Alas! the “fragile bark” was tempted once more to put to sea, this time freighted with the rich cargo of all the love and all the hope of her passionate woman’s heart. In the “Histoire de ma Vie” she touches very slightly on the episode of her journey to Venice with Alfred de Musset, and in the “Correspondence” we only read the following significant words, written to M. Jules Boucoiran from Venice on April 6, 1834: “Alfred has left for Paris. I shall remain here some time. We have separated, for months, perhaps for ever. God knows what will become of me now. I feel still, however, full of strength to live, work, and endure.” He suffered more than she. After lying six weeks in a brain fever hovering between life and death, he returned to his family broken down in health and spirits—“I bring you,” he writes to his brother, “a sick body, a grieving soul, and a bleeding heart, but one that still loves you.” He declared later, when the anguish had passed, that, “In spite of its sadness, it was the happiest period of my life. I have never told you all the story. It would be worth something if I wrote it down; but what is the use? My mistress was dark, she had large eyes! I loved her, and she forsook me. I wept and sorrowed for four months; is not that enough?” The year that followed their separation was a momentous one in both their literary careers. He produced the “Nuit de Mai,” the “Nuit de Décembre” and the “Confessions d’un Enfant du Siècle;” while she wrote “Jacques” and “Consuelo.” Her letters are the fittest commentary on her life and mode of thought at this time. She thus addresses M. Jules Boucoiran: “You make serious accusations against me. You reproach me for my many frivolous friendships and affections. I never undertake to justify statements made about my character. I can explain facts and actions, but blunders of the intelligence, errors of the heart, never! I have too just an opinion of merit in general to think much of my individual worth; indeed I have neither reverence nor affection for myself, the field is therefore open to those who malign me; and I am ready to laugh with them, if they appeal to my philosophy; but when it is a question of affection, when it is the sufferings of friendship which you wish to express, you are wrong. If we have discovered great faults in those we love we must take counsel with ourselves, and see whether we can still continue to care for them. The wisest course is to give them up, the most generous to remain their friends, but for that generosity to be complete there must be no reproaches, no dragging up of events long past.” The following is written to M. Adolphe Gueroult: