He has not, in three years, written half a volume. Criticism? He thinks that too difficult. He is a stable horse. He is the despair of friendship, as he was the despair of love. That's over; as soon as I get the La Grenadière, I shall leave the rue Cassini.
The two young men, de Belloy and de Gramont, have not the firm will that enables a man to rise above adversity and men, and to make for himself the events of his life. They will not subordinate themselves to reach a result. In France, associations of men are impossible, partly because of individual pretensions, partly because of wit, talent, name, and fortune, four causes of insubordination. Since I have taken Diogenes' lantern to look through this vaunted Paris for men of talent I have heard many a cry of poverty; but when you offer to those who utter the cry money for work well done, they "can't do it," and I have not obtained the work.
Capefigue is my editor [on the "Chronique de Paris">[ and takes my directions. A good little political condottiere! Mon Dieu, how heartily you would laugh if I were in the chimney-corner at Wierzchownia explaining to you what I see here daily.
Well, here are piles of proof to send off, and much work to finish. My spirit, one moment let loose to roam across your lands, must resume its yoke of misery. I am in the rue Cassini; I have no autograph to send you; I came near asking at the Court of Peers for one of Fieschi, but I thought it might not be agreeable to you.
The other day I went to Frascati, out of curiosity, to see a gambling-house. There I found a person of your acquaintance—one who was the devoted, in Geneva, of Madame Marie. He told me he had come there for the first time. He was playing craps "It is too late for the theatres, will you go and play?" We went to the "Salon des Étrangers." He was as well known in that place as Barabbas, and, to my great astonishment, I found there all the most virtuous and rangés men of the great world. And what did I see a quarter of an hour later? The friend of the King of Sardinia, who had told us he had a rendezvous to avoid coming out with us! And this dear Italian said to me, pointing to our late Amphytrion:— "You know the Italian proverb: 'gambler like a Pole.'" The friend of the Countess Marie is henceforth to me a book in which I can read at any time. Little Komar was there also. That young man, old in the flower of his age, makes me ache to see him. I perceive that in order to understand society I must go to such places three times a year, to know the men with whom one has to do. These are the only two times in my life that I have set foot in such dens. I shall return to the Salon once more to see Hope play; he stakes a hundred thousand francs with supernatural indolence, confronting chance, as one power stands facing another power. Addio! I am awaiting a letter from you. Last night I dreamed that I saw a letter and a parcel sent by you; in the parcel were apples. I never had so real a dream. When Auguste came to wake me at five in the morning, I said, "Where are the apples?" He saw I had been dreaming. I wish I could explain these dreams.