been dearest to me until an hour before. I watched her sit down again, Maude, and I wondered as anyone might what a girl of such common stock was doing at a recital of this kind. I believe she was there only to assist her companion or employer. It was an elderly and palsied woman who sat by her side.
Now do not scold me, my dearest, for I know you will think me a fool. Help me, in the name of that friendship and love between us since our cradles rocked side by side in the same rhythm! I must know her! I must find her! I must have her! You are too wise to believe that a man of noble birth can only be content with women of his own class. He needs from time to time the stronger, more common appetite which drives him to a sturdy blonde like the vulgar shopgirl, Maggie, or else to a plump maiden like Miss Nicoll with her halo of curls. My case is much the worse, for my desire leaves no choice.
It must be Julie. I write because you know the girls of this resort so well and have made them objects of your affectionate and amorous study! If anyone can tell me who she be and where she comes from, it must be you. As the grand, swinging chords of the final variation concluded the recital and the applause burst upon one's eardrums, I knew that I must write to you this very minute. I send the letter express. I would bring it myself, did I not fear to lose all sight of my slim, sullen Julie! Your loving cousin, Augustus Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude II. Lady Maude to Augustus Lago di Garda, 5 June My own Augustus, What a goose you are! A goose, of course, to lose your heart to such a little minx as Julie and a greater one not to know the prize specimen upon whom you have picked. One really does not know whether to laugh you out of your romantic stupidity or to grieve that you have grown to such age and not learnt to control your temper more firmly.
Though I am but a month your elder, I feel as if the wisdom of centuries belonged to me when I hear you talk as you do. The blonde with the prim little bun and the sulky little face-a hard and mean little face, I have always thought it-who is she? When you told me she was called Julie and that her services were required merely to companion an old and infirm woman-who is the dowager Lady Stacker, by the way-I knew at once. Oh, my poor Augustus, you have set your choice upon a common shopgirl indeed! She who sits upon the stool behind the counter in a bookseller's shop which is little better than that of a marchand des joumaux. I shall be surprised if you do not go and ask her to measure you out an ounce of pipe tobacco. Not find her again? How could you fail? You may stand at the shop window hour after hour, if you choose, and gaze your fill upon Julie. Believe me, I know the plain black dress and the little red shoes with their high heels to give extra inches to her height. Would you like to see her more fully revealed for your adoration? Go there one day when Julie is attired less formally, in blouse and the tight denim fit of working-drawers, as she lifts and carries boxes of new books among the shelves. See the slender legs and slim young hips tightly outlined as if the lewd little bitch were naked! Consider the softer but still pert cheeks of Julie's bottom! Look closely at the sulky little teaser, my dear Gussie. Then tell me if Julie is the type of goddess for whom Petrarch swore an eternal and Platonic love! If you doubt me still, enter and buy a book of any kind. Hand her the money and listen to her voice as she counts it into the till or thanks you-if she has the grace for thanks. Tell me then if the little slut's common whining tone is the true accent of Laura de Sade!
Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore! That is what you would say, would you not, to these words of mine? But you are not the Moor of Venice, man cher ami, nor shall I be Iago to betray you. Least of all is a painted young minx like Julie to be taken for Desdemona. She is one of Mr. Bowler's working-girls. Though he may not yet have got his hand into Julie's knickers, she will prove no vestal virgin. Let us have done, my dear, with the willful amours you pretend to with such creatures. Jacqueline Grant, the toast of every soldier, was to be your great love, was she not? And, next day, the saddler's window-dresser was to be the next lady of the manor! It will not do, Gussie! By all means enjoy such heroines for what they are but put aside these foolish romantick notions. I know too well what pleasures may be indulged with such specimens of my own sex. In the arbours of Lesbos I have tasted them often. But shopgirls and trollops are not to be the objects of such feelings as you cherish for Julie. And there let it end. Really, my dear! I was about to write to you of the delights of Lago di Garda when your letter came. I am so put out that my account must wait until after lunch. Till then, I am Your own loving Maude Anonymous Augustus and Lady Maude III. Lady Maude to Augustus Lago di Garda, 5 June p.m. My dear Augustus, Having disposed of the disagreeable matter of that little “tart' Julie this morning-the letter went by the Desenzano steamer just before lunch-I now settle down to write of pleasanter things. I shall have some fun here with the golden- skinned cat-eyed Miss Jones whom Mr. Bowler has brought to guard his fashion salon, and with the Scandinavian nymph Marit, on whom the said Jones is told to “keep an eye.” More of Marit and Miss Jones in a moment-the naked truth, dear Gussie. But first a word about this most drowsy summer lake. “Airs, languid airs, abound.” You should have come with us, you know. We have no neurasthenia here. I write this while sitting in the shade of the pergola, which is quite overgrown with purple wisteria. It forms a walk along the edge of the gardens furthest from the terrace of the Villa Lola. Small wonder if half the royalty and nobility of Europe seems to fill Gardone this season. From where I sit, one has an Olympian view ten miles across smooth water to the lemon groves above little Malcesine. To the south, through a pale mist of heat, one sees the flat Lombardy plain, running east to Verona and Venice. And there is the promontory of Sirmione with its clustered cypress trees, the “olive-silvery Sirmio,” where sweet Catullus loved and sang. Look north, and you see the lake narrow between sharp peaks of Alpine hills near the little frontier port of Riva. In this warm weather the pine trees shed their needles, so that one walks down the zig zag path to the little town through a private garden sweet with the heavy resinous perfume of these conifers. You will guess, at once, that this private domain belongs to the illustrious poet, our neighbour, a man of exotic tastes in his dealings with the young ladies who attend him! He makes us free of it, allowing us a delicious walk down to the shore of the placid lake. What a place this is to take one's pleasures, my dear Augustus! How voluptuous here are the pale limbs which tremble with desire on richest velvet! How white a young girl's shoulders or flanks when laid bare under this brilliant sun! In secret groves, the beauty of mature womanhood shudders under the lascivious caress of her pitiless lovers. Girlhood at fifteen cries with alarm as the first surge of passion overwhelms her Mormorvan con voci roche e lente la fontane invisible tra i pini His immortal lines anticipate the pleasures to be enjoyed, where the perfume of roses fills the air of closed gardens.
The hidden fountains murmur among the trees and the sun stabs at the lovers, a dagger bright as diamonds through the branches. This place will do for me, my dear cousin. While our famous neighbour meditates his next stanzas and Mr. Bowler stays a while at the Hotel Rialto in Venice, I am mistress here. Knowing my nature as you do, you may imagine whether or not it suits me to have the lynx-eyed Miss Jones at twenty and the nymph Marit at fifteen as my playthings.
I will tell you at once that some rascal in the past has constructed a secret spy-hole in either wall of my own boudoir which enables the occupant to watch whatever passes in the other two bedrooms. Add to all this the delights of the Villa Lola and its gardens. At night one walks on this terrace and sees the lights twinkle across the water from Malcesine and Bardolino. The air is laden with scents of thyme and eucalyptus, ancient as Catullus himself. One hears the distant beat of the steamer's paddles, the cicadas among the olive trees, and the drifting music of mandolins from a cafe in the little town below us. Enough of such things, my dear Augustus. You can find the details of geography in Herr Baedeker's guides. It is beauty of another sort, the knowing eyes and seductive limbs, that has made the Villa Lola memorable to me.
Yesterday afternoon, when the heat of the day began to dwindle and the sky above the lake turned a deeper blue, I took my parasol and made an excursion into our little lakeside town. It is a place constructed entirely for the pleasures of the elegant and the discerning. To either side of the pink-paved promenade, the shore at the foot of the hills extends in castellated villas with green walled gardens or cream-coloured palazzi whose waterfront windows peep out among the hanging purple of wisteria and vines. A fine crimson bougainvillea climbs to the very eaves of the Hotel Savoy. With my footman at a little distance behind me I watched the green water rock in a gentle swell as the afternoon steamer churned out from the jetty and headed north to the narrower and more mountainous end of the Lago di Garda. The street which lies behind the palms and cafes of the promenade is no mere jumble of greengrocers and coffee shops. It is the haunt of the beau monde, where the couturiers of the Via Roma or the Rue de Rivoli offer their creations next to windows displaying the finest work of the jeweller and goldsmith, which the Place Vendome could scarcely rival. Like so many temples to the goddess of beauty, these boutiques line either side of the street. If you doubt the standing of Mr. Bowler in such matters, you need only see the splendid emporium which he has taken for the summer in order to display so many velvet gowns and silken dresses. In our society, my dear Augustus, he is despised as a mere shopkeeper or a man of trade. Here he is the arbiter of style and the confidant of nobility. Many a countess or a duchess will wait her turn for half an hour of his advice in the matter of her wardrobe. In England, the squire's lady or the wives of the bourgeoisie would speak of him as “Bowler” or “the tailor,” and never pay his bill. Here in the summer society of Garda, where beauty is more than rank, he is known and addressed as “Milor.” By the same token, our neighbour the sublime poet is “Signore” to
