_Mariquita de mi alma_: I am grieved to learn of your indisposition.
When this letter reaches you I hope you will have fully recovered your
health, and that you will be in a condition to write me longer letters.
Your last one was maddeningly brief and stiff, a style of writing to
which you formerly accustomed me, but which is now more annoying than
you can imagine. Write me a long letter, and tell me all kinds of
pleasant things. What is your malady? Have you some vexation to endure,
or is it a sorrow? In your last note there are several mysterious
phrases, as all your phrases are which intimated this. But between
ourselves, I do not believe you have ever known the luxury of that organ
called the heart. You have troubles of the mind, pleasures of the mind;
but the organ known as the heart is developed only about the
twenty-fifth year of age, in the 46th degree of latitude.
You will knit your beautiful black brows at this, and say, “The saucy
man doubts that I have a heart!” for this nowadays is the great
assumption. Since so many novels and poems of passion, so called, have
been written, all women affect to have a heart. Wait a little while.
When you have really discovered your heart you will tell me about it;
you will recall regretfully these good days when you were ruled only by
the mind, and you will realise that the vexations you now suffer are
mere pin-pricks compared to the dagger-thrusts that shall overwhelm you
when the days of passion shall have come.
I have been grumbling about your letter, but it really contains some
very agreeable news: that is, the definite promise, graciously given, to
send me your photograph. This gives me great pleasure, not only because
I shall then know you better, but especially because it will be a token
of your growing confidence in me. I see that I am making progress in
your esteem, and congratulate myself. When am I to receive this
portrait? Will you give it to me yourself? If so, I will come to receive
it. Or will you give it to Mr. V., who will send it to me with all due
discretion? Have no fear of either him or his wife. I should prefer to
receive it from your own white hand.
I shall start for London early next month. I am going to see the
election. I shall also eat some whitebait at Blackwall, look over the
cartoons of Hampton Court, and then return to Paris. If I were to see
you it would make me very happy, but I dare not hope for it. However
that may be, if you will send the sketch under cover to Mr. V. just as
you do your letters, I shall receive it promptly, for, if nothing
happens, I shall be in London the 8th of December.
I have censured your curiosity and indiscretion in opening Mr. V.’s
letter, but to tell you the truth you have some faults that I like, and
your curiosity is one of them. If we were to meet often, I am afraid you
would take a dislike to me, and that the opposite would happen with me.
At this moment I am thinking of the expression on your face. It is a
little severe, that of a lioness, though tame.
Adieu. I send a thousand kisses to your mysterious feet.
X
By all means, by all means, send Mr. V. what you have for so long a time
led me to expect. Enclose a letter too, a long one, for if you were to
send a letter to Paris I should probably cross it on my way. Caution Mr.
V. to take care of the letter and the package, and tell him that I shall
call for them in person the last of next week. What would be on your
part even more friendly, and what you do not suggest in your letter,
would be to tell me when and where I might see you. I am not counting on
this, however, and I know you too well to expect any such proof of your
courage. I rely on chance only, which may give me some talisman or clew.
I am writing to you lying on a couch, suffering tortures; colour that of
a sun-scorched meadow. I refer to my own colour, not that of the couch.
You must know that the sea makes me very ill, and that the glad waters
of the dark blue sea are pleasant to me only when I watch them from the
shore. The first time I went to England I was so ill that it was a
fortnight before I regained my usual colour, which is that of the pale
horse of the Apocalypse. One day when I was dining opposite to Madam V.,
she exclaimed suddenly, “Until to-day I thought you were an Indian.” Do
not be frightened, and do not take me for a ghost.
Forgive me for referring so often to the diamond. What must be the
feelings of a man who is not a connoisseur in gems, to whom the
jewellers have said, “This stone is an imitation,” and who nevertheless
sees it sparkle brilliantly; who sometimes says to himself, “Suppose the
jewellers are not good judges of diamonds! Suppose they are mistaken, or
else wish to deceive me!” I look at my diamond from time to time (as
seldom as I can), and every time I see it it seems to me genuine in
every respect. What a pity that I am unable myself to make a conclusive
chemical analysis! What do you think about it? If I could see you, I
should explain what is obscure in this matter, and you would give me
some wise advice; or, better still, you would make me forget my diamond,
genuine or false, for there is no diamond that can stand comparison with
two lovely black eyes.
Good-bye. I have a terrible pain in my left elbow, on which I am leaning
to write to you; besides, you do not deserve three closely written
pages. You send me only a few lines, carelessly written, and when you
write three lines two of them are certain to throw me in a rage.