[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, at Wierzchownia.]
Dear countess, I have received your letter of September 25; it came
last night, that is, in fifteen days only. I am not very well;
yesterday I went to the doctor; the neuralgia must be fought with
leeches and a little blister; that will take three or four days. I
have been doing "César Birotteau" with my feet in mustard, and I am
now writing "Les Paysans" with my head in opium. Within ten days I
have written six thousand lines for the "Presse;" I must get through by
October 30. Your letter is still another reason for haste; for if you
travel, I must be ready.
My illness has reached a height. This inflammation of the coating of
the nerves, caused undoubtedly by a strong draught, produces pain
effects just as scene painters produce scenic effects. For fifteen
nights I have worked at "Les Paysans" in spite of my sufferings. So
you see there has been no journey to Belgium. Do not be uneasy, dear
countess; your advice as to the travelling lady is not needed; I had
already told myself that, for your sake, I ought to pay attention to
the follies of public opinion; we have, as usual, thought alike.
It is four in the morning; I must go to bed and put leeches into my
right ear; but I would not let these three days be added to your
expectation. Before M. Gavault's departure, thirty thousand francs
had been offered for Les Jardies; but the value of land in the Allée
des Veuves is increasing, and I have told the notary to stop the
negotiation. Was this wise? I shall wait; perhaps I shall find a house,
ready built and cheap. This neuralgia hinders me very much; for I have
to do a work for Chlendowski, who is a great wrangler, just as you
predicted; you were right, as usual; I may be paid, but one thing is
very certain, I will do no more business with him.
How right you were to give me some hope for Dresden or Frankfort,
because, during these last days, I have been so unhappy while working;
I wanted to quit everything and go to you at Wierzchownia. Leave
me hope; is it not all I have? Ah! if you have understood the sad
and tender words I say to you, you must look upon yourself, if not
with pride at least with a certain complacency. The greatness of my
affection renders petty all the great difficulties of my life. I have
amazed everybody by saying that I shall do the twenty thousand lines
of "Les Paysans" during the month of October. No one believed me; not
even the newspaper. But when they saw me writing six thousand lines
in ten days they were awe-struck. The compositors are reading the
work, a thing that does not happen once in a hundred times; a murmur
of admiration runs through them; and this is the more extraordinary
because the work is directed against the multitude and democracy.
Your letter has been much delayed; in my impatience I demanded the head
of all the Rzewuskis, except yours; do not frown that aristocratic
brow, but think of my toil, my sufferings without comfort!
I am glad you have seen clearly about the poor nun! [1] She abandoned
you only for God; and that was a little your fault; your example,
your reading, your advice, led her there forcibly. Do not be uneasy
about her; she is happy where she is; she hopes to be soon received as
novice. I hope that if you wish to send her anything you will make use
of me. At the present moment I can easily give her in your name one or
two thousand francs without embarrassing myself in the least. I am a
rich pauper just now.
You say you have still time to receive a letter from me before your
departure. I hasten, as you see, to send you my news of mind and body.
I have not been out of the house for twenty days. In point of fact I
live in the condition of stupidity produced by forced labour. I have,
besides, my little Hetzel articles to do. That poor fellow wants to
sell twenty thousand copies of "Le Diable," and he has printed fifteen
thousand. Your serf has contributed thereto a quantity of that sly
nonsense which pleases the masses. To have paid twenty thousand francs
of debt, and to find myself in December on the road to Dresden, "Les
Paysans" finished, that is my dream, and a dream that must, and will,
be realized; otherwise, I don't know how I could live through 1845.
There comes a moment for the _madness_ of hope; and I have reached
it. I have so strained my life to this end that I feel all within me
cracking. I would I did not think, and did not feel. Oh, how can I
tell you of the hours I have sat, during these twenty days, leaning on
my elbow, and looking at the salon in Petersburg and at Wierzchownia,
those two poles of my thought, of which the south pole was before me in
its frame. Hope and reality, the past, the future, jostled one another
in a medley of memories that gave me a vertigo. Ah! you stand there
indeed, in my life, in my heart, in my soul; there is hardly a motion
of my pen, nor a thought of my mind that is not a ray from the one
centre, you, you only, you too well beloved--whatever you may say to it.
The death of your cousin Thaddeus grieves me. You have told me so
much of him that you made me love one who loved you so well. You have
doubtless guessed why I called Paz Thaddeus, and gave him the character
and sentiments of your poor cousin. But while you weep for his loss
tell yourself that I will love you for all those whose love you lose.
Poor, dear countess, the situation in which you are and which you
depict so well has made me smile, because it was exactly my own before
your last letter. "Shall I or shall I not do 'Les Paysans'?" "Shall
I or shall I not start?" "What ought I to do? Ought I to bind myself
to my work? Ought I to refuse it?" and so forth. I cut the knot by
going to work, saying to myself, "If I do go, I will drop all as at
Lagny in 1843." Nacquart said to me brutally yesterday, while writing
his prescriptions, "You will die." "No," I said, "I have a private
God of my own; a God stronger than all diseases." "I hope," he said,
"that if you marry, you will take two years for rest." "Two years,
doctor!--why, I shall rest till my last breath, if by rest you mean
happiness."
[Footnote 1: Madame Hanska's governess and companion, Mlle. Henriette
(Lirette) Borel; who became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church, and
took the veil in Paris, as will be seen later--TR.]
October 16.
This interruption, dear, is the result of the doctor's prescriptions.
I have not left my bed; leeches were necessary and blisters for three
or four days; but this morning the symptoms and the atrocious pain of
this inflammation have ceased. In three days, at the latest, I can
resume my work. These few days given to doctoring have been days of
pleasure to me; for, when I am not working with that absorption of all
the mental and physical faculties I can think unceasingly of 1845; I
arrange houses, I furnish them, I see myself in them, I feel myself
happy there. I go over in my mind all those moments, so few, that we
have spent together; I quarrel with myself for not having prolonged
those hours of sweet and intimate converse.
Dear, ungrateful one; you have hardly noticed my persistency in
satisfying your little wish for autographs. I send you to-day one of
Peyronnet; I shall try to get you those of all the ministers who signed
the duly ordinances.
Are you really satisfied with this young man? [1] Examine him well,
and without predilections, for such excellent prospects for your child
will certainly contribute to make the suitor seem perfect. But I don't
know why I should advise prudence and shrewdness to one who has stolen
all the wits of the Rzewuskis, and has eyes at the tips of her little
white-mouse paws. At any rate, dear countess, manage your affairs
wisely, and, above all, soften the Governmental dragon of the North.
I am exactly like a bird on a branch; it is necessary that I should
leave the rue Basse and go elsewhere, where I can be more suitably
lodged. I am like my dear traveller, with her packages and provisions.
I dare not do anything; for if I go to Dresden for four months I ought
to postpone incurring expenses; besides, I would rather incur them
definitively then than provisionally now. My nature abhors change; that
is an aspect of my character you have already been forced to recognize,
and will recognize more and more; you will even admire it, and end by
no longer thanking me for the things of the heart; discovering that
this vast devotion is warranted by the Rzewuski intellect and the
charms of the person whom you see in your mirror.
How could you recommend me your perfumer? I have thought much about
him. I anathematize Viardot for not having told me of his arrival; you
should have had your supply before now. But if we meet in Dresden, dear
countess, you shall have perfumes for the rest of your days, I will
answer for that. We have the same vices, for I too carry the passion
for delicate scents to a fault.
Alas! I must bid you adieu; but remember that you have left me nearly
a month without letters, that you are not in Paris and have no
feuilletons to excuse you. Apropos, I have been three times to the
Arsenal, but have not yet obtained Nodier's autograph; but I shall have
it.
They tell me that David has finished my bust in marble, and that
the marble is not less fine than the cast. It will be, no doubt, in
the next Exhibition. You can hardly imagine how I regret not having
bought that malachite vase; I have found, for three hundred francs, a
magnificent pedestal which would have spared me the immense cost of the
one I had made here in bronze.
I am still ill and must now stop. Perhaps I shall be able to give you
better news before closing this letter.
[Footnote 1: Count Georges Mniszech, a suitor to her daughter, and
subsequently Anna's husband--TR.]
October 17.
All is well; the neuralgic pains have disappeared as if by magic, and
if I have not finished my letter it is because I have slept twelve
hours running under the quietude of non-suffering.
Adieu, dear beloved sovereign. Examine well that young Count Mniszech;
it concerns the whole life of your child. I am glad you have found the
first point, that of taste and personal sympathy, so necessary for
her happiness and yours, satisfactory. But study him; be as stern in
judgment as if you did not like him. The things to be considered above
all are principles, character, firmness. But how stupid of me to be
giving this advice to the best and most devoted of mothers!
I resume work to-morrow. I cannot give you any news of Lirette, having
been unable to go to her convent while my illness and its prescriptions
lasted.
I hunger and thirst for your dear presence, star of my life, far
away, but ever present. Perhaps you think thus of me, sometimes. Who
knows? But alas! you have written to me very little of late. I, so
occupied by work, so often ill, I write to you nearly every day. Ah!
the reason is that I love you. I feel your indifference, I was going
to say ingratitude, deeply; so exasperated am I by this interval of a
whole long month. You would be frightened if you knew what ideas plough
through me. And then, when the letter comes at last, all is forgotten.
I am like a mother who has found her child. But I must not let my
letter end with reproaches.
Find here all my heart, all my faith, all my thought, and all my life.
PASSY, October 21, 1844.
I am perfectly well again and have gone back to work. This is a piece
of good news worth telling you at once. But oh! dearest, a year is a
year, don't you see? The heart cannot deceive itself; it suffers its
own pains in spite of the false remedies of hope--Hope! is it anything
else than pain disguised? I look at that Colmann sketch of the salon,
and every look is a stab; the thought of it enters my heart like a
sharp blade. Between that sketch and the picture of Wierzchownia is
the door of my study,--and that door represents to me infinite space,
spreading away among the memories attached to that furniture, to those
blue hangings. "We were there together; she is now there and I am
here!" That is my cry, and each look, each stab redoubles it. Why did
not Colmann paint the other side of the salon? Why not have done the
stove and the little table before the stove, beside which you said to
me things so compassionate, so sweet, so fraternally reasonable? Ah! I
would give my blood to hear them once again.
Madame Bocarmé has returned. Bettina adores your serf, in all honour
and propriety. She tells me that Colmann's fifty water-colours are
masterpieces, and he is to Russia what Pinelli is to Rome.
I went out for the first time yesterday. I bought a clock of regal
magnificence, and two vases of celadon not less magnificent. And
all for nearly nothing. Great news! a rich amateur has a desire for
my Florentine furniture. He is coming here to see it. I want forty
thousand francs for it. Another piece of news! The Christ of Girardon,
bought for two hundred francs, is estimated at five thousand, and
at twenty thousand with Brustolone's frame. And yet you laugh, dear
countess, at my proceedings in the Kingdom of Bricabracquia. Dr.
Nacquart is violently opposed to my selling, even at a great price,
these magnificent things. He says: "In a few months you will be out
of your present position by this dogged work of yours; and then those
magnificences will be your glory." "I like money better," I replied.
So, you see, Harpagon played poet, and the poet Harpagon.
Dear, believe me, I cannot always suffer thus. Do you reflect upon it?
Another delay! When "Les Paysans" is finished, and the articles for
Chlendowski also, I claim a word from you permitting me to join you
in your steppes, that is, if your difficulties in obtaining a passport
still continue and are permanent.
I have found a most splendid pedestal for David's bust, which every
one says is an amazing success. This beautiful thing cost me only
three hundred francs, and the late Alibert, for whom it was made, paid
fifteen or sixteen thousand francs for it.
Dear countess, I should like your advice on something I want to do.
It is impossible for me to remain where I am. A few steps from my
present lodging is a house which could be hired for a thousand to
fifteen hundred francs, where one could live as well on fifteen hundred
francs a year as on fifty thousand. I am inclined to hire it for a
number of years and settle in it. I could very well economize and lay
by enough to buy a small house in Paris, if I did not live in it for
some years. One can come and go between Passy and Paris as one likes,
with a carriage. But to settle myself in it would cost very nearly
six thousand francs, and I would not make that outlay for the King of
Prussia, when I have twenty thousand francs to pay between now and
January 1. All could be made smooth by the sale of that Florentine
furniture. The "Musée des Familles" does not publish the engravings
of it and Gozlan's article till December, so that public attention
will not be aroused till January. The bidding will be between the
_dilettanti_ and capitalists as soon as they see and know what it is.
As to your plan, I would rather renounce tranquillity than obtain it
at that price. When a man has troubled his country and intrigued in
court and city, like Cardinal Retz, he may evade paying his debts at
Commercy; but in our bourgeois epoch a man cannot leave his own place
without paying all he owes; otherwise he would seem to be escaping
his creditors. In these days we may be less grand, less dazzling,
but we are certainly more orderly, perhaps more honourable than the
great seigneurs of the great century. This comes, probably, from our
altered understanding of what honour and duty mean; we have placed
their meaning elsewhere, and the reason is simple enough. Those great
seigneurs were the actors on a great stage, who played their parts to
be admired; and they were paid for doing so. _We_ are now the paying
public which acts only for itself and by itself. Do not, therefore,
talk to me of Switzerland or Italy, or anything of that kind; my best,
my only country is the space between the walls of the _octroi_ and
the fortifications of Paris. If I leave it, it will only be to see
you, as you well know. I should have done so already had you permitted
it. Therefore, work with your little white-mouse paws to enlarge
the hole of your jail, so that the hour of your liberation may come
the sooner. Formerly I lived by that hope: now I die of it. I have
feverish impatiences, doubts; I fear everything,--war, the death of
Louis-Philippe, an illness, a revolution; in short, obstacles are
ever springing up in my agonized imagination. I see how your personal
affairs hamper and weary you; and your inexhaustible kindness wearies
also.
Thinking sadly of all this, looking out into the void for your
interests and those of your child, I have thought of an admirable
affair in which one hundred thousand francs risked might make colossal
returns. I mean the publication of an encyclopedia for primary
instruction. If well planned, the fame of a Parmentier is in it; for
such a book is like a potato of education, a necessity, a fabulous
bargain. I have faith in such an affair, and I am at this moment
considering the manuscript. Oh! if you were here, or at least in
the same city, how well things would go! what new courage I should
have! what fresh sources would gush up! But absence gives drouth and
sterility to ideas as well as to existence.
I am glad that young Mniszech pleases you as well as the dear child.
Keep me _au courant_ of matters so important for the future of both of
you. In heaven's name, write me regularly three times a month. Think
of my work and how you are everywhere in my study. When I look at your
surroundings I cannot help taking a pen and scribbling a few words as
full of affection as they are of murmurs. If I go to Dresden, I shall
postpone the affair of the house.
Adieu; take care of your health, your child, your property, since they
preoccupy you to the point of making you forget your most faithful
friends.