Tales and Novels Volume VIII Part 54

I have found it! I have found it! dear Gabrielle, rejoice with me! I have solved the metaphysical problem, which perplexed me so cruelly, and now I am once more at peace with myself. I have discovered the reason why I cannot love Leonora as she merits to be loved--she has obliged me; and the nature of obligation is such, that it supposes superiority on one side, and consequently destroys the equality, the freedom, the ease, the charm of friends.h.i.+p. Grat.i.tude weighs upon one's heart in proportion to the delicacy of its feelings. To minds of an ordinary sort it may be pleasurable, for with them it is sufficiently feeble to be calm; but in souls of a superior cast, it is a poignant, painful sensation, because it is too strong ever to be tranquil. In short,

"'Tis bliss but to a certain bound-- Beyond, 'tis agony."

For my own part, the very dread that I shall not be thought to express enough, deprives me of the power to speak or even to feel. Fear, you know, extinguishes affection; and of all fears, the dread of not being sufficiently grateful, operates the most powerfully. Thus sensibility destroys itself.--Gracious Heaven! teach me to moderate mine.

In the nature of the obligation with which Leonora has oppressed my heart, there is something peculiarly humiliating. Upon my return to this country, I found the malignant genius of scandal bent upon destroying my reputation. You have no idea of the miserable force of prejudice which still prevails here. There are some women who emanc.i.p.ate themselves, but then unluckily they are not in sufficient numbers to keep each other in countenance in public. One would not choose to be confined to the society of people who cannot go to court, though sometimes they take the lead elsewhere. We are full half a century behind you in civilization; and your revolution has, I find, afforded all our stiffened moralists _incontrovertible_ arguments against liberty of opinion or conduct in either s.e.x.

I was thunderstruck when I saw the grave and repulsive faces of all my female acquaintance. At first I attributed every thing that was strange and disagreeable to English reserve, of which I had retained a sufficiently formidable idea: but I presently found that there was some other cause which kept all these nice consciences at a distance from my atmosphere.

Would you believe it? I saw myself upon the point of being quite excluded from good society. Leonora saved me from this imminent danger.

Voluntarily, and I must say n.o.bly, if not gracefully, Leonora came forward in my defence. Vanquis.h.i.+ng her natural English timidity, she braved the eyes, and tongues, and advice of all the prudes and old dowagers my enemies, amongst whom I may count the superannuated d.u.c.h.ess her mother, the proudest dowager now living. When I appeared in public with a personage of Leonora's unblemished reputation, scandal, much against her will, was forced to be silent, and it was to be taken for granted that I was, in the language of prudery, perfectly innocent.

Leonora, to be consistent in goodness, or to complete her triumph in the face of the world, invited me to accompany her to the country.--I have now been some weeks at this superb castle. Heaven is my witness that I came with a heart overflowing with affection; but the painful, the agonizing sense of humiliation mixed with my tenderest sentiments, and all became bitterness insufferable. Oh, Gabrielle! you, and perhaps you alone upon earth, can understand my feelings. Adieu!--pity me--I must not ask you a single question about--I must not write the name for ever dear--What am I saying? where are my promises?--Adieu!--Adieu!

Your unhappy

OLIVIA.

LETTER XVI.

MRS. C---- TO MISS B----.

July 16th.

As I have never thought it my duty in this mortal life to mourn for the absurdities of my fellow-creatures, I should now enjoy the pleasure of laughing at Lady Olivia, if my propensity were not checked by a serious apprehension that she will injure Leonora's happiness. From the most generous motives, dear Leonora is continually anxious to soothe her mind, to persuade and reason her into common sense, to re-establish her in public opinion, and to make her happy. But I am convinced that Lady Olivia never will have common sense, and consequently never can be happy. Twenty times a day I wish her at the antipodes, for I dread lest Leonora should be implicated in her affairs, and involved in her misery.

Last night this foolish woman, who unluckily is graced with all the power of words, poured forth a fine declamation in favour of divorce. In vain Leonora reasoned, expostulated, blushed. Lady Olivia cannot blush for herself; and though both Mr. L---- and I were present, she persisted with that vehemence which betrays personal interest in an argument. I suspect that she is going to try to obtain a divorce from her husband, that she may marry her lover. Consider the consequences of this for Leonora.--Leonora to be the friend of a woman who will risk the infamy of a trial at Doctors' Commons! But Leonora says I am mistaken, and that all this is only Olivia's way of talking. I wish then, that, if she does not intend to act like a fool, she would not talk like one. I agree with the gentleman who said that a woman who begins by playing the fool, always ends by playing the devil. Even before me, though I certainly never solicit her confidence, Lady Olivia talks with the most imprudent openness of her love affairs; not, I think, from ingenuousness, but from inability to restrain herself. Begin what subject of conversation I will, as far from Cupid as possible, she will bring me back again to him before I know where I am. She has no ideas but on this one subject.

Leonora, dear, kind-hearted Leonora, attributes this to the temporary influence of a violent pa.s.sion, which she a.s.sures me Olivia will conquer, and that then all her great and good qualities will, as if freed from enchantment, re-a.s.sume their natural vigour.

_Natural!_--there is nothing natural about this sophisticated lady. I wish Leonora would think more of herself, and less of other people. As to Lady Olivia's excessive sensibility, I have no faith in it. I do not think either the lover or the pa.s.sion so much to be feared for her, as the want of a lover and the habit of thinking that it is necessary to be in love. . . .

Yours affectionately,

HELEN C----.

LETTER XVII.

GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.

MY DEAR L----, Paris, Hotel de Courlande,

When you ask a countryman in England the way to the next town, he replies, "Where do you come from, master?" and till you have answered this question, no information can you obtain from him. You ask me what I know of Lady Olivia ----. What is your reason for asking? Till you have answered this question, hope for no information from me. Seriously, Lady Olivia had left Paris before I arrived, therefore you cannot have my judgment of her ladys.h.i.+p, which I presume is all you could depend upon. If you will take hearsay evidence, and if you wish me to speak to general character, I can readily satisfy you. Common reputed, loud and unanimous in favour of her talents, beauty, and fas.h.i.+on: there is no resisting, I am told, the fascination of her manners and conversation; _but_ her opinions are fas.h.i.+onably liberal, and her practice as liberal as her theories. Since her separation from her husband, her lover is publicly named. Some English friends plead in her favour platonic attachment: this, like benefit of clergy, is claimed of course for a first offence: but Lady Olivia's Parisian acquaintance are not so scrupulous or so old-fas.h.i.+oned as to think it an offence; they call it an _arrangement_, and to this there can be no objection. As a French gentleman said to me the other day, with an unanswerable shrug, "Tout le monde sait que R---- est son amant; d'ailleurs, c'est la femme la plus aimable du monde."

As to Lady Olivia's friend, Mad. de P----, she sees a great deal of company: her house is the resort of people of various descriptions; ministers, foreigners, coquettes, and generals; in short, of all those who wish, without scandal or suspicion, to intrigue either in love or politics. Her a.s.semblies are also frequented by a few of _l'ancien regime_, who wish to be in favour with the present government. Mad.

de P----, of a n.o.ble family herself, and formerly much at court, has managed matters so as to have regained all her husband's confiscated property, and to have acquired much influence with some of the leading men of the day. In her manners and conversation there is an odd mixture of frivolity and address, of the airs of coquetry and the jargon of sentiment. She has the politeness of a French Countess, with _exquisite_ knowledge of the world and of _les convenances_, joined to that freedom of opinion which marks the present times. In the midst of all these inconsistencies, it is difficult to guess what her real character may be. At first sight I should p.r.o.nounce her to be a silly woman, governed by vanity and the whim of the moment: but those who know her better than I do, believe her to be a woman of considerable talents, inordinately fond of power, and uniformly intent upon her own interest, using coquetry only as a means to govern our s.e.x, and frivolity as a mask for her ambition. In short, Mad. de P---- is a perfect specimen of the combination of an _intrigante_ and an _elegante_, a combination often found in Paris. Here women mingle politics and gallantry--men mix politics and epicurism--which is the better mixture?

I have business of importance to my country to transact to-day, _therefore_ I am going to dine with the modern Apicius. Excuse me, my dear friend, if I cannot stay at present to answer your questions about divorce. I must be punctual. What sort of a negotiator can he make who is too late at a minister's dinner? Five minutes might change the face of Europe.

Yours truly,

J. B.

LETTER XVIII.

MADAME DE P---- TO OLIVIA.

Paris.

My incomparable Olivia! your letters are absolutely divine. I am _maussade_, I _vegetate_. I cannot be said to live the days when I do not hear from you. Last Thursday I was disappointed of one of these dear letters, and _Brave-et-tendre_ told me frankly, that I was so little amiable he should not have known me.--As to the rest, pardon me for not writing punctually: I have been really in a chaos of business and pleasure, and I do not know which fatigues most. But I am obliged to attend the ministers every day, for the sake of my friends.

A thousand and a thousand thanks for your pictures of your English friends: sketches by a masterly hand must be valuable, whatever the subject. I would rather have the pictures than the realities. Your Helen and your Lady Leonora are too good for me, and I pity you from my soul for being shut up in that old castle. I suppose it is like an old castle in Dauphiny, where I once spent a week, and where I was nearly frightened to death by the flapping of the old tapestry behind my bed, and by the bats which flew in through the broken windows. They say, however, that our _chateaux_ and yours are something different. Of this I have no clear conception.

I send you three comforters in your prison--a billet-doux, a new novel, and a pattern of my sandal: a billet-doux from R---- says every thing for itself; but I must say something for the new novel. Zen.o.bie, which I now send you, is the declared rival of Seraphin. Parties have run high on both sides, and applications were made and inuendoes discovered, and wit and sentiment came to close combat; and, as usual, people talked till they did not understand themselves. For a fortnight, wherever one went, the first words to be heard on entering every _salon_ were Seraphine and Zen.o.bie.--Peace or war.--Mlle. Georges and Mlle.

d.u.c.h.esnois were nothing to Seraphine and Zen.o.bie. For Heaven's sake tell me which you prefer! But I fear they will be no more talked of before I have your answer. To say the truth, I am tired of both heroines, for a fortnight is too long to talk or think of any one thing.

I flatter myself you will like my sandals: they are my own invention, and my foot really shows them to advantage. You know I might say, as Du P----said of himself, "J'ai un pied dont la pet.i.tesse echappe a la vitesse de la pensee." I thought my poor friend Mad. Dumarais would have died with envy, the other day, when I appeared in them at her ball, which, by-the-bye, was in all its decorations as absurd and in as bad taste as usual. For the most part these _nouveaux riches_ lavish money, but can never purchase taste or a sense of propriety. All is gold: but that is not enough; or rather that is too much. In spite of all that both the Indies, China, Arabia, Egypt, and even Paris can do for them, they will be ever out of place, in the midst of their magnificence: they will never even know how to ruin themselves n.o.bly. They must live and die as they were born, ridiculous. Now I would rather not exist than feel myself ridiculous. But I believe no one living, not even le pet.i.t d'Heronville, knows himself to be an object of ridicule. There are no looking-gla.s.ses for the mind, and I question whether we should use them if there were. D'Heronville is just as you left him, and as much my amus.e.m.e.nt as he used to be yours. He goes on with an eternal galimatias of patriotism, with such a self-sufficient air and decided tone! never suspecting that he says only what other people make him say, and that he is listened to, only to find out what _some people_ think. Many will say before fools, what they would not hazard before wise men; not considering that fools can repeat as well as parrots. I once heard a great man remark, that the only spies fit to be trusted are those who do not know themselves to be such; who have no salary but what their vanity pays them, and who are employed without being accredited.

But treve de politique!--My charming Olivia, I know, abhors politics, as much as I detest metaphysics, from all lips or pens but hers. Now I must tell you something of your friends here.

O---- talks nonsense as agreeably as ever, and dances as divinely. 'Tis a pity he cannot always dance, for then he would not ruin himself at play. He wants me to get him a regiment--as if I had any power!--or as if I would use it for this purpose, when I knew that my interesting friend Mad. Q----would break her poor little heart if he were to quit her.

_Mon Coeur_ is as pretty as ever; but she is now in affliction. She has lost her dear little dog Corisonde. He died suddenly; almost in her arms! She will erect a monument to him in her charming _jardin Anglois_.

This will occupy her, and then "Time, the comforter"--Inimitable Voltaire!

Our dear _Brillante_ has just had a superb _hommage_ from her lover the commissary--a necklace and bracelets of the finest; pearls: but she cannot wear them yet: her brother having died last week, she is in deep mourning. This brother was not upon good terms with her. He never forgave the divorce. He thought it a disgrace to have a sister _une divorcee_; but he was full of prejudice, poor man, and he is dead, and we need think no more of him or of his faults.

Our ci-devant chanoine, who married that little Meudon, is as miserable as possible, and as ridiculous: for he is jealous of his young wife, and she is a _franche-coquette_. The poor man looks as if he repented sincerely of his errors. What a penitent a coquette can make of a husband! Bourdaloue and Ma.s.sillon would have tried their powers on this man's heart in vain.

Did I tell you that Mad. G---- is a second time divorced? But this time it is her husband's doing, not hers. This handsome husband has spent all the immense fortune she brought him, and now procures a divorce for _incompatibility of temper_, and is going to marry another lady, richer than Mad. G----, and as great a fool. This system of divorce, though convenient, is not always advantageous to women. However, in one point of view, I wonder that the rigid moralists do not defend it, as the only means of making a man in love with his own wife. A man divorces; the law does not permit him to marry the same woman afterwards; of course this prohibition makes him fall in love with her. Of this we have many edifying examples besides Fanchette, who, though she was so beautiful, and a tolerable actress, would never have drawn all Paris to the Vaudeville if she had not been a _divorcee_, and if it had not been known that her husband, who played the lover of the piece, was dying to marry her again. Apropos, Mad. St. Germain is acting one of her own romances, in the high sublime style, and threatens to poison herself for love of her perjured inconstant--but it will not do.

Madame _la Grande_ was near having a sad accident the other night: in crossing the Pont-neuf her horses took fright; for there was a crowd and _embarras_, a man having just drowned himself--not for love, but for hunger. How many men, women, and children, do you think drowned themselves in the Seine last year? Upwards of two hundred. This is really shocking, and a stop should be put to it by authority. It absolutely makes me shudder and reflect; but _apres nous le deluge_ was La Pompadour's maxim, and should be ours.

Mad. Folard _se coiffe en cheveux_, and Mad. Rocroix crowns herself with roses, whilst all the world knows that either of them is old enough to be my mother. In former days a woman could not wear flowers after thirty, and was _bel esprit_ or _devote_ at forty, for it was thought bad taste to do otherwise. But now every body may be as young as they please, or as ridiculous. Women have certainly gained by the new order of things.

Our poor friend _Vermeille_ se meurt de la poitrine--a victim to tea and late hours. She is an interesting creature, and my heart bleeds for her: she will never last till winter.

Do you know, it is said, we shall soon have no wood to burn. What can have become of all our forests? People should inquire after them. The Venus de Medici has at last found her way down the Seine. It is not determined yet where to place her: but she is at Paris, and that is a great point gained for her. You complained that the Apollo stands with his back so near the wall, that there is no seeing half the beauties of his shoulders. If I have any influence, Venus shall not be so served. I have been to see her. She is certainly divine--but not French. I do not despair of seeing her surpa.s.sed by our artists.

Adieu, my adorable Olivia. I should have finished my letter yesterday; but when I came home in the morning, expecting to have a moment sacred to you and friends.h.i.+p, whom should I find established in an arm-chair in my cabinet but our old Countess _Cidevant_. There was no retreat for me. In the midst of my concentrated rage, I was obliged to advance and embrace her, and there was an end of happiness for the day. The pitiless woman kept me till it was even too late to dress, talking over her family misfortunes; as if they were any thing to me. She wants to get her son employed, but her pride will not let her pay her court properly, and she wants me to do it for her. Not I, truly. I should shut my doors against her but for the sake of her nephew _le roue_, who is really a pretty young man. My angel, I embrace you tenderly.