"Bel ange, descendu d'un monde aérien,
Laisse-toi regarder et ne regarde rien."
From my position I could only distinguish the outline of her figure, except by staring through my glasses, which I regard as a polite rudeness, but she seemed to merit the homage that all eyes looked and all voices sang.
Once she appeared in the full blaze of the gas as she leaned forward from her box, and it seemed as if an apparition by some theatro-optical delusion approached and dazzled me.
The rapt attention of the audience, the mellow tones of the singer, the orchestral accompaniment full of mysterious harmony, seemed to awaken the ineffable joy that love implants in the human heart. How much weakness there is in the strength of man!
To travel for years over oceans, through deserts, among all varieties of peoples and sects; shipwrecked, to cling with bleeding hands to sea-beaten rocks; to laugh at the storm and brave the tiger in his lair; to be bronzed in torrid climes; to subject one's digestion to the baleful influences of the salt seas; to study wisdom before the ruins of every portico where rhetoricians have for three thousand years paraphrased in ten tongues the words of Solomon, "All is vanity;" to return to one's native shores a used-up man, persuaded of the emptiness of all things save the overhanging firmament and the never-fading stars; to scatter the fancies of too credulous youth by a contemptuous smile, or a lesson of bitter experience, and yet, while boasting a victory over all human fallacies and weaknesses, to be enslaved by the melody of a song, the smile of a woman.
Life is full of hidden mysteries. I looked upon the stranger's face with a sense of danger, so antagonistic to my previous tranquillity that I felt humiliated.
By the side of the beautiful unknown, I saw a large fan open and shut with a certain affectation, but not until its tenth movement did I glance at its possessor. She was my nearest relative, the Duchess de Langeac.
The situation now began to be interesting. In a moment the interlude would procure for me a position to be envied by every one in the house. At the end of the act I left my box and made a rapid tour of the lobby before presenting myself. The Duchess dispelled my embarrassment by a cordial welcome. Women have a keen and supernatural perception about everything concerning love, that is alarming.
The Duchess carelessly pronounced Mlle. de Chateaudun's name and mine, as if to be rid of the ceremonies of introduction as soon as possible, and touching a sofa with the end of her fan, said:
"My dear Roger, it is quite evident that you have come from everywhere except from the civilized world. I bowed to you twenty times, and you declined me the honor of a recognition. Absorbed in the music, I suppose. La Favorita is not performed among the savages, so they remain savages. How do you like our barytone? He has sung his aria with delicious feeling."
While the Duchess was indulging her unmeaning questions and comments, a rapid and careless glance at Mlle. de Chateaudun explained the admiration that she commanded from the crowded house. Were I to tell you that this young creature was a pretty, a beautiful woman, I would feebly express my meaning, such phrases mean nothing. It would require a master hand to paint a peerless woman, and I could not make the attempt when the bright image of Irene is now surrounded by the gloomy shadows of an afflicted heart.
After the first exchange of insignificant words, the skirmish of a conversation, we talk as all talk who are anxious to appear ignorant of the fact that they are gazed upon by a whole assembly.
Concealing my agitation under a strain of light conversation, "Mademoiselle," I said, in answer to a question, "music is to-day the necessity of the universe. France is commissioned to amuse the world. Suppress our theatre, opera, Paris, and a settled melancholy pervades the human family. You have no idea of the ennui that desolates the hemispheres.
"Occasionally Paris enlivens the two Indias by dethroning a king. Once Calcutta wasin extremis, it was dying of the blues; the East India company was rich but not amusing; with all its treasure it could not buy one smile for Calcutta, so Paris sent Robert le Diable, La Muette de Portici, a drama or two of Hugo and Dumas. Calcutta became convalescent and recovered. Its neighbor, Chandernagore, scarcely existed then, but in 1842, when I left the Isle de Bourbon, La Favorita was announced; it planted roses in the cheeks of the jaundiced inhabitants, and Madras, possessed by the spleen, was exorcised by William Tell.
"Whenever a tropical city is conscious of approaching decline, she always stretches her hands beseechingly to Paris, who responds with music, books, newspapers; and her patient springs into new life.
"Paris does not seem to be aware of her influences. She detracts from herself; says she is not the Paris of yesterday, the Paris of the great century; that her influence is gone, she is in the condition of the Lower Empire.
"She builds eighty leagues of fortifications to sustain the siege of Mahomet II. She weeps over her downfall and accuses Heaven of denying to her children of '44 the genius and talents that characterized the statesmen and poets of her past.
"But happily the universe does not coincide with Paris; go ask it; having just come from there, I know it."
Indulging my traveller's extravagancies laughingly, to the amusement of my fair companion, she said:
"Truly your philosophy is of the happy school, and the burden of life must be very light when it is so lightly borne."
"You must know, my dear Roger," said the Duchess, feigning commiseration, "that my young cousin, Mlle. de Chateaudun, is pitiably unhappy, and you and I can weep over her lot in chorus with orchestral accompaniment; poor child! she is the richest heiress in Paris."
"How wide you are from the mark!" said Irene, with a charming look of annoyance in the brightest eye that ever dazzled the sober senses of man; "it is not an axiom that wealth is happiness. The poor spread such a report, but the rich know it to be false."
Here the curtain arose, and my return to my box explained my character as the casual visitor and not the lover. And what intentions could I have had at that moment? I cannot say.
I was attracted by the loveliness of Mlle. Chateaudun; chance gave the opportunity for studying her charms, the fair unknown improved on acquaintance. Hers was the exquisite grace of face and feature and winningness of manner which attracts, retains and is never to be forgotten.
From the superb tranquillity of her attitude, the intelligence of her eyes, it was easy to infer that a wider field would bring into action the hidden treasures of a gifted nature. Over the dazzling halo that surrounded the fair one, which left me the alternative of admiring silence or heedless vagrancy of speech, one cloud lowered, eclipsing all her charms and bringing down my divinity from her pedestal—Irene was an heiress!
The Duchess had clipped the wings of the angel with the phrase of a marriage-broker. An heiress! the idea of a beautiful woman, full of poetry and love, inseparately linked to pounds, shillings and pence!
It was a day of amnesty to men, a fête day in Paradise, when God gave to this young girl that crown of golden hair, that seraphic brow, those eyes that purified the moral miasma of earth. The ideal of poetry, the reality of my love!
Think of this living master-piece of the divine studio as the theme of money-changers, the prize of the highest bidder!
Of course, my dear Edgar, I saw Mlle. de Chateaudun again and again after this memorable evening; thanks to the facilities afforded me by my manoeuvring kinswoman, the Duchess, who worshipped the heiress as I worshipped the woman, I could Add a useless volume of romantic details leading you to the denouement, which you have already guessed, for you must see in me the lover of Mlle. de Chateaudun.
I wished to give you the beginning and end of my story; what do you care for the rest, since it is but the wearisome calendar of all lovers?—The journal of a thousand incidents as interesting and important to two people as they are stupid and ridiculous to every one else. Each day was one of progress; finally, we loved each other. Excuse the homely platitude in this avowal.
Irene seemed perfect; her only fault, being an heiress, was lost in the intoxication of my love; everything was arranged, and in spite of her money I was to marry her.
I was delirious with joy, my feet spurned the earth. My bliss was the ecstasy of the blest. My delight seemed to color the contentment of other men with gloom, and I felt like begging pardon for being so happy. It seemed that this valley of tears, astonished that any one should from a terrestrial paradise gaze upon its afflictions and still be happy, would revolt against me!
My dear Edgar, the smoke of hell has darkened my vision—I grope in the gloom of a terrible mystery—Vainly do I strive to solve it, and I turn to you for aid.
Irene has left Paris! Home, street, city, all deserted! A damp, dark nothingness surrounds me!
Not an adieu! a line! a message! to console me—
Women do such things—
I have done all in my power, and attempted the impossible to find Irene, but without success. If she only had some ground of complaint against me, how happy I would be.
A terrible thought possesses my fevered brain—she has fallen into some snare, my marvellously beautiful Irene.
Hide my sorrows, dear Edgar, from the world as I have hidden them.
You would not have recognised the writer of this, had you seen him on the boulevard this morning. I was a superb dandy, with the poses of a Sybarite and the smiles of a young sultan. I trod as one in the clouds, and looked so benevolently on my fellow man that three beggars sued for aid as if they recognised Providence in a black coat. The last observation that reached my ear fell from the lips of an observing philosopher:
"Heavens! how happy that young man must be!"
Dear Edgar, I long to see you.
ROGER DE MONBERT.
EDGAR DE MEILHAN
to the
PRINCE DE MONBERT,
St. Dominique Street, Paris.
RICHEPORT, 20th May, 18—
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 ofbois 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.
EDGAR DE MEILHAN
RAYMOND DE VILLIERS
to
M. EDGAR DE MEILHAN,
Richeport, near Pont de l'Arche (Eure).
GRENOBLE, Hotel of the Prefecture, May 22d 18—.
Do not expect me, dear Edgar, I shall not be at Richeport the 24th. When shall I? I cannot tell.
I write to you from a bed of pain, bruised, wounded, burnt, half dead. It served me right, you will say, on learning that I am here for the commission of the greatest crime that can be tried before your tribunal. It is only too true—I have saved the life of an ugly woman!
But I saved her at night, when I innocently supposed her beautiful—let this be the extenuating circumstance. That no delay may attend your decision, here is the whole story.
Travel from pole to pole—wander to and fro over the world, it is not impossible, by God's help, to escape the thousand and one annoyances that are scattered over the surface of this terraqueous globe, but it is impossible, go where you will, to evade England, the gayest nation to be found, especially in travelling.
At Rome, this winter, Lord K. told me seriously that he had set out from London, some years since, with the one object of finding some corner of the earth on which no foot had ever trod before, and there to fix the first glorious impress of a British boot. The English occasionally, for amusement, indulge in such notions.
After having examined a scale of the comparative heights of the mountains of the universe, he noted the two highest points. Lord K. first reached the Peruvian Andes, and began to climb the sides of Chimborazo with that placidity, that sang-froid, which is the characteristic of an elevated soul instinctively attracted to realms above.
Reaching the summit with torn feet and bleeding hands, he was about to fix a conqueror's grasp upon the rock, when he saw in one of the crevices a heap of visiting-cards, placed there successively, during a half century, by two or three hundred of his compatriots.
Disappointed but not discouraged, Lord K. drew from his case a shining, satiny card, and having gravely added it to the many others, began to descend Chimborazo with the same coolness and deliberation that he had climbed up.
Half way down he found himself face to face with Sir Francis P., about to attempt the ascent that Lord K. had just accomplished. Although alienated by difference of party, they were old friends, dating their acquaintance, I believe, from the University of Oxford.
Without appearing astonished at so unexpected an encounter, they bowed politely, and on Chimborazo, as in politics, went their separate ways.
Betrayed by the New World, Lord K. directed his steps towards the Old. He penetrated the heart of Asia, plunged into the Dobrudja region, and paused only at the foot of Tschamalouri, upon the borders of Bootan. It is fair that I should thus visit on you the formidable erudition inflicted upon me by Milord.
You must know, then, dear Edgar, that the Tschamalouri is the highest peak of the Himalayan group.
The Jungfrau, Mount Blanc, Mount Cervin, and Mount Rosa, piled one upon the other, would make at best but a stepping-stone to it. Judge, then, of Milord's transports in the presence of this giant, whose hoary head was lost in the clouds! They might rob him of Chimborazo, but Tschamalouri was his.
After a few days for repose and preparation, one fine morning at sunrise, behold Milord commencing the ascent, with the proud satisfaction of a lover who sees his rival dancing attendance in the antechamber while he glides unseen up the secret stairway with a key to the boudoir in his pocket.
He journeyed up, and on the first day had passed the region of tempests. Passing the night in his cloak, he began again his task at the dawn of day.
Nothing dismayed him—no obstacle discouraged him. He bounded like a chamois from ridge to ridge, he crawled like a snake and hung like a vine from the sharp arêtes—wounds and lacerations covered his body—after scorching he froze. The eagles whirled about his head and flapped their wings in his face. But on he went. His lungs, distended by the rarified atmosphere, threatened to burst with an explosion akin to a steamboat's. Finally, after superhuman efforts, bleeding, panting, gasping for breath, Milord sank exhausted upon the rocks.
What a labor! but what a triumph! what a struggle! but what a conquest! The thought of being able, the coming winter, to boast of having carved his name where, until then, God alone had written his.
And Sir Francis! who would not fail to plume himself on the joint favors of Chimborazo, how humiliated he would be to learn that Lord K., more fastidious in his amours, more exalted in his ambition, had not, four thousand fathoms above sea, feared to pluck the rose of Tschamalouri!
I remember that the first night I passed in Rome I heard in my sleep a mysterious voice murmuring at my pillow: "Rome! Rome! thou art in Rome!"
Milord, shattered, sore and helpless, also heard a charming voice singing sweetly in his ear: "Thou art stretched full length upon the summit of Tschamalouri."
This melody insensibly affected him as the balm of Fier-à-Bras. He rallied, he arose, and with radiant face, sparkling eyes and bosom swelling with pride, drew a poniard from its sheath and prepared to cut his name upon the rock. Suddenly he turned pale, his limbs gave way under him, the knife dropped from his grasp and fell blunted upon the rocks. What had he seen? What could have happened to so agitate him in these inaccessible regions?
There, upon the tablet of granite where he was about to inscribe the name of his ancestors, he read, unhappy man, distinctly read, these two names distinctly cut in the flint, "William and Lavinia," with the following inscription, in English, underneath: "Here, July 25th, 1831, two tender hearts communed."
Surmounting the whole was a flaming double heart pierced by an arrow, an arrow that then pierced three hearts at once. The rock was covered besides with more than fifty names, all English, and as many inscriptions, all English too, of a kindred character to the one he had read. Milord's first impulse was to throw himself head foremost down the mountain side; but, fortunately, raising his eyes in his despair, he discovered a final plateau, so steep that neither cat nor lizard could climb it. Lord K. became a bird and flew up, and what did he see? Oh, the vanity of human ambition! Upon the last round of the most gigantic ladder, extending from earth to heaven, Milord perceived Sir Francis, who, having just effected the same ascent from the other side of the colossus, was quietly reading the "Times" and breakfasting upon a chop and a bottle of porter!
The two friends coolly saluted each other, as they had before done on the side of Chimborazo; then, with death in his heart, but impassive and grave, Lord K. silently drew forth a box of conserves, a flask of ale and a copy of the "Standard." The repast and the two journals being finished, the tourists separated and descended, each on his own side, without having exchanged a word.
Lord K. has never forgiven Sir Francis; they accuse each other of plagiarism, a mortal hatred has sprung up between them, and thus Tschamalouri finished what politics began.
I had this story from Lord K. himself, who drags out a disenchanted and gloomy existence, which would put an end to itself had he not in present contemplation a journey to the moon; still he is half convinced that he would find Sir Francis there.
Entertain your mother with this story, it would be improved by your narration.
You must agree with me that if the English grow four thousand fathoms above the sea, the plant must necessarily thrive on the plains and the low countries. It is acclimated everywhere, like the strawberry, without possessing its sweet savor.
Italy is, I believe, the land where it best flourishes. There I have traversed fields of English, sown everywhere, mixed with a few Italians.
But I would have been happy if I had encountered only Englishmen along my route. Some poet has said that England is a swan's nest in the midst of the waves. Alas! how few are the swans that come to us at long intervals, compared with the old ostriches in bristling plumage, and the young storks with their long, thin necks that flock to us.
When in Rome only a few hours, and wandering through the Campo Vaccino, I found among the ruins one I did not seek. It was Lady Penock. I had met her so often that I could not fail to know her name. Edgar, you know Lady Penock; it is impossible that you should not. But if not, it is easy for you to picture her to yourself. Take a keepsake, pick out one of those faces more beautiful than the fairies of our dreams, so lovely that it might be doubted whether the painter found his model among the daughters of earth. Passionate lover of form, feast your eye upon the graceful curve of that neck, those shoulders; gaze upon that pure brow where grace and youth preside; bathe your soul in the soft brightness of that blue and limpid glance; bend to taste the perfumed breath of that smiling mouth; tremble at the touch of those blonde tresses, twined in bewildering mazes behind the head and falling over the temples in waving masses; fervent worshipper at the shrine of beauty, fall into ecstasies; then imagine the opposite of this charming picture, and you have Lady Penock.
This apparition, in the centre of the ancient forum, completely upset my meditations. J.J. Rousseau says in his Confessions that he forgot Mme. de Larnage in seeing the Pont du Gard. So I forgot the Coliseum at the sight of Lady Penock. Explain, dear Edgar, what fatality attended my steps, that ever afterwards this baleful beauty pursued me?
Under the arches of the Coliseum, beneath the dome of St. Peter, in Pagan Rome and in Catholic Rome, in front of the Laocöon, before the Communion of St. Jerome, by Dominichino, on the banks of Lake Albano, under the shades of the Villa Borghese, at Tivoli in the Sibyl's temple, at Subiaco in the Convent of St. Benoit, under every moon and by every sun I saw her start up at my side. To get away from her I took flight and travelled post to Tuscany. I found her at the foot of the falls of Terni, at the tomb of St. Francis d'Assise, under Hannibal's gate at Spoletta, at the table d'hote Perouse at Arezzo, on the threshold of Petrarch's house; finally, the first person I met in the Piazza of the Grand Duke at Florence, before the Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, Edgar, was Lady Penock. At Pisa she appeared to me in the Campo Santo; in the Gulf of Genoa her bark came near capsizing mine; at Turin I found her at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities; her and no one else! And, what was so amusing, my Lady on seeing me became agitated, blushed and looked down, and believing herself the object of an ungovernable passion, she mumbled through her long teeth, "Shocking! Shocking!"
Tired of war, I bade adieu to Italy and crossed the mountains; besides, dear country, I sighed to see you once more. I passed through Savoy and when I saw the mountains of Dauphiny loom up against the distant horizon my heart beat wildly, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt like a returning exile, and know not what false pride restrained me from springing to the ground and kissing the soil of France!
Hail! noble and generous land, the home of intelligence and of liberty! On touching thee the soul swells within us, the mind expands; no child of thine can return to thy bosom without a throb of holy joy, a feeling of noble pride. I passed along filled with delirious happiness. The trees smiled on me, the winds whispered softly in my ear, the little flowers that carpeted the wayside welcomed me; it required an effort to restrain myself from embracing as brothers the noble fellows that passed me on the way.
Then, Edgar, I was to find you again, and it was the spot of my birthplace, the paternal acres which in our common land seem to us a second country.
The night was dark, no moon, no stars; I had just left Grenoble and was passing through Voreppe, a little village not without some importance because in the neighborhood of the Grande Chartreuse, which, at this season of the year, attracts more curiosity-hunters than believers—suddenly the horses stopped, I heard a rumbling noise outside, and a crimson glare lighted up the carriage windows. I might have taken it for sunset, if the sun had not set long since.
I got out and found the only inn of the village on fire; great was the confusion in the small hamlet, there was a general screaming, struggling and running about. The innkeeper with his wife, children, and servants emptied the stables and barns. The horses neighed, the oxen bellowed, and the pigs, feeling that they were predestined to be roasted anyhow, offered to their rescuers an obstinate and philosophical resistance.
Meantime the notables of the place, formed in groups, discussed magisterially the origin of a fire which no one made an effort to stay. Left alone, it brightened the night, fired the surrounding hills and shot its jets and rockets of sparks far into the sky. You, a poet, would have thought it fine. Sublime egotist that you are, everything is effect, color, mirages, decorations. Endeavoring to make myself useful in this disaster, I thought I heard it whispered around me that some travellers remained in the inn, who, if not already destroyed, were seriously threatened.
Among others a young stranger was mentioned who had come that day from the Grande Chartreuse, which she had been visiting. I went straight to the innkeeper who was dragging one of his restive pigs by the tail, reminding me of one of the most ridiculous pictures of Charlet. "All right," said the man, "all the travellers are gone, and as to those who remain—" "Then some do remain?" I asked, and by insisting learned that an Englishwoman occupied a room in the second story.
I hate England—I hate it absurdly, in true, old-fashioned style. To me England is still "Perfidious Albion."
You may laugh, but I hate in proportion to the love I bear my country. I hate because my heart has always bled for the wounds she has opened in the bosom of France. Yes, but coward is he who has the ability to save a fellow-creature, yet folds his arms, deaf to pity! My enemy in the jaws of death is my brother. If need be I would jump into the flood to save Sir Hudson Lowe, free to challenge him afterwards, and try to kill him as I would a dog.
The ground-floor of the inn was enveloped in flames. I took a ladder, and resting it against the sill, I mounted to the window that had been pointed out to me. On the hospitable soil of France a stranger must not perish for want of a Frenchman to save him. Like Anthony, with one blow I broke the glass and raised the sash; I found myself in a passage that the fire had not reached. I sprang towards a door.—an excited voice said, "Don't come in." I entered, looked around for the young stranger, and, immortal gods! what did I see? In the charming négligé of a beauty suddenly awakened,—you are right, it was she. Yes, my dear fellow, it was Lady Penock—Lady Penock, who recognised and screamed furiously! "Madame," said I, turning away with a sincere and proper feeling of respect, "you are mistaken. The house is on fire, and if you do not leave it"—"You! you!" she cried, "have set fire to it, like Lovelace, to carry me off." "Madame," said I, "we have no time to lose." The floor smoked under our feet, the rafters cracked over our heads, the flames roared at the door, delay was dangerous; so, in spite of the eternal refrain that sounded like the crying of a bird,—"Shocking! shocking!" I dragged Lady Penock from behind the bed where she cowered to escape my wild embraces, picked her up as if she were a stick of dry wood, and bearing the precious burden, appeared at the top of the ladder. Meanwhile the fire raged, the flames and the smoke enveloped us on all sides. "For pity's sake, madame," said I, "don't scream and kick so." My lady screamed all the louder and struggled all the worse. When half way down the ladder she said, "Young man, go back immediately, I have forgotten something very valuable to me." At these words the roof fell in, the walls crumbled away, the ladder shook, the earth opened under my feet, and I felt as if I were falling into the abyss of Taenarus.
I awoke, under an humble roof whose poor owner had received me.
I had a fracture of my shoulder, and three doctors by my side. I have known many men to die with less. As for Lady Penock, I learned with satisfaction of her escape, barring a sprained ankle; she had departed indignant at the impertinence of my conduct, and to the people who had charitably suggested to her to instal herself as a gray nun at the bedside of her preserver, she said, coloring angrily, "Oh, I should die if I were to see that young man again."
Be reassured, France has again atoned for Albion. My adventure having made some noise, a few days after the fire Providence came into my room and sat beside my bed in the shape of a noble woman named Madame de Braimes.
It appears that M. de Braimes has been, for a year past, prefect of Grenoble; that he knew my father intimately, and my name sufficed to bring these two noble beings to my side.
As soon as I could bear the motion of a carriage, they took me from Voreppe, and I am now writing to you, my dear Edgar, from the hotel of the Prefecture.
I received in Florence the last letter you directed to me at Rome. What a number of questions you ask, and how am I to answer them all?
Don't speak to me of Jerusalem, Cedron, Lebanon, Palmyra and Baalbec, or anything of the sort. Read over again Réné's Guide-book, Jocelyn's Travels, the Orientales of Olympio, and you will know as much about the East as I do, though I have been there, according to your account, for the last two years. However, I have performed all the commissions you gave me, on the eve of my departure, three years ago. I bring you pipes from Constantinople, to your mother chaplets from Bethlehem—only I bought the pipes at Leghorn, and the chaplets at Rome.
Do you remember a cold, rainy December evening in Paris, eighteen months ago, when I should have been on the borders of Afghanistan, or the shores of the Euphrates, you were walking along the quays, between eleven o'clock and midnight, walking rapidly, wrapped like a Castilian in the folds of your cloak?
Do you remember that between the Pont Neuf and the Pont Saint Michel you stumbled against a young man, enveloped likewise in a cloak, and following rapidly the course of the Seine in a direction opposite to yours? The shock was violent, and nailed us both to the spot. Do you remember that having scrutinized each other under the gaslight, you exclaimed, "Raymond," and opened your arms to embrace me; then, seeing the cold and reserved attitude of him who stood silently before you, how you changed your mind and went your way, laughing at the mistake but struck by the resemblance?
The resemblance still exists; the young man that you called Raymond, was Raymond.
One more story, and I have done. I will tell it without pride or pretence, a thing so natural, so simple, that it is neither worth boasting of nor concealing.
You know Frederick B. You remember that I have always spoken of him as a brother. We played together in the same cradle; we grew up, as it were, under the same roof. At school I prepared his lessons: out of gratitude he ate my sugar-plums. At college I performed his tasks and fought his battles. At twenty, I received a sword-thrust in my breast on his account. Later he plunged into matrimony and business, and we lost sight of, without ceasing to love each other. I knew that he prospered, and I asked nothing more. As for myself, tired of the sterile life I was leading, called fashionable life, I turned my fortune into ready money, and prepared to set out on a long journey.
The day of my departure—I had bidden you good-bye the evening before—Frederick entered my room. A year had nearly passed since we had met; I did not know that he was in Paris. I found him changed; his preoccupied air alarmed me. However, I concealed my anxiety. We cannot treat with too much reserve and delicacy the sadness of our married friends. As he talked, two big tears rolled silently down his cheeks. I had to speak.
"What is the matter?" I asked abruptly; and I pressed him with questions, tormented him until he told me all. Bankruptcy was at his door; and he spoke of his wife and children in such heart-rending terms, that I mingled my tears with his, thinking of course that I was not rich enough to give him the money he needed.
"My poor Frederic," I finally said, "is it such a very large amount?" He replied with a gesture of despair. "Come, how much?" I asked again.
"Five hundred thousand francs!" he cried, in a gloomy stupor. I arose, took him by the arm, and under the pretext of diverting him, drew him on the boulevards. I left him at the door of my notary and joined him on coming out. "Frederick," I said, giving him a line I had just written, "take that and hasten to embrace your wife and children." Then I jumped into a cab which carried me home; my journey was over. I returned from Jerusalem.
Dupe! I hear you say, Ah, no, Edgar! I am young and I understand men, but there dwell in them both the good and the beautiful, and to expect to derive any other satisfaction than that found in cultivating these qualities has always seemed to me to be an unreasonable expectation.
What! you, as a poet, enjoy the intoxication of inspiration, the feast of solitude, the silence of serene and starry nights and that does not satisfy you; you would have fortune hasten to the sound of the Muses' kisses.
What! as a generous man, you can enjoy the delights of giving and only sow a field of benefits in the hope of reaping some day the golden harvest of gratitude!
Of what do you complain? wretched man! You are the ingrate. Besides, even with this view, be convinced, dear Edgar, that the good and the beautiful are still two of the best speculations that can be made here below, and nothing in the world succeeds better than fine verses and noble deeds. Only wicked hearts and bad poets dare to affirm the contrary. For myself, experience has taught me that self-abnegation is profit enough to him who exercises it, and disinterestedness is a blossom of luxury that well cultivated bears most savory fruit. I encountered fortune in turning my back on her. I owe to Lady Penock the touching care and precious friendship of Madame de Braimes, and if this system of remuneration continue I shall end by believing that in throwing myself into the gulf of Curtius I would fall upon a bed of roses.
The fact is, I was ruined, but whoever could have seen me at the moment would have said I was overcome with delight. I must tell you all, Edgar; I pictured to myself the transports of Frederick and his wife on seeing the abyss that was about to engulf them so easily closed; these sweet images alone did not cause my wild delight; would you believe it, the thought of my ruin and poverty intoxicated me more. I had suffered for a long time from an unoccupied youth, and was indignant at my uneventful life. At twenty I quietly assumed a position prepared for me; to play this part in the world I had taken the trouble to be born; to gather the fruits of life I had only to stretch out my hand. Irritated at the quietude of my days, wearied with a happiness that cost me nothing, I sought heroic struggles, chivalrous encounters, and not finding them in a well-regulated society, where strong interests have been substituted for strong passions, I fretted in secret and wept over my impotence.
But now my hour was come! I was about to put my will, strength and courage to the proof. I was about to wrest from study the secrets of talent. I was about to reclaim from labor the fortune I had given away, and which I owed to chance. Until that deed I had only been the son of my father, the heir of my ancestors; now I was to become the child of my own deeds. The prisoner who sees his chains fall off and sends to heaven a wild shout of liberty, does not feel a deeper joy than I felt when ready to struggle with destiny I could exclaim, "I am poor!"
I have seen everywhereblaséyoung men, old before their time, who, according to their own account, have known and exhausted every pleasure; have felt the nothingness of human things. 'Tis true these young unfortunates have tried everything but labor and devotion to some holy cause.
There remained of my patrimony fifteen thousand francs, which were laid aside to defray my travelling expenses. This, with a very moderate revenue accruing from two little farms, contiguous to the castle of my father, made up my possessions.
Putting the best face on things, supposing I might recover my fortune, an event so uncertain that it were best not to count on it, I wisely traced the line of duty with a firm hand and joyous heart.
I decided immediately that I would not undeceive my friends as to my departure, and that I would employ, in silence and seclusion, the time I was supposed to be spending abroad.
Not that it did not occur to me to proclaim boldly what I had done, for in a country where a dozen wretches are every year publicly beheaded for the sake of example, perhaps it would be well also, for example's sake, to do good publicly. To do this, however, would have been to compromise Frederick's credit, who, besides, would never have accepted my sacrifice if he could have measured its extent.
I could have retired to my estates; but felt no inclination to make an exposure of my poverty to the comments of a charitable province; nor had I taste for the life of a ruined country squire.
Besides, solitude was essential to my plans, and solitude is impossible out of Paris; one is never really lost save in a crowd. I soon found in the Masario a little room very near the clouds, but brightened by the rising sun, overlooking a sea of verdure marked here and there by a few northern pines, with their gloomy and motionless branches.
This nest pleased me. I furnished it simply, filled it with books and hung over my bed the portrait of my sainted mother, who seemed to smile on and encourage me, while you, Frederick and others believed me steaming towards the shores of the East; and here I quietly installed myself, prouder and more triumphant than a soldier of fortune taking possession of a kingdom.
Edgar, these two years I really lived—. In that little room I spent what will remain, I very much fear, the purest, the brightest, the best period of my whole life. I am not of much account now, formerly I was nothing; the little good that is in me was developed in those two years of deep vigils. I thought, reflected, suffered and nourished myself with the bread of the strong. I initiated myself into the stern delights of study, the austere joys of poverty.
O! days of labor and privation, beautiful days! Where have you gone? Holy enchantments, shall I ever taste you again? Silent and meditative nights! when at the first glimmer of dawn I saw the angel of revery alight at my side, bend his beautiful face over me, and fold my wearied limbs in his white wings; blissful nights! will you ever return?
If you only knew the life I led through these two years! If you knew what dreams visited me in that humble nest by the dim light of the lamp, you would be jealous of them, my poet!
The days were passed in serious study. At evening I took my frugal repast, in winter, by the hearth, in summer by the open window. In December I had guests that kings might have envied. Hugo, George Sand, Lamartine, De Musset, yourself, dear Edgar. In April I had the soft breezes, the perfume of the lilacs, the song of the birds warbling among the branches, and the joyous cries of the children playing in the distant alleys, while the young mothers passed slowly through the fresh grass, their faces wreathed with sweet smiles, like the happy shadows that wander through the Elysian fields.
Sometimes on a dark night I would venture into the streets of Paris, my hat drawn over my eyes to keep out the glare of gas. On one of these solitary rambles I met you. Imagine the courage I required not to rush into your open arms. I returned frequently along the quays, listening to the confused roar, like the distant swell of the ocean, made by the great city before falling to sleep, listening to the murmurs of the river and gazing at the moon like a burning disk from the furnace, slowly rising behind the towers of Notre Dame.
Often I prowled under the windows of my friends, stopping at yours to send you a good-night.
Returning home I would rekindle my fire and begin anew my labors, interrupted from time to time by the bells of the neighboring convents and the sound of the hours striking sadly in the darkness.
O! nights more beautiful than the day. It was then that I felt germinate and flourish in my heart a strange love.
Opposite me, beyond the garden that separated us, was a window, in a story on a level with mine; it was hid during the day by the tall pines, but its light shone clear and bright through the foliage. This lamp was lit invariably at the same hour every evening and was rarely extinguished before dawn. There, I thought, one of God's poor creatures works and suffers. Sometimes I rose from my desk to look at this little star twinkling between heaven and earth, and with my brow pressed against the pane gazed sadly at it.
In the beginning it excited me to watch, and I made it a point of honor never to extinguish my lamp as long as the rival lamp was burning; at last it became the friend of my solitude, the companion of my destiny. I ended by giving it a soul to understand and answer me. I talked to it; I questioned. I sometimes said, "Who art thou?"
Now I imagined a pale youth enamored with glory, and called him my brother. Then it was a young and lovely Antigone, laboring to sustain her old father, and I called her my sister, and by a sweeter name too. Finally, shall I tell you, there were moments when I fancied that the light of our fraternal lamps was but the radiance of two mysterious sympathies, drawn together to be blended into one.
One must have passed two years in solitude to be able to comprehend these puerilities. How many prisoners have become attached to some wall-flower, blooming between the bars of their cell, like the Marvel of Peru of the garden, which closes to the beams of day to open its petals to the kisses of the evening; the flower that I loved was a star. Anxiously I watched its awakening, and could not repose until it had disappeared. Did it grow dim and flicker, I cried—"Courage and hope! God blesses labor, he keeps for thee a purer and brighter seat in heaven!"
Did I in turn feel sad, it threw out a brighter light and a voice said, "Hope, friend, I watch and suffer with thee!" No! I cannot but believe now that between that lamp and mine there passed an electric current, by which two hearts, created for each other, communicated with and understood their mutual pulsations. Of course I tried to find the house and room from whence shone my beloved light, but each day I received a new direction that contradicted the one they gave before; so I concluded that the occupant of this room had an object, like myself, in concealment, and I respected his secret.
Thus my life glided by—so much happiness lasted too short a time!
The gods and goddesses of Olympus had a messenger named Iris, who carried their billets-doux from star to star. We mortals have a fairy in our employ that leaves Iris far behind; this fairy is called the post; dwell upon the summit of Tschamalouri, and some fine morning you will see the carrier arrive with his box upon his shoulder, and a letter to your address. One evening, on returning from one of those excursions I told you of, I found at my porter's a letter addressed to me. I never receive letters without a feeling of terror. This, the only one in two years, had a formidable look; the envelope was covered with odd-looking signs, and the seal of every French consulate in the East; under this multitude of stamps was written in large characters—"In haste—very important." The square of paper I held in my hand had been in search of me from Paris to Jerusalem, and from consulate to consulate, had returned from Jerusalem to Paris, to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. There they had let loose some blood-hounds of the police, who with their usual instinct followed my tracks and discovered my abode in less than a day.
I glanced first at the signature, and saw Frederick's name; I vow, unaffectedly, that for two years I had not thought of his affairs, and his letter brought me the first news of him.
After a preamble, devoted entirely to the expression of an exaggerated gratitude, Frederick announced with a flourish of trumpets, that Fortune had made magnificent reparation for her wrongs to him; he had saved his honor and strengthened his tottering credit. From which time forward he had prospered beyond his wildest hopes. In a few months he gained, by a rise in railroad stocks, fabulous sums. He concluded with the information that, having interested me in his fortunate speculations, my capital was doubled, and that I now possessed a clear million, which I owed to no one. At the end of this letter, bristling with figures and terms that savoured of money, were a few simple, touching lines from Frederick's wife, which went straight to my heart, and brought tears to my eyes.
When I had read the letter through, I took a long survey of my little room, where I had lived so happily; then, sitting upon the sill of the open window, whence I could see my faithful star shine peacefully in the darkness, I remained until morning, absorbed in sad and melancholy thoughts.
Fortune has its duties as well as poverty.Comme noblesse, fortune exige.
If I were really so rich, I could not, ought not to live as I had done. After a few days, I went to Frederick, who believed that I had suddenly been brought from Jerusalem by his letter, and I allowed him to rest in that belief, not wishing to add to a gratitude that already seemed excessive.
Excuse the particulars, I was a veritable millionaire; I call Heaven to witness that my first impulse was to go in search of my beloved beacon, to relieve, if possible, the unfortunate one to whom it gave light.
But then I thought so industrious a being was certainly proud, and I paused, fearing to offend a noble spirit.
One month later, a night in May, I saw extinguished one by one, the thousand lights of the neighboring houses. Two single lamps burned in the gloom; they were the two old friends. For some time I stood gazing at the bright ray shining through the foliage, and when I felt upon my brow the first chill of the morning breeze, I cried in my saddened heart,
"Farewell! farewell, little star, benign ray, beloved companion of my solitude! At this hour to-morrow, my eyes will seek but find thee not. And thou, whosoever thou art, working and suffering by that pale gleam, adieu, my sister! adieu, my brother! pursue thy destiny, watch and pray; may God shorten the time of thy probation."
I bade also to my little room, not an eternal farewell, for I have kept it since, and will keep it all my life. I do not wish that while I live strangers shall scare away such a covey of beautiful dreams as I left in that humble nest.
To see it again is one of the liveliest pleasures that my return to Paris offers. I shall find everything in the same order as when I left; but will the little star shine from the same corner of the heavens?
Thanks to Frederick's care my affairs were in order, and I set out immediately for Rome, because when one is expected from the end of the world one must at least return from somewhere.
Such is, dear Edgar, the history of my journeys and my love affairs. Keep them sacred. We are all so worthless, that, when one of us does some good by chance, he should remain silent for fear of humiliating his neighbor.
My health once established, I shall go to my mountains of Creuse and then come to you. Do not expect me until July; at that time Don Quixote will make his appearance under the apple trees of Richeport, provided, however, he is not caught up on this route by Lady Penock or some windmill.
RAYMOND DE VILLIERS.