However, hearing that she was to act two scenes from _Romeo and Juliet_ with Abbott, for the benefit of Huet, the actor, I had a sudden fancy to see my own name on a placard beside that of the great actress. I _might_ be successful under her very eyes! Full of this childish notion I got permission from the manager and conductor of the Opéra Comique to add an overture of my own to the programme. On going to rehearsal I found the English company just finishing; broken-hearted Romeo held Juliet in his arms. At sight of the group I gave a hoarse, despairing cry and wringing my hands wildly, I fled from the theatre. Juliet saw and heard me; terror-stricken she pointed me out to those around, begging them to _beware of the gentleman with the wild eyes_. An hour later I went back to an empty theatre. The orchestra assembled and my overture was run through--like a sleep walker I listened, hearing nothing--when the performers applauded me I wondered vaguely whether Miss Smithson would like it too! Fool that I was!! It seems impossible that I could, even then, have been so ignorant of the world as not to know that, be the overture what it may, at a benefit, no one in the audience listens. Still less the actors, who only arrive in time for their turns and trouble themselves not at all about the music. My overture was well played, fairly received--but not encored--Miss Smithson heard nothing of it and left next day for Holland. By a strange chance (I could never get her to believe it _was_ chance) I had taken lodgings at 96 Rue de Richelieu, opposite her house. Worn out, half dead, I lay upon my bed until three the next afternoon; then, rising, I crawled wearily to the window. Cruel Fate! At that very minute she came out and stepped into her carriage _en route_ for Amsterdam. Was ever misery like mine? Oh God! my deadly, awful loneliness; my bleeding heart! Could I bear that leaden weight of anguish, that empty world; that hatred of life; that shuddering shrinking from impossible death? Even Shakespeare has not described it; he simply counts it, in _Hamlet_, the cruellest burden left in life. Could I bear more? I ceased to write; my brain grew numb as my suffering increased. One power alone was left me--to suffer. _To_ HUMBERT FERRAND. “GRENOBLE, _Sept. 1828_. “DEAR FRIEND,--I cannot go to you; come to me at La Côte! We will read _Hamlet_ and _Faust_ together, Shakespeare and Goethe! Silent friends who know all my misery, who alone can fathom my strange wild life. Come, do come! No one here understands the passion of genius. The sun blinds them, they think it mere extravagance. I have just written a ballad on the King of Thule, you shall have it to put in your _Faust_--if you have one. “‘Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man As e’er my conversation cop’d withal.’ “I am wretched. Do not be so cruel as not to come!”