That solitude in which you live would be delicious to me in fine weather.  In winter I find it stoical, and am forced to recall to myself that you have not the moral need of locomotion as A habit.  I used to think that was another expenditure of strength during this season of being shut in;—­well, it is very fine, but it must not continue indefinitely; if the novel has to last longer, you must interrupt it, or vary it with distractions.  Really, my dear friend, think of the life of the body, which gets upset and nervous when you subdue it too much.  When I was ill in Paris, I saw a physician, very mad, but very intelligent, who said very true things on that subject.  He said that I spiritualized myself in a disquieting manner, and when I told him, exactly, a propos of you, that one could abstract oneself from everything except work, and have more rather than less strength, he answered that the danger was as great in accumulating as in losing, and a propos of this, many excellent things which I wish I could repeat to you.

Besides, you know them, but you never pay any attention to them.  Then this work which you abuse so in words, is a passion, and a great one!  Now, I shall tell you what you tell me.  For our sake and for the sake of your old troubadour, do spare yourself a little.

Consuelo, La Comtesse de Rudolstadt, what are they?  Are they mine?  I don’t recall a single word in them.  You are reading that, you?  Are you really amused?  Then I shall read them one of these days and I shall love myself if you love me.

What is being hysterical?  I have perhaps been that also, I am perhaps; but I don’t know anything about it, never having profoundly studied the thing, and having heard of it without having studied it.  Isn’t it an uneasiness, an anguish caused by the desire of an impossible something or other?  In that case, we are all attacked by it, by this strange illness, when we have imagination; and why should such a malady have a sex?

And still further, there is this for those strong in anatomy:  There is only one sex.  A man and a woman are so entirely the same thing, that one hardly understands the mass of distinctions and of subtle reasons with which society is nourished concerning this subject.  I have observed the infancy and the development of my son and my daughter.  My son was myself, therefore much more woman, than my daughter, who was an imperfect man.

I embrace you.  Maurice and Lina who have tasted your cheese, send you their regards, and Mademoiselle Aurore cries to you, wait, wait, wait!  That is all that she knows how to say while laughing like a crazy person; for, at heart she is serious, attentive, clever with her hands as a monkey and amusing herself better with games she invents, than with those one suggests to her.  I think that she will have a mind of her own.