"'Those which differ from mine. He finds me too democratic.'
"And mechanics do not buy romances, thought I. 'Does the Revue Indépendante make good progress?'
"'Very considerable, for a young periodical.'"
And so on for a couple of pages. But George Sand was on her guard, and stuck to generalities. She would not allow her visitor to draw her out, as he would gladly have done. She had been already too much gossiped about and calumniated in print. She had an intuitive perception of the approaching danger. She nosed the intended book. Nevertheless, and although reserved, she was very amiable; talked about the drama—when Mr Gutzkow, remembering her unsuccessful play of Cosima, tried to change the subject—inquired after Bettina, spoke respectfully of Germany—of which, however, she does not profess to know any thing—and even smoked a cigar.
"George Sand laid aside her work, arranged the fire, and lighted one of those innocent cigars which contain more paper than tobacco, more coquetry than emancipation. I was now able, for the first time, to obtain a good view of her features. She is like her portraits, but less stout and round than they make her. She has a look of Bettina. Since that time she has grown larger.
"'Who translates me in Germany?'
"'Fanny Tarnow, who styles her translations bearbeitungen.'
"'Probably she omits the so-called immoral passages.'
"She spoke this with great irony. I did not answer, but glanced at her daughter, who cast down her eyes. The pause that ensued was of a second, but it expressed the feelings of an age."
Although Mr Gutzkow's visits to Paris were each but of a few weeks' duration, and notwithstanding that he had much to do, many persons to call upon and things to see, he now and then felt himself upon the brink of ennui. This especially in the evenings, which, he says, would be insupportable without the theatres. To foreigners they certainly would be so, and to many Parisians. The theatre, the coffee-house, the reading-room, the unvarying and at last wearisome lounge on the boulevards, compose the resources of the stranger in Paris. Access to domestic circles he finds extremely difficult, rarely obtainable. Many imagine, on this account, that in Paris there is no such thing as domestic life, that the quiet evenings with books, music, and conversation, the fireside coteries so delightful in England and Germany, are unknown in the French metropolis. If not unknown, they are, at any rate, much rarer. "The stranger complains especially," says Mr Gutzkow, "that his letters of introduction carry him little further than the antechamber. He misses nothing so much as the opportunity of passing his evenings in familiar intercourse with some family who should admit him to their intimacy." This want is most perceptible at the season when Mr Gutzkow was at Paris, March and April, treacherous and rainy months, comprising Lent, during which Paris is comparatively dull, and when many persons, either from religious scruples or from weariness of winter and carnival gaieties, refuse parties, and cease to give their weekly or fortnightly soirées, often more agreeable as an habitual resort than balls and entertainments of greater pretensions. Mr Gutzkow complains bitterly of the bad weather. The climate of Paris is certainly the reverse of good. The heat oppressively great in summer, rain intolerably abundant for seven or eight months of the twelve. If London has its fogs, Paris has its deluge, and its consequences, oceans of mud, which, in the narrow streets of the French capital, are especially obnoxious. The Boulevards and the Rues de Rivoli and De la Paix are really the only places where one is tolerably secure from the splashing of coach and scavenger.