the excursion she has had. How
beautiful it is to be at that age! I think that we shall remain here a
fortnight or three weeks longer; then, although it will be August, we
shall return to Paris for the reason you know.

"I send to you all that remains to me of my heart.

"ANY."

"Paris, August 4th.

"I can bear this no longer, my dear friend; you must come back, for
something is certainly going to happen to me. I ask myself whether I am
not already ill, so great a dislike have I for everything I used to take
pleasure in doing, or did with indifferent resignation. For one thing,
it is so warm in Paris that every night means a Turkish bath of eight
or nine hours. I get up overcome by the fatigue of this sleep in a hot
bath, and for an hour or two I walk about before a white canvas, with
the intention to draw something. But mind, eye, and hand are all empty.
I am no longer a painter! This futile effort to work is exasperating. I
summon my models; I place them, and they give me poses, movements, and
expressions that I have painted to satiety. I make them dress again and
let them go. Indeed, I can no longer see anything new, and I suffer from
this as if I were blind. What is it? Is it fatigue of the eye or of the
brain, exhaustion of the artistic faculty or of the optic nerve? Who
knows? It seems to me that I have ceased to discover anything in the
unexplored corner that I have been permitted to visit. I no longer
perceive anything but that which all the world knows; I do the things
that all poor painters have done; I have only one subject now, and only
the observation of a vulgar pedant. Once upon a time, and not so very
long ago, either, the number of new subjects seemed to me unlimited, and
in order to express them I had such a variety of means the difficulty of
making a choice made me hesitate. But now, alas! Suddenly the world of
half-seen subjects has become depopulated, my study has become powerless
and useless. The people that pass have no more sense for me. I no longer
find in every human being the character and savor which once I liked so
much to discern and reveal. I believe, however, that I could make a very
pretty portrait of your daughter. Is it because she resembles you so
much that I confound you both in my mind? Yes, perhaps.

"Well, then, after forcing myself to sketch a man or a woman who does
not resemble any of the familiar models, I decide to go and breakfast
somewhere, for I no longer have the