Not long after these martial adventures, domestic problems recalled Mylord to England. And since he did not doubt that the thought of having to lose him distressed me extremely, he assured me — to console me and to flatter his self-love — that he hated to leave Paris for two reasons only: me, and the bullfights.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE TAX COLLECTOR
When Mylord departed I was in the possession of a rather great capital and I could have led a life of leisure, keeping up my estate, for the rest of my days. But I have discovered that the desire for more increases relative to our gains and that avarice and frugality are the constant companions of abundance and wealth. The passion for comfort and the hope of even more complete satisfaction shortens the time we could take out for indulgence. Our necessities multiply as fast as our income grows. And even while wallowing in opulence we are constantly afraid of having to suffer privation. My income was over twelve thousand pounds but I did not dare to think about retirement ere I had reached an annuity of twenty thousand. It is true, that a girl as highly desirable as I should not exceed the bounds of possibility which fate erects. However, the next act of favor which it dropped into my lap proved to me that my ambitions were well within the limits of workability. As a matter of fact, my Englishman could not have yet reached Dover when a member of the Academy of Forty from the Hotel des Fermes showed up to replace him. I received him with all the outward signs of esteem and consideration his money vault demanded. Nevertheless, without being blinded by the honors he paid me, I told him that I preferred connections with foreigners and I could only accept his kind offer under the condition that our contract would be null and void the very moment I could attract a gentleman from abroad. He agreed to this and we sealed our covenant.
He was a rather strong, straight and tall man who was not too bad looking. Otherwise he was an utterly unbearable fellow, as often happens to people in his position. The world was without bounds, except, of course, for his own person. He considered himself a universal genius and his every decision was a final one. He disagreed with anyone and everything, but woe to the person who did not concur with his opinions. He insisted that people listen to him, without ever deigning to hear the views of anyone else. Briefly, this conceited nuisance would happily cut the throat of any decent person and then expect loud and happy approval of his poor victims and their friends.
The best thing he did after entering my home was to restore the results of Mylord's bad taste and institute in its stead the luxury which is considered normal among people of considerable financial wealth. Every noon and every evening my table was laid for eight persons; six places were always occupied by poets, musicians and painters. In the interest of their bellies they squandered their corruptible incense, like slaves, on my Croesus. My home was a tribunal where talent and the arts were judged with the same superiority as in the literary saloon of Madame T… All the good authors were run down and hacked to pieces with a smile, just as at her place. Only the bad ones found favor in their eyes; yes, those were veritably placed on a pedestal. I have heard this rabble degrade the incomparable letters written by the author of “The Temple of Cnidus.” They even threw stink-bombs, as it were, at the respectable Abbe Pellegrin to support their opinion that his “Lettres Juifs” was merely a jumble of ideas, taken from “Baby-lone,” the “Bibliotheque universelle du Clerc,” even from “L'espion turc” and many other works. Every single idea was supposedly horribly maimed and each one of the mangled sentences betrayed the Provencal language. This poor priest, whose only disadvantages were his extreme destitution and his uncleanliness, but whose slovenly body enveloped a beautiful soul — this hapless man who has always been the butt of unwarranted sarcasms — possessed an excellent power of judgment. I must admit to his credit that, if I have any taste for the good things in life at all and if I know how to protect myself from the contagious fever of pretension to wit and culture, it is only because I have tried to follow his outstanding advice. It was he who opened my eyes about the small and transitory value of our drones of Parnassus and who made me aware that true intelligence and imagination are a pure, divine fire, a gift from Heaven, and that it is not within the power of Man to acquire it. It is very important not to confuse this prophetic genius, who is impelled by divine ardor, with the despicable multitude of quill-drivers who color their scribblings with so-called aesthetic assumed names. Those nicknames are now considered a disgrace by decent people, and even though the confessions laid down in Pellegrin's letters belong to the most noble works in literature, one feels embarrassed to support them because of the bad name this legion of vermin has given to letter-writing in our society.
“You could hardly guess,” he said to me one day, “why Paris has been infected with this accursed rabble. It is simply because this trade requires neither talent nor brains. If you want to convince yourself, just teach your coachman a dozen words from the newly published encyclopedia and send him for one or two months to the Cafe Procope. I guarantee you that, upon his return, he will be as much a literary wit as the others. Aah,” he added with a deep sigh, “I owe all the misery and ridicule which has been heaped upon my head for such a long time to the cruelty of my own family. These barbarous people forced me to enter this order when I was still a youngster. My initial opposition against the monastic class grew stronger when I became older. I have lamented many a year since I was forced to don the cowl and I would have died of frustration if it had not been for my discovery of a way to secularize. But, without friends, without money, and stripped bare of almost everything, my freedom soon became a burden to me. I had almost reached the point where I started to yearn for the fetters that had been strangling me. And, since I did not know where to go, my indecision led me to come here. In the beginning I managed to make ends meet with the proceeds of my celebrations of the Mass and the writing of sermons which I used to sell to other mendicant friars. My misery and inaction did not permit me to be too squeamish in the selection of my acquaintanceships. I frequented a small tobacco parlor near the market place of Saint-Germain where tightrope walkers, puppeteers, a few mimics from the Opera comique, and — among others — Monsieur Colin, the well-known candle cleaner of the Comedie francaise, used to get together. I was lucky enough to be liked by these gentlemen, and they gave me tickets to watch their performances. Soon an inordinate desire to scribble upon paper overwhelmed me. I risked my chances and tried my hand at a few bad scenes, and was ridiculously overpaid for them. I would have preferred to make my peace with both the Church and the Theater so that I could still cash in on my daily tributes to the altar. However, the bishop decided to rob me of this small but regular income by forbidding me to function as a preacher and I lost fifteen sous daily which were the proceeds of my Masses and my only true means of support. So, in order to compensate for this loss, I decided to become a professional poet and I started to put together comedies, operas and tragedies which I succeeded to have performed under the name of my brother, the cavalier. Or, I sold them to just about anybody who had the desire to become known as an author. Aside from that I traded wholesale and retail in everything that belongs to the domain of the mind. Whoever wanted a poem to go with a bouquet of flowers, or a verse to brighten weddings, or a spiritual song, or sermons for lent; he could find them all — and at favorable prices — in my repository. I count upon your honor to remain silent about this, but many an honored member of this Society of Promiscuous Chatterboxes in the Louvre has not found it beneath his dignity to seek refuge with me and beg me to write his speech of acceptance. Who would not believe that such a thriving business nevertheless did not even permit me to own at least a carriage? But I ask you to judge for yourself about the gains I have made. Look at me. I have composed millions of poems during the past fifty years, and I do not even own a pair of trousers.”