I leave to-morrow for a week, to work beside my dear invalid. She is
better, she says, but I shall not really know anything until I have
been with her a week.
On my return, I hope that "Père Goriot" will be reprinted. "Séraphita"
will come to you later. But perhaps I shall bring you these things
myself, accompanying the pomade, Anna's ring-case, and all the other
things with which you have deigned to commission me. I have accepted
too much of the sweets of hospitality that you should hesitate to use
me as you please.
Yes, I have the possibility of resting for a month from March 2 to
April 2. I must; and besides, my money affairs are becoming less hard.
I shall have won this month of freedom by five months' exorbitant
labour. But, if I have been sad, troubled, without heart-pleasure, at
least my efforts have all succeeded. "Le Père Goriot" is a bewildering
success; the most bitter enemies have bent the knee; I have triumphed
over all, friends as well as enemies. When "Séraphita" has spread her
glorious wings, when the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée" has shown the
last lineaments of the human heart, when "Les Vendéens" has snatched
a palm from Walter Scott, then, then I shall be content in being near
you; you will not then have a friend without some value. As to the man
himself, you will never find him anything but good, and a child.
I will not speak to you of the sadness mingled with joy that took
possession of me this morning. To be at once so far off and so near!
What is a year? This one has been long, agonizing within the soul,
short through work. If gleams of a promised land did not shine as
through a twilight, I think that my courage would abandon me at the
last effort. It needs my sober, patient, equable, monkish life to
resist it all. A woman is much in our life when she is Beatrice and
Laura, and better still. If I had not had a star to see when I closed
my eyes, I should have succumbed.
I have been, out of curiosity, to the Opera masked ball for the first
time in my life. I was with my sister, who had committed the imprudence
of going there against her husband's wishes. Knowing this, I went to
fetch her and bring her home without giving her time to go round the
hall. As I was leaving, and waiting for the carriage, a very elegant
gentleman with a mask on his arm stopped me, and putting himself
between me and the door whispered that the masked lady he had on
his arm wished to speak to me. I rebuffed the mask; I think a woman
has little dignity to come down to such trickery, and I said to the
gentleman:--
"You know the laws of a masquerade; I obey the mask you see here, I am
bound to do so."