[Footnote 1: Concerning the letters of this year, see Appendix.--TR.]
PASSY, January 1, 1846. One year more, dear, and I take it with
pleasure; for these years, these thirteen years which will be
consummated in February on the happy day, a thousand times blessed,
when I received that adorable letter starred with happiness and hope,
seem to me links indestructible, eternal. The fourteenth will begin
in two months; and all the days of these years have added to my
admiration, to my attachment, to my fidelity, like that of a dog.
I have a very Grandet mind, I assure you. A few days more, and if
the King of Holland were to offer me sixty thousand francs for my
Florentine furniture, he could not have it! It is still more so in
matters of the heart. I shall have proved it to you fourteen years from
now, when you have seen me forgetting nothing of all my happinesses,
great or small.
January 4.
O dear countess, I received this morning, at half-past eight o'clock,
the letter of your dear child with the portrait of Leonidas; decidedly,
I shall have an "Album Gringalet." I do not understand why on the 22nd
you had not received my letter of the 3rd, sent from Rothschild's
counting-room. When this letter leaves it will be the seventh on its
way to you. I have never failed to tell you day by day what happens to
me; and you will see on your return that I have written the oftenest.
I am going to see your dear Lirette; for I do not wish to forget that
I am a substitute for both of you, mother and daughter, towards her;
moreover, I want to know at what periods she wishes to receive the sum
you have given me for her.
I dined, as I told you I should in my last letter, with Nestor
Roqueplan, on the last day of the year, at the illustrious Delphine's.
We laughed as much as I am capable of laughing without you and far away
from you. Delphine is really a queen of conversation; "that evening
she was particularly sublime, sparkling, ravishing. Gautier was there
also; I came away after a long talk with him; he had been assured there
was no hurry about "Richard Cœur-d'Éponge," the theatre having more
than enough on hand. Gautier and I may make our play together later.
Such was the result of this dinner, the history of which is your due.
Returning home, I met two or three bores, who tired me much. You will
not believe that, for you seem ignorant that I like to have no one but
you, and to see none but you in the world. But, dear countess, the sad
thing is, that I cannot write a line, and I groan--
January 5, midnight.
Here is a strange thing! I received this morning your long letter, one
day later than that of your daughter; this is a mystery, for both came
from Marseille.
Oh! dearest, what a day I have had! atrocious, dreadful, awful! I had
errands to do; I was to go to Froment-Meurice, then to M. Gavault,
then to a ship-builder who is building a ship he is bent on naming for
me, then to the newspaper offices, especially the "Presse." At midday,
after breakfast, I went to the post; good! I received a fine thick
letter, very heavy; my heart quivered with joy. Ah! I was happy! so
happy that in the carriage from Passy to Paris I opened my letter a
thousand times blessed, and read, and read! At last I reached the page
dictated to you by the strange and inconceivable conduct of Madame
A. and Koref; and after having read your crushing reflections I was
thrown into consternation. I closed the letter and put it in my pocket.
At first, any one might have seen my tears; then I was overcome by a
sadness of which the following were the physical effects: Two inches of
snow were on the pavements of Paris; I was in thin boots; so unhappy
was I that I wanted air, I was choking in the _fiacre_. I stopped
it, and got out in the rue de Rivoli and walked, walked, my feet in
the snow, across all Paris, through crowded streets, seeing no one,
among the carriages, noticing none of them; I went, I went, on and
on, my face convulsed, like a madman. People stared at me. I marched
from the rue de Rivoli to the back of the Hôtel de Ville among all
those populous streets, not conscious of the crowd or the cold, or of
anything. What hour was it? what weather? what season? what city? Where
was I? Had any one questioned me I could not have answered him; I was
senseless with pain. Sensibility, which is the blood of the soul, was
flowing out of me in torrents through my wound. And this is what I was
saying to myself: "I have never, in my life, uttered one indiscreet
word; and here are the reasons of my silence: 1. honour and integrity;
2. certainty of injuring the object of my hopes; 3. certainty of
rendering my liquidation impossible; 4. complete uncertainty as to
the result of my wishes. And I am accused of ignoble speeches,--I,
whose conduct is irreproachable!" To meet with this injustice, even
involuntary, from you crushed me; I felt the blows of that club upon
my head at every step. Koref is an infamous spy, an Austrian spy,
well known as such; he is not received anywhere; I do not bow to him
any longer; I scarcely answer him when he speaks to me. Madame A... is
ignorant of this, she confides herself and talks of your interests and
of my affairs to the most dangerous man I know! It is truly incredible!
Moreover, Koref is allied with a very bad woman, a Madame de B... who
spreads slanders, and spies as spies spy, even outside of politics,
and merely to keep her hand in. Who knows if those people have not
already made this the subject of a report? Who knows if Koref, too well
known to be trusted any longer by the Austrian police, has not used
Madame A.'s absurd confidences to get into the service of a hyperborean
power? Ah! truly, Madame A. may have done us, without exaggeration, an
incalculable injury! I, who already have suffered a great pecuniary
loss through absurd cancans sent from Berlin, to have such sufferings,
thanks to that woman, in addition!
Thinking all this I walked on, seeing nothing before me but trouble and
confusion--Koref! whom I have not seen for eighteen months, and to
whom I have not addressed a word for three years, he to call himself
_my friend_! It is too impudent!--I walked with my heart bleeding,
my feet in the ashes of my longed-for future, and thinking ever of
the pitiless reflections that Madame A.'s fatal letter had suggested
to you. At four o'clock I reached Froment-Meurice; nothing was ready,
neither your set, nor the bracelet, nor my seal (_fulge, vivam_) which
I have waited for so long.
I went to Gavault's on foot, from the Hôtel de Ville to the Madeleine.
Gavault was frightened at my face when he saw me without soul, without
strength, without life. From there, still on foot, I went back to
Passy at eight o'clock, without feeling bodily fatigue; the bruised
soul numbed the body, mental fatigue was greater than all physical
exhaustion. At ten o'clock I went to bed; impossible to sleep. I have
lighted my candles and my fire, and taken my coffee.--I have just read
the end of your letter; and the balm of the last sheet has calmed me,
without altogether making the last echoes of my suffering cease.
Till to-morrow: bodily fatigue has come to me and I can sleep. I am
going to bed; it is one o'clock.
January 6.
To-day, January 6, is your birthday, dear countess. I wish to express
to you none but thoughts of gentleness and peace. Going to bed at one
o'clock, I fell asleep among the charming things you said to me at
the close of your letter, and I had no dreams at all. The fatigue of
yesterday, moral and physical, was such that I slept till ten o'clock.
I have just breakfasted and I return to your letter. That which is
grievous in it does not come from you; it comes from strangers, from
that silly Madame A...; and you could not have thought otherwise than
as you did on reading her letter. By a strange fatality I read only
half your letter, and I have suffered by my own fault. I could have
taken a _fiacre_ and read the rest; but, I see now, deep and violent
sensations do not reason; they rush like torrents or thunderbolts.
What upset me thus was that I saw plainly they were trying to give
you malignant impressions about me. I have no need of "society;" far
from it, I have a most profound horror of it; celebrity weighs upon
me; I thirst for a _home_, a _home of my own_, I thirst to drink long
draughts of a life in common, the life of two. I have no affection in
the world that conflicts in any manner whatsoever with what I have in
my soul, which is indeed the very substance of that soul; "the rest
is all vain dream." To finish, once for all, with bad people and bad
tales, tell yourself, dear, that society is composed of criminals
who have a horror of honest men and of men without sin; it hates the
happiness that eludes it.
Let me, before I close my letter, say this: my mind is made up; if
I am forced to abandon my hopes, if, by force of hostile and secret
persecution you should turn your back upon me, my resolutions are
fixed; the haschisch that I tried yesterday will render a man imbecile
at the end of a year; he can remain so, knowing nothing further of the
pains or joys of life, until he dies. Haschisch, as you know, is only
an extract of hemp, and hemp contains the end of man. No, if I cannot
have my beautiful dreamed-of life, I want nothing. Yesterday, all the
treasures of furniture which I have collected were so many bits of wood
and crockery to me! Poverty, were I alone, has attractions for me. I
want nothing, except in relation to the secret object of my life; that
object is the supreme motive of all my prayers, my steps, my efforts,
my ideas, my toils, of the fame I seek to acquire, in short of my
future and of all that I am. For thirteen years this aspiration has
been the principle of my blood--for ideas and sentiments work through
the blood.
I thank you for the instructions you give me about Lirette. I will pay
her the sum agreed upon to-morrow at her convent, and I will inquire
the amount that you must still add. I am so glad to do any business
for you that you ought to make me give you a commission for it. Poor
dear Atala [a name by which he called her in jest], poor dear Anna, the
picture of your losses and financial deceptions distresses me; alas!
there is nothing to be done but to return to your own home as soon as
the thermal treatment at Baden is duly accomplished. Yes, you will have
to return courageously, to settle all and complete your work in order
to obtain the right to rest in peace.
I leave you to go to the post, for I expect a letter with news of my
Amsterdam cases, which are as long delayed in coming from Rouen to
Paris as they were between Amsterdam and Rouen. If I do not finish my
letter to-day I will to-morrow; and to-morrow it will jump into the
letter-box, and the day after be at Roanne. What a hippogriff is the
post!
Adieu, dear; I am going to work like one possessed. I start April 1 by
boat for Civita-Vecchia. Easter Sunday falls on the 12th; I shall see
Rome for ten days; then I will return with you through Switzerland.
There's my plan. Between now and then I shall have my liberty. Take
care of yourselves, all, but you especially. I will answer next week
your dear child's letter, and also Georges'.
When I think that after Baden you will have to return home, a shudder
comes over me. You know when you enter there but you don't know when
you can leave. But I will not end my letter sadly; find here within it
the fresh flowers of an old affection. My heart blesses you, my soul is
round you with all its thoughts. As for my mind, you know that is only
the reflection and echo of yours.