“Now comes yours, to spoil all! Devil take you! Was it necessary to tell me that I am luxuriating in despair, that no one cares twopence for me, least of all the people for whom I am pining?
“In the first place, I am not pining for people, but for one person; in the second, if you have your reasons for judging her severely I have mine for believing in her implicitly, and I understand her better than any one.
“How can you tell what she thinks? What she feels? Because you saw her gay, and apparently happy, at a concert why should you draw conclusions adverse to me? If it comes to that, you might have said the same of me if you had seen me at a family dinner at Grenoble, with a pretty young cousin on either side of me.
“My letter is brusque, my friend, but you have upset me terribly. Write by return and tell me what the world says of my marriage.”
“31st January 1831.—Although my overpowering anxiety still endures, I can write more calmly to-day. I am still too ill to get up, and the cold is frightful here.
“Tell me what you mean by this sentence in your last letter: ‘You wish to make a sacrifice; I fear me sadly that, ere long, you will be forced to make a most painful one.’ For heaven’s sake never use ambiguous words to me, above all in connection with her. It tortures me. Tell me frankly what you mean.”
XVII
ITALY
A Wild Interlude
The weather was too severe to cross the Alps, I therefore determined to out-flank them and go by sea from Marseilles. It was the first time I had seen the sea and, as some days passed before I could hear of a boat, I spent most of my time wandering over the rocks near Notre Dame de la Garde.
After a while I heard of a Sardinian brig bound for Leghorn, and engaged a passage in her in company with some decent young fellows I had met in the Cannebière.
The captain would not undertake to feed us, so, reckoning that we should make Leghorn in three or four days, we laid in provisions for a week.