PARIS, _September 3, 1846_.
I had imagined, in my guilelessness, that you would prefer one or two
walks with me to a week more of whitebait, but since you are not of the
same opinion, let it be as you will! I am lacking even the courage to
refrain from writing to you, as I pledged myself to do, and it is what I
should do if I were not so silly. My journey to Cologne has been for
two days a little unsettled. One of my travelling companions has decided
not to go, and another perhaps can not, so I am running the risk of
finding myself without a companion on the blue Rhine. That I shall
consider a slight calamity, but I am uncertain if I shall come this way
as I return. Thus we are in great danger, at least I am in great danger
of not meeting you until November. The responsibility rests with you. I
am sure it will weigh on you easily.
I shall not start before the 12th of September. I hope you will let me
hear from you before then, and also that you will send me word of any
commissions you wish me to do for you. It is possible that I shall be in
Paris again about the beginning of October; but if I have the least
courage I shall go to Strasburg, to Lyons, and from there to Marseilles.
I fear this courage will be lacking, especially if you think of
returning. During your absence I have made from memory two full-length
portraits of you. They are both like you, but need to be retouched. We
shall see if you will like them. I am bored to death, and should like to
see it rain in torrents, but the weather is perfectly dry. Nothing falls
but the leaves. There will remain not the sign of one in October.
You will be pleased to learn that you are to hear the same husky singers
as last season at the Italian Opera, besides having another Brambilla.
There are but five new voices, and a Mademoiselle Albini, who had no
voice at all in 1839, but who has found one somewhere, it seems, since
then.
Good-bye. I do not say it without malice. What exasperates me more than
anything else is that you have received my proposition to visit you
at ---- with the most disdainful silence; but I shall give it no further
thought.