Part 32

Since I last wrote to you I’ve left that nice hotel and come to live in a French family—which, however, is nice too. This place is a kind of boarding-house that’s at the same time a kind of school; only it’s not like an American boarding-house, nor like an American school either. There are four or five people here that have come to learn the language—not to take lessons, but to have an opportunity for conversation. I was very glad to come to such a place, for I had begun to realise that I wasn’t pressing onward quite as I had dreamed with the French. Wasn’t I going to feel ashamed to have spent two months in Paris and not to have acquired more insight into the language? I had always heard so much of French conversation, and I found I wasn’t having much more opportunity to practise it than if I had remained at Bangor. In fact I used to hear a great deal more at Bangor from those French-Canadians who came down to cut the ice than I saw I should ever hear at that nice hotel where was no struggle—_some_ fond struggle being my real atmosphere. The lady who kept the books seemed to want so much to talk to me in English (for the sake of practice, too, I suppose)—she kind of yearned to struggle too: we don’t yearn _only_ down in Maine—that I couldn’t bear to show her I didn’t like it. The chambermaid was Irish and all the waiters German, so I never heard a word of French spoken. I suppose you might hear a great deal in the shops; but as I don’t buy anything—I prefer to spend my money for purposes of culture—I don’t have that advantage.

I’ve been thinking some of taking a teacher, but am well acquainted with the grammar already, and over here in Europe teachers don’t seem to think it’s _really_ in their interest to let you press forward. The more you strike out and realise your power the less they’ve got to teach you. I was a good deal troubled anyhow, for I felt as if I didn’t want to go away without having at least got a general idea of French conversation. The theatre gives you a good deal of insight, and as I told you in my last I go a good deal to the brightest places of amusement. I find no difficulty whatever in going to such places alone, and am always treated with the politeness which, as I’ve mentioned—for I want you to feel happy about that—I encounter everywhere from the best people. I see plenty of other ladies alone (mostly French) and they generally seem to be enjoying themselves as much as I. Only on the stage every one talks so fast that I can scarcely make out what they say; and, besides, there are a great many vulgar expressions which it’s unnecessary to learn. But it was this experience nevertheless that put me on the track. The very next day after I wrote to you last I went to the Palais Royal, which is one of the principal theatres in Paris. It’s very small but very celebrated, and in my guide-book it’s marked with _two stars_, which is a sign of importance attached only to _first-class_ objects of interest. But after I had been there half an hour I found I couldn’t understand a single word of the play, they gabbled it off so fast and made use of such peculiar expressions. I felt a good deal disappointed and checked—I saw I wasn’t going to come out where I had dreamed. But while I was thinking it over—thinking what I _would_ do—I heard two gentlemen talking behind me. It was between the acts, and I couldn’t help listening to what they said. They were talking English, but I guess they were Americans.

“Well,” said one of them, “it all depends on what you’re after. I’m after French; that’s what I’m after.”

“Well,” said the other, “I’m after Art.”

“Well,” said the first, “I’m after Art too; but I’m after French most.”

Then, dear mother, I’m sorry to say the second one swore a little. He said “Oh damn French!”

“No, I won’t damn French,” said his friend. “I’ll acquire it—that’s what I’ll do with it. I’ll go right into a family.”

“What family’ll you go into?”

“Into some nice French family. That’s the only way to do—to go to some place where you can talk. If you’re after Art you want to stick to the galleries; you want to go right through the Louvre, room by room; you want to take a room a day, or something of that sort. But if you want to acquire French the thing is to look out for some family that has got—and they mostly have—more of it than they’ve use for themselves. How _can_ they have use for so much as they seem to _have_ to have? They’ve got to work it off. Well, they work it off on _you_. There are lots of them that take you to board and teach you. My second cousin—that young lady I told you about—she got in with a crowd like that, and they posted her right up in three months. They just took her right in and let her have it—the full force. That’s what they do to you; they set you right down and they talk _at_ you. You’ve got to understand them or perish—so you strike out in self-defence; you can’t help yourself. That family my cousin was with has moved away somewhere, or I should try and get in with them. They were real live people, that family; after she left my cousin corresponded with them in French. You’ve got to do _that_ too, to make much real head. But I mean to find some other crowd, if it takes a lot of trouble!”

I listened to all this with great interest, and when he spoke about his cousin I was on the point of turning around to ask him the address of the family she was with; but the next moment he said they had moved away, so I sat still. The other gentleman, however, didn’t seem to be affected in the same way as I was.

“Well,” he said, “you may follow up that if you like; I mean to follow up the pictures. I don’t believe there’s ever going to be any considerable demand in the United States for French; but I can promise you that in about ten years there’ll be a big demand for Art! And it won’t be temporary either.”

That remark may be very true, but I don’t care anything about the demand; I want to know French for its own sake. “Art for art,” they say; but I say French for French. I don’t want to think I’ve been all this while without having gained an insight. . . . The very next day, I asked the lady who kept the books at the hotel whether she knew of any family that could take me to board and give me the benefit of their conversation. She instantly threw up her hands with little shrill cries—in their wonderful French way, you know—and told me that her dearest friend kept a regular place of that kind. If she had known I was looking out for such a place she would have told me before; she hadn’t spoken of it herself because she didn’t wish to injure the hotel by working me off on another house. She told me this was a charming family who had often received American ladies—and others, including three Tahitans—who wished to follow up the language, and she was sure I’d fall in love with them. So she gave me their address and offered to go with me to introduce me. But I was in such a hurry that I went off by myself and soon found them all right. They were sitting there as if they kind of expected me, and wouldn’t scarcely let me come round again for my baggage. They seemed to have right there on hand, as those gentlemen of the theatre said, plenty of what I was after, and I now feel there’ll be no trouble about _that_.

I came here to stay about three days ago, and by this time I’ve quite worked in. The price of board struck me as rather high, but I must remember what a chance to press onward it includes. I’ve a very pretty little room—without any carpet, but with seven mirrors, two clocks and five curtains. I was rather disappointed, however, after I arrived, to find that there are several other Americans here—all also bent on pressing onward. At least there are three American and two English pensioners, as they call them, as well as a German gentleman—and there seems nothing backward about _him_. I shouldn’t wonder if we’d make a regular class, with “moving up” and moving down; anyhow I guess I won’t be at the foot, but I’ve not yet time to judge. I try to talk with Madame de Maisonrouge all I can—she’s the lady of the house, and the _real_ family consists only of herself and her two daughters. They’re bright enough to give points to our own brightest, and I guess we’ll become quite intimate. I’ll write you more about everything in my next. Tell William Platt I don’t care a speck _what_ he does.

III FROM MISS VIOLET RAY IN PARIS TO MISS AGNES RICH IN NEW YORK

_September_ 21.

We had hardly got here when father received a telegram saying he would have to come right back to New York. It was for something about his business—I don’t know exactly what; you know I never understand those things and never want to. We had just got settled at the hotel, in some charming rooms, and mother and I, as you may imagine, were greatly annoyed. Father’s extremely fussy, as you know, and his first idea, as soon as he found he should have to go back, was that we should go back with him. He declared he’d never leave us in Paris alone and that we must return and come out again. I don’t know what he thought would happen to us; I suppose he thought we should be too extravagant. It’s father’s theory that we’re always running-up bills, whereas a little observation would show him that we wear the same old _rags_ FOR MONTHS. But father has no observation; he has nothing but blind theories. Mother and I, however, have fortunately a great deal of _practice_, and we succeeded in making him understand that we wouldn’t budge from Paris and that we’d rather be chopped into small pieces than cross that squalid sea again. So at last he decided to go back alone and to leave us here for three months. Only, to show you how fussy he is, he refused to let us stay at the hotel and insisted that we should go into a _family_. I don’t know what put such an idea into his head unless it was some advertisement that he saw in one of the American papers that are published here. Don’t think you can escape from them anywhere.

There are families here who receive American and English people to live with them under the pretence of teaching them French. You may imagine what people they are—I mean the families themselves. But the Americans who choose this peculiar manner of seeing Paris must be actually just as bad. Mother and I were horrified—we declared that _main force_ shouldn’t remove us from the hotel. But father has a way of arriving at his ends which is more effective than violence. He worries and goes on; he “nags,” as we used to say at school; and when mother and I are quite worn to the bone his triumph is assured. Mother’s more quickly ground down than I, and she ends by siding with father; so that at last when they combine their forces against poor little me I’ve naturally to succumb. You should have heard the way father went on about this “family” plan; he talked to every one he saw about it; he used to go round to the banker’s and talk to the people there—the people in the post-office; he used to try and exchange ideas about it with the waiters at the hotel. He said it would be more safe, more respectable, more economical; that I should pick up more French; that mother would learn how a French household’s conducted; that he should feel more easy, and that we ourselves should enjoy it when we came to see. All this meant nothing, but that made no difference. It’s positively cruel his harping on our pinching and saving when every one knows that business in America has completely recovered, that the prostration’s all over and that _immense fortunes_ are being made. We’ve been depriving ourselves of the commonest necessities for the last five years, and I supposed we came abroad to reap the benefits of it.

As for my French it’s already much better than that of most of our helpless compatriots, who are all unblushingly destitute of the very rudiments. (I assure you I’m often surprised at my own fluency, and when I get a little more practice in the circumflex accents and the genders and the idioms I shall quite hold my own.) To make a long story short, however, father carried his point as usual; mother basely deserted me at the last moment, and after holding out alone for three days I told them to do with me what they would. Father lost three steamers in succession by remaining in Paris to argue with me. You know he’s like the schoolmaster in Goldsmith’s _Deserted Village_—“e’en though vanquished” he always argues still. He and mother went to look at some seventeen families—they had got the addresses somewhere—while I retired to my sofa and would have nothing to do with it. At last they made arrangements and I was transported, as in chains, to the establishment from which I now write you. I address you from the bosom of a Parisian ménage—from the depths of a second-rate boarding-house.

Father only left Paris after he had seen us what he calls comfortably settled here and had informed Madame de Maisonrouge—the mistress of the establishment, the head of the “family”—that he wished my French pronunciation especially attended to. The pronunciation, as it happens, is just what I’m most at home in; if he had said my genders or my subjunctives or my idioms there would have been some sense. But poor father has no native tact, and this deficiency has become flagrant since we’ve been in Europe. He’ll be absent, however, for three months, and mother and I shall breathe more freely; the situation will be less tense. I must confess that we breathe more freely than I expected in this place, where we’ve been about a week. I was sure before we came that it would prove to be an establishment of the _lowest description_; but I must say that in this respect I’m agreeably disappointed. The French spirit is able to throw a sort of grace even over a swindle of this general order. Of course it’s very disagreeable to live with strangers, but as, after all, if I weren’t staying with Madame de Maisonrouge I shouldn’t be _vautrée_ in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, I don’t know that from the point of view of exclusiveness I’m much the loser.

Our rooms are very prettily arranged and the table’s remarkably good. Mamma thinks the whole thing—the place and the people, the manners and customs—very amusing; but mamma can be put off with any imposture. As for me, you know, all that I ask is to be let alone and not to have people’s society _forced upon me_. I’ve never wanted for society of my own choosing, and, so long as I retain possession of my faculties, I don’t suppose I ever shall. As I said, however, the place seems to scramble along, and I succeed in doing as I please, which, you know, is my most cherished pursuit. Madame de Maisonrouge has a great deal of tact—much more than poor floundering father. She’s what they call here a _grande belle femme_, which means that she’s high-shouldered and short-necked and literally hideous, but with a certain quantity of false type. She has a good many clothes, some rather bad; but a very good manner—only one, and worked to death, but intended to be of the best. Though she’s a very good imitation of a _femme du monde_ I never see her behind the dinner-table in the evening, never see her smile and bow and duck as the people come in, really glaring all the while at the dishes and the servants, without thinking of a _dame de comptoir_ blooming in a corner of a shop or a restaurant. I’m sure that in spite of her _beau nom_ she was once a paid book-keeper. I’m also sure that in spite of her smiles and the pretty things she says to every one, she hates us all and would like to murder us. She is a hard clever Frenchwoman who would like to amuse herself and enjoy her Paris, and she must be furious at having to pass her time grinning at specimens of the stupid races who mumble broken French at her. Some day she’ll poison the soup or the _vin rouge_, but I hope that won’t be until after mother and I shall have left her. She has two daughters who, except that one’s decidedly pretty, are meagre imitations of herself.

The “family,” for the rest, consists altogether of our beloved compatriots and of still more beloved Englanders. There’s an Englander with his sister, and they seem rather decent. He’s remarkably handsome, but excessively affected and patronising, especially to us Americans; and I hope to have a chance of biting his head off before long. The sister’s very pretty and apparently very nice, but in costume Britannia incarnate. There’s a very pleasant little Frenchman—when they’re nice they’re charming—and a German doctor, a big blond man who looks like a great white bull; and two Americans besides mother and me. One of them’s a young man from Boston—an esthetic young man who talks about its being “a real Corot day,” and a young woman—a girl, a female, I don’t know what to call her—from Vermont or Minnesota or some such place. This young woman’s the most extraordinary specimen of self-complacent provinciality that I’ve ever encountered; she’s really too horrible and too humiliating. I’ve been three times to Clémentine about your underskirt, etc.

IV FROM LOUIS LEVERETT IN PARIS TO HARVARD TREMONT IN BOSTON

_September_ 25.

MY DEAR HARVARD,

I’ve carried out my plan, of which I gave you a hint in my last, and I only regret I shouldn’t have done it before. It’s human nature, after all, that’s the most interesting thing in the world, and it only reveals itself to the truly earnest seeker. There’s a want of earnestness in that life of hotels and railroad-trains which so many of our countrymen are content to lead in this strange rich elder world, and I was distressed to find how far I myself had been led along the dusty beaten track. I had, however, constantly wanted to turn aside into more unfrequented ways—to plunge beneath the surface and see what I should discover. But the opportunity had always been missing; somehow I seem never to meet those opportunities that we hear about and read about—the things that happen to people in novels and biographies. And yet I’m always on the watch to take advantage of any opening that may present itself; I’m always looking out for experiences, for sensations—I might almost say for adventures.

The great thing is to _live_, you know—to feel, to be conscious of one’s possibilities; not to pass through life mechanically and insensibly, even as a letter through the post-office. There are times, my dear Harvard, when I feel as if I were really capable of everything—_capable de tout_, as they say here—of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism. Oh to be able to say that one has lived—_qu’on a vécu_, as they say here—that idea exercises an indefinable attraction for me. You’ll perhaps reply that nothing’s easier than to say it! Only the thing’s to make people believe you—to make above all one’s self. And then I don’t want any second-hand spurious sensations; I want the knowledge that leaves a trace—that leaves strange scars and stains, ineffable reveries and aftertastes, behind it! But I’m afraid I shock you, perhaps even frighten you.

If you repeat my remarks to any of the West Cedar Street circle be sure you tone them down as your discretion will suggest. For yourself you’ll know that I have always had an intense desire to see something of _real French life_. You’re acquainted with my great sympathy with the French; with my natural tendency to enter into their so supremely fine exploitation of the whole personal consciousness. I sympathise with the artistic temperament; I remember you used sometimes to hint to me that you thought my own temperament _too_ artistic. I don’t consider that in Boston there’s any real sympathy with the artistic temperament; we tend to make everything a matter of right and wrong. And in Boston one can’t _live_—_on ne peut pas vivre_, as they say here. I don’t mean one can’t reside—for a great many people manage that; but one can’t live esthetically—I almost venture to say one can’t live sensuously. This is why I’ve always been so much drawn to the French, who are so esthetic, so sensuous, so _entirely_ living. I’m so sorry dear Théophile Gautier has passed away; I should have liked so much to go and see him and tell him all I owe him. He was living when I was here before; but, you know, at that time I was travelling with the Johnsons, who are not esthetic and who used to make me feel rather ashamed of my love and my need of beauty. If I had gone to see the great apostle of that religion I should have had to go clandestinely—_en cachette_, as they say here; and that’s not my nature; I like to do everything frankly, freely, _naïvement, au grand jour_. That’s the great thing—to be free, to be frank, to be naïf. Doesn’t Matthew Arnold say that somewhere—or is it Swinburne or Pater?

When I was with the Johnsons everything was superficial, and, as regards life, everything was brought down to the question of right and wrong. They were eternally didactic; art should never be didactic; and what’s life but the finest of arts? Pater has said that so well somewhere. With the Johnsons I’m afraid I lost many opportunities; the whole outlook or at least the whole medium—of feeling, of appreciation—was grey and cottony, I might almost say woolly. Now, however, as I tell you, I’ve determined to take right hold for myself; to look right into European life and judge it without Johnsonian prejudices. I’ve taken up my residence in a French family, in a real Parisian house. You see I’ve the courage of my opinions; I don’t shrink from carrying out my theory that the great thing is to _live_.

You know I’ve always been intensely interested in Balzac, who never shrank from the reality and whose almost _lurid_ pictures of Parisian life have often haunted me in my wanderings through the old wicked-looking streets on the other side of the river. I’m only sorry that my new friends—my French family—don’t live in the old city, _au cour de vieux Paris_, as they say here. They live only on the Boulevard Haussmann, which is a compromise, but in spite of this they have a great deal of the Balzac tone. Madame de Maisonrouge belongs to one of the oldest and proudest families in France, but has had reverses which have compelled her to open an establishment in which a limited number of travellers, who are weary of the beaten track, who shun the great caravanseries, who cherish the tradition of the old French sociability—she explains it herself, she expresses it so well—in short to open a “select” boarding-house. I don’t see why I shouldn’t after all use that expression, for it’s the correlative of the term pension bourgeoise, employed by Balzac in _Le Père Goriot_. Do you remember the pension bourgeoise of Madame Vauquer née de Conflans? But this establishment isn’t at all like that, and indeed isn’t bourgeois at all; I don’t quite know how the machinery of selection operates, but we unmistakably feel we’re select. The Pension Vauquer was dark, brown, sordid, graisseuse; but this is in quite a different tone, with high clear lightly-draped windows and several rather good Louis Seize pieces—family heirlooms, Madame de Maisonrouge explains. She recalls to me Madame Hulot—do you remember “la belle Madame Hulot”?—in _Les Parents Pauvres_. She has a great charm—though a little artificial, a little jaded and faded, with a suggestion of hidden things in her life. But I’ve always been sensitive to the seduction of an ambiguous fatigue.