The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon by Brian Thompson

Author:Brian Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780767911245
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2002-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

2

Once Gounod was gone, the degree to which their financial affairs had mingled became apparent. A fortnight after he took his farewells of her at Charing Cross, repeatedly begging her to visit, standing at the window to his departing train with tears running down his cheeks and wetting his beard, she received a reply to her anxious inquiries after his health and well-being.

My dear Mimi,

I can no longer hide from you the profound and bitter grief which your letters since I have been here have caused me, they have upset all my heart and brought the height to the trouble of my existence.

I have lived three years near you: in your hands, under your guardianship. What I have accomplished of work you know, you have been the witness of that which I have expended in strength, acceptance of anguish, endured of suffering of all kinds.

That you have wished for and looked for my good I feel assured, but you have pursued the realisation of it by generous devotion to an absolutely chimerical end: many times, you know, I have attempted to oppose a resistance and my objections; I have been obliged to renounce to them each time if I dared say a word.

To re-enter into this life of anxiety, of submission to the terror of saying the least word, of the sacrifice of my own thoughts so as to feel myself paralysed, is beyond my strength . . . Since you have desired my peace and my tranquillity, do not dream of reopening for me an existence which can bring neither you nor us peace. All that which is admirable will never destroy your instinct for command, nor my repugnance to this entire annihilation of myself and my child, the thought of which terrifies me. The part which I am now taking is imperiously commanded to me by the feelings of exhaustion produced by the struggles of these last years. To attempt to argue against this decision is useless and can but aggravate what I suffer. I know that the wish for my repose and the re-establishment of my health passes in your eyes before all—the cares you have taken of me when I was ill have sufficiently proved this. May God keep you

Your dear old man who kisses you,

Charles Gounod

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