AUX JARDIES, February 12, 1839.
When this letter reaches you, it is probable that the fate of "L'École
des Ménages" [formerly "La Première Demoiselle"] will have been decided;
and while you read these words they may be representing that play, so
long meditated, which perhaps may fall flat in two hours. It has taken
on great proportions; there are five leading rôles and the subject
is vast. It touches the painful spot of modern morals: marriage; but
perhaps the personages lack certain conditions in order to become
types. To my eyes, the play is precisely the bourgeois family. But it
has a certain inferiority through that very thing.
I am going to-morrow to come to an understanding with the managers
of the Renaissance, after many protocols exchanged between them and
a friend who has undertaken to fight for my interests; the play will
be mounted in twenty days. I took, to lay out my ideas and write them
down for me, a poor young man of letters, named Lassailly, who has not
written two lines worth preserving. I never saw such incapacity. But he
has been useful to me in making the first germ, on which I can work.
Nevertheless, I would have liked some one of more intelligence and wit.
Théophile Gautier is coming to do the second play in five acts, and I
expect much from him.
Nevertheless, dear countess, it is impossible for me to do all
that I have undertaken, and all that I must do to get out of my
embarrassments. Here is what I have accomplished the last month:
"Béatrix, ou Les Amours Forcés," two volumes 8vo, wholly written and
corrected, which is coming out in the "Siècle;" "Un Grand homme de
Province à Paris," the end of "Illusions Perdues," of which only the
second volume remains to do, and that will be done this week. Besides
which, three plays: "L'École des Ménages," "La Gina," and "Richard
Cœur d'Éponge."
Well, after such great labour (for I have just as much for the month of
March) shall I gain my liberty, shall I owe nothing to any one, shall
I have the tranquillity of soul of a man from whom no one has money
to demand? I begin to feel some fatigue. Just now, on beginning to go
to work, I found it impossible to take it up with my usual ardour; I
thought of you; I wanted to tell you across space how often you are
here, and to confide to you my little sorrows and my great works, or,
if you like, my little works and my great sorrows.
March 13.
How many things have happened in my life since I wrote the last lines!
In the first place, twenty days employed in correcting and rewriting
my play for the people of the Renaissance theatre; who have brutally
rejected it from want of money to make the first payment agreed upon.
Then, the reading of it before certain of the actors and the director
of the Théâtre Français who thought it magnificent, but impossible to
act as it then was, because of the union of tragedy and comedy. They
want it either the one or the other. Next, a reading at the house of
Madame Saint-Clair, sister of Madame Delmar, in presence of three
ambassadors, English, Austrian, and Sardinian, with their wives, Madame
Molé, M. de Maussion, Custine, etc. Delight and criticism. After which,
second and last reading at Custine's, in presence of another wave of
the great world, who all wish to see it performed. I have coldly put
away my play in a box, and this morning Planche came and asked me for
it, to see what it is like. He is to give me his opinion next Sunday.
So, dear, much to do, much company, much annoyance, and little result.
However, let me tell you that Taylor, the collector of Spanish pictures
and former Commissary for the King to the Théâtre Français, and the
director Védel and Desmousseaux have taken so high an opinion of me
as a dramatic writer that they have asked me to give them, as soon as
possible, a play entirely comic, saying that they would have it played
immediately. They are convinced that I can write for the stage.
March 16.
Planche took my play to read; he is to return it in two days, and will
doubtless tell me what it is worth. Stendhal, who was present at the
reading at Custine's, writes me the little line which I enclose in this
letter, and which he signs, by an inexplicable habit, Cotonet. He never
signs, except officially, his real name, Henri Beyle.
I am not well in body or in mind. I feel a horrible lassitude, which,
in regard to my head, is not without danger. I have no longer either
force or courage. The obstacles I have been accustomed to overcome
increase enormously and terrify me. Anxieties about money have
become for me what the Furies were to Orestes. I am without support,
enervated, without even kindly sentiments, without the faculty of
feeling any, of any kind. I am a negation. Ah! these moments are
terrible, especially when, for want of money, I cannot shake myself
together by a journey. There are no pleasures for me; none but those of
the heart. That is the only thing that intellect has not yet overrun;
it is the only thing it can never displace.
Adieu; this is a letter on which I have written for two months; for
two months it has lain among my papers and I take it up when I have
exhausted the _feuillets_ beneath which I place it.
April 14.
Dear, here is another month gone by. What a month! I have just received
your letter. If my irregularity grieves you, yours kills me; it has
made me think you did not want any more of my letters, and that you
have left me like a body without a soul. I have, however, been working
day and night. The endless corrections of the "Grand homme de Province"
and of "Béatrix," also articles to write, obliged me to put myself into
a garret in Paris, where I am close to the printing-offices, and thus
lose no time. I have not had even a fleeting moment to continue this
letter; I have only slept by chance, when I dropped from fatigue. I am
wholly weaned from life, and absolutely indifferent whether I live or
do not live.
Here is the news. You will see M. de Custine; he goes to Russia. He
will take you the manuscript of "Séraphita,"--the manuscript, you
understand, not the proofs; they are too voluminous. He will see you;
he is rich; he is happy in being able to travel at his ease! He will
make, if necessary, a _détour_ to see you.
I have reached a point when, in contemplating coldly my situation,
I see I have now but two ways of cutting the Gordian knot. Either I
must sell my work, to be made the most of by others during ten years,
for one hundred and fifty thousand francs; or, if I do not succeed in
recovering tranquillity by that means, I must insure my life for that
sum, which is the total of my debt, and fling myself into work as into
a gulf from which I know I shall never issue; for, from the weakness
that assails me after my toil has passed a certain limit, I feel that a
man can die from excess of it.
Planche has brought back my play. He thinks it is above what is now
being done; but we are not of the same opinion as to its faults.
Brought to the point of view of art, it has many.
Beyle has just published the finest book, as I think, which has
appeared these fifty years. It is called "La Chartreuse de Parme." I
don't know whether you can procure it. If Macchiavelli had written a
novel, it would have been this one. Jules Sandeau has lately dragged
George Sand through the mire in a book called "Marianna." He has
given himself a fine rôle, that of Henry! He! good God! You will
read the book and it will horrify you, I am sure. It is anti-French,
anti-gentleman. Henry ends as Jules ought to have ended (when one loves
truly and is betrayed),--by death. But to live, and write this book, is
awful.
Dear, do not blame my friendship. Some day you will know the life I
am now leading, the burdens I am bearing. The terrace walls of Les
Jardies have all rolled down. I must buy more ground, with a house on
it, and I have no money. This house, my dream of tranquillity, my dear
Chartreuse, needs fifteen or twenty thousand francs to settle me in it;
and I don't know if ever my days can flow here peacefully. Twelve years
of toil, of pain and grief, have left me as I was the first day, with a
burden as heavy and as difficult to remove. Madame de Staël said, "Fame
is the brilliant mourning of happiness."
Your project of coming to the banks of the Rhine makes my heart beat.
Oh! come. But you will not come. It would be so easy for me to go to
Baden and see the Rhine; the journey is neither long nor costly, and
a journey is so necessary to me. The mail-cart goes to Strasburg, and
from there, in two minutes, to Germany; it is only ten days and twenty
louis. Oh! I don't know if you have not warmed up my courage, and
re-tempered my soul. I will not give the manuscript to M. de Custine.
I will bring it to you, that and the others. If you do this, I will
bring you a fine pianist for Anna; I will--I don't know what I will not
do, for those lines in your letter have warmed me,--I have returned to
the idea that life is endurable.
You will find me much changed, but physically; horribly aged, with
white hairs,--in short, _un vieux bonhomme_. "You show now that you
wear your laurels," M. de Beauchesne said to me the other day. The
speech was pretty, if exaggerated. I am sure that on the other side of
the Rhine I shall grow young again. When I think that as soon as this
letter reaches you (which takes a month) you may be coming, and that I
shall see you in June, precisely at the moment when I shall be unable
to write and in need of rest!--But it is all a dream; I must return to
post and letter-paper, to the power of the imagination of the heart, to
memory.
Adieu; in my next letter I will tell you what happens, and how the
present crisis ends for me; the matters pending between Louis-Philippe
and the Chambers have complicated it.
AUX JARDIES, June 2, 1839.
I received your last letter to-day when I have just missed,
fortunately, breaking my leg in going to see the devastation of my
grounds produced by a storm. My foot slipped; and the whole weight of
the _body_ came on the left foot which twisted under me and all the
muscles about the ankle were violently wrenched, and cracked with a
great noise. The amount of will I put into supporting myself gave me
a pain of extreme violence in the solar plexus; I suffered there more
than I did in the ankle, though that pain made me suppose I had broken
my leg. The head surgeon of the hospital at Versailles came, and I
shall have to stay in bed two weeks. There, dear countess! I find one
compensation, namely: that all my horrible financial and literary
affairs, etc., being interrupted by a superior power, I can write you
to my heart's content, for it is very long since I have been with you.
Alas! I have had so much to do. Les Jardies have cost me many wakeful
nights. But we won't speak of that.
Well, as M. de Talleyrand used to say, foresee griefs and you are sure
to be a prophet. No more trip to the banks of the Rhine! However, for
one piece of bad news I will give you a good piece. If the Chamber of
Deputies votes our law on literary property I shall doubtless have to
go to Saint Petersburg, and I shall return through the Ukraine. But in
any case, dear of dears, my first journey will be to you. So long as
Les Jardies are not in order I cannot travel; it would be too great a
folly, it would be ruin. Happily my accident has happened just as I had
finished "Un Grand homme de Province à Paris." Otherwise, I don't know
what would have become of me with my publishers.
M. de Custine is not going to Russia; only as far as Berlin. So I took
your precious manuscript out of its hiding-place for nothing.
During the two days that I have been in bed a rage, a veritable rage,
possesses me to see you. Every time that I am alone, that I re-enter
myself, that my brain is cleared, that I am with my heart, it is always
so. Your letter distressed me. It came when I was in the midst of those
sweet reveries that are my elysium, and I thought your letter cold,
ceremonious, religious. I hated you for two days. I hid that letter; it
put me out of temper. You say in it that you are my old friend. If that
is so, learn that I have loved you only since yesterday. Treat me with
more coquetry. When have you received a letter without an autograph?
Know, countess, that out of your eleven million friends in France and
other countries there is not half a million who would have perpetuated
that little attention; it shows a perennial affection which proves that
my friendship is still in its spring. Were you fifty years old, my
eyes would always see you in that heart's-ease-coloured gown, looking
as you did on the Crêt at Neufchâtel. You have no idea of either my
heart or my character. Fy! Do not think it so easy to get rid of me.
My health has borne up under work which has amazed literary men. I am
at my twelfth volume. You must read "Un Grand homme," a book full of
vigour, in which you will find those great personages of my work, as
you are good enough to call them,--Florine, Nathan, Lousteau, Blondet,
Finot. That which will commend the work to foreigners is its audacious
painting of the inner manners and morals of Parisian journalism, which
is fearful in its accuracy. I alone was in a position to tell the truth
to our journalists, and fight them to the death. That book will not be
forbidden in Russia.
I have at this moment under my pen "Le Curé de Village" to finish,
the second episode of which, entitled "Véronique," will appear in the
"Presse." This book will be loftier, grander, and stronger than "Le Lys
dans la Vallée" and "Le Médecin de campagne;" the two known fragments
of it have justified my promises.
In a life as busy as mine nothing produces much effect; I have worked
as usual through the riots. But a month or so ago Planche and I said to
each other, "Shots will be fired within six weeks." And so it was.
A Russian professor from Moscow came to see me lately,--M. Chevireff;
I love all that ends in _eff_ on account of Berditchef; I am child
enough to fancy it brings me nearer to you. It is thus that the words
"Geneva," "Vienna" never sound in my ears without effect. The longer I
love, the more Hoffmannesque I become on that subject.
So it is all over about the Rhine! You could not believe what agitation
was caused me by those two fatal lines, written perhaps unconsciously,
in which you tell me that your journey is put off. It was so easy
for me to go to the Rhine, even with all my business matters and the
newspapers on my hands. The mail-carts go so rapidly now from Paris to
the Rhine. Well, I must put this, too, with many a golden dream! The
springtide will console you; nothing consoles me. I see by the date of
your letter that you wrote on my fête-day, and you did not think of
it! I still my complaints; for I should seem very ridiculous in both
cases; but I remarked that you put fewer lines in your pages, and that
you were, in point of fact, getting rid of me. Perhaps I deserve it for
telling you, in one of my former letters, how little time I have to
write to you, with an air as if I boasted of my fidelity. Alas! that
was only a bit of childish candour, which you ought not to punish. Some
day I will tell you the truth about that passage; you will be touched,
and ashamed that you were ever angry with me.
Do not think that because there are four hundred leagues between us
I do not know how to read the thoughts that lie beneath your sublime
forehead. I can parade them before you, one by one. It suffices me to
examine your letter with the attention of a Cuvier to know the exact
frame of mind in which it was written; and you had, when writing this
letter, something against me, no doubt. You will tell me later what it
was.
My Jardies get on but slowly. The buildings are still of little
importance; but all is heavy on those who have nothing. I am beginning
to have trouble with my eyes, and that grieves me; I shall have to
cease working at night.
Did I tell you that "Béatrix" is finished? You will see it, no doubt,
in the "Revue de Saint Pétersbourg," but bad and emasculated. It
will only be good in the 8vo edition now in press. Those puritans of
liberalism who manage the "Siècle" in which "Béatrix" appeared assume
to have morals, and demolish the archbishop's palace! This is the
buffoonery of folly. They are afraid of the word "bosom," and trample
morality under foot! they will not allow the word _volupté_ to be
printed, but they upset social order! The wife of the director-in-chief
is as scraggy as a bag of nails, and they suppressed a joke of Camille
Maupin on the bones of Béatrix! I will make you laugh heartily when I
tell you all the negotiations required to get into that newspaper a
joke on the bitch of M. de Halga. Unfortunately for me, you will read
that book mangled and expurgated.
What a pretty nest Les Jardies will be when finished! How happy one
might be here! What a beautiful valley, cool as a Swiss valley. The
royal park a few steps off! Paris in a quarter of an hour, and Paris a
hundred leagues away! What a beautiful life if--But I begin to think
like the capucin monk: we are not placed here below to take our comfort.
The Exhibition of pictures has been very fine this year. There were
seven or eight masterpieces, in several styles: a superb Decamps; a
magnificent Cleopatra by Delacroix; a splendid portrait by Amaury
Duval; a charming Venus Anadyomene by Chassériau, a pupil of Ingres.
What a misfortune to be poor when one has the heart of an artist!
The first _young girl_ work that I do I shall dedicate to your dear
Anna; but I shall await a word about that in your next letter; for I
must know if it be agreeable to you that I should do this.
It seems there is to be, next autumn, a dahlia-Balzac. If you would
like a cutting tell me how to send it to you. It will be, they say, a
magnificent flower; in case the attempt to vary the stock succeeds.
You wish me the tranquillity of soul that you enjoy. Alas! I have
passions, or, to speak more correctly, passion, too living, too
palpitating, to be able to extinguish my soul. You would never imagine
in what agitations I live; for me, nothing is lost or forgotten; all
that affects me is of yesterday. The tree, the water, the mountain,
the dress, the look, the fear, the pleasure, the danger, the emotion,
even the sand, the colour of a wall, the slightest incident, all things
shine in my soul, as fresh, and more extended daily. I forget all that
is not within the domain of the heart; or, at least, whatever is in
the domain of imagination needs to be recalled and firmly meditated.
But all that belongs to my love is my life; and when I yield myself
to it, it seems to me that then, alone, I live. I count those hours
of delightful abandonment only; those are my hours of sunshine and of
joy. But you will never imagine that; it is the poesy of the heart,
heightened by an incredible power of intuition. I never pride myself on
what is called talent; nor yet on my will which is held to be kindred
with that of Napoleon. But I do render thanks and take pride in my
heart, in the constancy of my affections. _There_ is my wealth; _there_
are the treasures beyond the reach of the one who coined that gold;
the workman who made those ducats is far away, but the miser holds
them ever in his hand. "I know you have a great and noble soul; and I
know where to touch you; I will make you blush for me." That speech is
one of my ducats. For many a fool it would have been nothing; to me it
rings sublime; and if I did not love like an imbecile, a collegian, a
ninny, a madman, like anything you please that is most extravagant, I
should have worshipped that woman as a divinity.
I don't know whether all this will not seem to you Swedenborgian; but
it belongs to my history, and I will some day explain it to you. At
any rate, I will say this. Those words were said to me by a rather
extraordinary woman, whom I will not name, in a fit of mistaken
jealousy. Well, I assure you that a month never passes that I do not
remember the look of the sky at the moment they were said, and the
colour of the cloud I saw there.
Adieu. In ten days my leg will be much better; but I shall have written
to you again before then. I will tell you my reveries, one by one.
You will count for much in my idleness; which is for me the mother of
memories.
I am glad to know that all goes well in your States. But, on the word
of an honest man, I don't understand why the count does not arrange his
affairs so as to have no longer any care. When I have settled mine--and
I shall then be, incontestably, a far greater financier than he--I will
go and offer him my services to make something out of nothing--forgive
that joke!
All gracious things to Mademoiselle Séverine, and to your dear Anna;
my affectionate compliments to the Grand Marshal, and to you the most
precious and sweetest offerings of my heart.
No Custine, no pearls; that is a loss to you, for the set is very fine;
you would have been queen of the balls at Kiew next winter. But you
will be that without the pearls.
AUX JARDIES, July, 1839.
I am cured. The accident, which kept me in bed forty days without
moving, has left no traces except some pain in the muscles. But your
silence disquiets me much. Is anything going wrong with you? Are you
travelling? All this exercises my mind, tortures me, besieges me with a
thousand dragon-fancies.
I am overwhelmed with business. The disaster of my fallen walls is not
yet repaired. I have been obliged to purchase land, which has ruined
me. The masons must be here for another month. It is all the more
impossible for me to get away because my illness has put my work into
arrears, and also because I have let one of the three houses on the
place to the Visconti family.[1]
A novel of mine is about to appear, named "Pierrette," with which you
will no doubt be pleased. "Une Princesse Parisienne" will also be out
soon. "Véronique," the second fragment of the "Curé de village," is
already out. "Les Paysans," that is, "Qui Terre a, Guerre a," is in
process of being bought and published by the "Constitutionnel." And
finally "Le Ménage d'un Garçon" and "Le Martyr calviniste" are in the
hands of the compositors of the "Siècle;" "Massimilla Doni," appears
with the true edition of "La Fille d'Ève;" "Béatrix" is nearly printed.
I am now going to work on the last part of "Illusions Perdues," finish
the "Curé de village," and do a great drama for the Porte-Saint-Martin.
There, dear, there is where we now are; and I have certainly drawn down
upon me the hatred of all the men of the pen by "Un Grand homme de
Province." Growls resound in the press. But you see I continue my work
intrepidly, keeping on with even steps, and tolerably insensible to
calumny--like all those who have never given cause for slander.
I shall have three houses to let, each looking out on inclosed gardens;
and I will only let this elegant village to extremely distinguished
people. Our railway will begin to run in a few days, and I can enter
a carriage from my garden; so that I am really in the heart of Paris
(which I have never been before), because for eight sous and in fifteen
or twenty minutes I am there. So I am enchanted with Les Jardies. When
all the necessary ground is bought and the gardens planted, it will
be delicious, and envied by all the world. Railways change all the
conditions of life around Paris. I have still some things to remove
from Chaillot; some furniture to bring out; so that various material
annoyances have delayed this letter, for I can trust no one to do
anything. I am alone, bachelor that I am, without servants, except a
gardener and his wife. I will have nothing until my debts are paid. So
I am living devilishly, without in the least caring what people think
of me; for I _will_ attain to independence and tranquillity.
I shall have, a few days hence, a delightful little story which Anna
can read; I would like to dedicate it to her; you must tell me if it
would be a pleasure to her, and to you, also.
Alas! the brutal indifference of the powers that be and the Chambers
to literary men, who have now reached the last degree of endurance,
is such that the bill on literary property remains between the two
Chambers and has never been brought forward, so that our journey as the
representatives of the lettered class (of which I told you, and which
would have given me the chance to go and see you) will not take place.
But I have not lost all hope. I shall go to Germany, to the banks of
the Rhine, probably, and once there, I may be able to go and bid you
good-day; if I have only a few moments to stay, at least I shall see
you. This would take two months, and two months means that I must leave
four or five thousand francs for payments in my absence. I must have
good luck to get them! If my buildings are finished by August 15, and I
can provide for all my payments, it is possible I may escape. That is
why I am, just now, very busy in stuffing the newspapers with articles.
But if the "Constitutionnel" decides to take "Les Paysans" I shall have
to put off going till September.
We say in France, "No letters, good news." I hope the interruption in
your letters means that result; but why not have written me a single
little line? It is conceivable that I who lead the triple life of
literary man, debtor, and builder, and also that of a man defending
himself against feuilletonists, and who now am managing, so to speak,
the Société des Gens-de-lettres (one of the greatest things for the
future to be done in France),--it is, I say, conceivable that my
letters should be sometimes involuntarily delayed. But you, who have
only to let yourself live in your Ukraine! Ah! you are very guilty; for
you know the happiness given by your judgments, your ideas. "'Tis from
the North our light doth come," said Voltaire, to flatter the Empress.
But I--I say it piously.
Well, I must leave you for "Pierrette." I have just risen; it is two in
the morning. I belong to the printer.
[Footnote 1: Count Émile Guidoboni-Visconti, to whom Balzac had
rendered a service in settling a question of family inheritance. Madame
Visconti was an Englishwoman, and to her "Béatrix" is dedicated under
her Christian name, Sarah.--TR.]
July 15.
I have not spoken to you of "L'Épicier," "La Femme comme il faut,"
"Le Rentier," and "Le Notaire," four figures I have done for Curmer's
"Les Français peints par eux-mêmes." You will, no doubt, read those
little sketches. I have just been giving a last touch to "Une Princesse
Parisienne;" it is the greatest moral comedy that exists. It relates a
mass of lies by which a woman, thirty-seven years of age, the Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse, now become the Princesse de Cadignan, succeeds in
getting herself taken for a saint, a virtuous, modest young girl by her
fourteenth admirer; it is, in short, the last degree of depravity in
sentiment. She is, as Madame de Girardin said, "Célimène in love." The
subject is of all lands and of all times. The masterly part of it is to
have made the lies seem necessary and right, justified by love. It is
one of the diamonds in the crown of your servant. Put it with the other
old trinkets of my literary jewellery.
Adieu, for I am overwhelmed with work. Alas! few pleasures; all
is anxiety and disappointment. My life is a strange and continual
deception; I, who was manufactured expressly, as I believe, for
happiness! Is that providential?
Many affectionate things to all. The autograph I send is Berryer's.
AUX JARDIES, August, 1839.
I have received your last letter, and I think there is something
wonderful in our double existence: with you the deepest peace, with
me the most active war; with you repose, with me incessant struggle.
You could never imagine the ever up-springing torments to which I am
subjected. But I don't know why I tell you these things, for many a
time you have told me they were my own fault and that I was wrong.
Les Jardies are nearly done; a few days more and I shall have finished
the buildings. Only a few trifling things remain to do. But I shall
not be easy till all is paid for, and that _all_ is a fortune;
thousand-franc notes are there engulfed like ships in the sea. The
burden of literary production is doubled, and also complicated by the
exactions of publishers who want all their books at once, whereas
critics say I write too much. Then everybody wants his money at once.
A terrible desire has seized me the last few days to abandon this
life--not by suicide, which I shall always consider silly, but by
quitting, in imitation of Molière's Maître Jacques, my coachman's
top-coat for a cook's jacket; that is, by making believe that my work,
my Jardies, my debts, my family, my name, that all that is I is dead
and buried, or as if it had never existed, and then go off to some
distant country, America of the North or South, under another name, and
there (taking, perhaps, another form) begin another life with happier
fortunes.
September.
I am excessively agitated by a horrible affair,--the Peytel affair. I
have seen that poor fellow three times. He is condemned to death. I am
starting in two hours for Bourg.[1]
[Footnote 1: This curious episode in Balzac's life, in which Gavarni
took a leading part, seems to have been a piece of generous and
imaginative folly. But with M. Zola's late action in mind, the
reflection suggests itself that if we knew all the circumstances of
the case (now passed into oblivion) we might find that Balzac and
Gavarni had cause to think themselves right. A brief outline of the
affair is given in the Appendix. Balzac's argument of the case will be
found in the Édition Définitive, vol. xxii.; Polémique Judiciare, pp.
579-625.--TR.]
October 30.
You will perhaps have heard that, after two months of unheard-of
efforts to snatch him from his doom, Peytel went, two days ago, to the
scaffold, "like a Christian," the priest said; I say, like a man who
was not guilty.
You can now understand this horrible gap in my correspondence. Ah!
dear, my affairs were already in a bad enough state, but this devotion
of mine has cost me a crazy sum, five thousand francs at least in
money, and five thousand more in non-working. Calumnies of all kinds
have been my reward. Henceforth I shall, I think, see an innocent man
murdered without meddling; I will do as the Spaniards do--run away when
a man is stabbed.
We will talk of that, for I am going to see you; I can promise you
that; I shall be, beyond a doubt, out of all condition to write for
several months, in consequence of fatigue. I am now preparing the drama
of "Vautrin" in five acts, at the Porte-Saint-Martin. I am finishing
"Le Curé de Village;" idem "Sœur Marie des Anges;" idem "Les Paysans;"
idem "Les Petites Misères de la Vie conjugale;" idem "Pierrette,"
dedicated to your dear Anna; idem "La Frélore."
When all that is done, if I do not have a brain-fever, I shall be on
the Berlin road, to divert my mind, and I shall go as far as Dresden.
And one does not go to see the Dresden Madonna without keeping on to
see the Saint of Wierzchownia.
November 2.
I have had frightful troubles about which I cannot write you a word;
it would be suffering them twice over. I was on the point of wanting
food and lights and paper. I have been hunted like a hare, worse than
a hare, by sheriffs. I am here, alone, at Les Jardies. My mother is
much distressed. I alone am in the secret of the future. I see, within
two months, events which will carry me onward in the difficult path of
liberation.
I work so fast that I cannot tell you of what I am doing. You will
read later a little pearl, the "Princesse Parisienne," who is the
Duchesse de Maufrigneuse at thirty-seven years of age. You have not yet
received, I think, "Un Grand homme de Province à Paris," which is not
only a book but a great action, and, above all, courageous. The howls
of the press continue.
But now, exhausted by so many struggles, I am going to give myself up
to that delightful composition, "Sœur Marie des Anges,"--human love
leading up to divine love.
"Pierrette" is one of those tender flowers of melancholy which are
certain in advance of success. As the book is for Anna I will not tell
you anything about it, but leave you the pleasure of surprise.
December, 1839.
You see me stupefied. I find a letter which I join to this one. I
thought it posted, but, in the midst of my turmoil, it was slipped
under the papers of "Pierrette." In finishing "Pierrette" and clearing
up my desk, I found it, when I thought it was in your hands! I now
understand why you have not written to me. You think me dead and
buried, or something.
Yesterday I received a great literary affront. "Pierrette" was refused
by the "Siècle." I can truly say it was a pearl sweated from my
sufferings, for I am all suffering. There is nothing extraordinary in
believing that I sent you a letter that was lying, in my desk, I forget
to live.
I had presented myself for the Academy (thirty-nine visits to pay!),
but to-day I have withdrawn before Victor Hugo, whose autograph on the
subject I inclose. I work eighteen hours and sleep six. I eat while I
work, and I believe I do not cease to work while sleeping, for there
are literary difficulties on which I postpone decision till I wake, and
I find them all solved when I do wake; thus my brain must work while I
sleep.
I still count, as soon as I have an instant of tranquillity on going
via Dresden to you.
I have had thirteen successive proofs of "Pierrette;" that is to say,
it has been remade thirteen times. I did "César Birotteau" seventeen
times. But as I did "Pierrette" in ten days you can imagine what the
work was, and it was not the only thing I had on my hands. I have
passed into the condition of a steam-engine, but an engine which,
unfortunately, has a heart,--a heart which suffers, which feels at all
points of a vast circumference, which everything affects, afflicts,
wounds, and which never misses any pain. There is no longer consolation
for me; the bitter cup is drained, i believe no more in a happy future;
but I live on, pushed by the vigorous hand of duty. I stretch my
sorrowing hands to you across the distance, wishing that you may always
have that good and peaceful, tranquil life in which, at times, my
thought, unknown to you, has gone to rest. Yes, there are hours when,
sinking beneath my burden, I fancy myself arriving and living without
cares, if not without griefs, in that oasis of the Ukraine.
A thousand friendly things to those about you. Believe in the eternal
affection of your more than ever poor moujik.
January 20, 1840.
I hear nothing from the Ukraine. It is more than three months that
I have had no letter from you, and I do not comprehend it. Have I
given you pain? Have you taken ill the silences to which I have been
compelled? Are you punishing me for my miseries? Are you ill? Are you
at the bedside of any one of yours? I ask myself a thousand questions.
I have seen by the merest chance the Princess Constantine, at a ball
given by Prince Tufiakin, the only one to which I have gone for two
years. From her I heard that she had news from you, while I, nothing!
That fact has caused me the most violent distress. The troubles of
money are nothing but annoyances; but all that touches the heart--ah!
those are the real griefs. To be thus overwhelmed on all sides, is it
not enough to make life intolerable! It is already heavy enough to me
who have not a single prospect on which my eyes can rest themselves.
All is savage, barren, gashed with precipices. At forty years of age,
after fifteen years of constant toil, one is permitted to be weary
of work which gives, as its result, a doubtful fame, a real misery,
superficial friendships without devotion, wasted sacrifices, growing
worries, burdens more and more heavy, and no pleasure. There are those
who paint my life very differently, but this is what it _is_. I have
lost the taste of many joys; there are pleasures of which I can no
longer conceive. I am frightened at a species of interior old age which
has come upon me. I don't know if I could now make those campaigns in
China which so diverted M. Hanski at Geneva.
At this moment "Pierrette," the story that belongs to your dear Anna,
is appearing in the "Siècle." They have taken out the dedication, which
will be put at the end, as an _envoi_. The stoppage of your letters
makes me fear that this may no longer be agreeable to you.
My situation is horribly precarious. The desire to pay what I owe
made me condemn myself to a life of extreme misery, but it serves for
nothing to live in that way. My conscience only is satisfied. At this
moment I am hoping that Rothschild will aid me. If he does not, then I
shall fall once more into the disasters of 1828. I shall be ruined for
the second time. There is something fatal in money. But I shall recover
life by writing for the stage.
This is now the 20th of January. My play "Vautrin," which is rehearsing
at the Porte-Saint-Martin, will be played on the 20th of February, and
it seems that I may count on a great financial success; I wrote it for
that. Still, if Rothschild does not help me, it is quite impossible
that I can get over the coming month. I shall have to lose my house,
furniture, and everything I have gathered to myself for the last twelve
years; and even that will not relieve me. My creditors will gain
nothing. I shall lose all, and owe just as much. It is horrible; but
it will happen; I foresee it. To tell you my efforts, my marches and
countermarches for the last three months would be to write volumes. And
all the while I had to work, to get my plays accepted, to invent them,
to write them. The royal indifference that pursues French literature is
communicated to all about us.
I have still two works to do, print, and publish to fulfil the
agreement I signed in 1838, which obliged me to give fourteen volumes.
I have given birth to ten between November, 1838, and January,
1840,--fourteen months. Those I shall now finish are "Sœur Marie des
Anges," and "Le Ménage d'un Garçon."
You have said nothing to me about "Un Grand homme de Province à Paris,"
which has raised such storms around me.
I am preparing several works for the stage. May heaven grant me help
and I shall be free through the profits of the stage combined with
those from publishers. In three months I could earn a great sum by
pledging myself for new books; and if luck would grant that publishers
might think of selling me under a cheap form I should be saved.
If there is any good news of this kind you shall have it very quickly;
as you shall that of the success or fall of "Vautrin." Frédérick
Lemaître, that actor who is so sympathetic to the masses and who
created the part of Robert Macaire, plays Vautrin.
At this moment I am organizing another play for a man of great talent,
Henri Monnier, from which I hope success. It is a piece in which
Prudhomme plays the leading part.
Adieu. Miserable or fortunate, I am always the same for you; and it is
because of that unchangeableness of heart that I am painfully wounded
by your abandonment. I may miss writing to you, carried away as I often
am by a life that resembles a torrent; but you, dear countess, why
do you deprive me of the sacred bread that came to me regularly and
restored my courage? Tell me. How will you explain it to me?
February, 1840.
Ah! I think you at last excessively small; and it shows me that you are
of this world. Ah! you write to me no longer because my letters are
rare! Well, they were rare because I often did not have the money to
post them, but I would not tell you that. Yes, my distress has reached
that point and beyond it. It is horrible, and sad, but it is true, as
true as the Ukraine where you are. Yes, there have been days when I
proudly ate a roll of bread on the boulevard. I have had the greatest
sufferings: self-love, pride, hope, prospects, all have been attacked.
But I shall, I hope, surmount everything, I had not one farthing, but I
earned for those atrocious Lecou and Delloye seventy thousand francs
in a year. The Peytel affair cost me ten thousand francs--and people
said I was paid fifty thousand! That affair and my fall which kept me
forty days in bed retarded everything.
Oh! I do not like your want of confidence. You think that I have a
great mind, but you will not admit that I have a great heart! After
nearly eight years you do not know me! My God, forgive her, for she
knows not what she does!
No, I was not _happy_ in writing "Béatrix;" you ought to have known it.
Yes, Sarah is Madame Visconti; yes, Mademoiselle des Touches is George
Sand; yes, Béatrix is even too much Madame d'Agoult. George Sand is at
the height of felicity; she takes a little vengeance on her friend.
Except for a few variations, _the story is true_.
Ah! I entreat you, never make comparisons between yourself and Madame
de Berny. She was a woman of infinite kindness and absolute devotion;
she was what she was. You are complete in your own way as she was in
hers. Two grand things should never be compared. They are what they are.
"Pierrette" has appeared in the "Siècle." The manuscript is bound for
Anna. Friends and enemies proclaim the little book a masterpiece; I
shall be glad if they are not mistaken. You will read it soon, as
the book is being printed. People put it beside the "Recherche de
l'Absolu." I am willing. I myself wish it put beside Anna.
Alas! yes; I am always writing; I blacken much paper, though I advance
but little. I am ashamed of my forced fecundity.
Your letter was no longer expected; I had lost all hope. I did not know
what to imagine; I believed you ill, and I went to inquire of Princess
Constantine. I should have gone to you, were it not for poverty. Oh!
you do not know what you are to me; but it is an unhappy passion.
Faith is not given; yours is not an absolute sentiment, and mine is. I
could believe you dead, I could not suppose you forgetting. Whereas,
under the pretext that I am a man, living in Paris, you imagine
monstrous things. Count my volumes on your fingers and reflect. I am
more in a desert in Paris than you are at Wierzchownia. I do not like
to have you write to any one in the world, still less to any one in
Paris, but Custine's address is 6 rue de La Rochefoucauld. Write,
Sévigné! I have obeyed as a moujik.
You have truly divined the affair of that poor Peytel; there are
fatalities in life. Oh! the circumstances were more than extenuating,
but impossible to prove. There are noblenesses in which men will never
believe. However, it is all over. I will let you read some day what he
wrote to me before going to the scaffold. I can take this matter to the
feet of God and many sins will be forgiven me. He was a martyr to his
honour. That which men applaud in Calderon, Shakespeare, and Lope de
Vega, they guillotined at Bourg.
I, who wish to marry, who desire it, and who, perhaps, may never marry,
for I wish to marry--in short, you know! But what you do not know is
this: in the first place, I have the most absolute kindliness, and the
will to let the being with whom I should have to walk through life
be happy as she wishes to be, never to shock her, and never be stern
except on one point, respect for social conventions. Love is a flower,
the seed of which is brought by the wind, and flowers where it drops.
It is as ridiculous to be angry with a woman because she does not love
us, as to be angry with fate for not giving us black hair when we have
red. In default of love, there is friendship; friendship is the secret
of conjugal life. One can bear not being loved, but this must not be
shown; it is losing half the fortune that remains to us, in despair at
having lost the other half.
This woman squinted, she was uncouth, her nature was horrible, but the
man was bent on having her; he lost his head a first time on seeing
an inferior being preferred to him, and he lost it a second time for
having lost it the first, in avenging himself. The woman was beneath
vengeance. I would not blame a woman too much for loving a king. But
if she loves Ruy Blas, it is vice that has put her there where she has
lowered herself; she no longer exists, she is not worth a pistol-shot.
That's enough said about it.
"Vautrin" is being mounted, vigorously. I have a rehearsal daily. When
you hold this letter in your hand, the great question will have been
decided. It is almost certain that "Vautrin" will be represented the
evening you hold this, for it will be between February 28 and March
5. A fortune in money and a fortune in literature are staked upon a
single evening! Frédérick Lemaître answers for its success. Harel, the
director, believes in it! As for me, I despaired of it ten days ago; I
thought the play stupid, and I was right. I wrote it all over again,
and I now think it passable. But it will always be a poor play. I have
yielded to the desire to put a romantic figure on the scene, and I did
wrong.
Yes, certainly, I want the view of Wierzchownia.
February 10.
T have surmounted many miseries, and if I have a success now they are
all over. Imagine, therefore, what will be my agony during the evening
when "Vautrin" is performed. In five hours of time it will be decided
whether I pay or do not pay my debts. I have been crushed by that
burden for fifteen years; it hampers the expansion of my life, it takes
from my heart its natural action, it stifles my thought, it soils my
existence, it embarrasses my movements, it stops my inspirations, it
weighs upon my conscience, it hinders all, it has barred my career,
it has broken my back, it has made me old. My God! have I paid dearly
enough for my place in the sun? All that calm future, that tranquillity
I need so much, all is about to be staked on a few hours, delivered
over to Parisian caprices, as it is at this moment to the censor.
Oh! how I need repose! I am forty years old. Forty years of suffering;
for the happiness I enjoyed beside an angel from 1823 to 1833 was the
counterpoise of an equal misery, and it needed strength to bear a joy
as infinite as pain. And then, how death put an end to that! and what a
death!--I sigh for the promised land of a tender marriage, weary as I
am of tramping this desert without water, scorching with sun and full
of Bedouins. Ten years hence, and who, good God! will care for me!
To go to see you is my constant desire; but for that I cannot leave
behind me either bills to pay or business, money anxieties or debts,
which still amount to sixty thousand francs at least; but "Vautrin" may
give them in four months!
Madame Visconti, of whom you speak to me, is one of the most amiable
of women, of an infinite, exquisite kindness; a delicate and elegant
beauty. She has helped me much to bear my life. She is gentle, but
full of firmness, immovable and implacable in her ideas and her
repugnances. She is a person to be depended on. She has not been
fortunate, or rather, her fortune and that of the count are not in
keeping with their splendid name; for the count is the representative
of the elder branch of the legitimatized sons of the last duke, the
famous Barnabo, who left none but natural children, some legitimatized,
others not so. It is a friendship which consoles me under many griefs.
But, unfortunately, I see her very seldom. Nothing is possible in a
life so busy as mine, and when one goes to bed at six to get up at
midnight. My system, my crushing obligations are all against my taking
any comfort. No one can come to see a workman who is fifteen hours at
his work, and I myself cannot fulfil any social duties. I see Madame
Visconti once a fortnight only, which is truly a grief to me, for she
and my sister are my only compassionating souls. My sister is in Paris,
Madame Visconti at Versailles, and I scarcely see them. Can that be
called living? You are in a desert at the farther end of Europe; I know
no other women in the world; I have the honour to assure you that no
one believes me overwhelmed by feminine hearts all at my orders, and
that I am, as to women, miserably neglected. What a savage joke! _Mon
Dieu!_ how stupid people are! There is in it a bitter sarcasm on the
hours when I sit gazing at the embers and thinking of my life with
bent head and wounded heart, and tears in my eyes; for to no one more
than to me would the daily happiness of nights and mornings be more
fitted. I have in my soul and in my character an equable quality which
would make a woman happy; I feel within me an infinite, inexhaustible
tenderness,--alas! without employment. Always to dream, always to wait,
to feel one's good days pass, to see youth torn out hair by hair, to
fold nothing in one's arms, yet find one's self accused of being a Don
Juan! A gross and empty Don Juan! There are moments when I envy my poor
sister Laurence lying these fifteen years in a coffin watered by our
tears.
February 14.
Adieu; I close this letter, placing in it for you as much affection as
in all the others put together. If "Vautrin" succeeds, the year 1840
will see me in your manor.
At this moment I am overwhelmed by work. I have in press "Pierrette,"
to which I must add another story to make the required two 8vo
volumes. I have a book to do for the "Presse," and also in the press
a novel in letters, which I shall call I don't know what, for "Sœur
Marie des Anges" is too long, and that is only one part of it. I must
finish all this to get my liberty of coming and going, which I have
never had since Geneva--no, I have never had but six weeks really to
myself, and for those escapades I paid dearly enough.
I am going to finish "La Torpille" and also "Les Lecamus" for the
"Siècle," and the last part of "Illusions Perdues," which is the end
of "Un Grand homme." And there is still the end of "Béatrix" to do, a
fourth Part, the last meeting of Calyste and Béatrix. In all, six works
to be done, besides two plays to be represented. What do you think of
that? Do you believe I have time to idle? Alas, I have not time to
think; I am swept onward by the current of labour as by a river. I have
scarcely a moment to write to you, and I take that from sleep. To yield
myself up to a thing of the heart is a luxury to me. How privileged are
the rich! And how little they know how to enjoy their facilities! I
think that money makes men dull. For the last three weeks I have hoped
that Rothschild would help me to arrange my affairs; I asked him to do
so. But bah! if I have to ask him twice, I prefer my poverty and toil.
Many tender things to you, dear. Present my remembrances and
friendships to all about you, and my wishes for the happiness of your
family. You have your wolves, I have my creditors; I wish I had no
wolves to encounter but your kind.
I hear that Colonel Frankowski, who took you the _cassolette_, is here.
Can I trust him with Anna's "Pierrette" and your pearls? Tell me;
answer this at once.
Adieu once more. Take all the flowers of sincere and faithful affection
here inclosed, pure, if any ever were so.
I open my letter to beg you not to write to M. de Custine. This is
imperative; you will soon understand why.
PARIS, March, 1840.
I am in bed, at my sister's house, ill since the day after the first
representation of "Vautrin." I left my bed to-day for the first time in
ten days. I have been well nursed by my sister. My illness, which is
nearly over, was an attack of cerebral neuralgia, caused by a draught
in a railway-carriage, which, combined with the mental condition in
which I was, gave me both a horrible fever, which I had, and the
atrocious sufferings of neuralgia.
You know, of course, by this time, that "Vautrin" has had the
misfortune to be forbidden by Louis-Philippe, who saw a caricature
of his own person in the fourth act, where Frédérick Lemaître plays
the part of an envoy from Mexico. Thus, I have but one representation
of the play to tell you of. The misfortune of the manager of the
Porte-Saint-Martin was that he was forced to let to unknown strangers a
large part of the house. The other part belonged partly to my enemies,
the journalists, and about a third to friends of mine and friends of
the manager and of the actors. I had expected some lively opposition;
but, in spite of hostile efforts, a great success in the sale of
tickets was obtained. That was all I wanted for the theatre and for
myself, when the prohibition came.[1]
Here, then, I was: Sunday, master of sixty thousand francs; Monday,
with nothing. First, all my agonies of money over; next, my position
more perilous than ever. Victor Hugo accompanied me to see the
minister, and we there acquired the certainty that the minister
himself counted for nothing in the prohibition, but Louis-Philippe
for all. Throughout this affair, at the representation and at the
ministry, Victor Hugo's conduct has been that of a true friend,
courageous, devoted; and when he heard I was ill he came to see me. I
have been well helped by George Sand and Mme. de Girardin. Frédérick
Lemaître has been sublime. But the affair of the likeness to Louis
Philippe was perhaps put forward against Harel, the manager of the
Porte-Saint-Martin, whose place he wanted. All this is still a mystery
to me. However it be, the blow has fallen. My situation is more painful
than it has ever been. Doctor Nacquart preaches vehemently a journey of
six weeks. Perhaps I can go to you.
Now, this is what has happened. The newspapers have been infamous; they
have said that the play was revolting in its immorality. I shall say
but one thing to you about that: read it! It may not be very good, but
it is eminently moral. Thereupon, the minister, to screen the royal
fury, made the pretext of immorality, which was cowardly and base.
One thing you may believe in, namely: terrible attacks on my part on
that tottering throne. It shall not have two farthings. I will be the
emulator and assistant of M. de Cormenin, and you shall see the effect
of my change from a peace footing to a war footing. I will have neither
truce nor armistice until I have driven----
[Footnote 1: Frédérick Lemaître, with or without satirical intention,
dressed himself as a Mexican general in a way to resemble Louis
Philippe, especially by wearing a wig rising to a point, giving his
head the famous pear shape for which that of Louis-Philippe was
ridiculed.--TR.]
May, 1840.
Nothing can better paint to you my life than this interruption. After
six weeks' delay I must finish a sentence left unfinished in my desk
without the possibility of returning to it. The end of that sentence
is: "claws of steel into their hearts." I resume my narrative.
They came and offered me indemnities; five thousand francs to begin
with. I blushed to the roots of my hair, and replied that I accepted no
alms; that I had earned two hundred thousand francs' worth of debts in
doing sundry masterpieces which counted for something in the sum total
of the glory of France in the nineteenth century; that I had been three
months rehearsing "Vautrin," during which time I might have earned by
other work twenty-five thousand francs; that a pack of creditors were
after me, but that if I could not pay them all, I did not care whether
I was hunted by fifty or a hundred of them; and that my dose of courage
to resist was the same. The director of the Beaux-Arts, Cavé, went
away, saying that he was full of esteem and admiration for me. "This is
the first time," he said, "that I have ever been refused." "So much the
worse," I replied.
Since I wrote you the two preceding pages my life has been that of
a stag at bay. I have come and gone about Paris helped by friends.
And now, without a farthing, I begin the fight once more. Frédérick
Lemaître will entice other actors, and I have obtained permission to
present a new play, in five acts, at one of the closed theatres; about
six weeks hence we shall re-appear, and then we shall see!
AUX JARDIES, May 10.
_Cara_, I have just received your last letter, and again I must
complain of the rarity of those letters. Oh! do not let what I have
written of my distresses keep you from writing to me monthly. If I
do not write to you as often in my periods of trouble, do not blame
my heart. I often make my prayer to Hope, turning my face toward the
Ukraine. Do not punish me for my confidences, which may, which must
sadden you. Alas! with what rapidity time is flying. How many white
hairs are in my head, faithful to all, even to toil.
You are laughing at me, and that is not right. Madame Visconti is an
Englishwoman, not an Italian; and I have no vanity in my friendships;
you know that. A man as busy as I am can attend very little to trifles.
Certainly, I will acknowledge that I am not without the vanity of love,
and I think that when we love we ought to love in all ways, and be very
happy to see _la dilecta_ carry off the palm from others in even the
smallest things,--her toilet, for instance. I should have all those
weaknesses, including blazons. But this was no ground on which to twit
me; look in your mirror, dress yourself very elegantly to-morrow, and
vindicate me, _cara_.
Every one comes up to me in Paris, admiring my courage as much and even
more than the rest. They thought me crushed, buried under my disaster,
and hearing that I am about to deliver battle once more, both friends
and enemies have been equally surprised.
Frédérick Lemaître rejected my drama of "Richard Cœur d'Éponge,"
saying that _paternity_ was a selfish sentiment which had little chance
of success with the masses. Moreover, he was not pleased with the
dénouement; and as one must only give him things to play that he likes
to play, I have been under the necessity of finding another play. It is
found at last, and I write to you in the midst of labours necessitated
by "Mercadet." "Mercadet" is the battle of a man against his creditors,
and the schemes he employs to escape them. It is exclusively a comedy,
and I hope this time to reach success, and also to satisfy literary
requirements.
Besides doing this comedy I am at this moment finishing "Le Curé de
village," one of the works to be included in the "Scènes de la Vie de
campagne," and by no means the least of them. But it needs much labour
to add a book to the "Lys dans la Vallée" and "Le Médecin de campagne."
However, I hope that "Le Curé" will surpass both; and you will think
it does yourself; for the "Curé de village" is the application of
Catholic repentance to civilization, just as the "Médecin de campagne"
is the application of philanthropy; and the first is far more poetic
and loftier. One is of man; the other is of God.
I shall do this year "Les Paysans" which has been composed these two
years, and the proofs are in my hands. But hunted as I am, without any
tranquillity, I cannot give myself up to my literary sympathies. I do
only that which is most pressing.
"Pierrette" is not yet out. You know why. Carried along by truth,
by the drama, it was necessary to speak of marriage and the results
of marriage. But you will see that all is kept to the most decorous
language. I don't know when it will please the publisher to bring out
the book. Wait for the Paris edition of both "Pierrette" and "Vautrin;"
ask Bellizard for the third edition; that is the only good one, and it
has a scene added.
I hope to publish this year a complete edition of the four Parts of the
"Études de Mœurs," and I have before me still to do the "Scènes de la
Vie politique" and "Scènes de la Vie militaire;" two rather long and
very difficult portions. It will take me at least six years to get to
the end of them.
I have great need to-day to feel my wounds nursed and healed, to be
able to live without cares at Les Jardies, and to pass my days with
my work and a woman. But it seems that the history of all other men
will never be other than a romance for me. Debts are a burden under
which I must succumb. Since the reckoning I gave you in Geneva--do you
remember?--nothing has changed; I have lived, and I have marked my
place, that is all. I have sustained myself on the surface of the waves
by swimming. God grant that I may not go under! but you will pray for
my soul's rest, will you not?