Unfortunately, as a rule, the traveller on life’s journey has but as short a time to stay in the pleasant green resting-places, as the wanderer through the desert. In September Mary followed Imlay to Paris. But the gates of her Eden were forever barred. Before the end of the month he had bidden her farewell and had gone to London. Against the fascination of money-making, her charms had little chance. His estrangement dates from this separation. When Mary met him again, he had forgotten love and honor, and had virtually deserted her. While her affection became stronger, his weakened until finally it perished altogether.
Her confidence in him, however, was confirmed by the months spent at Havre, and she little dreamed his departure was the prelude to their final parting. For a time she was lighter-hearted than she had ever before been while he was away. The memory of her late happiness reassured her. Her little girl was an unceasing source of joy, and she never tired of writing to Imlay about her. Her maternal tenderness overflows in her letters:—
“... You will want to be told over and over again,” she said in one of them, not doubting his interest to be as great as her, “that our little Hercules is quite recovered.
“Besides looking at me, there are three other things which delight her: to ride in a coach, to look at a scarlet waistcoat, and hear loud music. Yesterday at the fête she enjoyed the two latter; but, to honor J. J. Rousseau, I intend to give her a sash, the first she has ever had round her....”
In a second, she writes:—
“I have been playing and laughing with the little girl so long, that I cannot take up my pen to address you without emotion. Pressing her to my bosom, she looked so like you (entre nous, your best looks, for I do not admire your commercial face), every nerve seemed to vibrate to her touch, and I began to think that there was something in the assertion of man and wife being one, for you seemed to pervade my whole frame, quickening the beat of my heart, and lending me the sympathetic tears you excited.”
And in still another, she exclaims:—
“My little darling is indeed a sweet child; and I am sorry that you are not here to see her little mind unfold itself. You talk of ‘dalliance,’ but certainly no lover was ever more attached to his mistress than she is to me. Her eyes follow me everywhere, and by affection I have the most despotic power over her. She is all vivacity or softness. Yes; I love her more than I thought I should. When I have been hurt at your stay, I have embraced her as my only comfort; when pleased with her, for looking and laughing like you; nay, I cannot, I find, long be angry with you, whilst I am kissing her for resembling you. But there would be no end to these details. Fold us both to your heart.”
As the devout go on pilgrimage to places once sanctified by the presence of a departed saint, so she visited alone the haunts of the early days of their love, living over again the incidents which had made them sacred. “My imagination,” she told him, “... chooses to ramble back to the barrier with you, or to see you coming to meet me and my basket of grapes. With what pleasure do I recollect your looks and words, when I have been sitting on the window, regarding the waving corn.” She begged him to bring back his “barrier face,” as she thus fondly recalled their interviews at the barrier. She told him of a night passed at Saint Germains in the very room which had once been theirs, and, glowing with these recollections, she warned him, that if he should return changed in aught, she would fly from him to cherish remembrances which must be ever dear to her. Occasionally a little humorous pleasantry interrupted the more tender outpourings in her letters. Just as, according to Jean Paul, a man can only afford to ridicule his religion when his faith is firm, so it was only when her confidence in Imlay was most secure that she could speak lightly of her love. To the reader of her life, who can see the snake lurking in the grass, her mirth is more tragical than her grief. On the 26th of October, Imlay having now been absent for over a month, she writes:—
“I have almost charmed a judge of the tribunal, R., who, though I should not have thought it possible, has humanity, if not beaucoup d’esprit. But, let me tell you, if you do not make haste back, I shall be half in love with the author of the Marseillaise, who is a handsome man, a little too broad-faced or so, and plays sweetly on the violin.