The Mediterranean has been very bad; there are merchants here who think their ships are lost. To risk as little as possible, I took the land route from Marseille to Toulon, and the steamboat that carries despatches from Toulon here. Nevertheless, I suffered terribly, and spent much money. I think, however, that the sea route to Odessa would be the safest, most direct, and least costly way of going to you. From Marseille to Odessa by sea it is only four hundred francs. From Odessa to Berditchef it ought not to cost much, especially if you came to Kiew to meet me. You see that wherever I go I think of your dear Wierzchownia.
Corsica is one of the most beautiful countries in the world; there are mountains as in Switzerland, but no lakes. France is not making the most of this fine country. It is as large as ten of our departments, but does not yield as much as one of them; it ought to have five million of inhabitants, but there are barely three hundred thousand. We are beginning to make roads and clear forests which will yield immense wealth, like the soil, which is now completely neglected. There may be the finest mines in the world of marble, coal, and metals, etc.; but no one has studied the country, on account of bandits and the savage state in which it is left.
In the midst of my maritime sufferings on the steamboat I bethought me of the indiscretion I committed in asking you to get me a hookah from Moscow, in my passionate ardour for the latakia which I smoked at George Sand's, and which Lamartine had brought her. I was so spasmodically unhappy about it that I laugh now as I remember my sickness. I am sorry I could not get a hookah in Paris; it would have wiled away my time here and dispelled the ennui which, for the first time in my life, has laid hold upon me; this is the first time that I have known what a desert with semi-savages upon it is.
This morning I have learned that there is a library here, and to-morrow, at ten o'clock, I can go there to read. What? That is an anxious question. There are in this place neither reading-rooms, nor women, nor popular theatres, nor society, nor newspapers, nor any of the impurities that proclaim civilization. The women do not like foreigners; the men walk about the whole day, smoking. The laziness is incredible. There are eight thousand souls, much poverty, and extreme ignorance of the simplest current events. I enjoy a complete incognito. No one knows what literature or social life is. The men wear velveteen jackets; there is so much simplicity in clothing that I, who have dressed myself to seem poor, look like a rich man. There is a French battalion here, and you should see the poor officers, idling in the streets from morning till night. There is nothing to do! I shall now begin to sketch scenes and lay out projects. I must work with fury. How people must love on this desert rock! and truly the place swarms with children, like gnats of a summer's evening.
Adieu for to-day. I was only eighteen hours at Marseille and ten at Toulon, and so could not write to you until to-day.
Ajaccio, April 1.
I leave to-morrow for Sardinia in a little row-boat. I have just re-read what I wrote to you, and I see I did not finish about the hookah. You understand that if it gives you the least trouble you are to drop my commission. As for the latakia, I have just discovered (laugh at me for a whole year) that Latakia is a village of the island of Cyprus, a stone's throw from here, where a superior tobacco is made, named from the place, and that I can get it here. So mark out that item.
I have just seen a poor French soldier who lost both hands by a cannon-ball, and has nothing but stumps; he earns his living by writing, beating a drum, playing the violin, playing at cards, and shaving in the streets. If I had not seen it I never should believe it.
The Ajaccio library has nothing. I have re-read "Clarissa Harlowe," and read for the first time "Pamela" and "Sir Charles Grandison," which I found horribly dull and stupid. What a fate for Cervantes and Richardson to have been able to do but one work! The same might be said of Sterne.
I have had the misfortune to be recognized by a cursed law-student of Paris, just returned to make himself a lawyer in his own land. He had seen me in Paris. Hence an article in a Corsican paper. And I, who wanted to keep my journey as secret as possible! Alas, alas! What a bore! Is there no way for me to do either good or evil without publicity? This is the eighth day of my placid life. But Ajaccio is like one household.