Our Letters

by Guy de Maupassant

　　Eight hours of railway travel induce sleep for some persons and insomniafor others with me, any journey prevents my sleeping on the followingnight.At about five o'clock I arrived at the estate of Abelle, which belongs tomy friends, the Murets d'Artus, to spend three weeks there. It is apretty house, built by one of their grandfathers in the style of thelatter half of the last century. Therefore it has that intimatecharacter of dwellings that have always been inhabited, furnished andenlivened by the same people. Nothing changes; nothing alters the soulof the dwelling, from which the furniture has never been taken out, thetapestries never unnailed, thus becoming worn out, faded, discolored, onthe same walls. None of the old furniture leaves the place; only fromtime to time it is moved a little to make room for a new piece, whichenters there like a new-born infant in the midst of brothers and sisters.The house is on a hill in the center of a park which slopes down to theriver, where there is a little stone bridge. Beyond the water the fieldsstretch out in the distance, and here one can see the cows wanderingaround, pasturing on the moist grass; their eyes seem full of the dew,mist and freshness of the pasture. I love this dwelling, just as oneloves a thing which one ardently desires to possess. I return here everyautumn with infinite delight; I leave with regret.After I had dined with this friendly family, by whom I was received likea relative, I asked my friend, Paul Muret: "Which room did you give methis year?""Aunt Rose's room."An hour later, followed by her three children, two little girls and aboy, Madame Muret d'Artus installed me in Aunt Rose's room, where I hadnot yet slept.When I was alone I examined the walls, the furniture, the general aspectof the room, in order to attune my mind to it. I knew it but little, asI had entered it only once or twice, and I looked indifferently at apastel portrait of Aunt Rose, who gave her name to the room.This old Aunt Rose, with her curls, looking at me from behind the glass,made very little impression on my mind. She looked to me like a woman offormer days, with principles and precepts as strong on the maxims ofmorality as on cooking recipes, one of these old aunts who are thebugbear of gaiety and the stern and wrinkled angel of provincialfamilies.I never had heard her spoken of; I knew nothing of her life or of herdeath. Did she belong to this century or to the preceding one? Had sheleft this earth after a calm or a stormy existence? Had she given up toheaven the pure soul of an old maid, the calm soul of a spouse, thetender one of a mother, or one moved by love? What difference did itmake? The name alone, "Aunt Rose," seemed ridiculous, common, ugly.I picked up a candle and looked at her severe face, hanging far up in anold gilt frame. Then, as I found it insignificant, disagreeable, evenunsympathetic, I began to examine the furniture. It dated from theperiod of Louis XVI, the Revolution and the Directorate. Not a chair,not a curtain had entered this room since then, and it gave out thesubtle odor of memories, which is the combined odor of wood, cloth,chairs, hangings, peculiar to places wherein have lived hearts that haveloved and suffered.I retired but did not sleep. After I had tossed about for an hour ortwo, I decided to get up and write some letters.I opened a little mahogany desk with brass trimmings, which was placedbetween the two windows, in hope of finding some ink and paper; but all Ifound was a quill-pen, very much worn, and chewed at the end. I wasabout to close this piece of furniture, when a shining spot attracted myattention it looked like the yellow head of a nail. I scratched it withmy finger, and it seemed to move. I seized it between two finger-nails,and pulled as hard as I could. It came toward me gently. It was a longgold pin which had been slipped into a hole in the wood and remainedhidden there.Why? I immediately thought that it must have served to work some springwhich hid a secret, and I looked. It took a long time. After about twohours of investigation, I discovered another hole opposite the first one,but at the bottom of a groove. Into this I stuck my pin: a little shelfsprang. toward my face, and I saw two packages of yellow letters, tiedwith a blue ribbon.I read them. Here are two of them:So you wish me to return to you your letters, my dearest friend.Here they are, but it pains me to obey. Of what are you afraid?That I might lose them? But they are under lock and key. Do youfear that they might be stolen? I guard against that, for they aremy dearest treasure.Yes, it pains me deeply. I wondered whether, perhaps you might notbe feeling some regret! Not regret at having loved me, for I knowthat you still do, but the regret of having expressed on white paperthis living love in hours when your heart did not confide in me, butin the pen that you held in your hand. When we love, we have needof confession, need of talking or writing, and we either talk orwrite. Words fly away, those sweet words made of music, air andtenderness, warm and light, which escape as soon as they areuttered, which remain in the memory alone, but which one can neithersee, touch nor kiss, as one can with the words written by your hand.Your letters? Yes, I am returning them to you! But with whatsorrow!Undoubtedly, you must have had an after thought of delicate shame atexpressions that are ineffaceable. In your sensitive and timid soulyou must have regretted having written to a man that you loved him.You remembered sentences that called up recollections, and you saidto yourself: "I will make ashes of those words."Be satisfied, be calm. Here are your letters. I love you. MY FRIEND:No, you have not understood me, you have not guessed. I do notregret, and I never shall, that I told you of my affection.I will always write to you, but you must return my letters to me assoon as you have read them.I shall shock you, my friend, when I tell you the reason for thisdemand. It is not poetic, as you imagined, but practical. I amafraid, not of you, but of some mischance. I am guilty. I do notwish my fault to affect others than myself.Understand me well. You and I may both die. You might fall offyour horse, since you ride every day; you might die from a suddenattack, from a duel, from heart disease, from a carriage accident,in a thousand ways. For, if there is only one death, there are moreways of its reaching us than there are days or us to live.Then your sisters, your brother, or your sister-in-law might find myletters! Do you think that they love me? I doubt it. And then,even if they adored me, is it possible for two women and one man toknow a secret--such a secret!--and not to tell of it?I seem to be saying very disagreeable things, speaking first of yourdeath, and then suspecting the discreetness of your relatives.But don't all of us die sooner or later? And it is almost certainthat one of us will precede the other under the ground. We musttherefore foresee all dangers, even that one.As for me, I will keep your letters beside mine, in the secret of mylittle desk. I will show them to you there, sleeping side by sidein their silken hiding place, full of our love, like lovers in atomb.You will say to me: "But if you should die first, my dear, yourhusband will find these letters."Oh! I fear nothing. First of all, he does not know the secret of mydesk, and then he will not look for it. And even if he finds itafter my death, I fear nothing.Did you ever stop to think of all the love letters that have beenfound after death? I have been thinking of this for a long time,and that is the reason I decided to ask you for my letters.Think that never, do you understand, never, does a woman burn, tearor destroy the letters in which it is told her that she is loved.That is our whole life, our whole hope, expectation and dream.These little papers which bear our name in caressing terms arerelics which we adore; they are chapels in which we are the saints.Our love letters are our titles to beauty, grace, seduction, theintimate vanity of our womanhood; they are the treasures of ourheart. No, a woman does not destroy these secret and deliciousarchives of her life.But, like everybody else, we die, and then--then these letters arefound! Who finds them? The husband. Then what does he do?Nothing. He burns them.Oh, I have thought a great deal about that! Just think that everyday women are dying who have been loved; every day the traces andproofs of their fault fall into the hands of their husbands, andthat there is never a scandal, never a duel.Think, my dear, of what a man's heart is. He avenges himself on aliving woman; he fights with the man who has dishonored her, killshim while she lives, because, well, why? I do not know exactly why.But, if, after her death, he finds similar proofs, he burns them andno one is the wiser, and he continues to shake hands with the friendof the dead woman, and feels quite at ease that these letters shouldnot have fallen into strange hands, and that they are destroyed.Oh, how many men I know among my friends who must have burned suchproofs, and who pretend to know nothing, and yet who would havefought madly had they found them when she was still alive! But sheis dead. Honor has changed. The tomb is the boundary of conjugalsinning.Therefore, I can safely keep our letters, which, in your hands,would be a menace to both of us. Do you dare to say that I am notright?I love you and kiss you.I raised my eyes to the portrait of Aunt Rose, and as I looked at hersevere, wrinkled face, I thought of all those women's souls which we donot know, and which we suppose to be so different from what they reallyare, whose inborn and ingenuous craftiness we never can penetrate, theirquiet duplicity; and a verse of De Vigny returned to my memory:"Always this comrade whose heart is uncertain."