This time, I have good news to tell you. Primo: I have at length paid off the debt which crushed my life and my efforts. The hundred thousand francs due to those with whom I made that fatal treaty of 1836 are paid. Secundo: Les Jardies are sold to a friend who will keep them for me. Tertio: no one can any longer harass me; my debts are fixed at a certain figure. I spend nothing, and, if I keep my health and force, they will all be paid in eighteen months. Quarto: three firms of publishers, Dubochet, Furne, and Hetzel and Paulin, unite to undertake the publication of all my works, a great number, with engravings, to be sold cheaply. La Comédie Humaine is at last to arise, beautiful, well corrected, and almost complete. My works will be purchasable; for as they are now, no one knows where to buy them, or has the money to do so; they have hitherto cost three hundred francs, whereas now they will cost eighty and be well printed. This is an affair which alone might pay my debts. But I do not count upon it; I rely only on my pen and new works.
During this year I have written thirty thousand lines for the newspapers. In 1842 I shall write forty thousand. I have, besides, a comedy in five acts for the Théâtre-Français, not counting "Mercadet," which is always on the stocks. I have written this year, in all, sixteen volumes. But in the spring, if my play is played, I shall go to Germany and to you; for between now and then you will have told me why you have punished me and deprived me of my bread. I could not travel now; I must prepare enough volumes of my complete works, so that this new publication might not suffer by my absence. I have to fill up my frame-work. Many things are still lacking in the "Scènes de province" and "Scènes Parisiennes." As for the "Scènes de la Vie politique, militaire, and campagne," two-thirds are still wanting, and I must finish them all in seven years, under pain of never doing La Comédie Humaine,—which is the title of my history of society painted in action.
In the midst of all this business and toil, and I may say, renascent pains, the grief that your silence causes is the greatest of all; each day more poignant; and I no longer seek for the reasons of your silence. I await them.
As soon as, through the devotion of Gavault (my lawyer, the solicitor of the city of Paris), I saw that there was still a means to remain in France and pull myself through my difficulties, and that I could respond to his advances of money by pecuniary profits, I redoubled in courage and I sacrificed the journey I was to have made to you. But I told you so, instantly, in a letter telling you all my hopes. This year, the better has made long strides. I shall attain to—death perhaps, but my last glance shall see the Romans fly!
How shall I explain to you that amid these triple battles I feel a cold place in my heart; that I can no longer complain, or write to you; I can only suffer! How many explanations have I given to your silence, all either wounding or irritating! This letter leaves in September; you will receive it in October or November. I cannot, therefore, receive a reply to it before January. That will be four or five months more of uncertainty and fears, amid the most terrible, most active, most occupied life that there is in the world—for I move a world, and you do not know what a Prometheus afoot, acting, with an unseen vulture within his heart, is. I have moments when I cannot invent reasons for your silence; I have reviewed them all and have found each more bitter than the others.
This year I have worked through two hundred nights, and I must begin another in the same way to conquer my liberty. Ah! they may well make a goddess of her!
The address "M. de Brugnol, rue Basse No. 19, Passy, department of the Seine," is always the direct and right address.
Paris, September 30, 1841.
Dear countess, I have just received the letter you have sent me under cover to Souverain, and I am amazed beyond measure. First of all, have the charity to answer by return of mail the following questions:—
1. Did you address the letters which have been returned to you to M. de Brugnol, rue Basse No. 19; Passy; or were they directed to Sèvres?