There are good marriages;
there are no delightful ones.
La Rochefoucauld, Maximes.2
Alas, neither reason, nor imagination,
Nor intelligence, nor the heart
can render happiness; I understand that now.
Lettres d’amour.
Cologne, 25 September 1820.
So, my dear Frederick, you are abandoning me at the moment when, according to your advice, I have to sacrificed my most cherished errors to reason!
You’re leaving for Mexico!
If, at least, your letters had been able, once a week, to continue to encourage me, to persuade me, to make me persevere…but alas, they’ll only reach me henceforth at long intervals! No more fixed day to receive them, no more desirous waiting for the post! Immense seas will separate us; you’ll be living in another world!
It’s no longer letters that I’ll be writing to you; it’s a journal that you’ll receive, God knows when…perhaps never...
If you knew the courage it required for me to break the links that bound me to Madame Narscheid! Poor Louise, who sacrificed to my love her future hopes, her conscience, her domestic joy, and her reputation!
I admit it: twenty times, during that last meeting, I felt close to renouncing my marriage to Fraulein von Reistadst.
Yes, Frederick, I would have done it; but, after fits of the most frightful despair, Louise suddenly armed herself with a resignation that I no longer had. “I love you more than my happiness,” she said. “Be happy, Eduard, since you can be, with someone else.”
Then, after that, without saying another word, she went to collect everything that had come to her from me, and threw it all into the fire.
Frederick, I bought very dear, that evening, the happiness that you promised me in a marriage of convenience! What interior peace, what wellbeing of fortune, can be worth the love that I’m losing, Louise’s love? It was surrounded by perils, by despair, I know, but it was burning, devoted, sublime.
Poor fool that I am! Look, there’s my imagination running away with me again!
I shall not see Louise gain; her husband arrives this evening, and, as you know, my mere presence in Cologne can move him to the most frightful fits of jealousy; since the discovery of one of my letters to Louise, four years ago, he’s capable of anything.
I’ll leave at daybreak for Aix-la-Chapelle, and I shall finally see my wife.
Aix-la-Chapelle, 26 September, 3 p.m.
I’ve just seen her; she’s a pale and rosy-cheeked young woman; a great freshness, beautiful blonde hair, an ingenuous smile. Her name is Fanny.
Her parents made a big occasion out of our meeting; they introduced me to my fiancée with solemn ostentation.
It’s a singular thing to find oneself among so many unknown people, that I’ll be calling brother, sister, father, mother and wife tomorrow!
My wife! A lover who will lavish the mot tender caresses; the only one it will be permissible to love henceforth; a faithful friend in happiness as in adversity; a companion from who death alone can separate me! And I’ve never seen her before today! And it’s tomorrow that she’ll become my wife!
You’re wiser than I am; I recognize the superiority of your reason over mine; you judge things with a much greater justice than I can contrive; you love me as much as one can love a friend, and it’s you who have proposed to me, have advised me, who have made this marriage,
Frederick, I need to remind myself of all that; I need that, for otherwise it won’t be tomorrow that she’ll become my wife.
The same day, 6 p.m.
I’ve just had a long conversation with her, after supper. Her ideas seem to me to be more solid than extensive; her imagination is as pure as a virgin’s, her soul as affectionate as that of a young woman who has never been parted from a good and wise mother. She has had a prudent education, and has been brought up in great principles of economy.
The conversation has done me good; yes, my friend, I’m beginning to understand that you were right: a calm, placid, uniform happiness without the slightest shock; peace, repose, a good wife who surrounds you with kindness and tender attention; a fresh and naïve smile always ready to form at your first words; a delicate hand that prepares and presents the beverage when fever burns you and your breast is oppressed... It’s not Louise; it’s not the ideal, impossible happiness of which I once dreamed; but it’s real happiness.
Yes, the conversation with Fanny has done me good; yes, her smile has calmed my unbearable agitation.
Frederick, were you telling the truth?
27 September, 4 a.m.
I’ve slept, Frederick, slept peacefully until now; yes, I’m going to be happy.
Yes: until now, I had not sought happiness where one might find it, and, blasphemer that I was, I said: “There is no happiness.”
A young woman as beautiful and pure as the angels; her innocent caresses, her ineffable tenderness; and then, soon, children who will tighten the solemn bonds more narrowly; children who, with their dear little voices, will cause the delightful name “Father” to resound in my ear, in my intoxicated soul.
28 September, 6 a.m.
The virgins of Heaven do not have her purity; the fiery cherubim do not have her tenderness! Oh, Frederick, Frederick, I’m happy, happy forever, and I owe that happiness to you.
She’s getting dressed at present, and then we’re going to take a long walk in the countryside that surrounds us. Frederick, Frederick, we’ll be alone, alone with nature and its sublime beauties; we’ll exchange sensations in a glance, a smile, the pressure of a hand. Frederick, my friend, do you comprehend fully the happiness that I possess? Tell me, do you comprehend?
15 October, same year.
I’m alone in my room, lying down. Is it a dream I’ve had—a horrible dream? Oh, if it were only a dream!
Madman that I am, it can’t be otherwise; such misfortune isn’t possible; no, no!
Can you imagine that I dreamed going for a walk with my young wife, with Fanny; I’d never seen a more beautiful sunrise. That’s because I’d never seen the sun rise while my Fanny was giving me her arm.
We were on the bank of a river. Suddenly, I saw something floating in the water, something indistinct…it came closer…a woman’s corpse…Louise!
Oh, what a dream! What a frightful dream!
I don’t know what I experienced at that moment: a convulsive rage set all my limbs ablaze and trembling; my eyes could no longer see; my ears were deafened by an execrable ringing...
I seized, I clutched tightly, obstinately, something warm and delicate; then I felt a flaccid weight fall upon my breast and slide to my feet with a dull sound.
Then people surrounded me; they were uttering cries of horror; I struggled against those numerous man; they tied me up and took me away, through an immense crowd.
And I saw two female corpses on a stretcher that was being carried in front of me: Louise and Fanny.
Oh, what a dream! What a frightful dream!
My God, what an impression it has made on me! I’ve just looked in the mirror; I saw myself livid, emaciated.
But everything around me is in chaos, broken, strewn with debris...
My clothes! They’re no more than tatters!
Iron bars on my windows! Enormous bars at the door!
Ah…it wasn’t a dream! It isn’t a dream...