“You talk so bravely of old age that I must e’en be brave too. I pray I may die first that I may send you my last farewell! But if I must hear that you have left this sad earth ... will your son tell it me?—pardon!
“Give me, at least, what you would give to the merest stranger—your address at Geneva.
“I will not go there for a year, I fear to trouble you; but your address! your address! If your silence shows that you refuse even this meagre concession, you will have put a crown on the unhappiness you might have softened.
“Then, madame, may God and your conscience forgive you!
“Lost in the cold dark night wherein you have thrust me, I shall wander—grieving, suffering, alone, but still,—Yours devotedly until death,
Hector Berlioz.”
Madame F.’s Second Letter.
“Lyons, 14th October 1864.
“Monsieur,—I write in haste, that you may believe I have no wish to be unkind. My son is to be married on the 19th, and I shall have much to do.
“Immediately afterwards I must prepare to go to Geneva—no light task for my weak health. Early in November I leave, and, as soon as I am settled in my new home, you shall have my address, which I do not yet know.