January 27, 1843.

Hear what happened to me. I was feeling very ill this morning, but was obliged to go out on business. Returning about five o’clock in a hideous mood, I fell asleep before the fire as I was smoking my cigar and reading Dr. Strauss. Now it seemed to me that I was still seated in my arm-chair, fully awake, and reading, when you entered the room, and said to me, “Is not this the simplest way to see each other?” “Not the best way,” I replied, for it seemed to me there were two or three other persons in the room. However, we conversed as if that made no difference; whereupon I awoke, and found that some one had brought a letter from you. See how lucky it was I fell asleep!

I am not conscious of having written you anything out of the way, consequently I have no apology to offer. It would be your place rather to apologise, but you do so with so little penitence, and with so much irony, that it is very evident you have lost that veneration with which you formerly honoured me. I can not, however, harbour resentment against you in spite of my resolutions, so I resign myself to remain your victim, only do not take advantage of my generosity; that would be neither handsome nor generous.

You speak of the sunshine, and remind me of it almost as if it were the Greek calends. Probably we shall have more sunshine next June, but must we wait until then? It is true that you are escarmentada of cloudy weather, but while using due precautions, might we not take advantage of the first fair weather? I would not have you catch cold on my account. Be sure to wear your overshoes. No matter in what old costume, to see you is always pleasure enough for me.

What is this pain in the side of which you speak so lightly? Do you know that pneumonia begins that way? You went to the ball, and probably caught cold going out into the air. Relieve my mind at once, I beg of you. I would rather think of you cross, than ill. If you are entirely well and in good spirits, and if the weather is never so little fine Saturday, why should we not take that walk? We could go somewhere, far away from everybody, and then walk and talk.

If you can not, or will not, come Saturday, I shall not be angry, but anyway, try to come soon. When I ask you for anything, you grant it only after having kept me fuming for so long that you prevent me from feeling as grateful as I should, perhaps; and you deprive yourself, moreover, of all the merit which would have been yours had you been promptly generous.

To converse together, and—what has sometimes happened—to think together, is this, then, a pleasure of which you grow weary so soon? ‘Tis true that one can speak only for himself, but each one of our excursions has been to me more delightful than the preceding one, because of the memories which it has left with me. I make an exception of the last one, and that one I should like to forget altogether, and replace it by another in which you would run no risk of catching cold. Thus peace is made, and I await your orders to ratify it Thursday evening.