I have returned home to write to you under the empire of a violent annoyance. Out of low envy the editor of the "Revue de Paris" postpones for a week my third number of the "Histoire des Treize." Fifteen days' interval will kill the interest in it, and I had worked day and night to avoid any delay. For this last affair, which is the drop of water in too full a cup, I shall probably cease all collaboration in the "Revue de Paris." I am so disgusted by the tricky enmity which broods there for me that I shall retire from it; and if I retire, it will be forever. To a certain degree my will is cast in bronze, and nothing can make me change it. In reading the "Histoire" in the March number, you will never suspect the base and unworthy annoyances which have been instigated against me in the inner courts of that review. They bargain for me as if I were a fancy article; sometimes they play me monkey tricks [_malices de nègre_]; sometimes insults upon me are anonymously put into the Album of the Revue; at other times they fall at my feet, basely. When "Juana" appeared, they inserted a notice that made me pass for a madman.
But why should I tell you these miserable things? The joke is that they represent me as being unpunctual; promising, and not keeping my promises. Two years ago, Sue quarrelled with a bad courtesan, celebrated for her beauty (she is the original of Vernet's Judith). I lowered myself to reconcile them, and the consequence is the woman is given to me. M. de Fitz-James, the Duc de Duras, and the old court, all went to her house to talk, as on neutral ground, much as people walk in the alley of the Tuileries to meet one another; and I am expected to be more strait-laced than those gentlemen! In short, by some fatal chance I can't take a step that is not interpreted as evil. What a punishment is celebrity! But, indeed, to publish one's thoughts, is it not prostituting them? If I had been rich and happy they should all have been kept for my love.
Two years ago, among a few friends, I used to tell stories in the evening, after midnight. I have given that up. There was danger of my passing for an _amuser_; and I should have lost consideration. At every step there is a pitfall. So now I have retired into silence and solitude. I needed the great deception with which all Paris is now busy to fling myself into this other extremity. There is still a Metternich in this adventure; but this time it is the son, who died in Florence. I have already told you of this cruel affair, and I had no right to tell you. Though separated from that person out of delicacy, all is not over yet. I suffer through her; but I do not judge her. Only, I think that if you loved some one, and if you had daily drawn that person towards you into heaven, and you became free, you would not leave him alone at the bottom of an icy abyss after having warmed him with the fire of your soul. But forget all that; I have spoken to you as to my own consciousness. Do not betray a soul that takes refuge in yours.