Good morning, my too-dearly loved little man. I am cleverer than you, for I do not need lenses, paper, chemicals, and sunshine, to reproduce you in every form within my heart. Love is a splendid stereoscope; it throws all the photographs and daguerreotypes in the world, into the shade. It can even, if the need exist, convert black jealousy into white confidence, and force into relief the smallest modicum of happiness, the slightest mark of love. That being so, I hardly know why I desire so ardently to multiply your dear little pictures around me, unless it is that I wish to compare them with those of my inner shrine. Whatever be the reason, I do implore you, my dear little man, to give me one as soon as possible; it will be such a pleasure to me. Meanwhile my poor persecuted hero, I cannot tell what trials the future may have in store for you, but as long as a breath of life remains within me, I mean to expend it in defending, guarding, and serving you. My faith in the power of my love amounts to superstition; I feel that so long as I care for you, nothing irretrievably bad can happen to you. This is neither pride nor fatuousness on my part; it is a sort of intuition that comes to me, I think, from Heaven above.
Juliette.
Jersey,
9 p.m., Thursday, January 6th, 1853.
If the soul could take visible shape, you would perceive mine at this moment, my sweet adored one, bending over you and smiling. If kisses had wings, you would feel them swooping about your dear little person in clouds, like joyous birds upon a beautiful flowering bush. Unfortunately, my soul and kisses have to pass and repass before you invisible, and perhaps even unsuspected by you. But that does not deter me, and I am drawn irresistibly to you by the need of living in your atmosphere. My thoughts sit boldly at your side wherever you are. However my chastened personality may bend under the contempt and disdain of the world, my love rears itself proudly in the consciousness of its superiority. While you leave my body standing outside, it enters hardily with you and leaves you not. This may not be very tactful of me, but it is the mark of an ardent and loyal heart. And after all we are living “on an Island.” I can see you, making eyes at your neighbour on the left, and signalling to the one opposite. I want you to be mine absolutely, body and soul, and I do not mean to share one little bit of you with anybody. You must make up your mind to that, and content yourself with enjoying the cosmopolitan cookery of that Hungarian Lucullus.[106] I will allow you to gorge like four Englishmen and drink like one Pole, but I shall not take my eyes off you and shall watch your every movement. I think you laugh a great deal for a grave man with a handsome mouth, and your hands are enough to bring a blush of envy to the paws of all those exiled females! They suffer by comparison—so much the better! Hold your tongue, drink, turn your head my way at once, and keep it there.
Juliette.
Jersey,
Tuesday, 12.30 p.m., February 1st, 1853.
I really mean what I said just now, my dear little boy. Instead of posing interminably in front of the daguerreotype,[107] you could quite well have taken me for a walk if you had wanted to. Anyhow, pretexts for keeping away from me will never fail you, and the fine weather will now add many to those already on your list. Therefore I ask you in all good faith, what use am I to you in this island, apart from my functions of copyist? I do not wish to reopen this eternal discussion in which you never tell me the truth, yet I shall never cease to protest against a state of things so foreign to true love, and so little conducive to my happiness. And now, my dear little man, you may amuse yourself, and make daguerreotypes, and enjoy the glorious sunshine in your own way. I, for my part, shall make use of solitude, desertion, and shadow, to bring to a head an attack of depression which will easily develop into a great big sorrow. I shall study how to make the most of it. Meanwhile I smile prettily at you, after the fashion of a stage dancer executing the final pirouette which has exhausted her strength and left her breathless. Brrrr.... Long live Toto! Long live worries and all their kith and kin! Long live love!
Juliette.
Jersey,
Thursday, 9 p.m., April 28th, 1853.
I come to you, my beloved, as you are unable to return to me this evening. I come to tell you I love you without regret for the past or fear for the future. I come to you with a smile on my lips and a blessing in my bosom, with my hand upon my mutilated heart and my eyes full of pardon, with my purity restored and my soul redeemed by twenty years of fidelity and love, with my delusions swept away and my faith shining. I come to you without rancour, sustained by divine hope. I come with the maternal devotion and the passionate tenderness of a lover, with a mind instinct with reverence and admiration, a resignation and piety like to those of God’s martyrs, and I constitute you the supreme arbiter of my fate. Do with me what you will in this life, so long as you take me with you in the next. I sacrifice my feelings to the virtue of your wife and the innocence of your daughter, as a homage and a safeguard, and I reserve my prayers and tears for poor fallen women like myself. Lastly, my adored one, I give you my share of Paradise in exchange for your chances of hell, considering myself fortunate to have purchased your eternal bliss with my eternal love.