Possibly your taste inclines you to those moralist's studies of "Woman,"
in which the author warns his readers on the first page that "he does
not speak for chaste ears." Madam, it is my boast that I have never
written a line which a virtuous woman might not read.... My book will
certainly lose thereby in the circulation which it will obtain; but I
shall console myself by the thought that if I sometimes cause you to
smile, that smile will never be accompanied by a blush. Being the nephew
of a Pasha, it struck me as a capital idea to lay the scene of a Turkish
romance in Provence, and to found upon it a study in psychology. Every
romance must be based upon love. Am I to be blamed, therefore, because
oriental customs prescribe for lovers different modes of love? Confess,
if you please, that my heroines are more poetic than the young women à
la mode, into whose company I had as much right as any other author to
conduct my hero if I had so chosen. I will excuse myself by saying, like
the simpleton De Chamfort, "Is it my fault if I love the women I do love
better than those I don't?"
P.S. Above all things, not a word to Louis about the mystification of
which I am making him a victim.
You wretch! Here's a fine pickle you've got me into! What, after I
confided to you the extraordinary adventures which I have passed
through, relying upon your absolute secrecy and discretion, you go
straight off and read my letter to your wife, at the risk of bringing
upon me by your recklessness the most cruel gibes on the subject of my
pasha-ship! Can't you see that if this story gets wind, Paris will be
too hot a place for me? I shall become the butt of the Society journals
and the halfpenny press, who will treat me as a most eccentric and
romantic personage. Never more shall I be able to set foot in club,
theatre, or private drawing-room, without being followed by the stares
of the inquisitive and the quiet chaff of the ribald! I can picture
myself already in the Bois, with all the loafers in my train pointing
out "the man with the harem." Have you lost your senses, that you have
betrayed me in this abominable fashion?
In all seriousness I now rely upon you to repair this blunder, by
accepting, in the eyes of your wife, the part of one mystified, which I
have made you assume. I wrote to her that not one word of this story is
true, and that it is a romance I have been composing in order to occupy
the leisure hours which I am forced to pass in the solitude of Férouzat,
while the business connected with my inheritance is being wound up. In
short, as I am positive that the first thing she will do will be to show
you her letter, I expect you, if your friendship is good for anything,
to pretend to believe it. Upon this condition only will I continue my
confidences; and I suspend them until you have given me your word of
honour to observe discretion.