Poor Madame de Castries is going away, dying, and so dying that I blame myself for not having been there for a month, for those infamous Parisians have deserted her because she suffers. What a sad sentiment is that of pity. Therefore!--Ah!
I have been for several days sad and distressed. I did not tell you this yesterday. The post hour went by, and I kept this letter. Yes, I have failed in hope, I who live only by hope, that noble virtue of the Christian life. "Le Médecin de campagne" reappears to-morrow. What will be its fate?
I have been very happy this morning; you could never, perhaps, guess why. I should have to paint to you the state of a poor solitary who stays in his cell, rue Cassini, and whose only rejoicing is in a tiny winged insect which comes from time to time. The poor little gleam was late in coming, and I was horribly afraid, saying to myself: "Where is she? Is anything amiss with her? She has been eaten up!" At last the pretty little creature came. Once more I saw my _bête à bon dieu_, iridescent, a little mournful; but I put it on my paper and asked it, as if it were a person: "Have you come from Italy? How are my friends?"
You will take me for a lunatic--no, for I have heart and intellect, and only trespass through excess, not want, of sensibility. That is how a man who wrote the "Treize" can weep with joy on again beholding the scales of his little insect.
Well, adieu. I wish that _you_ might have the same quiverings. That is only saying that one is still young, that the heart beats strong, that life is beautiful, that one feels, one loves, and that all the riches of the earth are less than one hour of sensuous joy such as I had with my little insect. And, also, do you know how much of joy, amber, flowers, grace of the countries it flies through, that little creature can bring back? See all that poesy can invent about a _bête à bon dieu_, and what lunatics are hermits and dreamers!
Well, adieu; be happy on your journey; see all those fine countries well. As for me, I am furious at being nailed to this little mahogany table, which has been so long the witness of my thoughts, sorrows, miseries, distresses, joys--of all! Thus I will never give it except to ----. But I will not tell you all my secrets to-day.