If you can not, or will not, come Saturday, I shall not be angry, but anyway, try to come soon. When I ask you for anything, you grant it only after having kept me fuming for so long that you prevent me from feeling as grateful as I should, perhaps; and you deprive yourself, moreover, of all the merit which would have been yours had you been promptly generous.
To converse together, and—what has sometimes happened—to think together, is this, then, a pleasure of which you grow weary so soon? ‘Tis true that one can speak only for himself, but each one of our excursions has been to me more delightful than the preceding one, because of the memories which it has left with me. I make an exception of the last one, and that one I should like to forget altogether, and replace it by another in which you would run no risk of catching cold. Thus peace is made, and I await your orders to ratify it Thursday evening.
XLV
Paris, February 3, 1843.
Does not this lovely weather make you think of Versailles, and consequently does it not make you wish to laugh? If you were the least logical you would not laugh. I am sure you are aware that Versailles is the capital of the Department of Seine-et-Oise, where there are officers for the protection of the weak, and that French is spoken there. In such a place you would be as safe as in Paris. Moreover, what you wish to do is to walk without meeting any of your gossiping acquaintances. At Versailles, on a day when the Museum is closed, you are sure of meeting no one. I do not remind you of the air, or of the beauty of the grounds, which have their own value, and which influence always the nature of one’s thoughts.
I am confident, for instance, that at Versailles you would have had no sign of that attack of temper of the other day. That you have now recovered from it I am sure, for the closing words of your letter bore the inspiration of your good genius. The beginning was suggested by your evil genius. I write in great haste, for I am overwhelmed in business matters, which are proving very tiresome. Think of me sometimes, and do not be angry. Don’t laugh too much when you think of me.
XLVI
Paris, February 7, 1843.
Allow me, if you please, to make a very simple calculation, and all will be said on the subject of Versailles. Is an hour’s stroll in that lovely garden such a difficult thing to imagine? Now, did we not spend two hours together at the Museum that dreadfully foggy day? I have finished.
You make me laugh at your idea of the commissions to which I am ordered to attend. Although those are not lacking, the commissions to which I referred are assemblies where several persons together are unable to accomplish the task that one alone could do much better.