GENEVA, February, 1834.
The Sire de Balzac is very well indeed, madame, and will be, in a few
moments, at your fireside for a chat; he is too avaricious of the few
moments that remain to him to spend in Geneva, and if he had not had
some letters to answer, he would have gone there already this morning.
A thousand affectionate compliments to M. Hanski, and to you a thousand
homages full of friendship.
PARIS, Wednesday, February 12, 1834.
I prefer saying nothing more than that. I love you with increasing
intoxication, with a devotion that difficulties increase, to telling
you imperfectly my history for the last three days. Sunday I will post
a complete journal. I have not a minute to myself. Everything hurries
me at once, and time presses. But, adored angel, you will divine me.
The _dilecta_ [Madame de Berny] is better, but the future seems bad to
me. I wait still before despairing.
_Mon Dieu!_ may my thoughts of love echo in your ears and cradle you.
PARIS, Thursday, February 13, 1834.
MADAME,--I arrived much fatigued, but I found troubles at home, of
which you can conceive the keenness. Madame de Berny is ill, and
seriously ill,--more ill than she is aware of. I see in her face a
fatal change. I hide my anxiety from her; it is boundless. Until my own
doctor or a somnambulist reassure me, I shall not feel easy about that
life which you know to be so precious.
I have delayed a day in writing to you, because on Wednesday morning
I had to rush to the rue d'Enfer, and when I could write to you there
was no longer time; the public offices closed earlier on account of
Ash-Wednesday.
The sight of that face so gracious, aged in a month by twenty years,
and horribly contracted, has greatly increased the grief I felt. Even
if the health is restored, and I hope it, it will be always painful
to me to see the sad change to old age. I can say this only to you.
It seems as if nature had avenged herself suddenly, in a moment, for
the long protestation made against her and time. I hope most ardently
that the life may be saved; but I recognized symptoms that I saw with
horror in my father before the irreparable loss. So, I have sorrow
upon sorrow.[1] Now, after confiding to you these distresses, I can,
madame, give you some consoling news. The publisher has understood my
delay, and is not angry with me. I have, certainly, to work enormously,
but, at least, I shall not have the annoyance of being blamed. As
for M. Gosselin, that is only a loss of money. So, you who felt such
affectionate fears lest the prolongation of my stay would prove a
burden may be reassured. I shall have had complete joy, and no remorse;
and now that there is no remorse, I should like a little. It is so
sweet to bear something for those whose friendship is precious to us.
I can tell you from afar, with less trembling in my voice and redness
in my eyes, that the forty-four days I spent in Geneva have been one
of the sweetest halts that I have made in my life of a literary
foot-soldier. That rest was necessary for me, and you have made it into
a joy. It was a sleep with the sweetest dreams,--dreams which will be
realities. True friendship, sweet, kind, noble and good sentiments are
so rare in life that there must mingle a little gratitude in the return
we owe, and I feel as much gratitude as friendship.
I shall forget nothing of our affectionate little agreements: neither
the album, nor the coffee, nor anything. To-day I can only tell you
that I arrived without any hindrance, except great fatigue. The cold
was keen. Saturday morning I crossed the Jura on foot through the
snow, and on reaching the stone where two years ago I sat down to look
at the wonderful spectacle of France and Switzerland separated by a
brook, which is the Lake of Geneva, and a ditch, which is the valley
between the Mont Blanc and the Jura, I had a moment of joy mingled
with sadness. Two years ago I wept over lost illusions [refers to his
rupture with Mme. de Castries], and to-day I had to regret the sweetest
things that have ever come to me, outside of family feelings,--hours of
friendship, the value of which a poor writer from necessity must feel
more keenly than others, because there is in him a great poet for all
that is emotion of the heart.
Yes, I am proud of my personal feelings, but it is a great grief to
know the joys of friendship to their full extent, and lose them, even
momentarily.
To-day I replunge into work, and it is crushing. I have promised that
the second Part of the "Études de Mœurs" shall appear February 25th.
That is only ten days for completing you know how much. My punctuality
must excuse the delays. You see that in writing I am as indiscreet as
when I went to see you.
Well, adieu, madame; believe that I am not "French" in the matter of
memory, and that I know all that I leave of good and true beyond the
Jura. In the hours when I am worn-out I shall think of our evenings;
and the word _patience_, written in the depths of my life, will make me
think of our games. You know all that I would say to the Grand Maréchal
of the Ukraine, and I am certain that my words will be more graceful
from your lips than from my pen. Tell Anna that _her horse_ sends her
his remembrances and kisses her forehead. A thousand affectionate
compliments to Mademoiselle Séverine; inform Mademoiselle Borel that
I have _not_ broken my neck, and keep, I entreat you, madame, at your
feet, my most sincere and most affectionate homage; your noble beauty
assures you of sincerity, and as to the affection, I wish I could prove
it to you in some way that would not involve misfortune.
"Do not forget _to-morrow_," was one of your recommendations when I
told you that I did not believe in morrows; but now I do believe in
them, for, by chance, I have a future, and my publisher has proved it
to me. He is jubilant at the sale of "Eugénie Grandet," and said to me
solemnly, "It sells like bread." I tell this to you who think you see
cakes in it, while most people expect to see me _faire brioches_ of it
[fiasco]. Excuse this studio jest, you who like artists.
Devotion and friendship.
[Footnote 1: Madame de Berny was the friend of his parents, and
twenty-four years older than himself. When the family lived at
Villeparisis the de Bernys lived near them in a hired house, their
own estate being at Saint-Firmin. Madame de Berny recognized Balzac's
genius in his early youth, when parents and friends denied it. For a
time, while at Villeparisis, he taught her son with his own brother
Henry. When Balzac's father opposed his literary career, it was she
who, with Mme. Surville and her husband, induced the old man to advance
him part of his inheritance for the printing-office, and later another
portion to avoid bankruptcy. When the crisis came, in 1828, and his
father would do no more for him, Madame de Berny lent him money from
time to time to meet his load of business debts. The total amount lent
by her, at five per cent interest, was 45,000 francs, the last 6,000
of which he paid in full in 1836. Madame de Berny had cruel trials of
her own. Two of her children were insane, one idolized son and two
daughters died before her in the prime of their youth. The illness here
mentioned was one form of heart disease, from which she rallied for
a time, but died in July, 1836, in the sixty-first year of her age.
Of Balzac's grief at this event his sister says: "My brother was then
(1836) overwhelmed by a great heart-sorrow ... the death of a person
very dear to him.... I have never read anything so eloquent as his
expression of that grief."
Writing, himself, to a friend at that time, he says: "She whom I have
lost was more than a mother, more than a friend, more than any creature
can be to another creature. I can explain her only by divinity. She
sustained me during great storms by words, by actions, by devotion.
If I live, it was through her. She was all to me; and though for the
last two years illness and lapse of time had separated us, yet we were
visible to each other from a distance. She re-acted upon me. She was,
as it were, my moral sun. Madame de Mortsauf in the _Lys_ is a pale
expression of her noble qualities; it is but a distant reflection of
her, for I have a horror of prostituting my own emotions."--TR.]
PARIS, February 15, 1834, eleven o'clock.
My darling Eva, to you belongs this part of my night. Since Wednesday
morning of this week I have been like a balloon; but as I went and
came, and bustled through this Paris, I walked along, exciting myself
with one fixed idea,--the idea of being forever near to you.
My dear idol, I have never had so much courage in my life; or rather,
I have a new life. I read your name in me, I see you; everything seems
easy to me to attain to seeing you again. I am afraid of nothing. My
tears, my regrets, my sadness of love,--all that falls upon my heart
at the moment when I get into bed. Then, alone with myself, I am all
grief not to be at the "Arc," not to have seen my darling, and I go
over in memory the smallest details of those days when, for all grief,
I had that of being waked three hours too soon, hours that separated my
rising from the moment when I set out to go to you.
The next day I work with an ardour of enthusiasm. What shall I tell
you of these four days? I had to see two editors (they came) and
the printer, to finish my proofs, to nurse Mme. de Berny, who is
better,--but what a change! she is still a little feeble, incapable of
correcting my proofs. Everything will suffer for that, but what does it
matter? I want to see that life out of danger.
I felt there how I loved you. A horrible sensation told me that I could
not bear any danger to you. All that recalled my terror at the time of
your nervous attack. Oh, _mon Dieu!_ to see you seriously ill, you,
who sum up and hold all my affections in your heart, my life in your
life,--why! I should die, not of your death, but of your sufferings.
No, you do not know what you are to me. Near you, I feel too much to
tell you egotistical thoughts; here I talk to you all day long. You are
woven into my thought. I find no word but that to express my situation.
As soon as I found myself in Paris I thought of the means of going to
see you for a single day in Geneva.
Here I find violent family troubles. To-day I have had my
brother-in-law and my mother to dinner. That tells you that from five
o'clock to half-past ten I have been given up to them. Yesterday I had
to dine with my sister, my mother, and my brother-in-law; then I was
forced to give them from four to eleven o'clock. Those poor heads are
distracted. I must have courage, ideas, energy, _economy_ for all of
them.
The morning of this Friday I set myself to learn all that has happened
here. I had to go out early, to see the doctor, negotiate a payment
for to-day, 15th, and consult him. So you see the employment of to-day
and yesterday. Thursday was taken up by the publishers, a little
sleep and a bath, also by Madame de Berny, to whom I wished at any
rate to read "Ne touchez pas à la hache." Wednesday, the day after my
arrival, I wrote you in the evening, I ran about all the morning, set
my affairs in order, attended to a thousand little things,--which I
don't particularize, as they are all mere necessary nothings,--made up
my accounts, wrote, etc. After this avalanche of small things here I
am, not much rested, rather less anxious about the _dilecta_, before a
pile of proofs and enormous debts for the end of the month. Madame D...
has urgent need of half her money by the end of February. It is now the
15th, the month is a short one, I must finish my two volumes; I must
finish "Ne touchez pas" and write "La Femme aux yeux rouges."
My adored, my darling _minette_, I tell you things that are terrifying,
but do not be alarmed. Vienna is traced out before me; all will be
well. Your desire to see me, your love, all _you_ hovers above me. I
believe in you only; I want new successes, new fame, new courage; I
_will_ in short, that you shall be a thousand times prouder of your
husband of love than of your lover. Yes, dear celestial Eva, I am
melancholy because I am here and you are down there, but I have no
more discouragements, no more depressions. When I raise my eyes I see
something better than God, I see a sure happiness, a tried happiness.
Oh! you do not know, my treasure, my dear life, what such sweet
certainty is to my soul. You don't know what you did with your infernal
jesting, you remember? You tried upon a most loving heart a weapon you
did not know was loaded. A moment more, and I was lost. My eternal
love could be placed on you alone; I see it, I know it now, for now I
desire you more than ever. My dearest soul, I have for myself all the
efforts that I make to meet you again; I materialize my hope. But, my
beautiful myself, you, what are you doing? Ah! my beautiful, saintly
creature, I know it is not on him of Paris that the burden is heaviest;
it is our Geneva love, it is you who, bearing all our happiness, feel
most our pains, our sorrows. Neither do I ever look _at us two_ without
a smile full of hope, but also slightly tainted with sadness. Oh! my
idolized angel, you in whom all my future resides, all my happiness,
and for whom I desire all the fine glories that make a happy woman, you
whom I love with all the ardour of a young sentiment, of a first and a
last love in one, yes, know it well, no sufferings, ideas, joys, which
can agitate your soul fail to come and agitate mine.[1]
At this moment when I write to you, having left all to plunge into
your heart, to come nearer to you, no, I feel space no longer; we are
near one to the other; I see you, and one of my senses is intoxicated
by the memory of one of those little voluptuous moments which made me
so happy! I am very proud of you. I cry out to myself that I love you!
You see, a poet's love has a little madness in it. None but artists are
worthy of women, because they are somewhat women too. Oh! what need I
have always to hear myself told that I am loved, to hear you repeat
it! You, you are all. You will know only when you hear my voice how
ardently I tell you that you are the only well-beloved, the only wife.
Now I shall rush there more amorously than the two preceding times.
You know why, my dear, naïve wife? Because I know you better, because
I know all there is of divine and girlish in your dear, celestial
character, because--. No, I never dreamed so ambitiously the perfections
that are agreeable to me because I know that I can love ever. Going
to Neufchâtel I _wanted to_ love you; returning from Geneva it is
impossible not to love you!
Who will ever know what the road to Ferney is at the spot where, having
to leave on the morrow, I stood still at the sight of your dear,
saddened face. _Mon Dieu!_ if I tried to tell you all the thoughts
there are in my soul, the voluptuous pleasures which my heart contains
and desires, I should never cease writing, and, unfortunately, the word
"Vienna" is there. I am cruel to both of us in the name of a continued
happiness; yes, _one year_ passed together will prove to you that you
can be better loved each day, and I aspire to September...
My dearest, I have many griefs; this flaming happiness is surrounded by
briars, thorns, stones. I cannot speak to you of family troubles; they
are endless. You will know them from one word, you who feel through
a sister what, in another order of things, I feel through my mother.
My mother has committed, with good intentions, follies that bring a
person into disrepute. Here am I, I, so busy, forced to undertake the
education of my mother, hold her in check, make a child of her.[2] Dear
angel, what a sad thing to think that if the world has accumulated
obstacles in my life, my family have done worse in being of no use to
me, and secretly hampering me. One day or other the world counts us as
a victor to have beaten it. But family griefs are between _us_ and God.
I told Borget that September would see me in Vienna, and a whole year
in the Ukraine and the Crimea, and you know I wrote him that he could
meet you in Italy. I send you a scrap of a letter from that excellent
friend; it will please you; you will see in it that nobility of soul,
that beauty of sentiment, that make us love him. What rush of love
he has to those who love his friend! But do not go and love him too
much, _Madame_. He will take to you _your chain_, the sketches of my
apartment, and your seal, if it is done, without knowing what he hands
to you. So tell me the day you will be in Venice; he will go there. He
is my Thaddeus, you see. What he does for me, I should do for him. One
is never jealous of fine sentiments. As much as _death_ entered cold
into your husband's heart when you spoke of a coquetry to Séverine, so
much should I go joyously to accomplish in your name a service to your
Thaddeus.
From to-day, Sunday, I shall write to you every day a word, on a little
diary. Yes, the Würtemberg Coquebin shall alone touch the manuscript
of "Séraphita," which will be coarsely bound in the gray cloth which
slipped so easily on the floors. Am I not a little of a woman, hey,
_minette_? Have I not found a pretty use for what you wanted destroyed,
and a souvenir? Nothing can be more precious, or simpler. Book of
celestial love, clothed in love and in joys terrestrial as complete as
it is possible to have here below. Yes, angel, complete, full! Yes, my
ambitious one, you fill all my life! Yes, we can be happy every day,
feeling every day new joys.
_Mon Dieu!_ Friday at dinner I saw in my sister's home one of those
scenes which prove that inspired love, that jealous love, that nothing
in Paris can resist continued poverty. Oh! dear angel, what a terrible
reaction in my heart, thinking of the little home in the rue Cassini.
How I swore to myself then, with that iron will, never to expose the
flowers of my life to be in the brown pot in which were the pinks of
Ida's mother,--you know, in "Ferragus." No, no, I never could have that
experience, for never shall I forget the 14th of February, 1834, any
more than the 26th of January; there is a lesson in it for me. Yes, I
want too much; there exists in my being an invincible need to love you
always better, that I may never expose my love to any misunderstanding.
Oh, my heart, my soul, my life, with what joy I recognize at every
step that I love you as you dream of being loved. The most indifferent
things enter into this circumference.
No, your young girl's chain shall remain pure. I would like to employ
it. It is too pretty for a man. That is why I wanted your head by
Grosclaude. What a delicious border I could have made of it, and what
a delicious thought to surround you, you, my dear wife, with all the
superstitions of your childhood which I adore. Your childhood was mine.
We are brothers and sisters through the sorrows of childhood.
There is one of your smiles of happiness, a ravishing little
contraction, a paleness that takes you at the moment of joy, which
returns to stab me with intoxicating memories. Oh! you do not know with
what depth you correspond to the caprices, the loves, the pleasures,
the poesies, the sentiments of my nature!
Come, adieu. Think, my beloved, that at every instant of the day a
thought of love surrounds you; that a light more brilliant and secret
gilds your atmosphere; that my thought is all about you; that my
interior eyes see you; that a constant desire caresses you; that I work
in your name and for you. Take good care of yourself; and remember
that the only serious order that is given to you by him who loves you
and whom you have told me you wished to obey is to _walk_ a great deal
whatever the weather may be. You must. Ah! the doctor laughed at my
fears. Nevertheless, there are baths to be taken, and some precautions,
"fruits of my excessive labour," he said. "So long as you lead your
chaste, monkish life and work your twelve hours a day, take every
morning an infusion of _wild pansy_." Isn't his prescription droll?
You know all the caressing desires that I send you. Well, I hope that
every Wednesday you will know how to draw my letter from the claws
of the post. From now till the end of the month I shall work only my
twelve hours, sleep seven, and spread out the five others in rest,
reading, baths, and the bustle of life. Your Bengali is wise. Well, a
thousand flowers of the soul. All reflection made, I shall send your
ostensible letter by Borget.
[Footnote 1: This ridiculous stuff is carefully translated word for
word. The reader must make what he can of it. It is ludicrous to
suppose that Balzac ever wrote those vapourings of a shop-boy to his
female kind.--TR.]
[Footnote 2: His whole correspondence, and all that we know and can
gather of his life go to prove that he never could have written
this. His family then consisted of his mother and Mme. Surville. His
affection for M. and Mme. Surville appears in every part of his life.
His mother seems to have been at times irritating, and very injudicious
with him, but not in the way suggested. At one period he intrusted her
with all his affairs, and she was his business agent. He shows in his
life and writings a strong respect for the Family bond, and his last
letter to his mother is signed "Ton fils soumis"--"Your submissive
son."--TR.]
PARIS, February 17--February 23, 1834.
No letter to-day, my dearest Eve. _Mon Dieu!_ are you ill? What
tortures one has at such a distance! If you are ill, and they have
taken your letters! A thousand thoughts enter my brain and make me
desperate.
To-day I work much, but get on little. To-morrow I am forced to go
and dine with M. de Margonne, the lord of Saché. Nevertheless, I get
up at half-past one in the morning and go to bed at half-past six. My
habits of work are resumed and the fatigues of toil; but I bear them
well. I find unheard-of difficulties in doing well what I have to do
at this moment. At every instant of the day my thought flies to you. I
have mortal fears of being less loved. I adore you with such complete
abandonment! I have such need of knowing myself loved! I can be happy
only when I receive a letter from you, not every day, but every two
days. Your letters refresh my soul; they cast into it celestial balm.
You cannot doubt me; I work night and day, and every line brings me
nearer to you. But you, my beloved angel, what are you doing? You
are idle; you still see a little company. _Mon Dieu!_ what ties are
between us! They will not break, say! You do not know how much I am
attached to you by all the things that you thought would detach me.
There is not only ungovernable love, passions, happiness, pleasures,
there is also, from me to you, I know not what profound esteem of moral
qualities. Your mind will always please me; your soul is strong; you
are fully the _wife_ I desire for mine. I go over deliciously within
me those forty-five days, and everything proves to me that I am right
in my love. Yes, I can love you always; always hold out to you a hand
full of true affection and receive you in a heart that is always full
of you. I like to speak to you of your superiority because it is real.
Every sound your soul gives out is grand, strong, and true. I am very
happy through you in thinking that you have all the qualities which
perpetuate attachment in life.
My dear flower of love, I wrote in my last letter that I wished you to
walk; but I wish more, I also wish you to give up coffee _au lait_ and
tea. I wish you to obey me, and I desire that you shall only eat dark
meats. Above all, that you bring yourself gradually to using cold water
when you dress. Will you not do all that when it is asked of you in
the name of love? Do not depart in any way from that regimen. As for
walking, begin by short walks and increase every day till you can do
six miles on foot. Take your walk fasting, getting up, and coming back
to breakfast on a little meat, but dark and always roasted. If you love
me you will manage yourself in this way with a constancy that nothing
hinders. Then your beauty will remain the same; you will get slightly
thinner, your health will be good, and you will prevent many illnesses.
Oh! I implore you, follow this regimen, and when you are near the sea
take sea-baths. You do not know how I love you.
Tuesday, 18.
Still no letter; what anguish! I have just returned from Madame de
C[astries], whom I do not want for an enemy when my book comes out,
and the best means of obtaining a defender against the faubourg
Saint-Germain is to make her approve of the work in advance; and she
greatly approved of it. I carried to Madame Appony Madame Potoçka's
letter. The ambassadress [of Austria] was at her toilet; I did not see
her, and, on the whole, I am content; I do not want to be disturbed, I
wish to go nowhere, and the singular idea has come to me of shaving my
head like a monk so as to be unable to go out of the house. I have to
go to a ball Saturday at Dablin's; he has done me services, and I am
forced to have some gratitude.
Do you know there is some question of my taking my mother, sister,
and brother-in-law to live here? I await a family council upon it. I
see many inconveniences; the lessening of my liberty, though nothing
would prevent my going to the Ukraine and Vienna and absenting myself
two years. But, for the last two days, my reason tells me to refuse
this union; and yet it is the only means to prevent my mother from
committing follies. What vexations and impediments! I have worked
little to-day and have rushed about much.
Wednesday, 19.
Furious work. The "Duchesse de Langeais" costs me more than I can
tell you. In my opinion it is colossal in work, but it will be little
appreciated by the crowd. My publisher refuses me any money for my
month's bills; here I am constrained to a thousand annoying efforts,
and shall I succeed? he is right; he represents Madame Bêchet, and
tells me he can't ask her to pay in advance; the new Part must
absolutely be brought out. So I send you a thousand tendernesses. Here,
reading this line, you must think that the heart of your lover was
full of love, that he had _need_ to write to you a thousand gracious
things, but that he must be silent and work! Till to-morrow.
Thursday, 20, five o'clock.
My mother, sister, and brother-in-law are coming to dinner to talk
over affairs. I have worked since one hour after midnight till three
hours after midday without leaving off. Now, angel of mine, decidedly
you will shudder, you will palpitate, when you read the "Duchesse de
Langeais," for it is the greatest thing in women that I have so far
done. No woman of this Faubourg resembles her.
You have a thousand thoughts of love, a thousand caresses, a thousand
prettinesses. I think of you and your pleasure when I hear my name
uttered gloriously everywhere. I wish to become great for a sentiment
greater still.
Till to-morrow. A kiss to the wife, a little _pigeonnerie_ to Eve. A
thousand souls for you in my soul.
Friday, 21.
I have your letter, the second letter written to your dearest one. _Mon
Dieu!_ how I love you! The thousand desires, the hopes of happiness
which fired my heart at each turn of the wheel as I went to Neufchâtel,
the certain delights that I went to find in Geneva and which made you
sublime, ravishing, in short a wife, forever mine,--well, I have felt
all those divers emotions once more, augmented by dear joys, by the
adorable security of an angel in his sky.
Oh! my love, what rapid wings have borne me near to you! Yes, my
thought has kissed your magnificent forehead, my heart has been in your
heart, my thought in your beautiful hair, and my mouth--I dare not say,
but certainly it breathed love and kissed you with unheard-of ardour.
Oh! dear Eve, dear treasure of happiness, dear, noble soul, dear
light, dear world, my only happiness, how shall I tell you fully that
I felt there that I loved you _in æternum_? I ought to have read that
letter on my knees before your portrait! What courage you communicate
to me!
_Eh bien_, I am glad at what you inform me of. To have it so, it must
be the fruit of conscientious thought. Oh! dear darling, I want that
this other _you_, this other _we_, well, I wish he may have all that
can flatter the vanities of a mother, that he may be tall, that he
have your forehead, my energy, that he be handsome and noble, a great
heart and a fine soul. For all that, wisdom! At Vienna, my love, at
Vienna, we will try. What delights in chastity, in fame, in work that
has an object. Fidelity, fame, toil, all that for a woman, one only,
for her whose love shines already upon me for all my life. Yes, Eva,
Eva of love, my beautiful and noble mistress, my pretty, naïve servant,
my great sovereign, my fairy, my flower, yes, you light all things!
Persist in your projects; be a woman as superior in your conduct as you
are in your plans. Be as strong in your house as you are in your love.
Oh! your letters, they ravish me, they stir me; oh! you make me dote
upon you! What a soul, what a heart, what a dear mind! You crown
my ambitions, and yesterday I was saying to Mme. de B... that you
were--you, the unknown of Geneva and Neufchâtel--the realization of the
ambitious programme I had made of a woman.
Ah! my love, it is something, after the triumph that all women desire
to obtain over the senses and the heart of their lovers, to obtain also
the complete and entire assurance that they are admired from afar,
that we can always esteem them, cherish them, take pleasure beside
them. Such as you have seen me near you, such I shall ever be. To you
all my smiles, to you the flowers of heart and love, inexhaustible in
their bloom. To you the candour and freshness of my sentiments, to
you all. To you, who understand the mind, the gaiety, the melancholy,
the grandeur, the transports of the ever diverse love of a poet! Oh! I
stop, kissing your eyes.
To-morrow I rush, about; I have tiresome business matters; but this
is the last time. I shall finish at one blow the difficulty about the
"Physiologie du Mariage," and by the end of March I shall not owe a
sou to Madame Delannoy. After? Well, I shall resume work to accomplish
the rest. I tell you nothing of these tramps, but they take much time,
weary me, exhaust me, and my love, as much as necessity, cries to me
every morning, "March!"
My love, my Eve, night and day I go to sleep and wake in your heart,
in your thought. To suffer, to work for you, these are pleasures. Till
to-morrow.
Saturday, 22.
I have just received your ostensible letter and have answered it. I
spoke _stupidly_ of your chain, but I have not the heart to throw the
letter into the fire and write it over again. I am tired. To-night I
must go to a ball; I, at a ball! But, my love, I must. It is at the
house of the only friend who has ever gallantly served me. I will
send you the pattern of a chain, that of Vaucanson; have it made
solid, and Liodet can send it to me and draw on me for the cost. Tell
me if bronze-gilt things can enter Russia. I have had an admirable
three-branched candelabrum made here, and I should like to send you
one; also an inkstand and an alarm-clock (a very useful thing to a
woman), in short, all that I use here to be the same with you. If I had
been richer do you think I would not have substituted to you a chain
like yours and taken yours, in order that you might say to yourself
while playing with it, "He plays with that chain!" But I can make such
joys for ourselves later. Answer me about the bronze, because I want
you to have that masterpiece before your eyes. Think, what happiness to
see as you write to me, _Exsultat vitam angelorum_, which I shall see
in writing to you. Oh! I am greedy, hungry for such things, which put
two lovers unceasingly in each other's hearts! I shall have your room
at Wierzchownia made just like mine here. I want you to have the same
carpet.
Oh! I adore you. Just now I wept on thinking of the floor of your house
in Geneva. How lucky to have the strength not to cough! These tears
have told me that I shall be at Vienna, September 10, and that I shall
press you, happy one, on this heart that is all yours.
_Bébête_, in ten years you will be thirty-seven and I forty-five, and,
at that age we can love, marry, and adore each other for a lifetime.
Come, my noble companion, my dear Eve, never any doubts,--you have
promised me. Love with confidence. Séraphita is we two. Let us spread
our wings with the same movement, and love in the same way. I adore
you, looking neither before nor behind. _You_ are the present, all my
happiness at every moment.
Do not be jealous of Madame P...'s letter; that woman must be _for us_.
I have flattered her, and I want her to think that you are disdained.
All that I read you in the "Duchesse de Langeais" has been changed. You
will read a new book.
Dear angel, no, we will never quit the sphere of happiness where you
have made me a happiness so complete. Love me always, you will see me
always happy; oh, my life, oh, my beautiful life! Here, I no longer
know what an annoyance is in seeing my whole life ardent with one sole
love. Tell me what you are doing. Your visit to Genthod delighted me.
Never let any woman bite you without biting her deeper. They will fear
you and esteem you.
Thanks for the violet; but an end of white ribbon would please me
better; it has no longer any smell. I send you a violet from my garden.
Sunday, 23.
Adieu, soul of my soul; will this letter tell you how you are loved?
Will it tell it to you really? No; never really. _Il faut mes coups de
bec là où est l'amour_.
I hope to finish my volume this week. You will receive it in Geneva. I
will attend to your orders, and do blindly what you tell me. But write
_names_ legibly in all business.
Would you believe that two young men dined with me yesterday and
told me that several men, two of them friends of theirs, said _they
were I_ at the [masked] ball at the Opera, and obtained the favours
of well-bred women while I was at Geneva, and that I have been thus
calumniated. There are women who boast they have been mine, and that
they come to me, to me, who see only _la dilecta_, who receive nobody,
who want to live in your heart! I learned that last night.
Well, adieu my love; no, not adieu, but _à bientôt_, at Vienna, _cara
mia_, my treasure. I have to work horribly, still; seven or eight
proofs to a sheet. Ah! you will never know what the volume you will
soon read has cost.
I hope to be in funds for my payments; I hope that on March 25th the
third Part will appear. So, all goes well. I lose five hundred francs
more by Gosselin, but pooh! The violet will tell you a thousand things
of love. The Würtemberg Coquebin will bind "Séraphita" marvellously
with the gray cloth; do you understand, treasure?
I go to-day at three o'clock to Madame Appony. Perhaps I shall wish to
go to Madame Potoçka of Paris. I will speak to you of that.
PARIS, March 2, 1834.
My salvation! For my salvation! No, let me believe that between the two
persons of whom you are thinking and me, you have not hesitated, you
have condemned me. At least, there is in that all the grandeur of true
love.
I was working night and day to go to you. Now I shall certainly work
as much, for it is not possible for me to take the slightest resolution
till my mother is physically happy. I have still a year to suffer.
Let us say no more of me. So you have been cruelly agitated? A
sentiment which gives such remorse was feeble, and it is my heart that
was blamed!--I, to whom _adoremus in æternum_ meant something!
Fate is about to take from me a true affection, and to-day I lose all
my beliefs in happiness, without anything being able to disengage me
from myself. Ah! you have not known me! All those who have suffered
forgive, you know. I shall stay as I am; I cannot change. You said
yourself: "The Jules women love faithfully, in spite of desertion."
Am I therefore not a man? Is this another test? It costs me more than
life; it costs me my courage.
I cannot oppose to this blow either disdain, contempt, or any of the
egotistical sentiments that console. I remain in my stupor, without
understanding. Ah! I knew not that I was writing for myself: _To
wounded hearts, silence and, shade_.
_Mon Dieu!_ my book is finished; I am not rich enough to destroy it,
but I lay it at your knees, begging you not to read it: Eve should not
open a book in which is the "Duchesse de Langeais." You might, though
certain of the entire devotion of him who writes to you, be wounded,
as one is pricked by bushes. I shall always weep at being unable to
suppress it.
I cannot bid you adieu; I shall never quit you more, and, from this
day, I shall not allow myself even the sight of a woman. But you have
not told me all! I have been odiously calumniated. You have given ear
to impostors. There is room for many blows in a heart like mine; you
cannot kill it easily. It is eternally yours, without division.
I tell you nothing of what is in my soul; I have neither strength
nor ideas. I suffer through you. So long as it is from your hand, why
should I complain? Ah! you shall see that I know how to love. Our
hearts will always understand each other.
PARIS, March 9, 1834.
My angel returns to me; ah! I will hide my anguish from you, my
griefs, my terrible resolutions of a week in which all things have
come together to rend my heart. You, Monday; Tuesday. I quarrelled,
perhaps to fight, with Émile de Girardin,--that was happiness. There's
a society I shall never see again and never want to see. My enemies
are setting about a rumour of my liaison with a Russian princess;
they name Madame P... I have seen since my return only Madame Appony,
Madame de C..., Madame de G..., and, for one hour, Madame de la B...
That rumour can come only from Geneva, and not from me, who have never
opened my mouth about my journey. Here I am, on bad terms with Madame
de C[astries] on account of the "Duchesse de Langeais"--so much the
better. But all this happens at once. So, no _solitude_ shall ever be
more complete than mine.
I have but an hour in which to answer you. Oh! my love, I swear to you
I wrote to Madame P... only to prevent the road to Russia being closed
to me. It would be poor cleverness to have it said here, in Paris, that
I am starting for Russia. That is the way to have passports refused to
me when I ask for them. I have not seen Zaluzki. Is it he who talks?
_Mon Dieu!_ I, in my hole, to be subjected to such griefs. Read the
"Duchesse de Langeais." You will read it with delight. As true as that
I love and adore you, I never said more than two sentences to Madame
Bossi, and I never looked at her.
You desire, oh, my angel, that I shall not again be coquettish except
with men. But between now and Vienna there is only toil and solitude.
Give me the means to send you my book, and your coffee, in which will
be your hair-chain. Therefore, undo the parcel yourself.
Never give yourself such anxieties again; yesterday, Saturday, without
_la dilecta_, I should have killed myself. Oh! I entreat you, if you
wish that I should esteem you and adore you to the end of our days,
do not change; be solely mine. I, do you see? have none but you. The
superhuman efforts that I make are the greatest proofs of love a man
can give. Oh, dear, adored one, my Eve, my Eva, to give his life, what
is that? Nothing. Each time that I saw you I gave it without regret. I
sacrificed all to you. But to rise every day at midnight to plunge into
a crater of work, and to do it with one name upon my lips, one image in
my heart, one woman before me!--_strength and constancy_; I live only
by the sentiment of grandeur which a mysterious love conveys to me.
This is loving. Oh! be my true Beatrice, a Beatrice who gives herself,
but remains an angel, a light! All that your jealousy can demand,
all that your caprice can exact shall be done with joy. Except the
_dilecta_, who corrects my proofs and who, I swear to you, is a mother,
no woman shall hear me, shall see me.
My mother and sister have decided. They will live together, and not
come to me. I am still free.
Oh, my love, my love, dear and adored, forgive me my answer to your
letter; but to sacrifice a love like mine to a child, to a husband,
to reject it for any interest whatever; that kills me. Oh, my angel,
to think that you are a fancy, after all that you said to me, after
all that you exacted, all that I accomplished,--it is enough to die
of it! I am proudly a poet; I live by the heart, by sentiments only,
and I have but one sentiment. My _dilecta_, at sixty years of age,
is no longer anything but a mother; she is all my family, as you are
all my heart, all my future! I have to work hard; the "Duchesse"
will appear on the 15th; she excites all Paris already. _Mon Dieu!_ a
thousand kisses; may each be worth a thousand. Oh, my angel, I hope I
may not again have to tell you that to betray me in the name of any one
whatever is to put me to death. I kiss you with transport. The Bengali
is virtuous. He is dead under his toil.
Put _Ave_ on the inkstand. The "Contes Drolatiques" will tell you why.
I have said nothing. I had a thousand effusions of the soul; I am
forced to keep them back. This letter must go to the post at one
o'clock. I received yours at midday.
PARIS, March 11, 1834.
My flower, my one sole love, I have just received the letter you
wrote me after having received the letter of _badnesses_. Oh! what
happiness to be able to write to you once more so that you can leave
Geneva without a regret! Since the letter in which you return to me,
you cannot imagine how beautiful, grand, sumptuous, has been the fête
in my heart at the recovery of your cherished heart. What joy, what
intoxication of thought, what forgetfulness of pain, or rather how
sweet its memory is, since it tells me how much you are loved, adored,
as you wish to be. Oh! if you had seen all that, never a suspicion, nor
a doubting word, nor a written phrase would dishonour the purity, the
blue immensity of this love that dyes all my soul, fills all my life,
is become the foundation of all my thoughts.
For the last two days I am drunk with happiness, glad, joyous, dancing,
when I have a moment, jumping like a child. Oh, dear talisman of
happiness, darling Eva, _minette_, wife, sister, family, light, all! I
live alone in delights; I have said a sincere farewell to the world, to
all. _Mon Dieu!_ forgive what you call my coquetries; I kneel at your
beloved knees, dimpled, loved, kissed, caressed; I lay my head against
you, I ask pardon, I will be solitary, a worker, I will walk with none
but Madame de B..., I will work without ceasing. Oh! blessed be the
Salève, if the Salève gives me my happy Eve! Ah! dearest, I adore you,
don't you see? I have no other life, no other future.
I received yesterday a letter from Madame P... I shall not answer it,
to end the correspondence. Besides, I can write only to you. My time is
taken up in a frightful manner. For the last ten days I have not varied
it; to bed at six o'clock, rising at midnight. I shall do this till
April 20. After which I shall take two weeks' liberty to rest. My book
will appear on the 16th, the day of your departure from Geneva. You
will find it addressed to you, _bureau restant_, at the coach office in
Genoa.
I wrote you in great haste on Sunday. Incredible tales are being told
about me. While I am sitting up all night they say an Englishwoman
has eloped with me. It is no longer a Russian princess; it is an
Englishwoman. Oh! my dear treasure, I implore you, never let your dear
celestial forehead be clouded by the effect of a "they say," for you
will hear it gravely said that I am crazy, and a thousand absurdities.
Write to me and expect an answer. I never keep you waiting. Your dear
writing overcomes me; it shines in my eyes like the sun. I _feel_ you,
I breathe you when I see it.
You will travel surrounded by the thoughts of love; I accompany you in
idea, I never leave you. At each correction made, at each page written,
I cry, "Vienna!" That is my word of joy, my exclamation of happiness.
Why do you speak of God? There are not two religions, and you are mine.
If you totter, I shall believe in nothing. Oh! my love, you have given
me _yourself_; you will never withdraw it. One alone cannot break that
which belongs to two. You are all nobleness, be all constancy. I shall
be that without effort, with joy; I love you like my breath, and _in
æternum_; oh, yes, for all my life.
I cannot tell you the sufferings of my week of passion, of my desire
to go and end my days at your house in Neufchâtel. I told Borget to
come at once. I withdrew "Séraphita" from the printers, and meant to
send you a sole copy (without the manuscript), bound with your gifts
of love. In short, a thousand follies, a thousand tempests agitated my
heart cruelly. Oh! I am much of a child! It is a crime to torment a
love so true, so pure, so unutterable! Oh! how angry I was with you! I
cursed your _analyzing_ forehead, on which I place a thousand kisses
of love. Oh! my good treasure, make me no more bitterness. In writing
a few sweet things to Madame P... I had in view to stand well with the
dear ambassadress, because, through her, I shall have Pozzo di Borgo,
and I do not want any hindrance to my year in the Ukraine, the first
complete happiness of my life. So, if your cousin shows you my letter
triumphantly, play the disdained, I entreat you. To see the Ukraine,
eighteen good months! and no money interests to hamper me! I can even
die for you without wronging any one. Listen, my love; this is the
secret of my nights: that I may be happy without a thought to tarnish
my joy! After that, I can die happy, if I have lived one year beside
you. Every hour would be the most beautiful poem of love. At every
hour I should be happy with the happiness of a child, a schoolboy, who
believes with delight in the love of a woman. If heaven marries us some
day, at whatever moment of my life it be, it will be the union of two
souls in one. You are a dear, loved spirit. You please me in all ways,
and you are, far-off or near, the superior woman, the mistress always
desired, each of us sustaining the other. It is so sweet to a man to
find that the mind, the heart, the soul, the understanding of the woman
who pours out to him his pleasures, is not narrow.
Oh! dearest, all is in you. I believe in you, I love you, and as I have
known you better I have found a thousand reasons for eternal attachment
in esteem and in the thousand things of your heart and mind. There is
no evil possible for me when I think of the life that you can make me
by your love. In writing this, which you will read in that room of
love before quitting it, I wish to cast upon this paper which you will
hold all my soul, all the tangible qualities of a being who is yours
forever; never withdraw from me the heart I have pressed, the adorable
charms of that cherished soul--yourself in short.
Adieu, soul of my soul, my faith, strength, courage, love--all the
great sentiments that make a great man, and a happy life. Adieu; _à
bientôt_, and sooner than you think, dearest.
Yes, I will love you better than any woman was ever loved, and our
"Chêne" will be better than that you picture to me. Coquette, indeed!
You know well that my heart will rest in yours without other clouds to
our love than those you make.