[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska at Dresden.]
Could I write to you safely before receiving your counter-order, for
your last letter told me not to write to you at Dresden? Since that
letter I have only had a few lines written in haste, in which the
_status quo_ was maintained and to which there was no way of answering.
I have even a certain uneasiness in observing that you do not speak
of my last letters. One of them contained an article entitled "Les
Boulevards," and I asked your advice about it. There is one observation
that I wish to make, merely for the sake of clearing the matter up. I
am sure that you send your letters to the post by some unfaithful hand,
for the two last were not prepaid, and you had doubtless given the
order to do so. Therefore, either prepay them yourself or do not prepay
them at all. Let us begin, as we did at Petersburg, in each paying
our own letter. Take, I entreat you, habits of order and economy. In
travelling, you will have incessant need of your money; it is bad
enough to be robbed by innkeepers, without letting others do so. For
the twelve years that I have now known you I have posted all my letters
to you with my own hand.
Poor dear countess! how many things I have to say to you! But first of
all, let us talk business. Without your inexorable prohibition I should
have been in Dresden a month ago, at the Stadt-Rom, opposite to the
Hotel de Saxe, and if you have raised it let me know by return mail.
As you are fully resolved, and your child also, to see Lirette again,
there is but one means of doing so, and that is to come to Paris. And
the only way to make that journey is as follows: Come to Frankfort
and establish yourself there; then propose a trip on the Rhine; begin
with Mayence, where you will find me with a passport for my sister and
niece. From there you take the mail-cart and go to Paris, where you can
stay from March 15 to May 15, without a word to any one. After which
you can return to Frankfort, where I will join you later. As you will
have seen no one during the few days you are first in Frankfort, you
will attract no attention, and no one will notice you on your return.
Only be sure you get from your ambassador a passport for Frankfort
_and_ the banks of the Rhine.
I shall have found, meantime, for both of you, a small furnished
apartment at Chaillot, not far from Passy. You can see the great city
at your ease _incognito_. There are a dozen theatres for Anna, as she
likes them so much, and you want to amuse her. That will give you
plenty to do, without counting your visits to the convent, which would
be more frequent than those to the theatre if you consulted your own
tastes; but your tastes are so mingled with those of your daughter,
and you spend your lives in each sacrificing to the other so much,
that it is impossible to tell which of you wants a thing or does not
want it. You need spend very little, if you are willing to travel like
a bachelor, and keep a total silence on the escapade.[1] You will see
the Exhibition, the theatres, and the public buildings, and I will
have tickets for the concerts at the Conservatoire; in short, I shall
arrange that you shall enjoy all that can be put into two months. There
is my plan.
But in such things, boldness and secrecy, little luggage, only the
simple necessaries, are required. You will find what you want here, of
better quality and cheaper than elsewhere,--that is, comparatively to
the prices I have seen you pay for your gowns and chiffons in Italy
and Germany. At Chaillot you shall find a nice little apartment and
servants--cook, maid, and valet--for two months. In the morning you can
go about Paris on foot, or in a _fiacre_, to diminish distances. In
the evening you would have a carriage of your own. If you follow this
programme and do not go into society, there is no possibility of your
meeting any one.
Nevertheless, my good angels, reflect well, and do not let your
affection for your friend entice you too much. Weigh all the
inconveniences and dangers of this journey; however immense would be to
me the pleasure of showing Paris to both of you, explaining it to you,
and initiating you into its life, I would rather renounce it all than
expose you to anything that might cause regret. Examine, therefore, all
I have foreseen, and if you think the risks too great, renounce our
mirage. We must not give ourselves eternal regrets for two months of
a pleasure that is only delayed,--that of seeing the face of a friend
through the bars of a convent.
[Footnote 1: Secrecy was required, as Russians in those days were not
allowed to travel in foreign countries without a special permit from
their government, which was difficult to obtain.--TR.]
February 15, 1845.
Dear countess; the uncertainty of your arrival at Frankfort has weighed
heavily upon me; for how could I work, expecting every hour a letter
which might make me start at once? I have not written a line of the
conclusion of "Les Paysans." This uncertainty has disorganized me
completely. From the point of view of mere material interests it is
fatal. In spite of your fine intelligence, you can never comprehend
this, for you know nothing of Parisian economy, or the painful
straits of a man who tries to live on six thousand francs a year. For
this reason, I must quit Passy; but I dare do nothing, I can make
no plans on account of your uncertainty. But the worst of all is
the impossibility of occupying my mind. How can I throw myself into
absorbing labour with the idea before me of soon starting, and starting
to see you? It is impossible. To do so I need to have neither head nor
heart. I have been tortured and agitated as I never was in my life
before. It is a triple martyrdom, of the heart, of the head, of the
interests, and, my imagination aiding, it has been so violent that I
declare to you I am half dazed,--so dazed, that to escape madness I
have taken to going out in the evening and playing lansquenet at Madame
Merlin's and other places. I had to apply a blister to such disease.
Luckily, I neither lost nor won. I have been to the Opera, and dined
out twice, and tried to lead a gay life for the last fortnight. But now
I shall try to work night and day, and finish "Les Paysans" and a bit
of a book for Chlendowski.
I send you by the Messageries the eleventh volume of LA COMÉDIE
HUMAINE, in which you will find "Splendeurs et Misères des
courtisanes." The fourth volume contains _your_ "Modeste Mignon" and
the end of "Béatrix," also "Le Diable à Paris." These books may perhaps
amuse you; but in any case, tell me your opinion of them as you have
always done,--namely, with the sincerity of a fraternal soul and the
sagacity and sure judgment of a true critic. If the reduction of my
bust by David is made in time, I will send you that also.
Not only is the finishing of "Les Paysans" an absolute necessity before
which _all_ must yield relatively to literature and the reputation
which I have for loyalty to pen engagements, but it is an absolute
necessity for my interests. This year is a climacteric in my affairs.
Within forty-live days the printing of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE will be
finished. The publishers have put the two largest printing-offices in
Paris on it, and I am obliged to read twice the usual number of proofs.
The result will be a sum of importance to me. But I cannot leave Passy
till my present debts are paid. Therefore I must finish "Les Paysans"
and LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, and "Les Petits Bourgeois" and "Le Théâtre
comme il est." But, dear countess, you have made me lose all the month
of January and the fifteen first days of February by saying to me:
"I start--to-morrow--next week," and by making me wait for letters;
in short, by throwing me into rages which none but I know of. It has
brought a frightful disorder into my affairs, for instead of getting
my liberty February 15, I have before me a month of herculean labour,
and on my brain I must inscribe (to be rejected by my heart) the words:
"Think no longer of your star, nor of Dresden, nor of travel; stay at
your chain and toil miserably."
Dear, what I call toil is something that must be seen, no prose
can depict it; what I have done for a month past would lay any
well-organized man on his back. I have corrected the thirteenth and
fourteenth volumes of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, which contain "La Peau
de Chagrin," "La Recherche de l'Absolu," "Melmoth réconcilié," "Le
Chef d'œuvre inconnu," "Jésus-Christ en Flandres," "Les Chouans,"
"Le Médecin de campagne," and "Le Curé de village." I have finished
"Béatrix;" I have written and corrected the articles for "Le Diable
à Paris;" and I have settled some affairs. All that is nothing; that
is not working. Working, dear countess, is getting up regularly at
midnight, writing till eight o'clock, breakfasting in fifteen minutes,
working till five o'clock, dinner, and going to bed; to begin again
at midnight. From this travail there issue five volumes in forty-five
days. It is what I shall begin as soon as this letter is written. I
must do six volumes of "Les Paysans," and six folios of LA COMÉDIE
HUMAINE, inasmuch as that is all that is needed to complete the
edition, which is in seventeen volumes. I hope for another edition in
1846, and that will be in twenty-four volumes, and may give me two
hundred thousand francs.
So this is my report on the affairs of your servitor and the journey of
your Grace.
Now, let me come to that which is more serious than all,--I mean that
tinge of sadness which I see on your Olympian brow. What! because a
crazy woman cannot be happy, must she come and spoil your comfort
and trouble your heart? And you listen to her, _you!_ Take care, for
that is a crime of lese-comradeship, lese-brotherhood. And you write
me things mournful enough to kill the devil. In your last but one
letter you propose to me gracefully, with those Russian forms you must
have borrowed for the occasion, a little congress in which the two
high powers should decide whether or not to continue their alliance
offensive and defensive. That, my dear lady, is, believe me, a greater
crime than those you joke me about; for I have never needed any such
consultation.
Since 1833, you know very well that I love you, not only like one
beside himself, but like a see-er, with eyes wide open; and ever since
that period, I have always and ceaselessly had a heart full of you. The
errors for which you blame me are fatal human necessities, very truly
judged by your Excellency herself. But I have never doubted that I
should be happy with you.
Dear countess, I decidedly advise you to leave Dresden at once. There
are princesses in that town who infect and poison your heart; were it
not for "Les Paysans" I should have started at once to prove to that
venerable invalid of Cythera how men of my stamp love; men who have not
received, like her prince, a Russian pumpkin in place of a French heart
from the hands of a hyperborean Nature. In France, we are gay and witty
and we love, gay and witty and we die, gay and witty and we create, gay
and witty and withal constitutional, gay and witty and we do things
sublime and profound! We hate _ennui_, but we have none the less heart;
we tend to things gay and witty, curled and frizzed and smiling; that
is why it is sung of us, to a splendid air, "Victory, singing, opens
our career!" It makes others take us for a frivolous people--we, who
at this moment are applauding the disquisitions of George Sand, Eugène
Sue, Gustave de Beaumont, de Toqueville, Baron d'Eckstein, and M.
Guizot. We a frivolous people! under the reign of money-bags and his
Majesty Louis-Philippe! Tell your dear princess that France knows how
to love. Tell her that I have known you since 1833, and that in 1845 I
am ready to go from Paris to Dresden to see you for a day; and it is
not impossible I may do so; for if Tuesday next I am lucky at cards at
Comtesse Merlin's, I shall be on Sunday, 23d, at the Hôtel de Rome in
Dresden, and leave on the 24th.
Dear star of the first magnitude, I see with pain by your letter that
you commit the fault of defending me when I am blamed in your presence,
and of taking fire on my account. But you don't reflect, dear, that
that is a trap set for you by the infamous galley-slaves of society's
galleys, to enjoy your embarrassment. When persons say ill of me before
you, there is but one thing to do,--turn those who calumniate me into
ridicule by outdoing what they say. Tell them: "If he escapes public
indignation it is because he is so clever he blunts the sword of the
law." That is what Dumas did to some one who told him his father was a
negro: "My grandfather was a monkey," he replied.
No, when I think that I might leave here January 1, reach Dresden
the 7th, and stay till February 7th, thus seeing you one whole month
without detriment to my affairs, that I could then return to my desk
happy, refreshed, full of ardour for work, a transport seizes me which
eddies and whirls like steam as it hisses from its valve. I see that
you are completely ignorant of what you are to me. That does honour to
neither your judgment nor your penetration. To-day, that delightful
escapade has become impossible to me. March 1, I must regulate the sale
of Les Jardies; the legal formalities must be fulfilled in order to put
that precious thirty thousand francs aside; LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE must be
finished to obtain the fifteen thousand francs that are due to me for
it; and finally, I must make up the sixty-three thousand for my acre,
if I buy it, and to pay off twenty-five thousand of debt which would
otherwise prevent my becoming a land-owner.
Villemain is at Chaillot; he is no more crazy than you or I. [Minister
of Public Instruction till 1844, and Secretary of the Academy.] He
has had a few hallucinations which have affected his ideas, just as
I had some that affected my use of words in 1832 at Saché; I have
related that to you already; I uttered words involuntarily. But he is
so thoroughly cured that he speaks of the matter with the wisdom and
coolness of a physician. He had already declined very much in talent,
and was no longer fit to negotiate with the clergy, and they profited
by his resignation to get rid of him. We talked of it, he and I, for
more than two hours. From what he told me, I judge that he is forever
lost to public life.
Adieu; I perceive that I bid you adieu in my letters as I said
good-night to you at Petersburg in the Hotel Koutaitsof, when we walked
for ten minutes from the sofa to the door and from the door to the
sofa, unable to say a final adieu. If I could do the second part of
"Les Paysans" in eight days, I would be off, and see you in six days!
Tell yourself that there never passes an hour that you are not in my
thoughts; as for my heart, you are always and unceasingly there.
The winter has set in with great severity. You are right to stay in
Dresden. Avoid, I entreat you, those sudden changes from heat to cold
and cold to heat of which you tell me. It is right to think, as you do,
incessantly of your child; but it would be wrong, and not loving to
her, to always forget yourself for her. Of all the personages whom you
mention to me none but Countess L... attracts me. That amiable old lady
who welcomed you as the daughter of Count Rzewuski goes to my heart,
she belongs to my world. As for Lara, do me the pleasure not to receive
him in future.
Did I tell you that they named the _bœuf gras_ this year Père Goriot,
and that many jokes and caricatures are made upon it at my expense?
This is a scrap of news. I am vexed not to go to Dresden, for I had
not the time when I was there solely to see the Gallery, to view
the country about and go to Kulm, in order to write my "Bataille de
Dresde." That will be one of the most important parts of the "Scènes de
la Vie militaire."
_À bientôt_; take care of yourself, and tell your dear child all
tenderly loving things from one of the most sincere and faithful
friends she will ever have, not excepting her husband, for I love her
as her father loved her.
PASSY, April 3, 1845.
I have just received your letter of March 27, and I know not what
to think of all you say to me of mine. I, to give you pain, or the
slightest grief! I, whose constant thought is to spare you pain! The
epithet _meutrière_ applied to my language makes me bound. _Mon Dieu_,
however good my intentions were, it seems that I have hurt you, and
that is enough. When we see each other, you will comprehend, perhaps,
how the uncertainty that hovers over me is fatal; fatal to my interests
so seriously involved; fatal to my happiness because I see myself
separated from you--for a month more at any rate, for I have not
written a line and I could not now be at Frankfort before the first
week in May. Under such irritating circumstances it was permissible to
be impatient. Besides which, I write my letters very hastily, and never
read them over. I say what is in my mind without any reflection; if I
had re-read that letter I might have made of it (as I have of others
_in which I raised my voice too high_) a sacrifice to Vulcan.
However, let me tell you that there are two hearts here that are full
of you and love you for yourself only: Lirette and I. Lirette, with
whom I have been talking at her convent grating of your situation,
shares my ideas wholly as to the future about which I have made
allusion, and apropos of which I have, perhaps indiscreetly, given
you some really wise counsel. As to the personal dangers _to me_ of
which you speak, those are things I laugh at; you are not as familiar
with them as I. Here, in Paris, there are plenty of persons who
dislike me and would be glad to have me out of the world, men who
have hatreds that are more than ferocious against me, but who bow to
me all the same. It is possible that, like Carter when he undertook
to tame two lions, I might find your Saxons rather too ferocious and
my lion-taming trade a little too visible. But I can assure you, dear
countess, that if that fear is the cause of the dreadful three months
I have just passed, ah! dear fraternal heart, I should be the one to
say the words which I have kissed in your letter: "I forgive you!" I
have contemplated those words with tears in my eyes; in them is the
whole of your adorable nature. You thought yourself affronted by your
most faithful servant, the most devoted that ever could be, and you
forgave him. I have been more moved by that than by all my griefs
put together. Oh! thank you for the pain that makes me fathom your
perfection; pardon me for having misjudged you; be _you_, yourself, as
much as you wish; do all that you will, and if, by impossibility, you
do wrong, it shall be my joy to repair the broken armour. I was wrong.
I was guilty and very guilty, because to goodness one should ever
respond by gentleness and adoration. Write me little or much, or do not
write me at all; I shall suffer, but say nothing. Do what you think
best for your future and that of your child; only, do not root yourself
too firmly in the present; look always before you, and tear out the
brambles in the path before you follow it.
Another academician is dead, Soumet, and five or six others are
declining to the tomb; the force of things may make me an academician
in spite of your ridicule and repugnance.
I have done everything I could to remain at Passy, where I live
tranquilly and comfortably, but all has failed. I have notice to leave
in October of this year, and I must move to Paris and live for two
years in an apartment, until I can build a little house at Monceau.
I shall look for one in the faubourg Saint-Germain. This removal
means the spending of several thousand francs, which I regret. My
money-matters, even more than my work, imperatively require me to stay
in Paris through April.
I am almost certain of recovering my habits of work and those of food
and sleeping; and if the difficulty of the lodging were only solved, I
should have tranquillity of soul, for this house is at my disposition
and I can remove at my ease, working here till the last moment.
Sunday, half-past two o'clock.
I have just risen. I look at my Daffinger with delight. At last I
received your letter, yesterday. Imagine, dear, what a real misfortune
happened to me. Your letter had a spot of ink which glued it to
another letter, and delayed it, as was stated by the post on its
envelope. The post-mistress, who for two days had seen my anxiety,
cried out eagerly when she saw me, "Monsieur, here's a letter!" and
held it for me to see with a joy that did her honour. And what a
letter! I read it, walking gently along in solitary places. To read
things so charming addressed to one's self is enough to make one never
write a line again, but lie at the feet of one's sovereign like her
faithful dog. Finally, I went to sleep, for I must own I had not closed
my eyes for two days, so much did this delay disquiet me.
PASSY, April 18, 1845.
You write me, "I want to see you!" Well, then, when you hold this
letter between your dainty fingers may they tremble a little, for I
shall be very near to you, at Eisenach, at Erfurt, I don't know where,
for I shall follow my letter closely. This is Friday; I shall leave
Sunday at the latest.
What! you could receive an order from your government to return to your
own country, and I not see you! Oh! dear countess; and you tell me I
have been amusing myself. But you know my life from the letters in
which it is written down day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute;
you have surely read, you surely know that my only pleasures are
thinking of you, and proving it to you by writing. I have spent these
last five months in saying to myself every day: "I start to-morrow; I
shall see her! if only for a month, for two minutes, I shall see her!"
Do not write again; expect me.
I am grieved that you have read "Les Petits Manèges d'une Femme
vertueuse" without waiting for the Chlendowski edition in Vol. IV. of
LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE, where it bears the name of "Béatrix," the last
Part. Have you received the two lines which told you the state I was in
from Monday to Sunday? "I shall see her!"--a thought which has defrayed
many a journey of seven hundred leagues.
I have sent everything to the right-about--COMÉDIE HUMAINE, "Les
Paysans," the "Presse," the public, and Chlendowski, to whom I owe
ten folios of the COMÉDIE HUMAINE--hum! also my business affairs, a
projected volume (which I will do as I travel), and my affair with
the "Siècle;" in short, all. I am so happy to go that I can't write
steadily; I don't know whether you can read this, but you will see my
joy in my scribbling. Read "intoxication of happiness" for all the
words you can't decipher. Tell the people about you that, having gone
to Leipzig on business, I am coming to Dresden from politeness, to bid
you adieu before your return to your own country. Have an apartment
engaged for me at the Stadt-Rom; I need three rooms: a small salon,
bedroom, and study. I shall have to work from five in the morning till
midday. But from midday till after seven o'clock I shall be with you,
and bid you good-night by eight o'clock. As you see, there is no place
for a Saxon or a Pole in all this.
This time I bid you adieu without pain, for my trunks are packed, and I
am now going out for my passport and my proofs.
I should not like to be lodged under the roof at the Stadt-Rom, as I
was at my first hasty visit to Dresden; not higher than the second
floor. I shall bring my sad hippocrene with me, my coffee; for seven
hours a day is the least I can work, with all I have to do. Now I leave
you; adieu! This time, I am certain of seeing you soon, and sooner
perhaps than you think.[1]
[Footnote 1: Balzac joined Madame Hanska at this time in Dresden, and
they travelled in Germany and Holland; after which Madame Hanska and
her daughter accompanied him to Paris, where they stayed some time.
This visit was kept a profound secret lest it should reach the ears of
the Russian government.--TR.]
PASSY, September 8, 1845.
Dear star, alas! so distant! No, I cannot accustom myself to see you
again beaming upon me through such space. No, truly, I cannot bear it.
Tell me, for pity's sake, in your next letter where you will be early
in October, and I shall be there too; do not doubt it. How and when is
my secret, and I shall not return to Paris till you set out for home
with your smala.
It is now decided that I am not to move again. I meet with people who
do not keep their word, and I am released from the obligation of doing
twenty-five folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE. I have only thirteen to do,
and I can roast those with a turn of my hand. What need have I of
money? I need to see you, and I am going back to you. I know very well
we shall no longer have any freedom in our walks or our talks, and that
many duties will too often deprive me of the charm of your incomparable
companionship; but chance will favour me sometimes with a blessed ten
minutes, when I can tell you in a mass what I feel in detail; and if
chance should be against me, at least I should see you, I could look
at you. I should hear your sweet voice, I should know you were really
there, that distance was abolished between us, that we were both in
the same land, the same town. My affection for you is so great and so
minute, or, if you like it better, so puerile, that I even grieve on
eating a good fruit, thinking that you have none; and the notion takes
me to eat no more, so as not to enjoy a pleasure of which you are
deprived. Ah! believe me, you are the first and the last, or rather the
sole and the continual thought of my life.
I have come to an understanding with that old gambler on the Bourse,
Salluon, who owns the house of which I told you, and shall look at the
place to-morrow.
Royer-Collard is dead. He was the counterpart of Sieyès.
I went yesterday at two o'clock to see Madame de Girardin. I went on
foot, and returned on foot. She said to me several times that I ought
to present myself for the Academy; although they desire, this time,
to put in Rémusat, who has not many claims. But do not be uneasy, I
know how it would vex you, and you may feel assured that in this, as
in everything else, I will only do what you wish. I returned by the
post-office, thinking you more generous to me than you are in reality.
I said to myself: "She will have found two letters at Frankfort, and
the little case from Froment-Meurice [goldsmith], and she will send me
just a line outside of her regular missive." Nothing! I was sad. I send
you volumes, and you only give me what is agreed upon.
September 10.
This morning I have only ten more _feuillets_ to do to be done with
Chlendowski, that is to say, to complete "Les Petites Misères;" and
to-morrow I begin the last part of "Splendeurs et Misères." That means
six folios of LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE still to do. This will take fully ten
days; that brings me to the 30th. Evidently, I could start the first
week of October, from the 1st to the 5th, and I could be in Dresden the
10th to return here November 5th. That would be nearly a month, dear
countess! Do not neglect as soon as you receive this letter to send me,
1st, Anna's arms, blazoned; 2nd, your own; 3rd, those of Georges; ask
him to make me those three little drawings that I may have exact models
made of them, and if there are supporters tell him to draw those also;
it is possible that Froment-Meurice may find effects there which he
can make use of in the things he has to make for Georges and Anna.
I have recovered my faculties, more brilliant than ever, and I am now
sure that my twelve folios, which will be two novels of six folios
each, will be worthy of the former ones. I tell you this to quiet
the anxiety of your fraternal soul in regard to the reaction of the
physical on the mental, and to prove to you for the hundred-millionth
time that I tell you everything, not concealing the smallest scrap of
either good or evil. Go therefore to the baths of Teplitz or elsewhere,
if you think it necessary, provided you are faithful to your promise of
Sarmate. Meantime I shall reduce my work to its simplest expression,
and about April 20 I shall go North to contemplate you in the midst of
your grandeurs.
Laurent-Jan has been here; he distracted my mind and amused me, but he
stole three hours.
Well, I must end this little conversation, a pale joy in comparison
to our real talks, embellished by the charms of presence, and the
certainty of reality. This is Wednesday, and I have still no letters;
how is it you did not write me a line from Frankfort, acknowledging
the two letters, and the package from Froment-Meurice. I am lost in
conjectures and very unhappy.
September 12.
At last, I have your letter. Oh, _mon Dieu!_ who knows what a letter
is? I tremble all over with happiness. To know what you are doing,
where you are, what you are thinking, is happiness to me here. What a
fine page that is on families of cathedrals and cemeteries. Ah! it is
you who know how to write! But I must leave you to go and see Georges'
cane at Froment-Meurice's, and execute your sovereign orders.
So you have seen Heidelberg! Thank you for the view and the branch of
box. But why did you not tell me what name Dr. Chelius gave to your
illness, and for what reason he sends you to Baden, the waters of
which always seem to me a farce? However, I am far from murmuring at
a decision which puts you on the frontier of France; thirty-six hours
from Paris. Only, I do want details as to your health. Anna's jewels
have been sent by a courier of the Rothschilds, directed to Baron
Anselme Rothschild at Frankfort. Write for them there and have them
sent wherever you are. You did not tell me how you passed the Prussian
frontier. You are very sure, are you not, that all your heart-griefs
are mine? I cannot get accustomed to life here now, I never cross the
Place de la Concorde without sighing heavily. When you are at Baden,
try to form the good habit of writing to me twice a week. You, so kind,
you will not refuse me that, will you? and you will not think me too
exacting, too tiresome, too importunate? Selfish, yes, I am that; but
your letters are my life.
I have not yet sold anything to the newspapers; I have had many
parleys, but no money; they think my price too high.
I have many annoyances about which I tell you nothing in my letters.
Alas! you have enough of your own; and besides, they would take up
too much space. I will relate them to you twenty-five days hence, to
be consoled as you alone know how to console. You will be frightened
at the blackness of the world, its injustices, its persecutions, its
hatreds. One might truly believe that there were none good in the
world but us two; at least to one another. Therefore, I no longer
want to live in Paris; I would much prefer living at Passy, seeing no
one, working under your eyes and never leaving you. There is nothing
true, believe me, but the one sentiment that rules me, especially when
doubled by the friendship which unites us: same tastes, same mind,
same efforts, same fraternal souls. I will put in for you here a
morning-glory out of my garden, and a bit of mignonette, gathered in
that path where we walked together so often; and I send you also the
little bit of lead type which was lost and has now been found. These
little things will come to you full of earnest wishes for your dear
health. Take good care of yourself; be selfish; that will be loving
your child, that will be proving once more that you do have some regard
for your faithful and devoted believer. Tell me what Dr. Chelius said
to you. Be very prudent at Baden; it is full of Frenchmen, gamblers,
journalists. Avoid the company there, see no one, for this fatal
celebrity of mine, which I curse, might cling to you who would abhor
it, sweet and simple violet that you are, and cause you much annoyance
and even, though God forbid it, grief.
All true flowers of affection, a thousand thoughts (unpublished ones,
if you please) to the great lady, the young girl, the stern critic, to
my indulgent public, to all that world that is contained in you, to all
those personages who are so many aspects of my sovereign so faithfully
and solely cherished.