while playing with it, "He plays with that chain!" But I can make such joys for ourselves later. Answer me about the bronze, because I want you to have that masterpiece before your eyes. Think, what happiness to see as you write to me, Exsultat vitam angelorum, which I shall see in writing to you. Oh! I am greedy, hungry for such things, which put two lovers unceasingly in each other's hearts! I shall have your room at Wierzchownia made just like mine here. I want you to have the same carpet.
Oh! I adore you. Just now I wept on thinking of the floor of your house in Geneva. How lucky to have the strength not to cough! These tears have told me that I shall be at Vienna, September 10, and that I shall press you, happy one, on this heart that is all yours.
Bébête, in ten years you will be thirty-seven and I forty-five, and, at that age we can love, marry, and adore each other for a lifetime. Come, my noble companion, my dear Eve, never any doubts—you have promised me. Love with confidence. Séraphita is we two. Let us spread our wings with the same movement, and love in the same way. I adore you, looking neither before nor behind. You are the present, all my happiness at every moment.
Do not be jealous of Madame P … 's letter; that woman must be for us. I have flattered her, and I want her to think that you are disdained. All that I read you in the "Duchesse de Langeais" has been changed. You will read a new book.
Dear angel, no, we will never quit the sphere of happiness where you have made me a happiness so complete. Love me always, you will see me always happy; oh, my life, oh, my beautiful life! Here, I no longer know what an annoyance is in seeing my whole life ardent with one sole love. Tell me what you are doing. Your visit to Genthod delighted me. Never let any woman bite you without biting her deeper. They will fear you and esteem you.
Thanks for the violet; but an end of white ribbon would please me better; it has no longer any smell. I send you a violet from my garden.
Sunday, 23.
Adieu, soul of my soul; will this letter tell you how you are loved? Will it tell it to you really? No; never really. Il faut mes coups de bec là où est l'amour.
I hope to finish my volume this week. You will receive it in Geneva. I will attend to your orders, and do blindly what you tell me. But write names legibly in all business.
Would you believe that two young men dined with me yesterday and told me that several men, two of them friends of theirs, said they were I at the [masked] ball at the Opera, and obtained the favours of well-bred women while I was at Geneva, and that I have been thus calumniated. There are women who boast they have been mine, and that they come to me, to me, who see only la dilecta, who receive nobody, who want to live in your heart! I learned that last night.
Well, adieu my love; no, not adieu, but à bientôt, at Vienna, cara mia, my treasure. I have to work horribly, still; seven or eight proofs to a sheet. Ah! you will never know what the volume you will soon read has cost.
I hope to be in funds for my payments; I hope that on March 25th the third Part will appear. So, all goes well. I lose five hundred francs more by Gosselin, but pooh! The violet will tell you a thousand things of love. The Würtemberg Coquebin will bind "Séraphita" marvellously with the gray cloth; do you understand, treasure?
I go to-day at three o'clock to Madame Appony. Perhaps I shall wish to go to Madame Potoçka of Paris. I will speak to you of that.
Paris, March 2, 1834.
My salvation! For my salvation! No, let me believe that between the two persons of whom you are thinking and me, you have not hesitated, you have condemned me. At least, there is in that all the grandeur of true love.
I was working night and day to go to you. Now I shall certainly work as much, for it is not possible for me to take the slightest resolution till my mother is physically happy. I have still a year to suffer.
Let us say no more of me. So you have been cruelly agitated? A sentiment which gives such remorse was feeble, and it is my heart that was blamed!—I, to whom adoremus in æternum meant something!
Fate is about to take from me a true affection, and to-day I lose all my beliefs in happiness, without anything being able to disengage me from myself. Ah! you have not known me! All those who have suffered forgive, you know. I shall stay as I am; I cannot change. You said yourself: "The Jules women love faithfully, in spite of desertion." Am I therefore not a man? Is this another test? It costs me more than life; it costs me my courage.
I cannot oppose to this blow either disdain, contempt, or any of the egotistical sentiments that console. I remain in my stupor, without understanding. Ah! I knew not that I was writing for myself: To wounded hearts, silence and, shade.
Mon Dieu! my book is finished; I am not rich enough to destroy it, but I lay it at your knees, begging you not to read it: Eve should not open a book in which is the "Duchesse de Langeais." You might, though certain of the entire devotion of him who writes to you, be wounded, as one is pricked by bushes. I shall always weep at being unable to suppress it.
I cannot bid you adieu; I shall never quit you more, and, from this day, I shall not allow myself even the sight of a woman. But you have not told me all! I have been odiously calumniated. You have given ear to impostors. There is room for many blows in a heart like mine; you cannot kill it easily. It is eternally yours, without division.
I tell you nothing of what is in my soul; I have neither strength nor ideas. I suffer through you. So long as it is from your hand, why should I complain? Ah! you shall see that I know how to love. Our hearts will always understand each other.
Paris, March 9, 1834.
My angel returns to me; ah! I will hide my anguish from you, my griefs, my terrible resolutions of a week in which all things have come together to rend my heart. You, Monday; Tuesday. I quarrelled, perhaps to fight, with Émile de Girardin—that was happiness. There's a society I shall never see again and never want to see. My enemies are setting about a rumour of my liaison with a Russian princess; they name Madame P … I have seen since my return only Madame Appony, Madame de C … , Madame de G … , and, for one hour, Madame de la B … That rumour can come only from Geneva, and not from me, who have never opened my mouth about my journey. Here I am, on bad terms with Madame de C[astries] on account of the "Duchesse de Langeais"—so much the better. But all this happens at once. So, no solitude shall ever be more complete than mine.
I have but an hour in which to answer you. Oh! my love, I swear to you I wrote to Madame P … only to prevent the road to Russia being closed to me. It would be poor cleverness to have it said here, in Paris, that I am starting for Russia. That is the way to have passports refused to me when I ask for them. I have not seen Zaluzki. Is it he who talks? Mon Dieu! I, in my hole, to be subjected to such griefs. Read the "Duchesse de Langeais." You will read it with delight. As true as that I love and adore you, I never said more than two sentences to Madame Bossi, and I never looked at her.
You desire, oh, my angel, that I shall not again be coquettish except with men. But between now and Vienna there is only toil and solitude. Give me the means to send you my book, and your coffee, in which will be your hair-chain. Therefore, undo the parcel yourself.
Never give yourself such anxieties again; yesterday, Saturday, without la dilecta, I should have killed myself. Oh! I entreat you, if you wish that I should esteem you and adore you to the end of our days, do not change; be solely mine. I, do you see? have none but you. The superhuman efforts that I make are the greatest proofs of love a man can give. Oh, dear, adored one, my Eve, my Eva, to give his life, what is that? Nothing. Each time that I saw you I gave it without regret.
