Perhaps I shall bring M. Hanski the third _dizain_ to laugh away his "blue devils;" at any rate, he must be very ill if he resists my wild joy. It is two months since I laughed; one more will make three; but _then_ he shall die of laughing. Tell him that as Geneva was so base in the matter of the poor Poles, I will never speak well of Geneva again. Are you comfortable in Italy? How did you cross the mountains? I follow you in thought. Have you thought of your poor, humble moujik and his _blonde capricieuse_ at Aix? You ought to have thought of him at Aiguebelles, where the servants at the inn are so gracious, and at Turin, where he wished to go. Thank you, madame, if you think a little of him who thinks much of you.
I have not seen Grosclaude. Our Exhibition is detestable. There are five to ten fine pictures in three thousand five hundred canvases.
How is your dear Anna? You will tell me, won't you, how your little caravan rolls on? M. Bernard ... came yesterday to make me compliments on the "Duchesse de Langeais," and was very gracious.
_Mon Dieu!_ you will forgive me--me, a poor hermit toiler--for talking to you so much of myself, because I am calling for your egotism in reply; to talk to me solely of yourself would be doing well by me. I can tell you only two things: I work constantly, I pay, I think of my friends. I have in my heart a happy corner, and that ought to suffice to make a noble life. My "blue devils" have no time to rise to the surface.
Do you still intend to play Grandet at Wierzchownia? for in that case I shall await thirty invitations before going there, to save provisions. Do you want anything in Paris? I hope that you and M. Hanski will not employ any other correspondent than me. But Borget and I will arrive laden with cotignac, peach preserves, and Angoulême and Strasburg pâtés. You ought to give me a commission; you don't know what pleasure it is to me to busy myself for something a friend asks of me, how it brightens my life. A fancy--that's myself only; but the fancy of another, whom I love, is a double fancy.
Spachmann [binder] has done your album, and I am beginning to collect the autographs. It will take long, but you shall have it, with patience. I begin with the oldest. Pigault-Lebrun is eighty-five years old; he shall begin it.