You must think that your dear letter came as a benefaction from Providence in the solitude of Saché. But, dear, why do you make, like those spiteful little feuilletonists and so many others, the false reasoning that considers an author guilty of all that he puts into the mouth of his actors? Because I paint a journalist without faith or law, make him talk as he thinks, and begin the portrait of that hideous and cancerous sore, does it follow that my literature is that of a commercial traveller? You are so wrong in this that I will not insist; only, I don't like to find my polar star at fault, nor to catch myself smiling as I kiss her pages. You are infallible for me. Do not quarrel with me too much in the little time I have to live.
The grand affair is coming on. They engrave, design, and print vigorously. But, if there is success, success will come too late. I feel myself decidedly ill. I should have done better to go and pass six months at Wierzchownia than to stay on the battle-field, where I shall end by being knocked over. When one has neither supports nor ammunition there comes a moment when one must capitulate. The whole world of Paris rises in arms against inflexible virtue, and beats it down at any cost.
I meditate retiring to Touraine; but I cannot be there alone. There is no one to see there. One must have all in one's own home.
The moments when my energy deserts me are becoming more frequent, and, in those terrible phases, it is impossible to answer for one's self. There is neither reasoning, nor sentiment, nor doctrine that can quell the excesses of that crisis, when the soul is, so to speak, absent. Journeys cost so much money, and ruin me for a year or more; thus I am forced to remain in France. The law about the National Guard drives me into going to Touraine, for it is impossible for me to submit to that rule. So I think that towards the middle of September I shall have chosen a little house on the banks of the Cher or the Loire. I am even in treaty for one now, which would suit me very well, but there are serious difficulties.
I am surprised that you have not yet received Boulanger's picture. They assured me it would go by a flying-waggon which went so fast that in a month it would be delivered in Brody. Now it is more than two months since I announced to you its departure.
This distance between us is something very dreadful. Your letter has been so delayed that I feared illnesses; I feared lest your fatigues had affected your health. I see now that you and yours are well. I will write you from Paris after seeing the doctor.
Why are you vexed with me for not having told you of Madame Contarini? I shall be angry with you till death for always believing that I need foreign female preachers to refresh my memory of my country. Alas! I think of it too much. I have too much subordinated all my thoughts to what you, so distant from me, think, to be happy. In short, I am neither converted nor to be converted, for I have but one religion and I do not divide my sentiments. If my religion is too terrestrial, the fault is in God, who made it what it is. Madame Contarini did not know that she was following in your religious foot-prints; for it is you who have undertaken my conversion.
You are always the providence of some one. That poor Swiss girl, will she love you better than the other? For we ought never to judge those we love; I am very fixed on that principle. The affection that is not blind is no affection at all.
I resume this letter at midnight, before going to bed. My bedroom here, which people come to see out of curiosity, looks out on woods that are two or three times centennial, and I take in a view of the Indre and the little château that I called Clochegourde. The silence is marvellous.
I leave to-morrow, 26th, for Tours with M. de Margonne, and the 28th for Paris, where my deplorable affairs need me. I always leave this lonely valley with regret.