"I have heard there are some very wild tribes in the Texan country," I said.

"Yes," said he. "I'm not a fool."

And he then pushed at me a piece of folded paper on which he had made three columns: friendly, hostile, harmless.

I was an Englishman, the servant of a Frenchman. I knew nothing of these matters but there are very few men who are harmless when asked to give away their ancient lands.

I asked him would he not rather have a good business in New York.

"No," he said, "for I hate pigeons more than you could ever know."

"Not pigeons."

"Well I don't know what else there is available," he said. "I do pretty good out of pigeons, but it is no work for a man."

"Oh you could do a lot better than pigeons," I said, not really having an idea but thinking, Parrot, you are in America, you too must do something with your life.

"What?" said Peter, suddenly alert and holding my eye very hard.

"Oh, I couldn't say."

"You have a plan," he cried. "I see it."

"Not really."

"You have a plan. It's clear."

He now began to pay attention to my awful drawing.

"You cannot keep it from me," he cried grabbing so violently it tore in two. "Why, it is terrible," he said, and returned a half of it as if in confirmation.

He was not incorrect, but I had drunk four glasses of rum and curdled milk, and my life, generally speaking, seemed to stand on very shaky ground and I would not have trusted his opinion of a dollar bill.

"You tore my drawing," I said.

He tried to laugh.

"You mutt," I said, and thereupon I leaned across the table, and with a style more powerful than graceful, I brought my fist to the attention of that wet and baleful organism on the right side of his beak.

TO FORM WORDS with my own hand is to reveal myself to the world as a disgusting kind of cripple who must, in dragging his limb across the paper, arouse both pity and disgust. It must always be a shock to receive a letter from Olivier de Garmont, a young noble whose hand might be reasonably expected to be blessed with elegance and beauty as a right of birth. Imagine the recipient as he innocently slits an envelope and is made privy to the esteemed noble in a state of calligraphic dishabille.

Amelia Godefroy's hand, in contrast, was a very fine and graceful instrument, and I had imagined she would replace Mr. Parrot as my secretaire, and then all three of us would be most content. Indeed, when her father whipped his buggy up the hill, when the servant cried out a great halloo as if he was at hunt, no one was happier than Amelia. She showed it too.

For the next two days we worked very peacefully together, occupying the library with all the calm content of a married couple. I laid out, in French, what I understood of the American justice system and thought myself blessed to have my misunderstandings corrected before they were committed to the page.

She was a very cultured young woman, but being American she was also very practical and no one should have been astonished that a portion of the administration of the farm already resided in her hands. That she might not, at the same time as possessing all her graces and virtues, be familiar with the arts of letters or diplomacy, can hardly be thought surprising in the circumstances, and yet it took me a day or so to understand that she, in all her very sweet Christian enthusiasm, had seriously underestimated the amount of labor required as secretaire. I rather think she had seen the service as similar to that she might render an elderly aunt who-her once-blue eyes now clouded, her knuckles knotted and woody-wished to write to her sister about last Sunday's sermon, a good deed I had been moved to see her perform.

But I was ridiculously happy to give dictation, to show off the workings of my mind, and, like a bower bird building a mound to entice his mate, to construct, as only a Frenchman really can, the most lovely artful sentences, rippling threads of argument that dazzle even while they lock themselves in place. This sounds a mite grandiose or mad, but did I not hear her sigh? I certainly saw her bosom rise when the subject was no other than the degree to which the towns of America protected themselves from central interference.

She permitted me to dictate the case of Missouri, where the citoyens elected a goat to the Senate, so little did they respect the role of government. This they sent to Washington where Andrew Jackson had it served for dinner. Later I understood this was not true. I deleted the paragraph but one cannot remove the memory of my wicked pleasure, to display myself and see the quiver of response.

I was the peacock of Wethersfield and very pleased to be far from France.

As the days wore on, and as my beloved moved from the breakfast room to the library with less alacrity, and as I understood the occupation was duller than she had anticipated, I saw it would be necessary to fetch my servant back from Babylon. To this end I dispatched one letter and then others, all addressed to him c/o the New York Post Office where he had promised to inquire each day.

I then tactfully professed a weariness with that which I now referred to as the opus horribilis and in so doing gained a great reward on earth-the opportunity to explore Wethersfield, although this turned out to be more concerned with mechanical matters than I might have expected.

Our first call was a visit to the new corn-husking machinery Mr. Godefroy had purchased just the year before. We stood in drizzling rain, watching the monster fed, and there was no shortage of neighbors and workers to explain, again and again, the wonders of the mechanism. The sole voice of dissent, and the most complicated and eloquent one, was Amelia Godefroy, who provided a perfect example of that poignancy, that surprising melancholy, that unexpected nostalgia to which Americans are so vulnerable. Their past is so brief and yet they are conscious of an ideal world, a perfect nature disappearing before their eyes, sentiments one would more reasonably expect in an aristocratic rather than a democratic society.

So, Miss Godefroy, on the subject of the corn shucker, her arms folded inside her oilskin coat, the rain running down her lovely cheeks: "Before this excellent invention which my dear papa is so excited by, the corn was hauled in good weather to the barn, and then in wintertime the young people went from farm to farm in the evenings making a party out of the husking. The person who husked a red ear earned the right to kiss his or her sweetheart. This was a way of making work pleasant. It has been replaced by what you see before you now-this solitary worker husking corn in a cold December field."

The red ear. How could I not love her?

I now formally released her from the chore of her dictation and, as is obvious from this appalling page, took on the task myself, trusting that the Parrot would eventually rewrite it, but then why am I now speaking in German?

When Amelia asked why I was using this ugly language and not my own exquisite French, I immediately asked her did she read German? As I had intuited, she did not. I said it was an occasional exercise for me to write in German, to keep myself fluent, but really what I needed to discuss was this business of Amelia and what to do about her, for she is a completely delightful, alarmingly different woman, as unlike a Frenchwoman as it might be possible to imagine while at the same time every bit the equal in her wit and beauty, and I do know why I am writing in German, of course I do.

Amelia is not only wealthy, she is a hundred times more splendid and desirable than any other woman I have ever met.

What has been occupying my mind is the subject of marriage. I had thought I could avoid it, even while I flirted with it, but now it appears more certain and more serious, I find myself in the position of the coy bride. Let me explain in confidence: Lieb mich erklaren im Vertrauen.