“Sometimes quite calm, at others full of uneasiness--even pain. I was most cordially welcomed. They like me to be with them, and chide me when I keep away. “I stay there sometimes four hours at a time. We go long walks beside the lake. Yesterday we took a drive, but I am never alone with her, so can speak only of outward things, and I feel that the oppression of my heart will kill me. “What can I do? I am unjust, stupid, unreasonable. “They have all read the _Mémoires_. _She_ reproached me mildly for publishing her letters, but her daughter-in-law said I was quite right, and I believe she was not really vexed. “Already I dread the moment of departure. It is charming country, and the lake is most beautiful, pure and deep; yet I know something deeper, purer, and yet more beautiful.... “Adieu, dear friends.” _To_ MADAME MASSART. “PARIS, _15th September 1865_.--Good afternoon, madame. How are you, and how is Massart? “I am quite at sea, not finding you here. “I have come back from Geneva just as ill as I went. “At first I was better, but after a little the pain came again worse than ever. “How lucky you are to be free from such trouble! Having a moment’s respite, I use it in writing to you.” “You will either laugh, saying--or say, laughing, ‘Why write to me?’ “Probably you would rather that this preposterous idea had not entered my head, but there it is, and, if you find it mistimed, you have the remedy in your own hands--not to answer. “All the same, the inner meaning of my letter is--to extract one from you. If only you could conceive the frightful impetuosity with which one bores oneself in Paris! “I am alone, more than alone. I hear never a note of music--nothing but gibberish to right of me, gibberish to left of me. When will you be back? When shall I hear you play a sonata again? I often talked of you in Geneva, where I was petted, spoilt--and scolded a little, too. “When you come back we will gather together our choice spirits, our good men and true, and read _Coriolanus_. I only really _live_ in watching the enthusiasm of fresh sympathetic souls--undeadened by the world. “I quite enjoyed at Vienne making my nieces cry over it. They are dear girls, impressionable as a photographic plate--which is rather odd, seeing that they have always lived in that most provincial of provinces, among utterly anti-literary people. “My thick autobiography awaits you, but remember, it is yours only for the time it takes you and Massart to read it. It is very sad, but very true. “I am quite ashamed that I had not the sense to speak of the many calm, sweet hours I owe to you, and of my deep affection for you both. I have only just noticed that you are not even mentioned.