George L—— to Paul B., Paris
Rozel, 15th September.
It's nine o'clock in the evening, my dear friend, and you have just arrivedfrom Germany. They hand you my letter, the post-mark of which informsyou at once that I am absent from Paris. You indulge in a gesture ofannoyance, and call me a vagabond. Nevertheless, you settle down inyour best arm-chair, you open my letter, and you hear that I have beenfor the past five days domesticated in a flour-mill in Lower Normandy.In a flour-mill! What the duse can he be doing in a mill? A wrinkle appearson your forehead, your eyebrows are drawn together; you lay down myletter for a moment; you attempt to penetrate this mystery by theunaided power of your imagination. Suddenly a playful expression beamsupon your countenance; your mouth expresses the irony of a wise mantempered by the indulgence of a friend; you have caught a glimpse,through an opera-comique cloud, of a miller's pretty wife with powderedhair, a waist all trimmed with gay ribbons, a light and short skirt, andstockings with gilded clocks; in short, one of those fair young millers'wives whose heart goes pit-a-pat with hautboy accompaniment. But thegraces who are ever sporting in your mind sometimes lead it astray; myfair miller is as much like the creature of your imagination as I am likea youthful Colin; her head is adorned with a towering cotton night-capto which the thickest possible coating of flour fails to restore itsprimitive color; she wears a coarse woolen petticoat which would abradethe hide of an elephant; in short, it frequently happens to me to confoundthe miller's wife with the miller himself, after which it is sufficient toadd that I am not the least curious to know whether or not her heartgoes pit-a-pat. The truth is, that, not knowing how to kill time in yourabsence, and having no reason to expect you to return before anothermonth; (it's your own fault!), I solicited a mission. The council-general ofthe department of —— had lately, and quite opportunely, expressedofficially the wish that a certain ruined abbey, called Rozel Abbey, shouldbe classed among historical monuments. I have been commissioned toinvestigate closely the candidate's titles. I hastened with all possiblespeed to the chief town of this artistic department, where I effected myentrance with the important gravity of a man who holds within hishands the life or the death of a monument dear to the country. I madesome inquiries at the hotel; great was my mortification when I discoveredthat no one seemed to suspect that such a thing as Rozel Abbey existedwithin a circuit of a hundred leagues. I called at the prefecture whilestill laboring under the effect of this disappointment; the prefect,Valton, whom you know very well, received me with his usual affability;but to the questions I addressed him on the subject of the condition ofthe ruins which the council seemed so desirous of preserving for theadmiration of its constituents, he replied with an absent smile, that hiswife, who had visited these ruins on the occasion of an excursion into thecountry, while she was sojourning on the sea shore, could tell me a greatdeal more about the ruins than he possibly could himself.
He invited me to dinner, and in the evening, Madame Valton, after t