The interval between December and the succeeding July was spent by Eugénie partly at Paris with her brother, and partly in visiting friends at Nevers and other places. She was deeply solicitous for her brother and his young wife. This was not without cause, for the young bride had married a dying man. During her stay at Nevers, in April, she recommences her journal to her brother, which he was never to read:-- "Is it eight days, eight months, eight years, eight ages? I know not how long, but it seems endless in my weariness since I left you, my brother, my poor invalid. Is it well with you? Is it better? Is it worse?... What painful ignorance, and how difficult to bear, this ignorance of heart, the only thing which makes us suffer, or which makes us suffer more. It is beautiful weather. One feels everywhere the sun and the presence of flowers, which would do you good. Springtime warmth would be more curative for you than any medicine. I say this in hope, alone in my hermit's chamber, with a chair, cross, and little table, under a little window where I write. From time to time I look at the sky and hear the bells and the passers-by in the streets of Nevers, the sad. Does Paris spoil me, make me gloomy anywhere else? Never was there a city more desolate, dark, and wearying, notwithstanding the _charmes_ that inhabit it, Marie and her amiable family. I have tried everything, even drawing my distaff from its case where it has been since my departure from Le Cayla. It recalled to me the story of the shepherd, who, arriving at the Court, kept there the chest containing his crook, and sometimes found pleasure in opening it. I have also found pleasure in again seeing my distaff and spinning a little. But I spun so many things besides!" Here, also, she received from her brother his last letter:-- "_April 8th, 1839._