Читать онлайн
A Prince of Bohemia
A Prince of Bohemia
Henri Heine
I inscribe this to you, my dear Heine, to you that represent in Paris the ideas and poetry of Germany, in Germany the lively and witty criticism of France; for you better than any other will know whatsoever this Study may contain of criticism and of jest, of love and truth.
DE BALZAC.
“My dear friend,” said Mme. de la Baudraye, drawing a pile of manuscript from beneath her sofa cushion, “will you pardon me in our present straits for making a short story of something which you told me a few weeks ago?”
“Anything is fair in these times. Have you not seen writers serving up their own hearts to the public, or very often their mistress’ hearts when invention fails? We are coming to this, dear; we shall go in quest of adventures, not so much for the pleasure of them as for the sake of having the story to tell afterwards.”
“After all, you and the Marquise de Rochefide have paid the rent, and I do not think, from the way things are going here, that I ever pay yours.”
“Who knows? Perhaps the same good luck that befell Mme. de Rochefide may come to you.”
“Do you call it good luck to go back to one’s husband?”
“No; only great luck. Come, I am listening.”
And Mme. de la Baudraye read as follows:
“Scene – a splendid salon in the Rue de Chartres-du-Roule. One of the most famous writers of the day discovered sitting on a settee beside a very illustrious Marquise, with whom he is on such terms of intimacy, as a man has a right to claim when a woman singles him out and keeps him at her side as a complacent souffre-douleur rather than a makeshift.”
“Well,” says she, “have you found those letters of which you spoke yesterday? You said that you could not tell me all about him without them?”
“Yes, I have them.”
“It is your turn to speak; I am listening like a child when his mother begins the tale of Le Grand Serpentin Vert.”