No letter from you; my anxiety has reached the highest point. I begin to yield myself to the most absurd ideas. I shall consult a somnambulist to know if you are ill. A few days ago I had my fortune told with cards by a very famous wizard. I had never seen one of those singular phenomena. The man told me, after consulting his cards, things of incredible accuracy, with particulars about my past life; and he explained to me his prognostics for the future. This man, without education, and extremely common, uses choice expressions the moment he is with his cards. The man and the cards is another being to the man without the cards. He told me—not knowing me from Adam—me, who did not myself know at two o'clock that I should consult him at three, that my life until to-day had been one continued series of struggles, in which I had always been victorious. He also told me that I should soon be married; which was my great curiosity.
July 16.
Ought I to send this letter? Ought I to wait longer? You have left two letters from me without an answer; this will be the third. In the midst of my toil, under which I bend, but do not break, this is a continual anxiety which distresses me.
I have always the intention to pass part of the coming winter with you; but all depends on the reprinting of my works, which becomes problematical in spite of the fifteen thousand francs already paid me for it. The affair seems to be heavy and difficult, and I live in conferences with my lawyer and the three publishers, who want so many guarantees that I believe I shall begin all over again the troubles of the agreement I have just bought out, at a cost of one hundred thousand francs.
You are very courageous if you have done all you said in your last letter, and you must now see that I was right when I spoke to you of the value that a woman ought to have in her own house—which is a wholly French idea. For pity's sake, dear, send me a line the moment you receive this letter, which I shall send off to-day. I have great need to know how you are, what you are doing, whether you or any of yours are ill; for surely nothing but illness could thus interrupt all news between us. Remember that the corner of earth where Wierzchownia is interests me more than all the other lands of the world put together.
I begin to weary extremely of my continual toil. It is now nearly five years that I have not ceased to work; the wizard who told me I should soon have my tranquillity must have lied.
Adieu, dear; all tender regards and remembrances across the spaces which I too, sooner or later, will cross; with what pleasure none but myself can know! But, for pity's sake, a word, a letter. I await it with an impatience that so much delay has made a soul-sickness. The wizard told me that within six weeks I should receive a letter which would change all my life; and in the live combinations of cards which he made, that fact reappeared in all of them. I will relate to you some day that séance and make you laugh heartily.
Adieu, sempre medesimo.
Paris, September, 1841.
Dear countess, it is now nearly ten months since I have received any letters from you; and this is the fifth letter I have written without receiving any reply. I am more than anxious; I know not what to think.