Letters to an Unknown. Prosper Merimee

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СКАЧАТЬ to do with it? You ought, indeed, to give me some of your own work; my mirror and my conserves deserve that much. You might at least have told me whether you received them. When you go to Italy, and pass through Paris, you will probably not find me here. Where shall I be? The devil only knows. It is not impossible that I may meet you at the Studj; but then, again, I may go to Saragossa to see that woman of whom you say that you are worth as much as she. As for a sister, there will be no other than herself. Tell me, therefore, and that before you leave for Paris, when you expect to go to Naples, and whether you will take charge of a volume for M. Buonuicci, the Director of the Pompeiian excavations. When I go away I shall leave this volume either with Madame de C. or elsewhere.

      I recall having seen, a long time ago, a Madame de C. at a house where there were some theatricals, in which I played the part of the fool. Ask her if she remembers me.

      Good-bye now, and for a long time, no doubt. I am sorry not to have seen you. Write to me now and then. It will always be a great pleasure to hear from you, even though you continue the beautiful system of hypocrisy upon which you have entered so triumphantly. I will commend you to Buonuicci, you and your society, as greatly interested in archæology. You will be pleased with his cordiality.

XVI

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      Paris, Saturday, May 14, 1842.

      You will know, in the first place, that I am not burned to death. “The railway accident on the left bank of the Seine!” It is thus that we have begun our letters in Paris for the last four days. In the next place, I will say that your letter has given me a great deal of pleasure. I found it here on my return from a short trip I have just taken on business; that is why I have been so long in replying. To be frank—and you are aware that I have not yet overcome this fault—I will admit that you have become much more beautiful physically, but not morally. You have an exquisite complexion, and lovely hair, to which I paid more attention than to your bonnet; and this was probably worthy of notice, since you seemed irritated at my failure to appreciate it. But I have never been able to distinguish lace from calico. You still have a sylphlike figure, and, although I am somewhat blasé concerning black eyes, I have never seen any so large in Constantinople or in Smyrna.

      Now comes the reverse of the medal. In many respects you have remained a child, and you have become a hypocrite in the bargain. You have not learned how to conceal your first impulses, but you think you can reconcile them by having recourse to a variety of petty means. What do you expect to gain thereby? Do not forget that great and beautiful maxim of Jonathan Swift: That a lie is too good a thing to be lavished about! Your magnanimous idea of being severe on yourself will carry you far, no doubt, and a few years hence you will find yourself in the happy condition of the Trappist, who, after torturing himself again and again, should discover one day that, after all, heaven has no existence.

      I do not know to what promise you refer, and there are also many other obscure passages in your letter. We can never bear the same relations to each other that exist between Madame de X. and myself; the first condition in the attitude between a brother and sister being unlimited confidence, and in this respect Madame de X. has spoiled me.

      I am silly enough to grieve over that scarf-pin, but I am consoled at the thought that you also are sorry for it. This is still another beautiful trait in your character. How flattered your stoicism must have been at this victory over yourself! You imagine that you are proud, but I regret to tell you that what you think is pride is only the petty vanity which one would expect in a religious temperament. It is the fashion nowadays to preach. Shall you follow it? That would be the finishing stroke. I must drop this subject, for it always puts me in a bad humour.

      I think I shall not go to Saragossa. I may go possibly to Florence; but I have quite decided to spend two months in the south of France, examining churches and Roman ruins. We may run across each other, perhaps, in some temple or circus. I advise you strongly to go straight to Naples. If you should have to wait five or six hours at Leghorn, however, you might employ them better by going to Pisa to see the Campo Santo. I advise you to see The Dead, by Orcagna, the Vergonzoso, and an antique bust of Julius Caesar. At Civita Vecchia you need see only M. Bucci, from whom you will want to buy some very old gems. You must give him my compliments. Then you will go on to Naples. You will stop at The Victoria, where you will spend several days drinking in the air, and watching the sky and the sea. You will go now and then to visit the studios. M. Buonuicci will take you to Pompeii. You will go to Paestum, and there you must think of me. When you stand in the temple of Neptune, you may say to yourself that you have seen Greece.

      From Naples you will go to Rome, where you will spend a month persuading yourself that it is useless to try to see it all, because you shall return there in the future. Then you will go to Florence, and remain there ten days. After that you will do what you like. When you come to Paris, you will find the book for M. Buonuicci and my final instructions. At that time I shall probably be at Arles or at Orange. If you should stop there, be sure and inquire for me, and I will show you an ancient theatre, which will not interest you especially.

      You promised me something in return for my Turkish mirror. I rely implicitly on your memory. Ah, I have great news for you! The first of the forty Academicians to die will occasion me to make thirty-nine calls. Of course I shall be as awkward as possible, and no doubt I shall make thirty-nine enemies. It would take too long to explain the reasons for this attack of ambition. Enough that the Academy is now the goal of my aspirations.

      Good-bye. I will write again before leaving. Be happy, but bear in mind this maxim, that one should never do foolish things unless they please you. Perhaps the precept of M. de Talleyrand is more to your taste, that one should beware of first impulses, because they are usually honest.

XVII

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      Paris, June 22, 1842.

      Your letter has been tardy in coming, and I became impatient. I must reply at once to the principal points. First, I received your purse. It exhaled a most aristocratic perfume, and is very pretty. If you embroidered it yourself, it does you credit. But I have recognised in it your newly acquired taste for the practical: in the first place, it is a purse to hold money; next, you valued it at a hundred francs at the stage-coach. It would have been more poetical to declare that it was worth one or two stars. All the same, I prize it quite as highly. I will put my medals in it. I should have cared more for it if you had condescended to put in it a few lines from your fair hand.

      Secondly, I do not care for your pheasants. You offer them in a disagreeable fashion, and, besides, you say unpleasant things to me about my Turkish conserves. It is you who have the taste of a heretic, if you are unable to appreciate what the houris eat.

      I believe I have answered everything that was sensible in your letter. I will not quarrel about the rest. I abandon you to your own conscience, which, I am sure, is sometimes even more severe than I, whom you accuse of harshness and indifference. The hypocrisy which you practise so well in sport, will play you a trick some day—that is, it will become natural to you. As for coquetry, the inseparable companion of the horrid vice which you extol, you have always indulged in it. It became you very well when it was softened by frankness, warm-heartedness, and imagination, but now—now, what shall I say?

      You have beautiful raven hair, a lovely blue cashmere, and you are always charming when you wish to be. Say that I do not spoil you! As for that essence of which you speak, it is your own kindness which you thus designate. I like that word essence; yes, the real essence of roses, which СКАЧАТЬ