University of Virginia Library

MARION: A ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL.

1. I.

—, Friday, —, 1860.

On the sad sea shore! Always to hear the moaning
of these dismal waves!

Listen. I will tell you my story — my story of
love, of misery, of black despair.

I am a moral Frenchman.

She whom I adore, whom I adore still, is the wife
of a fat Marquis — a lop-eared, blear-eyed, greasy
Marquis. A man without soul. A man without
sentiment, who cares naught for moonlight and music.
A low, practical man, who pays his debts. I
hate him.

2. II.

She, my soul's delight, my empress, my angel, is
superbly beautiful.

I loved her at first sight — devotedly, madly.

She dashed past me in her coupè. I saw her but
a moment — perhaps only an instant — but she took
me captive then and there, forevermore.

Forevermore!

I followed her, after that, wherever she went.
At length she came to notice, to smile upon me.
My motto was en avant! That is a French word.
I got it out of the back part of Worcester's Dictionary.

3. III.

She wrote me that I might come and see her at
her own house. Oh, joy, joy unutterable, to see
her at her own house!

I went to see her after nightfall, in the soft moonlight.

She came down the graveled walk to meet me, on

this beautiful midsummer night — came to me in
pure white, her golden hair in splendid disorder—
strangely beautiful, yet in tears!

She told me her fresh grievances.

The Marquis, always a despot, had latterly misused
her most vilely.

That very morning, at breakfast, he had cursed
the fishballs and sneered at the pickled onions.

She is a good cook. The neighbors will tell you
so. And to be told by the base Marquis — a man
who, previous to his marriage, had lived at the cheap
eating-houses — to be told by him that her manner
of frying fishballs was a failure — it was too much.

Her tears fell fast. I too wept. I mixed my
sobs with her'n. “Fly with me!” I cried.

Her lips met mine. I held her in my arms. I
felt her breath upon my cheek! It was Hunkey.

“Fly with me. To New York! I will write
romances for the Sunday papers — real French romances,
with morals to them. My style will be appreciated.
Shop girls and young mercantile persons
will adore it, and I will amass wealth with my ready
pen.

Ere she could reply — ere she could articulate her
ecstacy, her husband, the Marquis, crept snake-like
upon me.

Shall I write it? He kicked me out of the gar-den
— he kicked me into the street.

I did not return. How could I? I,so ethereal,
so full of soul, of sentiment, of sparkling original-ity!
He, so gross, so practical, so lop-eared!

Had I returned, the creature would have kicked
me again.

So I left Paris for this place — this place, so
lonely, so dismal.

Ah me!

Oh dear!

THE END.