Letters to an Unknown. Prosper Merimee

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СКАЧАТЬ the idol (you will observe that I do not on this occasion assume the attractive rôle), I should say: “Is it my fault that you have extinguished your lamp? Is that any excuse for destroying me?” It seems to me that I am becoming somewhat of an Oriental. So be it!

      If you knew Madame de M. you would love her to distraction. She does not give me white bread, but she gives me something that takes its place. She is not a baker’s wife; she is a baker.

      I grieve to see that you are becoming more and more affected. I am fully informed about your piety. I thank you for your prayers, if you do not mean them for a figure of speech. As to your blue cashmere, I am rather sceptical of your piety, because piety in 1842 is a fashion, just as blue cashmeres are. You will fail to understand the connection, but it is perfectly clear notwithstanding.

      I regret very much that you are reading Pope’s translation of Homer. Read the translation of Dugas Montbel, which is the only one worth reading. If you had the courage to brave ridicule, and time to spare, you would get Planche’s Greek Grammar and his Dictionary. For a month the grammar would put you to sleep, but its effect would be seen later. After two months you would enjoy looking up the Greek words, translated usually almost literally by M. Montbel. Two months later still you would be able to guess fairly well, by the awkwardness of his expression, when the translator has failed to reproduce clearly the Greek phrase. By the end of a year you would read Homer as you read a melody with its accompaniment: the melody being the Greek, the accompaniment the translation. It is possible that you might then wish to study Greek seriously, in which case you would have the pleasure of reading many delightful books.

      But I am supposing that your time is not absorbed in the selection of toilettes, or in displaying them before your friends. Everything in Homer is remarkable. The epithets, which in the French translation seem so strange, are wonderfully correct. I remember that he speaks of the sea as purple. I never understood what he meant until last summer, when I was in a little boat on the Gulf of Lepanto, going to Delphi. It was just at sunset. Immediately afterwards, the sea took on a magnificent deep violet tint, which lasted for ten minutes. To see this effect requires the atmosphere, the sea, and the sun of Greece. I hope that you will never become enough of an artist to recognise with pleasure that Homer was a great painter.

      The final words of your letter are full of enigmas. You tell me that you will write to me no more, which would be a great misfortune. However, I yield to your decision, and you will hear nothing more from me except compliments. I believe I have already addressed to you several of these. You solicit one, I imagine, when you say you have neither feeling nor imagination. By continually denying their existence you may bring ill luck on yourself. One should not trifle with such things. But I have an idea that you intended only to try the experiment of your rhetorical figure on me. Fortunately I know how much to believe.

      If you can think of anything pleasant to say to me, you might write. I shall remain here for a fortnight still. I want to add one word about the life I am leading, tramping the fields without meeting any other obstacle than rocks. Farewell. I hope you find me this time sufficiently submissive and well-behaved, Signora Fornarina?

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      Paris, August 27, 1842.

      I find awaiting me here a letter which is not so fierce as your recent ones have been. You might have sent it to me down there. Such a rare treat could not be too soon received. I hasten to congratulate you on your Greek studies, and to begin with something that interests you, I will tell you what in Greek are called persons who, like you, have hair of which they are justly proud. It is euplokamos. Eu means well, plokamos, a curl of hair. The two words together form an adjective. Homer has said somewhere: νυμφη δε εὑπλοκαμοσα Καλυψὡ, Calypso, nymph of the luxuriant tresses. Is it not very pretty? Ah! for the love of Greek, etc.

      I regret exceedingly that you start so late in the season for Italy. You run the risk of seeing everything through odious rain-storms, which deprive the most beautiful mountains in the world of half their splendour; and you will be obliged to take my word for it when I praise the radiant skies of Naples. Neither will you have any good fruit to eat, but must content yourself instead with fig-eaters, birds so called because they live on figs.

      I do not at all agree with your version of the parable.

      On my return I had an adventure which mortified me not a little, since it showed me the sort of reputation I enjoy with the public. I was packing my luggage at Avignon, preparing to start for Paris, when there entered the room two venerable figures who introduced themselves as members of the Municipal Council. I supposed they had come for the purpose of talking about some church, when they announced pompously and verbosely that their visit had as its object to commend to my honour and to my virtue a lady who was to be my travelling companion. I replied, very peevishly, that they need have no fears concerning my honour and my virtue, but that I was not at all pleased to travel with a woman, for I should then not be able to smoke on the road.

      Upon the arrival of the stage-coach I found within a woman, tall and pretty, simply and stylishly dressed, who said she was ill, and despaired of ever reaching Paris alive. We entered into conversation. I was as polite and agreeable as it is possible to be when I am compelled to remain long in the same position. My companion talked intelligently and with no Marseilles accent. She was an ardent Bonapartist, of very enthusiastic temperament; she believed in the immortality of the soul, not overmuch in the catechism, and was on the whole an optimist. I could not help feeling that she had a certain fear of me.

      At Saint Etienne the two seated britzska was exchanged for a double carriage. We had the four seats to ourselves, and consequently twenty-four hours of tête-à-tête in addition to the preceding thirty. But although we chatted (what a pretty word!) unintermittingly, I was unable to learn anything of my opposite neighbour, except that she was going to be married, and that she was excellent company. To come to the point, we took on, at Moulins, two uncongenial travellers, and finally reached Paris, where my mysterious lady precipitated herself into the arms of a very ugly man who must have been her father. I took off my cap to her, and was about to get into a cab, when my unknown, leaving her father, came up to me and in a voice full of emotion, said:

      “I am deeply touched, sir, by your kindness to me. I can not tell you how grateful I am. Never shall I forget the happiness I have had in travelling with such a celebrated man.” I am quoting her words. But this word celebrated explained the Municipal Councillors and the trepidation of the lady. They had evidently seen my name on the post-office register, and the lady, who had read my books, expected to be swallowed alive. This most unjust opinion of me must be shared, doubtless, by more than one of my lady readers. What ever put it into your head to want to know me? I was in a bad humour for two days following this incident; then I resigned myself to it. It is a remarkable fact, that after I became a great scamp I lived for two years on my former good reputation; but now that I have entirely reformed I still pass for a scapegrace.

      As a fact, my wild life lasted but three years, and even then my heart was not in it. I threw myself into dissipation not from inclination, but partly from despondency, and partly, perhaps, out of curiosity. I am afraid, however, that this fact will injure my chances for membership in the Academy. I am criticised, also, for not being religious, and for not going to church. I might act the hypocrite, but I should not know how to go about it, and, besides, I should not have the patience.

      If you are astonished that all the goddesses are fair, you will be still more astonished at Naples when you see statues with the hair coloured red. It seems that it was the fashion, formerly, for ladies to use red powder, nay, even gold powder. On the other hand, you will see in the paintings СКАЧАТЬ