An Immortal Love Letter: From George Sand to Alfred de Musset

I was, my dear angel, in a state of great agitation, because I had not received Antonio's letter. I set out for Vicenza to reassure myself about you, and to learn how you had passed the first night. But I was told that you had passed through the said town in the morning without resting there. And so all the news I have of you is the two lines you wrote me from Padua. Pagello told me that if you had been ill, Antonio would have sent us word. But how many letters are lost in the mail, or take six weeks to reach this country! Believe me, I was in a state of deep despair, and I remained so until at last your letter, sent from Geneva, reached me. How great was my joy at it, and how I thanked you for it, my little one! It is sweet of you to think of me, and to plant sweet hope in my soul after all that has been, by sending me your refreshing letter.

Is it true that you are well, active, complaining of nothing? It has reached my ears that out of the excess of your love for me you have plunged into pleasures and indulged in them to a degree that makes one fear for your health. May God grant you health and soundness, and keep you from all harm, my dear little one. For that matters to me as much as your friendship matters to me. Without you, and without your friendship, I lose every hope of a happy life.

Do not believe, Alfred, that I can be happy if I lose your heart. It is all one to me whether I was your mistress or your mother; it matters little or nothing to me whether what I gave you was love or friendship, whether with you I was wretched or happy. I love you — that is all! What has robbed me of sleep since we parted, and since the threads of your world were cut off from the threads of mine, is that I cannot surround you with my care, watch over you, and ward off from you the ravages of illness. That is my one wish — why does God deny me this happiness? And why did all the medicines I gave you turn to deadly poison? How have I — I who watched over you the long nights, who did not begrudge you my blood to secure you a calm, sweet sleep — become hateful to you, a burden and a shadow upon you? These distressing memories come over me and I am like a madwoman; I weep hot tears and sob until my pillow is soaked with streaming tears. And I hear your voice calling me in the stillness of the night. But now, who calls me? And who, I wonder, has need of my care? Alas, my little one! How much I need you, and your tenderness, and your forgiveness!

Do not ask my forgiveness, for you have done nothing to wrong me... All there is to it is that we were unhappy in our life, and so we parted. But I feel that we shall love one another all our lives...

The fault was not ours: we obeyed the call of our destiny, and our two natures, which differ from the nature of all other people, refused us the life that ordinary lovers live. But be sure that we were created to know one another, and to love one another! Had it not been for your tender youth, and the weakness that would overcome me when I saw your tears wetting your cheeks, we should have remained brother and sister — I your sister and you my brother...

You reproached me one day, when the fever and delirium pressed hard upon you, with never having made you feel the pleasures of love. I was grieved by those words then, and wept bitterly. But now I am content that those pleasures were not laid bare — or at least that they were more shrunken than the other pleasures you can find elsewhere. In any case, you will not remember me while you are in the arms of other women. But when you find yourself alone, and feel the need of prayer and of shedding tears, you will remember — there is no escaping it — your friend George: that faithful friend who tended you in sickness, and took you by the hand in weakness... nay, who was more to you than that. For the noble feeling that unites us is composed of many elements; it would be hard for anyone to find its like, and the world will be unable to understand it. And that is fortunate — and what does it matter to us, so long as we love one another?

Farewell, my dear little one, farewell. I have one request to make of you: that you write to me often... I beg you to send me twelve gloves, six yellow and six colored; and send me, above all, your collection of poems, for I have not a single poem of it.