[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, at Naples.]
No letters! my uneasiness has reached its height; I do not know what
to think; I believe you are ill. I am tortured to the point of not
being able to write a line to-day. I dine with M. F..., a sacrifice
to make, and a great one, I assure you; but it is very essential not
to displease him; he does my business well, and I am more and more
satisfied with him. This week we attack an account very difficult to
terminate; that of B... It is a matter of nine thousand francs to be
paid. No letter! I am very unhappy.
February 9.
What joy! I have your letter at last. I ought to write to you on my
knees for such kindness, and such persistency and perseverance in that
kindness. The passage in which you tell me you had been lost in a
contemplation of the future like one of mine, and in which you seem so
touched by those transports of worship I often have toward you,--that
true affection, so humble coming from a soul so lofty, gave me for a
moment more happiness than I have ever had before in my life.
Dear countess, do not risk yourself in Rome before Georges is perfectly
recovered; put off the journey for your children's sake; Rome will not
be swallowed up to-morrow, but health is lost there in a week. Wait;
wait.
When you receive this letter LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE will be finished.
I have paid M. Potier a thousand francs, for he has had, you see, to
incur expenses,--he says so himself. This is a house of forty-five
thousand francs, and fifteen thousand for additions, sixty thousand
in all. [The house in the rue Fortunée.] I hope to own the house and
to have paid up all disquieting claims by the end of February. But
all these uncertainties prevent me from working at my ease. I am like
a bird on a branch. I hope you will let me come and tell you of my
installation and spend a few days with you in April.
In going to Souverain's to-day I saw in the shop of a dealer in
bric-à-brac a miniature of Madame de Sévigné, done in her day it seemed
to me, which can be had for very little. Do you want it? It seemed
to me rather good; but it must be said that I scarcely looked at it
because I was in a hurry.
February 10.
I have seen that miniature again, and it is hideous. On the other
hand, I have bought a portrait of Queen Marie Leczinska after Coypel,
evidently painted in his atelier. I bought it for the value of the
frame; as it is one of those portraits that queens give to cities or
great personages, though it is but a copy, I thought it would decorate
a salon.
I am more inert than I can tell you; I work badly, without inspiration,
without taste, without courage; my life, my soul, and all my forces are
elsewhere. I have asked Gautier to bring me an artist named Chenavard,
a friend of La Belgiojoso, whom I know but whose address is unknown
to me, to enlighten me as to the value of Marie Leczinska's portrait,
because, like Louis XIV., "I don't choose to deceive myself."
February 11.
Much tramping, much fatigue, without result. M. F... has fallen
dangerously ill, and that delays my business. You see, dear beloved
countess, that I am not the master of this liquidation; the least
effort would be punished; I must wait like a hunter on the watch. It
is dreadful! I assure you that the harassment of my affairs, joined
to that of my soul (which is tortured by absence as one is, they say,
by remorse) affects my poor brain powerfully. Without vanity, I can
certify to you that I am wonderful; I rise every night, I think of
you, I write to you, and stay so for two hours before I am able to
begin to work. Then I continue to write, but for you, and not, as
I ought, for the public. Or if by a miracle it is not you of whom
I am thinking, it is about one of the houses offered to me, its
furnishing, its arrangement, and the thousand details of my business;
for every affair of a thousand francs exacts as much care as a matter
of a hundred thousand. Then I re-read your dear letters, I look at
my proofs, and I reason with myself. The day dawns, and I have done
nothing. I tell myself that I am a monster, that to be truly worthy of
you I must forget you and girt my loins with the labourer's cord; I say
insults to myself; I grasp that ivory Daffinger; I think you there; I
dream--and I waken to remorse for having dreamed instead of working.
Madame de Girardin writes to ask me to go and see her. There is to be
a lady present, daughter or grand-daughter of Sheridan, who desires to
see me. I shall go in my grand costume of fine manners.
February 12.
I went to bed this morning, my hours upset! and all for a tiresome
Englishwoman who stared at me through an eyeglass as she might at an
actor. Madame de Girardin, charming in a small company, is, it must be
admitted, a less agreeable mistress of a house at great receptions.
She belies her origin by her talent; but when her talent is not to the
fore she becomes once more the daughter of her mother; that is to say,
bourgeoise and Gay _pur sang_. The Duc de Guiche, who has given in
his allegiance, was there; he exerted himself, and was almost witty,
which I had doubted. The memory of Madame Kalergi, whom I never knew,
or even saw, as you know, pursued me. Admiral de la Susse described
the regrets of the Baden society that I did not accept the invitations
of that beautiful lady, but confined myself to a certain family who
had confiscated me to their own profit. From that moment I became of a
most stupendous stupidity; so that Madame de Girardin whispered to me,
"What is the matter with you this evening?" To which I answered, "Your
Englishwoman has gone to my heart." At which she laughed and I kept
the secret of my melancholy--I saw once more the scenery of Baden, the
Hôtel du Cerf, the promenades, etc. Ah! how you absorb me! It cannot be
expressed; a word a nothing, brings me back to you.
Dear countess, we must console that poor Georges. I will find a copy of
the Dejean catalogue; it is very rare, the whole edition having been
burned in the fire of the rue Pot-de-Fer (when the "Contes Drolatiques"
were destroyed). I have found a work the title of which you will find
on the sheet which envelops this letter. Write me whether Georges knows
of it. It is the finest iconography of coleopteras in existence. Only
seven copies remain; the blocks are planed and that ends it. If he
wants the work I will bring it to him with his insects and the Dejean.
In wandering about, Saturday, I found two vases (Restoration) on which
were painted, for some entomologist no doubt, the prettiest insects in
the world. They are the work of an artist and must have cost a great
deal. Georges will like them, I know, and I shall return him painted
pots for painted pots. Perhaps these vases were a gift to Latreille;
for no one, I think, would have done such conscientious work unless
for some great entomological celebrity. It is a real _trouvaille_, a
chance such as I never had before. No one knows what Paris is; with
time and patience, everything can be found here, even at a bargain.
Just now I am negotiating for the purchase of a chandelier which must
have come from the palace of some Emperor of Germany, because it is
surmounted by the double-headed eagle. It is a Flemish chandelier
and came from Brussels no doubt before the Revolution; it weighs two
hundred pounds and is of brass; I have bought it for the intrinsic
value of the metal--four hundred and fifty francs. I intend it for my
dining-room, which will be in the same style. I see you alarmed by
this communication; but do not be anxious; no debts are incurred; I
am obeying your sovereign orders. Lirette will be paid as you intend,
and Froment-Meurice also. As to my personal affairs, the liquidation
has more money than it needs. Froment-Meurice is really an impossible
jeweller. Here it is February 17th, and the figure of Nature is not yet
finished. He says it is still in the hands of the chaser. He himself
is wholly absorbed in a toilet-set for the Duchess of Lucca.
February 18.
I have received the letter in which you tell me that Georges gets
better and better, and that he had come to see you at the Villa Reale.
This good letter shows me that calmness is restored to your heart and
mind, because you have returned to your habit of writing every evening
when your good friendship battles with sleep, often vanquished to my
profit. A strange thing! there are in this long letter that I am about
to carry to the post things that reply to the questions in yours! This
affinity with each other brings tears to my eyes. How I love your
letters! how true they are! In reading them I seem to hear you speak;
they are indeed a balm to all my wounds. I beg of you do not go to
Rome, I repeat it; the journey might be fatal to Georges; he is very
delicate. I was like that at his age; but I never thought of myself,
and others cared still less for me.
I am not working as much as I ought. You do right to tell me so;
believe that I blame myself harshly. "The days are going," as you
say; but you do not know the labyrinth through which my liquidation
is leading me; you are ignorant of the incessant tramps which upset
all my days, and often for sums not more than a hundred francs. My
tranquillity means owning property, settlement in a home, and respect.
Therefore I avow that even if I incur your blame (to me so terrible) I
must put my liquidation before my literary work.
I am glad that the engraving and device of your armed knight pleased
you. No one helped your servitor; pray believe that; the Latin is my
own property: _Virens sequar_ and _Fulge, vivam_, are worthy of the E
inscribed on the star.
I have the portrait of Queen Marie Leczinska. It is not by Coypel, but
was done in his atelier by a pupil, either Lancret or another, as
you please. One must be a connoisseur not to think it a Coypel. The
portrait has been engraved, and I shall lose nothing on it, Chenavard
says.
I met Koref, who had the impudence to tell me he had been talking of me
to one of your friends in the most eulogistic terms. I wish you could
have seen me look at him as I said, "I do not doubt it." He left me
instantly.