My dearest love, here I am, very much fatigued, in Paris. It is the
6th of October, but it has been impossible to write to you sooner. A
wild crowd of people were all the way along the road, and in the towns
through which we passed the diligence refused from ten to fifteen
travellers. The mail-cart was engaged for six days, so that my friend
in Besançon could not get me a place. I therefore did the journey on
the imperial of a diligence, in company with six Swiss of the canton
de Vaud, who treated me corporeally like cattle they were taking to
market, which singularly aided the packages in bruising me.
I put myself into a bath on arriving and found your dear letter. O
my soul! do you know the pleasure it gave me? will you ever know it?
No, for I should have to tell you how much I love you, and one does
not paint that which is immense. Do you know, my dearest Eva, that I
rose at five in the morning on the day of my departure and stood on
the "Crêt" for half an hour hoping--what? I do not know. You did not
come; I saw no movement in your house, no carriage at the door. I
suspected then, what you now tell me, that you stayed a day longer, and
a thousand pangs of regret glided into my soul.
My angel, a thousand times thanked, as you will be when I can thank you
as I would for what you send me.
Bad one! how ill you judge me! If I asked you for nothing it was that
I am too ambitious. I wanted enough to make a chain to keep your
portrait always upon me, but I would not despoil that noble, idolized
head. I was like Buridan's ass between his two treasures, equally
avaricious and greedy. I have just sent for my jeweller; he will tell
me how much more is needed, and since the sacrifice is begun, you shall
complete it, my angel. So, if you do have your portrait taken, have it
done in miniature; there is, I think, a very good painter in Geneva;
and have it mounted in a very flat medallion. I shall write you openly
by the parcel I am going to send.
My dear wife of love, let Anna [her daughter] wear the little cross I
shall have made of her pebbles; I shall engrave on the back, _Adoremus
in eternum_. That is a delicious woman's motto, and you will never see
the cross without thinking of him who says to you ceaselessly those
divine words from the young girl's little talisman.
My darling Eva, here then is a new life delightfully begun for me. I
have seen you, I have spoken to you; our persons have made alliance
like our souls, and I have found in you all the perfections that I
love. Every one has his, and you have realized all mine.
Bad one! did you not see in my eyes all that I desired. Be tranquil!
all the desires that a woman who loves is jealous of inspiring, I have
felt them; and if I did not tell you with what ardour I wished that you
might come some morning it was because I was so stupidly lodged. But in
Geneva, oh! my adored angel, I shall have more wits for our love than
it takes for ten men to be witty.
I have found here everything _bad_ beyond my expectations. Those who
owed me money and gave me their word to pay it have not done so. But my
mother, whom I know to be embarrassed, has shown me sublime devotion.
But, my dear flower of love, I must repair the folly of my journey, a
folly I would renew to-morrow if you wrote me that you had twenty-four
hours' liberty. So now I must work day and night. Fifteen days of
happiness at Geneva to earn; those are the words that I find engraved
inside my forehead, and they give me the proudest courage I have ever
had. I think there will come more blood to my heart, more ideas to my
brain, more strength to my being from that thought. Therefore I do not
doubt that I shall do finer things inspired by that desire.
During the next month, therefore, excessive toil,--all to see you. You
are in all my thoughts, in all the lines I write, in all the moments of
my life, in all my being, in my hair that is growing for you.
After to-morrow, Monday, you will receive my letters only once a week;
I shall post them punctually on Sundays; they will contain the lines I
write to you every evening; for every evening before I go to bed, to
sleep in your heart, I shall say to you my little prayer of love and
tell you what I have been doing during the day. I rob you to enrich
you. Henceforth there is nothing but you and work, work and you; sleep
in peace, my jealous one. Besides, you will soon know that I am as
exclusive as a woman, that I love as a woman, and that I dream all
delicacies.
Yes, my adored flower, I have all the fears of jealousy about you;
and behold, I have come to know that guardian of the heart, jealousy,
of which I was ignorant because I was loved in a manner that gave no
fears. _La dilecta_ lived in her chamber, and you, everybody can see
you. I shall only be happy when you are in Paris or at Wierzchownia.
My celestial love, find an impenetrable place for my letters. Oh! I
entreat you, let no harm come to you. Let Henriette be their faithful
guardian, and make her take all the precautions that the genius of
woman dictates in such a case.
I begin to-morrow, without delay, on "Privilège," for I must work. I
am frightened about it. I do not wish to start for Geneva until I have
returned Nodier's dinner, and I cannot help making it splendid. Thus I
have to work as much for the necessary superfluities of luxury as for
the superfluous necessity of my existence.
To-morrow, Monday, I begin a journal of my life, which will only stop
during the happy days when my fortunate star permits me to see you. The
gaps will show my happiness. May there be many of them! _Mon Dieu!_
how proud I am to be still of an age to appreciate all the treasures
that there are in you, so that I can love you as a young man full of
beliefs, a man who has a hand upon the future. Oh, my mysterious love!
let it be forever like a flower buried beneath the snow, a flower
unseen. Eva, dear and only woman whom the world contains for me, and
who fills the world, forgive me all the little wiles [_ruses_] I shall
employ to hide the secret of our hearts.
_Mon Dieu_, how beautiful I thought you, Sunday, in your pretty violet
gown. Oh! how you touched me in all my fancies! Why do you ask me so
often to tell you what I would fain express only in my looks? All such
thoughts lose much in words. I would communicate them, soul to soul, by
the flame of a glance only.
Now, my wife, my adored one, remember that whatever I write you,
pressed by time, happy or unhappy, there is in my soul an immense love;
that you fill my heart and my life, and that although I may not always
express this love well, nothing can alter it; that it will ever flower,
more beautiful, fresher, more graceful, because it is a true love,
and a true love must ever increase. It is a beautiful flower, of many
years, planted in the heart, which spreads its branches and its palms,
doubling each season its clusters and its perfume; and you, my dear
life, tell me, repeat to me, that nothing shall gall its bark or bruise
its tender foliage, that it shall grow in our two hearts, beloved,
free, treasured as a life within our lives--a single life! Oh! I love
you! and what balm that love sheds all about me; I feel no sorrows
more. You are my strength; you see it.
Well adieu, my cherished Eva, I must bid you adieu--no, not adieu, _au
revoir_, and soon,--at Geneva on the 5th of November. If you are coming
to Paris tell me so quickly.
After all, I have told you nothing of what I wished to say: how true
and loving I thought you; how you answered to all the fibres of my
heart, and even to my caprices. _Mon Dieu!_ often I was so absorbed,
in spite of the general chatter I had to make, that I forgot to answer
when you asked me if they did not bind books well in Saint-Petersburg.
Well, _à bientôt_. Work will make the time that separates us short.
What beauteous days were those at Neufchâtel! We will make pilgrimages
there some day. Oh, angel! now that I have seen you I can re-see you in
thought.
Well, a thousand kisses full of my soul. Would I could enclose them.
The sweetest of all, I dream of it still.
[Footnote 1: Here the tone of the letters changes, as told in the
preface to this translation; and, as if to show its connection with
the tale of the "Roman d'Amour," parts of the garbled letter in that
book are given here in a foot-note in the French volume. From this time
until March 11 all the letters (except twelve little notes written in
Geneva) use the _tutoiement_. As it is impossible to put that form into
readable English, the extreme familiarity of the tone of these letters
is not given in the translation.--TR.]
PARIS, October 13, 1833.
My dearest love, it is now nearly three days since I have written to
you, and this would be bad indeed if you were not my beloved wife.
But work has been so enthralling, the difficulties are so great! Poor
angel, I prefer to tell you the sweetness of which my soul is full
for you than to recount to you my tribulations. As for my life it is
unshakably fixed, as I have told you already, I believe. Going to bed
at six after my dinner, rising at midnight, here I am, bending over
the table that you know of, seated in this arm-chair that you can
see, beside the fireplace which has warmed me for six years, and so
working until midday. Then come rendezvous for business, the details
of existence which must be attended to; often at four o'clock, a bath;
five o'clock, dinner. And then I begin over again intrepidly, swimming
in work, living in that white dressing-gown with the silk sash that
you must know about. There are some authors who filch my time, taking
from me an hour or two; but more often obligations and anxieties are
fixtures; returns uncertain.
I am now in the midst of concluding an agreement which will echo
through our world of envy, jealousy, and silliness; it will jaundice
the yellow bile of those who have the audacity to want to walk in my
shadow. A firm of rather respectable publishers buy the edition of the
"Études de Mœurs au XIXe Siècle" for twenty-seven thousand francs;
twelve volumes 8vo, including the third edition of the "Scènes de la
Vie privée," the first of the "Scènes de la Vie de province," and the
first of the "Scènes de la Vie Parisienne." Besides which, the printer,
who owes me a thousand _écus_, pays them in the operation. This will
give me ten thousand _écus_. That's enough to make all idlers, barkers,
and the _gens de lettres_ roar! Here I am, barring what I owe to my
mother, free of debt, and free in seven months to go where I please! If
our _great affair_ succeeds I shall be rich; I can do what I wish for
my mother, and have a pillow, a bit of bread, and a white handkerchief
for my old days.
Alas! my beloved, to secure that treaty I have had to assume
engagements, trot about, go out in the morning at nine o'clock after
working all night. Nevertheless, I shall not be without anxiety as
to the payments, for one always has to grant credit to publishers.
My vigils, my work, all that there is most sacred in the world may
be compromised. This publisher is a woman, a widow [Madame Charles
Bêchet]. I have never seen her, and don't know her. I shall not send
off this letter until the signatures are appended on both sides, so
that my missive may carry you good news about my interests; but there
are two other negotiations pending which are not less important, too
long to explain to you, so that I shall only tell you results.
The "Aventures d'une idée heureuse" are one-quarter done, and I am well
in the mood to finish them; "Eugénie Grandet," one of my most finished
works, is half done. I am very content with it. "Eugénie Grandet" is
like nothing that I ever did before. To invent "Eugénie Grandet" after
Madame Jules--without vanity, that shows talent.
Did I tell you that our paper cannot be made at Angoulême? I received
this answer yesterday from my friend in Angoulême. I am going there in
a few days. I am obliged to rush to Saintes, the capital of Saintonge,
to study the faubourg where Bernard de Palissy lived; he is the hero of
the "Souffrances d'un Inventeur" ["David Séchard"], which I shall write
very quickly at Angoulême, on my return from Saintes. Saintes is twelve
leagues from Angoulême, farther on among the hills. I will bring you
your _cotignac_ [quince marmalade] from Orléans myself. I have already
got your peaches from Tours. I am waiting till my jeweller allows me to
write to you openly, but Fossin is a king, a power, and when one wants
things properly done one must kiss that devil's spur that men call
patience.
I don't say that I received with great pleasure the letter in which
you are no longer grieved, and in which you tell me the story of that
monster of an Englishman. That's what husbands are; a lover would have
wrung his neck. A duel? May the avenging God make him meet some inn
servant girl who will render him diseased and cause him a thousand
ills! Considering the nature of the gentleman, my wish will, I hope, be
accomplished.
At least there is love in your letter, my dear love. The other was so
gloomy. _Mon Dieu!_ how can you give way for a moment to doubt, or have
a fear? _À propos_, friends have been here to tell me that the rumour
is all about that I have been to Switzerland in search of a woman
who positively came from Odessa. But happily other people say that
I followed Madame de Castries, and others again that I have been to
Besançon on a commercial enterprise. The author of the invention of the
rendezvous is, I think, Gosselin, the publisher, who sent me a letter
from Russia five months ago. And finally, others say that I never left
Paris at all, but was put in Sainte Pélagie [prison], _where they saw
me_. That is Paris.
My dear, idolized one, adieu! Nevertheless, I ought to tell you the
thoughts on which I gallop for the last three days, the good little
quarters of an hour which I give myself when I have done a certain
number of pages. I rebehold the Val de Travers, I recommence my five
days, and they fill the fifteen minutes with all their joys; the
least little incidents come back to me. Sometimes a view of that fine
forehead, then a word, or, better still, a flame lighted by Sev.... Oh!
darling, you are adorably loving, but how stupid you are to have fears.
No, no, my cherished Eva, I am not one of those who punish a woman for
her love. Oh! I would I could remain half a day at your knees, my head
on your knees, telling you my thoughts lazily, with delight, saying
nothing sometimes, but kissing your gown. _Mon Dieu!_ how sweet would
be the day when I could play at liberty with you, as a child with its
mother. O my beloved Eva, day of my days, light of my nights, my hope,
my adored, my all-beloved, my sole darling, when can I see you? Is it
an illusion? Have I seen you? Have I seen you enough to say that I have
seen you?
_Mon Dieu!_ how I love your rather broad accent, your mouth of
kindness, of voluptuousness--permit me to say it to you, my angel of
love!
I work night and day to go and see you for a fortnight in December. I
shall cross the Jura covered with snow, but I shall think of the snowy
shoulders of my love, my well-beloved. Ah! to breathe your hair, to
hold your hand, to strain you in my arms! that's where my courage comes
from. I have friends here who are stupefied at the fierce _will_ I am
displaying at this moment. Ah! they don't know my darling [_ma mie_],
my soft darling, her, whose mere sight robs pain of its stings! Yes,
Parisina and her lover must have died without feeling the axe, as they
thought of one another!
A kiss, my angel of earth, a kiss tasted slowly. Adieu. The nightingale
has sung too long; I am allured to write to you, and Eugénie Grandet
scolds.
Saturday, 12, midday.
The protocols are exchanged, our reflections made, to-morrow the
signature. But to-morrow all may be changed. I have scarcely done
anything to "Eugénie Grandet" and the "Aventures d'une idée." There
are moments when the imagination jolts and will not go on. And then,
"L'Europe littéraire" has not come. I am too proud to set foot there
because they have behaved so ill to me. So, since my return I am
without money. I wait. They ought to have come yesterday to explain
matters; they did not. They ought to come to-day. At this moment
the price of "Eugénie Grandet" is a great sum for me. So here I am,
rebeginning my trade of anguish. Never shall I cease to resemble
Raphael in his garret; I still have a year before me to enjoy my last
poverty, to have noble, hidden prides.
I am a little fatigued; but the pain in my side has yielded to quiet
sitting in my arm-chair, to that constant tranquillity of the body
which makes a monk of me.
For the time being, my fancies are calmed; when there is famine in
the house I don't think of my desires. My silver chafing-dishes are
melted up. I don't mind that. No more dinners in October. But I enjoy
so much in thought the things I have not, and these desires make them
so precious when I do possess them. It is now two years that, month by
month, I counted on a balance for my dishes, but they vanish. I have
a crowd of little pleasures in that way. They make me love the little
nest where I live; it is what makes me love you--a perpetual desire.
Those who call me ill-natured, satirical, deceptive, don't know the
innocence of my life, my life of a bird, gathering its nest twig by
twig and playing with a straw before it uses it.
O dear confidant of my most secret thoughts, dear, precious conscience,
will you some day know, you, the companion of love, how you are
loved,--you, who, coming on faithful wing toward your mate, did not
reject him after seeing him. How I feared that I might not please
you! Tell me again that you liked the man, after liking his mind and
heart--since the mind and heart have pleased you, I could not doubt it.
My idol, my Eva, welcomed, beloved, if you only knew how all that you
said and did laid hold upon me, oh! no, you would have no doubts, no
dishonouring fears. Do not speak to me as you did, saying, "You will
not love a woman who comes to you, who, who, who--" you know what I
mean.
Angel, the angels are often forced to come down from heaven; we cannot
go up to them. Besides, it is they who lift us on their white wings to
their sphere, where we love and where pleasures are thoughts.
Adieu, you, my treasure, my happiness, you, to whom all my desires fly,
you, who make me adore solitude because it is full of you.
Adieu, till to-morrow. At midday my people are coming for the
agreement. This letter will wait to carry you good or bad news, but it
will carry you so much love that you will be joyous.
Sunday, 13, nine o'clock.
My cherished love, my Eva, the business is completed! They will all
burst with envy. My "Études de Mœurs au XIXe Siècle" has been bought
for twenty-seven thousand francs. The publisher will make that ring.
Since Chateaubriand's twenty-five volumes were bought for two hundred
thousand francs for ten years there has not been such a sale. They take
a year to sell....
Ah! here comes your letter. I read it.
My divine love, how stupid you are! Madame de S...!--I have quarrelled
with her, have I, so that I never say a word to her; I will not even
bow to her daughter? Alas! I have met her, Madame de S..., at Madame
d'Abrantès' this winter. She came up to me and said: "_She_ is not
here" (meaning Madame de Castries); "have you been so severe as you
were at Aix?" I said, pointing to her lover, former lover of Mme. d'A.,
a Portuguese count, "But _he_ is here." The duchess burst out laughing.
Oh! my celestial angel, Madame de S...--if you could see her you would
know how atrocious the calumny is.... Your Polish women saw too much
of Madame de C... to pay attention to Madame de S... who was paying
court to her. But I was at Aix with Madame de C... and we were dining
together. As for the marquise, faith, the portrait you draw of her
makes me die of laughing. There is something in it, but changed now.
Fresh, yes; without heart, yes, at least I think so. She will always be
sacred to me; but in the chatter of your Polish women there was just
enough truth to make the slander pass.
My idolized love, no more doubts; never, do you understand? I love but
you and can love none but you. Eva is your symbolic name. Better than
that; I have never loved in the past as I feel that I love you. To you,
all my life of love may belong.
Adieu, my breath. I would I could communicate to these pages the virtue
of talismans, that you might feel my soul enveloping you. Adieu, my
beloved. I kiss this page; I add a leaf of my last rose, a petal of my
last jasmine. You are in my thought as the very base of intellect, the
substance of all things.
"Eugénie Grandet" is enchanting. You shall soon have it in Geneva.
Well, adieu, you whom I would fain see, feel, press, adieu. Can I not
find a way to press you? What impotent wishes imagination has! My dear
light, I kiss you with an ardour, an embrace of life, an effusion of
the soul, without example in my life.
My angel, I don't answer about the cry I gave apropos of Madame de C...
and the son M... dying for his mother-in-law. To-morrow for all that.
You must have laughed at my pretended savagery.
Do not put _poste restante_ any longer.
PARIS, Sunday, October 20, 1833.
What! my love; fears, torments? You have received, I hope, the first
two letters that I wrote you after my return. What shall I do not to
give you the slightest trouble, to make you clear skies? What! could
you not have reckoned on a day's delay, an hour of weariness. _Mon
Dieu! Mon Dieu!_ what shall I do?
I write to you every day; if you want to receive a letter every third
day instead of every eighth day, say so, speak, order. I will do all
not to let a single evil thought come into your heart.
If you knew the harm your letter has done me. You do not know me yet.
All that is bad. But I pardon the little grief your letter has caused
me, because it is one way of telling me you love me.
I have good news to tell you. I think that the "Études de Mœurs"
will be a settled business by Tuesday next, and that I shall have as
debtor one of the most solid firms of publishers in the market. That is
something.
Forgive me, my Eva of love, if I talk to you of my mercantile affairs;
but it is my tranquillity; it will no doubt enable me to go to Geneva.
Alas! I may not go till December, because I cannot leave till I have
finished the first part of these "Études."
Adieu; I must return to "Eugénie Grandet," who is going on well. I have
still all Monday and a part of Tuesday.
Adieu, my angel of light; adieu, dear treasure; do not ill-treat me.
I have a heart as sensitive as that of a woman can be, and I love you
better or worse, for I rest without fear on your dear heart, and kiss
your two eyes--all!
Adieu; _à demain_.
PARIS, Wednesday, October 23, 1833.
To you, my love, to you a thousand tendernesses. Yesterday I was
running about all day and was so tired that I permitted myself to sleep
the night through, so that I made my idol only a mental prayer. I went
to sleep in thy dear thought just as, if married, I should have fallen
asleep in the arms of my beloved.
_Mon Dieu!_ I am frightened to see how my life belongs to you; with
what rapidity it turns to your heart. Your arteries beat as much for
me as for yourself. Adored darling, what good your letters do me! I
believe in you, don't you see, as I believe in my respiration. I am
like a child in this happiness, like a _savant_, like a fool who takes
care of tulips. I weep with rage at not being near you. I assemble all
my ideas to develop this love, and I am here, watching ceaselessly
that it shall grow without harm. Does not that partake of the child,
the _savant_, and the botanist? Thus, my angel, commit no follies.
No, don't quit your tether, poor little goat. Your lover will come
when you cry. But you make me shudder. Don't deceive yourself, my dear
Eve; they do not return to Mademoiselle Henriette Borel a letter so
carefully folded and sealed without looking at it. There are clever
dissimulations. Now, I entreat you, take a carriage that you may
never get wet in going to the post. Besides, it is always cold in the
rue du Rhône. Go every Wednesday, because the letters posted here on
Sunday arrive on Wednesday. I will never, whatever may be the urgency,
post letters for you on any day but Sunday. Burn the envelopes. Let
Henriette scold the post-office man who delivered her letter, which was
_poste restante_; but scold him laughing, for officials are rancorous.
They would be capable of saying some Wednesday there were no letters,
and then delivering them in a way to cause trouble. O my angel,
misfortunes only come through letters. I beg you, on my knees, find a
place, a lair, a mine to hide the treasures of our love. Do it, so that
you can have no uneasiness.
Now, the Countess Potoçka, is she not that beautiful Greek, beloved
by P..., married to a doctor, married to General de W..., and then
to Count L... P...? If she is, don't confide to her a single thing
about your love, my poor lamb without mistrust. If she has proofs,
then own to her; but such an avowal must not be made until you cannot
do otherwise, and then, make a merit of a forced confession. You must
judge of the opportunity; but when I am in Geneva, you understand that
people who run two ideas and who suppose evil when it does not exist,
will know well how to divine when true.
Now, when I read your letters I am in Geneva, I see all. _Mon Dieu_,
what grace and prettiness in your letters! Eh! my angel of love, I
shall be in Geneva precisely when you choose. But calculate that it
takes your letter four days to reach me, and four days for me to
arrive; that makes eight days.
My cherished angel, do not share my troubles more than you must in
knowing them; heaven has given me all the courage necessary to support
them. I would not have a single one of my thoughts hidden from you, and
I tell you all. But do not give yourself a fever about them. Yes, the
sending of the newspapers was an indignity. Tell me who was capable of
such a joke. There will be a duel between him and me. Whoever wounds
you is my head enemy; but an enemy Arab fashion, with an oath of
vengeance.
My dear happiness, there is not a voice here in my favour; all are
hostile. I must resign myself. They treat me, it is true, like a man
of genius; and that gives pride. I must redouble cares and courage to
mount this last step. I am preparing fine subjects of hatred for them.
I work with unexampled obstinacy.
I can only write the ostensible letter to you next week, for I wish the
package to be full. So much the better if I am blamed; the recollection
will be all the more precious.
My darling, you can very well say that you saw me at Neufchâtel, for
that can no more be concealed than the nose upon one's face. It will be
known; it should therefore be told, soul of my soul.[1]
You see I answer all you write to me, but hap-hazard. I am in haste to
finish what I call the business of our love, to talk to you of love.
What! you have read the "Contes Drolatiques" without the permission of
your husband of love? Inquisitive one! O my angel, it needs a heart as
pure as yours to read and enjoy "Le Péché véniel." That's a diamond of
naïveté. But, dearest, you have been very audacious. I am afraid you
will love me less. One must know our national literature so well, the
grand, majestic literature of the seventeenth century, so sparkling
with genius, so free in deportment, so lively in words which, in
those days, were not yet dishonoured, that I am afraid for myself. I
repeat to you, if there is something of me that will live, it is those
Contes. The man who writes a hundred of them can never die. Re-read
the epilogue of the second _dizain_ and judge. Above all, regard these
books as careless arabesques traced with love. What do you think of the
"Succube"? My dear beloved, that tale cost me six months of torture. I
was ill of it. I think your criticisms without foundation. The trial
of the supposed poisoners of the Dauphin was held at Moulin's, by
Chancellor Paget, before the captivity of François I.; I have not the
time to verify it. Catherine de' Medici was Dauphine in 1536, I think.
Yes, the battle of Pavia was in 1525; you are right. I think you are
right as to the Connétable; it was Duc François de Montmorency who
married the Duchesse de Farnese. But all that is contested. I will
verify it very carefully, and will correct it in the second edition.
Thank you, my love; enlighten me, and for all the faults you find,
as many tender thanks. Nevertheless, in these Contes there must be
incorrectnesses; that's the _usage_; but there must not be lies.
Enough said, my beloved love, my darling Eva. Here is nearly half a
night employed on you, in writing to you. _Mon Dieu_, return it to me
in caresses! I must, angel, resume my collar of misery; but it shall
not be until I have put here for you all the flowers of my heart, a
thousand tendernesses, a thousand caresses, all the prayers of a poor
solitary who lives between his thoughts and his love.
Adieu, my cherished beauty; one kiss upon those beautiful red lips, so
fresh, so kind, a kiss which goes far, which clasps you. I will not
say adieu. Oh! when shall I have your dear portrait? If, by chance you
have it mounted, let it be between two _plaques_ of enamel so that the
whole may not be thicker than a five-franc piece, for I want to have
it always on my heart. It will be my talisman; I shall feel it there;
I shall draw strength and courage from it. From it will dart the rays
of that glory I wish so great, so broad, so radiant to wrap you in its
light.
Come, I must leave you; always with regret. But once at liberty and
without annoyances, what sweet pilgrimages! But my thought goes faster,
and every night it glides about your heart, your head, it covers you.
Adieu, then. _À demain._ To-morrow I must go to the Duchesse
d'Abrantès; I will tell you why when I get back.
[Footnote 1: This sentence alone would show the falseness of these
letters. On pp. 182, 183, vol. xxiv., Éd. Déf., are two letters of
Balzac written from Neufchâtel; one to Charles de Bernard, the other
to Mme. Carraud. In the latter he says: "I have just accompanied the
great Borget to the frontier of the sovereign states of this town....
I conclude here (Paris) this letter, begun at Neufchâtel. Just think
that, at the moment when I had ensconced myself by my fire to answer
you at length and reply to your last good letter, they came for me to
go and see views [_sites_]; and that lasted till my departure." A man
who goes about sight-seeing with a family party would not have written
the sentence in the text.
The writer of it himself makes a slip, and forgets that he has said in
the "Roman d' Amour" letter that on one of these excursions (to the
Lake of Bienne) the husband was sent to order breakfast while they gave
themselves a first kiss. Murder will out in small ways.--TR.]
Thursday, 24.
This morning, my cherished love, I have failed in an attempt which
might have been fortunate. I went to offer to a capitalist, who
receives the indemnities agreed upon between us for the works promised
and not written, a certain number of copies of the "Études de Mœurs."
I proposed to him five thousand francs _à terme_ for three thousand
_échus_. He refused everything, even my signature and a note, saying
that my fortune was in my talent and I might die. The scene was one
of the basest I ever knew. Gobseck was nothing to him; I endured, all
red, the contact with an iron soul. Some day, I will describe it. I
went to the duchess that she might undertake a negotiation of the same
kind with the man who had the lawsuit with me, her publisher, who cut
my throat. Will she succeed? I am in the agonies of expectation, and
yet I must have the serenity, the calmness, that are necessary for my
enormous work.
My angel, I cannot go to Geneva until the first part of the "Études de
Mœurs" appears published, and the second is well under way. That done,
I shall have fifteen days to myself, twenty perhaps; all will depend
on the more or less money that I shall have, for I have an important
payment to make the end of December. I am satisfied with my publisher;
he is active, does not play the gentleman, takes up my enterprise as a
fortune, and considers it eminently profitable. We must have a success,
a great success. "Eugénie Grandet" is a fine work. I have nearly all
my ideas for the parts that remain to do in these twelve volumes. My
life is now well regulated: rise at midnight after going to bed at
six o'clock; a bath every third day, fourteen hours of work, two for
walking. I bury myself in my ideas and from time to time your dear head
appears like a beam of sunlight. Oh, my dear Eva, I have but you in
this world; my life is concentrated in your dear heart. All the ties of
human sentiment bind me to it. I think, breathe, work by you, for you.
What a noble life: love and thought! But what a misfortune to be in the
embarrassments of poverty to the last moment! How dearly nature sells
us happiness! I must go through another six months of toil, privation,
struggle, to be completely happy. But how many things may happen in six
months! My beautiful hidden life consoles me for all. You would shudder
if I told you all my agonies, which, like Napoleon on a battlefield,
I forget. On sitting down at my little table, well, I laugh, I am
tranquil. That little table, it belongs to my darling, my Eve, my wife.
I have had it these ten years; it has seen all my miseries, wiped away
all my tears, known all my projects, heard all my thoughts; my arm has
nearly worn it out by dint of rubbing it as I write.
_Mon Dieu!_ my jeweller is in the country; I have confidence in him
only. Anna's cross will be delayed. That annoys me more than my own
troubles at the end of the month. Your quince marmalade is on its way
to Paris.
My dear treasure, I have no news to give you; I go nowhere, and see no
one. You will find nothing but yourself in my letters, an inexhaustible
love. Be prudent, my dear diamond. Oh! tell me that you will love me
always, because, don't you see, Eva, I love you for all my life. I
am happy in having the consciousness of my love, in being in a thing
immense, in living in the limited eternity that we can give to a
feeling, but which is an eternity to us. Oh! let me take you in thought
in my arms, clasp you, hold your head upon my heart and kiss your
forehead innocently. My cherished one, here, from afar, I can express
to you my love. I feel that I can love you always, find myself each day
in the heart of a love stronger than that of the day before, and say to
you daily words more sweet. You please me daily more and more; daily
you lodge better in my heart; never betray a love so great. I have but
you in the world; you will know in Geneva only all that there is in
those words. For the moment I will tell you that Madame de C[astries]
writes me that we are not to see each other again; she had taken
offence at a letter, and I at many other things. Be assured that there
is no love in all this. _Mon Dieu!_ how everything withdraws itself
from me? How deep my solitude is becoming! Persecution is beginning for
me in literature! The last obligations to pay off keep me at home in
continual gigantic toil. Ah! how my soul springs from this person to
join your soul, my dear country of love.
I paused here to think of you; I abandoned myself to revery; tears came
into my eyes, tears of happiness. I cannot express to you my thoughts.
I send you a kiss full of love. Divine my soul!
Saturday, 26.
Yesterday, my beloved treasure, I ran about on business, pressing
business; at night I had to correct the volumes which go to press
Monday. No answer from the duchess. Oh! she will not succeed. I am too
happy in the noble regions of the soul and thought to be also happy
in the petty interests of life. I have many letters to write; my work
carries me away, and I get behindhand. How powerful is the dominion
of thought! I sleep in peace on a rotten plank. That alone expresses
my situation. So much money to pay, and to do it the pen with which I
write to you--. Oh! no, I have two, my love; yours is for your letters
only; it lasts, usually, six months.
I have corrected "La Femme Abandonnée," "Le Message," and "Les
Célibataires." That has taken me twenty-six hours since Thursday. One
has to attend to the newspapers. To manage the French public is not a
slight affair. To make it favorable to a work in twelve volumes is an
enterprise, a campaign. What contempt one pours on men in making them
move and seeing them squabble. Some are bought. My publisher tells
me there is a tariff of consciences among the feuilletonists. Shall
I receive in my house a single one of these fellows? I'd rather die
unknown!
To-morrow I resume my manuscript work. I want to finish either "Eugénie
Grandet" or "Les Aventures d'une idée heureuse." It is five o'clock;
I am going to dinner, my only meal, then to bed and to sleep. I fall
asleep always in thoughts of you, seeking a sweet moment of Neufchâtel,
carrying myself back to it, and so, quitting the visible world, bearing
away one of your smiles or listening to your words.
Did I tell you that persons from Berlin, Vienna, and Hamburg had
complimented me on my successes in Germany, where, said these gracious
people, nothing was talked of but your Honoré? This was at Gérard's.
But I must have told you this. I wish the whole earth would speak of
me with admiration, so that in laying it on your knees you might have
the whole world for yourself.
Adieu, for to-day, my angel. To-morrow my caresses, my words all full
of love and desires. I will write after receiving the letter which
will, no doubt, come to-morrow. Dear, celestial day! Would I could
invent words and caresses for you alone. I put a kiss here.
Sunday, 27.
What! my dear love, no letters? Such grief not to know what you think!
Oh! send me two letters a week; let me receive one on Wednesdays and
the other on Sundays. I have waited for the last courier, and can only
write a few words. Do not make me suffer; be as punctual as possible.
My life is in your hands: