My Memoirs. Marguerite Steinheil

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СКАЧАТЬ hardly been in the room a few minutes, before there entered the French General de Chalandar, who had written on the "Hussards de Chamboran." Now, each had sent the other a copy of his book, and so the two had become great friends, by post, but this was their first meeting.

      The two men stood face to face, both very tall and athletic.

      "General de Chalandar, General Eletz," I said, introducing them.

      "What... Hussar of the Guard?" asked the one.

      "What... Hussar of Chamboran?" asked the other, and the two delighted giants shook hands for fully ten minutes in the most ardent and energetic manner.... Then suddenly, General Eletz turned pale, staggered, and collapsed. My mother and I attended to him, and when he had sufficiently recovered, he drove away, without telling us the cause of his collapse.

      I found it out afterwards. He had stopped a runaway horse half an hour before calling on me, and had been dragged along for some distance. His shoulders and his knees had been badly injured, but he had promised to come, and after brushing off the dust, he came.... But the ten minutes hand-shaking had been too much for him.

      Of all these foreigners, my sympathy went out, above all, to the Russians, because I found them brave, intelligent, and kind; to the Americans on account of their straightforwardness, and their delightful disregard of conventionalities; and to the English, because of their healthy minds and their stolidity, which was often refreshing and soothing to me in my restless life.

      For over fifteen years, then, from my marriage to the fatal date of May 30th-31st, 1908, I experienced that peculiar sensation which you cannot easily do without when once you have known it, the sensation which comes from being always surrounded by many people, from having near you scores of friends (and a few enemies too), day after day, until solitude becomes unthinkable—as distant and fanciful a notion as that of life on a desert isle—from hearing every day something fresh or unexpected, from constantly renewing your little stock of knowledge, the sensation of unending giving and taking.

      Whether you wish it or not, you wear your mind, your nerves, your heart and your vitality; and you receive in return thoughts, suggestions, ideas, and often genuine sympathy. You belong less and less to yourself and more and more to others, to what is called le monde.... Sometimes you receive less than you give, and you return home exhausted from a soirée at which you have talked, struggled, conquered, advised, persuaded, consoled—and also sung and played, and listened; and if you are not too tired to think about it all, you say to yourself: I am the dupe, not only of life, but of my own heart. I wear myself away for others, and when I come back and cry out to my heart for admittance, I find that I cannot enter and be alone with myself. You must be selfish to live happily—or even to live—at all....

      But the next day, after all too short a night, how eagerly you take up and open the letters the maid brings you—often a whole tray full of them—and how your heart thrills once more to the world as you read....

      Three invitations to dinner... and one of them says, "Please bring some songs with you, the great So and So will accompany you."... A lady friend begs me to come to tea that very afternoon, she needs my advice, something dreadful has happened.... A member of my family, a functionary, has lost his temper; will I see his Minister and save him.... Mme. Z. gambled and lost... heavily; what is she to do?... My dear mother feels lonely. Will I come to Beaucourt for a few days?... Marthe's governess is ill; will I find some one to replace her for a week or two?... I am reminded that there is a reception at the English Embassy, I must not forget to come.... My friend Mustel relies on me to come and listen to his new organ, an orchestra, a marvel.... The Duchess of Y. is impatiently waiting for those fifty children's dresses I said I would send for her "ouvroir."... My dressmaker will come at four.... Mme. C. writes she'll call at two to take me to the Geographical Society, where her husband, who has recently returned from a perilous expedition, will lecture. She'll never forgive me if I don't come.... And here are letters from poor people I know.... A mother's appeal for her starving children, an old workman who has lost his job... he hails from Beaucourt, and years ago worked on my father's estate.... Two poor girls to whom I often give some sewing to do, are dangerously ill.... And there is the rehearsal of an oratorio at the Temple, and a sale of old silver which I have promised to attend with the newly-married Countess de M. who knows nothing about old silver, and wants to learn, because her husband collects.... And here comes my darling Marthe: "Mother, do spend the whole day with your little girl... please!"...

      How I would love to!

      What a life! I feel like the owner and captain of a ship. I have built it; I have launched it on unknown seas, and have started upon an expedition to the land of Nowhere.... Society-life has no object since it has itself as object.... And yet I feel I cannot desert my ship, if only because I sometimes pick up a shipwrecked sister or a drowning brother, and because I have lost my bearings....

      What a life! You sigh, you complain, and then comes the reaction.... I have wasted a precious half-hour dreaming, lamenting. "Quick! Clotilde! my tailor-made dress, the navy-blue one, my toque and a pair of gloves. It is already ten o'clock. I shall never manage to do all I must do to-day!"

      Of course, they are not real duties these "Society" duties but you do them more or less conscientiously and always with energy—for you are in a hurry! And meanwhile you neglect the other duties, the real ones, including the duties to yourself.... That is Parisian life. And when you have tasted its exquisite poison you cannot do without it, no more than a "Society queen" (Oh! the emptiness of such a title) can do without elegance, chocolates, scent, cosmetics, compliments, and other indispensable things!

      I have been criticised because I sometimes received men and women whose standard of morality was not of the highest.... But in Paris, if you were to receive only paragons of virtue, you would indeed, receive very few people.... Yes, there came to my house men whose talk went a little further than I could have wished, and ladies whose minds were not so pure as the transparent gems they wore in profusion.... There came to the villa in the Impasse Ronsin people who were ingeniously romantic, wickedly childish and recklessly unconventional; but whatever their moral shortcomings, they were never dull. And that is a great deal.

      And what pleasant and brilliant conversations, even when the causeurs were too short-sighted or too far-sighted in their views. Thus I had friends who wished all music was destroyed and forgotten except the works of Richard Strauss, others who would have given their lives for Maeterlinck, and quite a number of men who wanted to save France (there is an amazing number of people in France who believe that the country is irretrievably lost unless their advice is followed). All these persons may have been rather foolish, but they never bored; their ideas were often wrong but never absurd.... And there always happened to be present some one who made them agree—with themselves.

      I have been further criticised for "doing everything myself." "Everything" is an exaggeration, but I certainly did a great deal in my house, and I am proud of it. At Beaucourt my father made me do as many things as possible in our home, although he was wealthy. I then made at least half my dresses and hats, and fulfilled a thousand and one household duties. I thought my father was right, and marriage did not change my views on the matter.

      Should I have given up my salons and my receptions, the pleasant and interesting relations with men and women of the world, with men of talent and men of genius, just because my husband and I had not an unlimited account at the bank? Should I have deprived myself of those intellectual and artistic joys which add so much to life because I could not entertain as lavishly as did some of my wealthier friends?

      Yes, I helped with the household work in the morning, and when I thought that a room would be improved by changing the position of a piece of furniture, I helped the servants to move it.... I may here mention that all this was carefully noted, after my arrest, and the examining magistrate, M. André СКАЧАТЬ