[1]Ducat: gold coin, value from ten to twelve francs, according to country (Littré).—TR.
[1]Ducat: gold coin, value from ten to twelve francs, according to country (Littré).—TR.
Paris, March 30, 1835.
Do not be vexed with me for the irregularity of my letters. I am overwhelmed with work, and I feel the necessity of getting through with it if I want my dear liberty. Madame Bêchet has become singularly ill-natured and will hurt my interests much. In paying me, she charges me with corrections which amount on the twelve volumes to three thousand francs, and also for my copies, which will cost me fifteen hundred more. Thus four thousand five hundred francs less, and my discounts, diminish by six thousand the thirty-three thousand. She could not lose a great fortune more clumsily, for Werdet estimates at five hundred thousand francs the profits to be made out of the next edition of the "Études de Mœurs."
I find Werdet the active, intelligent, and devoted editor that I want. I have still six months before I can be rid of Madame Bêchet; for I have three volumes more to do, and it is impossible to count on less than two months to each volume. Thus you see I am held here till September. Between now and then I ought to give Werdet three Parts of the "Études Philosophiques," and do much work for the Revues. For the last twenty days I have worked steadily twelve hours a day on "Séraphita." The world is ignorant of this immense toil; it only sees, and should only see, results. But I have had to master the whole of mysticism to formulate it. "Séraphita" is a consuming work for those who believe. Unhappily, in this sad Paris the Angel may chance to furnish the subject for a ballet. I shall meet with sarcasm, but I will not go into society. I will stay here tranquilly and do "La Fleur des Poix," "L'Enfant Maudit," "Sœur Marie des Anges," and "Les Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée."
What has tired me horribly the last few days is the reprinting of "Louis Lambert," which I have tried to bring to a point of perfection that would leave me in peace as to that work; and Lambert's thoughts when he was at Villenoix remained to be done. I had put, as it were, a hat on that place to keep it, or the cover on a dish at a meal. However, it is all done now; it is a new formula for humanity, which is the tie that binds "Louis Lambert" to "Séraphita."
Next, I have twenty days' work in remaking the "Comtesse à deux Maris" ["Colonel Chabert"]. I think it detestable, wanting in taste and truth; and I have had the courage to begin it all over again on the press. It was in that way I did my last work on the "Chouans." At this rate my hair turns frightfully white. No, you will never recognize me.
Madame de Berny is rather better,—much better, she says. But she still has sudden attacks which show that the cause is there. I have wept much over her; I have prepared myself for a grief which will act upon my whole life. In May I shall go and spend a month with her.
I need seven or eight thousand francs to buy the Grenadière, and I cannot yet put my hand on that sum. If I finish "La Fleur des Poix" in April and go to Touraine in May, I may possibly return with the sacred title of land-owner. On the 20th of May (my birthday) or the 16th of May (my fête-day) we shall baptize my brother's child. I am godfather, with my niece Sophie as godmother. I always swore I would never be godfather to any child; but my brother is so unfortunate it is impossible to refuse. I should like to complete the fête by buying the Grenadière. It would be a first sign of prosperity.
I will put into my parcel of April 17th the two caricatures of me in plaster by Dantan, who has caricatured all the great men. The chief point of mine is the famouscane bubbling with turquoise on a chased gold knob, which has had more success in France than all my works. As for me, he has caricatured my stoutness. I look like Louis XVIII. These two caricatures have had such success that I have not as yet been able to get them. It is true that I go out little, and sit at my work for twenty hours. You can't imagine what success this jewelled cane has had; it threatens to become European. Borget, who has returned from Italy, and who did not say he was my friend, told me he heard of it in Naples and Rome. All the dandies in Paris are jealous, and the little journals have been supplied with items for six months. Excuse me for telling you this, but it seems to me it is biographical; and if they tell you on your travels that I have a fairy-cane, which summons horses, erects palaces, and spits diamonds, do not be surprised, but laugh as I do. Never did the tail of Alcibiades' dog wag harder. But I have three or four other tails of the same kind for the Parisians.
Our exhibition of paintings is quite fine this year. There are seven or eight leading masterpieces. Grosclaude's picture is much liked. He is honourably hung in the large Salon. But they think he has only colour and drawing, and lacks soul and composition. Gérard, however, thinks he is really a man of talent. He told him so sincerely; and repeated the same to me, adding that there was nothing for a man like him to do but to produce; he calls this a good and fine picture. There is much good luck for him in appearing without disadvantage in the large Salon, where there are ten or twelve splendid pictures. There is a landscape by Brascassat in which is a bull, which could be bought for six thousand francs, and may be worth a hundred thousand. It is, like Pagnest's "Portrait," the despair of artists. Brascassat is, like Pagnest, a poor young consumptive. He is a shepherd, taken, like Foyatier the sculptor, from his flocks, and, ifhe lives, he will be a great painter. Our nineteenth century will be great. We cannot doubt it. There is a deluge of talent here.
I regretted you much. I should have liked to see you in Paris this winter. The Exhibition, and the Italian opera have offered an unheard-of combination: Lablache, Tamburini, Rubini. Then Beethoven, executed at the Conservatoire as he is nowhere else. Besides which, Paris is being cleaned and completed, thanks to Louis-Philippe's trowel. But there's a hundred years' work still to do at the Louvre. When I pass along the quay of the Tuileries, my artist-heart bleeds to see the stones placed by Catherine de' Medici, corroded by the sun before being carved—and this for three hundred years.
Adieu! it is two in the morning. Here is an hour and a half stolen from "Séraphita." She groans, she calls; I must finish her, for the "Revue de Paris" groans too; it has advanced me nineteen hundred francs, and "Séraphita" must settle the account.
Adieu! imagine how I think of you in finishing the work that is yours. It is time it appeared. Literature here has decided that I shall never finish that work; they say it is impossible.
Graceful things to Anna, my respects to Mademoiselle Séverine, my regards to M. Hanski; and to you nothing, for all is yours. It would be giving you a bit of your own property to send you anything, and I have, in this low world, too few friendships to diminish the truest of them all.
Paris, May 1, 1835.
Madame,—I greeted M. le Prince de Schonberg as I never did any one, for he came from you. "Séraphita" exacts more work. I had hoped to send you the manuscript by the prince, but it cannot be finished before my fête-day, May 16, and the prince starts to-day or to-morrow. I cannot even profit by his journey to writeyou in detail about my life and occupations. I have perhaps presumed too far upon my strength in supposing I could do so many things in so little time. I shall be lucky indeed if I can get off and divert myself in September. But nothing shall hinder me when my obligations have been met.
When I have finished with Madame Bêchet and Werdet, yes, then I shall have six months before me. On that day I shall owe nothing to any one, for the approaching reissue of the "Études de Mœurs" enlarged by what will be added to them, will release me of all, even my debt to my mother. Wealth will come both for her and for me, in 1837, when my works will be issued as the "Études Sociales." There is my future sketched out. There is my hope and my toil.
If sometimes the grief of not possessing the happiness that I dream saddens and consumes me, the hope of one day seeing my mother happy through me, and my fortune built up, all by myself, without help, sustains me. But what are the hopes of material life compared to the disappointment of the prayers of the heart? And so, now that I advance toward the graver life, and doubt at times of affections, finding myself so changed by toil, there come moments of cruel melancholy and gray hours. Then the weather clears; the azure sky we saw upon the Alps comes back; Diodati, that image of a happy life, reappears, like a star for a moment clouded, and I laugh—as you know I can laugh. I tell myself that so much work will have its recompense, and that I shall some day have, like Lord Byron, my Diodati, and I sing in my bad voice: "Diodati! Diodati!"
What grief for me to delay that glorious apparition of "Séraphita." I tremble lest you should have left Vienna before the prince arrives there. But if so, Sina will forward all.
Be happy on your journey; may no untoward eventdistress you; return to your penates, and I, under my pressure here, I see that dwelling as an object ... [The letter is unfinished.]
Paris, May 3, 1835.
I have this instant received yours of April 24. I have written you by the Prince de Schonberg, who was to carry to you all that remains of the manuscript of the "Duchesse de Langeais," of which part was lost in the printing-office, the part I cared for most, that which I did in Geneva beside you, laughing and explaining to you proof corrections.
How many things I have to answer in your last letter. But before doing so I must tell you something that is the best of all answers. You do not leave till May 15th; well, don't leave till the 25th. I have my passports, and you will receive my farewells. I cannot let you plunge back into your desert until I have pressed your hand. I will not commit to any one the manuscript of "Séraphita." I shall bring it to you myself. I want ten days more to print the rest. The 16th, my fête-day, I shall start for Vienna; I can get there in ten days; I shall be there on the 25th or 26th. If I can arrive sooner, I shall be there sooner. Wait for me; give credit for ten days to a friend. I shall stay four days in Vienna, see Essling and Wagram, and return.
I cannot tell you more, for I must spend the days and nights in getting all things in order here, and in finishing the books begun. "Séraphita" must have eight days and nights for herself alone.
I say nothing to M. Hanski, as I shall see you all so soon. I am joyous as a child at the escapade. Quit my galley and see new lands! Well, well,à bientôt. I send my things to Sina. Ask him, if they arrive before me, to wait till I come before opening my trunk at the custom-house. It is proper that you should see the cane for which you blame me, and I confide it to the customs.
Addio.Kiss Anna on the forehead for her horse.
Vienna, May, 1835.
Can you lend me yourvalet de placeagain this morning?—for I still have not obtained one.
I think you have not read "Obermann;" I send it to you; but I shall want it in two or three days. It is one of the finest books of the period.
A thousand heart compliments.
Vienna, May, 1835.
My cold is precisely the same. It is nothing at all. I have just received a letter from M. Hammer. I think he is annoyed, for he uses towards me that wealth of civility which is often the irony of great souls.
Did you know that the French are verycoustumiersto the fact of bartering Austrian uniforms against victories, but that this ruins young empires?
I shall stay in town only the time necessary to fulfil your Majesty's orders.
I entreat you don't worry about me. People are never ill when they are happy. I do nothing; I let myself go to the happiness of living, and that is so rare with me that when it is so I don't know what could hurt me.
A thousand heart assurances.
Vienna, May, 1835.
The heat has so prostrated me that I don't know what will become of me; but as for the illness itself, it has ceased. A thousand thanks for your kindness.
I shall rush with the celerity of your valet, who is a veritable kid, and this is difficult for a Mar [Balzac's nickname among his friends was Dom Mar] whose paunch is worthy of all the illustrious paunches your cousin used to laugh at.
I have dreamedta, I have dreamedti, I have dreamedtchef, and of hiscasalba. I have come to breathe in the Walter-garten, and I send you "Lauzun" to convince you of the reality of the comedy that could be made of his amours with Mademoiselle, for I think you do not know the book.
Vienna, May, 1835.
You know, madame, that if anything can equal the respectful attachment that I feel for you it is the will that I am forced to display to keep within the limits that my work imposes on my pleasures.
Here, as in Paris, my life must be completelyinharmoniouswith the life of society. To get my twelve hours of work, I must go to bed at nine o'clock in order to rise at three; and this truly monastic rule, to which I am compelled, dominates everything. I have yielded something of my stern observance to you, by giving myself three hours' more freedom here than in Paris, where I go to bed at six; but that is all I can do.
However sweet and gracious are the invitations, and however flattering the eagerness of which I feel the full value, I am obliged to be the enemy of my dearest pleasures. You know that the persons who love me, and who have every right to be exacting, conform to my ways of going nowhere; and treat me as a spoilt child.
These explanations have a conceited aspect which I dislike, and which would make me ridiculous if you did not constrain me to give my true reasons.
So, I count upon your precious friendship to explain them, and save me from their accompanying dangers. You have long known that I am a soldier on a battlefield, swept onward, without other liberty than that of fighting the enemy and all the difficulties of my position.
You will give—will you not?—what value you can to my regrets, and I shall thus have another obligation to add to the hundred thousand I already owe you. Butyou are so noble there is no fear in being indebted to you.
Yes, I am altogether better. I have recovered from the fatigues of the journey, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your dear and delicate attentions. A thousand affectionate compliments to M. Hanski. As for you, I should have to express too many things, and, as you see, paper is lacking. Here begin the things of the heart.
Vienna, May, 1835.
It is impossible for me to work if I have to go out, and I never work merely for an hour or two. You arranged so well that I did not go to bed till one o'clock. Consequently, I did not rise till eight; so from nine till one I have only time to pay you a visit in order to put the visit to the prince between two good things which may weaken the diplomatic influence.
I want to go and see the Prater in the morning, in its solitude. If you will, it would be very gracious; for by not beginning on the "Lys dans la Vallée" till to-morrow I must then work fourteen hours to make up for time lost. I have sworn to myself to do that work in Vienna, or else—throw myself into the Danube.
So, in twenty minutes I shall be with you to ask counsel. As for the seductions of the prince, he caught me once, but I have too much pride to be caught again; I should pass for a ninny.
A thousand heart-felt regards.
Vienna, May, 1835.
I am incapable of writing the nothings that I see come naturally to very intelligent persons; I simply put down just what comes into my head; and what came into my head was one of the things that I have at heart. Excuse me to the countess, and assure her that this is the second time I have failed over an album, and thatnot having the habit—and even having a horror—of them, I hope she will be indulgent to me.
Though I am not dirty, I am decidedly stupid, for I don't understand a word of what you do me the honour to say about Madame Sophie. I entreat you, have pity on my mental infirmities, and, when you make romances, put them on the level of my intellectual faculties. This may seem impertinent—it is only artless.
I have still another hour to work, and then I will come. I am busy with planning rather than writing, and I can see youwhile thinking; which is not the same as thinking of other things than you whileseeingyou.
A thousand gracious and humble thoughts before your August Despotism.
Vienna, May, 1835.
I cannot wait till one o'clock to know if you are better, whether your hoarseness and oppression have lessened, whether the foot-bath was efficacious—in short, whether all is well. Have the charity to send me a word on these important matters—for it is important to subjects to know how their princes are.
Affectionate compliments, and accept my obeisances
Vienna, June, 1835.
You know well, my dear beloved, that my soul is not narrow enough to distinguish what is yours from what is mine. All is ours—heart, soul, body, sentiments, all, from the least word to the slightest look; from life to death. But do not ruin us, for I should send you back a hundred Austrians for your one, and you would cry out at the folly.
My Eve, adored, I have never been so happy, I have never suffered so much. A heart more ardent than the imagination is vivid is a fatal gift when complete happiness does not quench the daily thirst. I knew what Icame to seek of sufferings, and I have found them. In Paris, those sufferings seemed to me the greatest of pleasures, and I was not mistaken. The two parts are equal.
For this you had to be more lovely, and nothing is truer. Yesterday you were enough to render mad. If I did not know that we are bound forever, I should die of grief. Therefore, never abandon me; it would be murder. Never destroy the confidence which is our sole complete possession in this love so pure. Have no jealousies, which never have foundation. You know how faithful the unhappy are; feelings are all their treasure, their fortune, and we cannot be more unhappy than we are here.
Nothing can detach me from you; you are my life, my happiness, all my hopes. I believe in life only with you. What can you fear? My toil proves to you my love; it was preferring the present to the future to come here now; it was the folly of impassioned love, for by it I postponed for many months, that I might enjoy this moment, the days when you think we shall be free—more free, forfree, oh! I dare not think of that. God must will it! I love you so much, and all things unite us so truly that it must be; but when?
A thousand kisses; for I have a thirst those little sudden pleasures but increase. We have not an hour, nor a minute. And these obstacles fan such ardour that, believe me, I do right to hasten my departure.
I press you on all sides to my heart, where you are held but mentally. Would that I held you there living![1]
[1]This letter in itself shows the falseness of those which purport to have been written in January, February, and March. It is that of a man true to himself in one of the greatest struggles of humanity; for, it must be remembered, such trials were not negative in a man of Balzac's nature.—TR.
[1]This letter in itself shows the falseness of those which purport to have been written in January, February, and March. It is that of a man true to himself in one of the greatest struggles of humanity; for, it must be remembered, such trials were not negative in a man of Balzac's nature.—TR.
Munich, June 7, 1835.
I arrived here in Munich at eleven o'clock last night; but I might have come in thirty-six hours instead of forty-eight if it had not been for three bad postilions, whom no human power could make go, and who, each of them, lost me three hours apiece. I slept seven hours, and have just waked to keep the promise I made of writing you a line. Then, at ten o'clock, after seeing the exterior of the public buildings, I shall start again with the same celerity.
I have nothing romantic to tell you of the journey, always sad on leaving kind friends. I had no other adventure than two horses accustomed to fetch sand, who nearly flung me into a quarry, the postilion being unable to prevent them from keeping to their habits. I jumped out in time, and began, like the horses, to go back to Vienna; but it was proved to the horses, by the whip, that they had to go to Hohenlinden, and to me, by necessity, that I had to go to Paris. The postilion was afraid I should scold him. But he did not know that the horses and I were equally faithful to our habits in spite of duty. I made many sad reflections on the manner in which horses and men have no liberty, on the various curbs that are put upon them, on the blows of fate, and the lashing of whips. But I spare you all that. You will tell me that my sadness is too humorous to be believed; whereas, in me, great disappointed affections turn always to a sort of rage, which I express by expending it on some one, as I did Thursday evening at Prince R...'s, where, because I could not do what I wished, I talked magnetism.
In heaven's name, don't forget, I entreat you, to explain to M. Vatischef how it happened that he received neither my card nor my visit; you do not know how much I care about fuelling the duties of politeness punctually.
Though I did not like yourvalet de place, he was useful to me on several occasions. I gave money to all, except to him, and he was not there. Do me the kindness to give him a ducat for me. I will return it in my next letter. One should be neither unjust nor forgetful. Otherwise, nothing is ever great.
I should have liked to go through Munich without stopping; but you asked me to write you a line from here, and so I have stopped. I don't like to stop in this way. The noise and motion of the carriage, the business of paying, and of making the postilions get on, all divert and excite me. But to stop is to think; and there are but sad thoughts on leaving you.
Don't you recognize me, the man of debts, in my leaving two behind me for you to pay—Koller and thevalet de place? Ask M. Hanski to tell the carriage-maker not to take me for a swindler, and to give me credit till my return, an epoch at which I will order a carriage. You see I mean to return soon.
Well, adieu until Paris; there, I will give you my news. Meanwhile accept a thousand tender thanks.
Paris, June 12, 1835.
I arrived on the 11th, at two in the morning. So, deducting the time I stayed in Munich, I did the journey in five days. But I am sure now that it can be done in four, and that I can go in eleven days to Wierzchownia.
I arrived horribly tired, brown as a negro, and only able to fling myself on a bed and sleep. I write to you this evening, according to promise.
You will receive from M. de la Rochefoucauld (to whom I beg you to write a line) by the first embassy opportunity,—that of Austria, if M. le Comte Maurice Esterhazy is a good fellow, and will do me this service,—a parcel containing, first, "Le Père Goriot," third edition, in the first volume of which you will find a pen-holderworthy of you, and in the second volume a paper-knife to thank you for the one you gave me; second, a copy of the "Livre des Conteurs," in which is "Melmoth réconcilié."
I will attend to your pearls at the earliest moment.
I find my affairs in horrible disorder. Werdet had paid the bill of exchange, but he had not been able to pay my notes falling due on the 15th and the 31st of May, so that my sister, to whom such affairs are not familiar, being terrified, took—not my diamonds, but—my silver-ware and pawned it. So now I must work night and day to repair the stupidities they have done me.
I have therefore three or four months at "hard labour," during which I must ask you to have indulgence for me. I can't write to you as often as I would like. I must produce, one after another, "Le Lys," "Les Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée," the Part for Werdet, and that for Madame Bêchet. They are all complaining of me horribly. But feel no remorse; I shall never regret the journey, however short it was, nor, above all, the time, brief as it was, society left us to ourselves.
I am not pleased with Munich. There are too many frescos, and too many bad frescos. Those of the upper ceiling of the Pinakothek, and those of the lower halls of the Kœnigsbaugh(?), are alone of value. All the rest is not above the level of our café decorations in Paris.
Adieu, for to-day. Kiss Anna's pretty little knuckles for me, offer my regards to M. Hanski, and recall me to the memory of all about you.
You will find the ducat for Jean, thevalet de place, in the first volume of "Père Goriot."
Chaillot[rue des Batailles], July 1, 1835.
What I send you will decidedly be subjected to the chances that politics may have of sending a courier to M. de la Rochefoucauld; for the lucky attaché was married and gone before I knew it.
Since I last wrote you time has elapsed; but that time was taken up by enormous troubles, such as whiten or thin the hair. The person who is with my mother writes me, confidentially, that it is a question of saving her life or her reason, for that if she does not die, grief may make her crazy. My brother, incapable in every way, reduced to the deepest distress, talks of blowing out his brains, instead of trying to do something for himself. My sister is in a state that grows worse; her illness had made frightful advances. All this is killing my mother.
So, in four days there is added to the difficulties created by my journey, my financial crisis and delayed work, that of two existences to guide and providentially manage!
It is a gloomy evening. I am seated at my window; I have gazed through space at the lands I have just quitted, and where I went to seek, near you, youth, rest, strength—to refresh both heart and head, to forget the hell of Paris; and sitting here, a few tears fall. I measure the extent of the abyss; I weigh the burden; I seek in the depths of my heart the corner where lies the principle of my power; and I resign myself. Of these great scenes, the secret lies between God and ourselves. My God!—If you could see me you would know why I was so sad in leaving you, you would comprehend the meaning of what I said when I cried out with apparent gaiety: "I go to plunge back into the vat and renew my miseries."
By what sweet destiny is it that for two years past I owe to you the only calm and peaceful intervals in my life?
Now, I have begun to raise a barrier, not to be surmounted, between my mother and her children, between her and the world of self-interests that come roaring round her. I have secured to her the peace and calmness of her retreat. Next, I have formed a plan of liquidation for my brother, and another plan to provide for two years for his family subsistence. In fifteen days all this will be settled. Then in the course of those two years I shall be able to find him a position.
If you will think for a moment that small interests are more complicated and more difficult to handle than great ones, you will divine the goings and comings, the difficulties, the conferences of all this. I had my own financial crisis to overcome. The continual calumnies in the newspapers piling lampoons upon me—that I had absconded, that I was in Sainte-Pélagie—found credence in the stupid part of Paris; and that belief has paralyzed the resources of credit that I had. But, at the hour of my present writing I have vanquished all for myself as well as for my mother and for my brother. Still a day or so, and I shall be astride of the prettiest winged courser I ever mounted in the fields of the classic valley; and I shall fire away in both Revues in July and August, while my two Parts—of the "Études de Mœurs" and the "Études Philosophiques"—will appear simultaneously. The purely pecuniary damage done by my journey will be repaired. Then I shall work deliciously once more, thinking that my reward will be the journey to Wierzchownia without a care.
It was under these circumstances that I busied myself about your paper-knife and your pen-holder; I thought those trifles would be the dearer to you, and that M. Hanski would suffer friendship to impinge upon his rights. So, into the midst of my troubles a sweet thought glided when I went to Lecointe, the jeweller. Oh! preserve me, very pure and very bright, that affectionwhich, you see, is a source of consolation amid the tortures of life.
I presume your long silence comes from your journey to Ischl. Nevertheless, I had news of you yesterday. It was not good. From the 27th to the 28th you were ill, harassed. You saw Madame de Lucchesi-Palli [Duchesse de Berry]. A somnambulist whom I had put to sleep told me that. She must have told the truth, for she spoke of certain annoyances which you feel, and of which she could know nothing except from you. The last experiments that I have made here in Paris since my return decide me to always have somnambulists at hand. This one told me that you wrote to Paris (or intended to write to Paris) for information about me. But she saw this so confusedly that it proved nothing clearly. She thought your heart was larger than it ought to be, and advised me earnestly to tell you to avoid painful emotions and live calmly; but she said there was no danger. Your heart is, like your forehead, an organ largely developed. I was much moved when she said to me with that solemn expression of somnambulists: "These are persons very much attached to you, who love you very truly."
What an imposing and awful power! To know what is passing in the soul of others at a great distance! To know what they do! I will try to give you a proof of this. Tell M. Hanski to write me a letter, calculate the day I shall receive it, and then remember all he says, and does, and thinks on that day, so that he may know whether I, in Paris, have seen Ischl. It will be the finest of our experiments. A month hence I shall have several somnambulists. It is one means not to be cheated by anyone. I have nothing of Anna's, so I cannot know anything about her. If you are curious to consult, send me a little piece of linen or cotton, which you must put on her stomach during the night, andwhich she must putherself(without any one touching it) into a paper whichshemust put inside your letter.
I have to-day resumed my great labours. Madame de Castries seems satisfied with what I did for her; but I did well to put my relations with her on the footing of social politeness. If you have read, or if you should read "Léone Léoni," you must know that Madame Dudevant has been far beneath d'U..., the husband of the Wallachian. I have heard strange things about that household, but I cannot write them; they go beyond the limits of a letter. I will keep them for an evening at Wierzchownia. Good God! what a life!
Yesterday the most horrible thing happened to me. You know, or you don't know, that waiting in expectation is dreadful torture to me. Sandeau went to the rue Cassini, and there heard that a package had come by post from Vienna, and, the postage being thirty-six francs, Rose had refused to take it in, not having the money. My head gave way. I felt that no one but you could be sending to me from Vienna. I sent Auguste off in a cabriolet, told him where to get the money, and to bring me the package, living or dead. Auguste was gone four hours. I was four hours in hell, inventing dramas. What do you suppose he brought? That copy of "Père Goriot," which I asked you to give to any one who might like it, and it was returned to me from Vienna!—by the post! They may refuse me entrance to paradise, "Philippe le Discret" may be a failure—such would be mere misfortunes, but this! I did as the possessor of slippers did in the Arabian Nights,—I burned that copy lest it might cause me some other misfortune.
I have had another grief. A little Savoyard, whom T call Anchises [Grain-de-mil], who was zeal, discretion, honesty, intelligence personified,—my little groom, to whom I was singularly attached,—died at the Hôtel-Dieuon the twenty-first day after an operation performed by M. Roux, Dupuytren's successor, and done with great success,—the removal of a large tumour on the knee. The-putrid reaction of so large a wound set in violently. I am grieved. He decided on the operation, which became necessary in my absence, in order that I might find him cured and relieved of an infirmity which would in the end have carried him off. Poor child! all those who knew him regret him; he pleased every one.
After a few more words to you I must go and put myself to finishing "l'Enfant Maudit." I am in a suitable frame of mind to do that work of melancholy. Now that I have returned to my life of eighteen hours' daily toil I shall write you a species of journal every day, and send you the whole weekly. This is written Sunday, June 28, twenty-four days after leaving you, and fifteen days since I last wrote to you. But these fifteen days have been fatally full of griefs, occupations, and difficulties of all sorts; such things cannot be told. It would need volumes to explain what is done and thought in an hour. You have it in bulk. Werdet has been to London to see about our counterfeits and translations.
Monday, 29.
It was midnight when I finished. I said adieu to you in my heart and went to bed. I should like to change something in my way of life. I should like to get up at four in the morning, and go to bed at nine in the evening. I would then sleep seven hours and work fifteen. It is difficult to change, for my hours are so inverted.
Here Auguste comes in and tells me that all the arrangements I had made for my payments to-morrow, 30th, are overturned by a discounter who sends me back, not accepting it, a note of Spachmann's for one thousand francs. So I must dress and rush out. Conceiveof such a life! I was about to begin, in peace, a work of melancholy, and here's a bombshell fallen into my study! But it is not a despatch I have to write, and I can't say, like Charles XII., "What has a bombshell to do with L'Enfant Maudit?" Adieu, for to-day.
Tuesday, 30.
I got to bed late, but I managed my affair and shall have the money, less a few ducats, to-day.
In my tramps I went to see a somnambulist; she told me you were on the road to Ischl, thus contradicting the other, who said you had seen Madame Lucchesi-Palli. But I know how this happened. It would take too long to explain it to you. I have, unfortunately, too little time to myself to study these effects according to my new ideas, and to classify my observations. The difficulty of getting subjects, the necessities imposed on a magnetizer, all interfere with what I would like to do. Here, as in the case of writing a play, one must have time and quiet; now time and quiet are for me the two causes of fortune, and fortune is that which stops me in all things. Recapitulation made: I must have a year of toil and much luck in that toil to be entirely free and liberated.
Well, adieu; I have before me one whole month of tranquillity, for I have nothing to pay before July 31.
Mon Dieu!how I wish I had two good somnambulists! I should know every morning how you are, what you are doing; and this small satisfaction joined to my constant work would keep me happy.
July 1st.
Yesterday I had to rush about to complete the payments, which was only done this morning. These 30ths of a month bring strange commotions!
To-night I am very sad. The east wind blows, I have no strength. I have not yet recovered my power of work; I have neither inspiration nor anything fructifying.Nevertheless, the necessity is great. I shall take to coffee again. When one has no illusions as to fame and looks for one's reward elsewhere, it is very grievous to be alone with one's work.
A thousand tender affections. Write me often, for your writing is a talisman. You know what belongs to all those about you. Don't walk too much, only a little. At Ischl the air suffices. Besides, a carriage in any case suits you best; I have observed that; so the great doctor says: "No more walking."
Chaillot, July 18, 1835.
I have no time to write to you. Calumny has ruined my credit. Men who would never have thought of coming to ask for money and everybody else have swooped down upon me. My omnipotent pen must coin money; and yet nothing must be sacrificed to necessity at the expense of art. Do you know what I am doing? I am working twenty-four hours running. Then I sleep five hours; which gives me twenty-one hours and a half to work per day.
Your letter grieves me, for you make me responsible for Liszt's letter.Mon Dieu!how is it that with such a splendid forehead you can think little things. I do not understand why, knowing my aversion for George Sand, you make me out her friend.
You have not given me your address at Ischl. I send this to Sina. Pray let me know how long you stay there, that I may send you a package of books. "Louis Lambert" is finished. I have also finished a volume for Madame Bêchet, and in eight days more I shall have only two to finish. Werdet will also get his two Parts of the "Études Philosophiques" within twenty days. I go on by the grace of God; when I fall—well, I shall have fallen; but one must fight and grow greater.
You tell me to write to the Countess Loulou.[1]But how can I? Explain to her yourself my involuntary tardiness. I can't attend to my own affairs, I do not go out, I only write pages. In all conscience, I cannot seek for the impossible. No one here would accept the small salary the prince offers andthree hundredfrancs for the journey! A reader whoknows how to readis not an ordinary man, and yet the prince denies him a seat at his table. A man of intelligence can earn more here than three hundred francs a month by literature, and to readwellis literature. I do not undertake the impossible. Every one, even those who die of hunger, laugh in my face. Leave Paris for Vienna for such pay as that! They had rather die of hunger in Paris, with hopes, than live without cares elsewhere. I will write to the princess and to the countess when I can, but I must provide for the defence of all points attacked, and I am firing from the three batteries of the Revues and my "Études."
Tell the countess that the novel by Madame de Girardin, "The Marquis de Pontanges," is worth reading. It is the only one in six months.
Adieu; I will write when I have done something, and obtained results which will put your soul at rest about my works and my vigils. These strivings of a man with his thought, ink, and paper, have nothing very poetic about them. It is silence; it is obscurity. Lassitude, efforts, tension, headaches, weariness, all go on between the four walls of that rose-and-white boudoir which you know by its description in the "Fille aux yeux d'or." And I have nothing to console me but that distant affection,—which is angry with me at Ischl for a few words written foolishly while I was in Vienna,—and the prospect of going to seek harshness at Wierzchownia, when Ishall be, in six or seven months, dying as a result of my efforts! I ought to say, like some general, I don't know who, "A few more such victories and we are beaten."
Adieu; I kiss Anna on the forehead, and send you and M. Hanski a thousand assurances of affection. Think of me as much as I think of you; that will content me. But from you no letter since June 26, and here it is July 18. You are punishing me.
[1]Countess Louise Turheim, chanoinesse, whose brother-in-law, Prince Rasumofski, had asked Balzac to send him a reader from Paris.
[1]Countess Louise Turheim, chanoinesse, whose brother-in-law, Prince Rasumofski, had asked Balzac to send him a reader from Paris.
Paris, August 11, 1835.
I have just returned from Berry, where I went to see Madame Carraud, who had something to say to me, and I find on my return your last letter, the one in which you speak of the visit you paid toMadame[the Duchesse de Berry] at the moment when our newspapers were representing her as inventing the infernal machine of Fieschi and awaiting its success at Aix, where she conferred about it with Berryer! Try to govern a people who, for twenty-four hours and over two hundred square leagues, can be made to believe such things as that!
You complain very amiably of the rarity of my letters, but you know I write as often as I can. I work now twenty hours a day. Can I endure it? I do not know.
I do not understand why you did not receive my parcel. The Austrian embassy took it under their protection, and it is addressed to M. de la Rochefoucauld. Inquire for it, I beg of you.
I am surprised at your enthusiasm for Lherminier. It is plain that you have not read his other works. They have prevented me from reading "Au delà du Rhin," the fragments of which published in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" did not seem to me very strong. Do not confound Lherminier and Capefigue with the roses and lilies. Leave them among the thistles, which are dear, for more reasons than one, to their Excellencies. You will oblige me to read "Au delà du Rhin;" but I fear—in spite of your fine forehead.
I did not "chant marvels" to you about Madame de Girardin's book. It is better than what she has so far done; it is not a very remarkable work, but it is literature, and not dogmatic politics.
Mon Dieu!have I not already written to you that the two somnambulists forbid you to walk? Why, then, do you walk?
Your letter saddens me; it seems cold and indifferent, as if the ice on which thrones rest had invaded you. I like it better when you quarrel with me, find fault with me. If you do not stay long in Vienna, how shall I send you the manuscripts of "Séraphita," and the "Lys dans la Vallée"? The end of "Séraphita" will not appear in the "Revue de Paris" till the third, or perhaps fourth Sunday in October. If you leave, give me some certain address at Brody; you will there find the precious package.
Mon Dieu!I need an almost exaggerated tenderness on the part of my friends, for I assure you that a cruel conviction is laying hold of me: I do not hope to bear up under such heavy toil. One may indeed be broken down by violent efforts in art, sciences, and letters, and in this increase of labor which has come upon me, driven as I am by necessity, nothing sustains me. Work, always work; nights of flame succeeding nights of flame, days of meditation to days of meditation, execution to conception, conception to execution. Little money in comparison with what I need, immensity of money in relation to the thing done. If each of my books were paid like those of Walter Scott, I could bring myself safely out of this. But, although well paid, I do not come out of it. I shall have earned twelve thousand francs in August. The "Lys" has brought me eight thousand,—half from the "Revue des deux Mondes," half from the publishers. The article in the "Conservateur" will receive three thousand francs. I shall have finished "Séraphita," begun the "Mémoiresd'une jeune Mariée," and finished the last Part for Madame Bêchet. I don't know that brain, pen, and hand have ever done such a feat of strength. And there exists a dear person, sacredly beloved, who complains that the correspondence languishes, although I answer scrupulously all her letters.
It is impossible for me to speak to you in letters of Fieschi and his machine. The wise men in politics, and I myself, who am not without a certain gift of second-sight, believe that it is neither the Republic nor Carlism which is the author of the attempt.Fieschi has told nothing; of that you may be sure. He will probably never speak. Lisfranc, the surgeon, who is taking care of him in prison, told this to my sister whom he is attending. He has had much money given him. Perhaps he himself does not knowwhomade him act.
I am on the eve of beginning a political existence. I am cowardly enough to wish to hold back in order not to risk my journey to Wierzchownia. The two Revues form a large party, for the "Revue des Deux Mondes" has fifteen hundred subscribers, five hundred being in Europe; it becomes, therefore, a power. They unite in me, take me as head, for I have vanquished many men and things by myBedouck! They support me. I shall make two other newspapers. That will give us four, and we are to-day in treaty for a fifth! We think of calling ourselves the party of theIntelligentials, a name which lends itself but little to ridicule, and will constitute a party to which many will feel flattered to belong. To be head of this in France, that is worth thinking of. For a long time these principal lines of our work have been discussed between me and a man powerful by his will, who organized four years ago and directed the "Revue des Deux Mondes" [Charles Rabou]. We have had several conferences. The two newspapers, the two Revues enable us to skim the cream of the salons, to assimilate them,to unite the seriously able intellects; and nothing can resist this amicable league of a press which will have nothing blind, nothing disorganized about it.
You see that as I advance in my own work I act on another and parallel line, important and broader; in a word, I shall not stop short in politics any more than in literature. Time presses, events are complicating. I should have been stopped for want of a hundred thousand francs; but I think I am about to write a drama, under the name of my future secretary, to procure them. I must be done with this money question which strangles me.
You see that, in spite of your coldness, I keep you informed of the great operations of your devoted moujik. But if the law passes, the new law which requires that political articles be signed, I shall have to renounce a great deal in order to go to Paulowska. In short, we cannot have intellect for nothing!
To speak to you of my every-day affairs would be to tell you of too many great miseries. I have always an infinite number of errands, goings and comings to pay my notes and meet my engagements, without ever being able to end them. In Paris everything involves a frightful loss of time, and time is the great material of which life is made.
So, when I am bending over my paper in the light of my candles in the salon of the "Fille aux yeux d'or," or lying, weary, on the sofa, I am breathless with pecuniary difficulties, sleeping little, eating little, seeing no one,—in short, like a republican general making a campaign without bread, without shoes. Solitude, however, pleases me much. I hate society. I must finish what I have begun, and whatever turns me from it is bad, especially when it is wearisome.
You ask me, I think, about Madame de C... She has taken the thing, as I told you, tragically, and now distrusts the M... family. Beneath all this, on bothsides there is something inexplicable, and I have no desire to look for the key of mysteries which do not concern me. I am with Madame de C... on the proper terms of politeness and as you yourself would wish me to be.
Do not make any comparison between the affection which you inspire, and that which you grant; for in that, those who love you have the advantage. Never believe that I cease to think of you, for even though I be occupied as I am now, it is impossible that in hours of fatigue and despair, hours when our energy relaxes, and we sit with pendent arms and sunken head, body weary and mind distressed, the wings of memory should not bear us back to moments when we refreshed our soul beneath green shades, to her who smiled to us, who has nothing in her heart that is not sincere, who is to us a spirit, who reanimates us, and renews, so to speak, by distractions of the soul, those powers to which others give the name of talent. You are all these things to me, you know it; therefore never jest about my feelings; I fear lest there mingle in it too much of gratitude.
Adieu. At Wierzchownia! I must cross Europe to show you an aging face, but a heart that is ever deplorably young, which beats at a word, at a line ill-written, an address, a perfume, as though it were not thirty-six years old.
I hope when you are regularly settled in your Wierzchownia, that you will write me the journal of your daily life and be to me more faithfully a friend, so that we shall be as if we had seen ourselves yesterday when I arrive. A thousand kind things to M. Hanski. Write me whether the parcel is lost or you received it. I am afraid it went to Ischl after you had left. Also write me by return of courier, inclosing in your letter a seal in red wax of your arms, which are to be engraved on the title-page of "Séraphita," in the edition of the "Étudesphilosophiques" and "Le Livre Mystique." Isn't it a piece of gallantry to sound the heraldic chord which you have within you, I know not where, for it is not in your heart? Kiss Anna on the forehead for me. All tender sentiments, and recall me to the recollection of the Viennese, to whom I owe memories.
Paris, August 24, 1835.
My letters are becoming short, you say, and you no longer know whom I see. I see no one; I work so continually that I have not a moment for writing. But I do have moments of lassitude for thinking. Some day you will be astonished at what I have been able to do, and yet write to a friend at all.
Listen: to settle this point, reflect on this: Walter Scott wrote two novels a year, and was thought to have luck in his labour; he astonished England. This year I shall have produced: (1) "Le Père Goriot;" (2) "Le Lys dans la Vallée;" (3) "Les Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée;" (4) "César Birotteau." I have done three Parts of the "Études de Mœurs" for Madame Bêchet; and three Parts of the "Études Philosophiques" for Werdet. And, finally, I shall have finished the thirddizain, and "Séraphita." But then, shall I be living, or in my sound mind in 1836? I doubt it. Sometimes I think that my brain is inflaming. I shall die on the breach of intellect.
These efforts have not yet saved me from my financial crisis. This fearful production of books, involving as it does such masses of proofs, has not sufficed to liquidate me. I must come to the stage; the returns of which are enormous compared to those we get from books. The intellectual battle-fields are more fatiguing to work than the fields where men die or the fields where they sow their corn; know this. France drinks brains, as once she cut off noble heads.
Yes, I can only write you a few pages, and soon I may only send you despairing ones; for courage is beginning to desert me. I am weary of this struggle without rest, of this constant production without productive success. A fine thing truly to excite moral sympathies when a mother and a brother are needing bread! A fine thing to hear silly compliments on works that are written with one's blood and do not sell, while M. Paul de Kock sells three thousand copies of his, and the "Magasin Pittoresque" sixty thousand! We shall see each other again if I triumph, but I doubt success!
Monday, 24.
Forgive me for having uttered that cry of pain, and do not be too much alarmed by it. But if I perish, carried off by excess of toil, it must not surprise you. The end of "Séraphita" cannot appear in the "Revue de Paris" before September. The corrections, the efforts are crushing. Already there have been one hundred and sixty hours' work on the first proof; and I don't know what the others will cost.
If you are kind you will write me oftener. It seems as though the air were fresher about me, my brain cooler, as if I were in an oasis, when I have read your letters. They make me think I am at some wayside haven. Fifteen days had passed without one when I received the last from Ischl. I am well advanced in corrections of the "Lys dans la Vallée." It will appear in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" while you are travelling. I think I have not done a finer work as painting of an interior. I have rewritten and finished "Gobseck." In "La Fleur des Pois" I have swung round upon myself. Hitherto, I have painted the misfortunes of wives; it is time to show also the sorrows of husbands.
Here is something singular: it is that I was composing this work while you were thinking of its leading idea, andduring the time it took your letter in which you spoke of the sufferings that fall upon men to reach me! Is it not enough to make one believe that space does not exist and that we had talked together?
Adieu, I have no more time to write. But, as I told you, I have time to think, and I think of you in all my hours of recreation. I must earn money to go to the Ukraine, for in order to travel tranquilly I cannot owe anything here.
Adieu; remember me to all about you.
Chaillot, October 11, 1835.
Do not be surprised at my silence; it is easily explained by the abundant work I have done. For the last forty days I have risen at midnight and gone to bed at six o'clock. Between those periods there has been nothing but work, ardent, passionate work,—the desperate struggle of battle-fields.
Do me the favour not to believe that the friendship you grant me is the common friendship of women; considerquand mêmeto be the noblest of mottoes. Yes, I shall not perish; yes, I shall triumph!
But you ought to have received two letters through Sina, one of which carried to you the dedication. By the first of next March I shall owe nothing to any one. And thus will end this horrible battle between misfortune and me. My wealth will be my pen and my liberty.
Yesterday, returning along the quays on foot, meditating the corrections of "Séraphita," I saw, in a carriage that went by rapidly, Madame Kisseleff. Imagine my astonishment! She was returning no doubt from Bellevue, the residence of the Austrian embassy.
Another piece of news. By getting up at midnight and going to bed at six o'clock for forty days I am beginning to get thin during my eighteen hours' vigil and toil. I wish the "Lys" and "Séraphita" and the new "LouisLambert" to be the culminating points of my literary life so far.
We are reprinting the "Médecin de campagne." I am having a travelling-carriage built; and I think of buying a house, so that when you come to Paris I can offer you a whole one to yourself, in thanks for the hospitality you promise me at Wierzchownia. M. de Custine is in Paris, faithless man!
Will you permit me to have a watch made for you in Geneva? I will bring it to you with the manuscripts that belong to you. I will thus repair the disaster of your journey; you are too far from Geneva to do it yourself.
Take care of yourself. Play Grandet and Benassis. I will be your critic when I come, as you are mine on my works.
Oh! I entreat you, have confidence in me. Do not be vexed with me for anything, neither the brevity, nor the careless scribbling of my letters. I must work on,—nothing can be allowed to wait; and I have always around me three or four volumes in proofs to read; and besides this, financial matters. In truth, I do not live; but, in my most weary hours, I can rest my head upon the mantel-piece and lose myself in dreams, like a woman.
A thousand kind memories to all, and toyouall the friendships. I expect to hear from you on "Le Lys dans la Vallée." I worked long over that book. I wanted to use the language of Massillon, and that instrument is heavy to wield.
Ardent wishes for all that is dear to you; my friendship to the Grand Marshal.
Chaillot, October, 1835.
I have received your letter from Brody, and thank you from the bottom of my heart. The more you forbid me to go to Wierzchownia, under pretext of too great fatigue,the quicker I shall go. But be easy; I cannot breathe the air of liberty, or feel myself free of chains, before April, May, or June. But I shall surely go and do "Philippe II." and "Marie Touchet" at Wierzchownia tranquilly; or a few good works which will give me my financial independence,—the three francs a day that the dethroned Napoleon wanted.
Yes, Madame Kisseleff is in Paris. Happy Monsieur E...! I am out of society; until my liberation I see no one, and I work as I told you. You will not read till you reach Wierzchownia "Le Livre Mystique," which is composed of my new "Louis Lambert" and "Séraphita." The Emperor Nicholas will not forbid those books.
I should like to be able to buy the house of which I spoke to you. It would be a good investment, and I should be forced to be economical.
I am getting a bad opinion of your firmness. In proportion as you approach yourcaret patriayour sublime resolutions as to government vanish, and you are becoming once more the great lady, creole and indolent. Come, be queen of Wierzchownia; do not be an unpublished Benassis at Paulowska. Be, rather, an intellectual growth, develop that fine forehead where shines the most luminous of divine lights.
I wish to reach Wierzchownia by travelling through Germany,—that country worthy of the renown against which we lie so much. From now to seven months hence I shall have accomplished great works. "César Birotteau" will have been followed by many others. But the "Lys"! If the "Lys" is not a female breviary, I am nothing. The virtue in it is sublime, and not wearying. To be dramatic with virtue, to be ardent and use the language and style of Massillon,—let me tell you, that is a problem, to solve which, in the first number, cost three hundred hours of corrections, four hundred francs to the"Revue" and to me a trouble in my liver. Dr. Nacquart put me into a bath for three hours a day, on ten pounds of grapes, and wanted me not to work; but I do work all night.
Madame de Berny is much better; she has borne a last shock, the illness of a beloved son whose brother has gone to bring him home from Belgium. I was there to lessen her sorrows. She told me she could say but one word about my "Lys": that it was indeed the Lily of the Valley. From her lips that is great praise; she is very hard to satisfy. The first number is finished and I have two others; at twenty days apiece, that makes forty days. Sainte-Beuve worked four years at "Volupté." Compare that!
I send you many heartfelt wishes, and beg you to recall me to the memory of all. Your paper-knife broke in my hand; it almost cut me; I felt grieved about it. Besides which, I don't know where the little pencil-case of Geneva has hid itself; I am grieved about that also; but it may be found in some pocket. I am so full of ideas and work that here is distraction beginning. But the heart has none, only the head.
Chaillot, November 22, 1835.
Do not be surprised at the number of days since I have written to you. This interruption is due to the sharpness of the conflict, the necessity of a work that takes days and nights. I am in fear of succumbing. Also, events have become very serious in my family. Something had to be done about my brother,—get him off to India, or induce him to go.
You, so little concerned about money, you will never know, until I relate them to you by the fireside in your steppe, the difficulties there are in paying ten thousand francs a month, without other resource than one's pen. Still, I have almost the hope of arriving, if not free,at least with honour safe and no misfortune, at December 31.
You will comprehend nothing of these two months until you see the frightful labour on "Séraphita" and the "Lys" bound in green and placed upon your bookshelves. Then you will ask yourself, seeing that mass of proofs and corrections, if there were years in those months, days in those hours.
Madame Bêchet has paid us our thirty-three thousand francs; and we are offered forty-five thousand for the thirteen following volumes, which will complete, in twenty-five volumes, the first edition of the "Études de Mœurs." That is how our affairs stand now. We owe thirty-five thousand francs, and we possess, in expectation, fifty thousand. There's the account of our household. The sole point now is, not to die of fatigue on the day when the burden becomes endurable!
To-morrow, Sunday, 22, the first number of the "Lys dans la Vallée" appears in the "Revue de Paris." But learn from one fact the nature of my struggle and my daily combats. Since my return from Vienna the "Revue de Paris" made immense sacrifices for "Séraphita." After six months of toil and money spent, "Séraphita," finished, was to have appeared to-morrow. Suddenly the director told me it was incomprehensible, and that he preferred not to publish it on account of the long interruption which had occurred between the first numbers and the end, with a hundred other reasons which I spare you. I at once proposed to pay him his costs and take back my article. Accepted. I rushed to Werdet, and told him about it. He rushed to Buloz with the money; and the wrath of publisher and author is such that "Séraphita" has gone from one printing-press to the other and that the "Livre Mystique," will appear on Saturday, 28th. The literature of the periodical press will seize upon the singular anecdote of this refusal; itwill make such an uproar, inasmuch as the editor of the "Revue" is not liked, that Werdet feels sure of selling "Séraphita" in a single day.[1]There is a copy on Chinese paper for you, besides the collection of manuscripts and proofs. But such displays of force require prodigious efforts: they are like the campaigns of Italy.
You understand that in a literary campaign like mine society is impossible. Therefore I have openly renounced it. I go nowhere, I answer no letter and no invitation. I only allow myself the Italian operaoncea fortnight. Thursday last I saw Madame Kisseleff there. Alas! how little effect her beauty made! If you only knew how everything becomes belittled in Paris! In spite of her protecting passion for Poggi, she understands what I tried to tell her in Vienna, and Poggi now gives her the impression of a full stop in the Encyclopædia after hearing Rubini.
I cannot tell you the memories that assailed me when I found myself beside some one from Vienna, a friend of yours, and listening to the "Somnambula" which recalled to me two of our evenings. The Princess Schonberg was there also. I paid a visit of politeness to her; and I shall also go and see Madame Kisseleff once.
So, my life is a strange monotony, and your letters are so rare that I have no longer the regular event that varied it,—your letters, that always came of a Monday. I have no longer my good Monday. I can onlytell you about my work and my payments,—a chant as monotonous as that of the waves of ocean surging upon a granite rock.
I am going to dine in town to get you an autograph of Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of Saint-Jean-d'Acre. I will also send you one of Alphonse Karr.