Paris, May 19, 1858.

We are compelled to lead a tiresome existence at the Luxembourg. I am worn out with it, and I am dismayed, also, at the weather; I am told that it is good for the pease. I congratulate you, therefore, but it seems to me that the rain should fall only on the farms. I have been accusing you strongly of having taken one of my books—they are my sole possession—for which I have searched as if it were a needle. I discovered it finally, this morning, in a corner where I had hid it myself for safe-keeping; but it caused me more irritation than the book was worth.

I have been ill ever since my return—that is to say, I can neither eat nor sleep. Before you leave for so long a time, I must positively make a second portrait of you. For that, it is a question only of a half hour of patience, if patience is needed when one realises that one is giving people pleasure. I am to be in the party to go to Fontainebleau, and shall not return before the 29th. I wish we might have a long talk before I go. It seems a century since that has happened with us.