Most certainly I count upon your visit at my private domicile. As for the inconveniences dreaded by the fair sex, you will not perceive more of them than have others (be sure of that). My little stories of the heart and of the sense do not come out of a back shop. But as it is a long distance from my home to yours, in order to save you a useless journey, let me meet you as soon as you arrive in Paris, and we will dine together all by ourselves with our elbows on the table!
I have sent Bouilhet your kind message.
At the present moment I am deafened by the crowd in the street under my window following the prize ox! And they say that intellect flourishes among the people of the street!
TO GEORGE SAND.
Croisset, Tuesday, 1866.
You are alone and sad where you are, and I am the same here. Whence come the black moods that sometimes sweep over us? They creep up like the rising tide and we are suddenly overwhelmed and must flee. My method is to lie flat on my back and do nothing, and the wave passes after a time.
My romance has been going badly for a quarter of an hour. Then, too, I have just heard of two deaths, that of Cormenin, a friend for the past twenty-five years, and of Gavarni. Other things have troubled me, too, but all this will soon pass over.
You do not know what it is to sit a whole day with your head in your hands, squeezing your unhappy brain in trying to find a word. Your ideas flow freely, incessantly, like a river. But with me they run slowly, like a tiny rill. I must have great works of art to occupy me in order to obtain a cascade. Ah! I know what they are—the terrors of style!
In short, I pass my life gnawing my heart and my brain—that is the real truth about your friend.
You ask whether he thinks sometimes of his old troubadour of the clock. He does, indeed! And he regrets him. Our little nocturnal chats were very charming. There were moments when I had to restrain myself to keep from babbling to you like a big baby.