I love you, adore you, admire you, and again I love and adore you.
Juliette.
Tuesday, 7.45 p.m., April 10th, 1838.
My love, I am writing to you with joy and worship in my heart. You were so kind and tender and fascinating to me to-day that I seemed to feel again the savour and rapture of the days of old. My Toto, my adored one, fancy if your love were to flower again like some brilliant, sweet-scented spring blossom! With what ecstasy and reverence I would preserve it fresh and rosy in my breast. Poor beloved, your work has done to our idyll what the winter does to the trees and flowers—the sap has retired deep into the bottom of your heart, and often I have feared it was quite dead; but now I see it was not: it was only lulled to sleep and I shall possess my Toto once more, beautiful, blooming, and perfumed as in those glorious days of our first love.
I who am not a sensitive plant of the sun like you, have yet come better through the trial, and if I bear no blossom, I have at least the advantage of preserving my leaves ever green and alive; that is to say, I have never ceased to love and adore you. Indeed that is true, my own, I love you as much as the first day.
Juliette.
Sunday, 11 a.m., April 22nd, 1838.
You see, darling, by the dimensions of my paper, that I am preparing to go and applaud my Marion this evening. I will not reproach you for not having come this morning. In fact, in future I shall not allude to it again, for nothing is more unsuitable or ridiculous than the solicitations of a woman who vainly appeals for the favours of her lover. Therefore, beloved, as I am to live with you as a sister with a brother, you will approve of my refraining from reminding you in any way of the time when we were husband and wife.
It is still very cold, my maid says; although the sun is shining in at my windows, it has left its warmth in the sky. It resembles the fine phrases of a suitor who no longer loves; his words may be the same, his expressions as tender, his language as impassioned, but love is lacking and those words which scintillate as the sun upon my windows, fail to warm the heart of the poor woman who had dreamt of love eternal.
You will probably see Granier this morning.[77] I hope so, so that you may not be worried any more about that business. I also hope Jourdain will come to-morrow about the chimney. It is unbearable that one should have to wait upon the whim of a workman for a job which might be finished in a few minutes, and that would please you so much. I have read with pleasure the verses that came to you in the newspaper from Guadaloupe; they show that you are admired over there as much as here, and that you have fewer enemies abroad than at the Académie Française. I am furious with that little imp called Thiers, who although he is not a quarter of a man as far as size goes, yet permits himself to cherish the rancour of a giant. Miserable little wretch! If only I were not a woman, I might castigate you as you deserve!
And you, my Toto, so great and so wonderful, I adore you!
Juliette.
Thursday, 10.15 a.m., August 2nd, 1838.
Good-morning, my little beloved. Do you still need a secretary? I am quite ready. Come; it is so delightful to dip my pen into your glorious poetry, and watch the shining and coruscating of those precious gems which take the shape of your thoughts. Dédé could not be more delighted and dazzled than I am, if she were given the diamonds and jewels of the crown of England to play with for an hour. Oh, if I could only have spent the night with my Cæsar and his noble companions, I would have followed him without fatigue wherever he wanted to go, even as far as.... But you would not allow it, you jealous boy; you feared comparison, and you were perfectly right, for I like well-dressed men. Good-morning, my Toto. My left eye is very bad; it is swollen and painful. If this continues I shall no longer be in the position of regretting that I cannot lend you my eyes in exchange for your own. I love you, I adore you. Do not be too long before coming to me.
I am longing for you with all my might.
Juliette.
Wednesday, 9.45 p.m., August 15th, 1838.
My dear little man, I love you. You are the treasure of my heart. I wish we were already in our carriage galloping, galloping far, and farther still, so that it might take us ever so long to get back.
Since you have hinted at the possibility of my playing in your beautiful piece,[78] I am like a somnambulist who has been made to drink too much champagne. I see everything magnified: I see glory, happiness, love, adoration, in gigantic and impossible dimensions—impossible, because I feel you can never love me as I love you, and that my talent, however considerable, can never reach to the level of your sublime poetry. I do not say this from modesty, but because I do not think there exists in this world man or woman capable of interpreting the parts as you conceived them in your master mind.
I love you, my Toto, I adore you, my little man, you are my sun and my life, my love and my soul.
All that, and more.
Juliette.
Monday, 8 p.m., September.
Are you proposing to cut out all the dandies and bloods of the capital? My congratulations to you. I was only waiting for some such sign to give myself up to an orgy of wild and eccentric toilette. Heaven only knows the extravagances I mean to commit in the way of shoes, silk stockings, gowns, hats, light gloves, and bows for my hair! You will, I suppose, retaliate with an assortment of skin-tight trousers, strings of orders, and more or less absurd hair arrangements. Delightful indeed! There only remains for one of us to live at the Barrière de l’Étoile and the other at the Barrière du Trône, to dazzle the dwellers of the town and suburbs, as well as strangers from abroad. Capital!!!
My sore throat has come on again and you are not here to cure it. If you think this pleasant you are quite wrong, and if I followed my own bent I should deprive you of your functions as doctor-in-chief of the great Juju. I am determined to forgive you only if you come to supper with me presently. Seriously, I cannot understand why you keep away, seeing that your Play is in rehearsal, that this is our holiday time, and that I adore you. I am almost tempted to be a little jealous, only unfortunately, when I mean to be only slightly jealous, I become very seriously so; therefore I try as much as possible to spare myself that discomfort. You would be sweet and kind, my Toto, if you would come and eat my frugal dinner with me to-night and ... I am going to concentrate my thoughts upon you, so as to magnetise you and bring you back in the shortest possible time to your faithful old Juju who loves and adores you. My first proceeding is to kiss your eyes, your mouth, and your dear little feet.
Juliette.
Tuesday, 12 noon, October 30th, 1838.
My beloved little man, you are so good and sweet when you see me that it is a pity you should see me so seldom, and that you should forget me as soon as your back is turned. To punish you, I am not going to write you two letters to-day; partly in consideration for your dear little eyes, and partly because it would be unfair to reward indifference and coldness in the same degree as affection and assiduity. Pray do not take the above expression, “dear little eyes,” in an ironical sense—I mean it on the contrary as an endearing diminutive; your “dear little eyes” signify to me my adored, beautiful eyes, the mirrors of my soul, the stars of my heaven, everything that is most beautiful and fascinating, gentlest, noblest, and highest.
I love you, my Toto. I kiss your ripe red lips, your dazzling teeth, your little hands, and your twinkling feet. I am writing only your little daily bulletin, because your eyes are bad, and you have no time to waste; neither do I wish to tire or bore you, but only to make you love me a little bit.
Juliette.
Thursday, 8.30 p.m., November 22nd, 1838.
My little treasure of a man, you were sweet to select my hovel for a resting-place from which to write your laudatory remarks upon Mlle. Atala Beauchêne,[79] commonly called Beaudouin. It gave me a chance to admire your charming profile and kiss your beautiful shining locks. I thank you for that happiness, and I consent to your inditing daily effusions concerning that lady, if only you do so in my room and under my eyes.
As you promised to come back presently, the chances are that you will not return. I have half a mind to undress, light my fire, and set to work to bruise poppy-heads; for my provision is almost at an end, and later on I may be busy at the theatre, if Joly[80] persists in his crazy idea of giving us a whole week’s rehearsals of a piece which is only to be played four months hence. It is an inducement to use the time at my disposal now, to prepare your little daily remedy.
I love you, Victor, I love you, my darling Toto.
Juliette.
Monday, 6 p.m., April 15th, 1839.
Why is it, my little beloved, that you always seem so jealous? You take the bloom off all those scraps of happiness your dear presence would otherwise give me, for nothing chills one’s embraces so much as the vexed, uneasy mien you usually wear. It would not even be so bad if you did not accuse me of that same constrained, annoyed look; but the more suspicious you are, the more you think it is I who am cross, although this is simply the effect of the glasses through which your jealousy views me. Never mind, I love you and forgive you, and if only you will come and take me out a little this evening and show me part of Lucrèce I shall be happy and content. What a beautiful day! I would have given days and even months for the chance of strolling by your side wherever your rêverie led you. Alas, it is I who am sad, and with excellent reason! As for you, you old lunatic, what have you to complain of? You are adored, and you are free to accept and make use of that sentiment as much and as often as you desire; perhaps that is why you desire it so seldom.... But let us talk of other things. Please love me a little, while I give you my whole soul.
Juliette.
Sunday, 6.30 p.m., October 27th, 1839.
Here I am at my scribbling again, my Toto. It is a sad pleasure, if any, after the two months of love and intimacy which have just elapsed. Here I sit again with my ink and paper, my faults of spelling, my stupidity and my love. When we were travelling I did not need all this paraphernalia to be happy. It was enough for me to worship you, and God knows whether I did that! Here I do not love you less—on the contrary—but I live far from you, I long for you, I worry about you, I am unhappy—that is all. Still, I am not ungrateful or forgetful; I fully appreciate that you have just given me nearly two months of bliss. I still feel upon my lips the touch of your kisses, and upon my hand the pressure of yours. But the felicity I have experienced only throws into greater relief the void your absence leaves in my life. When you are no longer by my side, I cease to exist, to think, to hope. I desire you and I suffer. Therefore I dread as much as death itself the return to that hideous Paris, where there is naught for lovers who love as we love—neither sunshine, nor that confidence which is the sunshine of love—nothing but rain, suspicion, jealousy, the three blackest, saddest, iciest of the scourges which can afflict body and heart. Oh, I am wretched, my Toto, in proportion to my love; it is true, my adored one, and it will ever be thus, when you are not with me.
Juliette.
Friday, 10 a.m., November 1st, 1839.
Good-morning, my dear little beloved, my darling little man. You told me so definitely yesterday that my handwriting was hideous, and my scrawl nothing but a horrible maze in which you lose both patience and love, that I hardly dare write to you to-day, and it would take very little to make me cease our correspondence altogether. We must have an explanation on this subject, for it is cruel of you to force me to make myself ridiculous night and morning, simply because I love you and am the saddest and loneliest of women. If my love must be drowned in my ignorance and stupidity, at least do not force me to make the plunge myself. There was a time when you would not have noticed the ugliness of my writing; you would only have read my meaning and been happy and grateful. Now you laugh, which is shabby and wicked of you. This seems to be the fate of all the Quasimodo of this world, moral and physical; they are jeered at: form is everything, spirit nothing. Even if I could constrain my crabbed scrawl to say, “My soul is beautiful,” you would not be any the less amused. Therefore, my dear little man, pending the moment when I can join in the laugh against myself, I think it would be as well to suspend these daily lucubrations. Besides, the moment has come when I must turn all my time and energies towards making my position secure. Nothing in this world can turn me from my purpose, for it is to me a question of life and death, and Heaven knows that in all these seven years I have never failed to tell you so whenever there has been an opportunity. I count upon you to help me, my beloved. I am asking you for more than life—for the moral consummation of our marriage of love. Let me go with you wherever my happiness is threatened, let me be the wife of your mind and heart, if I cannot be yours in law. If I express myself badly, do not scoff, but understand that I have a right to put into words what you yourself have felt, and that I insist upon defending my own against all those women who get at you under pretext of serving you. I will have my turn, for I love you and am jealous.
J.
Friday, 6.30 p.m., November 1st, 1839.
You are good, my adored one, and I am a wretch; but I love you while you only permit yourself to be loved; that is what makes you so tranquil and me so bitter. My heart is weighed down by jealousy this evening and nothing less than your adored presence will suffice to calm me, for I carry hell and all the furies within my soul. I wish I could be sewn to the lining of your coat to-night, for I feel I am about to encounter some great danger that I can only defeat by not leaving your side. If my fears are well-grounded, I shall probably fail in averting the doom that threatens me, for you will not be able to stay with me all the evening. The compliments and flattery you will receive will take you from me. I cannot deny that I am unhappy and jealous, and would much rather be with you at Fontainebleau, at the Hôtel de France, than in Box C. of the Théâtre Français, even when Marion de Lorme is being played. Kiss me, my little man; you are very sweet in your new greatcoat, but you had not told me you had been to your tailor. I shall keep up with you by sending for my dressmaker. I do not mean to surrender to you the palm for smartness and dandyism. Ha! who is caught? Toto! Toto!
Résilieux is beaming, Claire is happy, Suzanne is an idiot; such is the condition of the household. I am all three at the same time, plus the adoration I profess energetically for your imperial and sacred person. Kiss me and be careful of yourself this evening.
Juliette.
Monday, 12 noon, November 4th, 1839.
Good-morning, treasure. It is twelve by my clock, which is several hours fast, but I have been up some little time. I have dressed my child, and she is now practising on the piano. I spent the night thinking over what you said, my adored one. One luminous phrase especially stands out and scorches my soul. Perhaps you only said it idly as one of the compliments one is constrained to make to the woman who loves one? I know not, but I do know, that I have taken the assurance you gave me that you have never really loved any woman but me, as a sacred thing, unalterably true. I adore you and had never felt even the semblance of love until I met you. I love and adore you, and shall love and adore you for ever, for love is the essence of my body, my heart, my life, and my soul. Believe this, my treasure, for it is God’s own truth. Your dread of seeing me re-enter theatrical life will quickly be dissipated by the probity and steadiness of my conduct. I hope, and am certain of this. You have nothing to fear from me wherever I may be. I adore you, I venerate you. If I could do as you wish and renounce the theatre, that is to say my sole chance of securing my future, I would do so without hesitation and without your having to urge it, simply to please you. But, my beloved, I feel that it were easier to relinquish life itself than the hope of paying my creditors and making myself independent by earning my own living. If I were to make this sacrifice I am sure my despair would bring about some irreparable catastrophe that would weigh upon you all your days.
My adored one, do not try to turn me from the only thing that can bring me peace and make me believe in your love. Help me and do not forsake me unless I give you just cause to do so. Spend your whole life in loving me, in exchange for my unswerving loyalty and adoration.
Kiss me, my little man.
I love you.
Juliette.
Friday, 4.45 p.m., November 15th, 1839.
I wrote the date and hour on this half-sheet of paper, thinking it was blank. I explain this, in order that your suspicious mind may not again draw a flood of insulting deductions from a thing that has happened so simply and naturally. You upset me just now when you said good-bye, because you said cruel things. It was a bad moment to choose. Your manner to me is enough to discourage an angel, and I have begun to ask myself whether it is possible to love a woman one does not esteem. If you esteemed me you would not for ever suspect my words, my silence, my actions, my conduct; if you loved me you would know how to appreciate my honesty and fidelity, whereas even in the tenderest moments of our most intimate communion, you never fail to say something cruel and disheartening. I often say one might almost imagine you were under a promise to someone to tire out my love by inflicting pain upon me on every occasion; but I hope you will never succeed in doing this.
I suffer, I despair at heart, but I love you so far, and I hope for both our sakes that I always shall. I cling to my love even more than to your esteem, for the latter is a poor blind thing that cannot distinguish night from day, candle-light from sunshine, or an honest woman from a harlot.
THE BRIDGE OF MARNE. Drawing by Victor Hugo (Victor Hugo Museum).
THE BRIDGE OF MARNE.
Drawing by Victor Hugo (Victor Hugo Museum).
My love is more clear-sighted. It was attracted at once by your physical and spiritual perfection, and has never confused you with any other of the human species. I love you, Toto. Torment me, drive me to desperation if you will, but you shall never succeed in diminishing my affection. My head aches, little man, and the thoughts that fill it at this moment are not calculated to cure its pain. I press my hand upon my brow to crush thought, and I open my heart to all that is good and tender in my love for you. Good-bye, Toto. I adore you. Good-bye. We were very happy this morning; let us try to be so again very soon.
In the meantime I adore you.
Juliette.
Wednesday, 8.45, November 20th, 1839.
I am in despair. I wish I were dead and everything at an end! The more precautions I take, the more I purge my life, the less happiness I achieve. It is as if I were accursed, and I often feel a wild desire to behave as if I were, and crush my love underfoot. I am so unhappy that I lose all courage and hope for the future. You were very good to me when you were going away, but that does not prove that when you come back presently you may not be the most offensive and unjust of men. I sacrifice to you one by one all my actions, even the most insignificant; I am careful inwardly and outwardly to cause you no sort of offence, and yet I am unsuccessful! My struggles only fatigue and dishearten me. On the eve of taking the great step which would bind us to each other even closer than we already are, would it not be better for us to break off our relations, and put a stop to the whole thing instead? I can understand now the generosity of Didier, who elects to die upon the scaffold forgiving Marion with his last breath, rather than live persecuting and torturing her with the recollection of her past, and with suspicions a thousand times more painful than death and oblivion. Ah, yes, I can understand a Didier like that.... I suffer! Ah, God, people who do not love are very fortunate! I love you, and I know that failing some violent remedy I shall continue to suffer and care for you. I admit that all these things I write are absurd, and that it would be wiser to throw this letter into the fire, and keep to myself the thousand and one follies inspired by my despair.
Juliette.
Monday, 5.30 p.m., December 16th, 1839.
You did well, my adored one, to come back after the painful incident we had just gone through. If you had not, I should have been wretched all the evening. Thank you, my beloved Toto, thank you, my love. You looked very preoccupied, my treasure, when you came up the first time. I gathered that Guirault’s letter had something to do with this, and that you were meditating your answer. Beyond that, I did not take much notice, for I was too furious with you to be able to think of anything.
If you knew how much I love you, and how faithful I am to you, my adored one, you would be less suspicious. Suspicion is an insult that makes me frantic, because, it proves to me that you do not believe in either my honesty or my love. Jealousy is another thing: one can be jealous of a face or of a person, because however sure one may be of one’s own superiority, one may still fear that some beast or monster may be preferred to oneself; but jealousy, I repeat, is different from everlasting suspicion of one’s actions and even of one’s negative conduct and inaction. Finally, I differentiate between jealousy and suspicion; I feel there is a great gulf between my jealousy and yours, and yet I love you more than you love me—you cannot gainsay that—if you admit it, I will pardon all your misdeeds and adore you and kiss your dear little feet. Hurrah! I am to have my wardrobe! Hurrah!
You will not be an Academician, but you will always be my dear little lover.
Juliette.
Thursday, 5 p.m., January 16th, 1840.
I love you, my Toto, and am sad at seeing you so seldom. But I know how much you have to do, my little man, so am not angry with you—still that does not prevent me from being horribly sad.
Money melts in my pocket. I was reading yesterday a description of Monsieur de Sévigné, the son, which applies wonderfully to me. “He had no hobbies, did not entertain, gave no presents, wore plain attire, gambled not at all, had only one servant and not a single horse on which to ride out with the King or the Dauphin; yet his hand was like a crucible wherein gold is melted.” I am rather like that. I do not give many presents, I wear the same dress for a year at a time, I only do expensive cooking when you are coming to dine with me, I have only one servant, and yet money disappears in my establishment like snow under the rays of the sun. With me, it is not my hand that is the crucible, but my past life, which is like an abyss that all the money in the world would find it difficult to fill. That is why I am sad. Love me, my Toto, and above all do not kill yourself with working for everybody as you do without respite. I can sell something I do not want, whereas your health and repose are indispensable to my welfare and tranquillity. Remember that, my dear one, and do not be over scrupulous at the expense of the real consideration which makes my happiness. When shall I see you again, treasure?
Juliette.
Sunday, 1.15 p.m., March 22nd, 1840.
Good-morning, my beloved Toto. I read the manuscript of “Didine” over again last night, and I shed all the tears I had restrained in your presence. I am more convinced than ever that you committed an act of unfaithfulness against our love when you composed those lines. I do not see how you can hope to persuade me to the contrary, or wonder that I am wounded to the quick by such a mental and spiritual lapse. Jealousy is not excited only by infidelities of the senses, but primarily by such an infidelity as that which you have committed in writing these verses and concentrating your gaze and your thoughts upon that young girl, while my whole heart and soul were raised in prayer for you in that church at Strasbourg. I will never go back there, either to the church or to the town. There is an end of that. Would to God we had never gone there at all! I should have preserved one illusion more, and suffered one sorrow less. Well, well, it is not your fault. You wished to carry away the memory of that woman, as you could not possess her person, and you have written some very beautiful lines which prove, in the same degree as my pain, what a profound and striking impression she produced upon you. I hope you may never experience a jealousy so well-justified as mine about any woman you may love in the future; for myself I desire a speedy recovery from the most miserable infatuation in all this world.
Juliette.
Monday, 6.45 p.m., June 1st, 1840.
I am writing to you in the company of Résilieux, my love, but that does not restore to me the gaiety I have lost since this morning. That woman and her persistence annoy me more than I can say. When I think of the close confinement in which I live and realise the depth and devotion of the love I bear you, I am indignant to the bottom of my heart that a wretched woman of the street should dare to cast the eye of envy upon a passion which constitutes the religion and adoration of my whole life. If I listened to my own inclination, I should make a terrible example of the hussy and her low caprice, and no other would venture an attempt to capture your affections for many a long day. I am wretched since this morning. I think myself plain, old, stupid, badly dressed—and all because I tremble for the safety of my love, because I am afraid for my poor little slice of happiness. Alas! alas! my Toto, I care too much for you; it is crazy of me. I did so hope that when your family was settled in the country, you would sometimes come and take me out with you—but, on the contrary, in a whole month I have only been out once with you; for I do not count those two evenings at the theatre, when I drove there and back in a carriage. It would be a cruel jest if you considered those as going out with you. I am not well. I have rushes of blood to the head and heart, but you do not care. I shall not do my monthly accounts to-night; my head aches too badly. Perhaps I may try to-morrow. The laundress has been here and I have paid her; I shall probably get the grocer’s bill to-morrow, but I shall certainly not pay it unless you have plundered some passer-by to-night. Meanwhile, I love you, my Toto. Dinner has just been announced; I shall not be as happy as yesterday, for you are not dining with me; but perhaps as I am alone I shall be able to ruminate over my good fortune, for I was hardly able to realise it at all yesterday with all those females about.
Juliette.
January 7th, 9.30 a.m., 1841.
Good-morning, my darling Toto, to whom I dare not yet give his prospective title, for I am very doubtful of the integrity of old Dupaty. I hope you will not keep me waiting too long for the result of the rabid voting of the opposing parties.[81] The contest becomes more and more curious and interesting. I wish it were already four o’clock.
The weather is not very propitious for that moribund scoundrel. It would be difficult to let him down through the window, and still more so to transport him to the place where we do not wish him to be. If the computation is correct, the mortal illness of the old wretch should give you the place by a majority of one vote at the first scrutiny; but what about a black-ball? Perhaps this time it will come from the ignoble creature who walks under the filthy, greasy, hideous hat of that beast Dupaty. I wish we were already at this afternoon, that I might know what the foul old man has dared to do. Until then I shall look at my clock many and many a time. Try, my love, to come at once and tell me the result whatever it may be. I shall at least have the pleasure of seeing you, which will add to the joy of your nomination or console you for your defeat.
By the way, you were so shabby last night that one might suppose you were preparing to contest the palm of bad dressing with that old pickpocket Dupaty. I shall forgive you your untidiness if you are successful. I love you.
Juliette.
Thursday, 6 p.m., January 7th, 1841.
I am enchanted for everybody’s sake, my dear Academician, that at last you are elected. There you are at last, thanks to the seventeen votes of your friends, and in spite of your fifteen adversaries. You are an Academician. Hurrah!
I wish I could have witnessed with my own eyes the grimaces of all those contemptible old things, and heard the profession of faith of that horrible Dupaty; you ought to indemnify me by showing me your own beautiful countenance for a little more than a paltry five minutes as you did just now. I love you, Toto, as much as the first day and more than ever. But, alas, I dare not believe the same of you, for I do not see much proof of it, as my maid would say. The fact is that whether as an Academician, or a candidate, or nothing at all, I hardly see you more than an hour a day. This is neither novel nor consoling; it becomes more and more sad and painful. Think of that, my love, and come very soon after you have read my letter.
I love you.
Juliette.
Sunday, 10.45 a.m., April 11th, 1841.
Good morning, my beloved Toto, my adored little man. How are you, my darling? I am afraid you may have tired yourself last night reading your splendid speech to me. Poor beloved, it would be a calamity that my pleasure should cost you so dear; it would be unjust and cruel. I hope it is not so, my adored one, and that you have not been punished for your kindness.
What a magnificent address! and how stupid it is of me only to appreciate it inwardly, and to be incapable of expressing my feelings better than by inarticulate grunts. It is not my fault, yet since I have learned to love you I have not been able to resign myself to my limitations. Every time the opportunity presents itself to admire you I am furious with myself and should like to slap and kick myself—though my poor body would have no time to recover between the assaults, for every single thing you say and do is as admirable and striking as your written works. So I should be kept busy. Fortunately you do not object to my want of intellect; you realise the quality and proportions of my love. All my intelligence and being have turned to spirit, to idolise you. I may be only a goose outwardly, but inwardly I am sublime with devotion. Which is best? I cannot tell, it is for you to decide. Meanwhile I am the most fortunate of women to have heard the beginning of your beautiful speech, and I love you with all my strength.
Juliette.
Thursday, 4.30 a.m., June 3rd, 1841.
Good morning, my adored little man, my beloved Monsieur l’Académicien! How are you, my Toto? I am very much afraid you will be horribly tired before this afternoon, poor treasure![82] I think you should have had the speech printed a day earlier, and have kept this night free for resting.
I really do not know how you will manage to deliver your address after these several days of grinding fatigue, and a night spent in correcting the proofs at the printing-works. Nobody but you can accomplish these feats of endurance. Still, my beloved, it is time you changed a mode of living which must kill you in the long run. I hope you are going to spend the remaining few hours in your bed.
I already feel as agitated as if I were going to make the speech myself. I shall be in a desperate state of mind until you have finished and Salvandy begins to speak. I shall have this fearful lump on my chest until then.
Whatever happens I adore you.
Juliette.
June 3rd, 5.30 p.m., 1841.
Where shall I begin, my love? At your divine feet or your celestial brow? What shall I express first? My admiration? Or the adoration that overflows my heart like your sublime genius surpasses the mediocre creatures who listened to you without understanding, and gazed at you without falling upon their knees! Ah, let me mingle those two sentiments that dazzle my brain and burn up my heart. I love you! I admire you! I adore you! You are truly splendid, noble, and sublime, my poet, my beloved, light of my eyes, flame of my heart, life of my life! Poor adored beloved; when I saw you enter, so pale and shaken, I felt myself swooning, and but for the support of Madame Démousseaux and Madame Pierceau, I should have fallen to the floor. Happily nobody noticed my emotion, and when I came to myself and saw your sweet smile answering mine and encouraging me, I felt as if I were awaking from a long, painful dream, though only a second of time had elapsed.
Thank you, my adored one, for sparing a thought to the poor woman who loves you, at that solemn moment—I should have said, that supreme moment, if the assemblage had not consisted for the greater part of tiresome blockheads and vile scoundrels.
Thank you, my good angel, my sublime Victor, my illustrious child. I saw all your dear little family;[83] lovely Didine, charming Charlot, and dear little Toto who looked pale and delicate. I kissed them all in spirit as I did their divine father.
I love you.
Juliette.
Thursday, 2.30 p.m., July 8th, 1841.
While you are lording it at the Académie[84] I am weeping and suffering at home. You might have spared me this pain by inviting me to attend the sitting, or else staying away yourself. I must warn you, my Toto, that this sort of sacrifice and torment is unendurable, and if it happens again I do not know what I may do rather than resign myself to it.
We are not living in the East, and you have not bought me, thank Heaven! I am free to cast off the yoke of proceedings which are neither just, nor kind, nor affectionate. I swear by all I hold most sacred in this world, namely my love, that I will not submit a third time to be thus flouted. If you knew how furious and miserable I am feeling at this moment of writing, you would not venture to inflict a third trial of the kind upon me. In any case pray keep my letter as a definite announcement of what I am capable of doing if you are so cruel as to persist in your present line of conduct. Meanwhile I am doing my best to avoid taking any definitely fatal step, but I warn you that I cannot much longer remain mistress of myself.
Juliette.
1 a.m.
Hell in my heart at noon, Paradise at midnight, my Toto. I love you and have full confidence in you.
Friday, 7.45 p.m., November 19th, 1841.
I have it! hurrah!! Fancy, it has been here all the morning, yet nothing warned me! My heart did not beat faster than usual, the earth did not tremble, the skies did not fall, in fact everything remained in its humdrum, normal condition, as if nothing unusual had happened—and it was here all the time! I possessed it in my room, under my eyes! Verily it can hardly be credited, and if anybody but myself said so I should not believe it. But what you must believe, my love, for indeed it is true, is that I love you and that you are the kindest, most charming, best, handsomest, most generous, most noble, and most adored of men. That is what you have got to believe, because it is God’s own truth. The cabinet is fascinating, but what is still nicer is the way you gave it to me. “The manner of the gift is better than the gift itself,” was once said by some one whose name I have forgotten. When you are the donor, the proverb is still more applicable. If you had all the treasures of the universe to bestow, you would do it with a grace that would enhance the value of the gift a thousandfold. As for me I am mad with delight, for I believe you love me. I may tell you now that last night I cried helplessly at the thought of how much younger and handsomer you are than I. I anticipated the moment when you will no longer be able to love me, and my heart contracted so that I should have suffocated without the relief of tears. I feel I shall certainly die the day you cease to care for me, and I know that no other woman can ever worship you as I do. But I trust that day will never dawn, will it, my angel? There are no wrinkles in the heart, and you will see my face only in the reflection of your attachment, eh, Victor, my beloved? The while I wept and mourned, you were thinking of me, my poor sweet, and bringing me the cabinet. We were both performing an act of love, mine gloomy, yours, charming and considerate like everything you do. I hope your present will bring us both happiness, and that you will adore me as long as I shall admire my dear little cabinet—that is, for ever.
I have it! what happiness! I should like to put it in the middle of the room on a golden table, or in my bed, or carry it in my arms, on my heart, anywhere in fact where it could be seen and touched. Meanwhile I will give it a good cleaning to-morrow. It is rather too late to-night. I must do some copying, and dine, and send you back the scribble you entrusted to me yesterday, so I will put off till to-morrow—principally because I shall have a better light then. I will clean it in bed, drawer by drawer. It will be a delightful occupation.
I love you, I love you, Toto, I kiss you and adore you, Toto.
Juliette.
Wednesday evening, 6.30, February 9th, 1842.
Do you really want me to write Toto, even when my heart is breaking, and my soul brimful of discouragement? I obey, but if you would only listen to me, you would allow me to discontinue these daily scrawls, which have never served any purpose but that of betraying the measure of my stupidity and making you tire of a love become absurd by dint of reiteration. I feel you only insist out of kindness, but it seems futile to continue this childish babble, which deceives neither you nor me, and gives me no indication of what is passing in your mind. It would be better, my beloved, to inure me gradually to a catastrophe which may be nearer than I guess, than to make efforts to leave me an illusion which neither of us really shares nowadays. A sad ending to all our past happiness! God grant it may not be altogether buried. This does not prevent me from doing you full justice, my friend. You are kind with a kindness full of pity and divine indulgence, but you no longer cherish for me the love of a man for a woman. Do not pretend otherwise, for you cannot delude me. I bear you no grudge my Victor, neither should you bear me any, for it is no more your fault than mine, that you do not love me while I still love you—not our fault, but God’s, Who distributes unequally the amount of love we may each expend during our lives. Happy he or she to whom the smaller sum is apportioned—so much the worse for him or her whose heart is inexhaustible. Now, my beloved Toto, I will torment you no longer. I will even try to make myself agreeable, though, alas, what woman can be agreeable when she is no longer loved! But I shall do my best, and that, coupled with your natural generosity, may still retard for a few days the greatest misfortune of my life. Fear nothing from me, my Victor. You have to-day received the last expression of my choler. One may strike, and even kill, while one feels oneself beloved, but one must spare the man who no longer cherishes one.
You see, my Victor, that you have nothing to be afraid of, but I beseech you to let me off these daily scribbles about things that have neither point nor reason.
I demand this of your goodness.
Juliette.
Thursday, 2.30 p.m., February 10th, 1842.
My beloved, my adored Victor, thank you! You remove hell from my heart, and replace it with paradise. Thank you! My life, my spirit, my soul, bless and adore you. What a letter, my God! I wanted to read it kneeling; happy tears poured down my cheeks. You love me, my dear one! It must be true, for you declare it in the loveliest, sweetest language of the whole world. You love me although I am ill-tempered, violent, stupid; you love me my good angel, because you know that your love is the breath of life to me, and that without it I could no longer exist. I also love you, but only God and myself know how deeply. Yesterday when you left me, I was on my knees praying and kissing with tears the footsteps I could hear fading away in the street. I could have flung myself out of the window and died at your feet. My despair, then, was as poignant as the bliss I felt just now when I read your adored letter. My Victor, my love, my life, my joy, I love you more than ever! I implore your forgiveness, I throw myself at your feet and embrace them. Thank you, my treasure. You must be very happy, for you have done a lovely thing in writing me the most charming, the kindest, the most wonderful and most adorable letter that ever issued from your heart.
Juliette.
Thursday, 9.30, April 30th, 1842.
Good morning, my adored Toto. How did the little invalid sleep last night? As for you, I do not even ask, my poor dear, for I know you spend all your nights working. I love you, my poor angel. I do not know what else to say, because that is the only thought in my heart and soul; to love you always and for ever. Here comes the bright sunshine that is going to cure our poor little man at once.[85] I have not seen a finer spring since the one we spent strolling about the heights of Montmartre together. I cannot think of it without tears of regret for the days that are gone, and of gratitude to Providence for those few moments of most perfect felicity. I would give half my life to have it again, my beloved Toto; and it depends only upon you—if you wished it, we could easily recover the happiness of those days. Why do you no longer desire it? I know you have to work, but so you did then—Claude Gueux, Philosophie Mêlée, Les Voix Intérieures, Les Chants du Crépuscule, Angélo, Les Rayons et Les Ombres and Ruy Blas, are there to prove it. In those days you loved me better than you do at present. Alas, I love you more than ever, or rather, as much as the first day!—that is, with all my soul.
Juliette.
A DEDICATION BY VICTOR HUGO TO JULIETTE DROUET. The original belongs to M. Louis Barthou.
A DEDICATION BY VICTOR HUGO TO JULIETTE DROUET.
The original belongs to M. Louis Barthou.
Saturday, 6.30 p.m., August 20th, 1842.
I am a strange creature—at least you think so, do you not, beloved? But what you take for eccentricity, caprice, bad-temper, is really love, but an unhappy love, mistrustful and anxious. Everything is to me a subject of dread almost amounting to despair. Thus this visit to the Duchesse d’Orléans, whither I quite admit you were kind enough to take me, was simply a torment on account of the hour and the circumstances: I, badly dressed, barely clean, and that woman under the prestige of a great sorrow[86] which, next to physical beauty, is the surest way to your heart. I frankly confess that however gallant my love may be, and whatever reliance I may place upon your loyalty, I am not easy when I have to fight and struggle without weapons. This result of a surprise and a hurried rush through Paris in a cab may seem excessive to you, and verging on hysteria; but the fact is, my adored one, that my love, so long repressed, is verily degenerating into a disease, almost into frenzy. Everything hurts me. I am afraid of everything. I am a poor thing needing much compassion for loving you so. If these incoherent expressions do not force upon you the realisation of the depth of my devotion, it must be that you no longer care for me, or indeed have never done so; but if on the contrary you do understand, you will pity and pardon me, and love me all the better, and I am the happiest of women.
Juliette.
February 14th, 11.15 a.m., 1843.
Good morning beloved Toto, good morning adored one. I love you. When I heard you describing last night the impression produced upon you by the rehearsal of Lucrèce and more especially by the singing of the guests, I seemed to feel it all myself. The fact that my love has not grown a day older, that my admiration is still on the increase, that I think you as handsome and as young as ever, makes it easier for me to go back to the feelings of those days. Looking into my heart, I seem to feel that all this adulation and joy and feast of glory and love began yesterday. Alas, those ten years have left traces only upon my poor countenance, and have been as harsh to it as they have been indulgent to your charming features.
I express this somewhat crudely, as I always manage to do, but it is not my fault, my love, nor any one else’s. I love you. Therein consist my intelligence, my wit, my superiority; beyond that I am as stupid as any other animal.
You must be very busy to-day with the two rehearsals,[87] and the Maxime[88] worry which falls upon your devoted head, not to speak of the great business! I dare not expect you to-night till very late. Well, my dearly beloved, I know you do not belong to me, so I will resign myself as cheerfully as may be, and put a good face upon your absence. Try to think of me, my dear little man; that is all I venture to ask at this moment. As for me, there is no more merit in thinking of you and loving you than in breathing.
I love you, Toto, as much as life.
Juliette.
Wednesday, 4.30 p.m., September 13th, 1843.
Where are you? What are you about, my adored one?[89] In what condition is your family? What state are you in yourself? what will happen to us all in our despair, if God be not merciful to us! Since you left me I can think only of your arrival at home. I imagine the scene: the despairing sobs of your children, the expression of your own frightful grief, so long and sternly repressed. All those tears and sufferings fall back upon my heart and rend it. I cannot bear more. My poor head is on fire and my hands burn like live coals. I want to pray and cannot; all my faculties, all my being, turn to you. I would give my life to spare you a single pang. I would have sacrificed myself in this world, and the next to save your adored child. My God, what will become of me if you stay away much longer, when I have refrained with such difficulty from sending to get news of you? I have begged Madame Lanvin to come to me this afternoon and bring her husband, so that if, as I fear, I have not seen you before then, he can go and ask for news of you under the name of Monsieur St. Hilaire. My heart aches, my poor treasure, when I think of all you are enduring. I feel I cannot much longer bear not seeing you. I shall commit some act of folly if you do not come to my assistance. I exhausted my strength and courage on that awful journey, and during last night and to-day. I have none left now to endure your absence. I picture to myself your wife ill, and you also; in fact, I am like a mad thing in the extremity of my anxiety and grief. I am trying to occupy myself mechanically, in order to bring nearer the moment when I shall see you, but my efforts only make every minute of waiting seem like a century, and all the fears my heart anticipates, become frightful realities against which I cannot struggle. My adored Victor, whatever be your despair, mine is greater still; for I feel it through my love, which makes it a hundred times worse and multiplies it beyond all human calculation. Never has man been so idolised by woman as you are by me, and the poor angel we mourn knows it and sees it now, as God knows and sees it, and she will forgive, as He does, I am certain. I think of her, poor beloved, as an angel of heaven. To her I shall direct my prayers, that she may give you the strength and courage you need. To her also I shall address myself in the hour of death, that the good God may take me with all of you into His Paradise.
My adored Victor, it is more than five o’clock, and you have not yet come. What shall I do! What can I think, or rather what am I to fear? We are in a terrible cycle of misfortune, and God only knows when it will end. My Victor, before giving way to despair, think of mine, remember that I love you more than life.
Juliette.
Sunday, 5.45 p.m., October 8th, 1843.
I have been working all the morning my beloved, or rather scribbling on paper—only to please you, for I doubt whether my labour will be of any use to you; still, I am trying hard, and if I cannot do better, I am doing my best. I cannot do more. I am trying more especially to forget no detail, which makes me occasionally note down trivialities, little futile, insignificant things. My search among our memories is like the botanising of a child who is as apt to collect couch grass as the more useful and rarer plants. However, I am doing my best, and better still, I am obeying you. Would you believe that, although I have been writing the whole day, I have not yet reached Auch.[90] My mind and pen rather resemble the fantastic equipage we drove thither, but there is less risk in the present venture. The worst that can happen is that we should tumble promiscuously into a muck heap of absurdities and nonsense which leave no bruises, whereas we risked our necks several times in the course of the thirty-three miles between Tarbes and Auch.
I should love to see you, my Toto. The day, though filled with joyous recollections of our journey, has seemed long and sad to me. Nothing can take the place of one of your embraces. The remembrance of the greatest happiness cannot weigh against one glance from you. I realise it more to-day than ever before; therefore, do try and come, my beloved Toto. It will give me courage and patience to get through the evening. I love you too much, you see, but I cannot help it; it is no fault of mine.
Juliette.
Sunday, 7.15 p.m., November, 1843.
I think of you my beloved, I desire you, I love you. Ah yes, I love you my adored Toto, you may be sure of it, for it is God’s truth. My little Claire and I talk of you and nothing but you. We love you and bless you. The poor little child will not be with me much longer, and I can already see her poor little face wrinkling up with sorrow; but I try to be cheerful and to remind her of the fortnight’s holiday which will soon come. We love the pictures of your dear little Toto, and his pretty home. We gaze at them with eagerness and affection, we are all eyes and heart. At this moment Claire is reading Ulric’s poems,[91] while I am writing to my beloved Toto with a heart full of gratitude and devotion. May the happiness you bestow upon me, be yours also, my love! May a just pride sustain you, for you have saved two souls, the mother’s and the daughter’s! I feel ineffable things I dare not express, for fear of vulgarising them by the mere fact of putting them into words. Do not delay long ere you come, my darling Toto. If you knew the joy and radiance you diffuse in this house, you would indeed hasten your steps. Alas, I am foolish, for have you not children of your own whom you must also make glad! I am envious of them, but not cruel enough to deprive them of their bliss—only I beg of them to hurry with their enjoyment, so that my turn may come.
Did you give Dédé the sachet? Did Toto take back his quince jelly? Meanwhile, I am giving Suzanne a whole evening to herself, and making my little rogue read Le Musée des Familles. I should love to give you a good kiss, but I know you will not come for it. You have not the sense to do so.
Juliette.
Monday, 11.15 a.m., July 22nd, 1844.
Good morning my beloved, my sweet, my darling little Toto. How are you? Are you less sad and painfully pre-occupied than yesterday, my adored one? Alas, it is unlikely ... your grief and sorrow are not of those that time can soften. You have the painful faculty of feeling things far more acutely than do other men. Genius does not only pertain to the brain, it belongs above all to the heart. My poor dear one, I love you; I suffer when you suffer; be merciful to us both, I implore you.
My little Claire went away this morning. She was more resigned than usual, for she has a holiday of three days in prospect, beginning next Saturday. The poor little thing is very devoted to us; her sole happiness is to be with us. She complains of not seeing you often enough, and I back her up in that. You must try to give us at least one evening out of the three she will spend at home. Verily I am not very cheerful company for the poor child when I am alone with her. I am so absorbed in my love that sometimes I do not speak to her twice in the day, however much I try to bring myself to do so.
I have copied Méry’s verses, because I do not wish to deprive Mademoiselle Dédé of his autograph. I can understand her setting store by it, poor darling, so I shall make a point of returning it to her. Only (and it is you I am addressing now) you must give me just as many as you give her. You must not lose your good habits, my darling, for I am sure it would bring us bad luck. Therefore you must bring me all your letters as you used to do. I promise to divide them conscientiously with dear little Dédé, and you know quite well that I am a woman of my word. I adore you.
Juliette.
Thursday, 4.45 p.m., October 20th, 1844.
I have sent to Barbedienne, my adored one, but Suzanne has not yet returned. I am writing to you meanwhile to make the time hang less heavy. I hope to goodness I may be able to procure that lovely medal![92] Since I have glimpsed the chance of possessing it, I feel my disappointment would be greater than I could bear, if I failed to get it. Good God, how slowly that girl walks! Fancy having to trust to legs like those on such an occasion! I could have gone there and back ten times, since she went. May the devil fly away with her, or rather, precipitate her right into the middle of my room with his cloven foot, providing only that she brings the longed-for medal!
JULIETTE DROUET IN 1846. Bust by Victor Vilain (Victor Hugo Museum).
JULIETTE DROUET IN 1846.
Bust by Victor Vilain (Victor Hugo Museum).
Here she is! Ah! Victor, do not be angry! Victor, I am at your feet—Victor, I will be reasonable for the whole of the rest of my life if only you will let me add 15 fr. to the sum you promised me. Oh, Victor, I have not time to wait for your answer and yet I fear to annoy you. Ah, no, you are too kind to be angry with your poor Juju who loves you with such absolute admiring, devoted love! You will look at her with your gentle, ineffable smile, and say I was right—surely, yes, you will. Three cheers for Toto! Juju is a clever woman ... at heart. Yes, it is quite true and I am the happiest of women.
Juliette.
Tuesday, 9.30 a.m., September, 1845.
I have just been gardening, beloved. I am soaked with dew and all muddy, but I have spent three hours thinking of you without any bitterness. My eyes were as moist as my flowers, but I was not weeping. While I busied myself with the garden, I reviewed in thought the lovely flowers of my past happiness. I saw them again fresh and blooming as the first day, and I felt close to you, separated only by a breath. As long as the illusion lasted I was almost happy. I should have liked to pluck my soul and send it to you as a nosegay. Perhaps what I am saying is silly, yet it is the sort of nonsense that can only issue direct from the tenderest, most passionate heart that ever lived. For nearly thirteen years past, I have never once written to you without feeling my hand tremble and my eyes fill. When I speak of you, no matter to whom, my heart swells as if it would burst through my lips. When I am dead, I am certain that the imprint of my love will be found on my heart. It is impossible to worship as I do without leaving some visible trace behind when life is over.
My beloved Victor, let your thoughts dwell with me, so that my days may seem shorter and less dreary; and do try to surprise me by coming to-night. Oh, how happy I shall be if you do that!
Meanwhile, I love you more than I can say.
Juliette.
Saturday, 8 a.m., September 27th, 1845.
Good morning my beloved, my soul, my life, my adored Victor. How are you? I hope yesterday did not tire you too much. I forgot until you reminded me that you have been forbidden to walk much, but I do trust it did you no harm; did it, Victor darling? As for me I felt no fatigue, I seemed to have wings. I should have liked to place my feet on all the paths we traversed together eleven years ago, to kiss the very stones of the roads and the leaves on the trees, and to pick all the flowers in the woods, so keenly did I fancy they were the very same that watched us pass together all those years ago. I gazed at you my adored Victor, and in my eyes you were as young and handsome, nay handsomer even, than eleven years ago. I looked into my heart and found it full of the same ecstasy and adoration that animated it the first day I loved you. Nothing was changed in us or about us. The same ardent, devoted, sad and sweet affection in our hearts, the same autumn sun and sky above our heads, the same picture in the same frame; nothing had changed in eleven years. I would have given a decade of my life to stand alone for ten minutes in that house that has sheltered our memories for so long. I should like to have carried away ashes from the fireplace, dust from the floors. I should have liked to pray and weep, where once I prayed and wept, to have died of love on the spot where once I accepted your soul in a kiss. I had to exercise superhuman self-control not to perpetrate some act of folly in the presence of that girl who showed us so indifferently over a house I could have purchased at the price of half the rest of my life. Fortunately, thanks to her profound ignorance of our identity, she noticed nothing, and we were each able to bring away a tiny relic of our former happiness. Mine must be buried with me when I die.
Beloved, did you work late last night? It was very imprudent of you if you did, after the fatigue you underwent during the day. To-day, you must be very careful and not walk much. I shall be extremely stern with you. My antiquarian propensities shall not make me forget, like yesterday, that you are still convalescent and must hardly walk at all. And you will obey me, because little Totos must always obey little Jujus, as you know.
Kiss me, my adored Victor, and may God bless you for all the happiness you give me.
Juliette.
Saturday, 9 p.m., May 2nd, 1846.
I cannot nerve myself to the realisation that I shall not see you this evening my sweet adored beloved; yet it is all too true. This is the first time in fourteen years that I have not slept in a room belonging to you.[93] Consequently I am feeling quite forlorn. Everything conspires to harrow me. Just now when I left you I longed for death, and the tears I drove from my eyes trickled inwardly to my sad heart. If this anxiety about my child, and the separation from you, are to last long, I do not think I shall have strength to endure them. I am vexed and disgusted at the tone of those about me. I am ashamed and indignant at my inability to remove myself from it, however I may try; then when I remember you, so generous, so loyal, so noble, so kind and indulgent, my bitterness evaporates and nothing remains in my heart but admiration, gratitude, and love for your divine and fascinating self.
When I got back, I found my child in a raging fever. I gave her fresh compresses, and now she is sleeping. God grant she may do so all night, and that the change of ideas and surroundings and air may have a good effect upon her health. I shall in that case have less cause to grudge the sacrifices I am voluntarily making to that end. Meanwhile, I am a prey to fearful anxiety, and am suffering the uttermost from the absence of what I love best in this world, above life, above duty, above everything. Good-night, beloved. Think of me. Sleep well, and love me.
Juliette.
Tuesday, 3.45 p.m., 1846.
I love you, my Victor. Between every letter of those five sweet words there lurk depths of maternal anguish and sorrow. Gloomy reflections mingle with my tenderest thoughts. My life at this moment is divided between my poor little daughter whom I already mourn in anticipation, (for I feel that these few days of illness are but snatched from Eternity), and my adoration for you, from which no preoccupation, even of the most terrible and sinister character, can long distract me. On the contrary, my love is all the greater for the trials and sufferings God sends me. I love you selflessly, as if I myself were already over the border. My heart is racked, yet I adore you.
Claire’s condition is the same as yesterday; only the weakness, which, but for the doctor’s plain warning I might have attributed to the heat, has increased. The night was not very bad; the poor little thing suffers hardly at all. She seems to have no firmer hold on life than life has upon her. Apathy and profound indifference characterise her illness. Only her father has the power to rouse her for the few moments he is with her. He came this morning and happened to meet the doctor,[94] who, it appears, is not quite so despondent as Monsieur Triger;[95] but what does that prove?
I have not been able to get her up at all to-day. She lay in bed in a state of profuse and constant perspiration. The various tonics she takes fail to produce any effect whatever. The exhaustion increases hour by hour, which means that death is coming nearer. I pray, but I obtain neither solace nor confidence. The good God disdains my prayers and rejects them, I know—yet I love and admire Him in His beneficent, lofty, noble, generous and beautiful works.
I love Him as His saints and angels in Heaven love Him. What more can I do to find favour in His eyes? He deprived me of my mother at my birth; now He is about to snatch my child from me. Is that His justice? I do not want to blaspheme, but I am very miserable, and if I do not see you, if you cannot come to-day, I do not know what will become of me. Despair fills my soul, but I love you. God may crush my heart if He so wills, but the last breath from it shall be a cry of love for you, my sublime beloved.
Juliette.
April 29th, 9 a.m., 1847.
Good morning, my adored Victor. My thoughts and soul and heart go out to you in this greeting. I hope I shall see you before you go to the rehearsal, for if I do not, I shall have to wait till this evening, which would increase my depression. From now until the anniversary of the terrible day on which I lost my poor child, every hour and minute is punctuated by the recollection of the sufferings of that poor little thing, and of the anguish I went through. They are painful memories, impossible to exclude from my thoughts. Last night while I lay sleepless I seemed to hear her, and in my dreams I saw her again as she looked at the close of her illness. I am worn out this morning. All the pangs and fatigues of the last moments of her life weigh down my heart and limbs. It may be that I shall find comfort in prayer, and I shall pray better by her side, buoyed up by the hope that she will hear me and obtain for me resignation enough to bear her absence without murmur or bitterness. It was you who gave me the courage to live. All that a heart can gain from consolation, I found in your love; but there is a grief surpassing all others and beyond human aid, for which only God can provide, and to Him I must address myself to-day.
Juliette.
Thursday, 8 a.m., May 6th, 1847.
Good morning, my all, my greatly loved Toto. How are you this morning? Did you gather in a good harvest of glances, smiles and flattery yesterday from the women you met? Were you the cause of many incipient passions, or were you yourself ensnared by those females, like any beardless student or bald-headed peer of the realm? Tell me, how are you after your evening at Court? For my part, I have a very sore throat and am feeling fearfully cross. I have a longing to scratch which I should love to vent upon the face of some woman or even upon yours—or better still, upon both. I am sick of playing the gentle, sheep-like woman. I intend to become as fierce as a hyena, and to make your life and everything depending upon it a burthen to you. I mean to make a terrible example of you, so that people shall say as you pass by, that it is a woman who has been outraged, but a Juju who has avenged herself! Meanwhile, to begin with, I am going to wrest from you somehow, two silk dresses, a lovely hat, two pairs of smart shoes; and if you do not confess your crime, I will punish you to the tune of torrents of tea-gowns, pocket-handkerchiefs, and silk stockings. I am capable of anything if you drive me too far.
Juliette.
Tuesday, 12.45 p.m., June 6th, 1848.
The more I think of all that is going on in Paris at this moment, my beloved, the less do I desire the success of your election.[96] We must let this frenzy of the populace which knows not what it wants and is in no condition to distinguish the true from the false, or evil from good, exhaust itself first. When it is worn out with turning in its own vicious circle of disorder, violence, and misery, it will come to heel and humbly crave the assistance of incorruptible, strong, sane politicians, among whom you are the most incorruptible, the strongest, and the sanest. I say this in the simplicity of my heart, without any pretension to be other than a mere woman who loves you above all things, and trembles lest you should enter upon some undertaking that might jeopardise your life without saving your country. Therefore I pray that this candidature, to which you have been driven in self-sacrifice and generosity, may not succeed. If I am unpatriotic, I accept the blame, but I do think that in this instance my feeling is in accord with the best interests of France. It would not be the first time that the heart has proved cleverer than the brain. It has happened too often in my case for me to marvel. Pending our next meeting, I kiss you from my soul, I adore you with all my strength.