On the sixth of December, I received a small envelope, bearing the Sonis postmark. It contained a little portrait of Mademoiselle Arvel, about the size of a postage-stamp. This had been torn off her railway season ticket, which I suppose she was now renewing.
It was in answer to the last part of my letter of “adieu.” I supposed that she wished to begin with me again, so I sent the following note which I candidly confess I wrote with great care and sincerity.
JACKY TO LILIAN.
Paris. December 7, 1898.
My dear little Lilian,
I am very perplexed. I do not know if it will please you or not to receive a few lines from me, as I ignore what you may have thought of my last letter, written about the seventeenth of November.
As far as I can recollect… it is nearly a month ago!.. and the time seems so long to me… I wrote then a few sentences a little too lascivious. I do not ask you to excuse or to pardon me, for I sent that letter under the influence of a species of fever, combined with lust. And I am sure you have understood and if you are vexed with me it is not for that. Therefore I am going to be calm and reasonable, and as brief as possible. As you have not answered me, I think it may perhaps bore you to receive a letter from me, but I shall soon know that by this very simple sign: if you do not reply, that will mean that Miss Arvel informs me that my little daughter is dead. Indeed, when the twenty-sixth of November passed without news of her, my heart went into mourning. It is true that I am so unhappy, covered with so many wounds, so to speak, that a new grief, a fresh wound, cannot increase my sufferings much. For me only the worst happens.
See what a wretched position I am in, in front of you. If I complain, that will seem to you perhaps ridiculous on the part of a man. If I show temper, you will say I am spiteful because you will not see or write to me. If I sulk and do not write to you, you will think (and rightly, too), that we ought to be at least polite and always answer a note, especially when corresponding with those we love and esteem. But it is all over between us two. Our love has gone with the summer sun, with all that was joy and pleasure. Now the cold winds blow. All is frozen. Winter is here.
Let me get done: the real motive of my letter… which is probably tiresome for you… is to thank you a thousand times for having sent me the portrait of my little daughter, so adored, so desired, who will never come to my arms again, since she is no more. I can see her prettier than on that photograph, because I love to remember her features when she smiled, her mouth half open, her lips all moist, and her beautiful Spanish eyes lighted up and sparkling, laughing. Then she was truly beautiful. Poor child! I loved her well.
It is a good and charming movement coming from the bottom of your little heart that has made you send me that portrait, and I recognize your usual kindness.
I dare not ask you news of your health, nor of your brother, nor of Blackamoor, because I do not want you to think that I use tricky means to drag a few lines out of you.
I ask for nothing; I want nothing of you out of pity or charity.
I think I have already told you (an old foreign snob like me has the privilege of repeating himself a little), that I detested the idea of two persons who love each other, or who have loved, doing composition, or sending ironical letters, making bittersweet sentences, etc. If I write to you it is purely and simply without any afterthought to have the pleasure of chatting with you from afar.
A strange idea has just come into my brain… (You know my peculiar imagination? All this pleased you once. Why have you changed? Mystery! — which I shall try to clear up.)
“Mademoiselle Arvel had a little sister, Lilian, who loved me. She is dead. I called her my daughter. When poor Lilian died, her big sister, who knew of our liaison, found a photograph of her, and sent it to me. She died towards the end of September.”
I assure you I loved her well.
J.S.
My bookselling friend in Rotterdam was evidently pleased with my efforts in correcting The Horn Book, for he now took the liberty of sending me another long and very obscene manuscript to correct and send through the press for him.
It was called, The Double Life of Cuthbert Cockerton, and strange to say, was principally about incestuous love between a father and daughter.
This book necessitated a lot of correction, and Vanderpunk insisted upon me adding a few words to the preface, and I did so, with the thought of my love Lilian, now dead to me, running through my poor brain. (See Appendix B.)
9
Amour, fléau du monde, exécrable folie;
Si jamais, par les yeux d'une femme sans coeur,
Tu peux m'entrer au ventre et m'empoisonner l'âme,
Ainsi que d'une plaie on arrache une lame,
Plutôt que comme un lâche on me voie en souffrir,
Je t'en arracherai, quand j'en devrais mourir.
I have already said that my health had been bad, and that I had great difficulty in getting over my sharp attack of rheumatism of the spring. The treatment at Lamalou had pulled me down exceedingly and, after the course of baths of boiling water, I returned to Paris in a state of mental and bodily fatigue.
That is why I had fallen an easy prey to Lilian, and I had not struggled against the fearful longing I felt for her; nor had I troubled to reason with myself. My brain was dulled. In September, I had enjoyed long bicycle rides in the country, and I now began to experience the benefit of the waters I had taken. I was light and gay, without a pain, and my sweet invalid companion also had a brief respite, in this gloomy fag-end of November and beginning of December.
I carried on now a pretty intrigue with a new flame, and the lady in question was such a curious person that I think she deserves to be lightly sketched in this, my little book which, started in summer sylvan retirement as a rapid review of a love-affair, is fast growing into a stout work of salacious confessions.
THE STORY OF A SLAVE.
I dined at the house of a French friend, a married man. I was introduced to a lady whom I had never seen in that house before. She was rather good-looking, but a trifle too stout, of Oriental style, like a fine, fat Jewess. She was about thirty, and had two children. Her husband was a manufacturer, and lived in the north of France. She was alone in Paris for a few days, I forget now for what reason. Louise, as I shall call her, seemed to like to laugh and joke with me, and sat down to the piano, and played for me and to me. She was a splendid performer and was very well educated. The little party broke up early, and as Madame Louise made out that she was not at her ease in Paris alone at night, I offered to be her cavalier and take her home to her hotel. I was accepted, and we left together. We were soon friends, and I prevailed upon her to walk with me instead of riding, and by dint of persuasion, got her to go to a café with me.
She talked of her home in the country and of the difficulty of getting good servants. I told her jokingly to whip them to make them obedient and that many women, whether domestics or ladies, liked to be chastised. It was a lucky hit of mine, as she would not let the subject of flagellation drop, and after a little fencing, I elicited from her that she dreamt daily and nightly of the joy of being a slave to a man she would love. Louise would never have gone so far if she did not want me to make love to her, and at last she promised to meet me in Paris the next afternoon.