LXXIII
Paris, August 5, 1843.
I was awaiting your letter with great impatience, and the longer it delayed the more I expected evidences of second thoughts, with all their unpleasant consequences. As I was prepared for all manner of injustice from you, your letter affected me more favourably than it would have done at another time. You tell me that you, too, have been happy, and this assurance cancels all the others that precede and follow it. This is the best thing you have said to me for an age, and it is almost the only time when I have thought you had a heart not unlike others.
What a glorious walk that was! I am not at all ill, and I was happy enough the other day to store up health and good spirits for a long time to come. If happiness is of short duration, it can be renewed. Unfortunately, the weather is bad, and besides you speak of going away. Perhaps this rainy weather has destroyed your desire to travel. From me it takes even the energy to form new plans. If, however, there should come a good day before you leave, would it not be well for us to take advantage of it, and to say a long farewell to our park and our woods? I shall not see their trees again this year, at least, and the thought saddens me. I hope that you, too, feel the same regret. When you discover a ray of sunshine let me know, and we will visit once more our chestnut trees and our mountain. You gave me and ourselves a passing thought for one brief moment, but will the memory of it not remain for a long, long time?
LXXIV
Vézelay, August 8, 1843, at night.
I thank you for having written a word to me before my departure. It is the kind intention that has pleased me, not what your letter tells me. You say such extraordinary things. If you mean half of what you say it would be the wisest course for us not to meet again. The affection which you have for me is only a sort of mental pastime. You are all intellect. You are one of those chilly women of the North who are governed only by the mind. There are things I could say to you, but you would not understand. I prefer to assure you again of my sincere regret for having caused you pain. It was entirely unintentional, and I hope you will forgive me. Our temperaments are as unlike as our stamina. How can it be helped? You may divine my thoughts sometimes, but you will never be able to understand them.
Here I am in this horrible little town, perched on the top of a mountain, bored to death by the townspeople, and hard at work on a speech that I am to make to-morrow. I am in politics, and you know me well enough to realise how odious I find the business of a political campaign.
For consolation, I have a most congenial travelling companion, and an admirable church to look upon. The first time I saw this church was soon after having seen you at.... I asked myself to-day whether we were more foolish then than we are now.
What is certain is that we had formed, probably, a very different impression of each other from the one we have to-day. If we had known then how often we should quarrel, do you suppose we would have cared to meet again? It is frightfully cold, with rain and lightning at intervals. I have a ream of official prose to spin off, and will leave you all the more cheerfully because the things I should write to you are not particularly affectionate. It is, however, the force of circumstances that irritates me most.