THE POWER OF THE UNSEEN
To Monsieur de Canalis:
My friend,--Suffer me to give you that name,--you have delighted me; I would not have you other than you are in this letter, the first--oh, may it not be the last! Who but a poet could have excused and understood a young girl so delicately?
I wish to speak with the sincerity that dictated the first lines of your letter. And first, let me say that most fortunately you do not know me. I can joyfully assure you than I am neither that hideous Mademoiselle Vilquin nor the very noble and withered Mademoiselle d'Herouville who floats between twenty and forty years of age, unable to decide on a satisfactory date. The Cardinal d'Herouville flourished in the history of the Church at least a century before the cardinal of whom we boast as our only family glory,--for I take no account of lieutenant-generals, and abbes who write trumpery little verses.
Moreover, I do not live in the magnificent villa Vilquin; there is not in my veins, thank God, the ten-millionth of a drop of that chilly blood which flows behind a counter. I come on one side from Germany, on the other from the south of France; my mind has a Teutonic love of reverie, my blood the vivacity of Provence. I am noble on my father's and on my mother's side. On my mother's I
derive from every page of the Almanach de Gotha. In short, my precautions are well taken. It is not in any man's power, nor even in the power of the law, to unmask my incognito. I shall remain veiled, unknown.
As to my person and as to my "belongings," as the Normans say, make yourself easy. I am at least as handsome as the little girl (ignorantly happy) on whom your eyes chanced to light during your visit to Havre; and I do not call myself poverty-stricken, although ten sons of peers may not accompany me on my walks. I
have seen the humiliating comedy of the heiress sought for her millions played on my account. In short, make no attempt, even on a wager, to reach me. Alas! though free as air, I am watched and guarded,--by myself, in the first place, and secondly, by people of nerve and courage who would not hesitate to put a knife in your heart if you tried to penetrate my retreat. I do not say this to excite your courage or stimulate your curiosity; I believe I have no need of such incentives to interest you and attach you to me.
I will now reply to the second edition, considerably enlarged, of your first sermon.
Will you have a confession? I said to myself when I saw you so distrustful, and mistaking me for Corinne (whose improvisations bore me dreadfully), that in all probability dozes of Muses had already led you, rashly curious, into their valleys, and begged you to taste the fruits of their boarding-school Parnassus. Oh!
you are perfectly safe with me, my friend; I may love poetry, but I have no little verses in my pocket-book, and my stockings are, and will remain, immaculately white. You shall not be pestered with the "Flowers of my Heart" in one or more volumes. And, finally, should it ever happen that I say to you the word "Come!"
you will not find--you know it now--an old maid, no, nor a poor and ugly one.
Ah! my friend, if you only knew how I regret that you came to Havre! You have lowered the charm of what you call my romance. God alone knew the treasure I was reserving for the man noble enough, and trusting enough, and perspicacious enough to come--having faith in my letters, having penetrated step by step into the depths of my heart--to come to our first meeting with the simplicity of a child: for that was what I dreamed to be the innocence of a man of genius. And now you have spoiled my treasure! But I forgive you; you live in Paris and, as you say, there is always a man within a poet.
Because I tell you this will you think me some little girl who cultivates a garden-full of illusions? You, who are witty and wise, have you not guessed that when Mademoiselle d'Este received your pedantic lesson she said to herself: "No, dear poet, my first letter was not the pebble which a vagabond child flings about the highway to frighten the owner of the adjacent fruit-trees, but a net carefully and prudently thrown by a fisherman seated on a rock above the sea, hoping and expecting a miraculous draught."
All that you say so beautifully about the family has my approval.
The man who is able to please me, and of whom I believe myself worthy, will have my heart and my life,--with the consent of my parents, for I will neither grieve them, nor take them unawares:
happily, I am certain of reigning over them; and, besides, they are wholly without prejudice. Indeed, in every way, I feel myself protected against any delusions in my dream. I have built the fortress with my own hands, and I have let it be fortified by the boundless devotion of those who watch over me as if I were a treasure,--not that I am unable to defend myself in the open, if need be; for, let me say, circumstances have furnished me with armor of proof on which is engraved the word "Disdain." I have the deepest horror of all that is calculating,--of all that is not pure, disinterested, and wholly noble. I worship the beautiful, the ideal, without being romantic; though I HAVE been, in my heart of hearts, in my dreams. But I recognize the truth of the various things, just even to vulgarity, which you have written me about Society and social life.
For the time being we are, and we can only be, two friends. Why seek an unseen friend? you ask. Your person may be unknown to me, but your mind, your heart I KNOW; they please me, and I feel an infinitude of thoughts within my soul which need a man of genius for their confidant. I do not wish the poem of my heart to be wasted; I would have it known to you as it is to God. What a precious thing is a true comrade, one to whom we can tell all! You will surely not reject the unpublished leaflets of a young girl's thoughts when they fly to you like the pretty insects fluttering to the sun? I am sure you have never before met with this good fortune of the soul,--the honest confidences of an honest girl.