What tortured them was that the past, which they had believed to be “a beautiful poem,” now seemed to them a hideous nightmare.  All this, we read, was a game that they were playing.  A cruel sort of game, of which Musset grew more and more weary, but which to George Sand gradually became a necessity.  We see this, as from henceforth it was she who implored Musset.  In her diary, dated December 24, 1834, we read:  “And what if I rushed to him when my love is too strong for me.  What if I went and broke the bell-pull with ringing, until he opened his door to me.  Or if I lay down across the threshold until he came out!” She cut off her magnificent hair and sent it to him.  Such was the way in which this proud woman humbled herself.  She was a prey to love, which seemed to her a holy complaint.  It was a case of Venus entirely devoted to her prey.  The question is, was this really love?  “I no longer love you,” she writes, “but I still adore you.  I do not want you any more, but I cannot do without you.”  They had the courage to give each other up finally in March, 1835.

It now remains for us to explain the singularity of this adventure, which, as a matter of fact, was beyond all logic, even the logic of passion.  It is, however, readily understood, if we treat it as a case of acute romanticism, the finest case of romanticism, that has been actually lived, which the history of letters offers us.

The romanticism consists first in exposing one’s life to the public, in publishing one’s most secret joys and sorrows.  From the very beginning George Sand and Musset took the whole circle of their friends into their confidence.  These friends were literary people.  George Sand specially informs Sainte-Beuve that she wishes her sentimental life from thenceforth to be known.  They were quite aware that they were on show, as it were, subjects of an experiment that would be discussed by “the gallery.”

Romanticism consists next in the writer putting his life into his books, making literature out of his emotions.  The idea of putting their adventure into a story occurred to the two lovers before the adventure had come to an end.  It was at Venice that George Sand wrote her first Lettres d’un voyageur, addressed to the poet—­and to the subscribers of the Revue des Deux Mondes.  Musset, to improve on this idea, decides to write a novel from the episode which was still unfinished.  “I will not die,” he says, “until I have written my book on you and on myself, more particularly on you.  No, my beautiful, holy fiancee, you shall not return to this cold earth before it knows the woman who has walked on it.  No, I swear this by my youth and genius.”  Musset’s contributions to this literature were Confession d’un enfant du siecle, Histoire d’un merle blanc, Elle et Lui, and all that followed.