Luxor.
I am uneasy about Jeanne. She is strung up to a state of enthusiasm which alienates me. Is it travelling that has developed her, or are her hitherto dormant abilities awakening? We are simply travelling to kill time, but she takes everything with the same tremendous seriousness as that day in Berlin when she first heard Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She regards me as if it were long ago an accepted fact that we each exist for ourselves, alone in our separate worlds. She skips half the meals to roam about among the temples. To-night we sat on top of the great pylon and watched the sun go down. For me it was just like a beautiful decorative effect at the theatre. I couldn’t help thinking of “Aïda.” She wouldn’t come in when I did, and when I suggested that the night air was chilly she answered quite snappishly, “I wish to see the moon illumine the classic sea.” Of course, I left her alone, but I couldn’t sleep, and at about midnight I heard her come back. My door was open, and I called her in. She sat down on the end of my bed and was crying. What can be the matter with her?
I am not going to torment her with questions. She shall be free to come and go as she chooses—so long as she spares me the paeans of an enthusiasm which I cannot share. It is all very well here but I prefer myself in the Paris boulevards, Unter den Linden, and Bond Street. I feel so poverty-stricken when I see others full of emotional élan.
Yes, that is it. That is why I am nervous about Jeanne’s enthusiasm for art. She reminds me of old days when Malthe, in my yellow room looking over the market-place, told me of his travels, and I deluded myself into imagining I understood what he was talking about....
And so this phase has come to an end, too! I had quite thought that Jeanne had sold herself to me for life. But it was not to be, after all. I might have prevented it. Perhaps she was waiting for a word from me. Still, it is best that we should part. Let her put her abilities to the test, by all means. She will soon have had enough of work, and I am in a position of being able to wait. Now I shall go to America, and if I find that bores me, too, God only knows if I shan’t give in and accept the Brazilian. His method of courtship, at least, is as systematic as a persecution. And at bottom I am flattered, that still—still; but for how much longer? I am deemed desirable. I ask myself in moments of doubt whether I should be even that, without the aid of Poiret and Worth.
Dear Jeanne,—Little travelling companion.
So our paths separate—temporarily, or for ever—neither of us can say which. But I feel that it is best to part, and I am not at all sad or hurt. Two years is a good long time for two people to have lived together, and we have both derived some profit from those years. For me the profit lies also in their coming to an end, for you that you have found life worth living. As I said before, I strongly advise you to go through the whole training, which will prove whether you have creative talent, or your art is merely suited to commercial purposes. I shouldn’t be surprised, indeed, if you became a designer of buildings—architect is, I suppose, too ambitious a word to apply to a woman—and as Greek and Egyptian temples are likely to be your speciality, you are hardly destined to be popular.
Now we have discussed all the practical points. I think you know that I wish you absolutely to enjoy your time in Paris. Enjoy it to the full, but don’t commit any irrevocable follies!
You will get these lines from London, where I am amusing myself by a short obesity cure. Imagine us fencing, like small children in black satin knickerbockers and white sweaters! Several ladies from Court take part in the “class.” Afterwards we have a brisk but delightful hip-massage, and that alone makes it worth the trouble. Directly I am satisfied with the slimness of my exterior, I start for New York. You were never very happy over there, but for me that city has a peculiar fascination. I don’t know myself what it consists in.