Chapter XX: In which Mimi replies to Monsieur Henry

11, The Parade, Felixstowe,
Wednesday.

Ah, cher Monsieur Henry, if I knew how to answer you.

Why should I go to dream a little while if I must awake to remember. _Ah, mille noms, faut-il être Parisienne._

There must be roses in the heart if we would wear them on the cheek; but in my heart none, Monsieur Henry; for it has grown empty.

I hear the Chevalier--but why would he call me to that great city of shadows? Does Monsieur Barrymore laugh at me when he would have me believe that he is happy in this England? Shall I think well of Monsieur Oleander because he also is deceived a little while? Here I look all day across the sea where they tell me that France is. I am a child, but they call me a woman. _Ah, mes enfants!_ What pages I have turned in this great book of sorrow that none may see my tears fall upon them.

A little while and the sun will shine, and then there is the great cold road again and the sad-faced people, and we go away, oh, so far away towards the dark and the night; and there is no light in the sky behind us to tell us where the city is; we hear no laughter anywhere; but the end of the world is beyond, and we voyage with shut lips toward it.

I remember such a journey as this; it was long ago when I was so little, that you, Monsieur Henry, could have put me in your great big pocket. An old woman led me by the hand away from a great warm house down to the water and the ships. I remember that it was twilight and then night, and that I saw my home behind me as a star one sees low down in the heavens. And then we came to a hut in the wood, and there were ugly men, and I could not sleep, and when it was day all that I had known went from my mind, and I remembered nothing but the lonely road, and the strange faces, and the harsh words I heard. You know how far I have journeyed since those days. Ah, what palaces we have visited together, you and I, Monsieur Henry--and how often I have lost you! Can you wonder that I would rest--even I?

I dance still with these English friends, and they are very kind to me. The people here say that my dancing is wicked; but there are many clergymen, and they love to say “shockink.” I live in a little room where I can watch the sea, and I go out every morning, long before the people are up, to float on the waves, and look for the ship which will carry me back to France. But there is no mermaid here, no fairy swims with me; I cannot find the silver shell, and I return to my little house to say it will be never, that I shall see France no more, that all the world has deserted me.

Shall I make you sad, Monsieur Henry, to tell you all these things? If I do, the Chevalier will make you laugh, and that will be the recompense. Oh, he is droll, the Chevalier. Do you remember when he loved Madame la Comtesse de Brianville--and would have borrowed twenty francs to marry her? _Ah, mes enfants_--but those were days!

And Monsieur Georges. Yes, I would like to see him again, and that great Monsieur Barrymore who used to sit me on his knee before he painted my picture.

And they are all in your Maison du bon Tabac, and there is Paris below the windows, the Paris you love to dream of, and you sing the songs that Jean de Bataille made. _Ah, mes enfants_--if I were there!--Your friend,

Mimi.