[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, at Naples.]
Dear countess; my ability to work only lasted two days. I am again
seized by _spleen_, complicated with nostalgia, or, if you like, by an
ennui I never felt before. Yes, this is _true ennui_; nothing amuses
me, nothing distracts me, nothing enlivens me; it is a death of the
soul, a death of the will, the collapse of the whole being. I feel that
I cannot take up my work until I see my life decided, fixed, settled.
LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE--I no longer care for it; I will let Chlendowski sue
me for the folios that are lacking; I cannot think for the six that
are to finish the sixteen volumes. More than that, to-morrow I was to
go and see a house of which they tell me marvels; and that scarcely
interests me. I am exhausted. I have waited too long; I have hoped too
much; I have been too happy this last year; and I can wish no longer.
To have been, after so many years of toil and misfortune, free as a
bird of the air, a thoughtless traveller, superhumanly happy, and then
to come back to a dungeon! Is that possible? I dream, I dream by day,
by night; and my heart's thought, returning upon itself, prevents
all action of the brain thought--it is fearful! I have sent for "Les
Mystères de Londres," which you told me had amused you; I will read it
to escape myself.
December 18.
Yesterday I read "Les Mystères de Londres" from two o'clock in the
afternoon till midnight; I read the book through. It is a little better
than Sue or Dumas; but not good; it made me feverish.
This morning Captier came for me; and I have returned with a bad cold
from the Beaujon _quartier_. It was raining in torrents; we stood with
our feet in the mud and our shoulders wet for three hours, and I was
seized with a sore throat which has almost extinguished my voice. The
house we went to see is held at two hundred thousand francs and we
offered eighty thousand. It is large and handsome; with nine windows
front, two storeys, a magnificent ground-floor, and ill-arranged first
floor which would have to be entirely remodelled. There would be twenty
thousand francs, at least, to spend upon it. Besides which, it has an
insolent air; it looks like a great restaurant, and the sacrifices
made to the outside are immense inconveniences; for instance, you
enter it from a portico which would require a vast awning over it.
Another thing: the land in the rue Jean-Goujon is impossible; they ask
twenty-five thousand francs for it. There is no ground in Paris for a
hundred francs the metre; and there are nearly four metres in a fathom.
You can judge if the Monceau land is a good bargain. I shall keep where
I am, and not hasten anything; I think that is wisest.
December 20.
A terrible misfortune has happened. The Doubs has overflowed: the water
is higher than in any former flood; the bridge my brother-in-law was
building has been swept away. I am now going to see my sister.--
I found at Laure's a very concise letter from the doctor of the
"Leonidas" telling me he had seen you in Naples. The letter only
reached me to-day and he says that he leaves on the 21st. He asks for
an answer, which I have sent in four words, but I do not know whether
he will receive it. My depression still continues. I am reading "Les
Trois Mousquetaires," and I suffer from my cold.
I found desolation at my sister's home; her daughter is ill; I stayed
there all day trying to brighten them up. Can you conceive that my
brother-in-law, having two bridges to build this year, should have
gone to Spain with M. de P..., a man who, as I suppose, is looking for
fortune on the hope of building a railroad in Spain. My sister owned
that it was she who induced her husband to make this journey; and the
luckless man writes to her that Spain has cost him dear, for if he had
himself superintended the building of the Doubs bridge it would have
been finished and delivered; in which case the disaster from natural
forces would have fallen on the government.
The contracts for the Chemin de fer du Nord are given out to-day; if
Rothschild awards them, the shares of that railway will certainly rise.
Adieu for to-day. I re-plunge into "Les Trois Mousquetaires," for life
without work is intolerable, and I continue to think of you with a
persistence that alarms me. I remain, stupid, in one place; and I don't
know what would happen to me if I flung myself into work desperately.
I have not a thought that is not for you; I have no will other than
to go where you are; I am, as it were, driven by that desire; and,
nailed to this spot by necessity, I remain motionless with grief.
It is impossible for me to forget; I pass whole hours with my eyes
fixed on that table-cloth embroidered by your dear little white-mouse
paws; in gazing at its squares, red, green, and its striped lines,
thinking of you, and recalling the infinitely trifling details of that
journey--No, instead of scolding me, have pity on me, for I am truly
too unhappy. I implore work, and it refuses me inspiration. I hope,
nevertheless, that this may not last always, and that one of these days
will see me seriously at my table for the service, if not the profit,
of his Majesty the Public.
December 21.
I have read "Les Trois Mousquetaires" and that was all I did yesterday.
I went to bed at seven o'clock, and I have now got up at four in the
morning. I am better in mind; I have a real desire to work; and that
desire seems to me of good augury. Besides, it _must_ be done; all
things urge me to it,--the money to earn, the obligations to fulfil,
liberty, and the possibility of seeing you the sooner. Can you imagine,
dear star of my life, that money says nothing to me now? No, truly,
it does not stir me. There is no longer in my soul any vestige of
ambition, any desire for fortune; porcelains, pictures, all those
things of luxury that I have loved, I am now indifferent to. Oh! what a
tyrant is a sentiment like mine! how all things disappear before it!
I can understand, dear countess, why you were shocked at "Les
Mousquetaires," you so well-informed, knowing, above all, the history
of France, not only from the historical point of view, but even to the
smallest details of the cabinet of the kings and the private dinners of
the queens. One is certainly sorry to have read this book, if only from
disgust with one's self for having wasted one's time,--the precious
stuff of which life is made. It is not so that we reach the last page
of a novel of Walter Scott; this is not the sentiment with which we
leave him; we re-read Scott, but I do not think we shall re-read Dumas.
He is a charming narrator; but he ought to renounce history, or else
study it, and know it better.
On opening my window on the street side this morning I had a giddiness,
and I still have the blood in my head. I shall take a foot bath
and it will pass away. Besides, if I work, the equilibrium will be
re-established, and I am going to work. Oh! if you only knew what
respect I feel for myself, knowing that a being so perfect, a woman so
accomplished takes interest in my existence. For a year past I have no
memory except for her; for two weeks now I think of nothing but of how
to return to her. I arrange the crumbs of my feast, I absorb myself in
the recollection of nothings which turn into poems.
Did you know that Schwab was in Paris? He came to see me this morning,
and--would you believe it?--I saw Schwab with delight, for Schwab
is the Hague. Do you remember a certain walk we took to the Chinese
bazaar, behind the children? No, never did two souls give themselves
to each other with more poesy, more charm! These recollections are to
me so many suns, shining on the Spitzberg; they make me live; I live
by them alone. There are things in the past (the past that is yours)
that give me the effect of a gigantic flower--which shall I say?--a
magnolia, moving, walking, one of those dreams of youth, too poetic,
too beautiful to be ever realized--
Forgive me! I have been sitting here stupefied; I have wept like a
child,--I am so unhappy to be at Passy when you are at Naples! I have
let myself go, I have let myself write to you in this letter that
which I dream at all hours, and in thought it is less dangerous than
formulated. In thought it is the gossamer thread athwart the azure;
here, upon this paper, it is an iron cable which wrings and presses me
till the blood gushes out in tears of despair.
Adieu for to-day; if I listened to myself I should write you till
to-morrow. I am beside myself with regret and pain; I implore my work
to keep me sane.
December 22.
I dined yesterday with Madame de Girardin, and heard excellent music
from Mademoiselle Delarue. She is the daughter of a worthy old man whom
you knew in Vienna. Gautier, who was there, made me promise to go and
take haschisch with him to-night at the Hôtel Pimodan. I must now go
out on all sorts of tiresome business.
December 23.
I resisted the haschisch; that is, I did not experience any of the
phenomena they talked of. My brain is so solid that it needed, perhaps,
a stronger dose. Nevertheless I did hear celestial voices and saw
divine pictures; after which I descended Lauzun's staircase during
twenty years. I saw gildings and paintings in a salon of fairy-like
splendour. But this morning, since waking, I am half asleep, and
without strength or will.[1]
[Footnote 1: Théophile Gautier has related this evening in his essay on
Baudelaire, in the "Portraits et Souvenirs littéraires."]
December 25.
Yesterday I slept the whole day, and to-morrow I am going to Rouen to
see some ebony panels which, I am told, can be had for nothing. This
morning M. Captier is coming for me to see some land in the rue du
Rocher. It is impossible to get that Dujarier legacy paid. I have lost
a whole day rushing about on that business and attained nothing. I
still cannot work.
December 27.
I started yesterday from Passy at six in the morning; at seven I was on
the railroad and at eleven I was at Rouen. It is the route I took with
you and Anna. Is not that telling you that I thought the whole way of
you two? I transported myself back in thought to that day when we saw
Rouen; it was a fête I gave myself. I was happy, oh! very happy! I saw
the treacherous confectioner, and I recalled my atrocious sufferings
when I thought myself poisoned between Rouen and Mantes. Ah! how kind
you were! then, as always, my guardian angel and beneficent star.
I found at Rouen the relics of a regal piece of furniture which I
bought for eighty francs. That is doing business! True, it will cost a
good deal to repair and arrange it; that frightens me, but I shall give
it to a cabinet-maker, and then my remorse will be complete.
Another result, not quite so satisfactory; as I had eaten nothing all
day, I came back with a dreadful headache.
December 28.
I have just returned from the post-office; no letters from Naples. I
begin to be very uneasy, for I ought to have one of the 18th, which
is the day the steamboat sailed; allowing six days for navigation
and three days from Marseille here, that is nine days. I have just
seen an advertisement of a house in the rue du Montparnasse; they ask
ninety thousand francs for it, with costs that would make it a hundred
thousand. I will go and see it; it is in the Luxembourg quarter.
I must bid you adieu; each time I close a letter and take it to the
post I seem to be going myself to meet you. Ah! _à propos_, do not let
us calumniate any one. The Duc de S... died from other causes than
those you think. It is a curious history, which I will tell you some
day. He was going to be married, and when he saw that his bride would
never be anything but his bride, less philosophical than Louis XVIII.,
he blew out his brains.
M. Captier has brought me the plan of a house; to cost from forty to
fifty thousand francs; with land costing fifty thousand, that would
be a hundred thousand; but I cling to the hope of finding a house all
complete for that money. I shall wait.
My incapacity for work makes me very unhappy. On Wednesday, the last
day of the year, I dine with Madame de Girardin, in order to take
measures with Nestor Roqueplan for the Variétés. I shall then begin to
work seriously at "Richard Cœur-d'Éponge." I tell you this that you
may know what I am doing or expect to do. You will receive this letter
on your first of January, which is our 6th, your anniversary. God grant
that in this coming year of 1846 we may never be parted for a moment;
that you will lay down the burden of your responsibilities, and will
have no others. Those are my ostensible prayers; there is another that
I keep for myself alone. I end this year loving you more than ever;
blessing you for all the immense consolations that I owe to you, which
even now are life to me. At moments I think myself ungrateful when
I recall this year of 1845, and I say to myself that I have only to
remember in order to be happy. What I have in my heart, that is my
haschisch! I need only retire there to be in heaven.
Dear star, luminous, yet ever, alas! so distant, above all never be
discouraged; hope, have faith in your fervent servitor; believe that
when you read these lines I shall again be working, sending off my
sheets of "copy," and that I shall soon be free to go to you; if,
indeed, you do not forbid it too rigorously. But no, you could not have
the courage, knowing me so unhappy, to refuse me the only consolation
that enables me to bear my life.