done--a cell of
austere nudity, of which the window, with small, lozenge-shaped panes,
opens on the ruined portal of the church and the horizon of the forest.

Had I been a few years younger, I would have enjoyed keenly this poetic
installation; but I am turning gray, friend Paul, or at least I fear so,
though I try still to attribute to a mere effect of light the doubtful
shades that dot my beard under the rays of the noon-day sun. Nevertheless,
if my reverie has changed its object, it still lasts, and still has its
charms for me. My poetic feeling has become modified and, I think, more
elevated. The image of a woman is no longer the indispensable element of
my dreams; my heart, peaceful now, and striving to become still more so,
is gradually withdrawing from the field of my mind's labors. I cannot, I
confess, find enough pleasure in the pure and dry meditations of the
intellect; my imagination must speak first and set my brain in motion, for
I was born romantic, and romantic I shall die; and all that can be asked
of me, all I can obtain of myself, at an age when propriety already
commands gravity, is to build romances without love.

Up to this time, ennui has spared me in my solitude. Shall I confess to
you that I even experience in it a singular feeling of contentment? It
seems as though I were a thousand leagues away from the things of the
world, and that there is a sort of truce and respite in the miserable
routine of my existence, at once so agitated and so commonplace. I relish
my complete independence with the naive joy of a twelve-year-old Robinson
Crusoe. I sketch when I feel like it; the rest of the time, I walk here
and there at random, being careful only never to go beyond the bounds of
the sacred valley. I sit down upon the parapet of the bridge, and I watch
the running water; I go on voyages of discovery among the ruins; I dive
into the underground vaults; I scale the shattered steps of the belfry,
and being unable to come down again the same way, I remain astride a
gargoyle, cutting a rather sorry figure, until the miller brings me a
ladder. I wander at night through the forest, and I see deer running by in
the moonlight. All these things have a soothing effect on my mind, and
produce the effect of child's dream in middle age.

Your letter dated from Cologne, and which was forwarded to me here
according to my instructions, has alone disturbed my beatitude. I console
myself with some difficulty for havi