Juliette.
Jersey,
Tuesday, 2.30 p.m., July 2nd, 1857.
Yes, since you wish to hear it, I love you, my little man; but I could demonstrate it much more intelligently by working something for you on canvas, than by daubing this poor little sheet of paper with hieroglyphics. If perchance death should surprise us before you have destroyed these crude ebullitions of my heart, inquisitive folk will experience keen disappointment; they will find it difficult to distinguish the traces of an overmastering passion in such a petty mind as mine. I hope you will be provident enough and generous enough to spare me this humiliation beyond the grave, by burning gradually all those poor letters that are so ineffective the moment they have crossed the threshold of my soul. Meanwhile I continue to obey you with entire submission, and my love for you is greater than your genius—that is to say, I love you, love you, love you, without being able to find anything to compare with the magnitude of my infatuation.
Juliette.
Guernsey,
Saturday, 8 p.m., December 19th, 1857.
Although unwell and fatigued, my beloved Victor, I cannot leave this little home where we have loved each other, without penning a grateful farewell for all the felicity it has sheltered during the year I have lived in it. I trust I may be as happy in my beautiful new house as I have been here in my hovel. The sadness I feel to-day is nearer akin to nerves than to real sorrow. Please forgive it, my adored Victor, if you have misunderstood and thought for a single instant that you were to blame for it. Far from reproaching you for the difficulties of my situation, I admire your ineffable kindness and bless you from the bottom of my heart for all the trouble you are taking to house me handsomely. It was difficult, but of what are you not capable when you set your mind to a thing? I think without affecting the false modesty of a collector, that you have succeeded, and I thank you with all the strength of my loving soul, which asks no better than to be happy in the new paradise you have just prepared for me.
Juliette.
Guernsey,
Friday, 11 a.m., July 16th, 1858.
My beloved, my beloved, my beloved, what sin have we committed that God should strike us so cruelly in your health and my love! Unless it be a crime to love you too much, I do not feel guilty of aught. What shall I do, my God, what will become of me! Victor ill and away from me! I dread lest, as I write, you should almost hear my sobs and guess at my despair, from these reckless words.
I had anticipated this trouble and thought myself able to face it. I know it is imperatively necessary that you should remain at home, yet my whole being rebels at this separation as at a cruel injustice, and the greatest misfortune of my life. Why, why, why am I like this, oh, my God? Yet I possess courage, Thou knowest! Thou knowest also that I desire his speedy recovery and love him with a devoted, illimitable love. My adored Victor! Why then, is the reason of this gloomy and profound despair which robs me of strength and reason? Oh, God, dost Thou hate me? Have my offences been graver than those of other women like me, that Thou shouldst chastise me so mercilessly! Oh, I suffer, Victor, I love you, I am wretched!