In spite of the resolution which I had formed and the calm which I
had affected, I was not happy. My isolation, though glorious, did
not seem to me less painful, and I could not reflect without dread
on the necessity, under which I found myself, of passing all my life
in celibacy. The return of spring, in particular, caused me mortal
discomfort, and I was beginning to relapse into my old melancholy, when
an unforeseen circumstance decided my whole life.
It need hardly be said that my writings had crossed the Channel, and
that the English made a run upon them. The English make a run upon
everything, except the things they understand. One day I received a
letter from London, signed by a young lady blackbird: “I have read your
poem,” she said to me, “and the admiration which I felt has caused
me to form the resolution of offering you my hand and my person. God
has created us for each other! I am like you, I am a white young lady
blackbird!...”
My surprise and my joy may be easily imagined. “A white young lady
blackbird!” I said to myself. “Is it really possible? Then I am no
longer alone upon the earth!” I hastened to reply to the fair unknown,
and I did so in a manner which showed plainly enough how much her offer
was to my mind. I pressed her to come to Paris, or to permit me to
fly to her. She replied that she preferred to come herself, because
her parents bored her, that she was arranging her affairs, and that I
should see her very soon.
She did indeed come some days later. O joy! she was the prettiest lady
blackbird in the world, and she was even whiter than myself.
“Ah, mademoiselle!” I exclaimed, “or rather madam, for I regard you
from this moment as my lawful wife, is it credible that such a charming
creature should have existed on the earth without fame informing me
of her existence? Blessed be the misfortunes which I have experienced
and the pecks which my father has given me, since Heaven reserved me a
consolation so unhoped-for! Until this day I thought myself condemned
to an eternal solitude, and, to speak frankly to you, it was a heavy
burden to bear; but when I see you I feel within me all the qualities
of a father of a family. Accept my hand without delay; let us be
married English fashion, without ceremony, and go away together to
Switzerland.”
“I won’t hear of that,” said the young lady blackbird; “I mean our
marriage to be magnificent, and all the blackbirds in France, who are
anything like well-born, to be solemnly gathered to it. People like
us owe it to their own reputation not to get married like cats in
the gutter. I have brought a supply of bank-notes with me. Write out
your invitations, go to your tradesmen, and don’t be stingy with the
refreshments.”
I conformed blindly to the white lady blackbird’s orders. Our wedding
was of overwhelming magnificence; they ate ten thousand flies at it. We
received the nuptial benediction from a Reverend Father Cormorant, who
was archbishop _in partibus_. The day finished up with a superb ball;
in short nothing was wanting to my happiness.
The more deeply I understood the character of my charming wife,
the more my love increased. She united in her little person all
advantages of soul and body. Her only fault was that she was somewhat
strait-laced; but I attributed this to the influence of the English
fogs in which she had lived hitherto, and I had no doubt that the
climate of France would soon dissipate this slight cloud.
A thing which disquieted me more seriously was a sort of mystery, in
which she sometimes wrapped herself with singular strictness, locking
herself in with her lady’s maids, and so passing hours together at
her toilette, as she pretended. Husbands do not much like such whims
in their households. A score of times it happened that I knocked at
my wife’s apartments without getting the door opened. This vexed me
cruelly. One day I insisted with so much ill temper, that she found
herself obliged to accede and open to me for a moment, not without
complaining bitterly of my importunity. I noticed, on entering, a great
bottle full of a sort of paste made with flour and Spanish whiting. I
asked my wife what she did with that concoction, and she replied that
it was a soothing application for some chilblains that she had.
This soothing application seemed to me just a little suspicious;
but what distrust could be excited in me by a person so gentle and
discreet, who had surrendered herself to me with such enthusiasm and
such perfect sincerity? I did not know at first that my well-beloved
was a woman of the pen; she made the avowal in course of time, and
she even went so far as to show me the manuscript of a novel in which
she had imitated at one and the same time Walter Scott and Scarron.
I leave you to imagine the agreeable surprise which such a discovery
caused me. Not only did I see myself the possessor of an incomparable
beauty, but I also acquired the certainty that the intelligence of my
companion was in every respect worthy of my genius. From that moment we
worked together. While I composed my poems, she blotted reams of paper.
I recited my verses to her aloud, which did not in the least hinder
her from writing all the time. She laid her novels with a facility
almost equal to my own, always choosing the most dramatic subjects,
parricides, rapes, murders, and even knaveries, always taking care to
attack the Government by the way and to preach the emancipation of
women blackbirds. In a word, no task was too great for her mind, no
daring too much for her modesty; she never once had to strike out a
line or to form a plan before setting to work. She was the type of the
literary woman blackbird.
One day when she was applying herself to her work with unaccustomed
ardour, I noticed that she was sweating great drops, and I was
astonished to see at the same time that she had a great black stain on
her back.
“Why, good gracious, I said to her, “whatever is that! Are you unwell?”
She seemed rather frightened, and even put out at first; but her great
experience of the world soon helped her to regain the admirable command
which she always exercised over herself. She told me that it was a
spot of ink, and that she was very liable to it in her moments of
inspiration.
“Can it be that my wife is going off colour?” I asked myself in a
whisper. This thought prevented me from sleeping. The bottle of paste
came to my mind. “O Heaven!” I exclaimed, “What a suspicion! Can this
celestial creature be nothing but a painting, a touch of whitewash?
Can she have varnished herself to impose upon me?... When I thought I
was pressing to my heart the sister of my soul, the privileged being
created for me alone, can it be that I wedded nothing but flour?”
Haunted by this horrible doubt, I formed a plan for delivering myself
from it. I made the purchase of a barometer, and waited eagerly for it
to be a wet day. I meant to take my wife to the country, to choose a
doubtful Sunday, and try the experiment of a drenching. But we were in
the middle of July; it was frightfully fine weather.
The semblance of happiness and the habit of writing had stimulated my
sensibility exceedingly. Artless as I was, it sometimes happened, when
I was at work, that sentiment was stronger than thought, and I began
to weep whilst waiting for a rhyme. My wife loved those rare occasions
immensely: any masculine weakness charms feminine pride. One night
when I was polishing an erasure, according to Boileau’s precept, it so
happened that I opened my heart.
“O thou!” I said to my dear lady blackbird, “thou, my only and best
beloved! Thou without whom my life is a dream, thou whose look, whose
smile metamorphoses the universe for me, life of my heart, knowest thou
how much I love thee? A little study and attention would easily enable
me to find words to put into verse a commonplace idea, already worn
threadbare by other poets; but where will I ever find them to express
that with which thy beauty inspires me? Could the memory of my past
pains, even, furnish me with a word to describe to thee my present
happiness? Before thou camest to me, my isolation was that of an orphan
in exile; to-day it is that of a king. In this feeble body, of which
I have the form until death make of it a ruin, in this fevered little
brain, where an unavailing thought ferments, dost thou know, my angel,
dost thou comprehend, my fair one, that there can be nothing but what
is thine? Hear what little my brain can express, and understand how
much greater is my love! O that my genius were a pearl, and that thou
wert Cleopatra!”
Whilst raving thus, I shed tears on my wife, and she changed colour
visibly. At each tear that dropped from my eyes, appeared a feather,
not even black, but of the most faded russet (I do believe she had
already bleached herself elsewhere). After some minutes of tender
outpouring, I found myself in presence of a bird stripped of paste and
flour, exactly like the most common and everyday blackbirds.
What could I do or say? what measures could I take? Reproaches
were useless. No doubt I was fully entitled to consider the matter
redhibitory and have my marriage declared null; but how dare to publish
my shame? Had I not misfortune enough already? I took my courage in my
claws, I resolved to forsake the world, to abandon my literary career,
to flee into a desert, if that were possible, to shun for ever the
sight of a living creature, and to seek, like Alceste,
... some solitary place,
Where a white blackbird may be white in perfect peace!