Chapter XXX: Letter XIX

THE ROCKS, Wednesday, September 16, 1671.

I am wicked to-day, my child. I am just in the same humor as when you used to say, “_You are wicked_.” I am very dull and spiritless: I have not heard from you. “Warm affections are never tranquil;” _a maxim_. It rains; we are quite alone; in short, I wish you a pleasanter day than I am likely to have. What greatly perplexes the abbé, La Mousse, and the rest of my party, is, that there is no remedy for the evil. I want it to be Friday, that I may have a letter from you, and it is but Wednesday. This puzzles them. They do not know what to do for me in this case, for if, in the excess of their friendship, they were to assure me it was Friday, that would be still worse; for if I had not a letter from you then, I should be lost to all reason. I am obliged to have patience; though patience, you know, is a virtue that I am not much in the habit of practising; but I shall be easy before three days have passed. I am very anxious to know how you are after your alarm. These alarms are my aversion; for though I am not with child myself, they make me become so, that is, they put me in a condition that entirely destroys my health. However, my uneasiness does not at present reach so far; for I am persuaded you have been prudent enough to keep your bed, and that will have set all matters right again. Do not tell me, that you will not let me know any thing about your health; that would make me desperate, and having no longer any confidence in what you say, I should be always in the way I am in at present. We are, it must be owned, at a fine distance from each other, and if either of us had any thing upon the mind that required immediate relief, we should have plenty of time to hang ourselves in.

I thought it necessary yesterday to take a small dose of morality, and I found myself a great deal the better for it; and still more so for a little criticism on the Bérénice of Racine, which I thought very diverting and ingenious. It is by the author[52] of the sylphs, gnomes, and salamanders. There are a few words which are not quite so good as they should be, and even unbecoming a man who knows the world; these grate the ear; but, as they occur only here and there, they ought not to prejudice us against the whole, which, I assure you, upon examination, I found a very well-written critique. As I fancied this trifle would have diverted you, I heartily wished for you by my side in the closet, provided you could return again to your magnificent castle as soon as you had read it. And yet I own I should have felt some pain in letting you go so soon. I know too well what the last parting cost me. It would partake of the humor I have just been complaining of. I can not think of it even now without shuddering; but you are safe from this inconvenience. I hope this letter will find you cheerful; if so, I beg you will burn it directly, for it would be very extraordinary if it should be agreeable to you, considering the horrid humor I write it in. It is very happy for the coadjutor that I do not answer his letter to-day.

[52] The Abbé Villars, author of the Count de Gabalis.

I have a great inclination to ask you a thousand questions by way of finishing this performance worthily. Have you many grapes? you tell me only of figs. Is the weather very hot? you do not say a word about it. Have you such charming cattle as we have at Paris? Has your aunt D’Harcourt been with you long? You see that, having lost so many of your letters, I am quite ignorant how matters stand, and have entirely lost the thread of your discourse. Ah! how I long to beat somebody! and how much I should be obliged to any Breton that would come and say something very silly, to put me in a passion! You told me the other day that you were glad I was returned to my solitude that I might think of you. Very pretty that! as if I did not think sufficiently of you in every other place. Farewell, my dear--this is the best part of my letter. I finish, because I think I talk foolishly, and I must preserve my credit.