PARIS, _May 19, 1858_.
We are compelled to lead a tiresome existence at the Luxembourg. I am
worn out with it, and I am dismayed, also, at the weather; I am told
that it is good for the pease. I congratulate you, therefore, but it
seems to me that the rain should fall only on the farms. I have been
accusing you strongly of having taken one of my books--they are my sole
possession--for which I have searched as if it were a needle. I
discovered it finally, this morning, in a corner where I had hid it
myself for safe-keeping; but it caused me more irritation than the book
was worth.
I have been ill ever since my return--that is to say, I can neither eat
nor sleep. Before you leave for so long a time, I must positively make a
second portrait of you. For that, it is a question only of a half hour
of patience, if patience is needed when one realises that one is giving
people pleasure. I am to be in the party to go to Fontainebleau, and
shall not return before the 29th. I wish we might have a long talk
before I go. It seems a century since that has happened with us.