I went to Gavault's on foot, from the Hôtel de Ville to the Madeleine. Gavault was frightened at my face when he saw me without soul, without strength, without life. From there, still on foot, I went back to Passy at eight o'clock, without feeling bodily fatigue; the bruised soul numbed the body, mental fatigue was greater than all physical exhaustion. At ten o'clock I went to bed; impossible to sleep. I have lighted my candles and my fire, and taken my coffee.—I have just read the end of your letter; and the balm of the last sheet has calmed me, without altogether making the last echoes of my suffering cease.
Till to-morrow: bodily fatigue has come to me and I can sleep. I am going to bed; it is one o'clock.
January 6.
To-day, January 6, is your birthday, dear countess. I wish to express to you none but thoughts of gentleness and peace. Going to bed at one o'clock, I fell asleep among the charming things you said to me at the close of your letter, and I had no dreams at all. The fatigue of yesterday, moral and physical, was such that I slept till ten o'clock. I have just breakfasted and I return to your letter. That which is grievous in it does not come from you; it comes from strangers, from that silly Madame A...; and you could not have thought otherwise than as you did on reading her letter. By a strange fatality I read only half your letter, and I have suffered by my own fault. I could have taken a fiacre and read the rest; but, I see now, deep and violent sensations do not reason; they rush like torrents or thunderbolts. What upset me thus was that I saw plainly they were trying to give you malignant impressions about me. I have no need of "society;" far from it, I have a most profound horror of it; celebrity weighs upon me; I thirst for a home, a home of my own, I thirst to drink long draughts of a life in common, the life of two. I have no affection in the world that conflicts in any manner whatsoever with what I have in my soul, which is indeed the very substance of that soul; "the rest is all vain dream." To finish, once for all, with bad people and bad tales, tell yourself, dear, that society is composed of criminals who have a horror of honest men and of men without sin; it hates the happiness that eludes it.
Let me, before I close my letter, say this: my mind is made up; if I am forced to abandon my hopes, if, by force of hostile and secret persecution you should turn your back upon me, my resolutions are fixed; the haschisch that I tried yesterday will render a man imbecile at the end of a year; he can remain so, knowing nothing further of the pains or joys of life, until he dies. Haschisch, as you know, is only an extract of hemp, and hemp contains the end of man. No, if I cannot have my beautiful dreamed-of life, I want nothing. Yesterday, all the treasures of furniture which I have collected were so many bits of wood and crockery to me! Poverty, were I alone, has attractions for me. I want nothing, except in relation to the secret object of my life; that object is the supreme motive of all my prayers, my steps, my efforts, my ideas, my toils, of the fame I seek to acquire, in short of my future and of all that I am. For thirteen years this aspiration has been the principle of my blood—for ideas and sentiments work through the blood.
I thank you for the instructions you give me about Lirette. I will pay her the sum agreed upon to-morrow at her convent, and I will inquire the amount that you must still add. I am so glad to do any business for you that you ought to make me give you a commission for it. Poor dear Atala I leave you to go to the post, for I expect a letter with news of my Amsterdam cases, which are as long delayed in coming from Rouen to Paris as they were between Amsterdam and Rouen. If I do not finish my letter to-day I will to-morrow; and to-morrow it will jump into the letter-box, and the day after be at Roanne. What a hippogriff is the post! Adieu, dear; I am going to work like one possessed. I start April 1 by boat for Civita-Vecchia. Easter Sunday falls on the 12th; I shall see Rome for ten days; then I will return with you through Switzerland. There's my plan. Between now and then I shall have my liberty. Take care of yourselves, all, but you especially. I will answer next week your dear child's letter, and also Georges'. When I think that after Baden you will have to return home, a shudder comes over me. You know when you enter there but you don't know when you can leave. But I will not end my letter sadly; find here within it the fresh flowers of an old affection. My heart blesses you, my soul is round you with all its thoughts. As for my mind, you know that is only the reflection and echo of yours. Passy, February 8, 1845.[1]