Monday night, March, 1844.
I am beginning, I imagine, to solve your enigma. Upon reflection, by a sort of instinctive divination, I have come to the following conclusion: without doubt, my most dangerous enemy to your heart, or, if you prefer, my strongest rival, is your pride. Whatever wounds that, excites your indignation. This notion you carry out, perhaps unconsciously, in the most trifling matters. Is it not, for instance, your pride which is satisfied when I kiss your hand? This, you have said to me, makes you happy, and to this sensation you abandon yourself, because a demonstration of humility is gratifying to your pride. You are willing that I should be a statue, so that you may breathe life into my soul, but you are not willing, in your turn, to be a statue; above all, you are unwilling that this equality of happiness should be reciprocal, because anything like equality is distasteful to you.
What am I to say to all this? If your pride would be content with my obedience and humility, it ought to be satisfied; I shall yield to it always, provided it allows your heart to follow its good impulses. So far as I am concerned, I shall never place in the same rank my happiness and my pride, and if you were to suggest to me any new forms for my humility to assume, I should adopt them unhesitatingly. Yet, why should there be any question of pride, that is to say, selfishness, between us? Is the joy of self-forgetfulness for the other’s sake a matter of indifference to you? That extraordinary sentiment of affection which we both sometimes feel, which this morning, for instance, took us where we had not the slightest reason for going—is not the influence of such an emotion far sweeter and more intense than that exerted by your demon of pride? You were so sweet this morning that I am both unwilling and unable to scold you. Nevertheless, I am in a beastly humour.
I told you I was invited to a tiresome dinner. Only fancy, I made a mistake in the day, and mortally offended the people, who were not expecting me, and who, in my turn, tired me to death. I spent the entire evening lamenting that I had not remained at home with my thoughts. I am now expecting a disagreeable letter from you. I wanted to write to you first, because I shall be furious, without doubt, day after to-morrow. How did you endure the cold the other day? Does the cold to-day not daunt you? I do not know whether you had better go out to-morrow. I fear to take the responsibility of advising you, and prefer that you should decide. More humility for you!
XCIII
Strasburg, April 30, 1844.
I am still here, thanks to the procrastination of the Municipal Council. I was obliged to spend one day making use of all my most stately eloquence to persuade them to restore an old church. They reply that they need tobacco more than monuments, and that they intend to make a shop of my church. I shall leave to-morrow for Colmar, and hope the next day, that is, Thursday, to be in Besançon. I shall remain there only long enough to lay a few flowers on Nodier’s tomb, and then I shall try to return quickly to our woods. The season here seems more advanced than in Paris. The country is exquisite, of a green that no painter could reproduce.
I am glad to find you so merry; I can not say as much for myself. I believe I have fever every night, and I am in a horrible mood. The cathedral, which I used to admire so extravagantly, now appears ugly, and even the wise and foolish Sabine virgins of Steinbach have barely found favour in my eyes.
You are right to love Paris. It is, after all, the only city in which one really lives. Where else should we find such promenades, such museums, where we have quarrelled so many times, and said so many tender words also? I should like to believe your promise, that we shall continue our interrupted conversation as if we had never parted. I am sure of what awaits me. A thick crust of ice will envelop you, and you will not even recognise me. Yet, even though there be another scene, that is better than not to see you at all.
Good-bye.