I am a strange creature—at least you think so, do you not, beloved? But what you take for eccentricity, caprice, bad-temper, is really love, but an unhappy love, mistrustful and anxious. Everything is to me a subject of dread almost amounting to despair. Thus this visit to the Duchesse d’Orléans, whither I quite admit you were kind enough to take me, was simply a torment on account of the hour and the circumstances: I, badly dressed, barely clean, and that woman under the prestige of a great sorrow[86] which, next to physical beauty, is the surest way to your heart. I frankly confess that however gallant my love may be, and whatever reliance I may place upon your loyalty, I am not easy when I have to fight and struggle without weapons. This result of a surprise and a hurried rush through Paris in a cab may seem excessive to you, and verging on hysteria; but the fact is, my adored one, that my love, so long repressed, is verily degenerating into a disease, almost into frenzy. Everything hurts me. I am afraid of everything. I am a poor thing needing much compassion for loving you so. If these incoherent expressions do not force upon you the realisation of the depth of my devotion, it must be that you no longer care for me, or indeed have never done so; but if on the contrary you do understand, you will pity and pardon me, and love me all the better, and I am the happiest of women.
Juliette.
February 14th, 11.15 a.m., 1843.
Good morning beloved Toto, good morning adored one. I love you. When I heard you describing last night the impression produced upon you by the rehearsal of Lucrèce and more especially by the singing of the guests, I seemed to feel it all myself. The fact that my love has not grown a day older, that my admiration is still on the increase, that I think you as handsome and as young as ever, makes it easier for me to go back to the feelings of those days. Looking into my heart, I seem to feel that all this adulation and joy and feast of glory and love began yesterday. Alas, those ten years have left traces only upon my poor countenance, and have been as harsh to it as they have been indulgent to your charming features.
I express this somewhat crudely, as I always manage to do, but it is not my fault, my love, nor any one else’s. I love you. Therein consist my intelligence, my wit, my superiority; beyond that I am as stupid as any other animal.
You must be very busy to-day with the two rehearsals,[87] and the Maxime[88] worry which falls upon your devoted head, not to speak of the great business! I dare not expect you to-night till very late. Well, my dearly beloved, I know you do not belong to me, so I will resign myself as cheerfully as may be, and put a good face upon your absence. Try to think of me, my dear little man; that is all I venture to ask at this moment. As for me, there is no more merit in thinking of you and loving you than in breathing.
I love you, Toto, as much as life.
Juliette.
Wednesday, 4.30 p.m., September 13th, 1843.
Where are you? What are you about, my adored one?[89] In what condition is your family? What state are you in yourself? what will happen to us all in our despair, if God be not merciful to us! Since you left me I can think only of your arrival at home. I imagine the scene: the despairing sobs of your children, the expression of your own frightful grief, so long and sternly repressed. All those tears and sufferings fall back upon my heart and rend it. I cannot bear more. My poor head is on fire and my hands burn like live coals. I want to pray and cannot; all my faculties, all my being, turn to you. I would give my life to spare you a single pang. I would have sacrificed myself in this world, and the next to save your adored child. My God, what will become of me if you stay away much longer, when I have refrained with such difficulty from sending to get news of you? I have begged Madame Lanvin to come to me this afternoon and bring her husband, so that if, as I fear, I have not seen you before then, he can go and ask for news of you under the name of Monsieur St. Hilaire. My heart aches, my poor treasure, when I think of all you are enduring. I feel I cannot much longer bear not seeing you. I shall commit some act of folly if you do not come to my assistance. I exhausted my strength and courage on that awful journey, and during last night and to-day. I have none left now to endure your absence. I picture to myself your wife ill, and you also; in fact, I am like a mad thing in the extremity of my anxiety and grief. I am trying to occupy myself mechanically, in order to bring nearer the moment when I shall see you, but my efforts only make every minute of waiting seem like a century, and all the fears my heart anticipates, become frightful realities against which I cannot struggle. My adored Victor, whatever be your despair, mine is greater still; for I feel it through my love, which makes it a hundred times worse and multiplies it beyond all human calculation. Never has man been so idolised by woman as you are by me, and the poor angel we mourn knows it and sees it now, as God knows and sees it, and she will forgive, as He does, I am certain. I think of her, poor beloved, as an angel of heaven. To her I shall direct my prayers, that she may give you the strength and courage you need. To her also I shall address myself in the hour of death, that the good God may take me with all of you into His Paradise.