Chapter L

[Mimi the Simpleton writes a brief note to Madame the Princess Hélène of Ilidze and we translate it.]

The Riviera Palace Hotel, Monte Carlo,
March 3d, 1906.

Dearest Mother,--We return to Paris to-day, and Harry says that I may write to you. I have wished to write so many times, but he has forbidden me. We are to go to Paris and then to London to see that great big Monsieur Paddy, who loves me.

Dearest mother, there has never been anyone in my life to whom I could speak as I have spoken to you. All the secrets have been locked in my own heart, but you have shared them. When I was in Paris at the cafés and the circus, I knew that someone would come some day and open the secret place of my love. You only in all the world can do so. Many, many years I carried my hope with me and never dared to speak of it. How much, dearest mother, is a woman alone among men. We bear our burdens and none knows of them.

Will you write to me, dearest, to the château; and I will have the letters sent to London, if we go there. I know that I may not see you often, but I will count the days until I see you again. Our jewels do not shine less brightly because we do not look at them, and I know that you think of me as your child. So often have I said she is my mother, and that is the sweetest word. The years were long, dearest, until I learned it; but I would live them all again if the end might be like this.

Harry writes so well that they wish him to go to England. He has promised to go there to see his cousin, Madame Martha, who is in trouble. She has lost all her money and Harry is going to give her some, for her husband the clergyman cannot preach without money, and that would make the people unhappy, she says. Afterwards we wish to buy the Château of Marcey-le-Rideau and to go there for all our holidays. Harry says that he does not wish to write any more for the newspapers. It makes him so angry when they leave his work out and put someone else’s in. And it is never so good as Harry’s.

Dearest mother, will you come to Marcey-le-Rideau and let me call you mother there? It will not be my home if you do not.

All the lonely, lonely years forgotten! Dearest, will you say that they must never return?

Your loving daughter,
Mimi.