CCXCVII
Paris, Sunday, June 30, 1867.
Dear Friend: Here are two tickets for to-morrow’s ceremony.[38] They deserve a rare tip, for I had a great deal of trouble in procuring them. I send them to you in haste. Try not to be ill. It will be terribly hot!
CCXCVIII
Friday, July 5, 1867.
Dear Friend: I am delighted that you enjoyed yourself. I was afraid of the heat, and of the weight of my harness. You looked for me in vain. I did not go. Come soon, and tell me the beautiful things you saw, and give me your opinion of the sultan and the princes, who had the privilege of gazing on you for three hours.
I think that this fusillade[39] will injure our affairs, which were progressing well. It is a great pity.
CCXCIX
Paris, July 27, 1867.
Dear Friend: Thanks for your letter. I continue so ill, that I did not write to you at once, hoping to give you more hopeful news of myself; but no matter what I do and what I swallow, I still have this horrible cold. I shall not give you the details of my ills, but you may be sure that I am overcome by them. I hope you will sympathise with me. I neither sleep nor eat. I envy you these two faculties, which you possess with many others.
I congratulate you on having met the sultan for so long a time. Did he exhibit more amiability towards your sex than he did in Paris? They tell me that he gave great dissatisfaction at the opera. The pasha of Egypt was much more gracious. He made two visits to Mademoiselle ——, which I dare not describe to you, although they were curious. He has become reconciled (I am speaking of the pasha) with his cousin Mustapha, but it has been impossible to have them drink coffee together, each one being persuaded that it would be too dangerous on account of the rapid progress of the science of chemistry.
If you had been in Paris you would have seen something very beautiful which was presented to me. It is a brooch in the form of a fleur-de-lis shield, containing a miniature portrait of Marie Antoinette, painted in Vienna, probably, before her marriage, and given by her to the princess de Lamballe. There was once in the back of the brooch a lock of hair, but it has been removed. After a fine show of resistance to the temptation, I yielded, and sent it promptly to her Majesty, who is making a collection of objects which belonged to Marie Antoinette. This will be, assuredly, one of her prettiest souvenirs; besides which, it is said to be absolutely authentic, and was worn for a long time by Madame de Lamballe. These sad antiquities fill me with horror, but it is vain to dispute about tastes.
Madame —— is still making a great scandal, and openly. I am sorry that I am not at liberty to write you all that she says and does. It is asserted that in Italy are two other wives of ministers more extravagantly wild than she....
I think you might have been a little more polite, and borrowed my proofs from me. Nothing is more painful to an author than neglect of this sort. August 1st, a second article appeared, and you will be compelled to fortify yourself against three or four others. If you could invent some euphemism to explain to the reader the secret of Mentchikof’s influence with Peter the Great, it would be an immense favour to me.
Read also, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, M. Collin’s article on trades unions (it is by M. Libri), and a letter of M. d’Haussonville to prince Napoleon, which is highly calculated to spoil his taste for newspaper polemical articles.
Sainte-Beuve continues quite ill. He is surrounded by numbers of women, like the sultan Saladin. You shall not persuade me that you are having at —— any better weather than here—that is to say, continuous gusts of rain and wind.
When are you coming back? I need you very much, to tell me what is going on, and to help me bear my misfortunes in patience—something very difficult to do. The other night, when it was almost impossible for me to breathe, I read Luther’s Table-Talk. This big man pleases me, with all his prejudices and his hatred of the devil. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCC
Paris, September 6, 1867.
Dear Friend: I received your letter, which gave me much pleasure. The dampness of the climate where you are must be greatly ameliorated, I fancy, by this excessive heat. As for me, I find myself much better for it, and I am breathing, not with full lung-power, but more easily than I have done in a long time. However, I had the courage to refuse the gracious invitation which the empress renewed as she was leaving.[40] I do not feel sure enough of myself to stand any exposure to the danger of illness, and although I was assured of the best of care, I thought it prudent and discreet to take no risks. Perhaps, if the warm weather continues, I may experiment with my strength by spending a few days in the country at my cousin’s. It may be that the change of air will be good for me, and there is every indication that the crowds of foreigners who are thronging Paris are injuring our atmosphere.
I visited the Exposition the other day, and saw the Japanese women, who pleased me uncommonly. They have a complexion of cream-colour, of an agreeable shade. So far as I could judge by the drapery of their gowns, they have legs as slender as the sticks of a chair, which is too bad. As I observed them, along with the crowd of loungers surrounding them, I thought to myself that European women would not make so good an impression before a Japanese audience. Imagine yourself on exhibition thus at Yeddo, and a grocer of prince Satsuma saying: “I should like to know whether that hump on the back of this lady’s gown is really growing there.” Speaking of humps, they are no longer worn at all, which proves that they did not grow there; for all women found themselves at the same instant in the fashion.
I am reading an abominable book by Madame —— aimed against M. S., whom she calls M. T.; it is the very limit of all that is indecent. For all that, it shows evidence of ability of a certain sort....
I have written for the Moniteur an article remarkable for the amenity of its style, on the subject of an amusing Spanish chronicle. I will lend it to you one of these days, provided that you will return it. You will see therein how people lived in Spain and France in the fifteenth century.
Good-bye. Keep well; do not take cold, and write me some word of yourself.
CCCI
Paris, September 27, 1867.
Dear Friend: What has become of you? It is an age since I heard from you. I have just done something reckless: I spent three days at my cousin’s home in the country, near Arpajon, and I feel very little the worse for it, although the country seemed to me cold and damp. I do not believe, however, that it is warm anywhere, nowadays. I suppose that at —— you are enveloped in constant fogs.
I spend my time as well as I can, in absolute solitude. I am seized sometimes with the desire to travel, but the impulse does not last long enough to amount to anything. Moreover, I am terribly depressed. I believe something serious is the matter with my eyes. I wish, and at the same time I dread, going to consult Liebreich; yet, if I should lose my sight, what would become of me?
In society there is a certain prince Augustine Galitzin, who has become a convert to Catholicism, and who is not very proficient in Russian. He has translated a novel by Tourguenieff, the title of which is Smoke. It is now coming out in Le Correspondent, a clerical newspaper, some of the capital of which is furnished by the prince. Tourguenieff has asked me to review the proofs. Now, in this novel are some rather lively situations, which are the despair of prince Galitzin; for instance, something unheard-of: A Russian princess is in love, which is made worse by adultery. He skips the passages which shock him too deeply, and I reinstate them in the text. He is sometimes over-sensitive, as you shall see. The great lady condescends to visit her lover in a hotel, at Baden. She enters the room, and the chapter concludes. The story is resumed in the Russian original as follows: “Two hours later, Litvinof was alone on his divan.” The neo-Catholic has translated it thus: “An hour later, Litvinof was in his room.” You see it is much more moral, because to suppress an hour is to diminish the sin by half. Then, room, instead of divan, is much more virtuous, a divan being associated with criminal acts. I, inflexible in carrying out my orders, have reinstated the two hours and the divan, but the chapters in which they occur have not been published in Le Correspondent of this month. I suppose the respectable people who edit it have exercised a strict censorship. I am greatly amused by it. As the story continues, there is a delightful scene, in which the heroine tears up some point lace, which is a much more serious matter than the divan. I am waiting to see what they will do with this.
Good-bye, dear friend. Let me hear from you. I am terrified by the rapidity with which winter is approaching.
CCCII
Paris, Monday night, October 28, 1867.
You speak of vegetating. Indeed, that is the sort of life one would wish to lead nowadays, but the age is one of movement. Human vegetables are as unfortunate as those which live at the foot of Etna. From time to time upon them falls a deluge of fire, which usually annihilates them by its sulphurous vapours.
Do you not consider it calamitous that Pius IX and Garibaldi, both fanatics, should, by their obstinacy, turn everything into confusion? As an evidence of the morals of the age is the reply of those who disapprove the sending of our troops to Rome, when they are reminded of the treaty of September 15th: “What matters a treaty? M. de Bismarck does not observe them.” I should like to steal a watch from one of them, and then say that there have been precedents of watches being stolen. The most deplorable feature of the whole matter is, that we are pledging ourselves anew, for I know not how long a time, to protect the Pope, who shows not the slightest gratitude towards us....
Le Correspondent has yielded, and is publishing the continuation of Tourguenieff’s novel, without, however, permitting the interview between Litvinof and Irène to last more than one hour. I think I told you about it. Are you reading it? Le Correspondent certainly goes to ——, where you are. Anyway, I will give you the novel on your return.
I am still ill, breathing painfully, and at night not breathing at all. This sudden death of M. Fould has grieved me very much. It was, however, as easy as one could wish; but why so sudden? He wrote eighteen letters the same morning of his death, and two hours before retiring seemed perfectly well. He had not made the least movement after lying down, and his features bore no evidences of contraction. His death was precisely the same as that of Mr. Ellice; “a visitation of God” is what the English call it.
I am expecting to start early in November. I am urged to go, in order to escape colds, which are so difficult to avoid in Paris. I am finishing an article for the Moniteur, on a Greek manuscript, and shall depart just as soon as it is completed.
Good-bye, dear friend. I hope you will come back before I go. Abandon those hideous fogs, and take care of your health. Again, good-bye....
CCCIII
Paris, November 8, 1867.
Dear Friend: I send you a word in haste, written in the midst of the errand which I am compelled to do. I leave to-morrow for Cannes, seriously ill; but there I hope to live in sunlight and warmth. Here we have it cold and almost frosty. I no longer go out at night, and never put my nose out of doors except when the temperature becomes a little milder.
I do not know how long I shall be able to stay away; it depends somewhat on the Pope, on Garibaldi, and on M. de Bismarck. Like every one else, I am more or less in the hands of these gentlemen. I know nothing more shameful than this affair of Garibaldi. If ever a man was under obligation to commit suicide, it is he, assuredly. What is even more lamentable is the fact that the Pope is quite convinced that he is under no obligation to us, and that it was Heaven which managed everything for his sake. Good-bye, dear friend....
CCCIV
Cannes, December 16, 1867.
Dear Friend: I was very anxious about you, when I was relieved by the arrival of your letter. You have guessed that these many changes of weather through which we have passed, have done me no good. In the last twenty-four hours we have even had snow, to the enormous astonishment of the urchins and curs of the place. Such a thing is unprecedented in twenty years. Nothing could be more amusing than the amazement depicted on the faces which had never seen this phenomenon from a nearer range than the Alps. Everybody expected to see the flowers, orange-trees, and even the olive-trees, destroyed; but they all stood it remarkably well, and only the flies have been killed.
For several days we have had a return of fine weather, and my breathing begins to be somewhat less difficult. I am always at the mercy of every change of temperature, and there is no barometer to which I am not superior in the accuracy of my predictions.
I am greatly alarmed by the political situation; in the general tone of the journals and of the orators, I find something suggestive of 1848. There are strange freaks of anger, without any apparent causes. All nerves are tense. After spending his whole life amid political struggles, M. Thiers is seized with nervous excitement because a lawyer of Marseilles repeats platitudes deserving of nothing more than a smile. The most unfortunate feature has been the attitude of M. Rouher, who wishes to out-Herod Herod, and who has given utterance to sentiments obnoxious to politics—a thing from which all ministers ought to abstain.
I am discontented with everybody, beginning with Garibaldi, who does not understand his trade. To go to Caprera, after having murdered several hundred simpletons, seems to me the very limit of mortification for the advocates of revolution, and the English noblemen who took this creature for something more than a mountebank.
What shall I say to you of the politics of M. Ollivier and tutti quanti? It is useless for them to express themselves in elegantly turned phraseology, and to assert that they are profoundly convinced; they impress me as second-rate actors who imitate the rôles of their betters, in such a fashion as to deceive no one. We become smaller day by day. It is only M. de Bismarck who is a really great man.
By the way, could it be true that he has spent his private fortune? I consider the purchase of the journals as highly probable. But, as M. de Bismarck will not send his receipts to M. de Kerveguen, I fancy these gentlemen will come out of the affair honourably.
I see nothing worth reading but the Histoire de Pierre le Grand, by M. Oustisalef. I have just sent to the Journal des Savants a long article, full of tormenting details, etc. It is on the destruction of the Muscovite guards. Good-bye....
CCCV
Cannes, January 5, 1868.
Dear Friend: Pardon my delay in replying to your letter. I have been, and am still, extremely ill. The cold, which has penetrated even so far as this, is very harmful to me. It is said that in Paris it is much more severe, and that you have no cause to envy Siberia. I am sometimes, the greater part of the day, unable to breathe. There is no sharp pain in this, but a discomfort of the most wearisome kind, which reacts severely on the nerves. You know me well enough to understand how well I endure all this.
Moreover, I am suffering great anxiety on account of my poor friend Panizzi, who is dangerously ill in London. The latest news was somewhat comforting, but there is still little ground for reassurance: He is discouraged about himself, which is always a bad symptom in sick people.
Amidst all my sorrows, I am killing time as I may. I send to-day to the Journal des Savants the end of the first part of Pierre le Grand—for there are first and second parts in this, as in the novels of Ponson de Terrail—and to the Moniteur, a long critique on Poushkin. All this you will see in its proper time and place.
I am now reading a book which is too long, and badly written, but the author of which seems to be honest, and describes what he has seen and heard. One must pass over his reflections, for in these he is a little silly. The book is Dixon’s New America. He has seen the Mormons, and, what is still more curious, the Republic of Mount Lebanon. This and Fenianism give one an idea of America. Decidedly Talleyrand’s epigram defines it exactly.
Good-bye, dear friend, I wish you health and happiness.
CCCVI
Cannes, February 10, 1868.
Dear Friend: I am distressed to learn of the death of M. D. I saw him at ——, I do not know how many years ago. He was devotedly fond of you, and while the death of friends of eighty years should be expected at any moment, still it always comes as a thunder-clap. One of the greatest sorrows of those who live to be aged is to lose our friends day by day, and to realise that we are more and more alone in the world....
For my own part, my thoughts are melancholy, and my mood gloomy. I have not yet succeeded in accustoming myself to suffering, and it irritates me, which gives me two ills instead of one. I think I shall stay here at least until the end of this month, in which case I have some hope of finding you in Paris. I am delighted that my essay on Poushkin did not bore you. The best thing about it is that I wrote it without having the works of Poushkin by me. The quotations I gave are verses that I committed to memory in the time of my fervour for all things Russian.
There are many Russians here, and I had charged one of my friends to borrow a volume of miscellaneous poems, if there was one in the Muscovite colony. He inquired of an uncommonly pretty woman, who, instead of poems, sent me a big piece of fish from the Volga, and two birds from the same country, all cooked a few metres from the north pole. It was rather good. Judging from the slice sent to me, the fish must have been a jolly fellow from five to six feet in length. This lady, who is called Madame Voronine, has a charming head. Her husband has the appearance of a veritable Calmuc. At first he refused the hand of the lady. He shot himself, the ball missed, and for his trouble he was made to marry her.
As for English, men and women, never have there been such a lot of them, with impossible hair and toilettes, with red hair and overcoats lined with grebe skins, and with parasols. During the last two weeks the parasols have been more serviceable than the furs, for the weather is magnificent, and the sun hot as in June. Among other extraordinary Englishmen is the duke of Buccleugh, who has a horn in the middle of his forehead. His son shows a disposition to follow his example. Do not imagine that I am speaking metaphorically; it is a real horn growing on the cranium, and it will end, I fear, by playing them a bad trick.
I told you that I had Smoke, bound in a volume expressly for you. I might send it to you if you wished it; but I believe that I recall your having taken home the numbers of the Correspondent in which it is found. It is one of the best things that M. Tourguenieff has ever done.
The discussion on the press is disgusting to me. Every one tells too many lies, and not an idea is heard that has not been already expressed twenty times in better terms. It seems to me that the level of intelligence is rapidly sinking lower, like that of honesty. It is indeed sad.
Yesterday I met one of my friends returning from Mentana. He told me that the Garibaldians were thoroughly whipped; that they were a singular mixture of abominable riff-raff and of the flower of the aristocracy.
Good-bye, dear friend. Take good care of yourself, and do not forget me.
CCCVII
Montpellier, April 20, 1868.
Dear Friend: Before coming here I was so ill that I lost all courage; it was impossible for me to think, and yet I was under the strongest necessity to write. I learned by chance that in Montpellier there was a physician who treated asthma by a new method, and I resolved to try it. During the five days since I began the treatment it seems to me that my condition has improved, and the physician encourages me to be hopeful.
Every morning I am placed in an iron cylinder, which, I must confess, looks like one of those monuments of M. de Rambuteau. Within is a comfortable easy-chair, and apertures with windows, which admit light enough to read. An iron door is closed, and the air in the cylinder is them compressed by means of a steam-engine. After a few seconds you feel as if needles were sticking in your ears, but, gradually, you become accustomed to the sensation. What is more important is that you begin to breathe with marvellous ease. At the end of a half hour I fall asleep, notwithstanding the fact that I have brought with me the Revue des Deux Mondes. I have already taken four of these compressed-air baths, and feel that I am perceptibly better. The physician who treats me, and who has none of the characteristics of a charlatan, assures me that my case is not hopeless, and promises to cure me with about fifteen baths or so.
I hope I may see you soon in Paris. I regret my absence from the discussion which will take place on the subject of the medical theses. Have you read the letter of abbé Dupanloup? The soul of Torquemada has taken refuge in his body, and if we do not look out, he will burn us all at the stake. I fear that the Senate on this occasion will say and do everything possible to make itself ridiculous and odious. You can have no idea of how afraid of the devil, nowadays, are those old warriors who have been through such a multitude of dangers. I do not know if Sainte-Beuve will be in a condition to speak, as the papers announce; I doubt it, and, besides, I am uncertain whether he will attack the question from the proper position;—I mean, in such a way as to avert the bombshell. His business is to speak out his mind, without regard to consequences, as he has already done on the occasion of Renan’s book. All these things irritate and torment me.
We are having admirable weather, but the natives are bewailing it bitterly, for they have had no rain for a year. The dry weather, however, does not hinder the leaves from growing, and the country is magnificent.
Unfortunately, I am detained indoors all the morning, and seldom have a chance to walk. There is a fair in progress under my windows. Opposite me they are exhibiting a giantess, in a satin gown which she raises to show her legs. Their diameter is almost that of your waist.
I will bring you the translation of Smoke. I have begun an essay on Tourguenieff, but do not know if I shall have the strength to finish it here. Nothing is more difficult than to work on a hotel diet. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCCVIII
Paris, June 16, 1868.
... I suppose you are having about the same weather that we are enjoying—that is to say, perfectly lovely, and that you are no longer suffering from excessive dampness, which is the unfortunate feature of P. Here, the early summer is ravishing. I went, day before yesterday, to the Bois de Boulogne, where I saw the most stunning costumes. I met one very beautiful woman, dressed in an extraordinary fashion, and whose hair was a lovely gold-colour. I could have sworn that she was a young woman from the rue de Breda, but I came to recognise her as the wife of a general. Her hair formerly was a dark chestnut. Customs are making singular progress.
A well-known society man was living in marital relations with the wife of another man. Returning to his apartment one day, he found her there with a third man. Upon this, he went to the husband, and said to him: “I know that you wish to have proofs of criminal intercourse, in order that you may obtain a divorce from your wife. I bring you these proofs.” He left with him a package of letters, and they separated, with expressions of mutual esteem. It does not appear that he has been expelled from his club, or excluded from any salon to which he has had access.
M. Tourguenieff has just sent me a very short, but very pretty novel, entitled The Brigadier. It is now being translated, and if the proofs are sent to me, I will share them with you. English novels are getting to be so horribly dull that I can not take to them. Here, it seems that there is no one but M. Penson de Terrail, but his stories are too short.
I expect to go to London by the end of the month. I hope to see you in Hastings and in Paris, towards the end of July. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCCIX
Château de Fontainebleau, August 4, 1868.
Dear Friend: I have been here about a fortnight, feeling tolerably well, and finding absolute idleness good for body and mind. Our last walk left me a sweet memory. Is it so with you? Here, I walk a little, read less, and breathe fairly well. It is a pleasure to look at the sky and the trees.
There is no one at the château, or, rather, not more than thirty persons, of whom the only outsiders, besides myself, are several cousins of the empress, both ladies and gentlemen, and very agreeable people, whom I met in Madrid.
I kept for you a copy of the second edition of Smoke. On my return to Paris, in a week, I think, I will leave it at your house, or, if you prefer, I will send it.
I brought with me my materials for work; but as one is never certain of having an hour to himself, I have accomplished nothing at all. I made a copy of a portrait of Diana of Poitiers, by Primatice. She is represented as Diana holding a quiver, and it is evident that she has posed, for from head to foot everything shows the portrait. If I dare say so, there results even from an examination of the legs, that she wore her garters above the knee, after the fashion of the time. It is no longer the fashion now (so I have been told). I will show it to you, for this portrait has an historical value.
Good-bye. It is now the hour for dining. I envy you the little fish that you are eating, perhaps, at this very moment. Be so good as to tell me what is that high rock at Boulogne, near the quay. It seemed to me a monstrosity.
CCCX
Paris, September 2, 1868.
While I was at Fontainebleau a strange incident happened to me. I had the idea of writing a novel for my hostess, whose hospitality I wished to repay in blarney. I did not have time to finish it; but on my return here I placed the word End on it, and I fear it will be considered too long deferred. The strange part of it, however, is, that no sooner had I finished, than I began another novel. The recrudescence of this malady of my youth alarms me, because it so resembles a second childhood. Nothing of all this, be it understood, is for the public.
While I was in the château we read some marvellous modern novels, the authors of which were utterly unknown to me. It is in imitation of these gentlemen that this last novel is written. The scene occurs in Lithuania, a country perfectly familiar to you. Pure Sanskrit is spoken there. A great lady of the land, having gone to hunt, had the misfortune to be captured and carried away by a bear destitute of feeling. She became insane, but gave birth to a well-formed boy, who grows up and becomes charming, only he is subject to gloomy moods and inexplicable whimsicalities. He is married, and on his wedding-night eats his wife alive. You, who know all the tricks, since I disclose them to you, will guess immediately why. Yes, this gentleman is the illegitimate son of that unlicked cub. Che invenzione prelibata.[41] Please tell me, I pray you, what you think of it.
I am not doing any too well, and am urged to renew the compressed-air baths at Montpellier. If you do not return to Paris before the 1st of October, you will probably not find me there. I will leave you the novel Smoke, which I have had waiting for you for ages. I do not know what has become of the author. He was in Moscow recently, with gout, and a historical novel in the bargain.
I regret greatly not having visited the aquarium of which you tell me, when I passed through Boulogne. Nothing diverts me more than fish and sea flora.
I dined yesterday with Sainte-Beuve, who was very interesting. Although a great sufferer, he has a charming wit, and is, without doubt, one of the most agreeable conversationalists that I have ever heard. He is deeply alarmed at the progress made by the clericals, and takes the thing to heart. I think the danger does not come from that direction....
Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me, but do not write so loosely as to put but three words on a line. Tell me candidly your opinion on my invention of the bear.
CCCXI
Paris, Tuesday, September 29, 1868.
Dear Friend: The important thing is that the reading did not tire you. Is it possible that you did not guess at once how ill-bred that bear was? As I read, I saw plainly on your face that you did not admit my conception of the plot. I must then submit to yours. Do you believe the reader, who is less timorous than you, will accept this good-woman version, that it was a glancé? So, it was a mere glance of the bear which made this poor woman insane, and imparted to her son his sanguinary instincts? It shall be done as you wish. I have always been the better for your advice; but this time you have abused your privilege.
I shall leave for Montpellier next Saturday. I hope to say good-bye to you two or three times before then.
CCCXII
Cannes, November 16, 1868.
Dear Friend: I have been, and am still, very ill. The compressed-air baths, which were so beneficial to me last spring, were powerless to cure a bronchial trouble which has succeeded my asthma, and is as harassing as the latter. For six weeks I have been coughing and choking; while the numerous drugs, which I take with much docility and resignation, do not produce sufficient effect to permit me to resume my ordinary course of life. I go out only on very warm days. I sleep badly, and spend my time entertaining the blue devils.... It is at night especially that I suffer and fret the most. If I am so poorly before the winter, what will become of me when the weather is really cold? This thought preoccupies me unpleasantly. For three or four days, however, I have felt a little less miserable.
During my nights of insomnia I made a careful copy of the Trouveur de Miel,[42] with the changes which you suggested, and which seem to me to improve the story. That the bear pushed his attacks to the point of marring an illustrious genealogy, remains doubtful. At the same time, intelligent persons like yourself will understand that a very serious accident must have occurred. I sent this new edition to M. Tourguenieff, that he might revise the local colour, concerning which I am in some perplexity, but the deuce of the thing is that neither he nor I have been able to find a single Lithuanian who knows his own language and country. I had some intention of sending this tale as a fête-day gift to the empress, but I have resisted the temptation, and have done wisely. God only knows what that bear would have become amidst the society at Compiègne.
The weather is only so-so—neither cold nor windy, but with very few really beautiful days. I have been here a fortnight. The rest of the time I have been at Montpellier, where I was horribly bored....
So poor Rossini is dead. They pretended that he had done a great deal of work, although he wished to publish nothing. Pecuniary considerations, which always had great weight with him, would have been reason enough for him to publish his work, if he had really composed anything. He was one of the wittiest men I have ever seen, and nothing more marvellous has ever been heard than the air from the Barber of Seville, as sung by him. No actor could compare with him.
The last year appears to have been a fatal one for great men. They say that Lamartine and Berryer are both seriously ill.
Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me, and lose no time in leaving the damp country where you are at present. There is no such thing as a warm house in the country.
If you know some amusing book, tell me what it is, I pray you.
CCCXIII
Cannes, January 2, 1869.
Dear Friend: You have not, then, received a letter I sent to you last month at P. I fear that it has gone astray. I do not pretend, however, to justify myself altogether. If you only realised what a wretched and monotonous life I am leading, you would understand that it is hard enough to endure it without giving an account of it. The fact is, I am doing very badly. Not the least improvement! On the contrary, they have not even succeeded in giving me relief from the painful attacks which occur from time to time. The sky and sea are magnificent, and their influence, which formerly restored me to health, no longer has any effect. What must I do? I have no idea, but often I feel a great desire that it would end.
Your journey seems to me delightful, but I do not approve of your return through the Tyrol in the season you describe. You will meet with much snow; you will lose the skin from your cheeks, and you will see nothing remarkably beautiful. You had better take some other route, no matter which. Innspruck, or, rather, Innsbruck, is an exceedingly picturesque little town; but for one who has been to Switzerland, it is not worth the trouble of going out of one’s way; neither are the bronze statues in the cathedral. Trent alone, of all the places on your route, seems to me worthy of your interest.
Why should you not go to Sicily to see Etna, which is said to be at his pranks again? You are never sea-sick, and it is probable that boats leave Naples especially to view the spectacle. In about a week’s journey you will have been able to see Etna, Palermo, and Syracuse.
I have again revised The Bear, whom you know, and I have polished him up with some care. Many things in the story are changed for the better, I think. The title and the names are changed also. For persons with as little intelligence as you, the manners of that bear will always seem to be mysterious. But no matter how perspicacious one may be, one will never be able to decide anything to his disadvantage. An infinity of things remain unexplained in the story. Physicians tell me that plantigrades, more than any other beasts, are capable of intercourse with human beings; but such examples are rare, naturally, bears being not exactly attractive....
Where is the point of that discourse of M. de Nieuwerkerke mentioned in all the papers, and contradicted later? How stupid we are getting to be! Our progress in this is rapid. Did you have the curiosity to go to hear the discussion in the Hall of the Pré-aux-Clercs on marriage and heredity? They say that part of it was most amusing, and, on reflection, terrifying, when one considers the number of imbeciles and mad dogs running the streets. I am told that there are women who make speeches, and who are neither the least mad, or the least stupid. Such symptoms as these make me shudder. The people of this land are voluntarily blind.
Good-bye, dear friend. I wish you a happy New Year.
CCCXIV
Cannes, February 23, 1869.
Do not be offended with me, dear friend, if I do not write to you. I have no encouraging news to give you of myself, and what is the advantage of sending you bad reports? The fact is, I am still dangerously ill, and I now realise that my malady is incurable. I have tried I know not how many infallible remedies; I have been in the hands of three or four physicians of great skill, not one of whom has given me the slightest relief. I am mistaken. Some time ago, in Nice, I came across an unusually intelligent man, somewhat of a charlatan, perhaps, who gave me, without pay, some capsules, which relieved me from a very painful feeling of suffocation which caused me great distress every night. Now, I suffer from it in the morning, but with less violence, and the attacks do not last so long. As for the bronchitis, which is the obstinate feature of my disease, it is well established.
Suffering and sad as I am, I have not the strength to read, and I have, besides, hardly any books. These past days I have read with interest the Mémoires d’un Paysan Écossais, who by dint of intelligence and application became a man of letters, a professor of geology, and a celebrated man. Unfortunately, he cut his throat not long ago, hard work having, without doubt, affected his mind. Hugh Miller is his name.
I think you will find my Bear more presentable under his new form. Whenever I am able to paint I make illustrations for the story, so that when I return to Paris I may present it to the empress. Do not imagine that I am representing all the scenes—that one, for example, in which the bear forgets himself.
Good-bye, dear friend. I regret for your sake that you will not return to Rome this year. Everything, it seems to me, is going wrong. There is no longer any Spain; soon there will be no Holy See. The loss will be more or less serious according to one’s point of view. But it is something which should be seen once (like many other things), in order that one may suffer no temptations nor regrets. Good-bye....
CCCXV
Cannes, March 19, 1869.
Dear Friend: I have been very ill. I am now convalescent, very weak still, but out of all danger, so they tell me. It was an acute attack of bronchitis which aggravated my chronic bronchitis. For four or five days my life was in danger, but now I am up. I walk about in my room, and will be allowed soon to walk in the sunshine.
Good-bye, dear friend. Health and prosperity.
CCCXVI
Cannes, April 23, 1869.
Dear Friend: I shall leave here day after to-morrow. I am in pretty poor plight, but I am obliged to leave this place. My cousin, in whose home I live, is dead, and his poor widow has no one with her. I am still very weak, but think I am able to endure the trip. I shall notify you as soon as I arrive, and hope to find you in good health. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCCXVII
Paris, Sunday, May 2, 1869.
Dear Friend: I have been in Paris several days, but I was so exhausted from the journey, and so ill, that I had not the courage to write to you. Come to see me, and console me. Good-bye.
CCCXVIII
Paris, May 4, 1869.
I am distressed that you did not wait two minutes. You did not allow them to tell me, and contented yourself by returning my book, and this you call a visit to a sick man! Your charity was easily satisfied. But it does not count; besides, I am a little better, and need you to go to the Exposition with me, where I have no desire to see daubs and nudities.
You shall be my guide. Do you remember the time when I was yours? Tell me what day will suit you. Good-bye, dear friend.
CCCXIX
Paris, Saturday, June 12, 1869.
Dear Friend: This dull weather, with its alternations of heat and cold, worries me and does me great harm; besides, I am in a beastly humour. The uproar that takes place every night on the boulevards, which reminds me of the fine times of 1848, contributes no little to my melancholy, and makes me feel, with Hamlet, that “man delights me not, nor woman neither.”
What afflicts me the most in all this sad business, is its profound stupidity. This people, which calls itself, and believes that it is, the most intellectual on earth, expresses its desire to enjoy a Republican form of government by demolishing the stands where poor people sell newspapers. They shriek, Vive la Lanterne! and break the street-lamps. It is enough to make one hide his face. The danger is that there is for stupidity a sort of emulation, as for everything else, and between the Chambers and the Government, God only knows what the result will be.
I spend my time deciphering letters of the duke of Alba and of Philip II, which the empress gave me. Both of them wrote like cats. I am beginning to read Philip II, easily enough; but his captain-general is still very troublesome. I have just read one of his letters to his august master, written a few days after the death of count Egmont, in which he pities the fate of the countess, who has not a loaf of bread left, after having had a dowry of ten thousand florins. Philip II has an intricate and tedious way of saying the simplest things. It is very difficult to divine his meaning, and it seems to me that his constant intention is to confuse his reader and leave him to his own powers of initiation. The two make the most detestable pair of men that ever existed, and neither of them, unfortunately, was hanged, which is nothing to the credit of Providence.
I have also received from England a curious book, in which it is claimed that Jeanne la Folle was not mad, but heretical, and that, on this account, papa, mamma, her husband, and her son all concerted to keep her in prison, and from time to time, to have her suffer a taste of torture. You shall read it, if you like; the book is at your service.
I have nothing encouraging to tell you of my health, which is not flourishing; a little better, it may be, than before I came. Nevertheless, I cough constantly, and can neither eat nor sleep.
Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me soon.
CCCXX
Paris, June 29, 1869.
Thanks for your letter, dear friend. I am furious with poets and their pretended temperate climates. There is no spring, there is not even any summer. To-day, I ventured out of doors, and came back shivering. When I think that there are people who go to the woods, and even talk of love in this bitter weather, I am tempted to exclaim at the miracle. I say to myself that it is done every day. I am mistaken; it is impossible; it has never been done, even in the past.
I have finished the history of Princess Tarakanof, who was a saucy baggage, but she had a lover whose letters will amuse you. He suffered the fate of many mortals. I hope the Journal des Savants penetrates as far as ——; if not, I will try to send it to you.
I am going, Thursday, to Saint Cloud, where I shall remain, probably, about a fortnight. I am not sure how I shall endure the life there, although I am, they tell me, almost the only guest invited. Besides, if I become ill I can in an hour be reinstated at my own fireside. I have told you something of the tribulations that I suffer here in my home, so that I will confess to you, it is not without joy that I am going away. Since your departure I have had two or three most tiresome scenes.
I am reading, with the greatest difficulty, Renan’s Saint Paul. Decidedly, he is a monomaniac as to scenery. Instead of sticking to his subject, he describes the woods and the meadows. If I were an abbé I should delight in writing an article for him to review. Have you read the harangue of our holy father, the Pope?...
I am confident that both in word and in deed we are about to be guilty of enormities for which there will not be enough baked apples in the world. Alas! this may end in harder projectiles! What a misfortune that the modern mind is so dull! Do you think it has ever been so before? There have been ages, doubtless, in which there were more ignorance, more barbarism, more absurdity, but now and then some brilliant genius appeared to make compensation; while to-day, it seems to me that all intellectuality is on a plane which is miserably low.
As I scarcely ever go out, I read a great deal. I have had sent me the works of Baudelaire, which have made me furious. Baudelaire was crazy! He died in a hospital, after having written some verses which attracted the good opinion of Victor Hugo, and which possessed no other merit than that of being immoral. Now they are making him out to be a man of genius, who was misunderstood!
I saw yesterday an exquisite drawing of a marvellous fresco discovered in Pompeii. It appears to be a procession in honour of Cybele, to whom Hercules is making a visit. Standing before Cybele is a gentleman divested of modesty; some others are bearing a serpent with much pomp—a serpent coiled around a tree. I understand nothing of the subject. You saw in Pompeii the little temple of Isis; it was near this that the fresco in question was found.
Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me, in order that I may see you in passing. From now on for several days, you may address me at the Palace of Saint Cloud.
CCCXXI
Paris, Wednesday night, August 5, 1869.
... I spent a month at Saint Cloud, in a passable condition of health. I was never perfectly well mornings and nights, but the days were not bad. The open-air life did me good, I think, and gave me a little strength. On my return, Sunday, I had a most distressing attack of exhaustion, which continued two days. Then my physician at Cannes arrived, with a new remedy of his own invention, which cured me. They are eucalyptus tablets, and the eucalyptus is a tree native to Australia, which has been naturalized in Cannes. I am doing well, provided it lasts, as the man said while he was falling from a fourth-story window.
At Saint Cloud I read The Bear before a very select audience, among whom were several young ladies who understood nothing, it seemed to me; and, since it caused no offence, I have a desire to present the story to the Revue. Tell me your way of thinking thereon, and try to point out very clearly the pros and cons. You must not overlook the progress in hypocrisy which the age has made in late years. What will your friends say about it? Besides, one may as well write his stories for himself, for those that are written by others are not exactly interesting.... Are you not grieved for your holy mother, the Church, by the accident at Cracow? If one were to observe attentively, I am sure one would find that such things are occurring elsewhere. You must read the account of the affair in the Times....
I dined, a few days ago, with the guileless Isabelle. I found her better than I had expected. The husband, who is quite small, is a very polite gentleman, who made me many compliments, nor were they badly turned either. The prince of the Asturias is most affable, and has an intelligent expression.... He resembles ——, and also the children of Velasquez’ time.
I am dreadfully bored. It is excessively hot at the Luxembourg, and all this matter of the Senate Council is anything but agreeable. They are going to open the establishment to the public, of which I disapprove strongly.[43]
Good-bye, dear friend. Write me something cheerful, for I am full of sadness. I have great need of your mirthsomeness and of your real presence.
CCCXXII
Paris, September 7, 1869.
Dear Friend: Do you expect to remain much longer at ——? Shall you not return here soon? While I have not as yet felt any sign of the approach of winter, I am beginning to look towards the South, for I have promised myself not to allow myself to be surprised by the cold. For several days I have been a little better, or, to speak more exactly, less ill. I have taken compressed-air baths, which have done me a little good, and I follow a new treatment which is tolerably successful. I am still solitary. I never go out at night, and see almost no one. By the help of all these precautions I am alive, or nearly so. Bülow succeeded in enticing me off.
At Saint Cloud the empress had me read The Bear (it is called Lokis now, which is bear in Jmoude) before some young girls, who, as I think I told you, understood nothing at all. This encourages me, and on the 15th of this month the thing will appear in the Revue. I have made several changes besides the names, and I wished to make still others, but my courage failed me. You will tell me what you think of it.
Yesterday we concluded our little matter.[44] I am uncertain as to the result. The respectable public is so hopelessly stupid, that what it formerly desired, now inspires it with fear. I have a suspicion that the bourgeois, who voted for M. Ferry a few months ago, now think that before some days in June, more or less remote, he will find himself disarmed. His distinguishing characteristic is never to be satisfied, with his own achievements especially.
The emperor’s illness is not serious, but it may be tedious, and there may be a return of it. It is said, and I am inclined to believe it, that the great journey to the Orient will be countermanded; possibly the strained relations existing between the sultan and the viceroy are considered of sufficient importance to wreck the plans for the proposed excursion.
Have you read, in the Journal des Savants, the history of the princess Tarakanof? This is not new, however, and I believe I have shown you the proofs.
I have in mind to write, this winter, a Life of Cervantes, to serve as a preface to a new edition of Don Quixote. Has it been a long time since you have read Don Quixote? Does it still amuse you? Have you ever tried to explain why? I find it amusing, and yet I can give no valid reason; on the contrary, I can think of many things about the book which should prove that it is worthless; nevertheless, it is excellent. I should like to know your ideas on the subject. Do me the kindness to read over several chapters, and ask yourself these questions. I depend on you to do me this favour.
Good-bye. I hope the month will not pass without seeing you.
CCCXXIII
Cannes, November 11, 1869.
Dear Friend: I am here in the most glorious weather imaginable, and the most persistently such; to the despair of the gardeners, who can not make their cabbages grow. I regret to see that I am hardly better than if the weather were bad. Mornings and evenings I have always very painful attacks of exhaustion. I can not walk without becoming tired and losing my breath; in fact, I am still good for nothing and miserable.
Besides, I have had some serious worries. P., whom I brought with me, became suddenly so sullen and impertinent, that I was compelled to discharge her. You may imagine that to lose a servant who has been with you for forty years is not an agreeable thing. Fortunately, she soon repented, and begged my pardon with such persistence that I had a sufficiently good excuse to yield, and keep her. It is so difficult nowadays to find a reliable servant, and P. has many excellent qualities, which it would have been impossible for me to replace. I hope the anger and firmness which I showed, and of which, between ourselves, I scarcely thought myself capable, will have a salutary effect in the future, and prevent any return of such episodes.
I dined yesterday in Nice with M. Thiers, who is much changed physically since the death of Madame Dosne, but not at all mentally, it seemed to me. His mother-in-law was the soul of his home. She it was who made a salon for him, attracted to it desirable people, and understood how to be agreeable both to political and other guests. In short, she reigned in a court composed of heterogeneous elements, and had the skill to turn them all to the profit of M. Thiers. A life of solitude has now begun for him; his wife will take part in nothing.
Politically, I found Thiers even more changed. Seeing the unbounded folly that has taken possession of this land, he has once more become reasonable, and is preparing to combat it, as he did in 1849. I fear that he overestimates his strength. It is much easier to burst the goat-skin bottles of Æolus than to mend them again and make them air-tight. It seems to me probable that we shall have a struggle; the chassepot rifle is invincible, and will give the populace of Paris a historic lesson, as general Changarnier said. Still, is there any assurance that it will serve its purpose? and, if it should serve its purpose, what will happen? The officials of the government have become impossible; and the parliamentary government, insincere, dishonest, and devoid of capable men, seems to me no less impossible. In fact, to me the future, and I might say the present, is as gloomy as it is possible to be.
Good-bye, dear friend. Take good care of yourself, and write to me.
CCCXXIV
Cannes, January 6, 1870.
Dear Friend: I thank you for your letter, and for your good wishes. I did not reply at once, because I did not have the physical strength. The cold weather, which has come upon us suddenly, is very severe, and has done me a great deal of harm. I feel a little better to-day, and take advantage of it to write to you. I am deeply discouraged; nothing does me any good. I try all the remedies, and find myself again back at the point from which I started; after a few days of relief, the disease manifests itself again as forcibly as ever. I sleep wretchedly, and with the greatest difficulty.
Not only do I not eat, but all kinds of nourishment inspire in me a feeling of disgust. Nearly all day I suffer frightfully, sometimes accompanied with spasms of pain. I read with great difficulty, and frequently do not understand the words under my eyes. I have an idea of something which I should like to put into a work, but how is it possible to write in the midst of these troubles! So you see, dear friend, the situation in which I find myself. I have the certainty that a slow and painful death is to be my fate. I must become reconciled to it.
The political situation, of which I understand nothing at all, is not calculated to offer me an agreeable distraction. It seems to me that we are marching on to a revolution, which will be more disastrous than the one through which we passed so blithesomely twenty years ago. I should like the performance to be delayed a little while, so that I may not attend it.
It froze here at six degrees, a phenomenon which has not occurred since 1821, so say the oldest inhabitants; all the gardens have been ruined. The cold snap came just when one might have supposed it to be midsummer; the season was advanced, and everything in bloom. It was lamentable to see great, beautiful plants, full of blossoms, from seven to eight feet tall in the evening, in one night reduced to the consistency of spinach.
Good-bye, dear friend. Keep well, and let me sometimes hear from you. I wish you a happy New Year....
CCCXXV
Cannes, February 10, 1870.
Dear Friend: If I have not written to you for a long time, it is because I have had nothing but sad things to tell you of myself. I am more and more ailing, and the life I lead is truly miserable. I sleep hardly at all, and suffer nearly all the time I am awake. Besides, the winter has been a frightful one. All the lovely flowers which made the glory of the country have been destroyed, many of the orange-trees have been frozen, and not enough flowers are left to make you any pomade. Imagine the effect produced on a being nervous as I, by rain, hail, and cold. One suffers here ten times more from all these than he would in Paris.
So, then, you have had an insurrection, which was as silly as the hero[45] who was its instigator. We present a melancholy spectacle of ourselves, by the fashion in which we make use of our liberty and of parliamentary government. It is impossible not to be struck by the really laughable audacity with which propositions of the most monstrous kind are presented and maintained in the Chambers, which no one would dare to utter in a salon. This representative government is a comedy which one can hardly call amusing. Everybody in it lies with effrontery, and nevertheless, every one lets himself be taken in by the most skilful liar. There are persons who consider Crémieux eloquent, and think that Rochefort is a worthy citizen. We were certainly stupid enough in 1848, but we are even more so to-day.
I am making the experiment of using a paper of English manufacture, and do not know whether you will be able to read what I write. I have just translated for the Revue a novel by Tourguenieff, which will appear next month. I am writing for myself, and perhaps for you, a little story in which the situation is largely one of love.
Good-bye. I wish you health and prosperity.
CCCXXVI
Cannes, April 7, 1870.
I have not written before, because I had only bad news to give you. I have been constantly, if not ill, at any rate in pain. I am still so. I am distressingly weak, and I am unable to walk a hundred steps from my home without sitting down several times to rest. Frequently, especially in the night, I have attacks of excruciating pain, which last a long time. “Nerves!” they tell me. Now, medicine, as you know, is almost ineffectual when it is a question of nerves.
Last Monday, wishing to make an experiment and find out if I could stand the journey to Paris, I went to Nice, and made a few calls. I thought at one time that I should be guilty of the indiscretion of dying in the home of a person whom I did not know intimately enough to take that liberty with. I returned here in a bad condition, and spent twenty-four hours in a state of suffocation.
Yesterday I was a little better. I went out and walked along the sea-shore, followed by a folding-chair on which I sat down every ten steps. Such is my life. I hope by the end of the month to be able to start for Paris. Will it be possible? I often wonder if I shall be strong enough to climb my stairway. You, who know so many things, do you know of some apartment in which I might put away my books and myself, without climbing many steps? I should not care to be too far away from the Institute.
I received a letter, very well turned, from M. Émile Ollivier, soliciting my vote.[46] I replied to him that I was no longer of this world. I think he will be elected without opposition.
How right you are in your judgment that we have gone mad! The clumsy assertion that to consult the people concerning the constitution is to create a despotism, is proof sufficient of what false metal it is cast! But the saddest of all is that no one is revolted by such absurdity. In reality, we are living in a period when there is no longer such a thing as ridicule or absurdity. Anything is said and anything is printed without shame.
I do not know when the review of Cervantes will appear; it will precede a splendid and beautiful edition of Don Quixote, which I will make you read one of these days. As for the story which I mentioned to you I shall reserve it to come out with my posthumous works. Still, if you wish to read it in manuscript, you may have this pleasure, which will take a quarter of an hour.
Good-bye, dear friend. Take good care of yourself. Health is the best of possessions. I shall not stir from here before the end of April. I expect to find you in Paris. Again good-bye.