You must think me either very cruel or very blind, my beloved. I think, perhaps, it would be best for you to accept the latter hypothesis. I love you, which means that I am jealous; but, as my jealousy is in proportion to my love, my doubts and frenzy are more vivid, more bitter, than those of ordinary women, who are only capable of an ordinary affection. Very well—I am cruel! So be it! I detest every woman upon whom your glances rest. I feel capable of hating all women, young or old, plain or handsome, if I suspect that they have dared raise their eyes to your splendid and noble features. I am jealous of the very pavement upon which you tread, and the air you breathe. The stars and sun alone are beyond my jealousy, because their radiance can be eclipsed by one single flash from your eyes.
I love you as the lioness loves her mate. I love you as a passionate woman, ready to yield up her life at your slightest gesture. I love you with the soul and intelligence God has lent His creatures to enable them to appreciate exceptional men like yourself. That is why, my glorious Victor, at one and the same moment, I can rage, weep, crawl, or stand erect; I bow my head and venerate you!
There are days when one can fix one’s gaze upon the sun itself without being blinded: thus it is with me now. I see you, I am dazzled, entranced, and I grasp your beauty in all its splendour.
Juliette.
Thursday, 8 p.m., August 15th, 1836.
Since you leave me here all by myself, my beloved, I shall think only of you, and in proof of this, I will scribble all over this virgin sheet of white paper. It is barbarous of you to let me grow fatter than I already am, by leaving me to dawdle at my fireside, instead of taking me out to walk and get thin.
I am in love with you, but you do not care a bit. I am very sad not to have you with me, doubly so, when I think that it is on account of a play in which I am to have no part, after all the time I have waited and endured. When I reflect seriously upon this, my despair makes me long to fly to the uttermost ends of the world. It is so necessary that I should think of my future. I have wasted so much time waiting, that it almost spells ruin to me that you should produce a piece in which I may not play. You see, my dearest, I am not as generous as you thought. I am afraid I can no longer disguise from you the injury it does me to be three years out of the theatrical world, while you are bringing out plays. Forgive me, but I have a horror of poverty, and would do anything in reason to evade it. I love you.
Juliette.
Friday, 8.30 p.m., March 11th, 1836.
Dear little Soul,