X.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN

to the

PRINCE DE MONBERT,

Saint Dominique Street, Paris.

RICHEPORT, June 3d, 18—

It seems, my dear Roger, that we are engaged in a game of interrupted addresses. For my Louise Guérin, like your Irene de Chateaudun, has gone I know not where, leaving me to struggle, in this land of apple trees, with an incipient passion which she has planted in my breast. Flight has this year become an epidemic among women.

The day after that famous soirée, I went to the post-office ostensibly to carry the letter containing those triumphant details, but in reality to see Louise, for any servant possessed sufficient intelligence to acquit himself of such a commission. Imagine my surprise and disappointment at finding instead of Madame Taverneau a strange face, who gruffly announced that the post-mistress had gone away for a few days with Madame Louise Guérin. The dove had flown, leaving to mark its passage a few white feathers in its mossy nest, a faint perfume of grace in this common-place mansion!

I could have questioned Madame Taverneau's fat substitute, but I am principled against asking questions; things are explained soon enough. Disenchantment is the key to all things. When I like a woman I carefully avoid all her acquaintance, any one who can tell me aught about her. The sound of her name pronounced by careless lips, puts me to flight; the letters that she receives might be given me open and I should throw them, unread, into the fire. If in speaking she makes any allusion to the past events of her life, I change the conversation; I tremble when she begins a recital, lest some disillusionizing incident should escape her which would destroy the impression I had formed of her. As studiously as others hunt after secrets I avoid them; if I have ever learned anything of a woman I loved, it has always been in spite of my earnest efforts, and what I have known I have carefully endeavored to forget.

Such is my system. I said nothing to the fat woman, but entered Louise's deserted chamber.

Everything was as she had left it.

A bunch of wild flowers, used as a model, had not had time to fade; an unfinished bouquet rested on the easel, as if awaiting the last touches of the pencil. Nothing betokened a final departure. One would have said that Louise might enter at any moment. A little black mitten lay upon a chair; I picked it up—and would have pressed it to my lips, if such an action had not been deplorably rococo.

Then I threw myself into an old arm-chair, by the side of the bed—like Faust in Marguerite's room—lifting the curtains with as much precaution as if Louise reposed beneath. You are going to laugh at me, I know, dear Roger, but I assure you, I have never been able to gaze upon a young girl's bed without emotion.

That little pillow, the sole confidant of timid dreams, that narrow couch, fitted like a tomb for but one alabaster form, inspired me with tender melancholy. No anacreontic thoughts came to me, I assure you, nor any disposition to rhyme in ette, herbette, filette, coudrette. The love I bear to noble poesy saved me from such an exhibition of bad taste.

A crucifix, over which hung a piece of blessed box, spread its ivory arms above Louise's untroubled slumber. Such simple piety touched me. I dislike bigots, but I detest atheists.

Musing there alone it flashed upon me that Louise Guérin had never been married, in spite of her assertion. I am disposed to doubt the existence of the late Albert Guérin. A sedate and austere atmosphere surrounds Louise, suggesting the convent or the boarding-school.

I went into the garden; the sunbeams checkered the steps of the porch; the wilted iris drooped on its stem, and the acacia flowers strewed the pathway. Apropos of acacia flowers, do you know, that fried in batter, they make excellent fritters? Finding myself alone in the walks where I had strolled with her, I do not know how it happened, but I felt my heart swell, and I sighed like a young abbé of the 17th century.

I returned to the château, having no excuse for remaining longer, vexed, disappointed, wearied, idle—the habit of seeing Louise every day had grown upon me.

And habit is everything to poor humanity, as that graceful poet Alfred de Musset says. My feet only know the way to the post-office; what shall I do with myself while this visit lasts? I tried to read, but my attention wandered; I skipped the lines, and read the same paragraph over twice; my book having fallen down I picked it up and read it for one whole hour upside down, without knowing it—I wished to make a monosyllabic sonnet—extremely interesting occupation—and failed. My quatrains were tedious, and my tercets entirely too diffuse.

My mother begins to be uneasy at my dullness; she has asked twice if I were sick—I have fallen off already a quarter of a pound; for nothing is more enraging than to be deserted at the most critical period of one's infatuation! Ixion of Normandy, my Juno is a screen-painter, I open my arms and clasp only a cloud! My position, similar to yours, cannot, however, be compared with it—mine only relates to a trifling flirtation, a thwarted fancy, while yours is a serious passion for a woman of your own rank who has accepted your hand, and therefore has no right to trifle with you,—she must be found, if only for vengeance!

Remorse consumes me because of my sentimental stupidity by moonlight. Had I profited by the night, the solitude and the occasion, Louise had not left me; she saw clearly that I loved her, and was not displeased at the discovery. Women are strange mixtures of timidity and rashness.

Perhaps she has gone to join her lover, some saw-bones, some counting-house Lovelace, while I languish here in vain, like Celadon or Lygdamis of cooing memory.

This is not at all probable, however, for Madame Taverneau would not compromise her respectability so far as to act as chaperon to the loves of Louise Guérin. After all, what is it to me? I am very good to trouble myself about the freaks of a prudish screen-painter! She will return, because the hired piano has not been sent back to Rouen, and not a soul in the house knows a note of music but Louise, who plays quadrilles and waltzes with considerable taste, an accomplishment she owes to her mistress of painting, who had seen better days and possessed some skill.

Do not be too much flattered by this letter of grievances, for I only wanted an excuse to go to the post-office to see if Louise has returned—suppose she has not! the thought drives the blood back to my heart.

Isn't it singular that I should fall desperately in love with this simple shepherdess—I who have resisted the sea-green glances and smiles of the sirens that dwell in the Parisian ocean? Have I escaped from the Marquise's Israelite turbans only to become a slave to a straw bonnet? I have passed safe and sound through the most dangerous defiles to be worsted in open country; I could swim in the whirlpool, and now drown in a fish-pond; every celebrated beauty, every renowned coquette finds me on my guard. I am as circumspect as a cat walking over a table covered with glass and china. It is hard to make me pose, as they say in a certain set; but when the adversary is not to be feared, I allow him so many advantages that in the end he subdues me.

I was not sufficiently on my guard with Louise at first.

I said to myself: "She is only a grisette"—and left the door of my heart open—love entered in, and I fear I shall have some trouble in driving him out.

Excuse, dear Roger, this nonsense, but I must write you something. After all, my passion is worth as much as yours. Love is the same whether inspired by an empress or a rope-dancer, and I am just as unhappy at Louise's disappearance as you are at Irene's.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN