Paris, October 15, 1845.[1]
Dear countess; I leave Paris by the mail coach on the 22nd, just as you are starting from Mulhausen, and I shall be at Chalon at five o'clock on the 25th, just in time to give you a hand on getting out of your carriage. My place is booked and paid for. How do you expect me to write you from Paris Wednesday a letter to Frankfort-on-the-Main, when you leave that town on Thursday? I received your third letter yesterday at Passy, in which you give me these directions, impossible to follow. I groan the more as I cannot send you a letter for the custom-house at Strasburg, where I wanted to recommend you to attention.
Tell your social fortune-teller that her cards have lied; that I am not preoccupied with any blonde, except Dame Fortune. No, I have no words except the mute language of the heart wherewith to thank you for that adorable letter No. 2, in which your gaiety breaks out with its sparkling gush, sweet treasure of a charming wit which the fine weather has brought back to you; for, as you once said to me, "It is only wrong-doers who stay sad when the joyful sun shines."
I make use of the excellent M. Silbermann, who will take to you these lines, not so much to tell you that you will find me at Chalon (your instinct will have told you that), but to paint to you my delight on reading your letter. Your infantine and purely physical joy enters my heart; I admire that adorable nature, so playful, so spontaneous, and so serious withal, because it is composed of lively impressions and deep sentiments. My eyes were filled with tears in thanking God with fervour that he had restored that health which you value for the sake of others,—those who love you, like your children and your old and faithful serf. Every time I go to breathe your atmosphere, your heart, your presence, I come back desperate at the obstacles that prevent me from staying in that heaven. I work, God knows how, for God alone knows why. When you hold this letter I shall probably have no debts whatever, except to my family. We will talk of my affairs on the boat between Chalon and Lyon. I shall have much to tell you thereupon, and I hope this time you will not be discontented with your servant. I have enormously much to do, write, correct, in order to meet you. I hope to take you as far as Genoa. But to whom could I confide the care of holding your head if you are sea-sick? If you will let me do as I wish I will go to Naples. I would give up everything, even fortune, to guard a friend like you and care for her in case of illness. I cannot think of you given over to strangers, to indifferent persons. I want to be with you, dear countess, my brilliant star, my happiness!
All this week I have been like a balloon; you know what my tramps on business errands are in Paris; I have been really overwhelmed by them. Minutes are worth hours to me if I do not want to lose money by travelling, for I must myself collect the sums due me. Also Les Jardies will be paid for this week; and I have been five times to see Gavault without finding him. You see I tell you all; it is stupid to talk of these things here when we shall have a whole day on the boat from Chalon to Lyon, and another from Lyon to Avignon. I will try to have lodgings prepared for you in advance, as on our other journeys, for I think you will be obliged to stop sometimes to rest.
I have not received the cup. I don't know whether the post takes charge of such things. In any case, however, it cannot be lost. You know I want to make a symbolic souvenir of it. It is to be supported by four figures: Constancy, Labour, Friendship, Victory.
Baden was to me a bouquet of flowers without a thorn. We lived there so sweetly, so peacefully, so heart to heart! I have never been as happy in my life; I seemed to catch a glimpse of that future I call to, I dream of, amid my troubles and my crushing labour. I would go to the end of the world on foot to tell you that your letters are to me in absence what you were yourself in Baden,—a masterpiece of the heart which is not met with twice in life. Oh! if you knew how you are blessed and invoked at every moment. My eyes are filled with happy tears as I think of all you are to me; those are thoughts I dwell on with a sweetness of recollection that nothing equals; that is my excess; I allow myself that, as your dainty daughter allows herself peaches.
I leave you; I have five folios of La Comédie Humaine to correct. I will write you to-morrow before beginning work. You can tell yourself that in spite of toil, errands, business of all kinds and at all hours, I am thinking of you; that your name is on my lips, in my head, in my heart, and that I only live and breathe in you. You can add that I am saying and repeating to myself incessantly: "On the 24th I shall see her! I shall live ten days of her life!"
[1] To Madame Hanska, at Dresden.