shawls round them,
gave them their crutches, pushed them to the door, made them go out, and
disappeared with them into the dark night.

I saw that I could not even let a hussar accompany them, for the mere
rattle of a sword would have sent them mad with fear.

The cure was still looking at the dead man; but at last he turned round
to me and said:

"Oh! What a horrible thing!"

THE MUSTACHE

CHATEAU DE SOLLES,
July 30, 1883.

My Dear Lucy:

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
Fath