I scanned the two documents eagerly, one covered with Boose's strong, vigorous writing, the other adorned with those long feminine characters which indicate a temperament more prone to reflection than action. I was deeply moved by this letter of the German Grand Duke, who now rested beyond the seas in the hot clay of the Congo, between the glowing boundaries of the tropics. Mere contact with it conjured up a startlingly clear vision of her to whom it was written. Aurora of Lautenburg stood before us. I felt as if I had known her for ages.
Vignerte turned off the light and the rectangle of night sky reappeared. I handed back the papers. He continued.
Brunetière, speaking of the Lettres de Dupuis et de Colonet, says that they show less actual wit than a striving after wit. And that is more or less true of all Musset's work. Reverse that saying, and you have the best possible description of the Grand Duchess's conversation. That proud woman was always aptness itself. She was an exceptional being, and consequently what she said had always a quality of its own. Her judgments were severe, perhaps, but never pretentious or bookish.
She avoided the commonplace as the cat avoids water.
I had no idea how much she knew or what she liked, so the three books I took her that evening were Le Voyage du Condotière, Les Eblouissements, Les Evocations.
Next morning she gave me them back.
"I've read them all," she said, "but your selection was not a bad one. I see you like poetry."
Several books lay on a sofa. She picked one up and handed it to me.
"It is the Caucasian Review, which is published at Tiflis, and there is more beauty in these rude pages and simple tales of travel in unforgettable lands than in most of your modern poets. This is the rare spring to which the poets of tomorrow will come to drink."
She continued: