When this letter reaches you, it is probable that the fate of "L'École des Ménages" [formerly "La Première Demoiselle">[ will have been decided; and while you read these words they may be representing that play, so long meditated, which perhaps may fall flat in two hours. It has taken on great proportions; there are five leading rôles and the subject is vast. It touches the painful spot of modern morals: marriage; but perhaps the personages lack certain conditions in order to become types. To my eyes, the play is precisely the bourgeois family. But it has a certain inferiority through that very thing.
I am going to-morrow to come to an understanding with the managers of the Renaissance, after many protocols exchanged between them and a friend who has undertaken to fight for my interests; the play will be mounted in twenty days. I took, to lay out my ideas and write them down for me, a poor young man of letters, named Lassailly, who has not written two lines worth preserving. I never saw such incapacity. But he has been useful to me in making the first germ, on which I can work. Nevertheless, I would have liked some one of more intelligence and wit. Théophile Gautier is coming to do the second play in five acts, and I expect much from him.
Nevertheless, dear countess, it is impossible for me to do all that I have undertaken, and all that I must do to get out of my embarrassments. Here is what I have accomplished the last month: "Béatrix, ou Les Amours Forcés," two volumes 8vo, wholly written and corrected, which is coming out in the "Siècle;" "Un Grand homme de Province à Paris," the end of "Illusions Perdues," of which only the second volume remains to do, and that will be done this week. Besides which, three plays: "L'École des Ménages," "La Gina," and "Richard Cœur d'Éponge."
Well, after such great labour (for I have just as much for the month of March) shall I gain my liberty, shall I owe nothing to any one, shall I have the tranquillity of soul of a man from whom no one has money to demand? I begin to feel some fatigue. Just now, on beginning to go to work, I found it impossible to take it up with my usual ardour; I thought of you; I wanted to tell you across space how often you are here, and to confide to you my little sorrows and my great works, or, if you like, my little works and my great sorrows.
March 13.
How many things have happened in my life since I wrote the last lines! In the first place, twenty days employed in correcting and rewriting my play for the people of the Renaissance theatre; who have brutally rejected it from want of money to make the first payment agreed upon. Then, the reading of it before certain of the actors and the director of the Théâtre Français who thought it magnificent, but impossible to act as it then was, because of the union of tragedy and comedy. They want it either the one or the other. Next, a reading at the house of Madame Saint-Clair, sister of Madame Delmar, in presence of three ambassadors, English, Austrian, and Sardinian, with their wives, Madame Molé, M. de Maussion, Custine, etc. Delight and criticism. After which, second and last reading at Custine's, in presence of another wave of the great world, who all wish to see it performed. I have coldly put away my play in a box, and this morning Planche came and asked me for it, to see what it is like. He is to give me his opinion next Sunday.
So, dear, much to do, much company, much annoyance, and little result. However, let me tell you that Taylor, the collector of Spanish pictures and former Commissary for the King to the Théâtre Français, and the director Védel and Desmousseaux have taken so high an opinion of me as a dramatic writer that they have asked me to give them, as soon as possible, a play entirely comic, saying that they would have it played immediately. They are convinced that I can write for the stage.
March 16.
Planche took my play to read; he is to return it in two days, and will doubtless tell me what it is worth. Stendhal, who was present at the reading at Custine's, writes me the little line which I enclose in this letter, and which he signs, by an inexplicable habit, Cotonet. He never signs, except officially, his real name, Henri Beyle.
I am not well in body or in mind. I feel a horrible lassitude, which, in regard to my head, is not without danger. I have no longer either force or courage. The obstacles I have been accustomed to overcome increase enormously and terrify me. Anxieties about money have become for me what the Furies were to Orestes. I am without support, enervated, without even kindly sentiments, without the faculty of feeling any, of any kind. I am a negation. Ah! these moments are terrible, especially when, for want of money, I cannot shake myself together by a journey. There are no pleasures for me; none but those of the heart. That is the only thing that intellect has not yet overrun; it is the only thing it can never displace.