“My friend, Alfred is saved.  There has been no fresh attack, and we have nearly reached the fourteenth day without the improvement having altered.  After the brain affection inflammation of the lungs declared itself, and this rather alarmed us for two days. . . .  He is extremely weak at present, and he wanders occasionally.  He has to be nursed night and day.  Do not imagine, therefore, that I am only making pretexts for the delay in my work.  I have not undressed for eight nights.  I sleep on a sofa, and have to get up at any minute.  In spite of this, ever since I have been relieved in my mind about the danger, I have been able to write a few pages in the mornings while he is resting.  You may be sure that I should like to be able to take advantage of this time to rest myself.  Be assured, my friend, that I am not short of courage, nor yet of the will to work.  You are not more anxious than I am that I should carry out my engagements.  You know that a debt makes me smart like a wound.  But you are friend enough to make allowances for my situation and not to leave me in difficulties.  I am spending very wretched days here at this bedside, for the slightest sound, the slightest movement causes me constant terror.  In this disposition of mind I shall not write any light works.  They will be heavy, on the contrary, like my fatigue and my sadness.

“Do not leave me without money, I beseech you, or I do not know what will happen to me.  I spend about twenty francs a day in medicine of all sorts.  We do not know how to keep him alive. . . .”

These letters give the lie to some of the gossip that has been spread abroad with regard to the episode of the Hotel Danieli.  And I too, thanks to these letters, shall have put an end to a legend!  In the second volume of Wladimir Karenine’s work on George Sand, on page 61, we have the following words—­

“Monsieur Plauchut tells us that, according to Buloz, Musset had been enticed into a gambling hell during his stay in Venice, and had lost about four hundred pounds there.  The imprudent young man could not pay this debt of honour, and he never would have been able to do so.  He had to choose between suicide or dishonour.  George Sand did not hesitate a moment.  She wrote at once to the manager of the Revue, asking him to advance the money.”  And this debt was on her shoulders for a long time.

The facts of the case are as follows, according to a letter from George Sand to Buloz:  “I beseech you, as a favour, to pay Alfred’s debt and to write to him that it is all settled.  You cannot imagine the impatience and the disturbance that this little matter cause him.  He speaks to me of it every minute, and begs me every day to write to you about it.  He owes these three hundred and sixty francs (L14 8_s_.) to a young man he knows very little and who might talk of it to people. . . .  You have already advanced much larger sums to him.  He has always paid you back, and you