Was George Sand's heart a cage of gold, or was it a fragrant garden? And those birds adorned with every color, that greeted it and fled from it, only to return to it and flee again — did they know that to stay in it was captivity, and that in its flowers lay snares and the drawing of blood? That or this: enough for her heart that there sheltered in it whoever sheltered — for the host boasts of his guest, as the body boasts of the spirit's coming upon it.

And the conquering de Musset went strutting through Paris from victory to victory, with love and poetry and youth to plead for him. And when he met her, he began to whisper with Caesar: I came, and I saw — then he starts up: ...and I conquered. And what happened, happened.

He said to her: I aspire to nothing but your friendship. — Maurois says: the man who speaks so to his woman friend today will pour out love to her tomorrow... And she gave him her friendship — and oh, how she gave it! She became to him a friend and a keeper of secrets; she became a sister who is tender, a mother who pampers, a mistress who gives as though she were taking, a confidante who calls forth smiles and calls forth tears. And after all, if the friendship of man and woman is not like this, what is it?

And the bird fled from the cage of gold, but it kept yearning for it. And the cage took in another guest, yet it too kept yearning for the first. ... Love — how much obscurity there is in it! Who will tell me: which was the true love — a bird that sees love as freedom, openness, and release, or a cage that sees it as sole possession, jealousy, and a jealous grudging from which there is no escape?

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

Translated by Samir Shikhani

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