PARIS, _Saturday, September 3, 1859_.
I fear very much that we shall meet no more this year on this side of
the Acheron, and I am unwilling to leave without bidding you farewell,
and telling you something of my peregrinations. I shall start
Monday--that is, day after to-morrow--for Tarbes, where I shall remain,
probably, until the 12th, when I shall return to Paris for several days,
and leave again soon afterwards for Spain. If I believed in
presentiments, I should not cross the Pyrenees; but it is too late to
change my mind, and I must make my visit, which will probably be the
last, to Madrid. I am too old and too ill to undertake another such
journey. If I did not feel in duty bound to go bidding good-bye to some
of my best friends, I should not budge from my hole.
While I am not ill, I am so nervous that it is worse than illness. I
neither eat nor sleep, and have, besides, the blue devils. My only
consolation is the knowledge that you are enjoying yourself, and are
rapidly gaining in flesh among your mountains and country-folk.
I have just received from London the _Memoirs of the Princess
Doschkoff_, and am not yet entirely reconciled to the thirty francs
which it cost me. I am promised on my return from Tarbes a novel
written in Little-Russian dialect, and translated into Russian by M.
Tourguenieff. It is said to be a masterpiece, superior to _Uncle Tom_.
There are, besides, the _Letters of the Princess of Ursins_, which are
highly spoken of; but I have a horror of that woman, and do not care for
the book. As for interesting books, I know of nothing new; I have dipped
into several, in order to beguile the lonely evenings, and I have found
none worth the trouble of cutting the leaves.
I met M. About the other day. He is always delightful. He has promised
me something. He lives in Saverne, and spends his time in the woods. A
month ago he came across an extraordinary-looking animal walking on
all-fours. He wore a black coat and patent leathers, but was minus
socks. It was the professor of rhetoric at Angoulême, who, having had
conjugal differences, went to Baden, where he promptly lost all he had,
and returning to France through the woods, had got lost, and for a week
had had nothing to eat. About carried, or rather dragged, him to a
village, where he was provided with clothing and food, but he died,
nevertheless, at the end of a week. It appears that after the animal-man
has lived for a certain time in complete solitude, and has reached a
certain condition of physical wretchedness, it seems, I repeat, that
this noble creature walks on all-fours. About assures me that he makes a
hideous-looking animal.
Write to me in care of the Minister of State at Tarbes.
Good-bye. I hope the autumn opens more benignly for you than it has for
me. It is cold and rainy, with much electricity in the air. Take care of
yourself, eat and sleep, since you are able to do it.