My sister still wants to marry me. She has among her friends a goddaughter of Louis-Philippe, daughter of that Bonnard who brought up the King of the French. I laughed so that my sister was speechless. "In the first place," I said to her, "I will not marry any woman under thirty-six, preferably forty, inasmuch as I am forty-two."
Apropos of that, I expected a letter, from you May 16, Saint Honoré's day, or the 20th, my birthday, and I had palpitations for nothing at post-time. Ingrato cuore! But you are loved quand même. During these six months there have been moments when I fancied you were coming.
So Gurowski elopes with an Infanta and marries her! Oh! how much better to be a fool like Gurowski than an intrepid traveller like me.
If you only knew what I would give to have a child. No, there are moments when the fear of waking up old, ill, incapable of inspiring any sentiment (and that is beginning) seizes me, and I almost go mad. I go and walk alone in some solitary place, cursing life and our execrable country—and yet the only one where it is possible to live.
I have here, before my eyes, your last letter of December 29, alas! You were looking at a ray of sunshine thawing your windows; you saw the past in that, and the future! Would to heaven that ray would come to me. I await it with impatience—that ray, your letter, which shines upon me from time to time. Six months' silence, a winter of the heart! What has happened to you during all that time? Have you been ill? Are you suffering? What? The mind and heart wander dolorously through all the zones of supposition, doubt, anxiety.
If I were less ruined, less bound to give all my money to my lawyer, I should go to see you, because I am ordered to go away for a time; but I am only allowed five hundred francs' worth of liberty.
Well, adieu, dear; or rather, à bientôt. In spite of my promises, always baffled by fate and misfortune, believe that the only thing I desire is to go and see you. I will not talk of it any more. I will try for it. Perhaps the very force of work may exact a longer rest than fifteen days spent in Touraine by the combined commands of lawyer and doctor. When I shall have finished bringing out the books which I must still do for Souverain (that is, five volumes), I shall, no doubt, find a moment. Do not be vexed with me for postponing this, to me, great happiness; I had to do so for my interests. I had to rescue the hundred thousand francs Les Jardies cost, and persevere in that great and noble task—of paying debts. You owe me to my own despair, and now I have begun to hope again. Hope is, above all to me, a virtue; it is a duty, not done without many tears shed secretly, which you do not see. God owes me a great compensation, and among those he does send me I count the pure benedictions your sweet hand wafts me with the adieus of your dear letters.
A thousand wishes for the happiness of your dear Anna. My affectionate compliments to all those I know about you, and my friendship to the Count. I have not forgotten him among my dedications; he will find his in the beautiful complete edition I am now preparing.
As for you, dear Elect Lady, the most adored among all my friendships, preferred even to my natural affections, you who are before the sister, and whom I shall ever hold in affection, I do not bid you farewell; I offer you afresh all that is yours—but one cannot give one's self twice.
June 30, 1841.