All day I have expected a letter from you. This is not what has kept me from writing before, but I have been frightfully busy. I believe the fine weather to-day has had a solacing effect on my mood. I am no longer angry, even if I was so, and I can think with less sorrow of your lecture of yesterday. The clouds, perhaps, are greatly to blame for what happened between us. Once before we quarrelled in stormy weather; it is because our nerves get the better of us. I have a strong desire to see you, and to know your state of mind. Suppose we attempt to-morrow to take that walk in which we failed so disastrously yesterday? What do you think of it? Your pride will, of course, not respond to this suggestion, but I am now appealing to your heart.
It will be very kind of you to send me an answer before noon to-morrow, whether you will or will not come. Do not come, however, if you are in a bad humour or if you have a previous engagement, and, above all, if you have the slightest doubt that our walk will obliterate the hideous impressions of yesterday.
LXXXVI
Paris, Saturday night, January 15, 1844.
I am grieved to know that you are ill, but you must permit me to form my own opinion as to the manner in which you caught this cold. An accident of this kind seldom keeps one in the house; still more seldom does it confine one to the house as long as you remain there. All your illnesses have occurred too conveniently not to be a little suspicious. Formerly you were more unreserved. You wrote me simply a page of reproaches, and admitted that you were angry. Now you follow a different system. You write me sweet little coquettish notes, and say you have taken a sudden cold, or that you are ill. I believe I prefer the former method. Luckily, you get over your sulks and recover from your illnesses.
I hope to see you Tuesday in a cheerful mood, if you think it worth while to be agreeable. Your treatment of me is like the sun, which appears only once in a month. If I were in better spirits, I could pursue the comparison still further; but I, too, am ill, only I am not so fortunate as you in being petted by all who come near me, and of being fond of tea made of dates and figs.
You ask me to make you a sketch of our woods. This would be almost impossible without seeing them again. You can no longer remember Bellevue, you say; you should understand, therefore, how difficult it would be for me to draw it from memory. Besides that, I am not as close an observer as you. When with you I see nothing else. Yes, these woods are beyond belief, so close to Paris as they are, and yet so far away. If you insist upon it, I will do the best I can, but you must first tell me what you want to have, that is, what part of the woods.
Good-bye. I am not especially pleased with you. A month passed without seeing you is a little too much. I have, to-morrow and the day after, two unpleasant duties to perform. I will tell you about them. Good-bye.
LXXXVII
Paris, February 5, 1844.