Роберт Льюис Стивенсон
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 23

To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

In the first week of January I went for some necessary work to Paris, with the intention of returning towards the end of the month. The following letter introduces the Russian sisters, Madame Zassetsky and Madame Garschine, whose society and that of their children was to do so much to cheer Stevenson during his remaining months on the Riviera. The French painter Robinet (sometimes in his day known as le Raphael des cailloux, from the minuteness of detail which he put into his Provençal coast landscapes) was a chivalrous and affectionate soul, in whom R. L. S. delighted in spite of his fervent clerical and royalist opinions.

[Menton], January 7, 1874.

MY DEAR MOTHER, – I received yesterday two most charming letters – the nicest I have had since I left – December 26th and January 1st: this morning I got January 3rd.

Into the bargain with Marie, the American girl, who is grace itself, and comes leaping and dancing simply like a wave – like nothing else, and who yesterday was Queen out of the Epiphany cake and chose Robinet (the French painter) as her favori with the most pretty confusion possible – into the bargain with Marie, we have two little Russian girls, with the youngest of whom, a little polyglot button of a three-year old, I had the most laughable little scene at lunch to-day. I was watching her being fed with great amusement, her face being as broad as it is long, and her mouth capable of unlimited extension; when suddenly, her eye catching mine, the fashion of her countenance was changed, and regarding me with a really admirable appearance of offended dignity, she said something in Italian which made everybody laugh much. It was explained to me that she had said I was very polisson to stare at her. After this she was somewhat taken up with me, and after some examination she announced emphatically to the whole table, in German, that I was a Mädchen; which word she repeated with shrill emphasis, as though fearing that her proposition would be called in question —Mädchen, Mädchen, Mädchen, Mädchen. This hasty conclusion as to my sex she was led afterwards to revise, I am informed; but her new opinion (which seems to have been something nearer the truth) was announced in a third language quite unknown to me, and probably Russian. To complete the scroll of her accomplishments, she was brought round the table after the meal was over, and said good-bye to me in very commendable English.

The weather I shall say nothing about, as I am incapable of explaining my sentiments upon that subject before a lady. But my health is really greatly improved: I begin to recognise myself occasionally now and again, not without satisfaction.

Please remember me very kindly to Professor Swan; I wish I had a story to send him; but story, Lord bless you, I have none to tell, sir, unless it is the foregoing adventure with the little polyglot. The best of that depends on the significance of polisson, which is beautifully out of place.

Saturday, 10th January.– The little Russian kid is only two and a half: she speaks six languages. She and her sister (æt. 8) and May Johnstone (æt. 8) are the delight of my life. Last night I saw them all dancing – O it was jolly; kids are what is the matter with me. After the dancing, we all – that is the two Russian ladies, Robinet the French painter, Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone, two governesses, and fitful kids joining us at intervals – played a game of the stool of repentance in the Gallic idiom.

O – I have not told you that Colvin is gone; however, he is coming back again; has left clothes in pawn to me. – Ever your affectionate son,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

[Menton], Sunday, 11th January 1874.

In many ways this hotel is more amusing than the Pavillon. There are the children, to begin with; and then there are games every evening – the stool of repentance, question and answer, etc.; and then we speak French, although that is not exactly an advantage in so far as personal brilliancy is concerned.

I am in lovely health again to-day: I-walked as far as the Pont St. Louis very nearly, besides walking and knocking about among the olives in the afternoon. I do not make much progress with my French; but I do make a little, I think. I was pleased with my success this evening, though I do not know if others shared the satisfaction.

The two Russian ladies are from Georgia all the way. They do not at all answer to the description of Georgian slaves however, being graceful and refined, and only good-looking after you know them a bit.

Please remember me very kindly to the Jenkins, and thank them for having asked about me. Tell Mrs. J. that I am engaged perfecting myself in the “Gallic idiom,” in order to be a worthier Vatel for the future. Monsieur Folleté, our host, is a Vatel by the way. He cooks himself, and is not insensible to flattery on the score of his table. I began, of course, to complain of the wine (part of the routine of life at Mentone); I told him that where one found a kitchen so exquisite, one astonished oneself that the wine was not up to the same form. “Et voilà précisément mon côté faible, monsieur,” he replied, with an indescribable amplitude of gesture. “Que voulez-vous? Moi, je suis cuisinier!” It was as though Shakespeare, called to account for some such peccadillo as the Bohemian seaport, should answer magnificently that he was a poet. So Folleté lives in a golden zone of a certain sort – a golden, or rather torrid zone, whence he issues twice daily purple as to his face – and all these clouds and vapours and ephemeral winds pass far below him and disturb him not.

He has another hobby however – his garden, round which it is his highest pleasure to lead the unwilling guest. Whenever he is not in the kitchen, he is hanging round loose, seeking whom he may show his garden to. Much of my time is passed in studiously avoiding him, and I have brought the art to a very extreme pitch of perfection. The fox, often hunted, becomes wary. – Ever your affectionate son,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Mrs. Sitwell

[Menton], Tuesday, 13th January 1874.

… I lost a Philipine to little Mary Johnstone last night; so to-day I sent her a rubbishing doll’s toilet, and a little note with it, with some verses telling how happy children made every one near them happy also, and advising her to keep the lines, and some day, when she was “grown a stately demoiselle,” it would make her “glad to know she gave pleasure long ago,” all in a very lame fashion, with just a note of prose at the end, telling her to mind her doll and the dog, and not trouble her little head just now to understand the bad verses; for some time when she was ill, as I am now, they would be plain to her and make her happy. She has just been here to thank me, and has left me very happy. Children are certainly too good to be true.

Yesterday I walked too far, and spent all the afternoon on the outside of my bed; went finally to rest at nine, and slept nearly twelve hours on the stretch. Bennet (the doctor), when told of it this morning, augured well for my recovery; he said youth must be putting in strong; of course I ought not to have slept at all. As it was, I dreamed horridly; but not my usual dreams of social miseries and misunderstandings and all sorts of crucifixions of the spirit; but of good, cheery, physical things – of long successions of vaulted, dimly lit cellars full of black water, in which I went swimming among toads and unutterable, cold, blind fishes. Now and then these cellars opened up into sort of domed music-hall places, where one could land for a little on the slope of the orchestra, but a sort of horror prevented one from staying long, and made one plunge back again into the dead waters. Then my dream changed, and I was a sort of Siamese pirate, on a very high deck with several others. The ship was almost captured, and we were fighting desperately. The hideous engines we used and the perfectly incredible carnage that we effected by means of them kept me cheery, as you may imagine; especially as I felt all the time my sympathy with the boarders, and knew that I was only a prisoner with these horrid Malays. Then I saw a signal being given, and knew they were going to blow up the ship. I leaped right off, and heard my captors splash in the water after me as thick as pebbles when a bit of river bank has given way beneath the foot. I never heard the ship blow up; but I spent the rest of the night swimming about some piles with the whole sea full of Malays, searching for me with knives in their mouths. They could swim any distance under water, and every now and again, just as I was beginning to reckon myself safe, a cold hand would be laid on my ankle – ugh!

However, my long sleep, troubled as it was, put me all right again, and I was able to work acceptably this morning and be very jolly all day. This evening I have had a great deal of talk with both the Russian ladies; they talked very nicely, and are bright, likable women both. They come from Georgia.

Wednesday, 10.30.– We have all been to tea to-night at the Russians’ villa. Tea was made out of a samovar, which is something like a small steam engine, and whose principal advantage is that it burns the fingers of all who lay their profane touch upon it. After tea Madame Z. played Russian airs, very plaintive and pretty; so the evening was Muscovite from beginning to end. Madame G.’s daughter danced a tarantella, which was very pretty.

Whenever Nelitchka cries – and she never cries except from pain – all that one has to do is to start “Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre.” She cannot resist the attraction; she is drawn through her sobs into the air; and in a moment there is Nellie singing, with the glad look that comes into her face always when she sings, and all the tears and pain forgotten.

It is wonderful, before I shut this up, how that child remains ever interesting to me. Nothing can stale her infinite variety; and yet it is not very various. You see her thinking what she is to do or to say next, with a funny grave air of reserve, and then the face breaks up into a smile, and it is probably “Berecchino!” said with that sudden little jump of the voice that one knows in children, as the escape of a jack-in-the-box, and, somehow, I am quite happy after that!

R. L. S.

To Mrs. Sitwell

[Menton, January 1874], Wednesday.

MY DEAR FRIEND, – It is still so cold, I cannot tell you how miserable the weather is. I have begun my “Walt Whitman” again seriously. Many winds have blown since I last laid it down, when sickness took me in Edinburgh. It seems almost like an ill-considered jest to take up these old sentences, written by so different a person under circumstances so different, and try to string them together and organise them into something anyway whole and comely; it is like continuing another man’s book. Almost every word is a little out of tune to me now but I shall pull it through for all that and make something that will interest you yet on this subject that I had proposed to myself and partly planned already, before I left for Cockfield last July.

I am very anxious to hear how you are. My own health is quite very good; I am a healthy octogenarian; very old, I thank you and of course not so active as a young man, but hale withal: a lusty December. This is so; such is R. L. S.

I am a little bothered about Bob, a little afraid that he is living too poorly. The fellow he chums with spends only two francs a day on food, with a little excess every day or two to keep body and soul together, and though Bob is not so austere I am afraid he draws it rather too fine himself.

Friday.– We have all got our photographs; it is pretty fair, they say, of me and as they are particular in the matter of photographs, and besides partial judges I suppose I may take that for proven. Of Nellie there is one quite adorable. The weather is still cold. My “Walt Whitman” at last looks really well: I think it is going to get into shape in spite of the long gestation.

Sunday.– Still cold and grey, and a high imperious wind off the sea. I see nothing particularly couleur de rose this morning: but I am trying to be faithful to my creed and hope. O yes, one can do something to make things happier and better; and to give a good example before men and show them how goodness and fortitude and faith remain undiminished after they have been stripped bare of all that is formal and outside. We must do that; you have done it already; and I shall follow and shall make a worthy life, and you must live to approve of me.

R. L. S.

To Mrs. Sitwell

The following are two different impressions of the Mediterranean, dated on two different Mondays in January: —

Yes, I am much better; very much better I think I may say. Although it is funny how I have ceased to be able to write with the improvement of my health. Do you notice how for some time back you have had no descriptions of anything? The reason is that I can’t describe anything. No words come to me when I see a thing. I want awfully to tell you to-day about a little “piece” of green sea, and gulls, and clouded sky with the usual golden mountain-breaks to the southward. It was wonderful, the sea near at hand was living emerald; the white breasts and wings of the gulls as they circled above – high above even – were dyed bright green by the reflection. And if you could only have seen or if any right word would only come to my pen to tell you how wonderfully these illuminated birds floated hither and thither under the grey purples of the sky!

To-day has been windy but not cold. The sea was troubled and had a fine fresh saline smell like our own seas, and the sight of the breaking waves, and above all the spray that drove now and again in my face, carried me back to storms that I have enjoyed, O how much! in other places. Still (as Madame Zassetsky justly remarked) there is something irritating in a stormy sea whose waves come always to the same spot and never farther: it looks like playing at passion: it reminds one of the loathsome sham waves in a stage ocean.

To Sidney Colvin

[Menton, January 1874.]

MY DEAR COLVIN, – I write to let you know that my cousin may possibly come to Paris before you leave; he will likely look you up to hear about me, etc. I want to tell you about him before you see him, as I am tired of people misjudging him. You know me now. Well, Bob is just such another mutton, only somewhat farther wandered. He has all the same elements of character that I have: no two people were ever more alike, only that the world has gone more unfortunately for him although more evenly. Besides which, he is really a gentleman, and an admirable true friend, which is not a common article. I write this as a letter of introduction in case he should catch you ere you leave.

Monday.– No letters to-day. Sacré chien, Dieu de Dieu– and I have written with exemplary industry. But I am hoping that no news is good news and shall continue so to hope until all is blue. – Ever yours,

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Sidney Colvin

It had been a very cold Christmas at Monaco and Monte Carlo, and Stevenson had no adequate overcoat, so it was agreed that when I went to Paris I should try and find him a warm cloak or wrap. I amused myself looking for one suited to his taste for the picturesque and piratical in apparel, and found one in the style of 1830-40, dark blue and flowing, and fastening with a snake buckle.

[Menton, January 1874], Friday.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Thank you very much for your note. This morning I am stupid again; can do nothing at all; am no good “comme plumitif.” I think it must be the cold outside. At least that would explain my addled head and intense laziness.

O why did you tell me about that cloak? Why didn’t you buy it? Isn’t it in Julius Cæsar that Pompey blames – no not Pompey but a friend of Pompey’s – well, Pompey’s friend, I mean the friend of Pompey – blames somebody else who was his friend – that is who was the friend of Pompey’s friend – because he (the friend of Pompey’s friend) had not done something right off, but had come and asked him (Pompey’s friend) whether he (the friend of Pompey’s friend) ought to do it or no? There I fold my hands with some complacency: that’s a piece of very good narration. I am getting into good form. These classical instances are always distracting. I was talking of the cloak. It’s awfully dear. Are there no cheap and nasty imitations? Think of that – if, however, it were the opinion (ahem) of competent persons that the great cost of the mantle in question was no more than proportionate to its durability; if it were to be a joy for ever; if it would cover my declining years and survive me in anything like integrity for the comfort of my executors; if – I have the word – if the price indicates (as it seems) the quality of perdurability in the fabric; if, in fact, it would not be extravagant, but only the leariest economy to lay out £5 .. 15 .. in a single mantle without seam and without price, and if – and if – it really fastens with an agrafe – I would Buy it. But not unless. If not a cheap imitation would be the move. – Ever yours,

R. L. S.

To Mrs. Thomas Stevenson

The following is in answer to a set of numbered questions, of which the first three are of no general interest.

[Menton], Monday, January 19th, 1874.

Answers to a series of questions.

…

4. Nelitchka, or Nelitska, as you know already by this time, is my adorable kid’s name. Her laugh does more good to one’s health than a month at the seaside: as she said to-day herself, when asked whether she was a boy or a girl, after having denied both with gravity, she is an angel.

5. O no, her brain is not in a chaos; it is only the brains of those who hear her. It is all plain sailing for her. She wishes to refuse or deny anything, and there is the English “No fank you” ready to her hand; she wishes to admire anything, and there is the German “schön“; she wishes to sew (which she does with admirable seriousness and clumsiness), and there is the French “coudre“; she wishes to say she is ill, and there is the Russian “bulla“; she wishes to be down on any one, and there is the Italian “Berecchino“; she wishes to play at a railway train, and there is her own original word “Collie” (say the o with a sort of Gaelic twirl). And all these words are equally good.

7. I am called M. Stevenson by everybody except Nelitchka, who calls me M. Berecchino.

8. The weather to-day is no end: as bright and as warm as ever. I have been out on the beach all afternoon with the Russians. Madame Garschine has been reading Russian to me; and I cannot tell prose from verse in that delectable tongue, which is a pity. Johnson came out to tell us that Corsica was visible, and there it was over a white, sweltering sea, just a little darker than the pallid blue of the sky, and when one looked at it closely, breaking up into sun-brightened peaks.

I may mention that Robinet has never heard an Englishman with so little accent as I have – ahem – ahem – eh? – What do you say to that? I don’t suppose I have said five sentences in English to-day; all French; all bad French, alas!

I am thought to be looking better. Madame Zassetsky said I was all green when I came here first, but that I am all right in colour now, and she thinks fatter. I am very partial to the Russians; I believe they are rather partial to me. I am supposed to be an esprit observateur! À mon age, c’est étonnant comme je suis observateur!

The second volume of Clément Marot has come. Where and O where is the first? – Ever your affectionate

Robert Louis Stevenson.

To Sidney Colvin

The Bottle here mentioned is a story that had been some time in hand called The Curate of Anstruther’s Bottle; afterwards abandoned like so many early attempts of the same kind.

[Menton, January 1874.]

MY DEAR S. C., – I suppose this will be my last note then. I think you will find everything very jolly here, I am very jolly myself. I worked six hours to-day. I am occupied in transcribing The Bottle, which is pleasant work to me; I find much in it that I still think excellent and much that I am doubtful about; my convention is so terribly difficult that I have to put out much that pleases me, and much that I still preserve I only preserve with misgiving. I wonder if my convention is not a little too hard and too much in the style of those decadent curiosities, poems without the letter E, poems going with the alphabet and the like. And yet the idea, if rightly understood and treated as a convention always and not as an abstract principle, should not so much hamper one as it seems to do. The idea is not, of course, to put in nothing but what would naturally have been noted and remembered and handed down, but not to put in anything that would make a person stop and say – how could this be known? Without doubt it has the advantage of making one rely on the essential interest of a situation and not cocker up and validify feeble intrigue with incidental fine writing and scenery, and pyrotechnic exhibitions of inappropriate cleverness and sensibility. I remember Bob once saying to me that the quadrangle of Edinburgh University was a good thing and our having a talk as to how it could be employed in different arts. I then stated that the different doors and staircases ought to be brought before a reader of a story not by mere recapitulation but by the use of them, by the descent of different people one after another by each of them. And that the grand feature of shadow and the light of the one lamp in the corner should also be introduced only as they enabled people in the story to see one another or prevented them. And finally that whatever could not thus be worked into the evolution of the action had no right to be commemorated at all. After all, it is a story you are telling; not a place you are to describe; and everything that does not attach itself to the story is out of place.

This is a lecture not a letter, and it seems rather like sending coals to Newcastle to write a lecture to a subsidised professor. I hope you have seen Bob by this time. I know he is anxious to meet you and I am in great anxiety to know what you think of his prospects – frankly, of course: as for his person, I don’t care a damn what you think of it: I am case-hardened in that matter.

I wrote a French note to Madame Zassetsky the other day, and there were no errors in it. The complete Gaul, as you may see. – Ever yours,

Robert Louis Stevenson.