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Paris, Monday night, March, 1842.

I have just received your letter, which has put me in a bad humour. So it is your satanic pride which has kept you from seeing me. It is not for me to reproach you, however, for I think I saw you the other day, and was restrained from speaking to you by a feeling quite as paltry. You say you are better than you were two years ago. It is very well for you to say that. I admit that you are more beautiful, but, on the other hand, you seem to have absorbed a good dose of selfishness and hypocrisy. These may be very useful, but they are not qualities for one to brag about. As for me, I have become neither better nor worse; I am not more of a hypocrite than I was, and I may be wrong. Certain it is that I am not loved more on this account.

Since this purse was not embroidered by your own fair hand, what do you wish me to do with it? You ought, indeed, to give me some of your own work; my mirror and my conserves deserve that much. You might at least have told me whether you received them. When you go to Italy, and pass through Paris, you will probably not find me here. Where shall I be? The devil only knows. It is not impossible that I may meet you at the Studj; but then, again, I may go to Saragossa to see that woman of whom you say that you are worth as much as she. As for a sister, there will be no other than herself. Tell me, therefore, and that before you leave for Paris, when you expect to go to Naples, and whether you will take charge of a volume for M. Buonuicci, the Director of the Pompeiian excavations. When I go away I shall leave this volume either with Madame de C. or elsewhere.

I recall having seen, a long time ago, a Madame de C. at a house where there were some theatricals, in which I played the part of the fool. Ask her if she remembers me.

Good-bye now, and for a long time, no doubt. I am sorry not to have seen you. Write to me now and then. It will always be a great pleasure to hear from you, even though you continue the beautiful system of hypocrisy upon which you have entered so triumphantly. I will commend you to Buonuicci, you and your society, as greatly interested in archæology. You will be pleased with his cordiality.