“If I feel better I go and see my friends, M. and Mme Damcke.
“He is a German composer of rare gifts; his wife is an angel of goodness to me.
“There I do as I like. If I am in the humour we talk or play; if not, they draw up a big sofa to the fire, and there I lie the whole evening without a word—chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies. This, madame, is all.
“You know that I neither write nor compose, for the present state of art in Paris makes me both sick and sorry—which proves that I am not dead yet!
“I hope to have the honour of escorting Madame C. F. and a Russian friend of hers to the Théâtre Italien to hear Donizetti’s Poliuto.
“Madame Charton will give me a box.
“Good-bye, madame. May your thoughts be blest, your heart at rest, and your life serene in the assured love of your children and friends. But send a thought sometimes to the poor child who is unreasonable.—Your devoted
H. B.”
“P.S.—It was good of you to send the bride and bridegroom to see me. I was so struck with the likeness of M. Charles to Mademoiselle Estelle that, although such compliments are out of place to a man, I so far forgot myself as to tell him so.”
Some time later she wrote: