Part 31

I finished this very morning "L'Enfant Maudit." You will not recognize that poor nugget; it is chased, mounted, and set with pearls. Read it again in the "Études Philosophiques" with "Le Secret des Ruggieri" and "Le Martyr Calviniste," and ask yourself what sort of iron head it was that could fight and write and suffer all at once. I wrote "La Vieille Fille" in the midst of these worries, struggles, and preoccupations.

Have you sometimes prayed God for me, with all the force of your beautiful, ingenuous soul, that I might obtain some sort of tranquillity?--for I still owe the sums I owed before. But I have no longer to find them. This mode of payment leaves me my time free and relieves me of worry. I spare you the details of the agreement, which has been the object of long examination by my lawyers, and business agents, very devoted men, who think it good and honourable.

You could never believe how I miss the bulletin of your calm and solitary life, what interest I take in that life, and what peace the contemplation of it sheds upon my agitated life. Either it is very bad of you to cut me off, or you are ill; on each side anxiety, thinking that you suffer or that your friendship diminishes.

Well, adieu. I meant to write you only one word: there is truce between misfortune and me. But when once I begin to talk to you, the pen is never heavy in my fingers. I wish you all mercies in your life, for this letter and its wishes will reach you, I suppose, about Christmas day. Many amiable things to M. Hanski, and a kiss to your dear Anna on the forehead.

I return to my corrections, for I must finish "Illusions Perdues" for December 10, in default of which I shall fall back into lawsuits.

La Grenadière has escaped me; it is sold; but the cruel event that has weighed me down this year has changed my desire for that poor cottage. I could not live in it if I had it. I am looking for a vineyard where I could build without the cost being much.

PARIS, December 1, 1836.

I have just returned from Touraine, where I wrote you the letter of a man of business. You will know, at the moment when this letter is racing along the roads, that you have no more anxieties to share in relation to the financial affairs of the monk of Chaillot. I kneel humbly at your feet and beg you to grant me plenary indulgence for all the tears I have heretofore shed upon them.

You made me smile when you reproached me in your good letter (number 20) for not reading your prose attentively. If I read the Holy Scriptures as I read your letters I should have to go and stand by Saint-Jérôme; and if I read my own books in that way, there would be no faults in them. You say that I do not answer certain things. As to that, I can only be silent.

Now, before all, business. Poor Boulanger is an artist both proud and poor, a noble and kind nature. As soon as I got any money I carried him the five hundred francs, pretending that I had received them; for from me, perhaps, he would not have taken them. Now that the matter concerns me only, there is no hurry, and to say it once for all, you need only send me a bill of exchange on Rothschild to my order. Now that you have sent me the proper address, all is well. You will receive the picture after our Exhibition, which begins in February. I have not the courage to allow the copy only to be exhibited. Poor Boulanger would die of grief. He sees a whole future in it. Since I wrote to you about it many stern judges have seen it, and they all put this work above many others. There was question of a poor engraver for the picture. Planche went to see Boulanger and advised him to despise the thousand francs offered, and wait the effect the picture would produce in the Salon,--assuring him he would then have the best engravers and a better price at his command. There's a little of Titian and Rubens mingled in it. The copy will be substituted for the original for my mother, who will see no difference, and who, between ourselves, cares little for it. You will therefore have the canvas on which Boulanger has put all his strength and for which I posed thirty times.

What a misfortune that I cannot send you a beautiful frame that I brought from Touraine and which is now being regilt! I got it for twenty francs, and there is in it more than two hundred francs of days' work paid fifty years ago to the carver who made it.

Since I wrote you I have been very ill. All these distresses, discussions, toils, and fatigues produced, at Saché, a nervous, sanguineous attack. I was at death's door for one whole day. But much sleep and the woods of Saché put me right in three days.

In your letter I find a reproach which, between ourselves, is serious; that relating to an evening at the Opera. You must know me very little if you do not think that after the sorrow that fell upon me my mourning is eternal, at every moment; that it follows me in all my joys, at my work, everywhere. Oh! for pity's sake, since you alone can touch that wound in my heart, never touch it roughly. My affections of that kind are immutable; they are held in a part of my heart and soul where nothing else enters. There is room there for two sentiments only; it was needful for the first to terminate, as it has, before the other could take all its strength; and now that other is infinite. Of what good would be the power with which I am invested if not to make within myself a sanctuary, pure and ever ardent, where nothing of outside agitation can penetrate? The image placed on high upon that rock, pure, inaccessible, can never be taken down; and if she herself descended from it, she could never prevent her place from being marked there forever.

Under this point of view, whether I go to hear "Guillaume Tell" or remain to weep in my chimney-corner, all is immutable in that centre where few words ever come. But, dear, remember also that I am not worldly; I am so little that that the few steps I take in society assume a gravity that alarms me. Once more, use your analytical mind and ask yourself, writing down on paper the dates of my works, what time I should have to write them if I allowed myself a pleasure, a festivity, a distraction. Since the winter began, which is now two months, I have been but twice to the Opera, and each time with Madame Delannoy and her daughter, Madame Visconti being absent.

Now that I have gained the relief of having no more financial anxieties, I have exchanged those cares for incessant labour. The ten days a month that material struggle cost me will now be employed in work; for, to gather the fruits of this new arrangement, I must not leave for eighteen months this garret that you think so salubrious. It is not. The dormer-window is too high up; I cannot look out of it. As soon as I can, I shall go down to work on the second floor, where the air is better, more abundant.

Any other than myself would be frightened at my _pen obligations_. I must give within the next three months: "La Haute Banque" and "La Femme Supérieure" to the "Presse;" "César Birotteau" and "Les Artistes" to the "Figaro;" publish the "Illusions Perdues" and the third _dizain_, and prepare for April the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée" without counting what I have to do on the third and fourth Parts of the "Études Philosophiques." Believe me, the man who achieves such work has no time for puerile amusements. It is now three years that I have not taken a _penful_ of ink without seeing your name; for accident made me keep one of your visiting cards, and I placed it on my inkstand. You will not believe that since that time I have never become _blasé_ on the infantile pleasure of seeing your name married to all my thoughts. I put it there to be able to write correctly your name and address, and yet you reproach me with not reading your letters properly! You understand that I respect too much the pure friendship that you allow me to feel for you to talk to you about things that I despise; in the first place, it would give me a conceited air; and you know whether I have ever been accused of conceit.

Seriously, I live much at Wierzchownia. I am interested in all you tell me; your visits to neighbours, your affairs, your pleasures, your park which extends to right and left; all that occupies my mind. Read this as I write it, with a childlike heart; for these affairs of yours are my affairs, as, perhaps, you and M. Hanski make mine yours, in the evenings, deploring my troubles--now over. If you are sad, I am saddened; when your letter is gay I am gay. Solitude produces this quick exchange of affections. The soul has the faculty of living on the spot that pleases it. Certainly, it needed the desire to be with you, at least in painting, to make me bear the loss of thirty days which Boulanger required. You alone are in the secret of my affairs, as you are in the secret of what Madame de Berny was to me. You alone know my mourning and a loss which can never be repaired; for here the sky is inclement, it "is too high," as you say in Poland, and you are too far off. But keep me, very whole and without diminution, that affection which makes me less sad in sad hours, and gayer in the bright ones. Remember that I have no life but one of toil, that I am not in the midst of the talk that is made about me, that the emotions of fame do not reach me, that I live by a little hope and sun, in a hidden nest!

The autograph of Mademoiselle Mars is addressed to me. It relates to her part in "La Grande Mademoiselle." There's the mysterious simplified. As soon as I have the "George Sand" I will send it to you; but I should like you also to have the "Aurore Dudevant," so that you should possess her under both forms.

Continue, I beg you, to tell me all you think of me, without paying heed to my laments. You are right; better any suffering than dissimulation. But, seriously speaking, I see that you listen too much to your first impulse; you are, forgive me, violent and excitable, and in your first anger you are capable of breaking things without knowing whether they can be mended. I have put the word _seriously_ to give weight to my jesting. Do not therefore allow yourself to be carried away by the tattle of calumny; if any one were to come and tell me--as they did you--that you had married Alexandre Dumas, do you not think I should have laughed heartily--all the while regretting that a life so beautiful and noble should become a subject for tattle? Yes, seriously, I should always regret to see calumny brush the noble forehead of a woman, even if it left nothing behind it. In that I am just as positive as M. Hanski in my opinions. We men, we can defend ourselves; we have a stronger flight, which can put us above the rubbish of the press and the slanders of society. But you! you, who live calm and solitary within the precincts of a home, without our forum and our sword, truly it pains me when I know that a woman who is indifferent to me is made the object of calumny, or even ridicule. From you to me, you know whether in my judgments I am actuated by the narrow sentiments with which artists and writers usually speak of their comrades. I live apart from all such matters. Well, D... is a smirched man, a mountebank, and worse than that, a man of no talent. They have again offered me the cross, and I have again refused it.

I flattered myself that the post would carry to you more quickly than usual the letter in which I announced to you the end of the money troubles that caused you so much pain. Have I sufficiently proved my friendship in telling you sorrows that I concealed from the rest of the world? Now, I shall have only my work to talk to you about.

When I see you I will tell you in detail about these days of penury, these fights of which you know only the main features, for I sent you merely bulletins. If there is some confusion in my letters it is that their dates are irregular; I quit them and return to them as my hurried occupations will allow. My way of working is still so difficult!

I entreat you, read each letter as if we were at the day on which it was written; and remember that nothing can prevail against her to whom it is addressed. It grieves me that, apropos of this joy set into the brass of my work, you should speak of hopes being lost! We will explain all that later, for, if I accomplish my tasks by the months of May or June, I shall take my flight to your great plain, and you will see your white serf otherwise than in painting. Then you shall see him famous, for by that time I shall have published: "César Birotteau," "La Torpille," the third _dizain_, "Illusions Perdues," "La Haute Banque," "La Femme Supérieure," "Les Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée,"--all great and fine paintings added to my gallery.

What an outcry has been made against "La Vieille Fille"! When you laugh on reading it, you will ask yourself what the manners and morals of these French journalists are--the most infamous that I know of!

I cannot tell you much that is new about my life; for my life is eighteen hours' daily work in a garret, where there is a bed (I never leave it), and six hours' sleep. My health will require great care, because it is beginning to be much impaired by the toil and the great anxieties to which I have been a prey. What I say is based on serious facts. I must submit to physicians, humbly, or I shall quickly be destroyed.

Without vanity of author, _yes_, re-read the "Lys;" the work gains by being read a second time. But I am not deceived about the blemishes that are still in it. But they shall disappear; although the angel who is no more declared it without a fault.

You must never forget, dear, that I have _all_ to paint, and that each subject needs different colours. We can't relate Mademoiselle Cormon, the Chevalier de Valois, Suzanne, and du Bousquier in the style of Madame de Mortsauf, especially before a herd of envious beings who will say that I am aging unless I differentiate myself.

You send me wishes for my happiness; pray for me only that God will support me in my strength for work and in my resignation. Solitude with one hope--that is my life; it was that of the Fathers in the wilderness. Work is the staff with which I walk, indifferent to all, except the thought that is placed in the sanctuary. _Una fides._ Outside of that, there are nought but distractions in which the heart has no share. I mean the lifted heart, which is full of grief, but in which lives a sacred hope. You do not wholly know that vast domain; if you did you would not scold me.

In "Illusions Perdues" there is a young girl named Eve, who, to my eyes, is the most delightful creation that I have ever made.

Adieu; here's a half-day stolen from proofs, business, work. But in writing to you I see you, just as if I were studying the Almanach de Gotha at your house in Geneva; and when I think of that halt made in my sorrows, I fancy that all about me is gold and that I have nothing to do.

I will tell you another time of the visit I paid to Madame de Dino and M. de Talleyrand at Rochecotte in Touraine. M. de Talleyrand is amazing. He had two or three gushes of ideas that were prodigious. He invited me strongly to go and see him at Valençay, and if he lives I shall not fail to do so. I still have Wellington and Pozzo di Borgo to see, so that my collection of antiques may be complete.

Anna's dog is always on my desk. Tell her that her _horse_ commends himself to her memory. A thousand compliments to the inhabitants of your kingdom. Are your affairs doing well? is M. Hanski more at liberty? are his enterprises successful? You cut me off too many details of your proprietary mechanism. When you think of it, trace me a few itineraries of how to go to you. I have my reasons for wishing to know the various routes that lead there.

Well, again adieu, and tender wishes for all that concerns you. I am in terror when I think of you on the roads where there are wolves and Jewish coachmen.

This week I give Boulanger his last sitting. As soon as I have finished "Illusions Perdues" I will write to you. Till then I am caught in a vice, day and night.

V.

LETTERS DURING 1837.

PARIS, January 1, 1837.

To-day I have had a great happiness; some one came to see me whom I have not seen for eternities, and who has given me such pleasure that I have been sitting, all day long, dreamily talking to her;[1] I never wearied of it. She has made a long journey, but a fortunate one. She is not changed. Do you not think there are beings in whom resides a larger portion of our life than in ourselves? You will know this being some day. I will not have you like her better than I do, but you cannot prevent yourself from being friendly, were it only on account of my fanaticism for her. She is a being so good, so constant, so grand, of so lofty a mind, so true, so naïve, so pure! These are the beings who serve as foils to all that we see about us. I cannot prevent myself from telling you of my joy as if you knew her, but I perceive that I am talking Greek to you. Forgive me that folly. There are, as Chérubin says, certain moments when we talk to the air, and it is better to talk to the heart of a friend.

Then this good day came in the midst of my hardest work, for "Illusions Perdues" must be finished under penalty of lawsuits and summons; at a moment, too, when I am very weary of the toils of this hard year, so hard!

I received some days ago your number 21. I have many things to say to you. But time! when one has to pay fifty francs a day for every day's delay. I see the moment when I shall escape this vile abyss; but my wings are weary hovering over it.

You say so little of "La Vieille Fille" that I think the book must have displeased you. Say so boldly; you have a voice in the chapter; and I'll tell you my reasons.

It will be difficult to judge of "Illusions Perdues." I can only give the beginning of the book, and three years must pass (as for "L'Enfant Maudit") before I can continue it.

I have meditated bringing you my portrait in person. If you hear the clack of a whip, the French clack, resounding in your courtyard, do not be much surprised. I need a month's complete separation from ideas, fatigues, in short, from all there is in France, and I long for Wierzchownia as for an oasis in the desert. None but myself know the good that Switzerland did me. Nothing but the question of money can hinder me.

I was mistaken in my estimation of my debts. They gave me fifty thousand francs; but I needed fourteen thousand more, and seven thousand for an endorsement imprudently given to Werdet. But I feel that the stage and two fine works will save me. To make the two plays, I need to hide in some desert place that no one knows of; and this is what I should like: to be one or two months buried in your snows. The more snow there were, the happier I should be. But these are crazy projects when I see the thickness of the cable that moors me here.

[Footnote 1: Madame Hanska's miniature by Daffinger, a copy of which she had sent him.]

January 15, 1837.

I have received another letter from you, in which you manifest anxiety about the letters you have written me. Do not fear, I have received them all.

The interruption of this letter is easily explained. I have been ill the whole time. Finally I had what I seemed to have been in search of, an inflammation of the bowels, which is scarcely quieted to-day. I still suffer, but that is a small matter. I have had constant suffering, and I greatly feared an inflammation for my poor brain after so painful a year, painful in so many ways, hard in toil, and cruel in emotions, full of distresses. There was nothing surprising in such an illness. However, though I can, as yet, digest only milk, all is well and I resume my work.

"Illusions Perdues" appears this week. On the 17th I have a meeting to close up all claims from Madame Bêchet and Werdet. So there is one cause of torment the less. I am now going to work on "La Haute Banque" and "César Birotteau," and after that it will be but a small matter to free my pen. All will then be done; and I shall enter upon the execution of my new conventions, which only oblige me to six volumes a year,--to me an oasis from the moment that I have no longer the worry of the financial struggle. As for the fifteen thousand francs I still owe, I can quickly make head against them with a few plays. Besides, I have always hopes of the London affair. But I won't count any more except on that which _is_.

Your last letter did me a good for which I thank you; I was in the calm state produced by forced confinement to my bed, and the details of your life delighted me. I think you very happy to be alone. Would you believe that, in spite of my illness, I was more harassed than ever about business? But all will now be pacificated. I shall only have to work, dear monitor. You speak golden words, but they have no other merit than to tell me more elegantly just what I tell myself. Moreover, you make me out little defects which I have not, to give yourself the pleasure of scolding me. No one is less extravagant than I; no one is willing to live with more economy. But reflect that I work too much to busy myself with certain details, and, in short, that I had rather spend five to six thousand francs a year than marry to have order in my household; for a man who undertakes what I have undertaken either marries to have a quiet existence, or accepts the wretchedness of La Fontaine and Rousseau. For pity's sake, don't talk to me of my want of order; it is the consequence of the independence in which I live, and which I desire to keep.

To rid myself on this theme of all solicitation on the part of those, men and women, who worry me about it, I have given out my programme, and declared that, although I have passed the fatal age of thirty-six, I wish a wife in keeping with my years, of the highest nobility, educated, witty, rich, as able to live in a garret as to play the part of ambassadress, without having to endure the impertinences of Vienna--like a person you have known--and willing to live without complaint as the wife of a poor book-workman; also I must be specially adored, espoused for my defects even more than for my few good qualities; and this wife must be grand enough, through intelligence, to understand that in the dual life there must be that sacred liberty by which all proofs of affection are voluntary and not the effect of duty (inasmuch as I abhor duty in matters of the heart); and, finally, that when this phœnix, this only woman who can render the author of the "Physiologie du Mariage" unhappy, is found,--I'll think about it. So now I live in perfect tranquillity; yet not without my griefs. When the brain and the imagination are both wearied, my life is more difficult than it was in the past. There's a blank that saddens me. The adored friend is here no longer. Every day I have occasion to deplore the eternal absence. Would you believe that for six months I have not been able to go to Nemours to bring away the things that ought to be in my sole possession? Every week I say to myself, "It shall be this week!" That sorrowful fact paints my life as it is. Ah! how I long for the liberty of going and coming. No, I am in the galleys!

Yes, I am sorry you have not written me your opinion of "La Vieille Fille." I resumed my work this morning; I am obeying the last words that Madame de Berny wrote me: "I can die; I am sure that you have upon your brow the crown I wished to see there. The 'Lys' is a sublime work, without spot or flaw. Only, the death of Madame de Mortsauf did not need those horrible regrets; they injure that beautiful letter which she wrote."