To Humbert Ferrand.
“Grenoble, Sept. 1828.
“Dear Friend,—I cannot go to you; come to me at La Côte! We will read Hamlet and Faust together, Shakespeare and Goethe! Silent friends who know all my misery, who alone can fathom my strange wild life. Come, do come! No one here understands the passion of genius. The sun blinds them, they think it mere extravagance. I have just written a ballad on the King of Thule, you shall have it to put in your Faust—if you have one.
“‘Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
As e’er my conversation cop’d withal.’
“I am wretched. Do not be so cruel as not to come!”
“Paris, November 1828.[5]
“Forgive me for not writing sooner; I was so ill, so stupid, it was better to wait.
“La Fontaine might well say: ‘Absence is the greatest of ills.’ She is gone; this time to Bordeaux and I live no more; or rather I live too acutely, for I suffer, hourly, the agonies of death. I can hardly drag through my work.
“You know that I am appointed Superintendent of the Gymnase-Lyrique and have to choose or replace the players and to take care of instruments, parts and scores.
“Subscribers are coming in; so are malicious anonymous letters. Cherubini sits on the fence wondering whether to help or to hinder us, and we go calmly on.