Yes, my poet, to you belong my
thoughts, — all, those that are secret, those that are gayest; my
heart is yours without reserve and with its infinite affection. If
you should personally not please me, I shall never marry. I can
live in the life of the heart, I can exist on your mind, your
sentiments; they please me, and I will always be what I am, your
friend. Yours is a noble moral nature; I have recognized it, I
have appreciated it, and that suffices me. In that is all my
future. Do not laugh at a young and pretty handmaiden who shrinks
not from the thought of being some day the old companion of a
poet, — a sort of mother perhaps, or a housekeeper; the guide of
his judgment and a source of his wealth. This handmaiden — so
devoted, so precious to the lives of such as you — is Friendship,
pure, disinterested friendship, to whom you will tell all, who
listens and sometimes shakes her head; who knits by the light of
the lamp and waits to be present when the poet returns home soaked
with rain, or vexed in mind. Such shall be my destiny if I do not
find that of a happy wife attached forever to her husband; I smile
alike at the thought of either fate. Do you believe France will be
any the worse if Mademoiselle d’Este does not give it two or three
sons, and never becomes a Madame Vilquin-something-or-other? As
for me, I shall never be an old maid. I shall make myself a
mother, by taking care of others and by my secret co-operation in
the existence of a great man, to whom also I shall carry all my
thoughts and all my earthly efforts.
I have the deepest horror of commonplaceness. If I am free, if I
am rich (and I know that I am young and pretty), I will never
belong to any ninny just because he is the son of a peer of
France, nor to a merchant who could ruin himself and me in a day,
nor to a handsome creature who would be a sort of woman in the
household, nor to a man of any kind who would make me blush twenty
times a day for being his. Make yourself easy on that point. My
father adores my wishes; he will never oppose them. If I please my
poet, and he pleases me, the glorious structure of our love shall
be built so high as to be inaccessible to any kind of misfortune.
I am an eaglet; and you will see it in my eyes.
I shall not repeat what I have already said, but I will put its
substance in the least possible number of words, and confess to
you that I should be the happiest of women if I were imprisoned by
love as I am now imprisoned by the wish and will of a father. Ah!
my friend, may we bring to a real end the romance that has come to
us through the first exercise of my will: listen to its
argument: —
A young girl with a lively imagination, locked up in a tower, is
weary with longing to run loose in the park where her eyes only
are allowed to rove. She invents a way to loosen her bars; she
jumps from the casement; she scales the park wall; she frolics
along the neighbor’s sward — it is the Everlasting comedy. Well,
that young girl is my soul, the neighbor’s park is your genius. Is
it not all very natural? Was there ever a neighbor that did not
complain that unknown feet broke down his trellises? I leave it to
my poet to answer.
But does the lofty reasoner after the fashion of Moliere want
still better reasons? Well, here they are. My dear Geronte,
marriages are usually made in defiance of common-sense. Parents
make inquiries about a young man. If the Leander — who is supplied
by some friend, or caught in a ball-room — is not a thief, and has
no visible rent in his reputation, if he has the necessary
fortune, if he comes from a college or a law-school and so fulfils
the popular ideas of education, and if he wears his clothes with a
gentlemanly air, he is allowed to meet the young lady, whose
mother has ordered her to guard her tongue, to let no sign of her
heart or soul appear on her face, which must wear the smile of a
danseuse finishing a pirouette. These commands are coupled with
instructions as to the danger of revealing her real character, and
the additional advice of not seeming alarmingly well educated. If
the settlements have all been agreed upon, the parents are
good-natured enough to let the pair see each other for a few
moments; they are allowed to talk or walk together, but always
without the slightest freedom, and knowing that they are bound by
rigid rules. The man is as much dressed up in soul as he is in body,
and so is the young girl. This pitiable comedy, mixed with bouquets,
jewels, and theatre-parties is called “paying your addresses.” It
revolts me: I desire that actual marriage shall be the result of a
previous and long marriage of souls. A young girl, a woman, has
throughout her life only this one moment when reflection, second
sight, and experience are necessary to her. She plays her liberty,
her happiness, and she is not allowed to throw the dice; she risks
her all, and is forced to be a mere spectator. I have the right,
the will, the power to make my own unhappiness, and I use them, as
did my mother, who, won by beauty and led by instinct, married the
most generous, the most liberal, the most loving of men. I know
that you are free, a poet, and noble-looking. Be sure that I
should not have chosen one of your brothers in Apollo who was
already married. If my mother was won by beauty, which is perhaps
the spirit of form, why should I not be attracted by the spirit
and the form united? Shall I not know you better by studying you
in this correspondence than I could through the vulgar experience
of “receiving your addresses”? This is the question, as Hamlet
says.
But my proceedings, dear Chrysale, have at least the merit of not
binding