[1] Count Georges Mniszech, a suitor to her daughter, and subsequently Anna's husband—TR.
October 17.
All is well; the neuralgic pains have disappeared as if by magic, and if I have not finished my letter it is because I have slept twelve hours running under the quietude of non-suffering.
Adieu, dear beloved sovereign. Examine well that young Count Mniszech; it concerns the whole life of your child. I am glad you have found the first point, that of taste and personal sympathy, so necessary for her happiness and yours, satisfactory. But study him; be as stern in judgment as if you did not like him. The things to be considered above all are principles, character, firmness. But how stupid of me to be giving this advice to the best and most devoted of mothers!
I resume work to-morrow. I cannot give you any news of Lirette, having been unable to go to her convent while my illness and its prescriptions lasted.
I hunger and thirst for your dear presence, star of my life, far away, but ever present. Perhaps you think thus of me, sometimes. Who knows? But alas! you have written to me very little of late. I, so occupied by work, so often ill, I write to you nearly every day. Ah! the reason is that I love you. I feel your indifference, I was going to say ingratitude, deeply; so exasperated am I by this interval of a whole long month. You would be frightened if you knew what ideas plough through me. And then, when the letter comes at last, all is forgotten. I am like a mother who has found her child. But I must not let my letter end with reproaches.
Find here all my heart, all my faith, all my thought, and all my life.
Passy, October 21, 1844.
I am perfectly well again and have gone back to work. This is a piece of good news worth telling you at once. But oh! dearest, a year is a year, don't you see? The heart cannot deceive itself; it suffers its own pains in spite of the false remedies of hope—Hope! is it anything else than pain disguised? I look at that Colmann sketch of the salon, and every look is a stab; the thought of it enters my heart like a sharp blade. Between that sketch and the picture of Wierzchownia is the door of my study,—and that door represents to me infinite space, spreading away among the memories attached to that furniture, to those blue hangings. "We were there together; she is now there and I am here!" That is my cry, and each look, each stab redoubles it. Why did not Colmann paint the other side of the salon? Why not have done the stove and the little table before the stove, beside which you said to me things so compassionate, so sweet, so fraternally reasonable? Ah! I would give my blood to hear them once again.
Madame Bocarmé has returned. Bettina adores your serf, in all honour and propriety. She tells me that Colmann's fifty water-colours are masterpieces, and he is to Russia what Pinelli is to Rome.