MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

I don’t experience, as you do, this feeling of a life which is beginning, the stupefaction of a newly commenced existence. It seems to me, on the contrary, that I have always lived! & I possess memories which go back to the Pharaohs. I see myself very clearly at different ages of history, practicing different professions & in many sorts of fortune...

Of the portrait...the painter saw in you only "the good woman", but I who am an old Romantic, find "the head of the author" who made me dream so much in my youth.

but one changes from year to year. Age gives unceasingly another character to the face of people who think & study, that is why their portraits do not look like one another nor like them for long. I dream so much & live so little, that sometimes I am only 3 yrs old. But, the next day I am 300, if the dream has been sombre. Isn't it the same with you? ...

if its good weather, I shall make you go out walking, if it rains continually, we shall roast our bones before the fire while telling our heart pangs. The great river will run black or grey under the window saying always, QUICK! QUICK! & carrying away our thoughts, & our days, & our nights, without stopping to notice such small things.

I suppose that a man of intelligence may have great curiosity. I have not had it, lacking the courage. I have preferred to leave my mind incomplete, that is my affair, & every one is free to embark either on a great ship in full sail, or on a fisherman's vessel. The artist is an explorer whom nothing ought to stop, & who does neither good nor ill when turning to the right or to the left. His end justifies all.

Dear Madam,

I am not grateful to you for having performed what you call a duty. The goodness of your heart has touched me & your sympathy has made me proud. That is the whole of it.
Your letter which I have just received gives added value to your article & goes on still further, & I do not know what to say to you unless it be that I QUITE FRANKLY LIKE YOU. [...]

The idea of getting married no longer appeared to him preposterous. They would travel, go to Italy, to the East! & he saw her standing on a hillock, gazing at a landscape, or else leaning on his arm in a Florentine gallery, pausing to look at the pictures. What a pleasure it would be to watch this good little creature expanding in response to the splendours of Art & Nature! ...

While yet very small, she had been smitten with one of those childish passions which have, at the same time, the purity of a religion & the violence of a need. He had been her comrade, her brother, her master, had diverted her mind, made her heart beat more quickly, &, unconsciously, had poured into the very depths of her being a latent & continuous intoxication.Then he had left her at the moment of a tragic crisis..

There are men whose only mission amongst their fellow-men is to serve as go-betweens; people use them in the same way as if they were bridges, by stepping over them and going on their way.

Most of the men assembled there had served at least 4 governments; & they would have sold France or the human race in order to preserve their own incomes, to save themselves from any discomfort or embarrassment, or even through sheer baseness, through instinctive worship of force. They all maintained that political crimes were inexcusable. But crimes provoked by want should be forgiven!

Frederic recalled the days, already distant, when he used to yearn for the inexpressible happiness of finding himself in one of these carriages by the side of one of these women. He had attained this happiness, and was none the more joyous.

For certain men action becomes all the more difficult as desire becomes stronger. They are paralysed by self-distrust, & terrified by the fear of giving offence; besides, deep attachments are like virtuous women; they are afraid of being discovered, & pass through life with downcast eyes.

After spasms of gaiety came childish outbursts of rage; or else she sat on the ground dreaming before the fire with her head down & her hands clasping her knees, more inert than a torpid adder. Without minding it, she dressed in his presence, slowly drew on her silk stockings, then washed her face with great splashes of water, throwing back her body as if she were a shivering naiad..

Are the newspapers free? Are we ourselves free? When you think that there might be as many as 28 different formalities to set up a boat on the river, it makes me want to go & live with the cannibals! The Government is eating us up! Everything belongs to it: philosophy, law, the arts, the very air of heaven..& France lies under the boot of the gendarme..

Her beautiful black eyes, with their shining sclerotic coat, moved gently under their somewhat drooping lids, & her pupils revealed in their depths an immense kindness of heart. He was seized with a love stronger than ever, a passion that knew no bounds; it enervated him to contemplate her...How was he to make the most of himself? By what means?

She smiled,every now & then,letting her eyes rest on him for a minute.Then he felt her gaze penetrating his soul like those great rays of sunlight which descend into the depths of the water.He loved her without reservation, without any hope of return,absolutely;& in those silent transports,which were like outbursts of gratitude, he longed to cover her forehead with a rain of kisses.

Ah! My old troubadour, I know what's wrong with you! A little affair of the heart? Confess it! Bah! One lost, four found! We console ourselves for virtuous women with the other sort. Would you like me to introduce you to some? You have only to come to the Alhambra...

...to accomplish this he would have had to conquer Fate; & incapable of action, cursing God, & accusing himself of being a coward, he turned restlessly within the confines of his desire, like a prisoner in his dungeon. He was choked by a perpetual anxiety. For hours he would remain quite motionless, or else he would burst into tears...

He dreamed of the happiness of living with her, of calling her 'tu', of passing his hand lingeringly over her hair, or being on the floor, on his knees with both arms clasped round her waist, drinking in her soul through his eyes!

The contemplation of this woman had an enervating effect upon him, like the use of a perfume that is too strong. It penetrated into the very depths of his nature, & become almost a general way of feeling, a new mode of existence.
Paris existed in relation to her, & the great city, with all its voices, resounded around her like an immense orchestra.

..she was leaning forward towards his ear, their heads were touching- & Frederic would have been glad to be deaf, infirm, & ugly, to have an illustrious name & white hair, in short, to possess something which would install him in such intimate association with her. He ate out his heart, furious at being so young.

it wasn't the love of drinking that attracted Citizen Regimbart to these places,but the inveterate habit of talking politics there;with advancing age,he had lost his vivacity,&now exbibited only a silent moroseness.One would have said,judging from the gavity of his countenance,that he was turning over in his mind the affairs of the whole world.Nothing,however,came from it:'he knows a lot,I assure you!he's an able man

They had a long chat, opening their hearts to each other. Hussonnet yearned after the glory & the gains of the theatre. He collaborated in the writing of vaudevilles which were not accepted, 'had heaps of plans', could turn a couplet; he sang some of them. Then, noticing on one of the shelves a volume of Hugo & another of Lamartine, he broke out into sarcastic criticisms of the romantic school...

He was smitten with a vague remorse. He renewed his attendance @ lectures.But as he was entirely ignorant of the matters which formed the subject of explanation,things of the simplest description puzzled him.
He set about writing a novel entitled Sylvio,the Fisherman's Son. The scene of the story was Venice. The hero was himself, & Madame Arnoux was the heroine. She was called Antonia-&, to get possession of her..

A last piece of advice: pass your examinations! it's always a good thing to have a handle to your name; &, once & for all, give your Catholic & Satanic poets, whose philosophy is no more advanced than it was in the 12th century! Your despair is silly. The very greatest men have had more difficult beginnings, besides, our separation won't be as long as all that..

'there's nothing so useful as to be a visitor at a rich man's house! since you have a black coat & white gloves, make use of them! you must mix in that set! just think!-a man worth millions! do all you can to make him like you, & his wife, too. become her lover!'
Frederic protested.
'but I'm not saying anything new, I think? remember Rastignac in the Comedie Humaine. You will succeed, I have no doubt!'

How do you think I can live in Paris without you? I would have done something with a woman who loved me...What are you laughing at? Love is the feeding-ground,&, as it were, the atmosphere of genius. Extraordinary emotions produce sublime works. As for looking for the one I need, I give that up! Besides, if I ever find her, she’ll reject me.

Funny to have these worthy folks sleeping so peacefully! Patience! A new '89 is on the way. People are tired of constitutions, charters, subtleties, lies! Ah, if I had a newspaper, a platform, how I would stir all that up! But, to undertake anything whatever, you need money! What a curse it is to be a tavern-keeper's son, & to waste one's youth in quest of bread!

They spoke of what they would do later,when they had left college.First of all,they would set out on a long voyage with the money which Frederic would take out of his own fortune on reaching his majority.Then they would come back to Paris,they would work together,& would never part-& as a relaxation from their labours,they would have love affairs with princesses in boudoirs lined with satin, or dazzling orgies with..

She resembled the women of whom he had read in romances. He would have added nothing to her person, & would have taken nothing from her. The universe had suddenly become enlarged. She was the luminous point towards which all things converged-&, rocked by the movement of the vehicle, with half-closed eyelids, & looking up into the clouds, he abandoned himself to a dreamy, infinite joy.