And yet I do wish to talk to you about this good Mademoiselle
Merienne, for she said a heap of charming things to me for your
sake, which will certainly not astonish you. But how to set about
it after all this preamble of parentheses? Ah, I have it! - In
three or four weeks I shall come and knock at your door. - And
then? Well, then we will chatter away at our ease. So much the
worse for you if you are not satisfied with my cunning stratagem.
Now let us talk business; yes, seriously, let us talk business!
Has your brother returned from his journey? And is he well? And
has no accident happened to him on the way? You are surprised,
perhaps, at my anxiety; but by-and-bye you will understand it
without difficulty, when I have explained to you how terribly
interested I am in the fact of his journey being safely
accomplished.
Just imagine that at this moment I have only 200 fr. in my purse
(a ridiculously small sum for a traveler), and that it is M. Pavy
who is to be my financial Providence, considering that it is to
him that my mother has confided my little quarterly income of a
thousand francs. Now at this point I must entrust you with a
little secret, which at present is only known to two individuals,
Messrs. Paccard and Roger (charming names for confidants, are not
they?), and which I beg you to make known as quickly as possible
to your brother. It concerns a little scrap of paper (which these
rogues of bankers call a draft, I believe), for a thousand
francs, by which Messrs. Paccard and Roger are authorized by my
signature, which is at the bottom, to demand the above sum of a
thousand francs (which my mother entrusted to M. Pavy in Paris)
from M. Pavy, junior, living at La Glaciere at Lyons, after the
22nd of August, 1836.
A thousand pardons for troubling you with these details, but I
should never have had the courage to write direct to your
brother, on account of my profound ignorance in money matters.
You tell me that you passed part of the fine season in the
country - why did not you arrange so as to tour for a little among
the mountains of Switzerland? I should have had such pleasure in
doing the honors, and Mademoiselle Merienne also...but don't let
us speak any more of Mademoiselle Merienne (who, be it observed
in parenthesis, must have already appeared a dozen times in this
letter), for fear of again falling into inextricable parentheses.
Au revoir then; in five weeks at latest I shall come and warm
myself at your "glacier."
F. Liszt
11. To Abbe de Lamennais
[Autograph in the possession of M. Alfred Bovet at Valentigney.]
My friend Louis de Ronchaud writes me word that he has had the
honor of seeing you, dear Father, and that you were kind enough
to give him a message of affectionate remembrance for me.
