2. The matter of "Les Petits Bourgeois" rests, so far, with the "Débats." But the publisher wants the book; no doubt to illustrate with "Eugénie Grandet" and the "Physiologie du Mariage."
3. Poirson thinks the idea of the play excellent and proposes to guide me!—and if the execution is equal to the plot, he assures me of all the advantages I can desire. So I may appear once more before the public about April 1. Here I am, with "Prudhomme" and "Les Petits Bourgeois" on my hands; but no money. I must coin it in a manner to conquer tranquillity for three months. It is terrifying. This is Shrove-Saturday; I must spend it working, Sunday too, with a fury that is not French, but Balzacian.
February 17.
You know, dear countess, that there are days when the brain becomes inert. In spite of my best will I have sat all day long in my arm-chair, turning over the leaves of the "Musée-des-Familles!"—what do you say to that?—and in gazing from time to time at my Daffinger, without finding aught there than the most sublime and charming creature in the world and not a line of copy! I wanted to return to "Madame de la Chanterie," but I could only write two feuillets.
February 18.
I dine to-day with Poirson, the theatre manager.
Yesterday I dined out; a dinner of twenty-five persons at a restaurant; but what a dinner! It would have cost two or three thousand roubles in the 60th degree of latitude. I went this morning to see Bertin and have come home to tell you that all is concluded. Three thousand one hundred and fifty francs a volume, like those of "Les Mystères." That will make nine thousand five hundred. I am going to bed, worn-out with fatigue.
February 19.
Shrove-Tuesday, February 19. Oh joy! I have your letter and have just read it. You ask why I no longer go in the Versailles direction. Simply because one does not seek that which annoys and displeases. Do you want to know the only way in which to cease to be to me unica and dilecta? it is to speak of that to me. All that was a bad dream which must be forgotten in order not to blush for it to one's self. Deprived of your letters I no longer lived; nor did I live again until once more I saw your dear handwriting. And you speak to me of Versailles; the very name sickens me, with the ideas attached to it, and this when I am so far from you with vast spaces parting us! But you do not know how in your absence I am deprived of soul and brain. I live by the reception of one letter, and I no sooner have it than I want another.
Ah! your letter was indeed due me amidst the annoyances and troubles of all kinds that assail me and the crushing work which implores peace and has never found it except near you. Even Hetzel, whom I thought a friend, is getting up with Bertin a foolish squabble with me. If you only knew in what a fit of misanthropy I went to bed. It was frightful. But also, with what delight I read those pages so full of sincerity and affection! One hour of such pure, heavenly enjoyment would make one accept the martyrdoms of human existence.