I strode up and down, my brain on fire; I gazed at the setting sun, the neighbouring gardens, the heights of Montmartre—my thoughts a thousand miles away.
Then, as I turned and saw that confounded white paper without a line on it, I flew into the wildest rage.
My unoffending guitar leant against the wall. I kicked it to bits; my pistols stared at me from the wall with big round eyes. I gazed back, then, tearing my hair, burst into burning tears.
That soothed me somewhat, I turned those staring pistols face to the wall and picked up my poor guitar which gave forth a plaintive wail. Then my six-year-old boy, with whom I had unjustly found fault, tapped at the door. As I did not answer he cried:
“Father, is you friends?”
“Yes, yes, my boy, I is friends!” and I flew to let him in. I took him on my knee and laid his fair head on my shoulder; we dropped asleep together and my article was forgotten. Next morning I managed to write something. That is fifteen years ago and my martyrdom still lasts! It is not that I mind work. I can grind at rehearsals for hours at a time; can spend my nights in correcting proofs; can and will do anything and everything that pertains to my work as a musician.
But to eternally pamphleteer for a living! It is cruel!
To Humbert Ferrand.
“3rd October 1844.—I read in the Débats of your splendid agricultural success and can imagine how much work and perseverance it involves. You are a kind of Robinson Crusoe in your island,[20] and when the sun shines I long to be with you, to breathe the spicy air, to follow you from field to field, to listen with you to the sweet silence of your lonely groves—our affection is so sure, so whole-hearted, so perfect!
“Yet when dull days come and mists rise, the fever of Paris seizes me once more and I feel that here only is life possible. But can you believe that a strange sort of torpid resignation with regard to things musical has taken possession of me? It is as well, for this indifference saves my strength for the time when a passionate struggle may become necessary.