au XIXe Siècle," and I have added the Prologue of the third dizain of the "Contes Drolatiques" for M. Hanski, inasmuch as there is something in it about a famous inkstand, and things that will make him laugh; for I do not insult you with my Prologue, pay attention to that. It is to M. Hanski, and not to you, that this proof belongs.
You will see at the end of the "Duchesse de Langeais" that I have preserved a remembrance of the Pré-l'Évêque by dating the work from that revolutionary and military spot where we saw such warlike intentions. The third dizain is also dated from the Eaux Vives, and the Hôtel de l'Arc.
I have many things to tell you, but little time to myself. My third Part is in the press, and I ought to make up for time lost. Nevertheless, Madame Bêchet is a very good person.
Forgive the want of order in my letter, but I will tell you the events that have happened to me as they come into my memory.
In the first place, I have said adieu to that mole-hill of Gay, Émile de Girardin and Company. I seized the first opportunity, and it was so favorable that I broke off, point-blank. A disagreeable affair came near following; but my susceptibility as man of the pen was calmed by a college friend, ex-captain in the ex-Royal Guard, who advised me. It all ended with a piquant speech replying to a jest.
Another thing I must tell you is that I have recently quarrelled also with the Fitz-James. And here I am, as much alone as the woman most ambitious of love could desire, if any woman could wish for a man whom excessive work is withering more and more. It is two months to-day that I have been working eighteen hours a day.
The "Médecin de campagne" will be completely sold off in a few days. I am in all the fuss and worries of getting out a new edition of that book, which I want to sell at thirty sous, in order to popularize it.
Thursday, April 3.
From March 30, the day on which I began to write to you, until this evening, I have been lying on my pallet unable to write, read, or work, or do anything at all. A prostration of all my forces made me very anxious; but to-day I am quite well, and I am going for a week to the Pavilion in the forest of Fontainebleau. I have ordered all my letters to be kept in Paris. I want change of air, and to work at one thing only; for I have just suffered very much, but, thank God, it is all over. I resume my letter.
I invited your cousin Bernard … to dinner, with Zaluski, and Mickiewicz, your dearest poet, whose face pleased me much. Bernard is very handsome and was very witty.
I entreat you, madame, to send me word, by return of post, if you will still be in Florence May 10th, how much time you stay in Rome, when you arrive, and when you will leave; because when my third Part is done I shall have twenty days to myself. I want to use them in travelling and doing nothing, and I shall accompany Auguste Borget to Florence. We shall leave May 1st and it takes only eight days from Paris to Florence.
Do not blame me too much for the unpunctuality of my correspondence. In the extreme desire for Liberty which possesses me, I don't consult human forces, I work exorbitantly. I have at this moment in press: two volumes of my third Part of the "Études de Mœurs," two volumes of "Les Chouans," and the third dizain; then, in a week from now, two volumes for Gosselin. It is enough to terrify one. But there are two magic words which make me able to do all: liberty on the 1st of September; Vienna on that day; and I shall not regret my nights or my tortures, for pen-receipts will tally with expenses.
Mon Dieu! what a charming project—to be in Florence May 10, and back in Paris for the 20th! To see Florence with you! Write me quickly; for after these terrible toils through the month of April I must have twenty days' rest, and I know nothing more delightful than to see an Italian city while accompanying a friend.
I think of you very often, and I much regret Geneva, where I worked so much, all the while amusing myself. Except for a few worries, my affairs are going well. Some flatterers say that my fame is increasing, but I know nothing of that, for I live in my chimney-corner, working for citizen rights in the Ukraine. Your poor "Séraphita" is laid aside. What is promised must be done before all else. You yourself, without knowing it, tell me to work. I keep before me the bon à tirer [order to print] which you gave for one sheet in Geneva, and it seems to me a perpetual counsel. Do you know, it is rather melancholy to think of you only with regrets. You do not know that for twelve or fifteen years, Neufchâtel and Geneva are the two sole periods when I have been permitted, by what grace of heaven I know not, to look neither forward nor back; to live beneath the sky without thinking of griefs, or business, or poverty; you have been to me something beneficent. There is more gratitude in my remembrance than you know. And now that I have been nailed to an insatiable table for two months, and shall be for another month, leaving it only to sleep, I cannot think without emotion of the walks to Sacconex, to Coppet, and of your house, and my hunger which made us leave the garden where we were sitting under the willows and you discovered that good smell in the Indian chestnut, macerated in water. There are none of those tranquil pleasures in Paris. But I am not in Paris now.
Here I am alone, much alone. I have parted from society, and have returned to my former fruitful solitude. Before all things else, I must finish a book, and the "Études de Mœurs" ought to be finished this year. My liberty will be to go and come and remain where I please to go and remain. Nevertheless, I do not know a more agreeable trip than to Florence to see you for five days, and hear you for one single evening say "tiyeuilles" or "Iodet." That, I think, would restore my courage for another three months.
Perhaps I shall bring M. Hanski the third dizain to laugh away his "blue devils;" at any rate, he must be very ill if he resists my wild joy. It is two months since I laughed; one more will make three; but then he shall die of laughing. Tell him that as Geneva was so base in the matter of the poor Poles, I will never speak well of Geneva again. Are you comfortable in Italy? How did you cross the mountains? I follow you in thought. Have you thought of your poor, humble moujik and his blonde capricieuse at Aix? You ought to have thought of him at Aiguebelles, where the servants at the inn are so gracious, and at Turin, where he wished to go. Thank you, madame, if you think a little of him who thinks much of you.
I have not seen Grosclaude. Our Exhibition is detestable. There are five to ten fine pictures in three thousand five hundred canvases.
How is your dear Anna? You will tell me, won't you, how your little caravan rolls on? M. Bernard … came yesterday to make me compliments on the "Duchesse de Langeais," and was very gracious.
Mon Dieu! you will forgive me—me, a poor hermit toiler—for talking to you so much of myself, because I am calling for your egotism in reply; to talk to me solely of yourself would be doing well by me. I can tell you only two things: I work constantly, I pay, I think of my friends. I have in my heart a happy corner, and that ought to suffice to make a noble life. My "blue devils" have no time to rise to the surface.
Do you still intend to play Grandet at Wierzchownia? for in that case I shall await thirty invitations before going there, to save provisions. Do you want anything in Paris? I hope that you and M. Hanski will not employ any other correspondent than me. But Borget and I will arrive laden with cotignac, peach preserves, and Angoulême and Strasburg pâtés. You ought to give me a commission; you don't know what pleasure it is to me to busy myself for something a friend asks of me, how it brightens my life. A fancy—that's myself only; but the fancy of another, whom I love, is a double fancy.
Spachmann [binder] has done your album, and I am beginning to collect the autographs. It will take long, but you shall have it, with patience. I begin with the oldest. Pigault-Lebrun is eighty-five years old; he shall begin it.
Adieu, madame, I would like to keep on writing to you always, just as when I was by your fireside I did not want to go away. But I must bid you adieu—no, not adieu, but au revoir.
