VIII. FROM MISS AURORA CHURCH, IN NEW YORK, TO MISS WHITESIDE, IN
PARIS.
January 9.
I told you (after we landed) about my agreement with mamma--that I
was to have my liberty for three months, and if at the end of this
time I shouldn't have made a good use of it, I was to give it back
to her. Well, the time is up today, and I am very much afraid I
haven't made a good use of it. In fact, I haven't made any use of
it at all--I haven't got married, for that is what mamma meant by
our little bargain. She has been trying to marry me in Europe, for
years, without a dot, and as she has never (to the best of my
knowledge) even come near it, she thought at last that, if she were
to leave it to me, I might do better. I couldn't certainly do
worse. Well, my dear, I have done very badly--that is, I haven't
done at all. I haven't even tried. I had an idea that this affair
came of itself over here; but it hasn't come to me. I won't say I
am disappointed, for I haven't, on the whole, seen any one I should
like to marry. When you marry people over here, they expect you to
love them, and I haven't seen any one I should like to love. I
don't know what the reason is, but they are none of them what I have
thought of. It may be that I have thought of the impossible; and
yet I have seen people in Europe whom I should have liked to marry.
It is true, they were almost always married to some one else. What
I AM disappointed in is simply having to give back my liberty. I
don't wish particularly to be married; and I do wish to do as I
like--as I have been doing for the last month. All the same, I am
sorry for poor mamma, as nothing has happened that she wished to
happen. To begin with, we are not appreciated, not even by the
Rucks, who have disappeared, in the strange way in which people over
here seem to vanish from the world. We have made no sensation; my
new dresses count for nothing (they all have better ones); our
philological and historical studies don't show. We have been told
we might do better in Boston; but, on the other hand, mamma hears
that in Boston the people only marry their cousins. Then mamma is
out of sorts because the country is exceedingly dear and we have
spent all our money. Moreover, I have neither eloped, nor been
insulted, nor been talked about, nor--so far as I know--deteriorated
in manners or character; so that mamma is wrong in all her
previsions. I think she would have rather liked me to be insulted.
But I have been insulted as little as I have been adored. They
don't adore you over here; they only make you think they are going
to. Do you remember the two gentlemen who were on the ship, and
who, after we arrived here, came to see me a tour de role? At first
I never dreamed they were making love to me, though mamma was sure
it must be that; then, as it went on a good while, I thought perhaps
it WAS that; and I ended by seeing that it wasn't anything! It was
simply conversation; they are very fond of conversation over here.
Mr. Leverett and Mr. Cockerel disappeared one fine day, without the
smallest pretension to having broken my heart, I am sure, though it
only depended on me to think they had! All the gentlemen are like
that; you can't tell what they mean; everything is very confused;
society appears to consist of a sort of innocent jilting. I think,
on the whole, I AM a little disappointed--I don't mean about one's
not marrying; I mean about the life generally. It seems so
different at first, that you expect it will be very exciting; and
then you find that, after all, when you have walked out for a week
or two by yourself, and driven out with a gentleman in a buggy,
that's about all there is of it, as they say here. Mamma is very
angry at not finding more to dislike; she admitted yesterday that,
once one has got a little settled, the country has not even the
merit of being hateful. This has evidently something to do with her
suddenly proposing three days ago that we should go to the West.
Imagine my surprise at such an idea coming from mamma! The people
in the pension--who, as usual, wish immensely to get rid of her--
have talked to her about the West, and she has taken it up with a
kind of desperation. You see, we must do something; we can't simply
remain here. We are rapidly being ruined, and we are not--so to
speak--getting married. Perhaps it will be easier in the West; at
any rate, it will be cheaper, and the country will have the
advantage of being more hateful. It is a question between that and
returning to Europe, and for the moment mamma is balancing. I say
nothing: I am really indifferent; perhaps I shall marry a pioneer.
I am just thinking how I shall give back my liberty. It really
won't be possible; I haven't got it any more; I have given it away
to others. Mamma may recover it, if she can, from THEM! She comes
in at this moment to say that we must push farther--she has decided
for the West. Wonderful mamma! It appears that my real chance is
for a pioneer--they have sometimes millions. But, fancy us in the
West!
