[Footnote 1: This is the last but one of these spurious letters. There
is one other which plainly belongs to this series, but it has been
placed at a later date for a purpose which will appear farther on.--TR.]
PARIS, March 30--April 3, 1834.
I have not written to you sooner, madame, because I presumed that you
would not be in Florence before the 1st of April. I have sent to the
address of MM. Borri & Co. a little package containing your copy of the
second part of the "Études de Mœurs au XIXe Siècle," and I have added
the Prologue of the third _dizain_ of the "Contes Drolatiques" for M.
Hanski, inasmuch as there is something in it about a famous inkstand,
and things that will make him laugh; for I do not insult you with my
Prologue, pay attention to that. It is to M. Hanski, and not to you,
that this proof belongs.
You will see at the end of the "Duchesse de Langeais" that I have
preserved a remembrance of the Pré-l'Évêque by dating the work from
that revolutionary and military spot where we saw such warlike
intentions. The third _dizain_ is also dated from the Eaux Vives, and
the Hôtel de l'Arc.
I have many things to tell you, but little time to myself. My
third Part is in the press, and I ought to make up for time lost.
Nevertheless, Madame Bêchet is a very good person.
Forgive the want of order in my letter, but I will tell you the events
that have happened to me as they come into my memory.
In the first place, I have said adieu to that mole-hill of Gay, Émile
de Girardin and Company. I seized the first opportunity, and it was so
favorable that I broke off, point-blank. A disagreeable affair came
near following; but my susceptibility as man of the pen was calmed by
a college friend, ex-captain in the ex-Royal Guard, who advised me. It
all ended with a piquant speech replying to a jest.
Another thing I must tell you is that I have recently quarrelled also
with the Fitz-James. And here I am, as much alone as the woman most
ambitious of love could desire, if any woman could wish for a man whom
excessive work is withering more and more. It is two months to-day that
I have been working eighteen hours a day.
The "Médecin de campagne" will be completely sold off in a few days.
I am in all the fuss and worries of getting out a new edition of that
book, which I want to sell at thirty sous, in order to popularize it.
Thursday, April 3.
From March 30, the day on which I began to write to you, until this
evening, I have been lying on my pallet unable to write, read, or work,
or do anything at all. A prostration of all my forces made me very
anxious; but to-day I am quite well, and I am going for a week to the
Pavilion in the forest of Fontainebleau. I have ordered all my letters
to be kept in Paris. I want change of air, and to work at one thing
only; for I have just suffered very much, but, thank God, it is all
over. I resume my letter.
I invited your cousin Bernard ... to dinner, with Zaluski, and
Mickiewicz, your dearest poet, whose face pleased me much. Bernard is
very handsome and was very witty.
I entreat you, madame, to send me word, by return of post, if you will
still be in Florence May 10th, how much time you stay in Rome, when you
arrive, and when you will leave; because when my third Part is done I
shall have twenty days to myself. I want to use them in travelling and
doing nothing, and I shall accompany Auguste Borget to Florence. We
shall leave May 1st and it takes only eight days from Paris to Florence.
Do not blame me too much for the unpunctuality of my correspondence.
In the extreme desire for LIBERTY which possesses me, I don't consult
human forces, I work exorbitantly. I have at this moment in press: two
volumes of my third Part of the "Études de Mœurs," two volumes of "Les
Chouans," and the third _dizain_; then, in a week from now, two volumes
for Gosselin. It is enough to terrify one. But there are two magic
words which make me able to do all: _liberty_ on the 1st of September;
_Vienna_ on that day; and I shall not regret my nights or my tortures,
for pen-receipts will tally with expenses.
_Mon Dieu!_ what a charming project,--to be in Florence May 10, and
back in Paris for the 20th! To see Florence with you! Write me quickly;
for after these terrible toils through the month of April I must have
twenty days' rest, and I know nothing more delightful than to see an
Italian city while accompanying a friend.
I think of you very often, and I much regret Geneva, where I worked
so much, all the while amusing myself. Except for a few worries, my
affairs are going well. Some flatterers say that my fame is increasing,
but I know nothing of that, for I live in my chimney-corner, working
for citizen rights in the Ukraine. Your poor "Séraphita" is laid aside.
What is promised must be done before all else. You yourself, without
knowing it, tell me to work. I keep before me the _bon à tirer_ [order
to print] which you gave for one sheet in Geneva, and it seems to me
a perpetual counsel. Do you know, it is rather melancholy to think
of you only with regrets. You do not know that for twelve or fifteen
years, Neufchâtel and Geneva are the two sole periods when I have been
permitted, by what grace of heaven I know not, to look neither forward
nor back; to live beneath the sky without thinking of griefs, or
business, or poverty; you have been to me something beneficent. There
is more gratitude in my remembrance than you know. And now that I have
been nailed to an insatiable table for two months, and shall be for
another month, leaving it only to sleep, I cannot think without emotion
of the walks to Sacconex, to Coppet, and of your house, and my hunger
which made us leave the garden where we were sitting under the willows
and you discovered that good smell in the Indian chestnut, macerated in
water. There are none of those tranquil pleasures in Paris. But I am
not in Paris now.
Here I am alone, much alone. I have parted from society, and have
returned to my former fruitful solitude. Before all things else, I must
finish a book, and the "Études de Mœurs" ought to be finished this
year. My liberty will be to go and come and remain where I please to go
and remain. Nevertheless, I do not know a more agreeable trip than to
Florence to see you for five days, and hear you for one single evening
say "tiyeuilles" or "Iodet." That, I think, would restore my courage
for another three months.
Perhaps I shall bring M. Hanski the third _dizain_ to laugh away his
"blue devils;" at any rate, he must be very ill if he resists my wild
joy. It is two months since I laughed; one more will make three; but
_then_ he shall die of laughing. Tell him that as Geneva was so base
in the matter of the poor Poles, I will never speak well of Geneva
again. Are you comfortable in Italy? How did you cross the mountains?
I follow you in thought. Have you thought of your poor, humble moujik
and his _blonde capricieuse_ at Aix? You ought to have thought of him
at Aiguebelles, where the servants at the inn are so gracious, and at
Turin, where he wished to go. Thank you, madame, if you think a little
of him who thinks much of you.
I have not seen Grosclaude. Our Exhibition is detestable. There are
five to ten fine pictures in three thousand five hundred canvases.
How is your dear Anna? You will tell me, won't you, how your little
caravan rolls on? M. Bernard ... came yesterday to make me compliments
on the "Duchesse de Langeais," and was very gracious.
_Mon Dieu!_ you will forgive me--me, a poor hermit toiler--for talking
to you so much of myself, because I am calling for your egotism in
reply; to talk to me solely of yourself would be doing well by me. I
can tell you only two things: I work constantly, I pay, I think of my
friends. I have in my heart a happy corner, and that ought to suffice
to make a noble life. My "blue devils" have no time to rise to the
surface.
Do you still intend to play Grandet at Wierzchownia? for in that case I
shall await thirty invitations before going there, to save provisions.
Do you want anything in Paris? I hope that you and M. Hanski will not
employ any other correspondent than me. But Borget and I will arrive
laden with cotignac, peach preserves, and Angoulême and Strasburg
pâtés. You ought to give me a commission; you don't know what pleasure
it is to me to busy myself for something a friend asks of me, how
it brightens my life. A fancy--that's myself only; but the fancy of
another, whom I love, is a double fancy.
Spachmann [binder] has done your album, and I am beginning to collect
the autographs. It will take long, but you shall have it, with
patience. I begin with the oldest. Pigault-Lebrun is eighty-five years
old; he shall begin it.
Adieu, madame, I would like to keep on writing to you always, just
as when I was by your fireside I did not want to go away. But I must
bid you adieu--no, not adieu, but au revoir. I shall await with great
impatience your answer, to know if you will be in Florence May 10. Do
be there! The shorter the journey, the longer time I shall have to see
you; I have twenty days to myself, no more. The twenty-first I must
resume the _yoke of misery_.
Madame de G[irardin] has made many efforts to get me back again,
but your obstinate moujik--he would not be moujik if he did not say
"nie"--has said nay as elegantly as he could, for he is a little
civilized, your devoted moujik.[1]