CHAILLOT, January 20, 1838.
I am relieved of anxiety. I have your numbers 36 and 37. Number 35 has
not reached me, remember that. Number 34 is dated October 6; number
36 December 10. So you did not leave me from October 6 to December 10
without a letter. Now, as I only receive at the end of January the
36 and 37, you can imagine how uneasy I have been, left _two_ months
without a word!
These two letters are pricked in every direction, stigmata of the fears
inspired by the plague, and perhaps it is to an earlier fumigation
that I owe the loss of number 35. In any case, I ought to tell you of
this loss, as it explains the doleful letter I wrote you last. To me
it was a grief that consumed all others--your silence. I am the object
of such atrocious calumnies that I ended by thinking that you had been
told of them, and had believed those monstrous things: that I had eaten
human flesh, that I had married an Ellsler, or a fishwoman, that I was
in prison, that--that--etc. I have, perhaps, enemies in the Ukraine.
Distrust all that you hear of me from any but myself, for you have
almost a journal of my life.
Now, as to the affair that takes me to the Mediterranean, it is neither
marriage nor anything adventurous or silly. It is a serious and
scientific affair about which it is impossible to say a word because I
am pledged to secrecy. Whether it turns out well or ill, I risk nothing
but a journey, which will always be a pleasure or a diversion for me.
You ask me how it is that, knowing all, observing and penetrating
all, I can be duped and deceived. Alas! would you like me if I were
never duped, if I were so prudent, so observing that no misfortunes
ever happened to me? But, leaving the question of the heart aside, I
will tell you the secret of this apparent contradiction. When a man
becomes such an accomplished whist-player that he knows at the fifth
card played where all the others are, do you think he does not like
to put science aside and watch how the game will go by the laws of
chance? Just so, dear and pious Catholic, God knew in advance that
Eve would succumb, and he let her do so! But, putting aside that way
of explaining the thing, here is another which you will like better.
When, night and day, my strength and my faculties are strained to the
utmost to compose, write, render, paint, remember; when I take my
flight slowly, painfully, often wounded, across the mental fields of
literary creation, how can I be at the same moment on the plane of
material things? When Napoleon was at Essling he was not in Spain. Not
to be deceived in life, in friendships, in business, in relations of
all kinds, dear countess secluded and solitary, one must do nothing
else than be purely and simply a financier, a man of the world, a man
of business. I do see plainly enough that persons deceive me, and
are going to do so, that such a man is betraying me, or will betray
me, and depart carrying with him a portion of my fleece. But at that
moment when I feel it, foresee it, know it, I am forced to go and fight
elsewhere. I see it when I am being carried away by some necessity of
a work or event, by a sketch that would be lost if I did not complete
it. Often I am building a cot in the light of my burning houses. I
have neither friends nor servants; all desert me; I know not why--or
rather, I do know it too well; because no one likes or serves a man
who works night and day, who does nothing for their profit, who stays
where he is and obliges them to go to him, and whose power, if power
there be, will have no fruition for twenty years; it is because that
man has the personality of his toil, and that all personality is odious
if it is not accompanied by power. Now that is enough to convince you
that one must be _an oyster_ (do you remember that?) or an angel to
cling to such great human rocks. Oysters and angels are equally rare
in humanity. Believe me, I see myself and things as they are; never
did any man bear a more cruel burden than mine. Do not be surprised,
therefore, to see me attach myself to those beings and those things
that give me courage to live and go onward. Never blame me for taking
the cordial that enables me to get one stage farther on my way.
It is twelve years that I have been saying of Walter Scott what you
have now written to me. Beside him Lord Byron is nothing, or almost
nothing. But you are mistaken as to the plot of "Kenilworth." To the
minds of all makers of romance, and to mine, the plot of that work is
the grandest, most complete, most extraordinary of all; the book is a
masterpiece from this point of view, just as "St. Ronan's Well" is a
masterpiece for detail and patience of finish, as the "Chronicles of
the Canongate" are for sentiment, as "Ivanhoe" (the first volume, be it
understood) is for history, "The Antiquary" for poesy, and "The Heart
of Midlothian" for profound interest. All these works have each their
especial merit, but genius shines throughout them all. You are right;
Scott will be growing greater when Byron is forgotten, except for his
form and his powerful inspiration. Byron's brain never had any other
imprint than that of his own personality; whereas the whole world has
posed before the creative genius of Scott, and has there, so to speak,
beheld itself.
As for what is called "Balzac Illustrated," do not be anxious; it is
the whole of my work, except the "Contes Drolatiques." It is the work
called "Études Sociales."
M. Hanski is very kind to imagine that women fall in love with authors.
I have, and shall have nothing to fear on that score. I am not only
invulnerable, but secure from attack. Reassure him. The Englishwoman of
the times of Crébillon the younger is not the Englishwoman of to-day.
I am now beginning to work at my plays and at the "Mémoires d'une jeune
Mariée," or else at "Sœur Marie des Anges;" those, for the time being,
are my chosen subjects. But from one moment to another all may change.
The continuation of "Illusions Perdues" ("Un Grand homme de Province
à Paris") tempts me much; that, with "La Torpille," could be finished
this year. How many stones I bring and heap up!
The text of the illustrated edition is revised with so much care that
it ought to be considered the only one existing; it differs much from
all preceding editions. This typographic seriousness has reacted on the
language, and I have discovered many additional faults and follies;
so that I earnestly desire that the number of subscribers may enable
the publication to be continued, which will give me the opportunity to
succeed in doing my best for my work, so far as purity of language is
concerned.
The arrival of the _cassolette_ gave me as much pleasure as it did
you; it is as if I had sent you two different things. I now hope
that by this time Boulanger's portrait has reached you. Brullon, the
colour and canvas dealer whom all the great artists here employ, and
who despatched the case, is in despair; we consult each other as to
going to law about it; but as such a suit would bring M. Hanski's name
before the public, and the newspapers would get hold of it and make
their thousand and one calumnious comments,--for my name would whet
their appetite,--we keep to the line of correspondence. Brullon has
sent thousands of pictures to all parts of the world, and nothing of
the kind ever happened before. It is true that the case was sent by
waggon, because, as the canvas was not rolled, its size would not allow
of its going by diligence. You could not believe what errands, steps,
and tramps that luckless picture has necessitated; but I will not say
more about them, lest I make the portrait disagreeable to you. I have
written to-day to the MM. Halperine at Brody to know if, when my letter
reaches them, they have the picture. If not, we may have to come to an
arbitration here on the matter.
The great Tronchin cured the headaches of young girls which you
mention, by making them eat a roll soaked in milk on waking; the thing
is innocent enough to try.
Be very sure that you will know all I do at the moment of doing it,
or as soon as I can manage it. I wrote you of my departure for Sion a
year ago, at this time, or very near it. I did not leave Paris a month
ago, after finishing "César Birotteau." As I had been twenty-five days
without sleep, I have now been a month employed in sleeping sixteen
hours a day and in doing nothing the other eight. I am renewing my
brain to spend it again immediately. Financial crises are dreadful;
they prevent me from amusing myself; for society is expensive, and I am
not sure whether I may not, within a week or ten days, go to Sardinia.
But I will not start without letting you know.
I never read the newspapers, so that I was ignorant of what you tell
me about Jules Janin. Some persons had casually said to me that the
papers, and Janin especially, had greatly praised me in connection with
a little play taken from "La Recherche de l'Absolu" which failed. But I
am, as you know, indifferent to both the blame and the eulogy of those
who are not the elect of my heart; and especially so to the opinions of
the press and the crowd; therefore I know nothing to tell you about the
conversion of a man I neither like nor esteem, and one who will never
obtain anything from me. As I do not know his friends or his enemies, I
am ignorant of his motives for this praise, which, from what you tell
me of it, seems treacherous.
Every time that you hear it said that I have failed on points of honour
and personal self-respect, do not believe it.
You have misunderstood me; I like much that a woman should write and
study; but she ought to have the courage, as you have, to burn her
works. Sophie is the daughter of Prince Koslevski, whose marriage was
never recognized; you must have heard of that very witty diplomatist,
who is with Prince Paskevitch in Warsaw. The English lady is the
Countess Guidoboni-Visconti, at whose house I met the bearer of the
_cassolette_. Mrs. Somerville is the illustrious mathematician,
daughter of Admiral Fairfax, who is now in the Russian service. I
send you her autograph, for she is one of the great lights of modern
science, and parliament has given her a national pension.
You will know from others that the Italian Operahouse was burned down
at the same time as the Royal Exchange in London and the Imperial
Palace at Saint-Petersburg. I will tell you nothing of all that. The
winter is severe in Paris; we do not know how to protect ourselves from
cold,--careless Frenchmen that we are.
Monday, January 22.
Four Parts of "La Peau de Chagrin" have appeared, this frosty winter.
In spite of the cold I meet in the Champs Élysées _fiacres_ driven
slowly along with their blinds down, which shows that people love each
other in Paris in spite of everything; and those _fiacres_ seem to me
as magnificently passionate as the two lovers whom Diderot surprised in
a pouring rain, bidding each other good-night in the street beneath a
gutter!
Do not end your letters gloomily, as, for instance, by thinking that I
shall never visit Wierzchownia; I shall come soon, believe me; but I am
not the master of circumstances, which are peculiarly hard upon me. It
would take too long to explain to you how my new editors interpret the
agreement which binds me to them, and this letter is already very long.
After idling a little for a month, going two or three times to the
Opera, twice to La Belgiojoso, and often to La Visconti (speaking
Italianly), I am now beginning, once more my twelve or fifteen hours'
work a day. When my house is built, when I am well installed there,
when I have earned a certain number of thousand francs, then I am
pledged to myself as a reward to go and see you, not for one or two
weeks, but for two or three months. You shall work at my comedies, and
we, M. Hanski and I, will go to the Indies astride of those _smoking_
benches you tell me of.
I don't know what "César Birotteau" is. You will tell me before I am
in a state to make myself into the public that reads it. I have the
deepest disgust for it, and I am ready to curse it for the fatigues it
has caused me. If my ink looks pale to you, it is because it freezes
every night in my study.
You have heard about La Belgiojoso and Mignet. The princess is a woman
much outside of other women, little attractive, twenty-nine years
old, pale, black hair, Italian-white complexion, thin, and playing
the vampire. She has the good fortune to displease me, though she is
clever; but she tries for effect too much. I saw her first five years
ago at Gérard's; she came from Switzerland, where she had taken refuge.
Since then, she has recovered her fortune through influence of the
Foreign Office, and now holds a salon, where people say good things. I
went there one Saturday, but that will be all.
I have just read "Aymar," by Henri de Latouche; his is a poor mind,
falling into childishness. "Lautreamont," by Sue, is a work _laché_,
as the painters say; it is neither done, nor could it be done. To
second-rate minds, to persons without education, or those, who, being
ill-informed or informed by prejudice, have not the courage to correct
for themselves the false bias given to them and are content to accept
judgments ready-made without taking the trouble to discuss them, Louis
XIV. is a petty mind and a bad king.[1] His faults and his errors are
counted to him as crimes, whereas he exactly fulfilled the prediction
of Mazarin: he was both a great king and an honest man. He may be
blamed for his wars and his rigorous treatment of Protestants; but he
always had in view the grandeur of France, and his wars were a means to
secure it. They served, according to his ideas, to guarantee us against
our two greatest enemies at that period, Spain and England. After
having, through the possession of Flanders and Alsace, established
solid frontiers against Germany, he preserved France from Spanish
intrigues by the conquest of Franche-Comté. Having thus given security
to his people, he gave them a splendour which dazzled the world, and a
grandeur which subdued it. One must indeed be neither a Frenchman nor
a man of sense to blame him stupidly for that affair of the Chevalier
de Rohan, a presumptuous fool and a State criminal, who was negotiating
with a foreign country, selling France, and striving to light civil
war,--a man whom the king had the right to condemn and punish according
to the laws of the kingdom he governed. But, as you say, Sue has a
narrow and bourgeois mind, incapable of understanding the _ensemble_
of such grandeur; he sees only scraps of the vulgar and commonplace
evil of our present pitiable society. He has felt himself crushed by
the gigantic spectacle of the great century, and he has resented it by
calumniating the finest and greatest epoch of our history, dominated
by the powerful and fruitful influence of the greatest of our kings;
pronounced Great by his contemporaries, and against whom even his
enemies invented no other sarcasm than to call him _"le roi soleil_."
To-morrow, Tuesday, 23rd, I shall begin to finish "Massimilla Doni,"
which requires great study of music, and will oblige me to go and hear
played and replayed to me Rossini's "Moïse," by a good old German
musician.
You would hardly believe with what resignation I face the dull and
malignant abuse which the publication of "Massimilla Doni" will bring
down upon me. Seen on one side only, it is true that the subject is
open to criticism; it will be said that I am obscene. But looking at
the psychical subject, it is, as I think, a marvel. But I have long
been used to such detraction. There are persons who still persist in
considering "La Peau de Chagrin" as a novel. But then, serious people
and the appreciators of that composition are daily gaining ground.
Five years hence "Massimilla Doni" will be understood as a beautiful
explanation of the inner process of art. To the eyes of ordinary
readers it will be only what it is apparently, a lover who cannot
possess the woman he adores because he desires her too much, and so
is won by a miserable creature. Make them perceive from that the
conception of works of art!
Adieu, _cara_. A thousand tender effusions of friendship, and remember
me to all about you. This is a long chatter; I have been writing it
during three days, and doing little else. But it is so good to think to
you! Think of me as of one entirely devoted, grieved when he gets no
letters, happy when he shares your lonely life, for he too is lonely
amid this Parisian bustle.
[Footnote 1: This letter is among those which Mme. de Balzac gave to
the Édition Définitive (vol. xxiv., pp. 273-282). The passage relating
to Louis XIV. is so evidently false in "Lettres à l'Étrangère" that I
give it here in Mme. de Balzac's version. In "Lettres à l'Étrangère"
it begins thus: "To well-informed minds Louis XIV. is a petty mind, a
man _nul_." This being totally out of keeping with Balzac's published
opinion of Louis XIV. ("Six Rois de France," Éd. Déf., vol. xxiii., pp.
525-535, written in 1837), I think it more just to Balzac to follow
his wife's version here. The following passages are from "Six Rois
de France" and give his opinion briefly: "He had known adversity and
even misfortune in his youth; it was, no doubt, to this circumstance
that he owed the perspicacity, the knowledge of man that distinguished
him almost constantly." "This prince, in his adversity, remained
ever worthy of the title of Great, which history has preserved to
him." See Appendix concerning Mme. Hanska's letters in the Édition
Définitive.--TR.]
FRAPESLE, near ISSOUDUN, February 10, 1838.
I have just received your little number 38, and at the moment that I
read it you must have in your hands the rather long letter in which I
explained my fears and made the inquiry to which you now reply.
I am thankful to know myself in painting at Berditchef, for in my
uneasiness about that wretched canvas I was about to sue the despatcher
of it. I am curious to know what you will think of the work. It is
now said that Boulanger has not given a delicacy that lurks under
the roundness of the lines, that he has exaggerated the character of
my rather tranquil strength, and bestowed upon me a hectoring and
aggressive expression. That is what sculptors and painters said to me
a few days before I left Paris, at a dinner at M. de Castellane's,
who is having some plays acted in private at his house. The merit of
Boulanger is in the fire of the eyes, the material truth of outline,
and the rich colouring. In spite of these criticisms, which concern
only the moral resemblance--so closely united, however, to physical
resemblance--they all said it was one of the finest specimens of the
school for the last ten years; so I reflected that, at least, you would
not have a daub in your gallery. We shall see what you say to it.
I came here worn-out with fatigue. The body is relaxing. I have come
to do, if I can, the preliminary play of which I spoke to you, and the
second Part of "Illusions Perdues," the first Part of which pleased you
so much. I shall stay in Berry till the middle of March.
They write me from Paris that "Cesar Birotteau," after two months'
_incognito_, is obtaining a success of enthusiasm, and that in spite
of the silence of some newspapers, and the cruel civilities of others,
it is being borne to the clouds above "Eugénie Grandet," with which
they crush down so many other things of mine. I tell you that idiocy of
Parisians, because you look upon such things benignly as _events_.
Now that I see my inventions to give you little pleasures reach you,
write me what Anna would like for her birthday. I have an opportunity
to send to Riga. Riga is not far from you, and I will tell you where
to send for your idol's gift. Do you want any of that Milanese silver
filagree, or anything in the way of Parisian taste? And if at our
coming Exhibition M. Hanski wants one or two good pictures, well
chosen, to increase his collection, some of those things that become in
time of great value, tell him to feel sure that I am at his orders, and
at yours equally.
You could not believe how much I thought of you in crossing La Beauce
and Berry, for they are your Ukraine on a small scale, and every time
I cross them my thought is fixed on Wierzchownia. They are two very
high plateaus, for at Issoudun we are six hundred feet above sea-level,
and there is nothing on them but wheatfields, vineyards, and woods.
In Beauce, however, the land is so precious that not a single tree is
planted. You will see that melancholy landscape some day, when you come
to France, and perhaps, like me, you will not share the feeling it
inspires in ordinary travellers.
I do not know if they told me truly, or if the person who told me was
told truly, but my publishers are boasting that they have sold five
thousand of the Illustrated Balzac, which leads one to suppose that,
time and friendship aiding, we may sell ten thousand. Then all my
financial misfortunes will cease in 1839. God grant it!
Do not play the coquette about your thirty-third anniversary; you know
well what I think about the age of women, and if you want me to give
you new editions of it, I shall think you very greedy of compliments.
There are women who will always be young, and you are one of them;
youth comes from the soul. Never lose that innocent gaiety which is one
of your greatest charms; it makes you able to think aloud to every one,
and that will keep you young a long time. In spite of what you say,
there are, I think, few clouds above the lake of your thoughts, but
always the infinite of blue skies.
If you have a frame made for my portrait, and it requires one, have
it made in black velvet. That is economical and beautiful, and very
favourable to Boulanger's colour and tones.
Remember that nothing leads to the malady of Lady L... so surely as the
mystical ecstasies of which you tell me in Séverine's sister; believe
me, for it was in this way that the pure and sublime young daughter
of Madame de Berny became insane. The mother died of that, as well as
of the death of her son. What did she not say to me on the absurdity
of our moralities, in the paroxysm of her sorrow! And what appalling
mother-cries!
I beg you never to say to me in a letter, "If I die." I have causes
enough for melancholy, and dread, and gloomy black dragons, without the
added waves of bitterness that my blood rushes to my heart under the
sudden faintness that those words cause me.
Gracious greetings to _tutti quanti_, and to you, all tenderness. I
re-read at this moment the silly verses in which I fold my letter, and I
send you, laughing, the homage of a poor collegian--for the ruled paper
reveals the age of seventeen and its illusions.
FRAPESLE, March 2, 1838.
_Cara contessina_; I am here, without having done a single thing that
is worth anything. I am a little better, that is all. I have been ill
of a malady that love abhors, caused by the quality of the drinking
water, which contained calcareous deposits. Hence, complete dissolution
of my brain forces. Poor human beings! See on what fame depends, and
the creations of thought! Madame Carraud thinks I have escaped an
illness; it is very sure that I have escaped making a comedy or a bad
novel.
I heard that George Sand was at her country-place at Nohant, a few
leagues from Frapesle, so I went to pay her a visit. You will therefore
have your wished-for autographs: one of George Sand, which I send you
to-day; the other, signed Aurore Dudevant, you shall receive in my
next letter. Thus you will have the curious animal under both aspects.
But there is still another; the nickname, given by her friends, of "le
docteur Piffoël." When that reaches me I will send it. As you are a
curious eminentissime or an eminentissime curious person, I will relate
to you my visit.
I arrived at the Château de Nohant on Shrove Saturday, about half-past
seven in the evening, and I found comrade George Sand in her
dressing-gown, smoking a cigar after dinner in the chimney-corner of
an immense solitary chamber. She was wearing pretty yellow slippers
trimmed with fringe, coquettish stockings, and red trousers. So much
for the moral. Physically, she has doubled her chin like a monk. She
has not a single white hair in spite of her dreadful troubles; her
swarthy skin has not varied; her beautiful eyes are still dazzling;
she has the same stupid look when she thinks, for, as I told her,
after studying her, all her physiognomy is in her eye. She has been at
Nohant a year, very sad, and working enormously. She leads about the
same life as mine. She goes to bed at six in the morning and rises at
midday; I go to bed at six in the evening and rise at midnight. But,
naturally, I conformed to her habits; and for three days we talked from
five o'clock, after dinner, till five next morning; so that I knew her
better, and reciprocally, in those three talks, than during the four
preceding years, when she came to my house at the time she loved Jules
Sandeau, and was connected with Musset. She knew me only as I went to
see her now and then.
It was useful for me to see her, for we made mutual confidences on the
subject of Jules Sandeau. I, who am the last to blame her for that
desertion, have nothing now but the deepest compassion for her, as you
will have for me when you know with whom we had to do, she, in love; I,
in friendship.
She was, however, even more unhappy with Musset; and she is now in deep
retirement, condemning both marriage and love; because in both states
she has met with nothing but deceptions.
Her male is rare, that is the whole of it. He is the more so because
she is not lovable, and, consequently, will always be difficult to
love. She is a lad, she is an artist, she is grand, generous, devoted,
chaste; she has the great lineaments of a man: _ergo_, she is not
a woman. I did not feel, any more than I formerly felt when beside
her, attacked by that gallantry of the epidermis which one ought to
employ in France and Poland towards every species of woman. I talked
as with a comrade. She has lofty virtues, of the kind that society
takes the wrong way. We discussed, with a gravity, good faith, candor,
and conscience worthy of the great shepherds who lead herds of men,
the grand questions of marriage and liberty: "For," as she said to me
with immense pride (I should never have dared to think it for myself),
"although by our writings we are preparing a revolution for future
manners and morals, I am not less struck by the objections to the one
than by those to the other."
We talked a whole night on this great problem. I am altogether for the
liberty of the young girl and the slavery of the wife; that is to say,
I wish that before marriage she should know what she binds herself to,
that she should study it all, because, when she has signed the contract
and experienced its chances she must be faithful to it. I gained
a great deal in making Madame Dudevant recognize the necessity of
marriage; but she will believe it, I am sure, and I think I have done
good in proving it to her.
She is an excellent mother, adored by her children; but she dresses
her daughter Solange as a boy, which is not right. _Morally,_ she is
like a young man of twenty, for she is inwardly chaste and _prudish_;
she is only an artist externally. She smokes immoderately; plays the
princess a little too much, perhaps; and I am convinced that she has
faithfully painted herself in the princess of her "Secrétaire intime."
She knows, and said, of herself just what I think, without my saying it
to her, namely: that she has neither force of conception, nor gift of
constructing plots, nor faculty of reaching the true, nor the art of
pathos, but--without knowing the French language--she has _style_; and
that is true.
She takes her fame, as I do mine, in jest, and she has a profound
contempt for the public, calling it _Jumento_.
I will relate to you the immense and secret devotion of this woman
for those two men, and you will say to yourself that there is nothing
in common between angels and devils. All the follies that she has
committed are titles to fame in the eyes of great and noble souls. She
was duped by Madame Dorval, Bocage, Lamennais, etc., etc. Through the
same sentiment she is now the dupe of Listz and Madame d'Agoult; but
she has just come to see it as to that pair as she did in the case of
la Dorval; she has one of those minds that are powerful in the study,
through intellect, and extremely easy to entrap on the domain of
realities.
Apropos of Listz and Madame d'Agoult, she gave me the subject of "Les
Galériens," or "Amours forcés," which I am going to write; for in her
position she cannot do so. Keep that secret. In short, she is a man,
and all the more a man because she wants to be one, because she has
come out of womanhood, and is not a woman. Woman attracts, and she
repels; and, as I am very much of a man, if she produces that effect
on me she must produce it on all men who are like me; she will always
be unhappy. Thus, she now loves a man who is inferior to her, and in
that contract there can be only deception and disenchantment for a
woman with a fine soul. A woman ought always to love a man superior to
herself, or else be so well deceived that it will be as if it were so.
I did not stay at Nohant with impunity; I brought away a monstrous
vice; she made me smoke a hookah and latakia; and they have suddenly
become a necessity to me. This transition will help me to give up
coffee and vary the stimulant I need for work; I thought of you. I
want a fine, good hookah, with a lid or extra-bowl; and, if you are
very amiable, you will get me one in Moscow; for it is there, or in
Constantinople, that the best can be had. Be friendly enough to write
at once to Moscow, so that the parcel may reach me with the least
possible delay. But on condition only that you tell me what you want in
Paris, so that I have my hookah only as barter. If you can also find
true latakia in Moscow, send me five or six pounds, as opportunities
are rare to get it from Constantinople. And dare I also ask you not to
forget the _caravan tea_ you promised me?
I am much of a child, as you know. If it is possible that the
decoration of the hookah should be in turquoise, that would please me,
all the more because I want to attach to the end of the tube the knob
of my cane, which I am prevented from carrying by the notoriety given
to it. If you wish, I will send you a set of Parisian pearls, such as
you liked; the mounting will be so artistic that, although the pearls
are only Parisian, you will have a work of art. Say yes, if you love
me. Yes, isn't it?
I will write you a line from Paris, for I must go to Sardinia. Pray
to God that I may succeed, for if I do, my joy will carry me to
Wierzchownia. I shall have liberty! no more cares, no more material
worries; I shall be rich!
_Addio, cara contessina_, for the post has imperious and self-willed
hours. Think that in fifteen days I shall be sailing on the
Mediterranean. Ah! from there to Odessa, it is all sea--as they say in
Paris, it is all pavement. From Odessa to Berditchef it is but a step.
I send you my tender regards, and friendly ones to M. Hanski, with all
remembrances to your young companions. You ought to be, as I write,
in full enjoyment of the Boulanger, and I await with impatience your
_sacro sainct dict_ on the work of the painter.
Think that if I pray it is for you; if I ask God for anything with that
cowl lowered it is for you, and that the fat monk now before you is
ever the moujik of your lofty and powerful mind.
Have you read "Birotteau"? After that book I shall decidedly write "La
Première Demoiselle;" then a love-book, very coquettish, "Les Amours
forcés." It is for those who have the adorable sweetness to love
according to the laws of their own heart, and to pity the galley-slaves
of love.