“And do you know why?  Only because you are no longer here.  I am certain of this.  When I know that you are in Paris, my walks are no longer useless, for it is possible that I may meet you in the first street I turn into.  I can go anywhere because you may go anywhere.  If I do not see you, I may at least find Annette, who is an emanation of yourself.  You and she fill the streets full of hope for me—­the hope of recognizing you, whether you approach me from a distance, or whether I divine your identity in following you.  And then the city becomes charming to me, and the women whose figures resemble yours stir my heart with all the liveliness of the streets, hold my attention, occupy my eyes, and give me a sort of hunger to see you.

“You will consider me very selfish, my poor friend, to speak to you in this way of the solitude of an old cooing pigeon when you are shedding such bitter tears.  Pardon me!  I am so used to being spoiled by you that I cry ‘Help!  Help!’ when I have you no longer.

“I kiss your feet so that you may have pity on me.

“OLIVIER.”

“Roncieres, July 30.

“MY FRIEND:  Thanks for your letter.  I need so much to know that you love me!  I have just passed some frightful days.  Indeed, I believed that grief would kill me in my turn.

“It was like a block of suffering in my breast, growing larger and larger, stifling me, strangling me.  The physician that was called to treat me for the nervous crisis I was enduring, which recurred four or five times a day, injected morphine, which made me almost wild, and the great heat we have had aggravated my condition and threw me into a state of over-excitement that was almost delirium.  I am a little more calm since the great storm of Friday.  I must tell you that since the day of the funeral I could weep no more, but during the storm, the approach of which upset me, I suddenly felt the tears beginning to flow from my eyes, slow, small, burning.  Oh, those first tears, how they hurt me!  They seemed to tear me, as if they had claws, and my throat was so choked that I could hardly breathe.  Then the tears came faster, larger, cooler.  They ran from my eyes as from a spring, and came so fast that my handkerchief was saturated and I had to take another.  The great block of grief seemed to soften and to flow away through my eyes.

“From that moment I have been weeping from morning till night, and that is saving me.  One would really end by going mad or dying, if one could not weep.  I am all alone, too.  My husband is making some little trips around the country, and I insisted that he should take Annette with him, to distract and console her a little.  They go in the carriage or on horseback as far as eight or ten leagues from Roncieres, and she returns to me rosy with youth, in spite of her sadness, her eyes shining with life, animated by the country air and the excursion she has had.  How beautiful it is to be at that age!  I think that we shall remain here a fortnight or three weeks longer; then, although it will be August, we shall return to Paris for the reason you know.