Part 56

Oh! dearest, what a day I have had! atrocious, dreadful, awful! I had errands to do; I was to go to Froment-Meurice, then to M. Gavault, then to a ship-builder who is building a ship he is bent on naming for me, then to the newspaper offices, especially the "Presse." At midday, after breakfast, I went to the post; good! I received a fine thick letter, very heavy; my heart quivered with joy. Ah! I was happy! so happy that in the carriage from Passy to Paris I opened my letter a thousand times blessed, and read, and read! At last I reached the page dictated to you by the strange and inconceivable conduct of Madame A. and Koref; and after having read your crushing reflections I was thrown into consternation. I closed the letter and put it in my pocket. At first, any one might have seen my tears; then I was overcome by a sadness of which the following were the physical effects: Two inches of snow were on the pavements of Paris; I was in thin boots; so unhappy was I that I wanted air, I was choking in the _fiacre_. I stopped it, and got out in the rue de Rivoli and walked, walked, my feet in the snow, across all Paris, through crowded streets, seeing no one, among the carriages, noticing none of them; I went, I went, on and on, my face convulsed, like a madman. People stared at me. I marched from the rue de Rivoli to the back of the Hôtel de Ville among all those populous streets, not conscious of the crowd or the cold, or of anything. What hour was it? what weather? what season? what city? Where was I? Had any one questioned me I could not have answered him; I was senseless with pain. Sensibility, which is the blood of the soul, was flowing out of me in torrents through my wound. And this is what I was saying to myself: "I have never, in my life, uttered one indiscreet word; and here are the reasons of my silence: 1. honour and integrity; 2. certainty of injuring the object of my hopes; 3. certainty of rendering my liquidation impossible; 4. complete uncertainty as to the result of my wishes. And I am accused of ignoble speeches,--I, whose conduct is irreproachable!" To meet with this injustice, even involuntary, from you crushed me; I felt the blows of that club upon my head at every step. Koref is an infamous spy, an Austrian spy, well known as such; he is not received anywhere; I do not bow to him any longer; I scarcely answer him when he speaks to me. Madame A... is ignorant of this, she confides herself and talks of your interests and of my affairs to the most dangerous man I know! It is truly incredible! Moreover, Koref is allied with a very bad woman, a Madame de B... who spreads slanders, and spies as spies spy, even outside of politics, and merely to keep her hand in. Who knows if those people have not already made this the subject of a report? Who knows if Koref, too well known to be trusted any longer by the Austrian police, has not used Madame A.'s absurd confidences to get into the service of a hyperborean power? Ah! truly, Madame A. may have done us, without exaggeration, an incalculable injury! I, who already have suffered a great pecuniary loss through absurd cancans sent from Berlin, to have such sufferings, thanks to that woman, in addition!

Thinking all this I walked on, seeing nothing before me but trouble and confusion--Koref! whom I have not seen for eighteen months, and to whom I have not addressed a word for three years, he to call himself _my friend_! It is too impudent!--I walked with my heart bleeding, my feet in the ashes of my longed-for future, and thinking ever of the pitiless reflections that Madame A.'s fatal letter had suggested to you. At four o'clock I reached Froment-Meurice; nothing was ready, neither your set, nor the bracelet, nor my seal (_fulge, vivam_) which I have waited for so long.

I went to Gavault's on foot, from the Hôtel de Ville to the Madeleine. Gavault was frightened at my face when he saw me without soul, without strength, without life. From there, still on foot, I went back to Passy at eight o'clock, without feeling bodily fatigue; the bruised soul numbed the body, mental fatigue was greater than all physical exhaustion. At ten o'clock I went to bed; impossible to sleep. I have lighted my candles and my fire, and taken my coffee.--I have just read the end of your letter; and the balm of the last sheet has calmed me, without altogether making the last echoes of my suffering cease.

Till to-morrow: bodily fatigue has come to me and I can sleep. I am going to bed; it is one o'clock.

January 6.

To-day, January 6, is your birthday, dear countess. I wish to express to you none but thoughts of gentleness and peace. Going to bed at one o'clock, I fell asleep among the charming things you said to me at the close of your letter, and I had no dreams at all. The fatigue of yesterday, moral and physical, was such that I slept till ten o'clock. I have just breakfasted and I return to your letter. That which is grievous in it does not come from you; it comes from strangers, from that silly Madame A...; and you could not have thought otherwise than as you did on reading her letter. By a strange fatality I read only half your letter, and I have suffered by my own fault. I could have taken a _fiacre_ and read the rest; but, I see now, deep and violent sensations do not reason; they rush like torrents or thunderbolts. What upset me thus was that I saw plainly they were trying to give you malignant impressions about me. I have no need of "society;" far from it, I have a most profound horror of it; celebrity weighs upon me; I thirst for a _home_, a _home of my own_, I thirst to drink long draughts of a life in common, the life of two. I have no affection in the world that conflicts in any manner whatsoever with what I have in my soul, which is indeed the very substance of that soul; "the rest is all vain dream." To finish, once for all, with bad people and bad tales, tell yourself, dear, that society is composed of criminals who have a horror of honest men and of men without sin; it hates the happiness that eludes it.

Let me, before I close my letter, say this: my mind is made up; if I am forced to abandon my hopes, if, by force of hostile and secret persecution you should turn your back upon me, my resolutions are fixed; the haschisch that I tried yesterday will render a man imbecile at the end of a year; he can remain so, knowing nothing further of the pains or joys of life, until he dies. Haschisch, as you know, is only an extract of hemp, and hemp contains the end of man. No, if I cannot have my beautiful dreamed-of life, I want nothing. Yesterday, all the treasures of furniture which I have collected were so many bits of wood and crockery to me! Poverty, were I alone, has attractions for me. I want nothing, except in relation to the secret object of my life; that object is the supreme motive of all my prayers, my steps, my efforts, my ideas, my toils, of the fame I seek to acquire, in short of my future and of all that I am. For thirteen years this aspiration has been the principle of my blood--for ideas and sentiments work through the blood.

I thank you for the instructions you give me about Lirette. I will pay her the sum agreed upon to-morrow at her convent, and I will inquire the amount that you must still add. I am so glad to do any business for you that you ought to make me give you a commission for it. Poor dear Atala [a name by which he called her in jest], poor dear Anna, the picture of your losses and financial deceptions distresses me; alas! there is nothing to be done but to return to your own home as soon as the thermal treatment at Baden is duly accomplished. Yes, you will have to return courageously, to settle all and complete your work in order to obtain the right to rest in peace.

I leave you to go to the post, for I expect a letter with news of my Amsterdam cases, which are as long delayed in coming from Rouen to Paris as they were between Amsterdam and Rouen. If I do not finish my letter to-day I will to-morrow; and to-morrow it will jump into the letter-box, and the day after be at Roanne. What a hippogriff is the post!

Adieu, dear; I am going to work like one possessed. I start April 1 by boat for Civita-Vecchia. Easter Sunday falls on the 12th; I shall see Rome for ten days; then I will return with you through Switzerland. There's my plan. Between now and then I shall have my liberty. Take care of yourselves, all, but you especially. I will answer next week your dear child's letter, and also Georges'.

When I think that after Baden you will have to return home, a shudder comes over me. You know when you enter there but you don't know when you can leave. But I will not end my letter sadly; find here within it the fresh flowers of an old affection. My heart blesses you, my soul is round you with all its thoughts. As for my mind, you know that is only the reflection and echo of yours.

PASSY, February 8, 1845.[1]

[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, at Naples.]

No letters! my uneasiness has reached its height; I do not know what to think; I believe you are ill. I am tortured to the point of not being able to write a line to-day. I dine with M. F..., a sacrifice to make, and a great one, I assure you; but it is very essential not to displease him; he does my business well, and I am more and more satisfied with him. This week we attack an account very difficult to terminate; that of B... It is a matter of nine thousand francs to be paid. No letter! I am very unhappy.

February 9.

What joy! I have your letter at last. I ought to write to you on my knees for such kindness, and such persistency and perseverance in that kindness. The passage in which you tell me you had been lost in a contemplation of the future like one of mine, and in which you seem so touched by those transports of worship I often have toward you,--that true affection, so humble coming from a soul so lofty, gave me for a moment more happiness than I have ever had before in my life.

Dear countess, do not risk yourself in Rome before Georges is perfectly recovered; put off the journey for your children's sake; Rome will not be swallowed up to-morrow, but health is lost there in a week. Wait; wait.

When you receive this letter LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE will be finished.

I have paid M. Potier a thousand francs, for he has had, you see, to incur expenses,--he says so himself. This is a house of forty-five thousand francs, and fifteen thousand for additions, sixty thousand in all. [The house in the rue Fortunée.] I hope to own the house and to have paid up all disquieting claims by the end of February. But all these uncertainties prevent me from working at my ease. I am like a bird on a branch. I hope you will let me come and tell you of my installation and spend a few days with you in April.

In going to Souverain's to-day I saw in the shop of a dealer in bric-à-brac a miniature of Madame de Sévigné, done in her day it seemed to me, which can be had for very little. Do you want it? It seemed to me rather good; but it must be said that I scarcely looked at it because I was in a hurry.

February 10.

I have seen that miniature again, and it is hideous. On the other hand, I have bought a portrait of Queen Marie Leczinska after Coypel, evidently painted in his atelier. I bought it for the value of the frame; as it is one of those portraits that queens give to cities or great personages, though it is but a copy, I thought it would decorate a salon.

I am more inert than I can tell you; I work badly, without inspiration, without taste, without courage; my life, my soul, and all my forces are elsewhere. I have asked Gautier to bring me an artist named Chenavard, a friend of La Belgiojoso, whom I know but whose address is unknown to me, to enlighten me as to the value of Marie Leczinska's portrait, because, like Louis XIV., "I don't choose to deceive myself."

February 11.

Much tramping, much fatigue, without result. M. F... has fallen dangerously ill, and that delays my business. You see, dear beloved countess, that I am not the master of this liquidation; the least effort would be punished; I must wait like a hunter on the watch. It is dreadful! I assure you that the harassment of my affairs, joined to that of my soul (which is tortured by absence as one is, they say, by remorse) affects my poor brain powerfully. Without vanity, I can certify to you that I am wonderful; I rise every night, I think of you, I write to you, and stay so for two hours before I am able to begin to work. Then I continue to write, but for you, and not, as I ought, for the public. Or if by a miracle it is not you of whom I am thinking, it is about one of the houses offered to me, its furnishing, its arrangement, and the thousand details of my business; for every affair of a thousand francs exacts as much care as a matter of a hundred thousand. Then I re-read your dear letters, I look at my proofs, and I reason with myself. The day dawns, and I have done nothing. I tell myself that I am a monster, that to be truly worthy of you I must forget you and girt my loins with the labourer's cord; I say insults to myself; I grasp that ivory Daffinger; I think you there; I dream--and I waken to remorse for having dreamed instead of working.

Madame de Girardin writes to ask me to go and see her. There is to be a lady present, daughter or grand-daughter of Sheridan, who desires to see me. I shall go in my grand costume of fine manners.

February 12.

I went to bed this morning, my hours upset! and all for a tiresome Englishwoman who stared at me through an eyeglass as she might at an actor. Madame de Girardin, charming in a small company, is, it must be admitted, a less agreeable mistress of a house at great receptions. She belies her origin by her talent; but when her talent is not to the fore she becomes once more the daughter of her mother; that is to say, bourgeoise and Gay _pur sang_. The Duc de Guiche, who has given in his allegiance, was there; he exerted himself, and was almost witty, which I had doubted. The memory of Madame Kalergi, whom I never knew, or even saw, as you know, pursued me. Admiral de la Susse described the regrets of the Baden society that I did not accept the invitations of that beautiful lady, but confined myself to a certain family who had confiscated me to their own profit. From that moment I became of a most stupendous stupidity; so that Madame de Girardin whispered to me, "What is the matter with you this evening?" To which I answered, "Your Englishwoman has gone to my heart." At which she laughed and I kept the secret of my melancholy--I saw once more the scenery of Baden, the Hôtel du Cerf, the promenades, etc. Ah! how you absorb me! It cannot be expressed; a word a nothing, brings me back to you.

Dear countess, we must console that poor Georges. I will find a copy of the Dejean catalogue; it is very rare, the whole edition having been burned in the fire of the rue Pot-de-Fer (when the "Contes Drolatiques" were destroyed). I have found a work the title of which you will find on the sheet which envelops this letter. Write me whether Georges knows of it. It is the finest iconography of coleopteras in existence. Only seven copies remain; the blocks are planed and that ends it. If he wants the work I will bring it to him with his insects and the Dejean. In wandering about, Saturday, I found two vases (Restoration) on which were painted, for some entomologist no doubt, the prettiest insects in the world. They are the work of an artist and must have cost a great deal. Georges will like them, I know, and I shall return him painted pots for painted pots. Perhaps these vases were a gift to Latreille; for no one, I think, would have done such conscientious work unless for some great entomological celebrity. It is a real _trouvaille_, a chance such as I never had before. No one knows what Paris is; with time and patience, everything can be found here, even at a bargain. Just now I am negotiating for the purchase of a chandelier which must have come from the palace of some Emperor of Germany, because it is surmounted by the double-headed eagle. It is a Flemish chandelier and came from Brussels no doubt before the Revolution; it weighs two hundred pounds and is of brass; I have bought it for the intrinsic value of the metal--four hundred and fifty francs. I intend it for my dining-room, which will be in the same style. I see you alarmed by this communication; but do not be anxious; no debts are incurred; I am obeying your sovereign orders. Lirette will be paid as you intend, and Froment-Meurice also. As to my personal affairs, the liquidation has more money than it needs. Froment-Meurice is really an impossible jeweller. Here it is February 17th, and the figure of Nature is not yet finished. He says it is still in the hands of the chaser. He himself is wholly absorbed in a toilet-set for the Duchess of Lucca.

February 18.

I have received the letter in which you tell me that Georges gets better and better, and that he had come to see you at the Villa Reale. This good letter shows me that calmness is restored to your heart and mind, because you have returned to your habit of writing every evening when your good friendship battles with sleep, often vanquished to my profit. A strange thing! there are in this long letter that I am about to carry to the post things that reply to the questions in yours! This affinity with each other brings tears to my eyes. How I love your letters! how true they are! In reading them I seem to hear you speak; they are indeed a balm to all my wounds. I beg of you do not go to Rome, I repeat it; the journey might be fatal to Georges; he is very delicate. I was like that at his age; but I never thought of myself, and others cared still less for me.

I am not working as much as I ought. You do right to tell me so; believe that I blame myself harshly. "The days are going," as you say; but you do not know the labyrinth through which my liquidation is leading me; you are ignorant of the incessant tramps which upset all my days, and often for sums not more than a hundred francs. My tranquillity means owning property, settlement in a home, and respect. Therefore I avow that even if I incur your blame (to me so terrible) I must put my liquidation before my literary work.

I am glad that the engraving and device of your armed knight pleased you. No one helped your servitor; pray believe that; the Latin is my own property: _Virens sequar_ and _Fulge, vivam_, are worthy of the E inscribed on the star.

I have the portrait of Queen Marie Leczinska. It is not by Coypel, but was done in his atelier by a pupil, either Lancret or another, as you please. One must be a connoisseur not to think it a Coypel. The portrait has been engraved, and I shall lose nothing on it, Chenavard says.

I met Koref, who had the impudence to tell me he had been talking of me to one of your friends in the most eulogistic terms. I wish you could have seen me look at him as I said, "I do not doubt it." He left me instantly.

PASSY, March, 1846.[1]

[Footnote 1: To Madame Hanska, at Naples.]

Dear countess, the person who will take to you this letter is a friend of mine, M. Schnetz, the painter of the beautiful picture of the "Madonna's Vow," which is in Saint-Roch. He is the Director of the French School of Art in Rome, and I profit by his kindness to send you news from me to meet you on your arrival in Rome.

As M. Nacquart prophesied, my courage has been rewarded; to-day I can walk [he had been thrown from a carriage], and all my preparations for my journey are made. My place is booked in the mail-cart for Lyon; for the Marseille's post service carries so many letters that letters in my person are turned out of the mail-cart by the other kind.

I must wear my bandages for another month; but nothing prevents me from seeing Rome with you, or rather you with Rome. Oh! it was God who led you to Naples, you and yours, more than you think perhaps. Now, the wisest thing you can do is to stay in Rome, and not continue your projected journey until you have received good news from the Ukraine; for they say that those provinces are in a state of disquieting fermentation; I even hear talk of a general insurrection. Eleven hundred seigneurs and land-owners in Galicia have been murdered by their peasantry, whom they were endeavouring to draw into rebellion against their sovereign, the Emperor of Austria. The Austrians are to-day in retreat (you will see that in the "Débats"). The revolt, or the insurrection, has been simultaneous throughout the former Poland--Prussian, Austrian, and Russian; the movement is communistic. I tremble for your cousin L.... The insurgents, they tell me, are occupying Piotrkov. This is really frightful; no quarter is given on either side; priests, women, children, old men, all are in arms. Bands of ten thousand starving Poles have thrown themselves from Russian Poland into Prussia (where the famine began), and the Prussians are thrusting them back, as if infected with the plague, by a cordon of troops. Every one here foresees nothing but evil for that unfortunate nation; but the surprise is that Galicia, which seemed to be so well governed, so happy even, under the Austrian sceptre, should have revolted in this untimely manner. Chlopiçki, whom they wished to put at the head of the movement, refused. He has retired into Prussia, saying that he would blow his brains out sooner than command such a folly. All sensible people groan over it. They say that Lithuania and the provinces in the west of Russia will rise also, on account of the recruiting for the Caucasus. What disasters for the future of Europe must we not fear, with these populations at a pitch of chronic insanity! And the governments, which admit that they are already exhausted, will they be able to repress and control them?

How fortunate that you are in Rome! for even you, so wise and so intelligent, have jealous and malevolent people about you over there. Besides, no one knows what might happen if you were caught between the insurgents and the troops. The "Gazette de Cologne" has published, under Prussian censure, an article which speaks of the blindness of the governments in the matter of Poland, and dwells on the fact that nationalities cannot perish. (Don't speak of this to any one.) I hope nothing unfortunate will happen to Countess Mniszech; but Georges must be very uneasy about his mother, for the whole of Galicia is expected to rise. They say that Hungary, hitherto so faithful, is also in arms.

You can form no idea of my happiness ever since my place was booked in the Lyon mail. I am now making all my arrangements.

I have given Lirette the money you gave me for her. I went to the convent myself, though still ill. Here's a strange thing! She has been requested by Abbé L... to send to Petersburg an affidavit declaring that neither he, the abbé, nor you had endeavoured to dissuade her from entering a convent, and affirming that she did not possess forty roubles and consequently had never given that sum to the convent. What does all that mean? I hope they will permit her to write, and that I shall bring you a long letter from her.

Take care of yourself, and do not forget to let me know where you are in Rome, addressing your letter to "M. Lysimaque, at the French Consulate, Civita-Vecchia, for M. de Balzac;" and try to find me a niche not far from you, if it is only a kennel. I hope my preceding letter has reached you through the Rothschilds.

What do you think of M. de Custine, who offered me a letter of introduction to Prince George (Michel Angelo)? He did not remember the prince's relationship to you! I take such part in your interests and those of your dear child that I tremble every morning as I open the newspapers. _Mon Dieu!_ what anxiety when I think of the state in which your affairs are! You must not think of returning there till all is quiet once more.