... I suppose you are having about the same weather that we are enjoying—that is to say, perfectly lovely, and that you are no longer suffering from excessive dampness, which is the unfortunate feature of P. Here, the early summer is ravishing. I went, day before yesterday, to the Bois de Boulogne, where I saw the most stunning costumes. I met one very beautiful woman, dressed in an extraordinary fashion, and whose hair was a lovely gold-colour. I could have sworn that she was a young woman from the rue de Breda, but I came to recognise her as the wife of a general. Her hair formerly was a dark chestnut. Customs are making singular progress.
A well-known society man was living in marital relations with the wife of another man. Returning to his apartment one day, he found her there with a third man. Upon this, he went to the husband, and said to him: “I know that you wish to have proofs of criminal intercourse, in order that you may obtain a divorce from your wife. I bring you these proofs.” He left with him a package of letters, and they separated, with expressions of mutual esteem. It does not appear that he has been expelled from his club, or excluded from any salon to which he has had access.
M. Tourguenieff has just sent me a very short, but very pretty novel, entitled The Brigadier. It is now being translated, and if the proofs are sent to me, I will share them with you. English novels are getting to be so horribly dull that I can not take to them. Here, it seems that there is no one but M. Penson de Terrail, but his stories are too short.
I expect to go to London by the end of the month. I hope to see you in Hastings and in Paris, towards the end of July. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCCIX
Château de Fontainebleau, August 4, 1868.
Dear Friend: I have been here about a fortnight, feeling tolerably well, and finding absolute idleness good for body and mind. Our last walk left me a sweet memory. Is it so with you? Here, I walk a little, read less, and breathe fairly well. It is a pleasure to look at the sky and the trees.
There is no one at the château, or, rather, not more than thirty persons, of whom the only outsiders, besides myself, are several cousins of the empress, both ladies and gentlemen, and very agreeable people, whom I met in Madrid.
I kept for you a copy of the second edition of Smoke. On my return to Paris, in a week, I think, I will leave it at your house, or, if you prefer, I will send it.
I brought with me my materials for work; but as one is never certain of having an hour to himself, I have accomplished nothing at all. I made a copy of a portrait of Diana of Poitiers, by Primatice. She is represented as Diana holding a quiver, and it is evident that she has posed, for from head to foot everything shows the portrait. If I dare say so, there results even from an examination of the legs, that she wore her garters above the knee, after the fashion of the time. It is no longer the fashion now (so I have been told). I will show it to you, for this portrait has an historical value.