_January 27, 1843._
Hear what happened to me. I was feeling very ill this morning, but was
obliged to go out on business. Returning about five o’clock in a hideous
mood, I fell asleep before the fire as I was smoking my cigar and
reading Dr. Strauss. Now it seemed to me that I was still seated in my
arm-chair, fully awake, and reading, when you entered the room, and said
to me, “Is not this the simplest way to see each other?” “Not the best
way,” I replied, for it seemed to me there were two or three other
persons in the room. However, we conversed as if that made no
difference; whereupon I awoke, and found that some one had brought a
letter from you. See how lucky it was I fell asleep!
I am not conscious of having written you anything out of the way,
consequently I have no apology to offer. It would be your place rather
to apologise, but you do so with so little penitence, and with so much
irony, that it is very evident you have lost that veneration with which
you formerly honoured me. I can not, however, harbour resentment against
you in spite of my resolutions, so I resign myself to remain your
victim, only do not take advantage of my generosity; that would be
neither handsome nor generous.
You speak of the sunshine, and remind me of it almost as if it were the
Greek calends. Probably we shall have more sunshine next June, but must
we wait until then? It is true that you are _escarmentada_ of cloudy
weather, but while using due precautions, might we not take advantage of
the first fair weather? I would not have you catch cold on my account.
Be sure to wear your overshoes. No matter in what old costume, to see
you is always pleasure enough for me.
What is this pain in the side of which you speak so lightly? Do you
know that pneumonia begins that way? You went to the ball, and probably
caught cold going out into the air. Relieve my mind at once, I beg of
you. I would rather think of you cross, than ill. If you are entirely
well and in good spirits, and if the weather is never so little fine
Saturday, why should we not take that walk? We could go somewhere, far
away from everybody, and then walk and talk.
If you can not, or will not, come Saturday, I shall not be angry, but
anyway, try to come soon. When I ask you for anything, you grant it only
after having kept me fuming for so long that you prevent me from feeling
as grateful as I should, perhaps; and you deprive yourself, moreover, of
all the merit which would have been yours had you been promptly
generous.
To converse together, and--what has sometimes happened--to think
together, is this, then, a pleasure of which you grow weary so soon?
‘Tis true that one can speak only for himself, but each one of our
excursions has been to me more delightful than the preceding one,
because of the memories which it has left with me. I make an exception
of the last one, and that one I should like to forget altogether, and
replace it by another in which you would run no risk of catching cold.
Thus peace is made, and I await your orders to ratify it Thursday
evening.