I am not desperately in love, nor just risen from my bed at four in the afternoon in order to write my millionth love letter, nor am I indifferent to those whom time and the malice of fortune have yet spared to me, but simply I have been too busy.

Since I have been at Nice I have had to change lodgings four times; besides this, we were a long time without a maid, and received and paid innumerable visits. My whole day was spent in shifting my character. In the morning I arose a waiting-maid, and, having attended to the toilette of Natalie, sank into a house-maid, a laundry-maid, and, after noon, I fear me, a cook, having to look to the cleaning of the rooms, the getting up of linen, and the preparation of various pottages fit for the patient near me. At mid-day I turned into a governess, gave my lessons, and at four or five became a fine lady for the rest of the day, and paid visits or received them, for at Nice it is the custom, so soon as a stranger arrives, that everybody comme il faut in the place comes to call upon you; nor can you shut your doors against them even if you were dying, for as Nice is the resort of the sick, and as everybody either is sick or has been sick, nursing has become the common business.

So we went on day after day. We had dejeuners dansants, soirées dansantes (dîners dansants are considered as de trop by order of the physicians), bals parés, théatres, opéras, grands dîners, petits soupers, concerts, visites de matin, promenades à âne, parties de campagne, réunions littéraires, grands cercles, promenades en bateau, coteries choisies, thunder-storms from the sea, and political storms from France; in short, if we had only had an earthquake, or the shock of one, we should have run through the whole series of modifications of which human existence is susceptible. Voilà Paris, Voilà Paris, as the song says.

You may perhaps expect that the novelty of society should have suggested to me remarks and observations as multifarious as the forms under which I observed it. Sorry I am to say that either from its poverty, or from my own poverty of intellect, I have not gathered from it anything beyond the following couple of conclusions, that people of the world, disguise themselves as they may, possess but two qualities, a great want of understanding, and a vast pretension to sentiment. From this duplexity arises the duplicity with which they are so often charged, and no wonder, for with hearts so heavy, and heads so light, how is it possible to keep anything like a straightforward course? In alleviation of this, I must confess that wherever I went I carried about with me my own identity (that unhappy identity which has cost me so dear, and of which, with all my pains, I have never been able to lose a particle), and contemplated the people I judge through the medium of its rusty atoms.

I must speak to you of an affair that interests me deeply. M. Gambs has informed me that he has sent to Paris a poem of his in manuscript called Möise. He gave it to the Prince Nicolas Scherbatoff at Moscow, just upon his setting out for Paris; this is many months ago. Whether the Prince gave any promise to endeavour to get it published I do not know; but if he did, he is such a very indolent and selfish man that his efforts would never get the thing done. M. Gambs has written to me to ask if you have any literary friends in Paris who would be kind enough to interest themselves about it. The address of the Prince is as follows: Son Excellence Le Prince Nicolas Scherbatoff, Rue St. Lazare, No. 17, à Paris. Can you not get some one to call upon him to ask about the manuscript, and to propose it to some bookseller?

This some one may enter into a direct correspondence with M. Gambs by addressing him Chez M. Lenhold, Marchand de Musique, à Moscow. I should be highly delighted if you could settle things in this way, as I know my friend has nothing more at heart than to appear in print, and that I should be glad to be the means of communicating some pleasure to an existence which I know is almost utterly without it, and of showing my gratitude for the kindness and goodness he has showered upon me; nor, as far as my poor judgment goes, is the work unworthy of inspiring interest, and of being saved from oblivion. It pleased me much when it was read to me; but then it is true I was in a desert, and there a drop of water will often seem to us more precious than the finest jewel.

Another subject connected with Paris also presses itself on my mind. In Moore’s Life of Lord Byron only the most distant allusion was made to Lady Caroline Lamb; yet, in the French translation, its performer, Madame Sophie Bellay (or some such name) had the indelicacy to unveil the mystery in a note, and to expose it in distinct and staring characters to the public. This piece of impudence was harmless to Lady Caroline, since her independence of others was assured beyond a doubt; but to any one whose bread depends upon the public a printed exposure of their conduct will infallibly bring on destitution, and reduce them to the necessity of weighing upon their relations for support.

I know the subject is a disagreeable one, and that you do not like disagreeable subjects. I know nothing of business or whether there exists any means of averting this blow; perhaps a representation to the translator of the evils that would follow would be sufficient; but as I have no means of trying this, I am reduced to suggest the subject to your attention, with the firm hope that you will find some method of warding off the threatened mischief.

What you tell me of the state of family resources has naturally depressed my spirits. Will the future never cease unrolling new shapes of misery? Stair above stair of wretchedness is all we know; the present, bad as it is, is always better than what comes after. Of all the crowd of eager inquirers at the Delphic shrine was there ever found one who thanked, or had any reason to thank, the Pythia for what she disclosed to him? For me, I have long abandoned hope and the future, and am now diligently pursuing and retracing the past, going the back way as it were to eternity in order to avoid the disappointments and perplexities of an unknown course. But I must beg pardon for my cowardice and disagreeableness, and leave it, or else I shall be recollected with as much reluctance as the Pythia.

I wish I could give you any idea of the beauty of Nice. So long as I can walk about beside the sounding sea, beneath its ambient heaven, and gaze upon the far hills enshrined in purple light, I catch such pleasure from their loveliness that I am happy without happiness; but when I come home, then it seems to me as if all the phantasmagoria of hell danced before my eyes.