Again, she writes: "I have just passed the night writing to you. The
day has replaced the candle, so that it is hardly worth while to go to
bed. Oh! if papa knew it! How quickly it has passed, my brother, this
night spent in writing to you! The dawn appeared whilst I believed it
midnight; it was past three o'clock, and I had seen many stars pass,
for from my table I see the sky, and from time to time I look at it
and consult it; and it seems to me that an angel dictates to me. From
whence, except from above, can come to me so many things tender,
ennobling, sweet, true, pure, with which my heart is filled as I speak
to you? Yes, God gives me them, and I send them to you. May my letter
do you good. It will come on Tuesday. I have written it to-night so
that I can give it to the postman in the morning and save a day. I was
so drawn to come to you to divert and strengthen you in the state of
feebleness and weariness in which I see you. But I do not see it; I
divine it after your letters, and some words of Felicité. Would to God
I could see and know what torments you, then I should know where to
apply the balm, whilst I now place it by chance. Oh! how I long for
letters from you! Write to me; speak, explain, show yourself, that I
may know what you suffer. Sometimes I think it is only a little of
that black melancholy which we are both liable to, and which makes us
so sad when it spreads in the heart."
The apparent indifference of her brother sometimes, indeed, caused
Eugénie to neglect her journal and her correspondence. He endeavoured
to bear his troubles as he did his poverty, in silence; and when he
was unable for want of the necessary means to travel, to spend his
vacations at Le Cayla, the real cause was unknown, and was not
unnaturally attributed to a waning affection. A letter from Eugénie,
after a visit to Rayssac, where she had last been with him four years
before, contains some charming pictures:--
"_September 6th, 1836._
"It is a week since I came down from the mountains, quite sad,
thinking of Louise, my heart full of our friendship, and with
regrets for our separation. What it costs to go away from a
friend, when we have found so much happiness together! To say
adieu is a word that makes us weep, which kills. Fenelon is quite
right in saying that friendship which makes much happiness for
life, gives also inexpressible pain. We felt this, Louise and I.
It is from their depth that the sweetest things of life have their
bitterness. I learn it, I feel it continually more. What is to be
done about it? To resign oneself, to habituate oneself to the
course of the world which passes so changingly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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