You desire, oh, my angel, that I shall not again be coquettish except with men. But between now and Vienna there is only toil and solitude. Give me the means to send you my book, and your coffee, in which will be your hair-chain. Therefore, undo the parcel yourself.
Never give yourself such anxieties again; yesterday, Saturday, without la dilecta, I should have killed myself. Oh! I entreat you, if you wish that I should esteem you and adore you to the end of our days, do not change; be solely mine. I, do you see? have none but you. The superhuman efforts that I make are the greatest proofs of love a man can give. Oh, dear, adored one, my Eve, my Eva, to give his life, what is that? Nothing. Each time that I saw you I gave it without regret. I sacrificed all to you. But to rise every day at midnight to plunge into a crater of work, and to do it with one name upon my lips, one image in my heart, one woman before me!—strength and constancy; I live only by the sentiment of grandeur which a mysterious love conveys to me. This is loving. Oh! be my true Beatrice, a Beatrice who gives herself, but remains an angel, a light! All that your jealousy can demand, all that your caprice can exact shall be done with joy. Except the dilecta, who corrects my proofs and who, I swear to you, is a mother, no woman shall hear me, shall see me.
My mother and sister have decided. They will live together, and not come to me. I am still free.
Oh, my love, my love, dear and adored, forgive me my answer to your letter; but to sacrifice a love like mine to a child, to a husband, to reject it for any interest whatever; that kills me. Oh, my angel, to think that you are a fancy, after all that you said to me, after all that you exacted, all that I accomplished,—it is enough to die of it! I am proudly a poet; I live by the heart, by sentiments only, and I have but one sentiment. My dilecta, at sixty years of age, is no longer anything but a mother; she is all my family, as you are all my heart, all my future! I have to work hard; the "Duchesse" will appear on the 15th; she excites all Paris already. Mon Dieu! a thousand kisses; may each be worth a thousand. Oh, my angel, I hope I may not again have to tell you that to betray me in the name of any one whatever is to put me to death. I kiss you with transport. The Bengali is virtuous. He is dead under his toil.
Put Ave on the inkstand. The "Contes Drolatiques" will tell you why.
I have said nothing. I had a thousand effusions of the soul; I am forced to keep them back. This letter must go to the post at one o'clock. I received yours at midday.
Paris, March 11, 1834.
My flower, my one sole love, I have just received the letter you wrote me after having received the letter of badnesses. Oh! what happiness to be able to write to you once more so that you can leave Geneva without a regret! Since the letter in which you return to me, you cannot imagine how beautiful, grand, sumptuous, has been the fête in my heart at the recovery of your cherished heart. What joy, what intoxication of thought, what forgetfulness of pain, or rather how sweet its memory is, since it tells me how much you are loved, adored, as you wish to be. Oh! if you had seen all that, never a suspicion, nor a doubting word, nor a written phrase would dishonour the purity, the blue immensity of this love that dyes all my soul, fills all my life, is become the foundation of all my thoughts.
For the last two days I am drunk with happiness, glad, joyous, dancing, when I have a moment, jumping like a child. Oh, dear talisman of happiness, darling Eva, minette, wife, sister, family, light, all! I live alone in delights; I have said a sincere farewell to the world, to all. Mon Dieu! forgive what you call my coquetries; I kneel at your beloved knees, dimpled, loved, kissed, caressed; I lay my head against you, I ask pardon, I will be solitary, a worker, I will walk with none but Madame de B..., I will work without ceasing. Oh! blessed be the Salève, if the Salève gives me my happy Eve! Ah! dearest, I adore you, don't you see? I have no other life, no other future.
I received yesterday a letter from Madame P... I shall not answer it, to end the correspondence. Besides, I can write only to you. My time is taken up in a frightful manner. For the last ten days I have not varied it; to bed at six o'clock, rising at midnight. I shall do this till April 20. After which I shall take two weeks' liberty to rest. My book will appear on the 16th, the day of your departure from Geneva. You will find it addressed to you, bureau restant, at the coach office in Genoa.