Confusion and Convalescence

Babcock,

I write to you now from a convalescence home in Salzburg. Many weeks have past since our previous correspondence, and several since our recent encounter. I haven’t the strength to write you a letter thoroughly conveying my feeling toward your ill actions—taken capriciously and in cowardice—but I felt it was my duty as both your literary peer and, more importantly, as a Frenchman clinging tenuously to his innate dignity following a vicious assault, to alert you as to the nature of my wounds and the progress of my recovery.

Your ambush was as haphazard as it was inglorious; how indeed shall I have known the great temperatures to which your blood had boiled through our correspondence? Still, I am a man of tact and virtue, even in dueling, and felt an outstretched arm and the smile of a respectful peer—as one opposing general of war might oblige another—was appropriate. What followed my modest but magnanimous gesture was, simply, unexpected incapacity, and only after I hit ground did I perceive the hot thickening of blood about the waist. Mon Dieu! Words cannot express the abject terror and quivering fear that entered the cloudy annals of my subconscious, which itself seemed to spew forth edited anecdotes dating from childhood and adolescence—c’est la mort! An incandescent beam, such as might accompany the brief blast of a modern Naval cannon, and the low gurgling of your insidious hillbilly cackling merged in the fore of my remaining consciousness, and after that I remember nothing.

Needless to say the shock of it still lingers over my thoughts, discoloring my naïve perceptions of human decency, which to this point in my life had remained impervious to even the most trying and dogged notions of prevailing human cynicisms. The unsunniest French scholar, plagued by that uniquely dense spectre of absinthe, cheap wine, and rough tobacco—which veils the eyes like Irish pennies to even the most manifestly joyous of all this life’s pleasures of the head and heart—could not have contrived, in his chic urban stupor, such depths of petty callousness and utter poverty of genuine human feeling.

Sir, I am overcome by illness—yet the wound in my still-quaking guts cannot claim to be its primary source. Its source, Babcock—disgust; pure, plain, and all-too-human. The most disheartening of metaphysical quandaries have nary deterred my resolve to unravel the myriad enigmas of l’âme de l’homme, and yet in the deep inky recesses of your indignity, Babcock, I have found sufficient reason to pause and shudder at the proverbial infinite blackness, in particular of your kind. To a more unpleasant business I have never been party. I eagerly anticipate your reply, explanation, and apology.

Yours,

P

The impending voyage of the Leviathan

Chainseberge,

As I previously stated, I am a man of action, much like the Babcocks before me, and I will no longer tolerate your attacks on the land that my people bled for. I do not fault you for your lack of comprehension regarding a man's true connection to the grass and mountains a man calls his home, it seems you've never had to fight for a solitary thing in all your years. The land has been good to me; thick woodland allows the export of America's finest lumber all over the world; and because of this I must greet your venomous ill-mutterings with this promise: I will be departing the New Colonies via a powerful friend's personal vessel, The Leviathan, docked in Hampton. It is a fine ship, composed of my own lumber and built by the worn, leathered hands of passionate Americans. Estimated time of arrival is five and ten days from this coming Friday. Bother not with meeting me at La Rochelle, it will be my sincere pleasure to travel the muddy avenues of your land and reacquaint myself with the concept of Hell as my expedition leads me to la maison de Chainseberge.

O yes, I nearly misplaced my thanks for your "red," it was nearly suitable for my Labrador, Benjamin. After a swift sniff of the crude liquid he retreated to a murky puddle for a more refreshing and tempting beverage. Expect me to arrive at your home in no mood to accept whimpering pleas, please possess the decency to truncate my stay in your odious home land and accept my challenge without kneeling and soiling your fair pantaloons. Until the displeasure of meeting you again...

Salut,
Thad M. Babcock

Salutations and a Return Gift

Babcock,

You’ve admirably concealed the backwoods Appalachian scruff from your frothing rhetoric, but never from that thick patch of dogwood bark you consider the backside of your neck. Ruffian jeers cut only so deep, like a dulled theatre rapier, sprung closed upon even the slightest impact. The truth of the matter is that this perpetually rusting hammock heap of a beggars’ commune you call Dixie is not a glorious and venerable State, but rather the slimmest pickings from a gasping empire headed by the looniest twit this side of an Austro-Hungarian barrack leader.

Consider, dear Babcock, historical facts: Your “revolution” was fought by gnarled, grizzled boondock ninnies, and your hastily patched-together parliament -- as lacking in dignified gentlemanly formality as it is in originality of thought (for the governmental “revelations” of your forefathers amount to petty ideological thievery of the great philological leaps of my own dear countrymen) -- is a global joke.

Even in the minutest social detail, your patrie pathétique is so ripe for mockery that under friendlier circumstances I daren’t bother myself. But you have blatantly (oafishly, perhaps?) goaded me. As per the wine, which I should label “swill” would it not so offend such back-alley East German ale brewers who might take pride in such a distinction, it was hardly potable. At your insistence, I drank myself into a stupor on it, if only to dull myself into such a state that my subsequent correspondence -- dictated entirely by the demons of your hillbilly “hooch” -- would be adequately ignoble to equal your own gibing. Here then, are the results of this experiment in pedestrian piddling:

BABCOCK, YOU WAILING GIT, YOU AREN’T WORTH THE BLACK SPIT ON MY ASH-SMEARED GUMS, YOU SIMPERING MOUNTAIN-DWELLING PEASANT…

Etc., etc. Needless to say, I have enclosed my own package for your imminent rapid consumption (do at least attempt to taste the stuff, dear Babcock, before pummeling your senses into such a state that “Grand ‘Ginny” might, at a glance, seem more than an expansive mud pit -- I would gladly take the occasional Spring sprinkle and odeur terrible of a throng of Parisian tramps over the Oriental bathhouse humidity and overwhelming sewer stench of your mucklands).

For your pleasure: a Lafite Rothschild de Pauillac, c. 1865, created specially in my grand-oncle Nathaniel’s vineyards at château Mouton Rothschild (née Brane-Mouton). Or, if that terminology has flown above your limited Virginian comprehension -- it’s a “red.”

Drink it in a dust-caked washbasin if you must -- though I assure you it was not concocted in one. La vie, le vin, c’est un et pareil! Do respect the stuff to the best of your abilities, as I’ve made every effort to stomach yours.

Yours,

P

Post-script: As much titillation as I’m sure a Bangkok whore might provide you, Babcock, your continental strides are pure whimsy. If you could afford third-class passage on a Norwich fishing vessel, I would be veritably astounded.

My apology, Monsieur.

Chainseberge,

Your hesitancy to guess what grandiose, noble lineage I descend from speaks immensely of the literary and imaginative weaknesses of your kind; compare the work of your finest sculptors of word (all formality, rigid characterization, the lot of it) to our own Nathaniel Hawthorne and comprehend the power of fiction and the creative freedom of the New Colonies. You "shan't hazard to guess" my genetics? Hath the weight of Monsieur's wig increased from excess powdering, leaving his mind tragically fragile? I'd welcome you to commence your fabrication, but you wouldn't possess the slightest notion what to do with the invitation. I comprehend how significant feminized hands are to your people; please, allow me to act on your behalf, and guess what disastrous, beastly blood runs through my veins.

You may venture to think me an animal, but sir, an animal is far too vague. A rodent? Vermin? No, far too closely related to your genus. I am the lycanthrope, enchanted by Luna, peering from the whispy bed of clouds. Prowling, yet unprowled, unquestioned master of beasts, ignoring the whimpers of lesser creatures screeching and starving in the muddy darkness beneath rotting logs.

Or perhaps you think me a brute, a foul carnival performer, or a filthy-palmed man of the battlefield. This may be where our species divided; my father and his before him breathed in the gun powder, heard the manic screams of the barely undead, smelled the burning fields and the blood drying on bayonets. We are men of action, not of tea-time soirees and social paralysis.

So, you wish for an apology, and here is mine, dedicated to you: I apologize for not having three hands, as it would take three gloves to whip your face to the crimson hue I desire; I apologize for my inability to leap oceans, for I would love nothing as much than to bound from continent to spy the lovely Geishas of Asia, explore the winding serpentine rivers of South America, and your country of France, just to set it ablaze with the ash from my pipe; lastly, I apologize that it is not in my ability to remove your caractéristiques françaises, for it is your curse, soft-handed sir, to mirror the frailty of your mother land.

I have included with this message, as a testament of my sensitivity, a bottle of Virginia's finest wine, Abingdon Red Hawk, blended from Chambourcin and Chardonel grapes. May you misplace memory of your home land by indulging in the bottle's contents and abandon the odd bitterness required of a good (is there a such a thing?) Frenchman. If I receive another written form of harassment I will be forced to board the next vessel and seek you in person and if you attempt to hide yourself I have confidence that your animal-stench will be the only clue necessary to find you.

Boire Bien,
Thad M. Babcock

Convoluted nonsense, Babcock!

Babcock,

I do so loathe to dwell on the topic, but being of a pure and sound breed (a fact that you disregard as a moderately priced apertif, an allusion to the very one you failed to oblige me in our last formal meeting!), I feel I can speak to your petty taunts and jabs at my lineage. Firstly, in many quarters of Civilized Europe -- including the motherland I hold so dear to my bosom -- it is actually considered a privelege to be of noble blood, a privelege to which, admittedly, you may be capable of attesting (surely the lack thereof has foiled prior attempts at breaking through to what might reasonably be called a Higher bracket of the social sphere) but never capable of attaining. You see, it is in blood that we are led to refinement, and your appalling errs of taste lead me to believe that yours is not of a strictly homogenous variety. Do I dare speculate on the true, dark nature of this fundamental impurity?

No -- though I may be lacking in boorish curtness or the manners of even the lowest, basest navvy, did I possess those traits, as verily I am assured you do, I still would not stoop to hurling such blinding spitoonfuls of most personal (and most inappropriate!) venom at a former companion. Your acrid tongue is quick to lash out at the visage and vestige of my dear, sweet Maman (may she rest soundly in the heavenly slumber of the Almighty), but your ruthless thrusts are dodged with the merest academic parry. To wit: You, sir, are impure; a vagabond of spirit and essence; the remnant biological scraps of a cultural nadir; a half-breed and scoundrel; a foul mutt. Knew I your most capricious (and presumably unfortunate) ancestry in more fullness, I would expound on this point. Needless to say, few know the bogs through which your genetics were borne, and I shan't hazard to guess at them, lest I embarrass you further.

I shudder to think that I might have shared your company for any prolonoged period of time, M. Babcock, and shudder still to think that I might yet meet you again. Mind you this: our next encounter will be necessarily unpleasant, as the piece of news I will be compelled to deliver will be one of bruteness, and one given with a brazen disregard for any semblance of social tact. In short, a glove across the face, worth more than even a thousand words on the subject.

Your apology, sir, and promptly.

Yours,

P

Chainseberge, a fouler word I may not imagine.

Chainseberge,

My need of apologizing, which you so confidently identify in your previous message, is only surpassed by my need to further defile the name of the loathsome creature that gave birth to such a powder-faced son as a Chainseberge. Now, the animal-stench your brood call the fragrance of your crude parfumeries haunts me; I wonder if your tolerance was strengthened whilst slumbering in your mother's beastly stomach while she hunted rodents injured by carriage-wheel?

I recall visiting your mother land as a young child, noting the fog being so ashamed of its country's filthiness that it grew thicker to disguise the horrific nature of each slime-plagued river, each dark-souled Parisian drunkard gargling cheap Champagne.

If you dare defend the tangle of muddy streets and promiscuous cabarets that is your home, contact me, Thad Maxmillian Babcock, at my estate. If not, may France break off from civilized Europe and cast itself toward oblivion, with the rest of the barbarians.

Salut,
Thad M. Babcock

Babcock, you scullion

On the subject of France:

How dare you, sir. Your comments spoken to me a fortnight yesterday yet wound my heart, as though you were to lift my own frail mother by the very pantaloons that so steadfastly adorn her under-parts and then thrust her about in a most barbaric fashion. Perish the thought that one might withhold one's barbs and insults from a subject so dear! Your accusations of "savagery" are entirely unfounded, whilst your assumptions about the moral fibre of the fairer sex are, to be blunt, disgusting.

You, sir, are in need of apologizing, and quickly. I expect your response to this most baseless attack post-haste, as I'll soon be moving on to more...respectable areas of discussion.

Yours,

P