After an impatient fortnight, I received the announcement of M. Charles F.’s marriage, addressed in his mother’s writing; which filled me with a joy that few can understand. I was in the seventh heaven, and wrote at once:—
“28th October 1864.—Life is beautiful under certain aspects. I have received the notice addressed by you! A thought for the poor exile. May your good angel render fourfold the good you have done! Yes, life is beautiful, but how much more beautiful death. To be at your feet, my head upon your knee, your two hands clasped in mine, and so to end——
Hector Berlioz.”
Days passed into weeks; Madame F. had gone to Geneva. Could she intend to withhold her address? To break her word?
During that anxious time I believed I should write to her no more, and my heart despaired.
But one morning, as I sat drearily musing beside the fire, a card was brought to me:—
“M. et Mme Charles F——.”
The son and his wife, and she had sent them!
Yet how greatly it upset me to find the young man the living image of his mother at eighteen.
The bride seemed quite bewildered at my emotion, although her husband was not; evidently he knew all; Madame F. had shown my letters.