Your works, monsieur, make us pass many agreeable moments in our solitude. They give us even the illusion of seeing you playing with Anna, who, day by day, grows prettier. She is already a great lady, who begins to play the piano, and promises to have a distinguished talent for it. She has also a taste, a decided passion for reading; I can no longer find her books analogous to her age; we have exhausted the book-shops of Saint Petersburg.
You could hardly believe, monsieur, the pleasure I have had in reading "L'Interdiction." I was filled with the same sentiment I described to you when reading for the first time at Neufchâtel "Le Médecin de campagne." Give us as many as possible of such works; society expects that service of you. The picture of the judge, and that of the nobleman restoring the property which, according to his own conviction, he illegally possessed, are of incomparable beauty and rare perfection. They cannot but strongly influence the morals of this age. Men of heart, of talent, of genius, it is your mission to blast vices, to give the greatest brilliancy to virtue, and to repair the evil of which the philosophy of the last century cast the germ.
But I perceive that I am out of my natural vocation, and becoming diffuse. That is a defect communicated to me by the Châtelaine of Wierzchownia and sovereign of Paulowska, who is quite enchanted to find herself once more in her empire of flowers and verdure, who salutes you, and is preparing to write you a long letter of I don't know how many pages.
It can only be in two years hence that we shall propose to ourselves to make a journey for the education of little Anna, and I have a presentiment, monsieur, that we shall find you sitting in the Chamber, and be present at some of your eloquent speeches. While awaiting the realization of that dream, accept the assurance of a true and sincere friendship.
Venceslas Hanski.
P. S. I send you the design of the inkstand before you receive it; that you may know if you receive the right thing.
To Madame Hanska.
Paris, May 16-June 16, 1836.
One year ago to-day, I was at the Hôtel de la Poire, in Vienna, at one o'clock, having made the journey in five days, and not having slept for three nights! At two o'clock, after an hour's sleep, I gave myself the fête of going to the Walterische Haus. To-day, my only pleasure will be, in the midst of my perpetual battle, a halt of two hours to write you a line, cara contessina. But instead of sending you a bouquet of rosy hopes, I have only sad things to tell you. All that I announced to you of good has failed. Nothing of that which would have freed me succeeds.
However, to-day Madame Bêchet may perhaps cede her rights in the "Études de Mœurs" to Werdet; and this is more important than you know to my tranquillity; for if I have but one publisher I can regulate my work, I can manage to obtain a month's rest, and you know what I can make of a month's rest. The "Contes Drolatiques" affair still drags on.