CANNES, _November 16, 1868_.
DEAR FRIEND: I have been, and am still, very ill. The compressed-air
baths, which were so beneficial to me last spring, were powerless to
cure a bronchial trouble which has succeeded my asthma, and is as
harassing as the latter. For six weeks I have been coughing and choking;
while the numerous drugs, which I take with much docility and
resignation, do not produce sufficient effect to permit me to resume my
ordinary course of life. I go out only on very warm days. I sleep badly,
and spend my time entertaining the blue devils.... It is at night
especially that I suffer and fret the most. If I am so poorly before
the winter, what will become of me when the weather is really cold? This
thought preoccupies me unpleasantly. For three or four days, however, I
have felt a little less miserable.
During my nights of insomnia I made a careful copy of the _Trouveur de
Miel_,[42] with the changes which you suggested, and which seem to me to
improve the story. That the bear pushed his attacks to the point of
marring an illustrious genealogy, remains doubtful. At the same time,
intelligent persons like yourself will understand that a very serious
accident must have occurred. I sent this new edition to M. Tourguenieff,
that he might revise the local colour, concerning which I am in some
perplexity, but the deuce of the thing is that neither he nor I have
been able to find a single Lithuanian who knows his own language and
country. I had some intention of sending this tale as a fête-day gift to
the empress, but I have resisted the temptation, and have done wisely.
God only knows what that bear would have become amidst the society at
Compiègne.
The weather is only so-so--neither cold nor windy, but with very few
really beautiful days. I have been here a fortnight. The rest of the
time I have been at Montpellier, where I was horribly bored....
So poor Rossini is dead. They pretended that he had done a great deal of
work, although he wished to publish nothing. Pecuniary considerations,
which always had great weight with him, would have been reason enough
for him to publish his work, if he had really composed anything. He was
one of the wittiest men I have ever seen, and nothing more marvellous
has ever been heard than the air from the _Barber of Seville_, as sung
by him. No actor could compare with him.
The last year appears to have been a fatal one for great men. They say
that Lamartine and Berryer are both seriously ill.
Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me, and lose no time in leaving the damp
country where you are at present. There is no such thing as a warm house
in the country.
If you know some amusing book, tell me what it is, I pray you.