I posted a letter last night, not expecting to be able to write again; I suffered too much. My neuralgia attacked me. That is a secret between me and my doctor; he made me take some pills, and I am better this morning. But, can I help it? your letter burns my heart. I will go to Geneva, I will pass my winter there. At least you shall not have the right to emit suspicions. You shall see my life of toil, and you will perceive the barbarity there is in arming yourself with my confidence in opening my heart to you. I, who want to think in you! I, who detach myself from everything to be more wholly yours!
Deceive you! But, as you say yourself, that would be too easy. Besides, is that my character? Love is to me all confidence. I believe in you as in myself. What you say of that compatriot [Madame de Castries is meant] makes me surfer, but I do not doubt it. I shall not speak to you of the cause of your imprecation, "Go to the feet of your marquise" [Va aux pieds de ta marquise], except verbally.[1]
I have five important affairs to terminate, but I shall sacrifice all to be on the 25th in Geneva, at that inn of the Pré-l'Évêque. But we shall see each other very little. I must go to bed at six in the evening, to rise at midnight. But from midday till four o'clock every day I can be with you. For that I must do things here that seem impossible; I shall attempt them. If they cause me a thousand troubles I shall go to Geneva, and forget everything there to see but one thing, the one heart, the one woman by whom I live.
I would give my life that that horrible page had not been written. To reproach me for my very devotion! Do you believe that I would not leave all, and go with you to the depths of some retreat? You arm yourself with the phrase in which I sacrifice (the word meant nothing, there is no sacrifice) to you all!
Why have you flung suffering into what was so sweet? You have made me give to grief the time that belonged to the toil which facilitates my means of going to you sooner.
I await, with an impatience beyond words, a letter, a line; you have completely upset me. No, you do not know the childlike heart, the poet's heart, that you have bruised. I am a man to suffer, then!
Adieu. Did I tell you the story of that man who wrote drinking-songs in order to bury an adored mistress? To work with a heart in mourning is my fate till your next letter comes. You owe me your life for this fatal week. Oh! my angel, mine belongs to you. Break, strike, but love me still. I adore you as ever; but have mercy on the innocent. I do not know if you have formed an idea of what I have to do. I must finish with the printing of four volumes before I can start, I must compound with five difficulties, pay eight thousand francs; and the four volumes make one hundred feuilles, or one hundred times sixteen pages, to be revised each three or four times, without counting the manuscripts.
Well, I will lose sleep, I will risk all, but you will see me near you on the 20th at latest.
To-morrow I shall write openly to Madame Hanska to announce my parcel.
May I put here a kiss full of tears? Will it be taken with love? Make no more storms without cause in what is so pure.