Chapter VII: From Léon Verdier in Paris to Prosper Gobain at Lille

_September_ 28.

MON GROS VIEUX,

It’s a long time since I’ve given you of my news, and I don’t know what puts it into my head to-night to recall myself to your affectionate memory. I suppose it is that when we’re happy the mind reverts instinctively to those with whom formerly we shared our vicissitudes, and _je t’en ai trop dit dans le bon temps_, _cher vieux_, and you always listened to me too imperturbably, with your pipe in your mouth and your waistcoat unbuttoned, for me not to feel that I can count on your sympathy to-day. _Nous en sommes-nous flanqués_, _des confidences_?—in those happy days when my first thought in seeing an adventure _poindre à l’horizon_ was of the pleasure I should have in relating it to the great Prosper. As I tell thee, I’m happy; decidedly _j’ai de la chance_, and from that avowal I trust thee to construct the rest. Shall I help thee a little? Take three adorable girls—three, my good Prosper, the mystic number, neither more nor less. Take them and place in the midst of them thy insatiable little Léon. Is the situation sufficiently indicated, or does the scene take more doing?

You expected perhaps I was going to tell thee I had made my fortune, or that the Uncle Blondeau had at last decided to recommit himself to the breast of nature after having constituted me his universal legatee. But I needn’t remind you for how much women have always been in any happiness of him who thus overflows to you—for how much in any happiness and for how much more in any misery. But don’t let me talk of misery now; time enough when it comes, when _ces demoiselles_ shall have joined the serried ranks of their amiable predecessors. Ah, I comprehend your impatience. I must tell you of whom _ces demoiselles_ consist.

You’ve heard me speak of my _cousine_ de Maisonrouge, that _grande belle femme_ who, after having married, _en secondes noces_—there had been, to tell the truth, some irregularity about her first union—a venerable relic of the old noblesse of Poitou, was left, by the death of her husband, complicated by the crash of expensive tastes against an income of 17,000 francs, on the pavement of Paris with two little demons of daughters to bring up in the path of virtue. She managed to bring them up; my little cousins are ferociously _sages_. If you ask me how she managed it I can’t tell you; it’s no business of mine, and _a fortiori_ none of yours. She’s now fifty years old—she confesses to thirty-eight—and her daughters, whom she has never been able to place, are respectively twenty-seven and twenty-three (they confess to twenty and to seventeen). Three years ago she had the thrice-blest idea of opening a well-upholstered and otherwise attractive _asile_ for the blundering barbarians who come to Paris in the hope of picking up a few stray pearls from the _écrin_ of Voltaire—or of Zola. The idea has brought her luck; the house does an excellent business. Until within a few months ago it was carried on by my cousins alone; but lately the need of a few extensions and improvements has caused itself to be felt. My cousin has undertaken them, regardless of expense; in other words she has asked me to come and stay with her—board and lodging gratis—and correct the conversational exercises of her _pensionnaire_-pupils. I’m the extension, my good Prosper; I’m the improvement. She has enlarged the _personnel_—I’m the enlargement. I form the exemplary sounds that the prettiest English lips are invited to imitate. The English lips are not all pretty, heaven knows, but enough of them are so to make it a good bargain for me.

Just now, as I told you, I’m in daily relation with three separate pairs. The owner of one of them has private lessons; she pays extra. My cousin doesn’t give me a sou of the money, but I consider nevertheless that I’m not a loser by the arrangement. Also I’m well, very very well, with the proprietors of the two other pairs. One of these is a little Anglaise of twenty—a _figure de keepsake_; the most adorable miss you ever, or at least I ever, beheld. She’s hung all over with beads and bracelets and amulets, she’s embroidered all over like a sampler or a vestment; but her principal decoration consists of the softest and almost the hugest grey eyes in the world, which rest upon you with a profundity of confidence—a confidence I really feel some compunction in betraying. She has a tint as white as this sheet of paper, except just in the middle of each cheek, where it passes into the purest and most transparent, most liquid, carmine. Occasionally this rosy fluid overflows into the rest of her face—by which I mean that she blushes—as softly as the mark of your breath on the window-pane.

Like every Anglaise she’s rather pinched and prim in public; but it’s easy to see that when no one’s looking _elle ne demande qu’à se laisser aller_! Whenever she wants it I’m always there, and I’ve given her to understand she can count upon me. I’ve reason to believe she appreciates the assurance, though I’m bound in honesty to confess that with her the situation’s a little less advanced than with the others. _Que voulez-vous_? The English are heavy and the Anglaises move slowly, that’s all. The movement, however, is perceptible, and once this fact’s established I can let the soup simmer, I can give her time to arrive, for I’m beautifully occupied with her competitors. _They_ don’t keep me waiting, please believe.

These young ladies are Americans, and it belongs to that national character to move fast. “All right—go ahead!” (I’m learning a great deal of English, or rather a great deal of American.) They go ahead at a rate that sometimes makes it difficult for me to keep up. One of them’s prettier than the other; but this latter—the one that takes the extra-private lessons—is really _une fille étonnante_. _Ah par exemple_, _elle brûle ses vaisseaux_, _celle-là_! She threw herself into my arms the very first day, and I almost owed her a grudge for having deprived me of that pleasure of gradation, of carrying the defences one by one, which is almost as great as that of entering the place. For would you believe that at the end of exactly twelve minutes she gave me a rendezvous? In the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre I admit; but that was respectable for a beginning, and since then we’ve had them by the dozen; I’ve ceased to keep the account. _Non_, _c’est une fille qui me dépasse_.

The other, the slighter but “smarter” little person—she has a mother somewhere out of sight, shut up in a closet or a trunk—is a good deal prettier, and perhaps on that account _elle y met plus de façons_. She doesn’t knock about Paris with me by the hour; she contents herself with long interviews in the _petit salon_, with the blinds half-drawn, beginning at about three o’clock, when every one is _à la promenade_. She’s admirable, _cette petite_, a little too immaterial, with the bones rather over-accentuated, yet of a detail, on the whole, most satisfactory. And you can say anything to her. She takes the trouble to appear not to understand, but her conduct, half an hour afterwards, reassures you completely—oh completely!

However, it’s the big bouncer of the extra-private lessons who’s the most remarkable. These private lessons, my good Prosper, are the most brilliant invention of the age, and a real stroke of genius on the part of Miss Miranda! They also take place in the _petit salon_, but with the doors tightly closed and with explicit directions to every one in the house that we are not to be disturbed. And we’re not, _mon gros_, we’re not! Not a sound, not a shadow, interrupts our felicity. My cousins are on the right track—such a house must make its fortune. Miss Miranda’s too tall and too flat, with a certain want of coloration; she hasn’t the transparent _rougeurs_ of the little Anglaise. But she has wonderful far-gazing eyes, superb teeth, a nose modelled by a sculptor, and a way of holding up her head and looking every one in the face, which combines apparent innocence with complete assurance in a way I’ve never seen equalled. She’s making the _tour du monde_, entirely alone, without even a soubrette to carry the ensign, for the purpose of seeing for herself, seeing _à quoi s’en tenir sur les hommes et les choses_—on _les hommes_ particularly. _Dis donc_, _mon vieux_, it must be a _drôle de pays_ over there, where such a view of the right thing for the aspiring young bourgeoises is taken. If we should turn the tables some day, thou and I, and go over and see it for ourselves? Why isn’t it as well we should go and find them _chez elles_, as that they should come out here after us? _Dis donc_, _mon gros Prosper_ . . . !