As you see, I am in
good spirits to-day, I can laugh; that is the effect of hope.
Sadness or gladness, it all comes to me through you. The hope of
success always carries me back to the day following that one on
which I saw you for the first time, when my life became one with
yours as the earth turns to the light. _Qual pianto_ are these
eleven years, for this is the 26th of December, the anniversary of
my arrival at your villa on the Lake of Geneva. For eleven years
have I been crying to you, while you shine like a star set too
high for man to reach it.
"27th.
"No, dearest, do not go to Milan; stay at Belgirate. Milan
terrifies me. I do not like that odious Milanese fashion of
chatting at the Scala every evening with a dozen persons, among
whom it is hard if no one says something sweet. To me solitude is
like the lump of amber in whose heart an insect lives for ever in
unchanging beauty. Thus the heart and soul of a woman remains pure
and unaltered in the form of their first youth. Is it the
_Tedeschi_ that you regret?
"28th.
"Is your statue never to be finished? I should wish to have you in
marble, in painting, in miniature, in every possible form, to
beguile my impatience. I still am waiting for the view of
Belgirate from the south, and that of the balcony; these are all
that I now lack.
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