It is impossible to find anything dirtier and prettier than Marseilles. Dirty and pretty applies equally to the women of Marseilles. They all have expressive faces, lovely black eyes, beautiful teeth, tiny feet, and imperceptible ankles. On their little feet they wear cinnamon stockings, of the colour of Marseilles mud, coarse in quality, and darned with twenty different shades of cotton. Their gowns are badly made, and are always shabby and soiled. Their beautiful black hair owes its glossiness almost entirely to the use of candle tallow. Add to this an atmosphere of garlic mixed with the fumes of rancid oil, and you have a picture of the Marseilles beauty. What a pity it is that in this world nothing should be perfect! Ah, well, they are charming, the Marseilles women, in spite of it all. It is a veritable triumph. My evenings, which are now long, begin to be horribly tiresome. ‘Tis true that I have usually volumes of letters to write and reports to prepare for two or three ministers, but these pleasant occupations have not kept me from having the blues for the last three weeks. My dreams are as dismal as they can be, and my waking thoughts are no brighter. Not a single word from you, when I need it so sadly! If you write to me promptly, address your letter to Carcassonne. I must hear from you to cheer me up.... After leaving Carcassonne I shall go to Perpignan, to Toulouse, and to Bordeaux. I hope I may find there some souvenir from you. The sketch I am making for you is not yet finished. I shall give it to you when I return to Paris. I wish you would tell me if there is something more you should like me to bring you. Here is a flower from a prickly shrub which grows near Marseilles, and which has the perfume of sweet violets. Good-bye. LXXXI PARIS, _Friday morning, November 3, 1843_. Is it possible that you mean all you write me? What, then, is this strange diffidence which prevents you from being frank, and which makes you try to invent the most extraordinary lies, rather than let escape from you one word of truth, which would please me so much to hear? Among the good sentiments of which you speak there is one, you say, that I do not understand; and, since you do not try to make me understand it, I am unable even to guess it. I confess I am no more clever with the two others.