“The Exhibition is turning Paris into an Inferno. I have not been there yet, for I can hardly walk.
“Yesterday there was a great function at Court, but I was too weak to dress and go to it....
“I wrote so far at the Conservatoire, where I was one of the jury in awarding the Exhibition musical prize. We heard a hundred and four cantatas, and I had the very great pleasure of seeing the prize unanimously awarded to my young friend, Camille Saint-Saëns, one of the greatest musicians of our time.
“I have been urgently pressed to go to New York where, say the Americans, I am popular. They played Harold five times last year with success truly Viennese.
“I am quite elated with our jury meeting. How happy Saint-Saëns will be! I hurried off to tell him, but he was out with his mother.
“He is an astounding pianist.
“Well! at last our musical world has done something sensible; it makes me feel quite strong, I could not have written you such a long letter were it not for my joy.”
XXXVIII
DARKNESS AND LIGHT
To H. Ferrand.
“30th June 1867.—A terrible grief has fallen upon me. My poor boy, at thirty-three captain of a fine vessel, has just died at Havana.”