Always labour! My life is passed in a monk's cell—but a pretty cell, at any rate. I seldom go out; I have many personal annoyances, like all men who live by the altar instead of being able to worship it. How many things I do which I would fain renounce! But the time of my deliverance is not far off; and then I shall be able to slowly accomplish my work.
How impatient I am to finish "Le Médecin de campagne," that I may know what you think of it—for you will read it no doubt before you receive your own copy. It is the history of a man faithful to a despised love, to a woman who did not love him, who broke his heart by coquetry; but that story is only an episode. Instead of killing himself, the man casts off his life like a garment, takes another existence, and in place of making himself a monk, he becomes the sister of mercy of a poor canton, which he civilizes. At this moment I am in the paroxysm of composition, and I can only speak well of it. When it is finished you will receive the despairs of a man who sees only its faults.
If you knew with what force a solitary soul whom no one wants springs toward a true affection! I love you, unknown woman, and this fantastic thing is only the natural effect of a life that is empty and unhappy, which I have filled with ideas only, diminishing its misfortunes by chimerical pleasures. If this present adventure ought to happen to any one it should to me. I am like a prisoner who, in the depths of his dungeon, hears the sweet voice of a woman. He puts all his soul into a faint yet powerful perception of that voice, and after his long hours of revery, of hopes, after voyages of imagination, the woman, beautiful and young, kills him—so complete would be the happiness. You will think this folly; it is the truth, and far below the truth, because the heart, the imagination, the romance of the passions of which my works give an idea are very far below the heart, the imagination, the romance of the man. And I can say this without conceit, because all those qualities are to me misfortunes. After all, no one attaches himself with greater love to the poesy of this sentiment at once so chimerical and so true. It is a sort of religion, higher than earth, less high than heaven. I like to often turn my eyes toward these unknown skies, in an unknown land, and gather some new strength by thinking that there may be sure rewards for me, when I do well.
Remember, therefore, that there is here, between a Carmelite convent and the Place where the executions take place, a poor being whose joy you are,—an innocent joy according to social laws, but a very criminal one if measured by the weight of affection. I take too much, I assure you, and you would not ratify my dreamy conquests if it were possible to tell you my dreams, dreams which I know to be impossible, but which please me so much. To go where no one in the world knows where I am,—to go into your country, to pass before you unknown, to see you, and return here to write and tell you, "You are thus and so!" How many times have I enjoyed this delightful fancy—I, attached by a myriad lilliputian bonds to Paris, I, whose independence is forever being postponed, I, who cannot travel except in thought! It is yours, that thought; but, in mercy and in the name of that affection which I will not characterize because it makes me too happy, tell me that you write to no one in France but me. This is not distrust nor jealousy; although both sentiments prove love, I think that the suspicions they imply are always dishonouring. No, the motive is a sentiment of celestial perfection which ought to be in you and which I inwardly feel there. I know it, but I would fain be sure.
Adieu; pitiless editors, newspapers, etc., are here; time fails me for all I have to do; there is but a single thing for which I can always find time. Will you be kind, charitable, gracious, excellent? You surely know some person who can make a sepia sketch. Send me a faithful copy of the room where you write, where you think, where you are you—for, you know well, there are moments when we are more ourselves, when the mask is no longer on us. I am very bold, very indiscreet; but this desire will tell you many things, and, after all, I swear it is very innocent.
In the month of May two young Frenchmen who are going to Russia can leave with the person you may indicate, in any town you indicate, the parcel containing André Chénier, my poor "Louis Lambert" and your copy of "Le Médecin de campagne." Write me promptly on this subject. They are two young men who are not inquiring; they will do it as a matter of business. Objects of art are not exposed to the brutalities of the custom-house and you will permit a poor artist to send you a few specimens of art. They are only precious from the species of perfection that artists who love each other give to their work for a brother's sake. At any rate, allow Paris the right to be proud of her worship of art. You will enjoy the gift because none but you and I in the world will know that this book, this copy is the solitary one of its kind. The seal I had engraved upon it is lost. It came to me defaced by rubbing against other letters. You will be very generous to send me an impression inside of your reply.
All this shows that I am occupied with you, and you will not refuse to increase my pleasures; they are so rare!
Paris, end of March; 1833.
I have told you something of my life; I have not told you all; but you will have seen enough to understand that I have no time to do evil, no leisure to let myself go to happiness. Gifted with excessive sensibility, having lived much in solitude, the constant ill-fortune of my life has been the element of what is called so improperly talent. I am provided with a great power of observation, because I have been cast among all sorts of professions, involuntarily. Then, when I went into the upper regions of society, I suffered at all points of my soul which suffering can touch; there are none but souls that are misunderstood, and the poor, who can really observe, because everything bruises them, and observation results from suffering. Memory only registers thoroughly that which is pain. In this sense it recalls great joy, for pleasure comes very near to being pain. Thus society in all its phases from top to bottom, legislations, religions, histories, the present times, all have been observed and analyzed by me. My one passion, always disappointed, at least in the development I gave to it, has made me observe women, study them, know them, and cherish them, without other recompense than that of being understood at a distance by great and noble hearts. I have written my desires, my dreams. But the farther I go, the more I rebel against my fate. At thirty-four years of age, after having constantly worked fourteen and fifteen hours a day, I have already white hairs without ever being loved by a young and pretty woman; that is sad. My imagination, virile as it is, having never been prostituted or jaded, is an enemy for me; it is always in keeping with a young and pure heart, violent with repressed desires, so that the slightest sentiment cast into my solitude makes ravages. I love you already too much without ever having seen you. There are certain phrases in your letters which make my heart beat. If you knew with what ardour I spring toward that which I have so long desired! of what devotion I feel myself capable! what happiness it would be to me to subordinate my life for a single day! to remain without seeing a living soul for a year, for a single hour! All that woman can dream of that is most delicate, most romantic, finds in my heart, not an echo but, an incredible simultaneousness of thought. Forgive me this pride of misery, this naïveté of suffering.
You have asked me the baptismal name of the dilecta [Mme. de Berny]. In spite of my complete and blind faith, in spite of my sentiment for you, I cannot tell it to you; I have never told it. Would you have faith in me if I told it? No.