I have still a conte to write for my third dizain, to replace one which was too free, and it is now a month that I have been trying to find something, without avail. Nothing but the want of that feuille delays the publication.... Next month the announcement of our tontine on the "Études Sociales" will, no doubt, appear; and from the 1st to the 15th the magnificent edition will be ready. They have begun with "La Peau de Chagrin." The second volume will be "Le Médecin de campagne," and the third "Le Lys dans la Vallée." God grant that the affair succeed!
I am in despair at hearing that your cassolette is in Warsaw, and I cannot imagine why it has not been sent to you by some opportunity. Is there no communication between you and Warsaw? There are now strong reasons for suspecting the person in question, whose journey is inexplicable. I add to this letter a line for him, which you must seal and send to him, to hasten the delivery of that jewel.
Write me a line, I beg of you, to let me know if the picture has reached Brody. Double the time it ought to have taken has elapsed, and I am very impatient to know if anything unlucky has happened to it on the journey. I hear nothing of the statue from Milan. Those Italians are really very singular.
You wrote me that you might go to Vienna, but have never again mentioned that project. If you go there I could bring you, myself, a whole library of manuscripts which belong to you, and are beginning to be difficult to transport.
This is the first time I have ever answered two letters from you; for if you reckon up, you will see that in letter-writing I have the advantage, in spite of what you call, so insultingly, your chatter. Whatever it is, I am grieved when I do not get it, and it is now a fortnight since I have seen Auguste enter, bearing respectfully a little packet, neatly folded and very spruce, which comes from such distance and yet has nothing of the immensity of the steppes in its form.
My play, the comedy in five acts, is all laid out, and as your opinion has made me change and modify the one I first began, I dare not tell you this one, because when your reply comes it will be written, and if you are against it you will throw me into terrible perplexities. Is not this falling on one's knees before one's critic? Wherefore, behold me there! I place myself at your feet with a good grace, entreating you to pay no attention to what I have just said, and to go your way with your female scissors through my plot, and cut up my dramatic calico mercilessly, for, in my present situation, this play represents a hundred thousand francs, and I must make it a masterpiece well and quickly, or succumb.
You know "Monsieur Prudhomme," the type made by Henri Monnier? I take it boldly; because in order to seize success one must not have to obtain acceptance for a creation. One must, like the ambassador making love, buy it ready-made. Hence, there is no anxiety about the personage; I am sure of the laughter so far. Only, I must annihilate Monnier, and my Prudhomme must be the Prudhomme. Monnier made only a poor vaudeville of burlesques; I shall make five acts for the Théâtre-Français.
Prudhomme, as type of our present bourgeoisie, as image of the Gannerons, of the Aubés, of the National Guard, of that middle-class on which il padrone rests, is a personage far more comic than Turcaret, droller than Figaro. He is wholly of the present day. Here is the subject:—
At thirty-seven years of age, Prudhomme is seized with a passion for the daughter of a porter,—charming person, who studies at the Conservatoire and has carried off prizes. She sees before her the career of Mademoiselle Mars; she has distinction, jargon, she is quite comme il faut; she is eighteen, but she has been already betrayed in a first love; she has had a son by a pupil at the Conservatoire, who has gone to America out of love for his child, being alarmed by his poverty, and resolved to make his fortune. Pamela mourns him, but she has the child on her arms. The desire to support and bring up her child makes her marry Prudhomme, from whom she conceals her situation. Prudhomme, at thirty-seven, possesses thirty thousand francs in savings; he has invested them in the mines of Anzin in 1815, and his shares are worth, in 1817, three hundred thousand francs. That incites him to marry. The marriage takes place. He has a daughter by his wife. The thousand-franc shares of Anzin are worth, in 1834, one hundred and fifty thousand francs. This is the prologue; for the play itself begins in 1834, eighteen years later.