But the conception of this multi-toned Séraphita has wearied me; it has lashed me for two days.
Yesterday I sent Rossini's autograph, extremely rare, to Monsieur Hanski, but the song for you. I am afraid I cannot leave here before 27th; seventeen hours of toil do not suffice. In a few hours you will receive my last letter, which will calm your fears and your sweet repentance. I would now like to be tortured—if it did not make me suffer so much. Oh! your adorable letters! And you believe that I will not burn those sacred effusions of your heart! Oh! never speak of that again.
To-day, 20th, I have still one hundred pages of "Eugénie Grandet" to write, "Ne touchez pas à la hache" to finish, and "La Femme aux yeux rouges" to do, and I need at least ten days for all that. I shall arrive dead. But I can stay in Geneva as long as you do. This is how: if I am rich enough I will lose five hundred francs on each volume to have it put in type and corrected in Geneva; and I will send to Paris a single corrected proof, and they will reprint it under the eyes of a friend who will read the sheets. It is such a piece of folly that I shall do it. What do you say to it?
Yesterday my arm-chair, the companion of my vigils, broke. It is the second I have had killed under me since the beginning of the battle that I fight.
When people ask me where I am going, and why I leave Paris, I tell them I am going to Rome.
Coffee has no longer any effect upon me. I must leave it off for some time that it may recover its virtues.
My dearest Eva, I should like to find in that inn you speak of, a very quiet room where no noise could penetrate, for I have truly much work to do. I shall work only my twelve hours, from midnight to midday, but those I must have.
I cannot tell you how these delays of the printer annoy me; I am ill of them. All the day of Monday was occupied by an old man of sixty-five, a man belonging to the first families of Franche-Comté, fallen into poverty, for whom I was entreated by the lady in Angoulême to find a situation. My heart is still wrung at the sight of him. I took him to Émile de Girardin, who gave him a place at a hundred francs a month. A man with white hair who lives on bread only, he and his family, while I, I live luxuriously, my God! I did what I could. People call these good actions; God thinks of those who compassionate the miseries of others. Just now God is crushing me a good deal. But it is true that you love me, and I worship you, and that enables me to bear all. I had to dine with Émile and his wife, and lose a day and a night; what a sacrifice! Ten years hence to give away a hundred thousand francs would be less.
Adieu for to-day. I have rested myself for a moment on your heart, oh, my dear joy, my gentle haven, my sole thought, my flower of heaven! Adieu, then.
Saturday, 23rd.