Paris, September 27, 1867.
Dear Friend: What has become of you? It is an age since I heard from you. I have just done something reckless: I spent three days at my cousin’s home in the country, near Arpajon, and I feel very little the worse for it, although the country seemed to me cold and damp. I do not believe, however, that it is warm anywhere, nowadays. I suppose that at —— you are enveloped in constant fogs.
I spend my time as well as I can, in absolute solitude. I am seized sometimes with the desire to travel, but the impulse does not last long enough to amount to anything. Moreover, I am terribly depressed. I believe something serious is the matter with my eyes. I wish, and at the same time I dread, going to consult Liebreich; yet, if I should lose my sight, what would become of me?
In society there is a certain prince Augustine Galitzin, who has become a convert to Catholicism, and who is not very proficient in Russian. He has translated a novel by Tourguenieff, the title of which is Smoke. It is now coming out in Le Correspondent, a clerical newspaper, some of the capital of which is furnished by the prince. Tourguenieff has asked me to review the proofs. Now, in this novel are some rather lively situations, which are the despair of prince Galitzin; for instance, something unheard-of: A Russian princess is in love, which is made worse by adultery. He skips the passages which shock him too deeply, and I reinstate them in the text. He is sometimes over-sensitive, as you shall see. The great lady condescends to visit her lover in a hotel, at Baden. She enters the room, and the chapter concludes. The story is resumed in the Russian original as follows: “Two hours later, Litvinof was alone on his divan.” The neo-Catholic has translated it thus: “An hour later, Litvinof was in his room.” You see it is much more moral, because to suppress an hour is to diminish the sin by half. Then, room, instead of divan, is much more virtuous, a divan being associated with criminal acts. I, inflexible in carrying out my orders, have reinstated the two hours and the divan, but the chapters in which they occur have not been published in Le Correspondent of this month. I suppose the respectable people who edit it have exercised a strict censorship. I am greatly amused by it. As the story continues, there is a delightful scene, in which the heroine tears up some point lace, which is a much more serious matter than the divan. I am waiting to see what they will do with this.
Good-bye, dear friend. Let me hear from you. I am terrified by the rapidity with which winter is approaching.
