Shall I have the courage to live absolutely alone in a solitary place? I doubt it. I am growing old. Caroline cannot live here now. She has two places already, and the house at Croisset is expensive to keep up.
I believe that I shall give up my lodgings in Paris. Nothing calls me there any more. All my friends are dead, and the last, my poor Théo, is not likely to be here long. I fear it! Ah, it is hard to make oneself over at fifty years!
I have realised during the last two weeks that my poor good mamma was the being I have loved most! To lose her is like tearing away a part of my own body.
TO THE BARONESS LEPIC.
At my hermitage,
September 14 (the month
called Boédromion by the
Greeks), 1872.
I take up my pen to write to you, and, shutting myself up in the silence of my study, I permit myself, O beautiful lady, to burn at your feet some grains of purest incense!
I say to myself: She has gone to the new Athens with the foster-sons of Mars! Their limbs are covered with brilliant blue, while I wear a rustic coat! Glittering swords dangle at their sides, while I carry only my pens! Plumes ornament their heads, while I have scarcely any hair! Many cares and much study have ravished from me that crown of youth—that forest which the hand of Time, the destroyer, strips from our brows.
This is the reason why my breast is torn by blackest jealousy, O lovely lady!
But your missive, thank the gods! came to me like a refreshing breeze, like a veritable perfume of dittany.
If I could only have the certainty of seeing you, at no distant time, amid our fields, settled near us! The rigour of the approaching blasts of winter would be softened by your presence.