Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-02-09
TRANSLATED from the French by S. G. Al
4 WONDERFUL CURE.

having piece of good fortune in 1916, at
the time when photography did not
yet flourish, and / was but forty years
old. This needs an explanation:
An oldmusician-a fellow-countryman
of mine-said to me one day in an
oracular voice: "My friend, from
a circus-rider to the editors of
the 1Nonjteur dc Ia Gapelterie,
of which you are the brightest
ornament, whoever places himself In
contact with the public gains, sooner or
later, feminine patron. Remembering
prediction, andsail gaily down the stream
of life."
These prophetic words did not fall
upon ungrateful soil. My dreams,
dating from that moment, were all the
color of the rosy fingers of morn. I
crowned myself with myrtle wreath,
hidden under a cotton cap, with no re-
gard for decorum. [ adorned my room
with four engravings, neatly framed,
representing Alcibiades, Don Juan,
Lauzun and Lovelace. [ studied these
great models and waited.
I waited long time-but at last, one
day, the 1st of April, 1915, date the
piscatory sense of which I understood
later, I received letter, oh! letter that
would have transformed the ice of
Beresina into a furnace; dainty, elegant,
coquettish, fragrant, exhaling vague
odor of verbena; wrapped in mystery
and satiny envelope, the initials hid
den under the coronal of q countess, and
the writing like bees running over the
flowers.
The beautiful unknown confessed to
me that she had subscribed in my honor
the manner In which / had treated the
famous chapter on hats had turned her
head; she yielded in writing me, to an
irresistible impulse; she did not expect
[ would answer; without doubt, [ re-
ceived hundreds of letters of thee same
sort every day, still if I was not deaf to
the appeal of soul invoking her sister
across space, she begged me to adj
dress my response to Nine. X. Y. H.,
Perigueux.
A spark In a key Of powder, thunder
bolt falling In a gas mandatory, a
bunch of lighted cigars IN a pile of
straw torrefed by dog-days, would be
but tame description to express all
that [ felt.
My delirium was SO great that [ spoke
Greek without knowing it. In the hope
of being soon embraced, cried: Eurekal
My response was not less than twenty
pages. It might easily have set the let
ter-box afre, cauterized the postman,
and Matched out silkworms. Compared
TO my style, the most fiery heroes of TO-
nance would have seemed fit to ice
champagne sensible woman attempt
ing to read Saint Preux or Werther after
having read me would have caught the
pleurlsy.
] proposed to Nine x. Y. z. not a
common exchange of letter and an
answer, but regu- II correspondence. I
entreated her to raise little by little, the
veil of her pseudonym, promising for
her secret the silence of the tomb and
for her letters double lock.
My offer was accepted, my prayer
heard. In the second epistle, Nine. X
7. z. called herself Countess X, in the
third Countess Clindamour, and in the
fourth, Emmeline
The same graduation was to be found
in our correspondence: Passion aban-
doned itself to cresceaaIo ultra-Ros-
sinien, that would have defed all the sax
OphOnes OF the opera.
One month after our debut, as [ was
opening the fifteenth letter from En-
incline, small perfumed package fell
at my feet. Surprise joy ecstasy
the package enclosed lock of her hair
Great favors impose great duties;
great thoughts come from the heart and
locks OF hair come from the head. /
did not wish to be out-done in amorous
munifcence. I looked in my mirror, a
proof, that my vanity rendered very
rare. Time, who is great thief has
probably robbed me of the resemblance,
but he has not spared the juvenile black
ness of my hair-to find lock of The
thickness, color and proper length. I
had no need To dye, restore or select.
The shears sufficed me.
[ cut off lock, put it in an envelope
and sent it to Emmeline. Then con-
templating the portraits of Alcibiades,
Lauzun, Don Juan, and Lovelace,
said to myself that the great charmers
of the future would have to put fifth
engraving on their walls.
But the crescendo steadily increased.
Verdi replaced Rossini Would it be
possible for us to go on writing eternally
MAeuOuU SoSulS Ou0 ouOolCI NO-d
thousand times no! Yet to see one an
other in the ordinary conditions, to meet
some place and say stupidity, Madame,
am M. Lauzun of the Chapetlerde
Have l the honor to address Madame
Countess of Clindamour ?" TIC .fe! il
would be unworthy of passion that adj
mitted nothing commonpla &c.
To render myself more interesting ]
had written Emmeline that my physi-
clans had ordered for me the waters OF
Bagneres. Here should burst forth the
instructive sympathies, the elective afini-
ties, the mysterious predestinations, the
magnetic attraction, the tender diyina-
ton of two beings created for one an
other, separated by stupid chance, re-
cognizing each other upon meeting and
seeing, without ever having seen.
We wrote enough upon this subject to