Читать книгу Letters to an Unknown - Prosper Merimee - Страница 9

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Mariquita de mi alma (it is thus that I should commence if we were in Granada), I received your letter in one of those moments of melancholy when one views life only through dark glasses. As your epistle is not as amiable as it might be—pardon my frankness—it has contributed not a little to the continuance of my sulky mood. I wished to answer your letter Sunday, promptly and sharply; promptly, because you had censured me in an indirect sort of way, and sharply, because I was furious with you.

I was interrupted at the first word of my letter, and this interruption prevented me from writing to you. Thank the good Lord for this, for the weather is fine to-day, and my ill-humour has become mollified to such an extent that I no longer wish to write to you save in a style of honey and sugar. I shall not quarrel with you, therefore, about thirty or forty passages in your last letter, which gave me a terrible shock, and which I am quite willing to forget. I forgive you, and with so much the more pleasure because I really believe that, in spite of my wrath, I like you better when you are pouting than in any other mood. One passage in your letter made me laugh all by myself for ten minutes. You tell me short and sweet: “My love is promised” and thus you bring on the great knock-down blow without any preliminary skirmishes.

You say you are engaged for life as you would say, “I am engaged for the quadrille.” Very well. I have apparently employed my time to advantage in discussing with you questions of love, marriage, and the like; you are still on the point of believing, or at least of saying, that when you are told to love a certain gentleman, you love him. Have you promised by a contract signed before a notary, or on vignetted paper?

When I was a school-boy I received once from a seamstress a note surmounted by two hearts aflame, united as follows: ; there was, besides, a declaration of the most affectionate kind. My teacher first confiscated my letter, and then locked me in my room. The object of this budding passion proceeded to console herself with my cruel teacher.

Nothing is so fatal as engagements to those in whose behalf they are made. Do you know that if your love were already promised, I should believe confidently that it would be possible for you to love me? Why should you not love me? for you have made me no promises, since the first law of nature is to take a dislike to everything that has the appearance of an obligation. And, indeed, every obligation is in its nature irksome. In short, if I had less modesty I should come to the conclusion that if you have pledged your love to some one, you will give it to me, to whom you have promised nothing. Joking aside, and speaking of promises, since you do not care to have my water-colour, I have a strong desire to send it to you. I was dissatisfied with it, and began a copy of an infant Marguerite of Velasquez, which I wished to give you. Velasquez is not easy to copy, especially for daubers like myself. Twice I have begun my Marguerite, but now I am even more discontented with it than I was with the monk. The latter is still subject to your orders. I will send it whenever you wish, but it will not carry conveniently. Not only this, the spirits which sometimes amuse themselves by intercepting our letters might possibly take care of my picture. What reassures me is that it is so bad that no one but I could have made it, and no one but you be blamed for it. Let me know your pleasure.

I hope you will be in Paris about the middle of October, at which time I shall have two or three weeks’ leisure. I should not care to spend them in France, and for a long time I have intended to see the Rubens pictures at Antwerp, and the Art Gallery at Amsterdam. If I were sure of seeing you, however, I should renounce Rubens and Van Dyck with the greatest cheerfulness. You see that the sacrifice costs me nothing. I do not know Amsterdam. However, it is for you to decide. Here your vanity will lead you to say: “A great sacrifice, indeed, not to prefer me to those fat Flemish women, with their white caps and baskets of fish, and in a picture gallery besides!” Yes, it is a sacrifice, and a great one too. I give up the certainty, that is, the very great pleasure, of seeing the paintings of a master, to the very uncertain chance that you will compensate me. Observe, that leaving out of consideration the impossible supposition that you might not please me, if I were to prove a disappointment to you, I should have good reason to regret my works of art and my fat Flemish women.

You seem to be devoutly superstitious even. I am reminded at this moment of a pretty little Grenada girl, who, on mounting her mule to go through a mountain pass at Ronda (a spot notorious for robbers), piously kissed her thumb, and struck her breast five or six times, absolutely certain after that that the robbers would not show themselves, provided the Inglés (meaning myself, for every traveller must be an Englishman) would not swear too much by the Holy Virgin and the Saints. This shocking manner of speaking becomes necessary on bad roads in order to persuade the horses to go.

Read “Tristram Shandy.” I should enjoy immensely your opinion of the story of that person. You are unjust and jealous—two admirable qualities in a woman, two faults in a man. I have them both. You ask me about the affair which preoccupies me. To tell you that, it would be necessary to describe my life and my character, of which no one has the least idea, because I have never yet found any one who inspired me with sufficient confidence to tell it. After we have met often we may perhaps become good friends, and you will understand me. To have a friend to whom I could express all my thoughts, past and present, would be to me the greatest blessing. I am becoming sad, and I must not end this letter in such a mood. I am consumed with the desire to have an answer from you. Be kind, and do not make me wait long.

Good-bye. Do not let us quarrel again, and let us be friends. With respect I kiss the hand which you extend to me in sign of peace.