CHATEAU DE SOLLES,
July 30, 1883.
I have no news. We live in the drawing-room, looking out at the rain. We cannot go out
in this frightful weather, so we have theatricals. How stupid they are, my dear, these
drawing entertainments in the repertory of real life! All is forced, coarse, heavy. The
jokes are like cannon balls, smashing everything in their passage. No wit, nothing natural,
no sprightliness, no elegance. These literary men, in truth, know nothing of society. They
are perfectly ignorant of how people think and talk in our set. I do not mind if they
despise our customs, our conventionalities, but I do not forgive them for not knowing
them. When they want to be humorous they make puns that would do for a barrack; when
they try to be jolly, they give us jokes that they must have picked up on the outer
boulevard in those beer houses artists are supposed to frequent, where one has heard the
same students' jokes for fifty years.
So we have taken to Theatricals. As we are only two women, my husband takes the part
of a soubrette, and, in order to do that, he has shaved off his mustache. You cannot
imagine, my dear Lucy, how it changes him! I no longer recognize him-by day or at
night. If he did not let it grow again I think I should no longer love him; he looks so
horrid like this.
In fact, a man without a mustache is no longer a man. I do not care much for a beard; it
almost always makes a man look untidy. But a mustache, oh, a mustache is indispensable
to a manly face. No, you would never believe how these little hair bristles on the upper
lip are a relief to the eye and good in other ways. I have thought over the matter a great
deal but hardly dare to write my thoughts. Words look so different on paper and the
subject is so difficult, so delicate, so dangerous that it requires infinite skill to tackle it.
Well, when my husband appeared, shaven, I understood at once that I never could fall in
love with a strolling actor nor a preacher, even if it were Father Didon, the most charming
of all! Later when I was alone with him (my husband) it was worse still. Oh, my dear
Lucy, never let yourself be kissed by a man without a mustache; their kisses have no
flavor, none whatever! They no longer have the charm, the mellowness and the snap- yes,
the snap--of a real kiss. The mustache is the spice.
Imagine placing to your lips a piece of dry--or moist--parchment. That is the kiss of the
man without a mustache. It is not worth while.
Whence comes this charm of the mustache, will you tell me? Do I know myself? It
tickles your face, you feel it approaching your mouth and it sends a little shiver through
you down to the tips of your toes.
