As he could not be anything else, he accepted the role of prompter, and promised all the help he could give. When I went to the Empress's tea this afternoon I took those questions Aunt M* sent me from America. You know them. You have to write what your favorite virtues are, and if you were not yourself, who you would like to be, and so forth.
I was glad to have something new and original which might amuse people. The Empress, seeing the papers in my hand, asked me what they were. I told her that they were some questions: a new intellectual pastime just invented in America.
"Do they invent intellectual pastimes in America?" she asked, looking at me with a smile. "I thought they only invented money-making."
"They do that, too," I replied; "but they have also invented these questions, which probe the mind to the marrow and unveil the soul."
She laughed and said, "Do you wish me to unveil my soul, comme cela, à l'improviste?"
I answered, "Perhaps your Majesty will look at them at your leisure. I hardly dare to ask the Emperor; but if he would also look at them I should be so happy."
"Leave them with me, and to-morrow we will see; in any case my soul is not prepared to-day."
So I left the papers with her.
It is the fashion this year for ladies to wear lockets on a black-velvet ribbon around their necks. The more lockets you can collect and wear, the finer you are. Each locket represents an event, such as a birthday, a bet, an anniversary of any kind, and so forth. Any excuse is good for the sending of a locket. The Empress had seventeen beautiful ones to-day (I counted them). They have a rather cannibalish look, I think. Is it not in Hayti (or in which country is it?) that the black citizens wear their rivals' teeth as trophies on their black necks?
Who should offer me his arm for dinner to night but Prosper Mérimée, the lion of lions, the pampered poet, who entrances all those who listen to him whenever he opens his lips.