HONORÉ DE BALZAC (continued 15)

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]

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.

Paris, October 15, 1845.[1]

Dear countess; I leave Paris by the mail coach on the 22nd, just as you are starting from Mulhausen, and I shall be at Chalon at five o'clock on the 25th, just in time to give you a hand on getting out of your carriage. My place is booked and paid for. How do you expect me to write you from Paris Wednesday a letter to Frankfort-on-the-Main, when you leave that town on Thursday? I received your third letter yesterday at Passy, in which you give me these directions, impossible to follow. I groan the more as I cannot send you a letter for the custom-house at Strasburg, where I wanted to recommend you to attention.

Tell your social fortune-teller that her cards have lied; that I am not preoccupied with any blonde, except Dame Fortune. No, I have no words except the mute language of the heart wherewith to thank you for that adorable letter No. 2, in which your gaiety breaks out with its sparkling gush, sweet treasure of a charming wit which the fine weather has brought back to you; for, as you once said to me, "It is only wrong-doers who stay sad when the joyful sun shines."

I make use of the excellent M. Silbermann, who will take to you these lines, not so much to tell you that you will find me at Chalon (your instinct will have told you that), but to paint to you my delight on reading your letter. Your infantine and purely physical joy enters my heart; I admire that adorable nature, so playful, so spontaneous, and so serious withal, because it is composed of lively impressions and deep sentiments. My eyes were filled with tears in thanking God with fervour that he had restored that health which you value for the sake of others,—those who love you, like your children and your old and faithful serf. Every time I go to breathe your atmosphere, your heart, your presence, I come back desperate at the obstacles that prevent me from staying in that heaven. I work, God knows how, for God alone knows why. When you hold this letter I shall probably have no debts whatever, except to my family. We will talk of my affairs on the boat between Chalon and Lyon. I shall have much to tell you thereupon, and I hope this time you will not be discontented with your servant. I have enormously much to do, write, correct, in order to meet you. I hope to take you as far as Genoa. But to whom could I confide the care of holding your head if you are sea-sick? If you will let me do as I wish I will go to Naples. I would give up everything, even fortune, to guard a friend like you and care for her in case of illness. I cannot think of you given over to strangers, to indifferent persons. I want to be with you, dear countess, my brilliant star, my happiness!

All this week I have been like a balloon; you know what my tramps on business errands are in Paris; I have been really overwhelmed by them. Minutes are worth hours to me if I do not want to lose money by travelling, for I must myself collect the sums due me. Also Les Jardies will be paid for this week; and I have been five times to see Gavault without finding him. You see I tell you all; it is stupid to talk of these things here when we shall have a whole day on the boat from Chalon to Lyon, and another from Lyon to Avignon. I will try to have lodgings prepared for you in advance, as on our other journeys, for I think you will be obliged to stop sometimes to rest.

I have not received the cup. I don't know whether the post takes charge of such things. In any case, however, it cannot be lost. You know I want to make a symbolic souvenir of it. It is to be supported by four figures: Constancy, Labour, Friendship, Victory.

Baden was to me a bouquet of flowers without a thorn. We lived there so sweetly, so peacefully, so heart to heart! I have never been as happy in my life; I seemed to catch a glimpse of that future I call to, I dream of, amid my troubles and my crushing labour. I would go to the end of the world on foot to tell you that your letters are to me in absence what you were yourself in Baden,—a masterpiece of the heart which is not met with twice in life. Oh! if you knew how you are blessed and invoked at every moment. My eyes are filled with happy tears as I think of all you are to me; those are thoughts I dwell on with a sweetness of recollection that nothing equals; that is my excess; I allow myself that, as your dainty daughter allows herself peaches.

I leave you; I have five folios of La Comédie Humaine to correct. I will write you to-morrow before beginning work. You can tell yourself that in spite of toil, errands, business of all kinds and at all hours, I am thinking of you; that your name is on my lips, in my head, in my heart, and that I only live and breathe in you. You can add that I am saying and repeating to myself incessantly: "On the 24th I shall see her! I shall live ten days of her life!"

October 16.

Dear countess, I am working much; I wrote you in such haste yesterday that I had no time to read over what I had written. I shall see you perhaps this day week.

With the enticing prospect of that blessed 24th it is impossible for me to put two ideas together; on the other hand, I have the sad certainty of being unable to do fine literary work so long as I cannot see daylight in my business affairs and have not paid integrally all my creditors. Worried on that side, and absorbed on the other by a deep, exclusive, passionately controlling sentiment, I can do nothing—the mind is no longer here. This is not a complaint, nor a compliment, it is truth. I have just come to a decision which will obviate this misfortune; it is to end the twelfth volume of the Comédie Humaine with "Madame de la Chanterie." That relieves me from making seven folios (which would have brought in nine thousand francs). Far from you I am only happy when I am seeing you in thought and memory, when I am thinking of you; and I think of you too much for copy.

I have received the pretty cup, and I want to make a marvel of it. When you hold this letter, tell yourself that we are each going toward the other. Take care in every way. Attend to your health; it is the property of your child—I dare not say mine, and yet, what have I else in this world? If anything in what I say displeases you, excuse it by the haste in which I scribble. I have only time to close my letter by saying, à bientôt.

Marseille, November 12, 1845.[1]

I have this instant arrived, without my luggage or my passport; I have not breakfasted; but while they are laying the table, I sit down to write to you, dear countess, as usual; for it is, on arriving, my first and greatest need.

It has blown ever since I left Naples, "blown a gale" as they said on the boat, with "a heavy sea." Those, as you know, are the innocent words with which sailors disguise the most frightful weather. Ours was so bad that we were obliged to put into Toulon yesterday, but La Santé [health officers] would not allow the purser of the ship, or your humble diplomatic servant to land with the most important despatches the East ever forwarded. It was seven o'clock; the sun was down; La Santé vacated its office. We told La Santé that it took upon its own head the greatest responsibility and was terribly high-handed. La Santé laughed in our faces, and we were forced to spend the night on board and come on to Marseille. I was not sea-sick, but everybody else, sailors excepted, was badly so. That was not all; it rained in torrents the whole way. The yellow waters of the Tiber and the Arno could be seen in the sea to a great distance; the littoral was flooded. To all my griefs no aggravation was lacking. But I had one diversion. I went to Pisa, and in spite of the beating rain I saw all; except your admirer, M. C. The cathedral and the baptistery enchanted me; but that enchantment was mingled with the thought that during this year I had admired nothing without you until now; and I looked at those noble things with deep melancholy.

At Civita Vecchia I landed, in memory of you, and went to see that antiquity-shop, where you sat down. I there learned that Madame Bocarmé had been telling tales about my journey; of no importance, however, for who cares about the gossip of that intriguing old lady! You were very right; I repent having written your name for Anna, as I always repent when I have had the misfortune not to obey you in matters you have thoroughly divined. Such is the exact tale of my journey. As for sentiments, I shall have to invent new words, so weary must you be with my elegies. I looked at the Hôtel des Victoires as long as I could. Not a woman appeared on deck; they were only manifested by dreadful vomitings, which rattled the panels of the ship as much as the fury of the seas.

Here comes my breakfast to interrupt me.

Midnight.

Méry has just left me. I offered him tea and whist at ten sous a fish; not ruinous, as you see. Here is the history of my day. After breakfast I went to bed, for I was tired. Méry, to whom I had written a line, came while I was asleep, and found me in such a magnificent attitude of repose that he respected it. But he returned while I was dressing, and we went to the shop of a dealer in antiquities, where I found some very beautiful things. I chose a few trifles which seemed to me true bargains to snatch; you know I never buy in any other way. After leaving these shops we went to dinner,[1] and then returned here for tea. I have lost five francs and won the collaboration of Méry for several plays that I have in view. He is going to have the affair of the two savants copied, and we will have it printed for you. A curious autograph of Méry's and some verses he has charged me to send you are herewith inclosed. That will give you pleasure, will it not?

I leave to-morrow at eleven o'clock; so that I shall have stayed only-forty-eight hours at Marseille, where I have been much occupied by bric-à-brac, and somewhat by Méry. I must close this letter and send it, for the mail goes to-morrow to Italy.

November 13, nine in the morning.

Adieu again, dear countess; I shall not write you more until I reach Passy. You know well what is in my heart and soul and memory for you and your two children—for Georges is like a first-born to you. I am still stupid from the sea-voyage, even in writing to you; the roll of the vessel is in my head; you will excuse me, will you not? I wrote you with my feet still wet with sea-water. To-morrow I take the mail-cart for Paris. I have spent a great deal, apart from my purchases. In the first place, on the ship the water was not drinkable; I had to have champagne, and I could not drink it alone beside the captain and the purser, who had been admirably attentive to me. All that was much extra. Then I had to ask some gentlemen to breakfast this morning at the Hôtel de l'Orient; politeness required it; besides, that is part of my make-up as author of La Comédie Humaine. Don't cry out at the extravagance; and say nothing about it to Georges, who would take me for a Lucullus and laugh at me.

Affectionate homage, and all tenderness of heart to your adorable child, and to the excellent Georges. I am going to work to rejoin you. Perhaps you will see Méry in Florence; he has arranged to make the journey with me. Take good care of yourself, and tell yourself sometimes that there is a poor being at Passy very far from his sun. I am like Méry,—very chilly when in Paris. You are my Provence. Méry talked much of you to me; you are very sympathetic to him. He took full notice of your Olympian brow, which has something of a Pagan god and the Christian angel and a little of the demon (I mean the demon of knowledge). Those who know you as I do can aspire to but one thing beside you; and that is to comprehend, enjoy, and love your soul more and more, if only to become better by intercourse with you and your etherealized spirit. That is my prayer, the desire of my human religion, and my last yearning thought towards you.

Paris, November 18, 1845.

Dear countess, I arrived here so fatigued that I was forced to go to bed, and have only just risen for dinner, and shall return to bed directly after it. I have a severe lumbago and fever; I feel all kneaded and broken. I went beyond my strength. At Marseille I was perpetually in company, and that added greatly to the effects of the voyage. You saw the life I led in Naples,—always going, rushing, looking, examining, observing, and talking! So that these last three nights in the mail-cart, without sleep, added to twelve days on shipboard and rushing about Naples, have vanquished my health, vigorous as it is. I went out this morning to the custom-house and to see Émile de Girardin, and this evening to see M. F... I am not yet recovered; I still have lumbago and fever, but a good night's sleep will cure me.

November 19.

Georges' commissions will be handed to him about December 15 by the captain of the "Tancrède." His cane is ordered and will soon be finished. My affairs are doing well; but I shall not finish everything by the end of the year; and as long as I have a single creditor, it would be imprudent to raise the mask by becoming a property-owner.

Chlendowski gives me the greatest uneasiness. He threatens to go into bankruptcy if he is not aided. I never knew a man lie like him. What you did for love of France with Laurent-Jan, I have done for Poland with Chlendowski. Fate tells us, dear countess, to take care of none but ourselves. Honest folk, believe me, have enough to do in that way without undertaking the care of others. If Chlendowski fails, I shall lose ten thousand francs; the thought makes me shudder.

I have given orders to search Paris for a house all built and ready; for it is impossible, in view of the scarcity of money, that a fine house could not be had for a hundred and fifty thousand francs.

November 21.

I rose at nine o'clock, a lump of lead! I am making up my arrears of sleep. Alas! my good genius will hear with pain that I am forced to set myself an Herculean task. I must put my papers in order, and it is now ten years since I have touched them. What labour! I have to make a bundle for each creditor, with bill and receipt in perfect order, under pain of paying twice for what was never due. It will give me a fever till it is all done. But I am in such haste to return to Italy and to my dear troupe, never to leave them again, that I find courage to drive all my affairs abreast,—manuscripts, completions of everything, publishers, debts, even the purchase of a property worthy of the author of La G-r-r-r-ande Comédie Humaine.

I must bid you abruptly adieu, and hurry out on business, so as to be able to-morrow to return to regular hours of rising and working. I intend to rise at four every day. Adieu, then, dear, distant star, which scintillates forever, ceaselessly, as memory and as consolation.

November 25.

Yesterday I rushed the whole day; twenty-five francs carriage hire! I went to see my sister; then to Girardin at the "Presse," where my account is settled. Girardin takes "Les Petites Misères," and I must now finish them. Then I went to Plon's printing-office. I saw A. de B... about the renewal of Chlendowski's notes; and I am now expecting the said Chlendowski to explain his position to me. After which, I must go out again and see M. Gavault to regulate his account, and know what he has paid. All that is not proof of activity; it is simply becoming the wheel of a machine.

Chlendowski came. I spoke to him sternly and with dignity. I told him that in order to help a man who had summoned me, I must have guarantees; I must have a deed legally drawn, and a deposit of the wood-cuts which are to illustrate "Les Petites Misères;" and on that condition I was willing to renew his notes for three thousand eight hundred francs. The man took my arm, in the Polish fashion, and kissed it humbly. In this way I shall be secured if he fails, and A. de B... consents to keep the wood-cuts. See what difficulties and worries! We have an appointment for to-morrow, and I must now go to M. Gavault and consult on this deed of guaranty. I dine with Émile de Girardin, who wants to know if "Les Petites Misères" is publishable.

November 27.

I have no news of my purchases at Amsterdam. But, on the other hand, I found on my return a letter from a ship-owner in Havre, asking for an interview. I wrote to M. Periollas, asking him to inquire about my cases, and also about the ship-owner. I have just received his answer; he says he knows nothing about the cases, but that the ship-owner is building a ship which he wants to call "Le Balzac;" and Periollas asks me to write a pretty letter to the ship-owner because he adores me. So, dear countess, your servitor will be carved on the prow of a vessel and show his fat face to all the nations; what do you say to that?

I have just heard strange, sad news,—Harel is mad, and Karr also. I prefer not to believe it.

November 28.

I have received a letter from Lirette inviting me to the ceremony of her taking the vows and veil. This letter has prevented me from sending my packet to you by the boat of December 1, for I want you to know of this at once; but it really hurts me to think what anxiety the delay may cause you.

I assure you that my life here is no longer endurable. I live in a whirlwind of errands, business, consultations, legal notices, corrections, which deprive me of all reflection, pressed as I am on all sides, with not a soul to help me, doing all myself. Yesterday I worked seven hours on "Les Petites Misères" ... Is it written above that, until the end, I shall be harried and driven like a college drudge?

Passy, December 3, 1845.

I could not write to you yesterday; I had very pressing proofs for the "Presse" (which wants the whole of "Les Petites Misères" at once), and also for La Comédie Humaine. So that having risen at half-past two in the morning, I worked till midday. I had scarcely time to breakfast and reach the convent at one o'clock.

These good sisters really think that the world turns for them alone. I asked the portress how long the ceremony would last; she replied, "An hour." So I thought to myself: I can see Lirette after it and get back in time for my business at the printing-office. Well, it lasted till four o'clock! Then I had, in decency, to see the poor girl; and I did not get away till half-past five. But I don't blame Lirette; it was right that her dear countess and her Anna should be represented at the burial of their friend; so I went through it bravely. I had a fine place beside the officiating priest. The sermon lasted nearly an hour; it was well-written and well-delivered; not strong, but full of faith. The officiating priest went to sleep (he was an old man). Lirette never stirred. She was on her knees between two postulants. The little girls were ranged on one side of the choir, the Chapter on the other, behind the grating, which was made transparent for the occasion. Lirette, together with the postulants, listened to the exhortation-sermon on her knees and did not raise her eyes. Her face was white, pure, and stamped with the enthusiasm of a saint. As I had never seen the ceremony of taking the veil, I watched, observed, and studied everything with a deep attention which made them take me, I have no doubt, for a very pious man. On arriving, I prayed for you and for your children fervently; for each time that I see an altar I take my flight to God and humbly and ardently dare to ask his goodness for me and mine—who are you and yours. The chapel, with its white and gold altar, was a very pretty one; it belongs to the Order of the Visitation of Gresset. The ceremony was imposing and very dramatic. I felt deeply moved when the three new sisters threw themselves on the ground, and were buried beneath a mortuary pall while prayers for the dead were recited over those living creatures, and when, after that, we saw them rise and appear as brides, crowned with white roses, to make their vows of espousal to Jesus Christ.

An incident occurred. The youngest of the sisters, pretty as a dream of love, was so agitated that when it came to pronouncing the vows she was forced to stop short, precisely at the vow of chastity. It lasted thirty seconds at most; but it was awful; there seemed to be uncertainty. For my part, I admit that I was shaken to the depths of my soul; the emotion I felt was too great for an unknown cause. The poor little thing soon came to herself, and the ceremony went on without further hindrance.

When one has seen the taking of the veil in France, one feels a pity for writers who talk of forced vows. Nothing can be more free. If a young girl were constrained what prevents her from stopping everything? The world is there as spectator, and the officiating priest asks twice if she has fully reflected on the vows she desires to take. I saw Lirette after the ceremony; she was gay as a lark. "You are now Madame," I said, laughing. She replied she was so happy she asked God continually to make us all priests and nuns! We ended by talking seriously of you and your dear child.

Dear countess, I hope you will find here a proof of my affection, for I was overwhelmed with work and business. But Lirette had written, "I am sure that nothing will prevent you from being present." I knew too well the meaning she attached to that not to determine it should be fulfilled. I was happy there, for I thought exclusively of you, after I had made my prayers. To think of you who are my religion and my life, is to think of God. I feel but too well that if your glorious friendship failed me I should lose consciousness of myself, I should become insane, or die.

December 4, 1845.

To-morrow I am going to see, in the rue des Petits-Hôtels, Place Lafayette (you know), a little house that is there for sale. It is close beside that church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, the Byzantine church we went to see, and where a funeral was going on. You said, looking at the vacant ground near the church which I pointed out to you: "I should not be unwilling to live here; we should be near God, and far from the world." From what I am told I think I could buy the house and might even do so without consulting you; it would be firing on the fly at a pheasant. My next letter will tell you if it is done. The rue des Petits-Hôtels joins the rue d'Hauteville (which goes down to the boulevard near the Gymnase), and, by the rue Montholon, it intersects the rue Saint-Lazare and the rue de la Pépinière. It is in the centre of that part of Paris which is called the right bank, and will always be the region of the boulevards and theatres. It is also the upper banking quarter.

My letter must go to-morrow if I want the "Tancrède" to take it. "Les Petites Misères de la Vie conjugale" is finished. To-morrow I begin the last folio (sixteen pages) that remains to do on La Comédie Humaine; then all will have been delivered to Chlendowski. I expect to finish the novel for Souverain by the 20th or 25th of December. Then I need three months for the seven volumes of "Les Paysans;" that will bring me to March 15. My mother's affairs will take some time, as well as the clearing up of my liquidation accounts. I do wish, you see, not to leave any business behind me in quitting Paris for perhaps eighteen months; and when I return it must be to my own home. I have promised you that, and I will no longer deceive myself by thinking that I can do the impossible.

T see with grief that I shall, apparently, have to sacrifice Florence and Rome to the work and the business that will secure, as you say, the repose and safely of my future. To spend immense sums in going to see you for only eight days, and returning to find suits and worries of all kinds is senseless! I must have, as you say, the courage to spare myself these mistaken calculations and these bootless sorrows. I shall try to go to Rome for Holy Week, for I shall then be so weary I shall need some distraction; but if by sacrificing that happiness I should obtain your satisfecit and what you call a "position worthy of me," I should not hesitate. Will you, at last, approve of me a little? Tell me so, then, for I have great need of being sustained by you in my hard and cruel resolutions. Don't you see, nothing is ever done in the time I assign for things. If La Comédie Humaine is not finished by December 25, I cannot have the money for it before January 15, 1846, and if I do not get it till then, my payments are delayed that time. So with "Les Paysans;" I shall not be paid till March. Money rules me absolutely when it is a question of paying creditors. Well, between now and a month hence all will be done. But if you only knew the steps, the tramps! Creditors for three hundred francs cost as much search and verification as those for thirty thousand—it is a labyrinth, a hydra!

Adieu, dear distant star, yet always present; soft and celestial light, without which all would be darkness within me and without me. Oh! I entreat you, take care of yourself. I am not too anxious about your little illness; it is only an effect of the climate; they told me that on the ship, and strong constitutions are often the most tried. But I tell you and I repeat it to you: take care of yourself. Remember that you are the glory and honour and sole treasure of a poor being who loves you exclusively, who thinks of you only, whose acts, as well as his thoughts and dreams, are emanations from that moral sun of affection which is his whole soul in its relation to you. Bless you a thousand times for your punctuality in writing! Tell me everything; all that happens to you, with every possible detail; nothing is insignificant to me if it concerns you. Do as I do. Among all the great worries of my life, as troubled as yours is calm and serene, I do not a pass a day without writing you a line, as a merchant makes up his day book. Well, a few more efforts, and a little patience, and I hope to have conquered the right to never leave you again.

Passy, December 13, 1845.

Dear countess; I am overcome by the same nostalgia which I felt before I went to Chalon. It is excessively difficult for me to write; my thought is not free; it no longer belongs to me. I believe that I cannot recover my faculties under eighteen months, perhaps. You must resign yourself to endure me beside you. Since Dresden I have done no great thing. The beginning of "Les Paysans" and the end of "Béatrix" were my last efforts; since then, nothing has been possible to me. Yesterday, during the whole day, I felt a sombre and dreadful gloom within me.

Yet I must finish the six folios of La Comédie Humaine. Furne has come. He has excellent intentions. On my side, I must complete this undertaking, which is all my future. But the heart is as absolute as the brain, it is indifferent to whatever is not itself; millions to win, a fortune of fame and self-love satisfied is nothing to the heart.

Your letter describes to me a similar state with much truth and eloquence. That letter, in which pain is more contagious than the plague, and over which I wept your tears, shuddering to find there what I felt myself, that letter has filled the measure of my inward and hidden malady. Nothing but my interests can drag me out of the deep despondency that has now laid hold upon me. Paris is a dreadful desert; nothing gives me pleasure, nothing contents me; I am under the empire of some passionate invading force without analogy in my life. I compare the twenty-four towns we saw together with one another; I try to recall your observations, your ideas, your advice; motion fatigues me, rest depresses me. I get up, I walk, but my body is absent, I see it, I feel it; at times, as I tell you, this is madness. It is very probable that if my six folios of La Comédie Humaine were finished I could go to Naples; and that thought is the only means of making me do them. What could I not obtain from myself under the hope of that immense joy, were it only for one week? I tell myself there are a thousand reasons why I ought to see you, consult you; that I can do nothing without you. In short my mind is the accomplice of my heart and will.

Meantime, awaiting the result, I make no complaint, I am dull and gloomy; I am like a Breton conscript, regretting his dear scones and his Bretagne. All that is not you was once without interest to me, now it is odious.

December 14.

Yesterday, dear countess, I went to see, in detail, the Conciergerie, and I saw the queen's dungeon and that of Madame Elisabeth. It is all dreadful. I saw everything thoroughly; it took the whole morning, and I had no time to go to the rue Dauphine to do Georges' commissions. When I went back towards the court of assizes I heard that the trial then going on was that of Madame Colomès, niece of Maréchal Sebastiani, a woman forty-five years of age whom I wished to see. And I found, seated on the prisoner's bench of the court of assizes, the living image of Madame de Berny! It was awful. She was madly in love with a young man, and to give him money, which he spent on actresses of the Porte-Saint-Martin, she forged indorsements in negotiating the notes of imaginary persons. She took everything on herself (he has taken to flight), and would not allow her lawyer to charge the blame to him.

I had never heard a case pleaded in court and I stayed to hear Crémieux, who spoke well, ma foi! The unhappy creature, in order to get money to give the young man, had abandoned herself to usurers, to old men! Crémieux told me that she said to her lover: "I only ask you to deceive me enough to let me fancy I am loved." She is the daughter of a brother of the maréchal, and the wife of the engineer-in-chief of Bridges and Highways, and a deputy. I was so deeply interested in finding a novel seated on that bench, that I stayed till half-past four o'clock beside the poor creature, who has been very handsome and who wept like a Magdalen; every now and then I heard her sigh out, "Aie! aie! aie!" in three heart-rending tones.

M. Lebel, governor of the Conciergerie, who has locked the door on every sort of crime for the last fifteen years, is, they tell me, the grandson of the Lebel who opened the doors of Louis XV. to the beauties of the Parc-aux-cerfs. These vicissitudes, these striking analogies, occur in obscure families as in the most august. The heir of the original Lebel, the successor of him of royal pomps, had nothing to leave on going to his death but a worn-out cravat and an old prayer-book. When you come to Paris I must certainly show you the Palais; it is curious and thrilling and completely unknown. Now I can do my work ["La Dernière Incarnation de Vautrin"].

On my return home, I found I had missed Captier, Claret's friend. This is a pity; I should have liked to talk with him about a purchase I have in view. There is a chance of buying a bit of ground in the rue Jean-Goujon in the best condition. It is only a stone's throw from the Place de la Concorde.

Yesterday I found some distraction of my nostalgic misery in the Conciergerie, and the court of assizes, and to-day I plunge into work vehemently.

Ah! I must have my house between two gardens, without disagreeable neighbourhood. And I will have a little greenhouse at the back of it—But I must leave you, I must work. You do not know that I am silently collecting very splendid art furniture by dint of researches and tramps about Paris, economy, and privations. I don't wish to speak to you of this; I shall not unmask my batteries until my dream takes, more and more, the semblance of reality.

December 15.

I am now launched into work. This night I have done six pages of the six folios I have to do; and I assure you—I, who know myself—that that is a great deal. I shall try this week to finish La Comédie Humaine.

Yesterday, after finishing my work, I went to see my sister, on a letter she had written me saying that her eldest daughter was dying. Sophie had really nothing more than a slight congestion of the head, which cooling drinks relieved. I heard from Laure that a M. Bleuart was on the point of ruin from having bought up the quartier Beaujon, and that several of the houses were for sale. I hurried there. There are, indeed, houses and vacant ground; but of all those houses there is but one that is anything like finished, and that one is immense; nine windows on the front. I am going there on Wednesday with a friend of Claret and a young man who is in the secret of M. Bleuart's affairs. You see I bestir myself to find a really good thing, and repair in some degree the disaster of Les Jardies; but the important thing of all is to work. I met my old landlord of the rue des Batailles, and he told me that ground in the rue Jean-Goujon was selling for nothing, and I ought to make haste to buy at present prices.

On returning from Beaujon yesterday, I went to pay a visit of half an hour to Madame de Girardin. Returning at six o'clock, I dined and was asleep by seven. In examining my resources, I think I can do without what you know of (the Dresden affair); it is, I have reflected, so difficult to write, receive, and send papers of that kind that I shall try to wait, and place the matter as a last result in its time and place. I am so in the habit when I write to you of thinking aloud, calculating, and recalculating, that you see and know all my hesitations, my backings-down, my additions, etc. You are always and in all things my sole thought; it is you, and you know it well, who are the foundation of everything. If I had the strength this night to apply myself to six folios it was because I want to go from Naples to Rome with you, and for that I shall try to leave here January 11. I want to install you in Rome, as I installed you in Naples. Madame de Girardin calls me il vetturino per amore.

Adieu for to-day. How are you? Do you amuse yourself sometimes? Does Georges take good care of both of you? If anything happens to you under his auspices I will crush his box of insects on the boat. I bless you every day of my life, and I thank God for your good affection. You are my happiness, as you are my fame and my future. Do you sometimes remember that morning at Valence on the bank of the Rhône, when our gentle talk triumphed over your neuralgia as we walked for two hours in the dawn, both ill, yet without perceiving the cold or our own sufferings? Believe me, such memories, which are wholly of the soul, are as powerful as the material recollections of others; for in you the soul is more beautiful than the corporeal beauties for which the sons of Adam destroy themselves.

Adieu till to-morrow, gentle and spiritual power, who hold subjected to your laws your poor and fervent servitor.

December 16.

I received yesterday at four o'clock your number 4. I see that you are still uneasy; but you have not thought of one thing, which is that you began to write to me while I was travelling, and it requires time to establish our regular correspondence. Thus to-day, December 16, I have received four letters from you; well, you, between now and December 30, will have received four letters from me. What is the difference?—fourteen days. But those fourteen days were five at sea, three at Marseille, three in a mail-cart, and the first week in Paris, during which I wrote to you from here. I calculate that you have to-day received my packet by the "Tancrède." That was my number 2; on the 24th you will get my number 3, sent by Anselme de Rothschild; and this will reach you on the 30th, because it will leave here on the 21st. So, dear countess, in spite of the uneasiness which this early failure of the superior force has caused you, you see I am not in fault; I have written to you every day,—too much, in fact, for I have done nothing but think of you, and I have written too little for posterity; and not to write retards my liberation.

Mon Dieu, how your letters make me live! I have an idolatry for those dear papers; I am like a child about them; your punctuality delights me. Never think that I mistake the value of such goodness on your part. I entreat you, take care of yourself; those pains in your stomach worry me. Mine have disappeared, or at least I seldom suffer from them. What is deplorable is that work fatigues me, the symptoms that happiness and the journeys of this year drove away are returning. My eyes throb, the temples also, and I feel weary. I have had to buy a candelabrum for five candles; three were no longer enough, my eyes pained me. So that ugly little candlestick of tarnished gilt, which you must have noticed in my study, is now replaced by a ministerial candelabrum of unheard-of magnificence in bronze, chased and gilt; but it burns one franc fifty centimes' worth of wax-candles every night; do you hear that, madame? Now, two francs for fire, and fifty centimes of coffee besides, make four francs a night. The Arabian Nights cost dear.

Dear countess, I can give Lirette her capital without any difficulty. Tell me how much you intend for her, and I will pay it to her at once. I will go to the convent and settle it with her. I shall be quite content to receive it back in May. Why give yourself the trouble of sending money here. Let me be, for once at least, your business agent.

I have not yet obtained your fantastic set of jewels; but I shall have them soon. Froment-Meurice desires to distinguish himself on Georges' cane, and I don't know whether it will be done by New Year's day. He is a great artist. I assure you it is quite alarming to see how much talent and genius there are in Paris.

I am so cautious about all that concerns you that I shall not risk sending this letter on the 17th; for the boat leaves on the 21st, and at this season the mail-cart might be delayed; therefore I prefer to put my letter in the post to-day, 16th. So I cannot tell you anything about the Bleuart houses; but you shall know all by the letter leaving January 1; you will know also whether I can take the steamboat that starts on the 11th. Do not insist, I entreat you, on forbidding it. In the first place I warn you that, not only you will not be listened to, but I shall be very happy in disobeying you. That means nothing, however, for the greatest happiness must always consist, for me, in the most complete submission to your sovereign will, ever and everywhere. But, I repeat, you alone will be responsible if you persist.

I still have no news of my purchases at Amsterdam; those are furniture griefs. I have just heard of a great misfortune; the beautiful Madame Delaroche, daughter of Horace Vernet, is dead.

Well, à bientôt. Consent with a good grace, because you will gain nothing by refusing. Do you not think it may be the food at the Hotel Vittoria which gives you those pains in your stomach?

Passy, December 17, 1845.[1]

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]

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.

IX.

LETTERS DURING 1846.[1]

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.

Passy, February 8, 1845.[1]

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.