Lady Barbarina Part 57

Add to this that there are two young Englanders in the house who hate all the Americans in a lump, making between them none of the distinctions and favourable comparisons which they insist upon, and for which, as involving the recognition of shades and a certain play of the critical sense, the still quite primitive insular understanding is wholly inapt, and you will, I think, hold me warranted in believing that, between precipitate decay and internecine enmities, the English-speaking family is destined to consume itself, and that with its decline the prospect of successfully-organised conquest and unarrested incalculable expansion, to which I alluded above, will brighten for the deep-lunged children of the Fatherland!

IX MIRANDA HOPE TO HER MOTHER

_October_ 22.

DEAR MOTHER,

I'm off in a day or two to visit some new country; I haven't yet decided which. I've satisfied myself with regard to France, and obtained a good knowledge of the language. I've enjoyed my visit to Madame de Maisonrouge deeply, and feel as if I were leaving a circle of real friends. Everything has gone on beautifully up to the end, and every one has been as kind and attentive as if I were their own sister, especially Mr. Verdier, the French gentleman, from whom I have gained more than I ever expected (in six weeks) and with whom I have promised to _correspond_. So you can imagine me dashing off the liveliest and yet the most elegant French letters; and if you don't believe in them I'll keep the rough drafts to show you when I go back.

The German gentleman is also more interesting the more you know him; it seems sometimes as if I could fairly drink in his ideas. I've found out why the young lady from New York doesn't like me! It's because I said one day at dinner that I _admired_ to go to the Louvre. Well, when I first came it seemed as if I _did_ admire everything! Tell William Platt his letter has come. I knew he'd have to write, and I was bound I'd make him! I haven't decided what country I'll visit next; it seems as if there were so many to choose from. But I must take care to pick out a good one and to meet plenty of fresh experiences. Dearest mother, my money holds out, and it is most interesting!

THE POINT OF VIEW

I FROM MISS AURORA CHURCH AT SEA TO MISS WHITESIDE IN PARIS

_September_ 1880.

. . . My dear child, the bromide of sodium (if that's what you call it) proved perfectly useless. I don't mean that it did me no good, but that I never had occasion to take the bottle out of my bag. It might have done wonders for me if I had needed it; but I didn't, simply because I've been a wonder myself. Will you believe that I've spent the whole voyage on deck, in the most animated conversation and exercise? Twelve times round the deck make a mile, I believe; and by this measurement I've been walking twenty miles a day. And down to every meal, if you please, where I've displayed the appet.i.te of a fishwife. Of course the weather has been lovely; so there's no great merit. The wicked old Atlantic has been as blue as the sapphire in my only ring-rather a good one-and as smooth as the slippery floor of Madame Galopin's dining-room. We've been for the last three hours in sight of land, and are soon to enter the Bay of New York which is said to be exquisitely beautiful. But of course you recall it, though they say everything changes so fast over here. I find I don't remember anything, for my recollections of our voyage to Europe so many years ago are exceedingly dim; I've only a painful impression that mamma shut me up for an hour every day in the stateroom and made me learn by heart some religious poem. I was only five years old and I believe that as a child I was extremely timid; on the other hand mamma, as you know, had what she called a method with me. She has it to this day; only I've become indifferent; I've been so pinched and pushed-morally speaking, _bien entendu_. It's true, however, that there are children of five on the vessel to-day who have been extremely conspicuous-ranging all over the ship and always under one's feet. Of course they're little compatriots, which means that they're little barbarians. I don't mean to p.r.o.nounce _all_ our compatriots barbarous; they seem to improve somehow after their first communion. I don't know whether it's that ceremony that improves them, especially as so few of them go in for it; but the women are certainly nicer than the little girls; I mean of course in proportion, you know. You warned me not to generalise, and you see I've already begun, before we've arrived. But I suppose there's no harm in it so long as it's favourable.

Isn't it favourable when I say I've had the most lovely time? I've never had so much liberty in my life, and I've been out alone, as you may say, every day of the voyage. If it's a foretaste of what's to come I shall take very kindly to that. When I say I've been out alone I mean we've always been two. But we two were alone, so to speak, and it wasn't like always having mamma or Madame Galopin, or some lady in the pension or the temporary cook. Mamma has been very poorly; she's so very well on land that it's a wonder to see her at all taken down. She says, however, that it isn't the being at sea; it's on the contrary approaching the land.

She's not in a hurry to arrive; she keeps well before her that great disillusions await us. I didn't know she _had_ any illusions-she has too many opinions, I should think, for that: she discriminates, as she's always saying, from morning till night. Where would the poor illusions find room? She's meanwhile very serious; she sits for hours in perfect silence, her eyes fixed on the horizon. I heard her say yesterday to an English gentleman-a very odd Mr. Antrobus, the only person with whom she converses-that she was afraid she shouldn't like her native land, and that she shouldn't like not liking it. But this is a mistake; she'll like that immensely-I mean the not liking it. If it should prove at all agreeable she'll be furious, for that will go against her system. You know all about mamma's system; I've explained it so often. It goes against her system that we should come back at all; that was _my_ system-I've had at last to invent one! She consented to come only because she saw that, having no _dot_, I should never marry in Europe; and I pretended to be immensely preoccupied with this idea in order to make her start. In reality _cela m'est parfaitement egal_. I'm only afraid I shall like it too much-I don't mean marriage, of course, but the sense of a native land. Say what you will, it's a charming thing to go out alone, and I've given notice that I mean to be always _en course_.

When I tell mamma this she looks at me in the same silence; her eyes dilate and then she slowly closes them. It's as if the sea were affecting her a little, though it's so beautifully calm. I ask her if she'll try my bromide, which is there in my bag; but she motions me off and I begin to walk again, tapping my little boot-soles on the smooth clean deck. This allusion to my boot-soles, by the way, isn't prompted by vanity; but it's a fact that at sea one's feet and one's shoes a.s.sume the most extraordinary importance, so that one should take the precaution to have nice ones. They're all you seem to see as the people walk about the deck; you get to know them intimately and to dislike some of them so much. I'm afraid you'll think that I've already broken loose; and for aught I know I'm writing as a demoiselle bien-elevee shouldn't write. I don't know whether it's the American air; if it is, all I can say is that the American air's very charming. It makes me impatient and restless, and I sit scribbling here because I'm so eager to arrive and the time pa.s.ses better if I occupy myself.

I'm in the saloon, where we have our meals, and opposite me is a big round porthole, wide open to let in the smell of the land. Every now and then I rise a little and look through it to see if we're arriving. I mean in the Bay, you know, for we shall not come up to the city till dark. I don't want to lose the Bay; it appears it's so wonderful. I don't exactly understand what it contains except some beautiful islands; but I suppose you'll know all about that. It's easy to see that these are the last hours, for all the people about me are writing letters to put into the post as soon as we come up to the dock. I believe they're dreadful at the custom-house, and you'll remember how many new things you persuaded mamma that-with my preoccupation of marriage-I should take to this country, where even the prettiest girls are expected not to go unadorned. We ruined ourselves in Paris-that's partly accountable for mamma's solemnity-_mais au moins je serai belle_! Moreover I believe that mamma's prepared to say or to do anything that may be necessary for escaping from their odious duties; as she very justly remarks she can't afford to be ruined twice. I don't know how one approaches these terrible _douaniers_, but I mean to invent something very charming. I mean to say "Voyons, Messieurs, a young girl like me, brought up in the strictest foreign traditions, kept always in the background by a very superior mother-_la voila_; you can see for yourself!-what is it possible that she should attempt to smuggle in? Nothing but a few simple relics of her convent!" I won't tell them my convent was called the Magasin du Bon Marche. Mamma began to scold me three days ago for insisting on so many trunks, and the truth is that between us we've not fewer than seven.

For relics, that's a good many! We're all writing very long letters-or at least we're writing a great number. There's no news of the Bay as yet. Mr. Antrobus, mamma's friend, opposite to me, is beginning on his ninth. He's a Right Honourable and a Member of Parliament; he has written during the voyage about a hundred letters and seems greatly alarmed at the number of stamps he'll have to buy when he arrives. He's full of information, but he hasn't enough, for he asks as many questions as mamma when she goes to hire apartments. He's going to "look into"

various things; he speaks as if they had a little hole for the purpose.

He walks almost as much as I, and has enormous shoes. He asks questions even of me, and I tell him again and again that I know nothing about America. But it makes no difference; he always begins again, and indeed it's not strange he should find my ignorance incredible. "Now how would it be in one of your South-western States?"-that's his favourite way of opening conversation. Fancy me giving an account of one of "my"

South-western States! I tell him he had better ask mamma-a little to tease that lady, who knows no more about such places than I. Mr.

Antrobus is very big and black; he speaks with a sort of brogue; he has a wife and ten children; he doesn't say-apart from his talking-anything at all to me. But he has lots of letters to people _la-bas_-I forget that we're just arriving-and mamma, who takes an interest in him in spite of his views (which are dreadfully advanced, and not at all like mamma's own) has promised to give him the entree to the best society. I don't know what she knows about the best society over here to-day, for we've not kept up our connexions at all, and no one will know-or, I am afraid, care-anything about us. She has an idea we shall be immensely recognised; but really, except the poor little Rucks, who are bankrupt and, I'm told, in no society at all, I don't know on whom we can count.

C'est egal, mamma has an idea that, whether or no we appreciate America ourselves, we shall at least be universally appreciated. It's true we have begun to be, a little; you would see that from the way Mr. c.o.c.kerel and Mr. Louis Leverett are always inviting me to walk. Both of these gentlemen, who are Americans, have asked leave to call on me in New York, and I've said _Mon Dieu oui_, if it's the custom of the country. Of course I've not dared to tell this to mamma, who flatters herself that we've brought with us in our trunks a complete set of customs of our own and that we shall only have to shake them out a little and put them on when we arrive. If only the two gentlemen I just spoke of don't call at the same time I don't think I shall be too much frightened. If they do, on the other hand, I won't answer for it. They've a particular aversion to each other and are ready to fight about poor little me. I'm only the pretext, however; for, as Mr. Leverett says, it's really the opposition of temperaments. I hope they won't cut each other's throats, for I'm not crazy about either of them. They're very well for the deck of a ship, but I shouldn't care about them in a salon; they're not at all distinguished. They think they are, but they're not; at least Mr. Louis Leverett does; Mr. c.o.c.kerel doesn't appear to care so much. They're extremely different-with their opposed temperaments-and each very amusing for a while; but I should get dreadfully tired of pa.s.sing my life with either. Neither has proposed that as yet; but it's evidently what they're coming to. It will be in a great measure to spite each other, for I think that au fond they don't quite believe in me. If they don't, it's the only point on which they agree. They hate each other awfully; they take such different views. That is Mr. c.o.c.kerel hates Mr.

Leverett-he calls him a sickly little a.s.s; he p.r.o.nounces his opinions half affectation and the other half dyspepsia. Mr. Leverett speaks of Mr. c.o.c.kerel as a "strident savage," but he allows he finds him most diverting. He says there's nothing in which we can't find a certain entertainment if we only look at it in the right way, and that we have no business with either hating or loving: we ought only to strive to understand. He "claims"-he's always claiming-that to understand is to forgive. Which is very pretty, but I don't like the suppression of our affections, though I've no desire to fix mine upon Mr. Leverett. He's very artistic and talks like an article in some review. He has lived a great deal in Paris, and Mr. c.o.c.kerel, who doesn't believe in Paris, says it's what has made him such an idiot.

That's not complimentary to you, dear Louisa, and still less to your brilliant brother; for Mr. c.o.c.kerel explains that he means it (the bad effect of Paris) chiefly of men. In fact he means the bad effect of Europe altogether. This, however, is compromising to mamma; and I'm afraid there's no doubt that, from what I've told him, he thinks mamma also an idiot. (I'm not responsible, you know-I've always wanted to go home.) If mamma knew him, which she doesn't, for she always closes her eyes when I pa.s.s on his arm, she would think him disgusting. Mr.

Leverett meanwhile a.s.sures me he's nothing to what we shall see yet.

He's from Philadelphia (Mr. c.o.c.kerel); he insists that we shall go and see Philadelphia, but mamma says she saw it in 1855 and it was then _affreux_. Mr. c.o.c.kerel says that mamma's evidently not familiar with the rush of improvement in this country; he speaks of 1855 as if it were a hundred years ago. Mamma says she knows it goes only too fast, the rush-it goes so fast that it has time to do nothing well; and then Mr.

c.o.c.kerel, who, to do him justice, is perfectly good-natured, remarks that she had better wait till she has been ash.o.r.e and seen the improvements.

Mamma retorts that she sees them from here, the awful things, and that they give her a sinking of the heart. (This little exchange of ideas is carried on through me; they've never spoken to each other.) Mr.

c.o.c.kerel, as I say, is extremely good-natured, and he bears out what I've heard said about the men in America being very considerate of the women.

They evidently listen to them a great deal; they don't contradict them, but it seems to me this is rather negative. There's very little gallantry in not contradicting one; and it strikes me that there are some things the men don't express. There are others on the ship whom I've noticed. It's as if they were all one's brothers or one's cousins. The extent to which one isn't in danger from them-my dear, my dear! But I promised you not to generalise, and perhaps there will be more expression when we arrive. Mr. c.o.c.kerel returns to America, after a general tour, with a renewed conviction that this is the only country. I left him on deck an hour ago looking at the coast-line with an opera-gla.s.s and saying it was the prettiest thing he had seen in all his travels. When I remarked that the coast seemed rather low he said it would be all the easier to get ash.o.r.e. Mr. Leverett at any rate doesn't seem in a hurry to get ash.o.r.e, he's sitting within sight of me in a corner of the saloon-writing letters, I suppose, but looking, from the way he bites his pen and rolls his eyes about, as if he were composing a sonnet and waiting for a rhyme. Perhaps the sonnet's addressed to me; but I forget that he suppresses the affections! The only person in whom mamma takes much interest is the great French critic, M. Lejaune, whom we have the honour to carry with us. We've read a few of his works, though mamma disapproves of his tendencies and thinks him a dreadful materialist.

We've read them for the style; you know he's one of the new Academicians.

He's a Frenchman like any other, except that he's rather more quiet; he has a grey moustache and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. He's the first French writer of distinction who has been to America since De Tocqueville; the French, in such matters, are not very enterprising.

Also he has the air of wondering what he's doing _dans cette galere_. He has come with his beau-frere, who's an engineer and is looking after some mines, and he talks with scarcely any one else, as he speaks no English and appears to take for granted that no one speaks French. Mamma would be delighted to convince him of the contrary; she has never conversed with an Academician. She always makes a little vague inclination, with a smile, when he pa.s.ses her, and he answers with a most respectful bow; but it goes no further, to mamma's disappointment. He's always with the beau-frere, a rather untidy fat bearded man-decorated too, always smoking and looking at the feet of the ladies, whom mamma (though she has very good feet) has not the courage to _aborder_. I believe M. Lejaune is going to write a book about America, and Mr. Leverett says it will be terrible. Mr. Leverett has made his acquaintance and says M. Lejaune will put him into his book; he says the movement of the French intellect is superb. As a general thing he doesn't care for Academicians, but M.

Lejaune's an exception-he's so living, so remorseless, so personal.

I've asked Mr. c.o.c.kerel meanwhile what he thinks of M. Lejaune's plan of writing a book, and he answers that he doesn't see what it matters to him that a Frenchman the more should make the motions of a monkey-on that side poor Mr. c.o.c.kerel is _de cette force_. I asked him why he hadn't written a book about Europe, and he says that in the first place Europe isn't worth writing about, and that in the second if he said what he thought people would call it a joke. He says they're very superst.i.tious about Europe over here; he wants people in America to behave as if Europe didn't exist. I told this to Mr. Leverett, and he answered that if Europe didn't exist America wouldn't, for Europe keeps us alive by buying our corn. He said also that the trouble with America in the future will be that she'll produce things in such enormous quant.i.ties that there won't be enough people in the rest of the world to buy them, and that we shall be left with our productions-most of them very hideous-on our hands. I asked him if he thought corn a hideous production, and he replied that there's nothing more unbeautiful than too much food. I think that to feed the world too well, however, will be after all a _beau role_. Of course I don't understand these things, and I don't believe Mr. Leverett does; but Mr. c.o.c.kerel seems to know what he's talking about, and he describes America as complete in herself. I don't know exactly what he means, but he speaks as if human affairs had somehow moved over to this side of the world. It may be a very good place for them, and heaven knows I'm extremely tired of Europe, which mamma has always insisted so on my appreciating; but I don't think I like the idea of our being so completely cut off. Mr. c.o.c.kerel says it is not we that are cut off, but Europe, and he seems to think Europe has somehow deserved it. That may be; our life over there was sometimes extremely tiresome, though mamma says it's now that our real fatigues will begin.

I like to abuse those dreadful old countries myself, but I'm not sure I'm pleased when others do the same. We had some rather pretty moments there after all, and at Piacenza we certainly lived for four francs a day.

Mamma's already in a terrible state of mind about the expenses here; she's frightened by what people on the ship (the few she has spoken to) have told her. There's one comfort at any rate-we've spent so much money in coming that we shall have none left to get away. I'm scribbling along, as you see, to occupy me till we get news of the islands. Here comes Mr. c.o.c.kerel to bring it. Yes, they're in sight; he tells me they're lovelier than ever and that I must come right up right away. I suppose you'll think I'm already beginning to use the language of the country. It's certain that at the end of the month I shall speak nothing else. I've picked up every dialect, wherever we've travelled; you've heard my Platt-Deutsch and my Neapolitan. But, _voyons un peu_ the Bay!

I've just called to Mr. Leverett to remind him of the islands. "The islands-the islands? Ah my dear young lady, I've seen Capri, I've seen Ischia!" Well, so have I, but that doesn't prevent . . . (_A little later_.) I've seen the islands-they're rather queer.

II MRS. CHURCH IN NEW YORK TO MADAME GALOPIN AT GENEVA

_October_ 1880.

If I felt far way from you in the middle of that deplorable Atlantic, chere Madame, how do I feel now, in the heart of this extraordinary city?

We've arrived-we've arrived, dear friend; but I don't know whether to tell you that I consider that an advantage. If we had been given our choice of coming safely to land or going down to the bottom of the sea I should doubtless have chosen the former course; for I hold, with your n.o.ble husband and in opposition to the general tendency of modern thought, that our lives are not our own to dispose of, but a sacred trust from a higher power by whom we shall be held responsible. Nevertheless if I had foreseen more vividly some of the impressions that awaited me here I'm not sure that, for my daughter at least, I shouldn't have preferred on the spot to hand in our account. Should I not have been less (rather than more) guilty in presuming to dispose of _her_ destiny than of my own? There's a nice point for dear M. Galopin to settle-one of those points I've heard him discuss in the pulpit with such elevation.

We're safe, however, as I say; by which I mean we're physically safe.

We've taken up the thread of our familiar pension-life, but under strikingly different conditions. We've found a refuge in a boarding-house which has been highly recommended to me and where the arrangements partake of the barbarous magnificence that in this country is the only alternative from primitive rudeness. The terms per week are as magnificent as all the rest. The landlady wears diamond ear-rings and the drawing-rooms are decorated with marble statues. I should indeed be sorry to let you know how I've allowed myself to be ranconnee; and I should be still more sorry that it should come to the ears of any of my good friends in Geneva, who know me less well than you and might judge me more harshly. There's no wine given for dinner, and I've vainly requested the person who conducts the establishment to garnish her table more liberally. She says I may have all the wine I want if I will order it at the merchant's and settle the matter with himself. But I've never, as you know, consented to regard our modest allowance of eau rougie as an extra; indeed, I remember that it's largely to your excellent advice that I've owed my habit of being firm on this point.

There are, however, greater difficulties than the question of what we shall drink for dinner, chere Madame. Still, I've never lost courage and I shall not lose it now. At the worst we can re-embark again and seek repose and refreshment on the sh.o.r.es of your beautiful lake. (There's absolutely no scenery here!) We shall not perhaps in that case have achieved what we desired, but we shall at least have made an honourable retreat. What we desire-I know it's just this that puzzles you, dear friend; I don't think you ever really comprehended my motives in taking this formidable step, though you were good enough, and your magnanimous husband was good enough, to press my hand at parting in a way that seemed to tell me you'd still be with me even were I wrong. To be very brief, I wished to put an end to the ceaseless reclamations of my daughter. Many Americans had a.s.sured her that she was wasting her belle jeunesse in those historic lands which it was her privilege to see so intimately, and this unfortunate conviction had taken possession of her. "Let me at least see for myself," she used to say; "if I should dislike it over there as much as you promise me, so much the better for you. In that case we'll come back and make a new arrangement at Stuttgart." The experiment's a terribly expensive one, but you know how my devotion never has shrunk from an ordeal. There's another point moreover which, from a mother to a mother, it would be affectation not to touch upon. I remember the just satisfaction with which you announced to me the fiancailles of your charming Cecile. You know with what earnest care my Aurora has been educated-how thoroughly she's acquainted with the princ.i.p.al results of modern research. We've always studied together, we've always enjoyed together. It will perhaps surprise you to hear that she makes these very advantages a reproach to me-represents them as an injury to herself. "In this country," she says, "the gentlemen have not those accomplishments; they care nothing for the results of modern research. Therefore it won't help a young person to be sought in marriage that she can give an account of the latest German presentation of Pessimism." That's possible, and I've never concealed from her that it wasn't for this country I had educated her. If she marries in the United States it's of course my intention that my son-in-law shall accompany us to Europe. But when she calls my attention more and more to these facts I feel that we're moving in a different world. This is more and more the country of the many; the few find less and less place for them; and the individual-well, the individual has quite ceased to be recognised. He's recognised as a voter, but he's not recognised as a gentleman-still less as a lady. My daughter and I of course can only pretend to const.i.tute a _few_!

You know that I've never for a moment remitted my pretensions as an individual, though among the agitations of pension-life I've sometimes needed all my energy to uphold them. "Oh yes, I may be poor," I've had occasion to say, "I may be unprotected, I may be reserved, I may occupy a small apartment au quatrieme and be unable to scatter unscrupulous bribes among the domestics; but at least I'm a _person_ and have personal rights." In this country the people have rights, but the person has none. You'd have perceived that if you had come with me to make arrangements at this establishment. The very fine lady who condescends to preside over it kept me waiting twenty minutes, and then came sailing in without a word of apology. I had sat very silent, with my eyes on the clock; Aurora amused herself with a false admiration of the room, a wonderful drawing-room with magenta curtains, frescoed walls and photographs of the landlady's friends-as if one cares for her friends!

When this exalted personage came in she simply remarked that she had just been trying on a dress-that it took so long to get a skirt to hang. "It seems to take very long indeed!" I answered; "but I hope the skirt's right at last. You might have sent for us to come up and look at it!"

She evidently didn't understand, and when I asked her to show us her rooms she handed us over to a negro as degingande as herself. While we looked at them I heard her sit down to the piano in the drawing-room; she began to sing an air from a comic opera. I felt certain we had gone quite astray; I didn't know in what house we could be, and was only rea.s.sured by seeing a Bible in every room. When we came down our musical hostess expressed no hope the rooms had pleased us, she seemed grossly indifferent to our taking them. She wouldn't consent moreover to the least diminution and was inflexible, as I told you, on the article of our common beverage. When I pushed this point she was so good as to observe that she didn't keep a cabaret. One's not in the least considered; there's no respect for one's privacy, for one's preferences, for one's reserves. The familiarity's without limits, and I've already made a dozen acquaintances, of whom I know, and wish to know, nothing. Aurora tells me she's the "belle of the boarding-house." It appears that this is a great distinction.

It brings me back to my poor child and her prospects. She takes a very critical view of them herself-she tells me I've given her a false education and that no one will marry her to-day. No American will marry her because she's too much of a foreigner, and no foreigner will marry her because she's too much of an American. I remind her how scarcely a day pa.s.ses that a foreigner, usually of distinction, doesn't-as perversely as you will indeed-select an American bride, and she answers me that in these cases the young lady isn't married for her fine eyes.

Not always, I reply; and then she declares that she'll marry no foreigner who shall not be one of the first of the first. You'll say doubtless that she should content herself with advantages that haven't been deemed insufficient for Cecile; but I'll not repeat to you the remark she made when I once employed this argument. You'll doubtless be surprised to hear that I've ceased to argue; but it's time I should confess that I've at last agreed to let her act for herself. She's to live for three months a l'Americaine and I'm to be a mere pa.s.sive spectator. You'll feel with me that this is a cruel position for a cur de mere. I count the days till our three months are over, and I know you'll join with me in my prayers. Aurora walks the streets alone; she goes out in the tramway: a voiture de place costs five francs for the least little _course_. (I beseech you not to let it be known that I've sometimes had the weakness.) My daughter's frequently accompanied by a gentleman-by a dozen gentlemen; she remains out for hours and her conduct excites no surprise in this establishment. I know but too well the emotions it will excite in your quiet home. If you betray us, chere Madame, we're lost; and why, after all, should any one know of these things in Geneva?

Aurora pretends she has been able to persuade herself that she doesn't care who knows them; but there's a strange expression in her face which proves that her conscience isn't at rest. I watch her, I let her go, but I sit with my hands clasped. There's a peculiar custom in this country-I shouldn't know how to express it in Genevese: it's called "being attentive," and young girls are the object of the futile process. It hasn't necessarily anything to do with projects of marriage-though it's the privilege only of the unmarried and though at the same time (fortunately, and this may surprise you) it has no relation to other projects. It's simply an invention by which young persons of the two s.e.xes pa.s.s large parts of their time together with no questions asked.

How shall I muster courage to tell you that Aurora now const.i.tutes the main apparent recreation of several gentlemen? Though it has no relation to marriage the practice happily doesn't exclude it, and marriages have been known to take place in consequence (or in spite) of it. It's true that even in this country a young lady may marry but one husband at a time, whereas she may receive at once the attentions of several gentlemen, who are equally ent.i.tled "admirers." My daughter then has admirers to an indefinite number. You'll think I'm joking perhaps when I tell you that I'm unable to be exact-I who was formerly l'exact.i.tude meme.

Two of these gentlemen are to a certain extent old friends, having been pa.s.sengers on the steamer which carried us so far from you. One of them, still young, is typical of the American character, but a respectable person and a lawyer considerably launched. Every one in this country follows a profession, but it must be admitted that the professions are more highly remunerated than chez vous. Mr. c.o.c.kerel, even while I write you, is in not undisputed, but temporarily triumphant, possession of my child. He called for her an hour ago in a "boghey"-a strange unsafe rickety vehicle, mounted on enormous wheels, which holds two persons very near together; and I watched her from the window take her place at his side. Then he whirled her away behind two little horses with terribly thin legs; the whole equipage-and most of all her being in it-was in the most questionable taste. But she'll return-return positively very much as she went. It's the same when she goes down to Mr. Louis Leverett, who has no vehicle and who merely comes and sits with her in the front salon.

He has lived a great deal in Europe and is very fond of the arts, and though I'm not sure I agree with him in his views of the relation of art to life and life to art, and in his interpretation of some of the great works that Aurora and I have studied together, he seems to me a sufficiently serious and intelligent young man. I don't regard him as intrinsically dangerous, but on the other hand he offers absolutely no guarantees. I've no means whatever of ascertaining his pecuniary situation. There's a vagueness on these points which is extremely embarra.s.sing, and it never occurs to young men to offer you a reference.

In Geneva I shouldn't be at a loss; I should come to you, chere Madame, with my little inquiry, and what you shouldn't be able to tell me wouldn't be worth my knowing. But no one in New York can give me the smallest information about the etat de fortune of Mr. Louis Leverett.

It's true that he's a native of Boston, where most of his friends reside; I can't, however, go to the expense of a journey to Boston simply to learn perhaps that Mr. Leverett (the young Louis) has an income of five thousand francs. As I say indeed, he doesn't strike me as dangerous.

When Aurora comes back to me after having pa.s.sed an hour with him she says he has described to her his emotions on visiting the home of Sh.e.l.ley or discussed some of the differences between the Boston temperament and that of the Italians of the Renaissance. You'll not enter into these rapprochements, and I can't blame you. But you won't betray me, chere Madame?

III FROM MISS St.u.r.dY AT NEWPORT TO MRS. DRAPER AT OUCHY

_September_ 1880.

I promised to tell you how I like it, but the truth is I've gone to and fro so often that I've ceased to like and dislike. Nothing strikes me as unexpected; I expect everything in its order. Then too, you know, I'm not a critic; I've no talent for keen a.n.a.lysis, as the magazines say; I don't go into the reasons of things. It's true I've been for a longer time than usual on the wrong side of the water, and I admit that I feel a little out of training for American life. They're breaking me in very fast, however. I don't mean that they bully me-I absolutely decline to be bullied. I say what I think, because I believe I've on the whole the advantage of knowing what I think-when I think anything; which is half the battle. Sometimes indeed I think nothing at all. They don't like that over here; they like you to have impressions. That they like these impressions to be favourable appears to me perfectly natural; I don't make a crime to them of this; it seems to me on the contrary a very amiable point. When individuals betray it we call them sympathetic; I don't see why we shouldn't give nations the same benefit. But there are things I haven't the least desire to have an opinion about. The privilege of indifference is the dearest we possess, and I hold that intelligent people are known by the way they exercise it. Life is full of rubbish, and we have at least our share of it over here. When you wake up in the morning you find that during the night a cartload has been deposited in your front garden. I decline, however, to have any of it in my premises; there are thousands of things I want to know nothing about.

I've outlived the necessity of being hypocritical; I've nothing to gain and everything to lose. When one's fifty years old-single stout and red in the face-one has outlived a good many necessities. They tell me over here that my increase of weight's extremely marked, and though they don't tell me I'm coa.r.s.e I feel they think me so. There's very little coa.r.s.eness here-not quite enough, I think-though there's plenty of vulgarity, which is a very different thing. On the whole the country becomes much more agreeable. It isn't that the people are charming, for that they always were (the best of them, I mean-it isn't true of the others), but that places and things as well recognise the possibility of pleasing. The houses are extremely good and look extraordinarily fresh and clean. Many European interiors seem in comparison musty and gritty.

We have a great deal of taste; I shouldn't wonder if we should end by inventing something pretty; we only need a little time. Of course as yet it's all imitation, except, by the way, these delicious piazzas. I'm sitting on one now; I'm writing to you with my portfolio on my knees.

This broad light _loggia_ surrounds the house with a movement as free as the expanded wings of a bird, and the wandering airs come up from the deep sea, which murmurs on the rocks at the end of the lawn.