The Blue Duchess

at is twenty-nine months ago. That anniversary found me more melancholy than usual. The reason of it was still the same: the feeling that my facultie

ar, who was as good as most people, said: “At my age Alexander had conquered the world.” That is an heroic cry when the pride of a still unknown power palpitates in it, but it is harrowing when the conviction

scouragement swept over me, paralyzing the creative energy of the soul, and clearly demonstrating to me my own shortcomings. My communion with my thoughts on that darkening autumn afternoon frightened me, and I took refuge in a means of distraction which was usually successful, a visit to the School of Arms in the Rue Boissy d’Anglais. There I overcame my nerves by a series of exercises performed with all the vigour of which I was capable. A cold bath and a rub dow

” he asked me. “I have a

ith faults I detest the quality most lacking in me: the power to impose himself, the audacity of mind, the productive virility, and the self-confidence without whi

as the first author of the day!’” But Claude was slightly envious of Jacques, and that was one of the latter’s superiorities; through his self-conceit he was ignorant of any feeling like envy. He did not prefer himself to others, he ignored them. The explanation of this mystery was: with his almost unhealthy vanity only equalled by his insensibility, this fellow had only to sit down with paper in front of him, and beneath his pen came and went, spoke and acted, enjoyed and suffered 12passionate and eloquent beings, creatures of flesh and blood full of lo

s which revealed to the world of letters the name of the unhappy Maupassant. Jacques realized that no great success was possible in any other form of novel, and at the same time he divined that after these two masters he must not touch trivial and popular environment. The reader was satiated with that. Molan then conceived the idea, which amounted to genius, of apply

ion: Martyre Intime, C?ur Brisé and Anciennes Amours. In them he preserved the faults usual in imitators: long dissertations, the philosophic treatment of little love adventures, and particularly, the abuse of worldly adornment. He had originated naturalism in high l

ifferent principles of art. Through them we could follow the history of the variations of fashion. Not one of them is sincere in the real sense of the word, and all of them have 14in an equal degree that colour of human truth which seems in this wayward writer an unconscious gift. The same gift he display

write in his prefaces sentences like this: “When I picked anemones in the gardens of the Villa Pamphili!” or like this: “I, too, offered up my prayer on the Acropolis”; or again: “Like the bull I saw kneel down to die in the bull ring at Seville.” I have quoted these phrases from memory. Besides all this, the anima

champagne or Burgundy? The

u de Vals will do

His egoism was of a convenient kind, as he never discussed other people’s caprices, nor allowed them to discuss his. He ordered the

ome embarrassment, “I hard

Vaincue. But the way to succeed is to baffle expectations; never, never repeat oneself! Those who reproached me with lack of brain and ignorance of my business, have had to acknowledge their mistake. You know me. I say ou

ou find your ti

or its heroine a woman 16whom one of your colleagues, better informed than yourself in English manners, has painted in a harmony of blue tints as the Gainsb

ttle Favie

Not that I blame you for not frequenting the theatres. Seeing the kind of pla

l me about little

lay, a symphony in blue major! It will be a fine subject for you for the next Salon. I repeat I am very lucky. Then what a head she has for you: twenty-two years old, a complexion like a tea-rose, a mouth sad in repose and tender when smiling, blue eyes to complete the symphony, pale, pale, pale blue with a black point in the middle, which sometimes increases in size; her hair is the col

on which implies thoughtlessness and so well conceals design. But this sort of gossip always has a prudent limit. Besides, the diners at the next table were three retired generals, to interrupt whose conversation then gun-shot would have been required. The noises made by the thirty or forty persons dining were sufficient to d

to her, that is what y

e were always reasonable, we should be only common people, should not we? She began it. If you had seen, at rehearsal, how she stealthily devoured me with her eyes! I took good care not to notice her. She is a coquette and a half. An author who has a mistress at the theatre when he does not act himself, is responsible for a serious orthographi

” I cried i

iends. I have been kind to her. She desired our love concealed from her mother and we did so. She desired meetings in cemeteries at the graves of great men and I have gone there. Can you imagine me, at my age, with a bunch of violets in my hand, waiting for a friend 19with

ow?” I

to confess? That is two months ago, and a two months’ idyll is a little less fresh, amiable and restf

ed, “that I have not a little house on the Monceau Plain, that I do not

thing in common with the Faubourg and the nobility, nor has the charming person to whom I am referring, anything i

,” I interrupted. “That is one of the advantages the

e-twentieth of the women in Paris, some young, some not, some titled, some not, have pretensions to be literary, political, or ?sthetic, but they are all brainy and intellectual, and they are not courtesans. My pleasure is to turn them into courtesans when it is worth the trouble. If I ever show you Bonnivet, you will agree that she is worth the trouble. Besides there is at her house lively conversation and good food. Don’t look so disgusted. Afte

lettante disguise, for I was greatly interested in his confidences. 21He gladly opened his heart to me as I listened to him, though he actually liked me no more than I did him. He inst

ing the classic method of a fashionable woman who wishes to pique a famous man by not appearing to join the throng of his admirers. Kind friends always let one know of this amiability. La Duchesse Blue was produced with some success, as I have told you, and then, I don’t know how or why, there came an entire change of front. One of her beaters—she has beaters, just like a sportsman, whom she recruits from her most ardent admirers—Senneterre, whom you know well; the old blond

er since I have known you your stories have always been the same: they cons

ngel of disinterestedness, and that the noodle, René Vincy is a great poet. Judge of our sincerity. It was as if neither she nor I had ever suspected that one writer could slander another, that a woman of the world could commit adultery. We have taken our revenge since, and we are at this moment in that state of bitter warfare which is disguised by the pretty name of flirtation. I spare you the details. It is sufficient to know that she 23is aware that little Favier is my mistress; she thinks I am madly in love with her, and her sole aim is to steal me from her. Accustomed as she is to masc

Camille Fav

nivet than Bonnivet is of her. I have not been bored for the last week or two I can assure you. Th

pear on the end of his dessert fork as he concluded hi

omen again? You are pl

To Madam de Bonnivet? If she does not love me, what risk does she run? If she loves me, she will be grateful. Suffering requires fe

Anciennes Amours or Martyre Intime, were to hear you now?” I said to

se. A play or novel of mine is compact, there is nothing useless in it. The first and third acts are the best in the play. Madam de Bonnivet prefers the second and Camille the fourth. All tastes are suited. Waiter, bring two cups of coffee and

, “it stays where it is and brings in

uch as they do, and if I were not a literary man, I should like to be a financier. But we must hurry. Queen Anne may be at the theatre this evening, though she h