AVIGNON, _September 5, 1845_.
I am grateful to those people who fell ill and detained you in Paris;
and even more grateful to yourself, that is, if you think less about
their rheumatism than you do of the pleasure you will give me by
remaining. In all probability I shall return in a fortnight, or, rather,
I shall stop over for a little while at home between my journey from the
South and that North. The next one, I hope, will be but a brief one, not
even long enough for you to miss me.
I am rejoiced to know that you are in such robust health. I can not say
as much for myself, for I have been ill ever since I came away. I had
counted on the lovely weather and warm sunshine of Languedoc to work a
cure for me, but I have been disappointed. I returned yesterday in an
exhausted condition from a long business errand, in which I caused more
vexation than I do ordinarily, except where you are concerned. I am
suffering from dizziness, and almost everything appears to my vision in
double.
While you are enjoying ripe, luscious peaches, I am eating very acid
yellow ones, of a singular flavour, but which are not specially
unpleasant to the taste. I should like to have you try them. I am eating
figs of all varieties, but have no appetite for any of these things.
The evenings are terribly lonely, and I am beginning to long for the
society of bipeds of my own class. The provincials I do not consider as
anybody at all. They are tiresome creatures to look at, and altogether
foreign to the circle of my ideas. These Southerners are strange people:
I think sometimes that they are witty, and again that they are only
vivacious. They seem to me this time more unattractive than usual. As I
travel this pretty country, the only thing which I should really enjoy
would be to dream at my leisure, and for this I have no time. You can
guess, can you not, of what I should love to dream, and with whom?
I should like to tell you several good stories, which are well worth
sending two hundred leagues, but, unfortunately, none that I have heard
will bear repeating.
I saw, the other day, the ravages wrought by a flood, in which a hundred
and twenty sheep were drowned, and many houses swept away. You can beat
that in Paris, but what you will never see there is a view comparable to
that which is unfolded at every step one takes as he travels through the
region of Avignon. Come and see it, or, rather, wait for me in Paris,
and we will stroll in our woods, which will then be lovely. Write to me
at Vézelay (Yonne).