“Grant me, I pray you, not as a nurse, from a sense of duty to her sick patient, but as a noble woman stooping to heal wounds she has unwittingly given—grant me those three things that, alone, can give me peace: permission to write sometimes, your undertaking to reply and a promise that once a year, at least, you will allow me to visit you.
“If I called without your permission I might arrive at the wrong time, therefore I shall not venture near you unless you say: ‘Come.’
“Surely there is nothing strange or wrong in this? Could there be a purer or more beautiful bond? Who shall say us nay? Still, I must own that it would be painful to meet you only amongst others, therefore if you bid me come it will be that we may talk as we did last Friday when, so deeply was I moved, that I could not savour the sweet sad charm by reason of my terror lest emotion should get beyond control. Oh, madame! madame! I have but one end in life—to gain your affection!
“Give me but leave to try! I will be so humble, so restrained; my letters shall be as infrequent as you wish lest they become a burden to you; five lines only from you will suffice me. My visits will be but rare; yet, if our thoughts may meet, I shall feel that—after these long and dreary years during which I have been nothing to you—I may in time become your friend. Friends with such devotion as mine are not too often found. I will encircle you with love so sweet, so tender, with affection so compounded of all that is simplest in a child and all that is best and grandest in a man that, surely, in time you will feel its charm and turn to me one day, saying:
“I am in very deed your friend.”
“Adieu, madame, once more I read your note of the 23rd with its assurance of your sentiments affectueux. Surely this is no mere formality? Tell me truly—truly!—Yours to eternity,
Hector Berlioz.”
“P.S.—I send you three books; perhaps you will glance at them in your leisure moments. Do you see the author’s device to make you take a little interest in him?”
Madame F.’s Answer.
“Lyons, 29th September 1864.