He began writing letters to Connie, accusing her, tenderly and regretfully, of faithlessness. He wrote in French, as that language enabled him to use the endearing "tu" that Connie, he knew of old, found irresistible. As she had made no promises concerning letters, she felt free to exchange them with him as frequently as she desired.
"I am now," he wrote her one day, "a free man. My wife has seen fit to divorce me, and I do not regret it. Like most American and English women (to this rule, you, my beautiful Connie, are a notable exception) she must have her husband tied to her apron string. He must have no existence of his own. I—I with my talents, my work that is my life, I, if you please, must remain in America at her side! She could not share me with the world. It is not enough for her that she is the wife of Illiodor Petrovitch. He must be a tame bear to perform tricks for her. Ah, Connie, you understood! You, and only you, are a fit companion for a man like myself, a man who cannot, who must not, even when he would, be put in chains. Yet even you chained me once, but only with your love. And I worshiped those chains. I would have bound them round me the more closely, but my work was a cruel master
