Do not think that there is the least pride, the least false delicacy in my refusal of what you know of, the golden drop you have put angelically aside. Who knows if some day it might not stanch the blood of a wound? and from you alone in the world I could accept it. I know you would receive all from me. But no; reserve all for things that I might perhaps accept from you, in order to surround myself with you, and think of you in all things. My love is greater than my thought.
Find here a thousand kisses and caresses of flame. I would like to clasp you in my soul.
Paris, Wednesday, November 13, 1833.
Madame,—I think that the house of Hanski will not refuse the slight souvenirs which the house of Balzac preserves of a gracious and most joyous hospitality. I have the honour to address you, bureau restant at Geneva, a little case forwarded by the Messageries of the rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. You have no doubt been accusing the frivolity and carelessness of the "Frenchman" (forgetting that I am a Gaul, nothing but a Gaul), and have never thought of all the difficulties of Parisian life, which have, however, procured me the pleasure of busying myself long for you and Anna. The delay comes from the fact that I wanted to keep all my promises. Permit me to have some vanity in my persistence.
Before the sublime Fossin deigned to leave the diadems and crowns of princes to set the pebbles picked up by your daughter, I had to entreat him, and be very humble, and often leave my retreat, where I am busy in setting poor phrases. Before I could get the best cotignac [quince marmalade] from Orléans, inasmuch as you want to be a child again and taste it, there was need of correspondence. And foreseeing that you would find the marmalade below its reputation, I wanted to add some of the clingstone peaches of Touraine, that you might feel, gastronomically, the air of my native region. Forgive me that Tourainean vanity. And finally, in order to send you a "La Caricature" complete, I had to wait till its year was ended and then submit to the delays of the binder,—that high power that oppresses my library.
For your beautiful hair nothing was more easy, and you will find what you deigned to ask me for. I shall have the honour to bring you myself the recipe for the wonderful preservative pomade, which you can make yourself in the depths of the Ukraine, and so not lose one of your beauteous black hairs.
Rossini has lately written me a note; I send it to you as an offering to Monsieur Hanski, his passionate admirer. You see, madame, that I have not forgotten you, and that if my work allows I shall soon be in Geneva to tell you myself what sweet memories I preserve of our happy meeting.
You admire Chénier; there is a new edition just published, more complete than the preceding ones. Do not buy it; arrange that I may read to you, myself, these various poems, and perhaps you will then attach more value to the volumes I shall select for you here. That sentence is not vain or impertinent; it is the expression of a hope with wholly youthful frankness.
I hope to be in Geneva on the 25th; but, alas! for that I have to finish four volumes, and though I work eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and have given up the music of the opera and all the joys of Paris to stay in my cell, I am afraid that the coalition of workmen of which we are now victims will make my efforts come to nought. I wish, as I have to make this journey, that I might find a little tranquillity in it, and remain away from that furnace called Paris for a fortnight, to be employed in some far niente. But I shall probably have to work more than I wish to.