Ah! my love, it is something, after the triumph that all women desire to obtain over the senses and the heart of their lovers, to obtain also the complete and entire assurance that they are admired from afar, that we can always esteem them, cherish them, take pleasure beside them. Such as you have seen me near you, such I shall ever be. To you all my smiles, to you the flowers of heart and love, inexhaustible in their bloom. To you the candour and freshness of my sentiments, to you all. To you, who understand the mind, the gaiety, the melancholy, the grandeur, the transports of the ever diverse love of a poet! Oh! I stop, kissing your eyes.
To-morrow I rush, about; I have tiresome business matters; but this is the last time. I shall finish at one blow the difficulty about the "Physiologie du Mariage," and by the end of March I shall not owe a sou to Madame Delannoy. After? Well, I shall resume work to accomplish the rest. I tell you nothing of these tramps, but they take much time, weary me, exhaust me, and my love, as much as necessity, cries to me every morning, "March!"
My love, my Eve, night and day I go to sleep and wake in your heart, in your thought. To suffer, to work for you, these are pleasures. Till to-morrow.
Saturday, 22.
I have just received your ostensible letter and have answered it. I spoke stupidly of your chain, but I have not the heart to throw the letter into the fire and write it over again. I am tired. To-night I must go to a ball; I, at a ball! But, my love, I must. It is at the house of the only friend who has ever gallantly served me. I will send you the pattern of a chain, that of Vaucanson; have it made solid, and Liodet can send it to me and draw on me for the cost. Tell me if bronze-gilt things can enter Russia. I have had an admirable three-branched candelabrum made here, and I should like to send you one; also an inkstand and an alarm-clock (a very useful thing to a woman), in short, all that I use here to be the same with you. If I had been richer do you think I would not have substituted to you a chain like yours and taken yours, in order that you might say to yourself while playing with it, "He plays with that chain!" But I can make such joys for ourselves later. Answer me about the bronze, because I want you to have that masterpiece before your eyes. Think, what happiness to see as you write to me, Exsultat vitam angelorum, which I shall see in writing to you. Oh! I am greedy, hungry for such things, which put two lovers unceasingly in each other's hearts! I shall have your room at Wierzchownia made just like mine here. I want you to have the same carpet.
Oh! I adore you. Just now I wept on thinking of the floor of your house in Geneva. How lucky to have the strength not to cough! These tears have told me that I shall be at Vienna, September 10, and that I shall press you, happy one, on this heart that is all yours.
Bébête, in ten years you will be thirty-seven and I forty-five, and, at that age we can love, marry, and adore each other for a lifetime. Come, my noble companion, my dear Eve, never any doubts,—you have promised me. Love with confidence. Séraphita is we two. Let us spread our wings with the same movement, and love in the same way. I adore you, looking neither before nor behind. You are the present, all my happiness at every moment.
Do not be jealous of Madame P...'s letter; that woman must be for us. I have flattered her, and I want her to think that you are disdained. All that I read you in the "Duchesse de Langeais" has been changed. You will read a new book.
Dear angel, no, we will never quit the sphere of happiness where you have made me a happiness so complete. Love me always, you will see me always happy; oh, my life, oh, my beautiful life! Here, I no longer know what an annoyance is in seeing my whole life ardent with one sole love. Tell me what you are doing. Your visit to Genthod delighted me. Never let any woman bite you without biting her deeper. They will fear you and esteem you.
Thanks for the violet; but an end of white ribbon would please me better; it has no longer any smell. I send you a violet from my garden.