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Page 3
I came here to stay about three days ago, and by this time I have seen a
great deal of them. The price of board struck me as rather high; but I
must remember that a quantity of conversation is thrown in. I have a
very pretty little room--without any carpet, but with seven mirrors, two
clocks, and five curtains. I was rather disappointed after I arrived to
find that there are several other Americans here for the same purpose as
myself. At least there are three Americans and two English people; and
also a German gentleman. I am afraid, therefore, our conversation will
be rather mixed, but I have not yet time to judge. I try to talk with
Madame de Maisonrouge all I can (she is the lady of the house, and the
_real_ family consists only of herself and her two daughters). They are
all most elegant, interesting women, and I am sure we shall become
intimate friends. I will write you more about them in my next. Tell
William Platt I don't care what he does.
CHAPTER III
FROM MISS VIOLET RAY, IN PARIS, TO MISS AGNES RICH, IN NEW YORK.
September 21st.
We had hardly got here when father received a telegram saying he would
have to come right back to New York. It was for something about his
business--I don't know exactly what; you know I never understand those
things, never want to. We had just got settled at the hotel, in some
charming rooms, and mother and I, as you may imagine, were greatly
annoyed. Father is extremely fussy, as you know, and his first idea, as
soon as he found he should have to go back, was that we should go back
with him. He declared he would never leave us in Paris alone, and that
we must return and come out again. I don't know what he thought would
happen to us; I suppose he thought we should be too extravagant. It's
father's theory that we are always running up bills, whereas a little
observation would show him that we wear the same old _rags_ FOR MONTHS.
But father has no observation; he has nothing but theories. Mother and
I, however, have, fortunately, a great deal of _practice_, and we
succeeded in making him understand that we wouldn't budge from Paris, and
that we would rather be chopped into small pieces than cross that
dreadful ocean again. So, at last, he decided to go back alone, and to
leave us here for three months. But, to show you how fussy he is, he
refused to let us stay at the hotel, and insisted that we should go into
a _family_. I don't know what put such an idea into his head, unless it
was some advertisement that he saw in one of the American papers that are
published here.
There are families here who receive American and English people to live
with them, under the pretence of teaching them French. You may imagine
what people they are--I mean the families themselves. But the Americans
who choose this peculiar manner of seeing Paris must be actually just as
bad. Mother and I were horrified, and declared that main force should
not remove us from the hotel. But father has a way of arriving at his
ends which is more efficient than violence. He worries and fusses; he
"nags," as we used to say at school; and, when mother and I are quite
worn out, his triumph is assured. Mother is usually worn out more easily
than I, and she ends by siding with father; so that, at last, when they
combine their forces against poor little me, I have to succumb. You
should have heard the way father went on about this "family" plan; he
talked to every one he saw about it; he used to go round to the banker's
and talk to the people there--the people in the post-office; he used to
try and exchange ideas about it with the waiters at the hotel. He said
it would be more safe, more respectable, more economical; that I should
perfect my French; that mother would learn how a French household is
conducted; that he should feel more easy, and five hundred reasons more.
They were none of them good, but that made no difference. It's all
humbug, his talking about economy, when every one knows that business in
America has completely recovered, that the prostration is all over, and
that immense fortunes are being made. We have been economising for the
last five years, and I supposed we came abroad to reap the benefits of
it.
As for my French, it is quite as perfect as I want it to be. (I assure
you I am often surprised at my own fluency, and, when I get a little more
practice in the genders and the idioms, I shall do very well in this
respect.) To make a long story short, however, father carried his point,
as usual; mother basely deserted me at the last moment, and, after
holding out alone for three days, I told them to do with me what they
pleased! Father lost three steamers in succession by remaining in Paris
to argue with me. You know he is like the schoolmaster in Goldsmith's
"Deserted Village"--"e'en though vanquished, he would argue still." He
and mother went to look at some seventeen families (they had got the
addresses somewhere), while I retired to my sofa, and would have nothing
to do with it. At last they made arrangements, and I was transported to
the establishment from which I now write you. I write you from the bosom
of a Parisian menage--from the depths of a second-rate boarding-house.
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