Sandeau will be lodged like a prince. He can't believe in his luck. I embark him on a career of masterpieces by a thousand crowns of debt, which we hypothecate on a bottle of ink. Poor lad! He does not know what duty is. He is free. I chain him. I am sorry for it. He is at this moment loved. A pretty young woman casts upon his wounds the balm of her smiles.
Re-adieu.
Paris. October 6, 1834.
I have been for the last few days so busy in settling Sandeau and furnishing him with everything, for he is a child, that I have not been able to write to you; and now I shall have to do so by fits and starts, according to the order of my ideas and not that of logic.
Ah! in the first place, can you conceive that they are finding fault with me for the name Marguerite in the "Recherche de l'Absolu." It is a Flemish name, and that is all there is to say about it. I must be very irreproachable when they have to find fault with me for that!
Next Saturday I give a dinner to the Tigers of my opera-box, and I am preparing sumptuosities out of all reason. I shall have Rossini and Olympe, his cara donna [afterwards his wife], who will preside. Next Nodier; then five tigers, Sandeau, and a certain Victor Bohain (a man of great political talent, unjustly smirched), the most exquisite wines of Europe, the rarest flowers, the best cheer; in short, I intend to distinguish myself.
I don't know who told me that your bitter-sweet cousin expected me in Geneva! Mon Dieu! how queer! If I wanted to be gallant I should tell you that I would not cross the Jura in winter for any one in the world after having had the Maison Mirabaud [Mme. Hanska's house] for joy during that stay in Geneva. Well, believe it.
I have worked much at "Père Goriot," which will be in the "Revue de Paris" for November. My first part of the "Études Philosophiques," the pieces of which have been corrected with excessive severity, will appear in a few days. I shall then busy myself with the "Mémoires d'une jeune Mariée," a delightful composition, and with "César Birotteau," which is taking immense proportions. Also Emmanuel Arago and Sandeau are going to do a great work in five acts, in which I have a third,—a fine subject, which will pay Sandeau's debts and mine; a drama, entitled "Les Courtisans." It will go first to the Porte-Saint-Martin; but it will certainly get to the Français. It is magnificent! (I am a little like Perrette and her jug of milk.) If we win the stage, and our anonymous society, under the title of E. J. San-Drago (Sand-Arago), is successful, I shall be free all the sooner, and Sandeau, trained by me to keep house, will allow me to travel. It is impossible that a man who destines himself to politics should not see Europe, not judge fundamentally of manners, morals, and interests. The struggle between France and other countries will always be decided by the North. I must know the North at any cost, and, as M. de Margonne says, one has to be young to travel. Therefore, my liberty! oh, how I long for it!
I shall go to Ham about November 5, and, perhaps, from there to England; but I shall return for the 15th in Paris. My life is varied only by ideas; physically, it is monotonous. I speak confidentially with no one but Madame de Berny or with you. I find that one should communicate but little with petty minds; one leaves one's wool there, as on bushes. I am vowed to great sentiments, unique, lofty, unalterable, exclusive, and it is an odd contrast with my apparent levity. I assure you it would take at least five or six years to know to what point solitude has made me susceptible, and of how many sacrifices I am capable without ostentation. What of sentiments, feelings, I have made visible in my work is but the faint shadow of the light that is in me. Up to the present time one woman only, Madame de Berny, has really known what I am, because she has seen my smile, always otherwise expressive, never cease.[1] In twelve years I have had neither anger nor impatience. The heaven of my heart has always been blue. Any other attitude is, to my thinking, impotence. Strength should be a unit; and after having for seven years measured myself with misfortune and vanquished it, and risen, to gain literary royalty, every night with a will more determined than that of the night before, I have, I think, the right to call myself strong. Thus inconstancy, infidelity are incomprehensibilities for me. Nothing wearies me; neither waiting nor happiness. My friendship is of the race of the granites; all will wear-out before the feeling I have conceived. Madame de Berny is sixty years old; her griefs have changed and withered her. My affection has redoubled. I say it without pride, because I see no merit in it. It is my nature; which God has made oblivious of evil, while ceaselessly in presence of the good. A being who loves me always makes me quiver. Noble sentiments are so fruitful; why should we go in search of bad ones? God made me to smell the fragrance of flowers, not the fetor of mud. And why too, should I entangle myself in meannesses? All within me tends toward what is great. I choke in the plains, I live on the mountains! And then, I have undertaken so much! We have reached the era of intelligence. Material monarchs, brutal forces are passing away. There are worlds intellectual, in which Pizarro, Cortez, Columbus must appear. There will be sovereigns in the kingdom of thought. With this ambition no baseness, no pettiness is possible. Nothing wastes time like petty things; and so, I need something very great to fill my mind outside of this circle where I find the infinite. There is but one thing—to the infinite, the infinite—an immense love. If I have it, should I go in search of a Parisian woman, a Madame de ——? (Some one told me yesterday that she wished a scandal; that her husband left her free, but her vanity is such—I believe it—that she wants to be talked about.) I have such a horror of the women of Paris that I camp upon my work from six in the morning till six at night. At half-past six my hired coupé comes for me, and takes me one day to the Opera, another to the Italians, and I go to bed at midnight. Thus I have not a minute to give to any one. I receive visitors while I dine; I talk of our plans for the plays during dinner. I correspond with no one but you, Madame de Berny, my sister, and my mother. All other letters wait till Sunday, when I open them, and all that are not on business are handed over to Sandeau, who offers me his hand as secretary.
So doing, I shall end by extinguishing this fire of debt and accomplishing my promised work. Without it, no salvation, no liberty. The deuce! you will get the proof of what I now have the pleasure of writing to you, and of my firmness, when you see my books; for a man can't coquet and amuse himself, and bring out such publications. Toil and the Muse; that means that the toiling Muse is virtuous,—she is a virgin. It is deplorable that in this nineteenth century we are obliged to go to the images of Greek mythology; but I have never been so struck as I am now by the powerful truth of those myths.