would never bring you
nearer the truth.
Near the window, by my mother's side, sat a young woman, bending over an
embroidery frame, threading a needle with red worsted. At the sound of
my voice she raised her head and I recognised--Louise Gruérin!
At this unexpected sight, I stood stupified, like Pradon's Hippolyte.
To see Louise Guérin quietly seated in my mother's room, was as
electrifying as if you, on going home some morning, were to find Irene
de Chateaudun engaged in smoking one of your cigars. Did some strange
chance, some machiavellian combination introduce Louise at Richeport? I
shall soon know.
What a queer way to avoid men, to take up one's abode among them! Only
prudes have such ideas. At any rate it is a gross insult to my powers
of fascination. I am not such a patriarch as all that! My head still
counts a few hairs, and I can walk very well without a cane!
What does it matter, after all? Louise lives under the same roof with
me, my mother treats her in the most gracious manner, like an equal.
And, indeed, one would be deceived by her; she seems more at her ease
here than at Madame Taverneau's, and what would be a restraint on a
woman of her class, on the contrary gives her more liberty. Her manners
have become charming, and I often ask myself if she is not the daughter
of one of Madame de Meilhan's friends. With wonderful tact she
immediately put herself in unison with her surroundings; women alone can
quickly become acclimated in a higher sphere. A man badly brought up
always remains a booby. Any danseuse taken from the foot-lights of the
Opera by the caprice of a great lord, can be made a fine lady. Nature
has doubtless provided for these sudden elevations of fortune by
bestowing upon women that marvellous facility of passing from one
position to another without exhibiting surprise or being thrown out of
their element. Put Louise into a carriage having a countess's crown upon
the panel of the door, and no one would doubt her rank. Speak to her,
and she would reply as if she had had the most brilliant education. The
auspicious opening of a flower transplanted into a soil that suits it,
shone through Louise's whole being. My manner towards her partakes of a
tenderer playfulness, a more affectionate gallantry. After all,
Richeport is better than Pont de l'Arche, for there is nothing like
fighting on your own ground.
Come then, my friend, and be a looker-on at the courteous tournay. We
expect Raymond every day; we have all sorts of paradoxes to convert into
truths; your insight into such matters might assist us. _A bientôt_.