Do not fancy that you are the only one who does errands. I have run all over Paris buying gowns and hats, and I have an engagement next Wednesday to select a rococo shepherdess costume. All this is for Madame de M.’s two daughters. Give me your advice. What sort of costumes should they have for a masquerade ball? A Scotch and a Cracovian costume are now on the way. I have one shepherdess dress, but I need still another disguise. Here is their description: the elder is a pale brunette, not quite so tall as you, very pretty and vivacious; the younger is quite tall, and fair, an unusually handsome girl, with the sort of hair that Titian adored. I should like to have her go as a shepherdess, with powdered hair. What would you advise for the other?
I ask myself why you seem to me to be more beautiful than ever, and am unable to find a satisfactory answer. Is it because your expression is less startled than it was? Yet, the last time I saw you you reminded me of a bird that had just been caged. You have seen me under three aspects. I know of but two of yours—when you are terrified, and again with a sort of radiant defiance which I have seen on no face but yours.
You accuse me unfairly of being fond of society. I have been out but one evening in a fortnight, and that was to call on my minister. I found all the women in mourning, several of them wearing mantillas—no, not mantillas, but black beards which made them resemble Spanish women. I thought it was very pretty. I am strangely depressed and morose. I should like to pick a quarrel with you, but do not know what to quarrel about. You ought to write me a kind and sympathetic letter. I should try to imagine how you looked as you wrote it, and that would comfort me.
Does my novel interest you? Then read the end of the second volume, Mr. Yellowplush. It is a fairly good caricature, in my opinion. Good-bye. Write to me soon.
I reopen my letter to beg you to observe that the weather has the appearance of clearing.
XLVII
Paris, Sunday, February 11, 1843.
I am not quite sure whether I should believe implicitly all that your letter tells me of your indisposition, and of the affairs that detain you. Among all the pleasant things that you say, I think it is clear that you are not particularly anxious to see me. Am I mistaken, or is it that I am so unaccustomed to your soft words that I can not believe them true? Tuesday, shall you be well, shall you be unengaged, shall you be as sweet-tempered as you were last Wednesday? The weather yesterday afternoon was superb; perhaps we shall be as fortunate next Tuesday, if my barometer does not deceive me.
I have something for you, which you will probably think very silly. Since seeing you I have run around considerably, and have played a number of Academic tricks. I am not in good practice, which is to my disadvantage, but I believe I can soon pick it up again. To-day I have visited five illustrious writers of poems or prose, and if night had not overtaken me I am not sure that I could not have finished up my thirty-six visits at a single stretch. It is ludicrous when rivals happen to meet. Some of them look at me as if they would like to eat me alive. I am, indeed, thoroughly worn out with all these dutycalls, and it would be delightful to forget them all during an hour spent with you.