Here is your scarf. It was found last Saturday, in the anteroom of his Royal Highness, monseigneur le duc de Nemours. No one asked for an explanation of its presence in my pocket. I should have returned it sooner, if I had not hoped that the wish to recover your property would lead you to send me some news of yourself. I perceive that, while you were very eager concerning the first point, it has not succeeded in triumphing over your indifference as to the second. Why are you so afraid of the cold? I recollect that we had one experience in the snow which did not result disastrously. Now there will be a thaw which will keep the streets impassable for I don’t know how long. Answer me quickly. I am grieved to see that you love to torment me. * * * * * LIX PARIS, _Saturday night, March, 1843_. Your letter does not show the least sign of repentance. I regret the loss of the amber pipe which you selected. There is something particularly agreeable in carrying often in my mouth a gift from you. But let it be as you wish. I say this very frequently, and yet there is never any reward for my resignation. I am completely hardened by my present occupation. The Cathedral presses like a dead weight upon my shoulders, to say nothing of the responsibility which I accepted in a moment of zeal, and which I now repent from the depths of my soul. I envy women their lot, for they have nothing to do but to make themselves beautiful, and to prepare for the effect which they seek to produce on others. The word _others_ has an ugly sound, but I imagine that it engages your attention more than it does mine. I am very much vexed with you, without knowing exactly the reason, still there must be some good reason, for I could not be in the wrong. It seems to me you become more egotistical every day. When you speak of _us_, you mean only _yourself_. The more I think of this the more deplorable it appears. If you have not written to London for that book, do not write; it is absurd to give a woman such a commission. While I value very greatly a rare book, I should not wish you to cause the least shadow of embarrassment by asking for it. The editor of the book is, I am told, a worthy Quaker, who has found some recent proofs that the Spanish Catholics of the fifteenth century were devoid of all morality, notwithstanding the Inquisition, and, it may be, because of it. The original copy, and the only one in existence, cost fifteen hundred pounds sterling. It has a hundred pages and more. I was wrong to mention it to you, and still more wrong to realise so tardily the absurdity of the thing. Good-bye....