e nature, independent
in her position, and who bought the poet's books." An acquaintance, a
friendship, a correspondence, a serious passion followed, and became a
relation which lasted two years "without quarrel, storm, coolness or
subject of umbrage or jealousy--two years of love without a cloud, of true
happiness." Why did it not last for ever? The biographer does not give the
answer. It is hinted in a letter to Alfred's friend, the duchesse de
Castries, dated September, 1840, in his _OEuvres posthumes_: "I have told
you how about a year ago an absurd passion, totally useless and somewhat
ridiculous, made me break with all my habits. I forsook all my
surroundings, my friends of both sexes, the current in which I was living,
and one of the prettiest women in Paris. I did not succeed in my foolish
dream, you must understand; and now I find myself cured, it is true, but
high and dry like a fish in a grain-field." This is probably the clue, and
the foolish dream was for a woman to whom his brother refers as having
repelled Alfred's homage with harshness, and having called forth from him
some short and extremely bitter verses beginning "Oui, femme," and another
called "Adieu!" in which there prevails a tone of quiet but deep feeling.
This is a sad story: he apparently united the volatility and vagrancy of
fancy, the inconstancy of light shallow natures, with the ardor and
intensity of passion and the capacity for suffering which belong to strong
and steadfast ones. There was a childlike quality in his disposition, which
showed itself in a sort of simplicity and spontaneousness in the midst of a
corrupt existence, and still more in the uncontrollable, absorbing violence
of his emotions: they swept over him, momentarily devastating his present
and blotting out the horizon, but unlike the tempests of childhood their
ravages did not disappear when the clouds dispersed and the torrents
subsided. The life of debauchery which had preceded his journey to Italy
was replaced, for some years, by a less excessive degree of dissipation,
during which he lived with a fast set, who, however, were men of talent and
accomplishments, the foremost among them being Prince Belgiojoso. The
influence of the two fortunate years, 1837-38, not only the happiest but
the most fertile of his short career, seems to have weakened these
associations and led him into calmer paths. He had formed several
friendships with women of a sort which both parties may r