FROM MISS VIOLET RAY, IN PARIS, TO MISS AGNES RICH, IN NEW YORK.
September 21st.
We had hardly got here when father received a telegram saying he would
have to come right back to New York. It was for something about his
business--I don't know exactly what; you know I never understand those
things, never want to. We had just got settled at the hotel, in some
charming rooms, and mother and I, as you may imagine, were greatly
annoyed. Father is extremely fussy, as you know, and his first idea, as
soon as he found he should have to go back, was that we should go back
with him. He declared he would never leave us in Paris alone, and that
we must return and come out again. I don't know what he thought would
happen to us; I suppose he thought we should be too extravagant. It's
father's theory that we are always running up bills, whereas a little
observation would show him that we wear the same old _rags_ FOR MONTHS.
But father has no observation; he has nothing but theories. Mother and
I, however, have, fortunately, a great deal of _practice_, and we
succeeded in making him understand that we wouldn't budge from Paris, and
that we would rather be chopped into small pieces than cross that
dreadful ocean again. So, at last, he decided to go back alone, and to
leave us here for three months. But, to show you how fussy he is, he
refused to let us stay at the hotel, and insisted that we should go into
a _family_. I don't know what put such an idea into his head, unless it
was some advertisement that he saw in one of the American papers that are
published here.
There are families here who receive American and English people to live
with them, under the pretence of teaching them French. You may imagine
what people they are--I mean the families themselves. But the Americans
who choose this peculiar manner of seeing Paris must be actually just as
bad. Mother and I were horrified, and declared that main force should
not remove us from the hotel. But father has a way of arriving at his
ends which is more efficient than violence. He worries and fusses; he
"nags," as we used to say at school; and, when mother and I are quite
worn out, his triumph is assured. Mother is usually worn out more easily
than I, and she ends by siding with father; so that, at last, when they
combine their forces against poor little me, I have to succumb. You
should have heard the way father went on about this "family" plan; he
talked to every one he saw about it; he used to go round to the banker's
and talk to the people there--the people in the post-office; he used to
try and exchange ideas about it with the waiters at the hotel. He said
it would be more safe, more respectable, more economical; that I should
perfect my French; that mother would learn how a French household is
conducted; that he should feel more easy, and five hundred reasons more.
They were none of them good, but that made no difference. It's all
humbug, his talking about economy, when every one knows that business in
America has completely recovered, that the prostration is all over, and
that immense fortunes are being made. We have been economising for the
last five years, and I supposed we came abroad to reap the benefits of
it.
As for my French, it is quite as perfect as I want it to be. (I assure
you I am often surprised at my own fluency, and, when I get a little more
practice in the genders and the idioms, I shall do very well in this
respect.) To make a long story short, however, father carried his point,
as usual; mother basely deserted me at the last moment, and, after
holding out alone for three days, I told them to do with me what they
pleased! Father lost three steamers in succession by remaining in Paris
to argue with me. You know he is like the schoolmaster in Goldsmith's
"Deserted Village"--"e'en though vanquished, he would argue still." He
and mother went to look at some seventeen families (they had got the
addresses somewhere), while I retired to my sofa, and would have nothing
to do with it. At last they made arrangements, and I was transported to
the establishment from which I now write you. I write you from the bosom
of a Parisian menage--from the depths of a second-rate boarding-house.
Father only left Paris after he had seen us what he calls comfortably
settled here, and had informed Madame de Maisonrouge (the mistress of the
establishment--the head of the "family") that he wished my French
pronunciation especially attended to. The pronunciation, as it happens,
is just what I am most at home in; if he had said my genders or my idioms
there would have been some sense. But poor father has no tact, and this
defect is especially marked since he has been in Europe. He will be
absent, however, for three months, and mother and I shall breathe more
freely; the situation will be less intense. I must confess that we
breathe more freely than I expected, in this place, where we have been
for about a week. I was sure, before we came, that it would prove to be
an establishment of the _lowest description_; but I must say that, in
this respect, I am agreeably disappointed. The French are so clever that
they know even how to manage a place of this kind. Of course it is very
disagreeable to live with strangers, but as, after all, if I were not
staying with Madame de Maisonrouge I should not be living in the Faubourg
St. Germain, I don't know that from the point of view of exclusiveness it
is any great loss to be here.
Our rooms are very prettily arranged, and the table is remarkably good.
Mamma thinks the whole thing--the place and the people, the manners and
customs--very amusing; but mamma is very easily amused. As for me, you
know, all that I ask is to be let alone, and not to have people's society
forced upon me. I have never wanted for society of my own choosing, and,
so long as I retain possession of my faculties, I don't suppose I ever
shall. As I said, however, the place is very well managed, and I succeed
in doing as I please, which, you know, is my most cherished pursuit.
Madame de Maisonrouge has a great deal of tact--much more than poor
father. She is what they call here a belle femme, which means that she
is a tall, ugly woman, with style. She dresses very well, and has a
great deal of talk; but, though she is a very good imitation of a lady, I
never see her behind the dinner-table, in the evening, smiling and
bowing, as the people come in, and looking all the while at the dishes
and the servants, without thinking of a _dame de comptoir_ blooming in a
corner of a shop or a restaurant. I am sure that, in spite of her fine
name, she was once a _dame de comptoir_. I am also sure that, in spite
of her smiles and the pretty things she says to every one, she hates us
all, and would like to murder us. She is a hard, clever Frenchwoman, who
would like to amuse herself and enjoy her Paris, and she must be bored to
death at passing all her time in the midst of stupid English people who
mumble broken French at her. Some day she will poison the soup or the
_vin rouge_; but I hope that will not be until after mother and I shall
have left her. She has two daughters, who, except that one is decidedly
pretty, are meagre imitations of herself.
The "family," for the rest, consists altogether of our beloved
compatriots, and of still more beloved Englanders. There is an
Englishman here, with his sister, and they seem to be rather nice people.
He is remarkably handsome, but excessively affected and patronising,
especially to us Americans; and I hope to have a chance of biting his
head off before long. The sister is very pretty, and, apparently, very
nice; but, in costume, she is Britannia incarnate. There is a very
pleasant little Frenchman--when they are nice they are charming--and a
German doctor, a big blonde man, who looks like a great white bull; and
two Americans, besides mother and me. One of them is a young man from
Boston,--an aesthetic young man, who talks about its being "a real Corot
day," etc., and a young woman--a girl, a female, I don't know what to
call her--from Vermont, or Minnesota, or some such place. This young
woman is the most extraordinary specimen of artless Yankeeism that I ever
encountered; she is really too horrible. I have been three times to
Clementine about your underskirt, etc.