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 «
 
 Victor Hugo, aged 20
 
 THE LOVE LETTERS OF 
 VICTOR HUGO 
 
 1820 -1822 
 
 WITH COMMENT BY PAUL MEURICE 
 TRANSLATED BY ELIZABETH W- LATIMER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS 
 FACSIMILE LETTER, ETC 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 HARPER &- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1901
 
 Copyright, 1900, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved*
 
 Illustrations 
 
 VICTOR HUGO, AGED 20 Frontispitee 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF LETTER TO ADÈLE FOUCHER Facing p. I 
 
 ADÈLE FOUCHER AT IQ " 50 
 
 RESIDENCE OF VICTOR HUGO, RUE NOTRE DAME DES 
 
 CHAMPS, 1822 " 100 
 
 VICTOR HUGO, AGED 28 " 200
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Victor Hugo, in his Feuilles d'Automne, speaks 
 thus of these letters : 
 
 mes lettres d'amour, de vertu, de jeunesse. 
 
 C'est donc vous! Je m'enivre encore à votre ivresse. 
 
 Je vous lis à genoux. 
 Souffrez que pour un jour je reprenne votre âge! 
 Laissez-moi me cacher, moi, l'heureux et le sage. 
 
 Pour pleurer avec vous! 
 
 J'avais donc dix-huit ans ! J 'étais donc plein de songes I 
 L'espérance en chantant me berçait de mensonge; 
 
 Un astre m'avait lui. 
 J'étais un dieu pour toi qu'en mon cœur seul je nomme. 
 J'étais donc cet enfant, hélas, devant qui l'honune 
 
 Rougit presque aujourd'hui. 
 
 temps de rêverie, et de force, et de grâce! 
 Attendre tous les soirs une robe qui passe I 
 
 Baiser un gant jeté! 
 Vouloir tout de la vie: amour, puissance, gloire! 
 Etre pur, être fier, être sublime, et croire 
 
 A toute pureté.* 
 
 • Letters of early manhood, virtue, love, 
 Can these be you? Once more let my heart move 
 Responsive as I kneel to read you o'er;
 
 Introduction 
 
 And here they are, these " letters of early man- 
 hood, virtue, love " — she to whom he wrote them too 
 modestly destroyed her own, but she piously pre- 
 served those of her fiancé — here they are, chaste but 
 ardent, ingenuous but often grave, sportive in many 
 places and yet full of high thoughts. Here they 
 are, with all their extravagances, their discourage- 
 ments, their complaints, their bursts of joy, their 
 little scoldings, their caresses, their records of real 
 quarrels followed by delicious reconciliations. They 
 evidently were not written to be seen by other eyes 
 than those of the girl he loved : he constantly en- 
 treats her to burn them ; they are all the more valua- 
 ble on that account. We rarely have a chance to 
 see a love like this start fresh from its secret fount 
 in all its spontaneity, so pure, so youthful, so sin- 
 cere, and so profound. 
 
 Victor had known Adèle when they were children. 
 Their two families, the Hugos and the Fouchers, 
 
 For this day let me be j^our age again. 
 Good, happy, as I once was — then, with pain. 
 Let me shed tears that I am so no more. 
 
 I was eighteen! Such happy dreams had I! 
 Hope sang sweet fictions for my lullaby ; 
 
 A gleaming star was shining over mel 
 Now only in my heart I breathe thy name. 
 Then I was god to thee ; but now with shame 
 
 Man recollects the child he used to be. 
 
 Lost dreams of power, success, and grace — alas ! 
 How have I watched until her robe shovild pass ; 
 
 How lavished kisses on her fallen glove! 
 Then I hoped all from life — love, strength, and fame] 
 Ah! to be pure, and to have faith, the same 
 
 In all things pure, as I had then, my love. 
 
 vi
 
 Introduction 
 
 had been intimate before their birth. Their children 
 grew up together. They called each other thee and 
 thou. 
 
 Victor Hugo speaks thus of the birth of his young 
 affection : 
 
 I see myself again, a child in years, a merry school- 
 boy, playing, running, shouting, laughing with my 
 brothers in the long green alley in the wild garden of 
 that home in which I passed my early life. We dwelt 
 in the old Nunnery which lifts its head over the dark 
 dome of Val de Grâce.* 
 
 He sees himself again : " I was still a boy, but 
 dreamy and full of passion," and beside him is a 
 young girl. He sees her " with her large bright 
 eyes, her abundant locks, her golden -brown com- 
 plexion, her red lips, and her pink cheeks. ..." 
 
 Our mothers [he says] used to tell us to run and play 
 together. We used to take walks instead. We were 
 told to play, but we preferred to talk. We were children 
 of the same age — not of the same sex. Nevertheless, 
 for a year longer we were merely playfellows ; we even 
 had little trials of strength. I took from her once the 
 biggest apple in the orchard; I slapped her when she 
 would not let me have a bird's nest. She began to cry. 
 I said : " All right, then ! We will go and tell our mothers. 
 They will tell us both that we were wrong, but in their 
 hearts each mother will think her child was right." 
 
 But before long the time came when she walked lean- 
 ing on my arm, and I was proud and experienced some 
 new emotions. We walked slowh^; we spoke softly. 
 She dropped her handkerchief ; T picked it up. Our hands 
 touched each other, and trembled. She began to talk 
 
 * Le dernier jour d'un condatnnJ. 
 
 vii
 
 Introduction 
 
 about the little birds, about the star over our heads, 
 about the crimson after-glow of the sunset behind the 
 trees, about her school-mates, her frocks, her ribbons. 
 We talked innocently of commonplace things; yet we 
 both blushed, for the little girl had grown a maiden. 
 
 She in her turn tells the same story. 
 
 In August, 1818, Mme. Hugo no longer lived at 
 the Feuillantines, as they called the Nunnery. The 
 general said that his half-pay did not permit him 
 to give his wife and boys the luxury of a garden. 
 They moved into a less expensive apartment, on the 
 third story of No. 18 Rue des Petits-Augustins. 
 
 After dinner Mme. Hugo always went to pay a 
 visit to her old friend, Mme. Foucher. If her two 
 boys were out of school, they always accompanied 
 her. Almost every evening during the winter of 
 1818-1819, the porter at the Hôtel de Toulouse* said, 
 he would see Eugène and Victor coming along, arm 
 in arm, in company with their mother, who carried 
 her work-bag in her hand, and wore a purple merino 
 dress, nearly covered by a cashmere shawl with a 
 palm-leaf border. 
 
 Mme. Foucher used her bed-chamber as a sitting- 
 room. It was a large room, with a deep alcove. The 
 visitor always found her arm-chair waiting for her 
 at one corner of the hearth, and, without taking off 
 her shawl and bonnet, would sit down in it, take her 
 needle-work out of her bag, and begin sewing. M. 
 Foucher had his place on the other side of the hearth, 
 
 * The hôtel of the Conseil de Guerre, Rue Cherche-Midi, where 
 M. Foucher, former secretary of the Council, continued to keep his 
 apartment. 
 
 viii
 
 Introduction 
 
 with a stand near him, on which were placed his 
 tobacco-box and a wax candle. Between him and 
 Mme. Hugo, at a long narrow table, Mme. Foucher 
 and her daughter sat at work, and Eugène, Victor, 
 and Victor Foucher made up the circle. 
 
 Those evenings, we should think, were very dull 
 ones. The head of the household had been so much 
 broken in health by long nights of insomnia that he 
 did not care for bustle or conversation. He sat apart 
 in his corner with his books. Mme. Foucher, anx- 
 ious not to disturb him, and by nature very quiet 
 herself, talked but little. Eugène and Victor had 
 been always told by their mother never to speak 
 unless they were spoken to. Mme. Hugo would oc- 
 casionally interrupt her sewing to open her snuff- 
 box — she took snuff, as well as M. Foucher. She 
 would then offer her box to her old friend, saying, 
 " M. Foucher, won't you take a pinch?" He would 
 say " yes " or " no," and, for the most part, those 
 were the only sentences except " good - day " and 
 " good-night " exchanged between them during the 
 whole evening. 
 
 But those monotonous evenings had an especial 
 charm for Victor; what this was even he might at 
 first have found it hard to explain. When dinner was 
 over at home, he was eager to set out for Mme. Fou- 
 cher's, and hurried Eugène if he were not ready. 
 In the street he was impatient to get there even before 
 his mother. When, by any chance, he could not go 
 to the Hôtel de Toulouse, he was unhappy. 
 
 It was not that he enjoyed watching the wood-fire on 
 the hearth, or passing two long hours sitting still on a 
 
 ix
 
 Introduction 
 
 badly stuffed chair. He did not care if there was not 
 a word spoken. He was satisfied if M. Foucher did not 
 look up from his book, or if the ladies were intent upon 
 their sewing, for then he could look as long as he liked 
 at Mile. Adèle. 
 
 For some time Victor seemed satisfied by thus con- 
 templating her steadily. It may have been timidity 
 that kept him so, or it may have been because it was 
 very difficult to see Adèle by herself ; possibly he did 
 not fully understand what was taking place within 
 him. Young people in those days may have been 
 in want of some little instruction. 
 
 We know, from one of the letters written in 1 821, 
 the very day, and in what manner, the hearts of these 
 two young people became known to each other. It 
 was on April 26, 18 19. Victor was seventeen years 
 old, and Adèle sixteen. 
 
 Even w^hen they made to each other the supreme 
 confession, they were mere children playing the game 
 of love, as other young persons at their age play hide- 
 and-seek. It was all very naïf — very charming. 
 Adèle, bolder and more curious than Victor (for she 
 was a girl), wanted to find out what was the mean- 
 ing of his silent admiration. She said : " I am sure 
 you have secrets. Have you not one secret, greater 
 than all?" Victor acknowledged that he had secrets, 
 and that one of them was greater than all the rest. 
 "Just like me!" cried Adèle. "Well, come now% tell 
 me your greatest secret, and I will tell you mine." 
 " My great secret," Victor replied, " is that I love you." 
 " And my great secret is that I love you," said Adèle, 
 like an echo. 
 
 X
 
 Introduction 
 
 The ice was broken. It was no gradual thaw; 
 yet the love of these young people was moderate and 
 under restraint. 
 
 From our most innocent lips that day 
 
 Hardly escaped expressions of our love; 
 One word was all that we had power to say. 
 
 There was no transport in j^our love for me. 
 And mine for you was from all madness free.* 
 
 After this letters were occasionally exchanged, but 
 it seems that they were " cold and short." They were 
 not preserved. 
 
 The moment drew near when the loving pair were 
 to be for a short time separated. 
 
 Winter was nearly over. Mme. Foucher always 
 hired for the summer a little place in the suburbs of 
 Paris — in the banlieux. The summer of 1819 she spent 
 at Issy. This going into the country was a great grief 
 to Victor. In vain he tried to prove that Issy was not 
 much farther off than the hôtel of the Conseil de Guerre, 
 that once through Vaugirard, you would be there ; but 
 visits could not be paid every day, though often when 
 the weather was fine Mme. Hugo would take the two 
 l^oys and set out for Issy. On their way she would 
 buy baskets of fruit, which they were delighted to carry. 
 On arriving they handed them over to the servant, who 
 would hasten to set three more places at the breakfast 
 table. When the fruit had been eaten the}^ would go 
 out-doors to enjo3" the fresh air in the garden. "f 
 
 Autumn at last came, and the Foucher family re- 
 
 * Raymond d'AscoIi. See Œuvres de la première jeunesse. 
 t Victor Hugo, as related by Un U'ntoin de sa vie. 
 
 xi
 
 Introduction 
 
 turned to Paris. The fire had been kept aHve during 
 their short absence. 
 
 Sweet incHnation grew a quenchless flame.* 
 
 Love had entered into the heart and into the very 
 Ufe of Victor Hugo. Thenceforward it was to be 
 stronger than all else, and it grew more and more 
 resistless day by day. 
 
 It was on their return from Issy, during the last 
 months of 1819, that a regular correspondence be- 
 tween Victor and Adèle must have commenced. Vic- 
 tor by this time seems to have grown a less timid 
 lover; he asked and obtained from Adèle appoint- 
 ments to meet in places where they could see each 
 other alone. 
 
 In the first place, there was the garden of the Hôtel 
 de Toulouse, where Adèle lived — a beautiful garden, 
 with great trees at the end of it. When her mother 
 was out, Adèle would make her escape from the house, 
 run swiftly down -stairs, and glide along a shady 
 path to meet Victor, who was expecting her, " under 
 the chestnut-trees." Then sometimes in the morning 
 Adèle would go to market in her mother's stead, as 
 was a common practice in those days, when the man- 
 ners of the bourgeoisie were more simple than they 
 are at present, and when charming young girls of 
 that class w^ore caps like the peasantry. The little 
 housekeeper would make her purchases, and then, 
 not without some scruples of conscience, she would 
 hasten to join Victor in some quiet street where he 
 
 * Odes et Ballades. 
 
 xii
 
 Intro du ci ion 
 
 was waiting for her. After a time M. Foucher's 
 health improved. He saw his friends with some en- 
 joyment in the evenings. Adèle's young friends 
 came to visit her with their parents. The guests 
 talked and laughed, and divided into groups or 
 pairs. One of these last was frequently Victor and 
 Adèle; but their furtive talks were necessarily very 
 brief; they had to be supplemented by writing. 
 
 We have not the earliest of these letters ; they were 
 probably not very different from those preserved. 
 The letters of the boy were doubtless full of passion, 
 while those of the girl were full of anxiety. Their 
 state of mind was not the same. 
 
 Victor at seventeen thinks like a man, and he 
 wants his own way like a man. He is sure of him- 
 self, he is confident in his own sincerity, confident of 
 his love and of his honorable intentions; nor does 
 he doubt his own courage and constancy. If they 
 must wait, he will wait. If obstacles are in their 
 way, he will surmount them He will not admit that 
 anj^thing can be impossible. He considers Adèle as 
 already his wife, and boldly signs his letters to her, 
 " Your Husband." But Adèle is as yet onl3^a child. 
 With great intelligence and noble sentiments, she has 
 a child's heart. She is quite innocent and tender- 
 hearted. With the ignorance, the wonder, the jo3'', 
 the fears, and the scruples of a child, she accepts and 
 returns the love he offers her. 
 
 And, indeed, as she was a 3^oung girl, she was 
 right to be more scrupulous, more alive to the proprie- 
 ties, than her lover. And to what, we wonder, will 
 this premature love lead these young people at their 
 
 xiii
 
 Ill fro du et ton 
 
 age and in their circumstances? On the first discov- 
 ery of their secret the duty of their parents must be 
 to separate them. For which reason they agreed 
 rarely to speak unless they were alone together, and 
 in the presence of other people to pretend that they 
 were wholly indifferent to each other. 
 
 But this pretence was painful to Adèle. Victor's 
 mother, to whom he was as submissive and obedient 
 as a boy of twelve, still looked upon him as a child, 
 and never for one moment imagined that at his age 
 he could be in love. Adèle's mother, more quick- 
 sighted, fancied that she had seen more than one 
 sign of something which, however, she supposed 
 to be mere childishness; but she kept a strict look- 
 out, she asked questions, and reproved her daugh- 
 ter. Poor Adèle, much worried, complained of this 
 to Victor. Sometimes she blamed him, and some- 
 times she lost her temper. But, in fact, all that 
 the poor child asked was to follow the instincts of 
 her own heart. When Victor fancied that she did 
 not love him, when she saw him despondent, she 
 hastened to ask his forgiveness. He was already, 
 as his verses say, " her god." 
 
 His success as a poet, his fame, which was already 
 beginning to shine, was dear to him now as a pledge 
 of success in a literary career. We must not forget 
 that Chateaubriand had called him Venfant sublime, 
 that in Royalist salons his ode Les Destins de la 
 Vendée and his satire Le Télégraphe were spoken of 
 with admiration, and that the Académie des Jeux 
 Floraux de Toulouse had given two of its first prizes 
 to his poem on Le Rétablissement de la Statue de 
 
 xiv
 
 Introduction 
 
 Henri IV., and a beautiful short poem, written when 
 he was sixteen. Les Vierges de Verdun. 
 
 Since we have none of the letters exchanged by 
 the lovers in the autumn of 1819, the first written tes- 
 timony we possess of Victor Hugo's love may be 
 found in some verses called Le Premier Soupir, 
 dated in December of that year. 
 
 Great was the delight of Adèle w^hen the young 
 poet gave her these verses, telling her to read them 
 by herself, for they were verses made for her alone. 
 There was plentj^ of despair and sadness in the poem. 
 It was an elegy ; how could it be otherwise, for every 
 verse spoke of dying. They were sad lines, but oh! 
 how beautiful! And when the poet, foreseeing his 
 death, asks for some little recompense for his devo- 
 tion, Adèle in her enthusiasm promised the real poet 
 to give him twelve kisses. Twelve w^as a great many. 
 It appears in the sequel that she only gave him four. 
 
 . . . Ces vers pour qui ton jeune amour 
 M'a promis des baisers, que ta prudence craintive 
 Me refuse de jour en jour.* 
 
 Nevertheless, these verses and these kisses were 
 before long the cause of fresh trouble to Adèle. 
 
 We have said that she had some young girls for 
 her friends. Now, when a young person has friends, 
 and has received a copy of beautiful verses, how can 
 it be expected that the poem will not be shown to 
 them, and when showing it, how could she fail to add 
 that she was the maiden beloved by the real poet? 
 
 * Raymond d'Ascoli : Œuvres de la première jeunesse. 
 XV
 
 Introduction 
 
 Whereupon she received congratulations from her 
 friends. " But you — do you love him?" " Could I do 
 less?" " Did you ever tell him that you loved him?" 
 " How could I hide it?" And then she owned the 
 price he asked — the promised kisses. With that came 
 exclamations on the part of her dear friends. " How 
 imprudent!" "But this is serious!" "What an 
 opinion he must have of you!" " He cannot respect 
 you, since you do not respect yourself!" 
 
 Poor Adèle compared what her friends said with 
 warnings that her mother had given her. " Take 
 care," that lady said. "If a man ever tells you that 
 he loves you, and you are so weak as to respond, 
 it will not be long before he ceases to esteem 
 you." 
 
 Oh! could it be because she loved him that she 
 would forfeit his esteem? He must despise her. 
 Yes, it was true, he must despise her — and to be 
 despised by him! Oh! that was terrible! And she 
 asks him with anguish, " Is it true? Can it be possi- 
 ble that you despise me?" In vain he protests, 
 grows indignant, multiplies his vows, brings proofs 
 of his devotion. The frightful doubt has grown into 
 a fixed idea ; she reverts to it in their correspondence 
 again and again. 
 
 We have not got the letters in which she questions 
 him, but we have his answers. What could he do to 
 convince her? It is not only esteem, not onlj'^ re- 
 spect, it is worship that he feels for her. He might 
 almost say that he loves her on his knees. To press 
 her sometimes in his arms, to obtain the promise of 
 her kisses (which he afterwards allows her to refuse 
 
 _^ xvi
 
 Introduction 
 
 him), is all he dares to claim from her, is all that he 
 calls happiness. 
 
 Car l'amant à l'époux garde sa pureté.* 
 
 We may be permitted to think that the lover had 
 some merit, for at sixteen, besides her charm of youth, 
 Adèle was singularly lovely. She was a brunette, 
 with abundant black hair and arched eyebrows, 
 large, bright, soft eyes, a straight, delicate nose, and 
 a beautifully formed mouth, with a sweet expression. 
 She was adorably sweet, adorably handsome, and 
 he adored her. He placed her in his thoughts, as 
 it were, upon an altar. His budding genius bowed 
 before her beauty (both were divine gifts) humbly 
 and timidlj^ Some day she might be his, but he 
 hardly dared to expect it; yet, if she were another 
 mail's, he would die — he could not bear it. This idea 
 of death being a proof of love, and also of its being 
 its sanction, dwelt in his imagination, and at the same 
 time it impressed itself on that of the young girl. 
 
 Meantime he laid all he had and all he was at her 
 feet — under her feet, it would be more correct to say. 
 Never do his letters speak to her of his writings, of 
 his literary successes, or of his growing celebrity; 
 or, if he makes any allusion to these things, it is 
 only to repeat that all is for her sake ; that all is hers ; 
 that in all she has inspired him. The letters are 
 solely about love; they speak of nothing but love; 
 and that is why they are, and always will be, so pure 
 and so unique an example of the ideal of love. 
 
 * Marion Delorfoe. 
 xvii
 
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 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 1820 
 Saturday Evening, January, 1820. 
 A few words from you, my beloved Adèle, have 
 again changed my state of mind. Yes, you can 
 do anything with me; and to-morrow, were I even 
 dead, the sweet tones of your voice, the tender press- 
 ure of your lips, would call me back to life again. 
 How differently I shall feel as I go to sleep to-night 
 from what I did last evening! Yesterda}^ Adèle, 
 all confidence in the future had abandoned me; I 
 no longer believed that you loved me ; yesterday the 
 hour of my death would have been welcome to me. 
 And yet I said to mj^self : " If it is quite true she does 
 not love me, and nothing in me has deserved her 
 love, that love without which there is no charm left 
 for me in life, is that any reason I should die? Is 
 it for my own personal happiness that I exist? Oh 
 no! My whole existence is devoted to her, shall be 
 hers in spite of herself. And by what right have 
 I aspired to win her love? Am I more than an angel 
 or a deity? I love her, it is true — I — even I! I am 
 ready for her sake to sacrifice everything with jo}^ — 
 even the hope that she may love me; there is no 
 A I
 
 The Love Letters of J/ictor Hugo 
 
 limit to the devotion for her that I am capable of; 
 for one of her looks, for one of her smiles. But 
 could I do otherwise? Is she not the one supreme 
 object in my life? If she shows me indifference, if 
 she even hates me, it will be my misfortune — that 
 is all. What matter can it be, since it does not im- 
 pair her happiness? Oh! yes; if she cannot love 
 me, I must only blame myself. My duty is to wait 
 upon her steps, to envelop her existence with my own, 
 to be her defence against all perils, to offer her my 
 head to set her foot on, even to place myself between 
 her and every sorrow, without making any claim 
 for myself — without expecting any reward. Too 
 happy if from time to time she deigns to bend upon 
 her slave a look of pity, and. Oh ! if only she remem- 
 bers me, and turns to me in a moment of danger! 
 Alas! would she but permit me to give my life that 
 all her desires might be accomplished, all her ca- 
 prices attained! Would she but permit me to kiss 
 with devotion and respect her very footsteps ; would 
 she but consent to lean upon me sometimes in life's 
 difficult places — then I should have obtained the only 
 happiness to which I have the presumption to aspire. 
 Because I am ready to give everything up for her 
 sake, is that any reason she should owe me any 
 gratitude? Is it her fault that I love her? Must 
 she fancy herself constrained because of that to love 
 me? No! she may make what use she pleases of 
 my devotion, she may pay me with hatred for my 
 services, she may scorn my idolatry, she may 
 treat me with contempt, but I shall have no right 
 whatever to complain of such an angel, nor to cease 
 
 2
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 for a moment to lavish on her the care that she dis- 
 dains. And when each one of mj' daj's shall have 
 been marked by some sacrifice made, for her sake, 
 on the da3^ of x\\y death I shall not have paid all 
 the infinite debt that my existence owes to hers." 
 
 Such were my thoughts at this time 3^esterday, 
 Adèle, my much beloved, and such were the resolu- 
 tions of my soul. They are the same to-day. Only 
 now I have the certainty of happiness, of a happiness 
 so great that I cannot think of it without trembling, 
 and hardly believe it, even now. 
 
 Then is it true you love me, Adèle? Tell me, 
 may I put faith in that most ravishing idea? Does 
 it not strike you that I might become mad with joy 
 if I could pass my whole life at your feet, sure of 
 making you as happy as I should be m3'self; sure 
 of being adored by yo\x, even as I adore yowl Oh! 
 your letter has given me back peace; your words 
 this evening filled me with happiness. Receive my 
 thanks a thousand times ; Adèle, my beloved angel, 
 I should like to kneel before j^ou as I would before 
 a divinity. How happy you have made me ! Adieu, 
 adieu! I shall have a happy night dreaming of 
 you. 
 
 Sleep sweetly, and let j'our husband take the 
 twelve dear kisses that yow promised him, and many 
 more for which you have not yet given him per- 
 mission. 
 
 Monday, February 28th. 
 
 I .should be very sorry, my Adèle, to give vou back, 
 as yesterday evening you seemed to wish, that letter 
 which, in spite of the cruel thoughts with which it 
 
 3
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 inspired me, has grown dear to me because it proves 
 to me you love me. 
 
 It is with joy I own that all the fault was on my 
 side, and it is with most sincere repentance that I 
 implore you to forgive me. No, my Adèle, it is 
 not for me to punish you. To punish you ! — for 
 what? Mine is but the right to defend and to pro- 
 tect you. 
 
 Let me always know all that happens to you; 
 tell me about all you do, and what you think of. 
 And here I have a little thing with which to reproach 
 you. I know that you love balls ; you told me your- 
 self, not long ago, that waltzing was for you a great 
 temptation. Why, then, did you refuse the offer 
 made you a few days since? Do not make a mistake. 
 When, for your sake, I gave up balls and evening 
 parties, it was merely to rid myself of the trouble 
 of going to them. I was making no sacrifice. It is 
 never a sacrifice to give up a thing which does not 
 give you pleasure. Now I have no pleasure but in 
 seeing you — in being near j^ou. But in your case, 
 since dancing amuses you, to give up a ball is a real 
 sacrifice. I am very grateful for your intention of 
 making it for me, but I do not feel willing to accept it. 
 I am indeed excessively jealous, but it would be un- 
 generous if for that reason I deprived 3^ou of pleasures 
 suited to your age, pleasures which, no doubt, I could 
 myself enjoy, if you were not all in all to me. Go, 
 then, and amuse yourself Go to the ball, and in 
 the midst of it do not forget me. I dare say you ma}^ 
 see other men more charming, more gallant, more 
 brilliant than I am; but I venture to say that you 
 
 4
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 will not find one whose tender love for you would 
 be so pure and so disinterested as mine. 
 
 I will not worr}^ you with my personal troubles; 
 they are far from being irremediable. I forget them 
 when I see you gay, serene, and happy. 
 
 Adieu! Tell me ever^^thing, either by word of 
 mouth or in writing. Courage, prudence, patience. 
 Pra}'' the good God to grant me these three things, 
 the last two especiall}^, for, if you love me, I am safe 
 to have the other. I hope you will not cry over this 
 letter. As for me, I am joyous when I remember you 
 are mine — for you are mine, are you not, my Adèle? 
 
 In spite of all future obstacles that may present 
 themselves, I feel ready to cry with Charles XII. : 
 " What God has given me, the devil himself shall 
 not take from me!" 
 
 Adieu, forgive me, and let your husband fancy 
 
 he is taking one of the ten kisses that you still owe 
 
 him. 
 
 Thy faithful 
 
 Victor. 
 
 March 20, 1820. 
 
 Worried and hurried on all sides, I write a few 
 words to you in haste, my charming Adèle, and I 
 hope that our conversation and the proofs of entire 
 confidence I gave you this morning have calmed 
 you so that this letter may not be needed to that end. 
 If you could onh' conceive how much I love you, you 
 would realize how high you stand in my esteem. 
 All comes to this. Tell me if you doubt my eternal, 
 inviolable attachment. In that case, what would j^ou 
 have me do to prove it? Si)eak, and I will obey you. 
 
 5
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I think, my Adèle, that by this time you must have 
 been reassured as to what concerns me. I will give 
 you every mark of confidence that it is in my power 
 to offer you, and I faithfully promise that I will tell 
 you everything that concerns myself, whether it can 
 interest you or no. I will not reproach you for the 
 reproaches contained in your letter. I thank you, 
 on the contrary, for having let me know all your 
 anxieties, and if ever you suspect anything unfavor- 
 able concerning me, I think it will be your duty not 
 to hide such suspicions from me. How else could I 
 justify myself? I would like, my love, to exhort you 
 to patience, but that word sounds badly in my mouth. 
 I can only offer you the consolation in your troubles 
 that I have in mine. Is it any compensation that I 
 suffer from the same griefs as yourself? But in this, 
 my Adèle, I speak only for myself, for in whatever 
 situation I may be, I can never be very unhappy so 
 long as I believe that you still love me. 
 
 Adieu; be always sure of my esteem and my re- 
 spect. I can say nothing more, except that I wish 
 you would think as much good of me as I do of you. 
 You see I say the same things over and over, be- 
 cause I am alwaj^s thinking the same things. For- 
 give me all this talk, which I am keeping up as long 
 as possible, because I cannot bear to say adieu. 
 
 But adieu at last, my Adèle, tout à toi. 
 
 Your Husband. 
 
 Write me as often as you can, and burn my letters. 
 I think prudence requires it. Adieu! adieu! But, 
 for pity's sake, never destroy thine own! 
 
 6
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 March 28, 1820. 
 
 You ask me for a few words, Adèle, but what can 
 I tell you that I have not told j^ou a thousand and a 
 thousand times? Shall I say over again how much 
 I love you? But expressions fail me. . . . To tell 
 you that I love you better than my life would be a 
 small matter, for you know I care very little for life. 
 Well, I must! . . . for I tnust ... I forbid you, 
 do 3' ou hear? to say anj^thing more to me about my 
 "contempt" my "ivant of esteem" for you. You will 
 make me seriously angry if you force me to repeat 
 that I could not love you if I did not esteem you. 
 And from what, if you please, could m3^ iva^it of es- 
 teem, for you arise? If one or other of us is guilty, it 
 assuredly is not my Adèle. But I am afraid you 
 will despise me, because I hope you know the purity 
 of my love for j^ou. I am your husband, or, at least, 
 I consider myself as such. You only can make me 
 give up that name. 
 
 What is happening to you in your home, my 
 dearest? Do they torment you? Tell me every- 
 thing. I wish my life in any way could assist 
 you. 
 
 Do you know that one thought makes three-quar- 
 ters of my happiness? I dream that, in spite of all 
 obstacles, I may be permitted yet to be your husband, 
 even though it be only for one day. Suppose we 
 were married to-morrow, and I were to kill mj^self the 
 next da3^ I should have been happy for one daj^, and 
 no one would have any reason to reproach you. 
 You would be mj'^ widow. Would it not be possible, 
 my Adèle, under certain circumstances, to arrange 
 
 7
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 matters thus? One day of happiness is worth more 
 than a Hfe of sorrow. 
 
 Listen, think of me, my love, for I think of nothing 
 but you. You owe me that. I am trying to become 
 a better man that I may be more worthy of j^ou. 
 If you only knew how much I love you! . . , Ev- 
 erything I do is somehow connected with you. I am 
 working solely for my wife, my beloved Adèle. Love 
 me a little in return. 
 
 One word more. Now that you are the daughter 
 of General Hugo, do nothing unworthy of that sta- 
 tion, suffer no one to fail in proper attention and 
 respect to you. Mamma is very particular about 
 such things, and I think my most excellent mother 
 is right. You will fancy I have suddenly grown 
 proud of my social rank, just as you thought I was 
 proud of what people call my success; and yet, my 
 Adèle, God knows that there is only one thing that 
 could make me proud, and that is to be loved by you. 
 
 Adieu. You still owe me eight kisses, and I fear 
 you will forever refuse to paj^ them. 
 
 Adieu; tout à toi, rien qu'à toi. 
 
 Early in April, 1820. 
 
 It was on the 26th of April, 181 9, that I told you 
 that I loved you. It is not quite a year ago. Then 
 you were happy, gay, and free ; perhaps thoughts of 
 me did not then trouble you. How many dijBEiculties, 
 how many torments have I made you suffer in one 
 year! Oh! for how many things you have to par- 
 don me! 
 
 I should like to know what people say about me.
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Have a little more confidence in your husband. I 
 am very unhappy. You see, my love, that I can 
 hardly put two ideas together ; your letter has dis- 
 tressed me cruellj^ I have, moreover, so many 
 things to say to you, and so little time in which to 
 write. How will all these things end? I know 
 pretty well how they will end for me, but how will 
 it be for you . . .? 
 
 Now all my hopes, all my desires, are concentrated 
 only on you. 
 
 I wish very much to answer everything in your 
 letter. How could you dare to say or hint that I 
 could ever forget you? Could you by chance have 
 been despising me? Tell me who are the people 
 who talk about us? I am furious! You do not feel, 
 as you ought to feel, how much better you are in all 
 respects than those around you. I make no excep- 
 tion of those young girls, your pretended friends, 
 who are enough to make the angels themselves ac- 
 count them devils. 
 
 Adieu, my Adèle, I see I am in no fit state to an- 
 swer your letter. Excuse my bad writing. I will 
 write the rest to-morrow — if I can. 
 
 Tuesday, April i8, 1820. 
 I am wretched, my beloved Adèle, to know that you 
 are ill ; and if the ideas you have been forming about 
 me have helped to make you so, I assuredly do not 
 know how I can undeceive you. I asked you to tell 
 me who were the gossips who had given you a bad 
 opinion of me; j^ou would not answer me, because, 
 unhappily, it is possible you may have believed them. 
 
 9
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ... I further asked you to tell me of what faults 
 they accused me, that I might correct them if what 
 they said was just, or defend myself if they were 
 false, and on this point also you have not thought 
 fit to satisfy me. What do they say about me? 
 Whatever it is, it is probably not favorable, either 
 to my conduct or my character, and yet I take God 
 to witness that I wish you knew all my actions with- 
 out exception. I should then have little to fear from 
 the silly chatter of your friends, and I believe you 
 would think better of me than you do now. As it 
 is quite possible that some one may have told you 
 I was full of self-conceit, I beg you to believe that I 
 am not saying this from vanity. 
 
 You accuse me vaguely of certain things. You 
 say I seem embarrassed when I am with you. It is 
 true. I am so, but it is because I would so gladly 
 be always alone with you, and am annoyed by the 
 inquisitive glances of people around me. You add 
 that "I seem to feel ennui when with you." If you 
 think me a liar, it would be useless to tell you over 
 again that my only happy moments are those that 
 I am able to spend with you. 
 
 And yet, my Adèle, in connection with these ideas, 
 it may be right to tell you that the time may be at 
 hand when I shall have to give up this last and only 
 pleasure. Your parents look upon me with dislike, 
 and assuredly they have good reason to complain of 
 me. I acknowledge the wrongs I have committed 
 against them — or rather the one wrong I have done 
 them, for there is only one, and that is, I have loved 
 you. You must feel that I cannot continue to visit 
 
 10
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 in a house whose master and mistress do not Hke to 
 see me, I write you this with tears falhng from my 
 eyes, and I blush Uke a conceited fool, as I am. 
 
 Whatever may happen, accept my inviolable prom- 
 ise to have no other wife but you, and to become your 
 husband as soon as it may be in my power. Burn 
 all my other letters, but keep this one. They may 
 part us, but I am yours — yours for eternity. I am 
 yours — your property, your slave. Do not forget 
 that. You may always make use of me as if I were 
 a thing and not a person. Wherever I may be, near 
 or far, write to me and tell me what I am to do for 
 you. I will obey you or die. 
 
 This is what I want to say to you before I cease 
 to see you, that you may at all times point out the 
 way in which you think I could serve you, if you 
 think proper to keep up any relations with me. Yes, 
 my Adèle, I foresee I must soon give up all meetings 
 with you. Encourage me a little. . . , 
 
 I am constantly engaged in bitter reflections. 
 Since you have loved me you have learned to think 
 yourself less- estimable (that was your own word), 
 and I, from day to day since I loved you, find myself 
 growing better. It is because, dear Adèle, I owe 
 everything to you. It is the wish to make myself 
 worthy of you which makes me conscious of my faults. 
 I owe everything to you. I love to repeat this. If 
 I have always kept myself free from the excesses 
 sadly too common among young men of my age, it 
 was not because I have had no opportunities to go 
 astray, but thoughts of you have protected me. 
 Thanks to j^ou, I have kept unstained the onh' things 
 
 II
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 that I can offer you, a body pure, and an unsullied 
 heart. Perhaps I ought not to have said all this, 
 but you are my wife ; this will prove that I have hid- 
 den nothing from you, and how great is the influence 
 you exert, and always will exert, upon your faithful 
 husband, 
 
 V. M. Hugo. 
 
 The fears and sad forebodings that the letter of April 
 1 8th expressed were soon to be realized — more than 
 realized — by what took place. All intercourse between 
 the lovers was suddenly put an end to for some months. 
 
 Had Victor been imprudent? Had he made his ap- 
 pearance too often at the house, or in the garden, of 
 the girl he loved? At all events, the vigilance of 
 Mme. Foucher being aroused, she took the alarm, and 
 warned her husband of what was taking place. M. 
 Foucher was not willing to remain in uncertainty. If 
 Victor's mother had not the least suspicion, what would 
 she think of the conduct of her son? He was resolved 
 to know at once. 
 
 M. Foucher himself might easily have been disposed 
 to look not unfavorably on Victor's attachment to his 
 daughter. But in any case there could be no question 
 about allowing them to marry at their age ; yet they 
 might be separated for a time; they might wait and 
 prove their constancy. 
 
 M. Foucher, chief clerk in the War Office, was a man 
 held by all who knew him in high esteem ; he wore the 
 ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and was in every re- 
 spect an honorable man ; but he had three children ; 
 he had only his salary to live upon, and his daugh- 
 ter would have no dot on her marriage. Victor's 
 worldly prospects were even less promising. To be 
 sure, he was the son of General Hugo, and generals of 
 the Empire, even among Royalists, do not seem, in 1821, 
 to have lost their prestige. Furthermore, M. Foucher 
 was a great reader ; he knew more about literature than 
 he cared to show. He was quite able to appreciate Vic- 
 tor's talent, and to foresee his future career. He knew 
 
 12
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 what Chateaubriand had said about him, and how 
 Alexandre Soumet had written a letter on the part of 
 the Académie des Jeux Floraux, congratulating the 
 young poet on " the prodigious hopes he held out to 
 French literature." M. Foucher possibly thought his 
 old friend Mme. Hugo might not show herself alto- 
 gether averse to the marriage. But all must be straight- 
 forward and above board between them. He would go, 
 therefore, and talk to her. 
 
 Victor knew his mother too well to feel anything but 
 dread of such an interview. 
 
 The wife of General Hugo was the dearly beloved 
 mother of her three sons, but she was greatly feared 
 by them. She loved them tenderly, but she managed 
 them roughly. She was the only parent who had had 
 charge of the three boys, for General Hugo had at that 
 time almost separated himself from his wife and sons. 
 He had another domestic establishment, and the only 
 connection he still kept up with his famity was to pay 
 a small sum annually for their support, which was 
 very insufficient for their needs. Mme. Hugo, an arbi- 
 trary woman by nature, kept a very tight hold on the 
 conduct of her sons. Her system was to leave them 
 wholly free in all that concerned their intellectual prog- 
 ress, but to require from them in everything that con- 
 cerned their conduct the most absolute obedience to 
 her will. When the parents of Adèle should startle 
 her by their surprising revelation, what would she do? 
 Victor foresaw too well what sentence she would pass 
 on him. He felt already he was bound and subjugated 
 to her maternal will, both because he feared and be- 
 cause he loved his mother. 
 
 It was well known that he owed her twice over his 
 life; that he came into the world .so frail and delicate 
 that it seemed as if he had not a àsiy to live, and before 
 he could grow well and strong he had long been weak 
 and ailing. We have his own lines concerning it in 
 his Feuilles d'Automne: — 
 
 ... Je dirai.s peut-être quelque jour, 
 Quel lait pur, que de soins, que de vœux, que d'amour 
 Prodigués à ma vie, en naissant condamnée, 
 M'ont fait deux fois l'enfant de ma mère obstinée. 
 
 13
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 And the mother's love for the son whom she had 
 saved was augmented by pride in his talents, when, 
 as he grew in strength, she found him growing in 
 ability. But the more she thought of him the more 
 she exacted of him. She wanted him all for herself. 
 Victor was well aware of this, and his heart throbbed 
 with anguish when one morning he saw M. and Mme. 
 Foucher come to his mother's house and heard them 
 ask for a private interview. 
 
 This happened on April 26, 1820, just one year after 
 the day when Victor had for the first time told Adèle 
 that he loved her — April 26, 1819. 
 
 At first Mme. Hugo was stupefied by what they told 
 her. Was it conceivable? Was it possible? Victor, 
 who so short a time before had been a baby clinging 
 to her skirts, Victor in love? — in love for months? He 
 could not be in earnest! But it was serious. She 
 knew her son. She knew his ardent nature, and she 
 felt that keen pang — a mother's jealousy. Her son 
 could love, and he did love, another better than herself, 
 and that other was a young girl — almost a child ! And, 
 after all, who was she that had stolen from her the love 
 of her own son ? Here came in a mother's pride. Victor 
 was the son of General Count Hugo ; Victor had already 
 acquired some celebrity, and before long he might see 
 fame before him ; then why might he not aspire to 
 make one of the very best, the richest, matches? — and 
 meantime he was making silly love to the daughter of 
 a clerk in the War Office, a girl without family or fort- 
 une! 
 
 If Mme. Hugo had been prepared for the blow she 
 was about to receive, she would assuredly have softened 
 the expression of her sentiments to M. and Mme. 
 Foucher ; but, taken as she was by surprise, she put 
 no curb on her tongue. Now or hereafter such a mar- 
 riage was impossible! Never — never — as long as she 
 lived, should such a marriage take place! 
 
 M. Foucher, whose paternal feelings were naturally 
 much hurt, replied coldly. It was settled that the two 
 families should at once cease to see each other, that all 
 intercourse between them should be broken off. It was 
 more than mere separation — it was an absolute quarrel. 
 
 They sent for Victor to tell him their decision. He 
 
 14
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 had had time to collect hivS strength and to arm himself 
 with courage. He felt that he must show himself to 
 be a man ! It is strange, but he was not angry with his 
 mother. It was his nature to find excuses for those he 
 loved ; but this father, who said it was his duty to watch 
 over the purity of his daughter, a purity that Victor 
 knew had never been in peril, seemed to him despotic 
 and unjust. He subsequently wrote to Adèle : " Your 
 father had no right to peer into a secret which belongs 
 to us alone." He made up his mind, therefore, to as- 
 sume a lofty attitude before this tyrant. He boldly con- 
 fessed his love, and then listened to the sentence which 
 shut him out from Paradise, without change of coun- 
 tenance. Only when Adèle's father and mother were 
 gone, when he was alone with his own parent, the 
 man disappeared, the child returned, and he burst into 
 tears. His mother, much afflicted by the suffering of 
 her beloved son, tried to console him. But he rushed 
 away, and shut himself up in his chamber, where he 
 wept and wept until he could weep no more. He must 
 have wept like Jephthah's daughter, and doubtless for 
 the same reason. Adèle was lost to him ; what remained 
 for him but death? 
 
 M. and Madame Foucher when they returned home 
 seem to have avoided any clear explanation with their 
 daughter as to the step that they had just taken. They 
 only told her that all intercourse with the wife of General 
 Hugo was broken off, that she would cease to see any 
 of the family. 
 
 And Victor? Victor would not return. He refused 
 to come back. That was all they said, and it left poor 
 Adèle a prey to the most harrowing conjectures. Did 
 Victor no longer love her? She refused to believe this, 
 but she saw days, weeks, and months pass, in which 
 she received no news of him. Her parents tried to 
 make her forget her grief by receptions, visits, and lit- 
 tle parties. 
 
 As she was very young and gay, she let them do 
 with her what they would, and entered into these gay- 
 eties. There was even something planned about an- 
 other marriage. We would wish to think that she con- 
 sented to all this as a mere blind. For could she have 
 wholly despaired when she read and reread Victor's letters, 
 
 15
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 with their ardent promises, their sacred vows? It seems 
 unhkely that she did not read them, since we know she 
 kept them carefully. 
 
 As for him, after his deluge of tears he recovered his 
 energy and courage. Should he die? Of what use was it 
 to die? Had he not devoted to her his life and love? 
 He was bound to live. His mother might exact of him 
 a promise that he would not see Adèle, but she could 
 not obtain, she never would obtain, a promise that he 
 would cease to love her. To win her for his wife, 
 even if he had to do it in spite of the opposition of his 
 mother, was his fixed purpose in life. He remembered 
 the strong assurance which, with a singular presenti- 
 ment, he had put into his last letter, signing it as he was 
 not in the habit of signing those letters, with his full 
 name: 
 
 " Receive this, my inviolable promise, that I will have no other 
 wife but thee. . . . They may possibly separate us, but I am 
 thine— thine eternally I — V. M. HUGO." 
 
 How could he keep this promise? Only in one way, 
 by work. Work only could bring him independence, 
 and permit him — we must say it frankly — to earn 
 money enough to make his mother more comfortable in 
 the first place, and then to give Adèle's father a suffi- 
 cient assurance that he was in a position to support a 
 wife. He set to work, to use his own expression, " with 
 the courage of a lion." And thus began that indefat- 
 igable toil which lasted during his whole life ; the forge, 
 once lighted, was never to go out. 
 
 In the month of December, 1819, Victor had founded, 
 in connection with his brother Abel, in hopes of helping 
 their mother, whose allowance from her husband was 
 very small, a semi-monthly magazine, Le Conserva- 
 teur Littéraire. Victor had undertaken the greater part 
 of the work in the first numbers ; but after the month of 
 April he redoubled his zeal and activity. Le Conser- 
 vateur Littéraire lasted fifteen months. Of the three 
 large volumes which now contain it, Victor, under eight 
 or ten signatures, certainly wrote two of them. The 
 young journalist gives an account of everj^thing that 
 would interest the world of letters — books, poems, and 
 dramas. He speaks with a wonderful maturity of judg- 
 
 16
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ment of the works of Chateaubriand, André Chénier, 
 of Lamennais, and Mme. Desbordes- Vahnore, of the 
 Marie Stuart of Lebrun, and of the Vêpres Siciliennes 
 of Casimir Delà vigne. While all this time he was try- 
 ing to write a novel, the first version of Bug-Jargal. 
 
 But the great object of Le Conservateur Littéraire 
 was to do battle for the cause of monarchy. Le Con- 
 servateur, the great political review of Chateaubriand, 
 Lamennais, and Bonald, had just ceased to appear. 
 As there was no line-of-battle ship in action, the little 
 sloop bravely fought on. Victor put into his work all 
 the ardor inspired by his love for his " Vendean mother." 
 His first poems were his Royalist odes. La Vendée, La 
 Mort du Duc de Berry, Le Rétablissement de la Statue de 
 Henri IV ., etc. Nothing could have been more sincere 
 than his enthusiasm, nothing more disinterested. A 
 sad note in Le Conservateur Littéraire gives us to un- 
 derstand that the official encouragement and material 
 aid given to other Royalist publications were denied to 
 these devoted young champions. Never mind ! their zeal 
 in the cause of monarchy would be the same. 
 
 Meantime this work, which hardly could fill all his 
 time and thoughts, left poor Victor's heart empty. He 
 never ceased to think of Adèle, but he had no one he could 
 talk to about her. It was then that he began to write a 
 novel, Han d'Islande, which might serve him as a con- 
 fidant in his grief and loneliness. In it he called Adèle 
 Ethel, and Victor, under the name of Ordner, addressed 
 to her, on paper, all the loving words he could no longer 
 speak or write to her. Only until the book should be 
 finished and publivshed she could not read or hear them. 
 Then Victor thought of Le Conservateur Littéraire. 
 
 M. Foucher took the review, and he could hardly 
 keep Adèle from seeing it. Among Victor's numer- 
 ous literary activities, we have omitted to say that 
 he found in an old chronicle of the fifteenth century 
 the story of a young poet, a disciple of Petrarch, called 
 Raymond d'Ascoli, w^ho, parted from her he loved, 
 preferred death. Victor composed an elegy on this 
 young suicide, which he called Le Jeune Banni, and 
 in his position of editor-in-chief inserted it in the July 
 number of Le Conservateur Littéraire of 1820. It may 
 have been at this time that there was talk of another 
 B 17
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 suitor for the hand of Adèle. Raymond d'Ascoh writes 
 thus to his love — and Adèle with a beating heart might 
 read the verses (not very good as poetry, but was she 
 likely to mark that?) : 
 
 Bientôt ... lis sans retard, ô vierge adorée, 
 Ce que trace ma main par mes pleurs égarée. 
 
 J'ose t'ecrirel Hélas, à nos ardeurs naissantes 
 Qu'eut servi jusqu'ici ce pénible secours! 
 
 Hier ... Te souvient-t-il fille douce et modeste 
 
 De cet hier déjà si loin de moi? 
 Je souriais, l'amour veillait seul avec nous; 
 
 Et toi, dans ta gaîté naïve 
 
 Tu m'appelais ton jeune époux» 
 
 Hélas! oui, tu verras, rougissante, étonnée. 
 Un plus heureux hâter ton rêve matinal, 
 Et saisissant ta main dans sa main fortunée 
 Te conduire au lieu saint . . . 
 Et puis il cachera ton bandeau virginal 
 
 Sous la couronne d.'hymenée! 
 
 Un autre I — ô douleur ! ô tourment ! 
 Je t'aimais sans délire, et je t'aime avec rage! 
 Mon Emma, songe à moi! respecte ton serment! 
 
 Adèle respected her vows, and Victor had given her 
 this sign of life ; so far well. But he had not been able 
 at the same time to avoid the risk of afflicting and offend- 
 ing his mother, which he dreaded beyond everything. 
 It is clear that Mme. Hugo, as well as Adèle, saw a 
 transparent meaning in this poetry, and it is certain 
 that a scene of tears and reproaches followed, and the 
 cruel separation was made more bitter and complete 
 for the two lovers. But once more the blessed Conser- 
 vateur Littéraire became the means of ameliorating their 
 condition. 
 
 M. Foucher, who was, as we have said, head clerk 
 in the War Office, chanced to publish about this time 
 a volume called Manuel du Recrutement, a technical 
 book on an especial subject, which assuredly had no lit- 
 erary pretensions. But the young lover did not think 
 so ; he hastened to write a review of it in Le Conserva- 
 it
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 teur Littéraire, though the work could hardly be called 
 literary. The review was very laudatory, for the book 
 was written by the father of Adèle. To praise the work 
 of an old friend who was master of the subject of re- 
 cruiting could not be reprehensible, and Mme. Hugo 
 found nothing to say against it. 
 
 The article pleased M. Foucher, no doubt, but, in- 
 trenched still in his dignity, he kept silence. Then 
 Providence took the matter in hand, and happily at 
 this very time gave France the royal infant she was 
 eagerly looking for — the Due de Bordeaux, " l'enfant du 
 ■miracle." 
 
 At once Victor composed an ode on the occasion ; he 
 inserted it in Le Conservateur Littéraire, and afterwards 
 had it printed in a little pamphlet, which pamphlet 
 he sent to M. Foucher, with a dedication, of which we 
 may be sure he carefully chose the words. This time 
 kind M. Foucher could not refuse to make some ac- 
 knowledgment, without failing in the first principles 
 of courtesy, and perhaps he was not sorry that it be- 
 came his duty to be polite. However, he did not write 
 to Victor, but to Mme. Hugo he addressed the following 
 letter : 
 
 Paris, October 13, 1820. 
 
 Madame,— I have to thank M. V. Hugo for his 
 flattering article on the Manuel du Recrutement. I 
 have also thanks to give him for sending me as a 
 present a copy of his ode on the birth of the Due de 
 Bordeaux. My wife is a sharer in my debt, for she 
 has taken half the pleasure we have had in this poem. 
 
 Passages such as " tel un fleure mystérieux " and 
 " oui, souris orphelin, " went to the hearts of an audi- 
 ence which is not especiall}^ poetical. As you know, 
 none of us are good judges of poems. 
 
 I propose to call on these gentlemen, and to point 
 out to them certain books which will ofïer a large 
 field for criticism. I shall see them shortly, and 
 
 19
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 renew to you, madame, assurances of my respectful 
 and sincere attachment. 
 
 Your very humble and obedient servant, 
 
 P. FOUCHER. 
 
 This was a little renewal of friendly intercourse, and 
 Victor must have been delighted to receive a visit, were 
 it only business-like and commonplace, from Adèle's 
 father. But Adèle — Adèle herself — should he never see 
 her again? What was she doing? What did she think 
 of? Did she suffer as he suffered? Had she forgotten 
 him? Could she love him still? It did not seem possible 
 that vshe, who filled all his life, and all his thoughts, 
 should live only a few j^ards from him, and yet that 
 they should be as strangers. 
 
 Adèle at that time was taking lessons in drawing 
 from a friend. Mademoiselle Duvidal, and Victor knew 
 that Adèle almost every morning walked to her house 
 alone. At the beginning of 1821 he took a great re- 
 solution ; he went one morning and a little distance from 
 her home ventured to accost her. After this she accepted 
 and wrote notes which expanded into letters. 
 
 These letters were tender at first, but before long they 
 became anxious and sometimes showed vexation. They 
 had seen each other once more, and that was a great gain ; 
 but they could only meet in the street, and that involved 
 great peril. Adèle soon perceived the risk she ran. 
 She tried to put an end to these walks. Victor, in de- 
 spair, grew angry. Then they were resumed, but Adèle 
 contrived to make them fewer month after month. A 
 stranger circumstance was soon to end them altogether. 
 
 1821 
 
 March 
 
 Saturday {early in March. 1821). 
 
 Your last letter was very short, Adèle. You only 
 let me see you for a few moments ; you only sent me 
 
 20
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 a few words. What does this mean, unless that the 
 sight of me is unwelcome, and that writing to me bores 
 you? Nevertheless, Adèle, I will not worry myself 
 over this thought which makes me wretched. I shall 
 try to believe that if you endeavor to abridge the few 
 moments we can pass together, it is only because 
 you are afraid to be seen with your husband, and 
 that when you persist in writing to me so briefly 
 you have reasons for that also, reasons that indeed 
 I cannot guess, but that I shall not the less respect. 
 I wish to trust you in all things — or what would 
 become of me? 
 
 When you seem to me to be cold or dissatisfied 
 I pass hours turning over in my mind all kinds of 
 motives, some of which may be true ones, but which 
 would drive me to despair if I knew them to be so. 
 No, my Adèle, in spite of the fears that torment me 
 sometimes, when you meet me with apparent repug- 
 nance, or flit away from me with too much haste, 
 I trust you blindly, and never, save in the last ex- 
 tremity, will I allow myself to believe that I have 
 lost your love. For all the plans of my life are found- 
 ed on my belief in your constancy, and if this should 
 fail me, where should I be? 
 
 You ask me again and again a question that is 
 very natural, and yet it gives me pain, because it 
 shows that you have strange doubts of me. You 
 tell me it was I who gave up going to your house 
 a year ago. I have always ver3^ much regretted, 
 Adèle, that you were not present when that pre- 
 tended refusal took place. You might have judged 
 for yourself whether it was possible for a man to 
 
 21
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 act otherwise than I did, and perhaps you would now 
 have a higher opinion of me than you have to-day; 
 but you were not present, and I will not reproach you 
 for anything. However, any one who had confidence 
 in me would be disposed to believe, even without hav- 
 ing heard what passed, that if I accepted so great a 
 misfortune, it was because I could not have done oth- 
 erwise. I cannot demand so much of you. It is one 
 of my strongest motives for wishing to have a few 
 quiet moments' talk with you that I hope to destroy 
 all those prejudices with which others have inspired 
 you against your husband. Letters will not do this, 
 because as you read them you make in your own 
 mind answers to what I write, and I am not there to 
 reply. 
 
 How much easier it is for you, Adèle, to justify 
 yourself in my sight! All you need do is to tell me 
 that you love me, and then all is forgotten. 
 
 You tell me that you cannot help thinking that if 
 I do not try to come back to your house, it is because 
 I fancy it would be impossible. Adèle, my dear 
 Adèle, if you think I may, point out to me any hon- 
 orable means by which I can come, and I shall be too 
 happy to attempt it. I should be so happy to see 
 you again with the consent of your parents, to pass 
 my evenings beside you, to accompany you in your 
 walks, to attend you everj^where, to fulfil all your 
 wishes. Can you conceive with what joy I should 
 exchange my constant solitude for so much happi- 
 ness? 
 
 The great obstacle is the breach between our fam- 
 ilies. Our parents have quarrelled ; I do not clearly 
 
 22
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 — — ■ ■- ' I ■■■■■' I ■.■■■■ ■ jtA 
 
 know for what,* and it seems to me now very diffi- 
 cult, even impossible, to bring them again together. 
 See, reflect, perhaps you will at last end by once more 
 deciding ive must wait. It is that thought which 
 drives me to despair. It is that which makes me hope 
 before long to be so independent by my own exer- 
 tions that I can take my own way, and my people 
 will not be able to refuse it to me. Then, my Adèle, 
 you will be mine, and I trust the time is not far off. 
 I only work, I only live, for that day. You cannot 
 conceive with what jo37ful emotion I write those 
 words, you will he mine — I, who would give my 
 whole life for a year, for a month, of happiness passed 
 with you as my wife. 
 
 I make no reply to what you say about my " con- 
 tempt," etc. How could you write it? If you had a 
 little esteem for me, could you believe me capable 
 of loving a being I despised? Appreciate yourself 
 more fully. Consider how much you are above all 
 other women in character, mind, and heart — they axe 
 false and coquettish. Why should I not, my Adèle, 
 have the highest esteem for you? If my heart and 
 my conduct have been always earnest and pure, it 
 is because I thought of you; it was because I was 
 firmly resolved to remain worthy of you — this has 
 protected me. Adèle, you whom I have always seen 
 so noble, so modest, do not think yourself guilty 
 of any fault, I implore you. If you do, I shall con- 
 sider myself a rascal ; and yet I have committed no 
 fault but that of loving you — if you think that to 
 be one. 
 
 * He knows very well, but he will not accuse his mother, 
 23
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Believe me, Adèle, if you love me, it may be a mis- 
 fortune (for you, though not for me), but it can never 
 be a crime. There is nothing but the tender love 
 I feel for you which can equal my respect. 
 
 Adieu, my Adèle. It is very late, and I have no 
 more paper. Excuse my scrawl. Adieu, je t'em- 
 brasse ! 
 
 Your Husband. 
 
 March i6th. 
 
 I had lost, Adèle, the habit of feeling happy, but 
 I felt on reading your too short little note all the joy 
 I have been deprived of for nearly a whole year. 
 The certainty that you love me has suddenly drawn 
 me out of my long apathy. I am almost happy! 
 I am thinking how to find expressions to return you 
 that sense of happiness, you who are the cause of it, 
 and I can find none. Yet I must write to you. Too 
 many emotions are crowding on me all at once; I 
 cannot live without imparting them to you. 
 
 Besides, I am your husband, and you can have 
 no scruples about corresponding with your husband. 
 We are united by a sacred tie. What we do is justi- 
 fied in our own eyes, and some day it will be so in the 
 eyes of the whole world. In corresponding with each 
 other, we only exercise our right. We are doing our 
 duty. Would you have the courage, my dear-beloved 
 Adèle, to deprive me so soon of a happiness now 
 all in all to me? We must both see into the depths 
 of each other's soul. I repeat that, if you still love 
 me, you ought to have no scruple about writing to 
 me, as you are my wife. Cease, then, to be worried 
 
 24
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 about it. Write to me about all you think, and all 
 you do. We shall thus live for each other; it will 
 be almost as if we were once more living together. 
 I, too, will send you a journal of all I am doing, for 
 I like you to know all my actions. For a whole year 
 I have always acted as if all I did was to be laid be- 
 fore you. I should be very happy, Adèle, if you 
 could tell me the same! You promise me, do you 
 not, from henceforth to tell me all about your pleas- 
 ures and your pursuits, and to initiate your husband 
 into all your secrets? Cultivate your charming tal- 
 ent.* But for you it must never be anything but a 
 charming talent. You must never turn to it as a 
 means of support — that is my afïair. I wish that 
 all through life yours should be all the pleasure, 
 all the glory, if I achieve success ; mine, all the work, 
 all the pains. They will be sweet, if they are borne 
 for you. Thou wilt be my soul, and I thine arm! 
 I have still a thousand things to tell thee, but this 
 letter must end. Besides, I am not sure if you can 
 read such a scrawl. Alas! all my happiness now 
 consists in one hope — that you will answer me! 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle, adieu ! Je t'embrasse ! 
 
 Thy Husband. 
 
 March 2ist. 
 
 If — which seems impossible — you should have any- 
 thing more you wish to tell me, as there is no chance 
 of speaking to each other, you might write to me by 
 post, directing your letter to 
 
 * Adèle could draw very prettily. 
 25
 
 The Love Letters of yictor Hugo 
 
 M. Victor Hugo, de V Académie des Jeux floraux, 
 poste restante, au Bureau général. Rue Jean- Jacques- 
 Rousseau, à Paris. 
 
 That vain title will for once be of use to me; by 
 using it you may be sure that your letter will fall 
 into no hands but mine. From March 22d to March 
 30th I shall call at the post-office once a day. If 
 during that time you do not send me a letter, I shall 
 know that it is because you will have nothing more 
 to say to me. 
 
 Adieu! Probably I ought before this to have 
 ceased to use thee and thou to thee. I know I ought, 
 but I could not do it. Adieu. 
 
 Friday, March 23d. 
 
 One word from you, Adèle, has altered all my reso- 
 lutions. Forget my last letter, even as I have for- 
 gotten all that your last contained, which was so 
 painful to me. Is it, then, really true that you do 
 not forbid me ever again to see you? Yes, I shall see 
 you again, since you, my beloved Adèle, are so good 
 as to persist in writing to me. 
 
 I even hope to find some means of reconciling what 
 you owe to your husband with what you owe to the 
 proprieties that you set up for yourself. 
 
 I will write you on this subject more at length next 
 time. At this moment I have only time to send you 
 a few words, in which I try in vain to express my 
 gratitude and happiness. 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle. Write to me, and love 
 me a little. 
 
 Je t'embrasse ! 
 
 26
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Sunday, March z^th. 
 
 I was made very unhappy, my Adèle, by not see- 
 ing you yesterday morning, as I had hoped to do. 
 If you had received my last letter without sending 
 me any consoling words we should have never seen 
 each other again. But you gave me at that very 
 moment a proof of affection which deeply moved me, 
 and you have consented to write to me as before. 
 I wanted to take back that letter because of what 
 I said in it in a moment of anger and discourage- 
 ment. You would not give it me, and you read what 
 now I wish you may already have forgotten. It 
 was therefore important I should see you on Satur- 
 day, to remove the impression of that unhappy note. 
 
 I had already written you a few words, which you 
 will find enclosed in this letter. A most unlucky 
 circumstance prevented me from giving it to you. 
 Forgive me, therefore, my last letier, as I forgive 
 you all the doubts that yours had caused me. You 
 are willing to write to me again, but I must not put 
 too great a strain on your generosity. You run risks, 
 you say, of being seen with me ; you fear the prying 
 eyes of all the gossiping old women in the quar- 
 ter, and I am tr3àng to find the means of reconciling 
 these miserable conventionalities with the happi- 
 ness of seeing you, for that I cannot forego. Tell 
 me yourself what you wish us to do. If you really 
 wish we should meet only once a week, once a fort- 
 night, once a month ... I will obey j'ou; and 
 such terrible obedience will be the greatest proof that 
 I could give you of an attachment that has no limit 
 to its devotion. Then we will write to each other 
 
 27
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and exchange letters every time we meet, and you 
 shall tell me all about yourself, for it is the only 
 subject that can interest me. 
 
 As for coming to your house, I see no possible 
 way of doing it, at least for the present. My fam- 
 ily is ambitious for me, as I am for you. Some day 
 I hope, if I succeed in being able to help them, if I 
 can put them into easy circumstances and give them 
 some fortune, they will consent to my being happy. 
 If not, I shall take my own way. This is my only 
 hope. Those who would like to tear me apart from 
 you little know that I should then be nothing. 
 
 Adieu, my Adèle. Try to answer all I have said 
 in my letter, and arrange everything as may be best 
 for your own comfort and happiness, in comparison 
 with which mine is as nothing. 
 
 Your Faithful Husband. 
 
 I saw you to-day at Saint Sulpice and at M. de 
 Leymerie's. I was just entering a house where once 
 I had seen you dancing. 
 
 Friday, 4 p.m., March 2gth. 
 
 One word more, for pity's sake, my Adèle. Do 
 you not know that it is very hard for me to resign 
 myself to remain one whole month without speaking 
 to you? A month is an eternity. Give me at least 
 the consolation of seeing you once more before such 
 a long separation. 
 
 Besides this, could I be one long, whole month 
 without thanking you for the charming present you 
 have given me, while at the same time you impose 
 so cruel an obligation? I do not know, my adored 
 
 28
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Adèle, what expressions to employ to describe to 
 you the joy with which I received this pledge of our 
 eternal union. I did all sorts of extravagant things. 
 The hair was yours, my Adèle, and now part of your- 
 self is mine already! How can I repay you for all 
 you do for me? I have only one wretched life, but 
 it belongs to you; that is not much to say. Make 
 anything of me you will; I am 3'^our husband and 
 your slave. 
 
 And yet you will say I begin by disobeying j^^ou. 
 Adèle, just think, I shall have to wait a month. 
 A month ! Good heaven ! would not two weeks have 
 been long enough? Two weeks are so long! I im- 
 plore you, think over it, and try to tell me on the 
 28th of April that we shall meet again in two weeks. 
 I will obey you all this sad month of April, since 
 the decree has gone forth ; but try to make obedience 
 less difficult for me. 
 
 Adèle, I see I am more selfish than I thought ; 
 3^et think how long a month is ! What would become 
 of me without seeing you? Good heaven! if I could 
 not press against my heart this lock of hair, which 
 will never be parted from me! 
 
 Adieu, my wife, my beloved Adèle. Forgive me 
 for writing to you. Je t'embrasse tendrement f 
 
 Your faithful husband, 
 
 V. M. Hugo. 
 
 In case — which God forbid ! — anything should 
 happen to interfere with our intercourse, you can 
 safely write to the address I have already given 
 you. Adieu for a great long month. 
 
 29
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Remember that on April 28th I shall expect a very 
 long letter, a sort of journal of everything you have 
 thought, and every one of your actions. Adieu! 
 
 April 26th. 
 
 Do you remember, Adèle, that this day is the anni- 
 versary of that which determined the course of my 
 whole life? It was on the 26th of April, 1819, when I 
 one evening was sitting at your feet, that you asked 
 me to tell you my greatest secret, and promised in 
 return to tell me yours? All the circumstances of 
 that delicious evening are as fresh in my memory as 
 if all had happened yesterday, and yet since then 
 how many days of misfortune and discouragement 
 have passed ! I hesitated a few moments before I sur- 
 rendered to you the secret of my life, and then trem- 
 blingly I confessed that I loved 3^ou; but after the 
 reply you made me, Adèle, I felt the courage of a 
 lion. I at once, with energy, seized on the idea of 
 trying to be something for your sake ; my whole be- 
 ing seemed to have new strength. I saw at least one 
 certain prospect before me on this earth, that, namely, 
 of being loved by you. Oh! tell me that you have 
 not forgotten that evening ; tell me that 3'ou remem- 
 ber it all! My whole life has ever since been lived 
 in the happiness or the sorrow that dated from that 
 day. Is it not true, my beloved Adèle, that you, too, 
 have not forgotten it? 
 
 Well, by a strange fatality that fills me with won- 
 der whenever I feel myself out of humor with Provi- 
 dence (forgive me for sajàng it), the very anniver- 
 sary of my happiness (and let me say of yours) was 
 
 30
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 the day selected for a total change. It was on April 
 26, 1820, that our families discovered what no one 
 had any right to know but ourselves in our own 
 souls. The 26th of April was the date of all my hopes ; 
 the 26th of April is the date of my despair. I only 
 had one year of happiness. My second year of sor- 
 row is now going to begin. Will there be a third? 
 
 You do not know, Adèle — and it is a confession 
 I could make to no one but yourself — that the day on 
 which it was decided that I must see you no more 
 I wept. Yes, indeed, I wept as I had not wept for ten 
 years, and doubtless as I shall never weep again. 
 I had gone through a very painful scene; I had 
 listened to the sentence of our separation with 
 a face as unmoved as brass or iron; then, when 
 your father and mother had gone away, my mother, 
 seeing me stand pale and speechless, became more 
 tender than even she was wont. She tried to comfort 
 me, but I rushed away, and when I was alone I wept 
 long and bitterly. I had remained impassive and 
 strong so long as I saw in my separation from you 
 only the prelude to my death. But a little reflec- 
 tion showed me that it was my duty to cherish 
 your defender's life, so long as that life might be of 
 use to you. Then I wept like a coward. I had 
 no longer any control over myself when I recognized 
 the duty of living — of living parted from you. 
 
 Since then I only breathe, I only speak, I only 
 move, I only act, thinking of you. My state is one 
 of widowhood, since I cannot be near you. There 
 is no other woman in all the world to me, except 
 my mother. When I am forced to make my appear- 
 
 31
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ance in fashionable or literary salons I am considered 
 the coldest of human beings. No one knows that I 
 am the most impassioned. 
 
 All this may perhaps weary you, but I am giving 
 an account of myself to my wife. It would make 
 me very happy if you could say the same of yourself 
 to me. 
 
 I saw you this morning, and again this evening. 
 I felt that I must see you on such an anniversary — 
 that it must not pass without some little joy. This 
 morning I did not dare to speak to you; you had 
 forbidden me to do so before the 28th. I obey your 
 orders, but they are very painful to me. Adieu for 
 this evening, Adèle; the night is far advanced; 
 doubtless you are asleep, not thinking of the curl of 
 thy dark hair which, every night before going to 
 sleep, thy husband presses to his lips as a sacred 
 duty. 
 
 April 27th. 
 
 To the sadness which during the past year has be- 
 come my second nature there has been added during 
 the last few days a weariness, an exhaustion from 
 overwork, which from time to time throws me into 
 a strange state of apathy. I have no pleasure but 
 in writing to you, and then my difficulty is to find 
 words which will give you an adequate picture of 
 my ideas and my emotions. You must sometimes, 
 I fear, Adèle, think the language of my letters strange 
 and extravagant, but that is because of the difficulty 
 I find in expressing to you, even imperfectly, what I 
 feel for you, 
 
 I am expecting from you a long — a very long — 
 
 32
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 letter, which will compensate me somewhat for this 
 long month of waiting; a complete journal, which 
 will let me into the secret of all your actions, all j^our 
 thoughts. I, too, should have kept a diary for 3"ou, 
 if I had been as sure you would not tire of it as 3^ou 
 can be sure that every word of yours will be interest- 
 ing to me. However, my daily journal could have 
 been summed up in these words : " I thought of 3^ou 
 all day, whatever I was doing, and all night I thought 
 of you in my dreams." 
 
 What more could I say to you? That I saw you 
 twice at Saint Sulpice, and that twice j^ou refused 
 me the permission to accept what the good God 
 seemed willing to offer me, the happiness of our pass- 
 ing an hour together. That I met you one evening 
 near your own house, and that of us two the only 
 one who showed any recognition of the other was I. 
 That I saw you in the Luxembourg on the 23d of 
 April, and then bitterly reflected that on the 23d of 
 April, 1820, I gave you m3?' arm for the last time. 
 
 Shall I tell 3^ou how manj^ times at night, re- 
 turning from my lonely walks, I have stopped at the 
 entrance of the Rue d'Assas, before a light that I 
 knew was in 3^our window? How man\^ times I have 
 thought, when I saw the 3'oung leaves on the trees, of 
 the hours we passed together in your garden ! If 3^ou 
 sat down, it was near me, 3^our arm leaned ui)on 
 mine, your hand was not withdrawn from my hand, 
 our eyes could always look into each other, and if 
 from time to time I dared to press 3'ou to my heart, 
 you onl3^ repulsed me with a smile. Adèle, Adèle! 
 think what I have lost! 
 C 33
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I am too agitated when I think of these things to 
 go on. Let me break off. I will resume my letter 
 this evening. 
 
 Midnight. 
 
 After a few more hours, Adèle, I shall see you again ; 
 I shall speak to you again ; I shall receive your letter. 
 Those hours will pass very slowly — more slowly 
 even than this eternal month of April. Tell me, 
 my dearest, has it seemed so long to you as it has to 
 me, this long month of loneliness? Have you been 
 dreaming, as I have, with delight of the 28th of April? 
 Alas! all I dare to ask is that you may sometimes 
 have thought of it with pleasure. That is all I 
 venture to hope. 
 
 You must at least have softened the rigor of your 
 first decision; you must have had pity upon me. 
 Surely, from this time we may see each other once 
 a week, may we not? And you will try to arrange 
 that we may pass some time together? You do not 
 know what I am hoping for at this very moment — 
 madly, perchance. It is that to-morrow you will not 
 have the courage to leave me so promptly as you 
 generally do ; that we might go for a moment into the 
 Jardin des Bains, which is sure to be empty; that 
 your arm may once more lean on mine ; that I may 
 look at you once more at my ease, a happiness I have 
 not had for such a long time. Surely, Adèle, you 
 cannot refuse me this? 
 
 But I am mad. You will hardly look at me ; you 
 will slip into my hand in secret a little note that you 
 have had no pleasure in writing to me ; you will say 
 about three words to me, just as if an angel had to 
 
 34
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 speak to a devil, and you will disappear, before I 
 have had strength to make my prayer asking you 
 to talk to me a moment longer, a prayer that you 
 would gladly give me no need to make if you loved 
 me as I love you. 
 
 See, Adèle, how chance or my good angel has 
 done for me what you would not do. You told me I 
 must not see you all this month. Well, they have 
 several times brought me within sight of you. Thus, 
 on the 15th of last July, I met you at the ball at 
 Sceaux. I had several times obstinately refused to 
 go there. At last I yielded to persuasion, or rather to 
 the advice of my good angel who was leading me, 
 although I knew it not, towards her whom I was look- 
 ing for everywhere! You seemed displeased to see 
 me, and I had the cruel happiness of seeing you 
 dance all the evening with other partners. You see, 
 Adèle, I love you more than you love me, for nothing 
 in the world would have induced me to dance at that 
 ball. We went home before you did. I was very 
 tired, but I insisted on walking back to Paris, hop- 
 ing that the carriage in which you rode would over- 
 take me; and, as it happened, half an hour later 
 a fiacre passed me, in which I thought I recognized 
 you. This fancy paid me for the dust and the 
 fatigue of my long tramp. 
 
 Adèle, forgive me, I may tire you, but do you love 
 me thus? Let me talk to you a little of my deep de- 
 votion. Nothing in me is perfect but the merit of 
 deeply loving you. Adieu. I am at all events very 
 grateful for all that 3'ou have done for me. 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle. It is adieu only for a 
 
 35
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 short time, I hope. Sleep soundly, and let me em- 
 brace you very tenderly, but very innocently, in your 
 dreams. 
 
 Your Husband. 
 
 This meeting on the 28th of April, from which Victor 
 promised himself so much happiness, was their last. 
 The lovers after that day ceased to see each other, or 
 even to write. Not that they had been discovered, and 
 once more separated by a parental decree, but Mme. 
 Hugo, whose health had been failing for some months, 
 became very ill early in May. From that moment Victor 
 scarcely left her pillow, and devoted himself entirely to 
 her. Her illness, with alternations of worse and better, 
 lasted two months. Mme. Hugo died on the 27th of 
 June. 
 
 It was a deep grief to Victor. His capacity for affec- 
 tion, to which he sometimes makes allusion in his let- 
 ters, had need of family ties, and the adoration he be- 
 stowed upon his mother had suiîjîlied that need, with the 
 sweet consciousness that he, too, was infinitely beloved 
 by her. He had twice owed her his life, and now he felt 
 twice orphaned. He was estranged from his father, who 
 was indifferent to him, to say the least of it. He was 
 coldly treated by his brothers, who were jealous of his 
 superiority, and separated from Adèle, whose hand 
 was refused him. He felt himself all alone in the wide 
 world. 
 
 His wretchedness was increased by an unhappy in- 
 cident. He will tell it in one of his letters ; we will only 
 allude to it here. On June 29th, the evening of the àay 
 when his mother was buried, he left the house, unable 
 to bear its emptiness and solitude, and instinctively, 
 as he often did, found his way into the neighborhood 
 of the Hôtel de Toulouse. Its windows were a blaze 
 of light ; it was M. Foucher's fête day ; there was a 
 ball going on there. Victor knew all about the place ; 
 he went up to the second story, went into an empty 
 room, from which a little inside window looked into 
 the ball-room, and thence he saw Adèle dancing and 
 gay. Subsequentlv she proved to him that the news 
 
 36
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 of his mother's death had been carefully concealed from 
 her, and assured him that had she known of his pres- 
 ence she would have risked everything to leave the 
 ball-room and have come to him to share his sorrow. 
 But at the time he was absolutely overwhelmed by this 
 fresh blow. 
 
 His father showed him little tenderness. He sent 
 him word that he would make him an allowance on 
 condition that he would give up literature ; \^ictor re- 
 fused. He had only eight hundred francs in his pos- 
 session, but such was the strength of his will that this 
 little sum seemed to liim enough with which to face 
 the future. 
 
 M. Foucher thought it proper to pay him a visit of 
 condolence, and Victor returned the visit, but he was 
 not allowed to see Adèle. M. Foucher even assured 
 him that it would be better for him to leave Paris for 
 a time. We know already that the Foucher family 
 was in the habit of hiring during the summer some 
 small place in the covuitry ; generally it was in the 
 suburbs, and three or four leagues would not have 
 kept Victor away. On July 15th, however, M. Foucher, 
 with his wife and daughter, went to Dreux, twenty-five 
 leagues away from Paris, and twenty-five francs be- 
 sides. On the 1 6th of July Victor set out, and in three 
 days reached Dreux, having tramped all the way. 
 
 The next day he was walking about the town when 
 he suddenly met M. Foucher, who was accompanied 
 by Adèla He took care they should not see him, but 
 he sent M. Foucher a letter, a manifestly fictitious letter. 
 Its falsehood seems almost toucliing from its frankness. 
 He wrote: 
 
 "Monsieur, — I had the pleasure of seeing j^ou to- 
 day here in Dreux, and I asked myself, could it be a 
 dream! ..." Then, to explain what he calls "a most 
 extraordinary chance," he relates that he had come down 
 from Paris on the invitation of a friend living between 
 Dreux and Nonancourt. However, this friend, by a 
 strange fatality, left home for (zap the evening before he 
 arrived. Victor would have returned at once to Paris, but 
 being well acquainted in Dreux, he had received invita- 
 tions, made engagements, " and what is very remarkable 
 is that I left Paris with much reluctance. The wish j^ou 
 
 37
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 expressed to have ine absent myself for some time con- 
 tributed to my decision. Your advice has had a singular 
 result." The letter, however, ends with what is true 
 and sincere : " I should not be candid if I did not tell 
 you that the unexpected sight of mademoiselle your 
 daughter gave me great pleasure. I venture to say boldly 
 that I love her with all the strength of my soul, and, 
 in my complete isolation and my deep grief, nothing 
 but thoughts of her can give me joy or pleasure." 
 
 Good M. Foucher may well have smiled over Victor's 
 narrative of "extraordinary coincidences." But what 
 could he do to checkmate a lover so persistent — such 
 an indefatigable pedestrian? He felt that he must 
 believe in the sincerity and firm purpose of the young 
 man. 
 
 He let him come to his house, and had an explanation 
 with him, in the presence of his daughter. 
 
 Victor boldly asked him for Adèle's hand. He, of 
 course, set forth his position in the best light he could, 
 but it was terribly uncertain. He said that he had 
 money enough in hand to live upon while awaiting de- 
 velopments in the future. He said he had partly writ- 
 ten a romance in the stj^le of Walter Scott, which he 
 hoped might bring in a good sum ; and that because 
 of services he had done to certain persons he had re- 
 ceived positive promises of a government place, or a 
 pension. As to the consent of his father, he felt sure 
 of obtaining it, if he did not proceed too incautiously. 
 But he did not say that he was very doubtful of obtain- 
 ing this consent from the general, who was completely 
 under the influence of a woman who was opposed to him ; 
 nor did he say that although he had all possible claims 
 to a pension from the king's government, he was too 
 proud to push forward such claims, however incontes- 
 table. At present he only wanted time, and, without 
 taking his extreme j^outh into account, he counted on 
 what he might do himself to achieve independence. 
 
 M. Foucher, only half convinced, but very much 
 moved when he thought of the young man's cour- 
 age, gave his consent to allowing Victor once more to 
 visit at his house. The engagement of the young peo- 
 ple was not to be officially acknowledged nor made 
 known to the public. That could not be until Victor's 
 
 38
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 financial situation was put upon a surer basis. Till 
 then they might see each other once a week, but never 
 alone ; they might meet in the Luxembourg Gardens ; 
 they might go to the theatre in a family party. Victor, 
 as he could not do better, accepted these conditions. 
 There was nothing more to be done at Dreux, and they 
 all went back to Paris. 
 
 Correspondence was renewed, but, alas! it was only 
 with Adèle's father. Victor could not write to him 
 about the ardor of his love, but what he wrote showed 
 the firmness of his character. He addressed M. Foucher 
 thus: 
 
 . . . The dearest thing I have at heart, is it not 
 the happiness of mademoiselle j^our daughter? If 
 she can be happy without me, I will be ready to 
 retire, although the hope of being hers some day is 
 my sole trust and expectation. In any case, how- 
 ever, I will not attain happiness by any road that 
 is not straight and honorable. I would not that 
 she should ever blush for her husband. I think, 
 without presumption, I shall end by attaining happi- 
 ness, because I have a firm will, and a firm will is 
 very powerful. Whatever may be the result of my 
 efforts, though obtaining her may be necessary to 
 my happiness and my life, to have deserved her 
 must be balm to my conscience and my feelings. — 
 Letter of July 2Sth. 
 
 ... A little check will not annihilate great cour- 
 age. I do not conceal from myself the uncertainties 
 or even the possible dangers of the future ; but I have 
 been taught by a brave mother that a man can mas- 
 ter circumstances. Many men walk with uncertain 
 steps upon firm ground; a man who has a good 
 
 39
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 conscience and a worthy aim should walk with a 
 firm tread even on dangerous ground. — Monfort 
 V Amaury, August ^d. 
 
 At the end of this month of August he was staying 
 at the château of his friend, the young Due de Rohan, 
 but his spirit of independence would not let him remain 
 there long. He writes thus: 
 
 Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who is at Rosny, 
 is to come and stay at the château in a few days' 
 time. M. de Rohan wants to keep me here at least 
 until she arrives, but I do not like to take advantage 
 of his kindness. I do not like the thought that my 
 exceptional pecuniary position should lead to my 
 becoming the dependant of a man whom my social 
 position enables me to consider my friend. I have a 
 strong regard for the Due de Rohan for his own sake, 
 for his noble soul, and for his courtly manners; 
 but I do not care for him in view of the material 
 services he might be able to render me. 
 
 Thereupon Victor came back to Paris, where his great 
 attraction awaited him. The lovers saw each other very 
 frequently in September. But soon these interviews, 
 being always in the presence of a third person, were 
 not enough for him. He induced Adèle to give him 
 an occasional meeting out-doors, and their sweet corre- 
 spondence was once more renewed. 
 
 FRrOAY, October 5th. 
 
 I wrote you a long letter, Adèle, but it was too 
 sad; I tore it up. I wrote it because 3^ou are the 
 only creature in the world to whom I can speak freely 
 of all I sufïer and of all I fear. But perhaps it might 
 have given you some pain, and I will never volun- 
 
 40
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 tarily make you suffer by my troubles. Besides, I 
 forget them at once when we meet. You do not 
 know — you cannot imagine — how great my happi- 
 ness is when I see you, hear you speak, and feel you 
 near me ! Now that I have not seen you for two days, 
 I think of it with an excitement that seems almost 
 convulsive. When I have passed a few moments 
 beside you I feel much better. There is something 
 in your very glance, so noble and so generous, that 
 seems to exalt me. When your eyes meet mine, 
 it is as if your soul passed into me. And then — 
 oh, then ! my beloved Adèle, I feel capable of accom- 
 plishing anything; I am strengthened by being en- 
 dowed with all your gentle virtues. 
 
 How much I wish that you could read all that 
 there is within me; that your soul could be infused 
 into mine, as your smile infuses itself into my whole 
 being! If we could be alone together, just for one 
 hour, Adèle, you would see how much I should need 
 your pity, were it not that I possess the greatest of 
 all happinesses, the sweetest of all consolations, in 
 the thought that you love me. 
 
 I had written to you about my troubles, without 
 reflecting that I was writing to you about things 
 that could only be told in speech, and told to you 
 alone. ... I see I am now falling back into the 
 same reflections which made me tear up my former 
 letter. Remember, my Adèle, that all troubles count 
 for nothing as soon as I have the indescribable 
 happiness of seeing you; what, then, does it matter 
 that the rest of my daj^ should be sad, and when at 
 last I have won you, my beloved Adèle, what shall 
 
 41
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I care for these years of trial which now seem so 
 long and so painful to me? 
 
 Adieu. Write to me, and increase as far as possi- 
 ble, I implore you, our brief interviews. They are 
 my only consolation, for I do not think that you 
 will wrong me so far as to imagine that the pleasure 
 derived from amour-propre and pride in my literary 
 success are anything to me. You only are my joy ; 
 in you is all my happiness ; in you, my life. You 
 are all your sex to me, because I find concentrated 
 in you all that is most perfect in women. 
 
 Adieu, my dearest Adèle. Je t'embrasse bien ten- 
 drement et bien respectueusement. 
 
 Your Faithful Husband. 
 
 Thursday. 
 I have thought much and long, Adèle, over this 
 answer. Ought I — can I — satisfy you? There was 
 more of compassion than of tenderness in your letter. 
 I thank you for taking some pity upon me; I am 
 indeed very much to be compassionated for more 
 than one reason. It seems to me, if I must tell you 
 what I hardly dare say to myself, that your letters 
 are becoming colder and colder. At one moment it 
 seemed as if you were once more what you had been 
 two years ago ; but this moment . . . Ask yourself 
 seriously. I fear lest this fatal trial of eighteen 
 months* may have destroyed the happiness of my 
 whole life by diminishing your first affection. For 
 my part, I cannot be happy if I am only half loved. 
 
 * The separation, in fact, had been only for nine months, but it 
 seems that such months counted double. 
 
 42
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 See, look into yourself, and tell me if you can candidly 
 say that during this long absence you have never 
 forgotten me a single instant. I have several times 
 asked you this question, but have never obtained a 
 direct answer. Answer me now trulj^, I implore you. 
 I shall guess the truth if you do not tell it me, and 
 it is from your own mouth, and not my own conject- 
 ures, that I would receive death or life. 
 
 Adèle, you see that a cold glance or an indifferent 
 word from you suf&ces to renew all my insupportable 
 doubts, and assuredly, of all my sufferings, that 
 would be the greatest ; it would go to my very heart. 
 All other griefs might pass away, but what could 
 console me for that one? And who knows if even 
 after death we could forget what it was to have been 
 no longer loved? 
 
 If you were only an ordinary woman, Adèle, I 
 should do more to show you how deepl3^ your image 
 is engraven in my heart. I should do wrong to let 
 you see the slavish love which makes my whole 
 being submit itself to yours; an ordinar3'' woman 
 would not understand this, and would onlj^ see in 
 my unconquerable passion an advantage given 
 her to do anything she pleased with a man of 
 whom she felt herself secure. An ordinary woman, 
 whose attachment the man devoted to her was 
 anxious to increase, would find it his best plan to 
 treat her carelessly and inconsistently, sometimes 
 affectionately, and then again with indifference. He 
 would pretend to have other fancies ; he would leave 
 her, come back to her, and alarm her vanitj^ that 
 he might excite her jealousy — in short, he would 
 
 43
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 play a part to win her love. But I am not an act- 
 or, and you are very far from being an ordinary 
 woman. 
 
 What value, indeed, could be attached to the pass- 
 ing affection of such a being? Would it be worth the 
 trouble of putting on a mask, and degrading one's 
 self by admitting petty, vile arts and calculations 
 into the most noble of all feelings? I would never 
 act thus with you, Adèle ; I love j^ou with self-respect 
 because I love you truly. I think that a trick would 
 lower us both, and that your heart is noble enough 
 to understand and to appreciate an overpowering love. 
 Answer the question I have put to you with all 
 frankness and confidence. All depends upon what 
 you tell me. 
 
 I have read over this letter, and I tremble for its 
 answer. No matter ! The future can be determined 
 by a word, as an avalanche is by a pebble, or a con- 
 flagration by a spark. What is our life, and what 
 the thread by which we hang suspended between 
 heaven and hell? I am greatly excited, Adèle, 
 and yet, if you could at this moment see my face, 
 you would find it cold and icj^ like the faces of th-e 
 dead. I will resume this letter later. 
 
 How does it happen that while writing these two 
 long pages I have forgotten or neglected what should 
 have been the subject of this letter — the request you 
 made me, the confidence you seem to seek? It is 
 because I was tormented with the idea that you no 
 longer loved me, and, that being the case, how could 
 I think of other things? What are all my other 
 troubles compared to such a grief? 
 
 44
 
 The Love Letters of J/ictor Hugo 
 
 Friday. 
 
 Hear me, my Adèle ; forgive me what seems bitter 
 in the last two pages. The least thing irritates 
 me, dearest. It is because I am constantly assailed 
 by painful fancies. All my days are passed in sad- 
 ness, except the few delicious hours when I may see 
 you. Forgive me — oh! forgive me. It would seem 
 very sweet, my dear Adèle, to pour all my sorrow 
 into your soul, which is so kind and so g^enerous; 
 but I must repeat that that can only be viva voce, and 
 I fear, as you do, that for a long time that must be 
 impossible. I will sufïer alone. It is not that I fear 
 for your letters. All that I have to tell you I might 
 tell before the whole world w^ithout having cause to 
 blush for myself. But there are a number of little 
 things which it would be too trivial to commit to 
 writing, and which, nevertheless, constitute our 
 cares from day to day. 
 
 Here is one last consideration. I have fancied, 
 Adèle, that I could remark that you thought I had 
 self-love — well, not to mince the word, vanity. When 
 I perceived this it could not but give me pain. If 
 you are right, if I am really vain, I ought to be sorry 
 that among my many faults there is one that I detest 
 and despise more than any other in the world. If 
 you are wrong, if you mistake for self-conceit a proper 
 pride — a feeling I acknowledge, and that I am even 
 glad is mine — I must deplore more than ever that I am 
 misjudged by the only being without whose esteem I 
 could not exist — above all, if what seems to her a 
 fault, and the meanest of all faults, is, in mj^^ own opin- 
 ion, the highest quality in any man who recognizes 
 
 45
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 the dignity of his own soul. You should realize, my 
 Adèle, how much I wish to efface this idea from 
 your mind, if you have really entertained it. It is, 
 in that case, only by making the least possible men- 
 tion of myself that I can succeed in dissipating it. 
 Now, with respect to the confidence you ask of me, 
 I should have to tell you a crowd of things which you 
 do not know, and if I told them, your prejudices might 
 make you think I was wanting in modesty, however 
 I might try to veil my account with simplicity. So 
 I have resolved to continue to keep my troubles to 
 myself, and this partly because I see no necessity 
 for annoying you with them until that time when I 
 may find consolation for all my griefs by pouring 
 them at all times into your bosom. 
 
 Meantime, I see my future impeded in every way 
 by a crowd of selfish men, who think only of their 
 own interest ; but my future is yours only. I defend 
 it because it belongs to you. You know me very 
 little, Adèle, you little understand my character, for 
 you never see me except under the constraint of the 
 presence of some third person. But wait, I implore 
 you, before passing judgment on me. Some one 
 must have had some purpose a year ago in inspir- 
 ing you with unfavorable impressions concerning 
 me, and I — what I should most earnestly have 
 asked of God, and do ask of Him, is to have had 
 you always, then as now, the invisible witness of 
 all my actions, whether important or only trivial. 
 
 The testimony of a pure conscience is very dear 
 to me; it is the sole ground on which I claim to be 
 worthy to be loved by you ; it is the only thing about 
 
 46
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 which I feel pride. All other things are smoke, 
 about which I care little, and the truth is, that if ever 
 I should wish for what they call fame, it would be 
 only for your sake. 
 
 I must end, and yet I have many things still to say ! 
 Never speak of yourself again to me, beloved Adèle, 
 as an ordinary woman. Be as humbly modest as 
 you will, but do not force me to be so in anything 
 that concerns you. 
 
 Adieu. Keep well. I embrace you tenderly. Adieu, 
 adieu. Above all, keep well. 
 
 Your Faithful and Respectful Husband. 
 
 Midnight, Monday. 
 I cannot read a word you write, my dear Adèle, 
 without its filling me with joy or sadness, and some- 
 times with both at the same time. That is the effect 
 produced on me by your last letter. I saw that my 
 injustice was as great as your generosity, and 
 although you were perhaps a little too severe in that 
 part of your letter in which you pointed out how 
 wrong I had been, it is my duty to acknowledge my 
 faults, and my happiness to be able to ask j^ou to 
 forgive them. You know, my Adèle, that if I some- 
 times worry you, it is onl}^ because I so dearl}^ love 
 you, alas! and I worry myself a great deal more. 
 I am mad, but mad for love, and, my dearest, ought 
 not that to make me find grace in your sight? All 
 my soul is consumed in loving you. You are my 
 sole thought, and it is impossible for me to find — I 
 do not say happiness — but the smallest pleasure when 
 apart from you. All the rest is hateful to me. 
 
 47
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 The end of your letter, Adèle, greatly moved me. 
 You despair of our mutual happiness, and yet 3^ou 
 say that it is in my hands. Yes, my Adèle, my 
 beloved promised wife, it is ; and I am certain, if you 
 love me, to attain it, or else die. And what, after all, 
 are the obstacles to be overcome? Whose will will 
 dare to oppose mine when it relates to you? Do 
 you not know that there is not a drop of blood in my 
 veins which is not ready to flow for you? And can 
 you doubt me still? Ah! my Adèle, love me as I 
 love you, and I will take care for all the rest. A 
 strong will can mould destiny, and when one has 
 learned how to suffer, one has learned how to will. 
 Besides, the man who risks his life in the game he 
 plays to win his future, is almost sure to win in the 
 long run; and I . . . will marry no one but you, 
 or else sleep in a pine coffin. 
 
 We need so little to make us happy, Adèle! A 
 few thousand francs a year and a yes, granted either 
 with indifference or from paternal affection. Give us 
 but these two things, and my dream of happiness 
 will be reality. Does it really seem to you so difficult? 
 
 No, my Adèle, you are mine, and I am yours, 
 through all eternity. Can you picture to yourself 
 such happiness? Tell me, do you think of it with 
 all the rapture and delight that your virginal and 
 tender soul is so fitted to experience ? Can you picture 
 the felicity of your Victor passing his whole life at 
 your feet, pouring all his griefs into your bosom, 
 enjoying everything because 3^ou take part in it, 
 breathing the air you breathe, loving with your 
 heart, living only in the life you live? When, dear- 
 
 48
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 est, I think of the dehciousness of our Hves being in 
 common, I cannot help thinking that God would 
 not have given me the power to imagine such happi- 
 ness if He had not also in store for me its future en- 
 joyment. Ah! you were horn to he happy, or else I 
 shall have been good for nothing in this world. 
 
 I want you to have a little esteem for me, Adèle. 
 It is the dearest reward of all I may be able to do to 
 make myself more worthy of you. I earnestly thank 
 you for the assurance you have given me, for if you 
 did not esteem me, could you love me ; and if you did 
 not love me, what should I do? 
 
 Adieu for this evening, or, rather, for this night. 
 Adieu, my beloved Adèle ; it is very late, and it is 
 bitterly cold. You are asleep at this moment, and 
 nothing will make you conscious of the burning kiss 
 that your poor husband is about to press upon your 
 lock of hair in your absence. It will not always be 
 so ; and some day his kisses will awaken you softly. 
 Adieu, adieu ; sleep, and know no sorrow. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 This morning I received a note from your father. 
 Then I may see you this evening, Adèle ! I have 
 thought of nothing else all the morning. The 
 thought makes me happy, especially when I think 
 that the same thought may make you happy too. 
 My happiness would be perfect, dear Adèle, if I 
 could only sometimes see you alone, and enjoy all 
 the charm of intimacy. I would lay before you all 
 the opinions, for which you seem so strongly to 
 blame me ; it is only you who could make me change 
 D 49
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 them. I should also try to alter some of the ideas 
 which seem to me unsuited to your happy nature. 
 
 You tell me, for example, that you are not able 
 to appreciate poetic talent. This assertion is so 
 strange to me, who know you better than j^ou 
 know yourself, that I should laugh at it if I felt 
 like laughing. I reply (putting myself, you must 
 understand, quite out of the question), and you will 
 certainly not do me the injustice to think that any 
 feeling of personal vanity enters into these general 
 reflections. 
 
 In two words, then, poetry, Adèle, is the expres- 
 sion of all goodness. A noble soul and real poetic 
 talent are almost always inseparable. You see, then, 
 why you ought to comprehend poetry. It comes 
 from the soul, which can manifest its nobleness 
 by a good action as well as by a fine poem. It would 
 demand some time and pains to develop this idea, 
 but you may see how in a quiet talk with j^ou alone 
 I could reveal to your own heart treasures that as 
 yet you have never known. This happiness is for 
 the present denied to me. I can only hope for it here- 
 after, together with many more. 
 
 Adieu, m3" beloved Adèle ; think of me, and write 
 me a very long letter, though, no doubt, it will seem 
 to me very short. Let your husband embrace you 
 tenderly. Adieu, adieu. 
 
 Above all things, never speak to me again of 
 wanting to iwrk, etc., etc. Every time you touch 
 on that subject you pain me greatlj^ Have some 
 confidence in my strength. It is m}^ place to work 
 for you, and the happiness of creating a place for 
 
 50
 
 Adèle Foucher at 19
 
 C^i_^l^Oi ,
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hit^go 
 
 you in life belongs to me, like everything else that 
 is connected with you. Adieu. Write me a very 
 long letter. 
 
 Saturday, October 20th. 
 
 Behold me, alone in this melancholy apartment, 
 counting the hours that divide the morning from 
 the evening. What am I going to write to you? 
 My heart is full, but my mind is a blank. My de- 
 sire is to speak only of yourself, of our love, of our 
 hopes, or of our fears ; and did I do this, words would 
 fail me in which to express my thoughts. But it is 
 necessary for us to discuss trivialities, importunate 
 nothings, which are a source of annoyance to you, 
 and for that reason are odious to me. I must make 
 it plain to you that all this gossip is as worthless 
 as the idle moments that it occupies. I must reas- 
 sure 3^ou and console you in regard to trifles which 
 ought not to occasion you either uneasiness or alarm. 
 
 What can I say to you seriously, my Adèle? That 
 I am resolved to marry you? Ah, well, are you 
 ashamed of that, or are you in doubt about it? Per- 
 haps you are afraid to own that 3'ou love me? If 
 this is so, it is because you do not love me. When 
 one really loves, one is proud of loving. 
 
 Do not misunderstand the intention of these words, 
 dear love; I do not intend them to convey the idea 
 that you ought to be proud of the object of your af- 
 fection — that is an honor which I am far indeed 
 from meriting — but you should be proud of possess- 
 ing a soul capable of experiencing love, that elevated, 
 noble, and chaste passion. Of all the passions which 
 torment men in life, it is the only one that is eternal. 
 
 51
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Love in its true and divine conception creates in the 
 being who experiences it all good qualities, as it 
 does in thee; or else it creates in him the desire to 
 possess them, as in myself. A love such as I feel 
 for you, my Adèle, raises every sentiment above the 
 miserable sphere of humanity. It is a union with 
 an angel who draws us steadily upward towards 
 heaven. These expressions would, perhaps, strike 
 an ordinary woman as extravagant; but yow are 
 created to understand them, since it is you yourself 
 who inspire them. 
 
 We seem to have travelled far from the absurd gos- 
 sip which was the subject of our discussion. If we 
 were not pledged to each other, Adèle, I would put 
 an end to it by my own withdrawal. It would be 
 the Q>\Ay means of closing people's mouths, and even 
 so it might not be successful. In our case, it is for 
 you to determine whether such a step is necessary; 
 if you decide in favor of it, I will come less often, 
 or I will cease to come altogether, until my fate shall 
 be decided. Your decision in favor of this arrange- 
 ment will afford me convincing proof that I alone 
 shall suffer in consequence of it, and I will resign my- 
 self to do so until such time as the suffering shall 
 cease. I have already told j^ou that only two great 
 events have any place in my future : one is happiness, 
 the other is neither happiness nor misery. In either 
 case, I shall no longer suffer. 
 
 These are serious and solemn thoughts upon which 
 I often reflect, but which I make the subject of our 
 c(Biversation with reluctance, because they are only 
 ideas, and ideas, so long as they are not put into 
 
 52
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 action, are a more or less sonorous assemblage of 
 words. Some day my last, most exquisite hope, that 
 of being yours, will either vanish or be fulfilled; 
 in either case you will read these lines again, and 
 you will then be able to judge whether I have spoken 
 truly or falsely. It is in this conviction that I write 
 them. 
 
 I see that I am digressing at each moment from 
 the subject of your letter. I am grateful to you, 
 my Adèle, for communicating to me the distress oc- 
 casioned you by unkind reports repeated with no 
 less, malice than foolishness. They only serve to 
 show me more plainly that if you think it right for 
 me to continue to see you, I must use my utmost 
 efforts to hasten the longed-for day of our marriage. 
 This would in itself be enough to supply a stimulus 
 to exertion, even if my own impatience was not far 
 more than sufficient. Alas! is it possible to desire 
 this happiness more ardently than I do? 
 
 If it is within my power to hasten the longed-for 
 moment by abstaining from all unworthy action, 
 I shall have a strong motive for restraint. There 
 are moments, my Adèle, when I feel myself capable 
 of stooping to anything which would enable me to 
 reach this wished-for end more quickly; and then 
 I recover m3^self, shocked at my own thoughts, and 
 I ask myself whether I should indeed really attain 
 my goal if I reached it by a road unworthy of my 
 better self. Dear love, the position of a 3^oung man, 
 independent by his principles, his affections, and his 
 desires, who is nevertheless dependent upon others 
 by reason of his age and of his lack of fortune, is a 
 
 53
 
 Tbe Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 cruel one. Yes, if I come out of this experience as 
 pure as I entered into it, I shall feel that I am en- 
 titled to some measure of self-esteem. 
 
 There are many annoyances that I am forced to 
 disregard, for I am obliged to work in spite of con- 
 tinual agitation. Those persons are greatly mis- 
 taken who think that among my aims there is a wish 
 for glory, for celebrity, or for any of the trivialities 
 with which it is possible to fill a life that is empty of 
 love. 
 
 Consider all my words, Adèle, for j^ou wall find in 
 them an overpowering affection ; and if you love me 
 in return, you will find in them also a source of 
 gladness. I sometimes envy you, in that you are 
 beloved as you are by me. As for you, you love me 
 VERY MUCH, and that is all. 
 
 For w^hat reason can your parents be opposed to 
 our intercourse, when they intend, as they have done 
 hitherto, that their daughter shall be my wife? I 
 am aware that they would prefer to have my father's 
 consent; in many respects they are right in this 
 matter, and I will do everything to satisfy them. It 
 certainly will not be I, the most impatient of men, 
 who will preach patience. All my life was settled 
 at Dreux. Some day I will give you an account of 
 that journey to Dreux. You will see then how I have 
 always loved you, even when I believed myself for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Adieu, dearest love; I embrace thee tenderlj^ 
 
 Victor. 
 
 This letter is very grave, my own Adèle, and, 
 
 54
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 therefore, I add one line to tell you, and to repeat 
 to you, how much I love you. 
 
 The Same Night. 
 
 This letter is very important, Adèle; for the im- 
 pression that it makes upon you will decide all our 
 happiness. I am about to make an effort to collect 
 some calm ideas, and I shall have no difficulty in 
 contending with sleep to-night. I am going to have 
 a serious and intimate conversation with you, and 
 I wish earnestly that it could be face to face, for then 
 I could at once receive your answer (which I shall 
 expect with the utmost impatience), and I should 
 be able to observe in your countenance the effect that 
 my words may produce upon you — that effect which 
 will decide the happiness of us both. 
 
 There is one word, Adèle, which we seem, up to 
 the present moment, to be afraid to pronounce. It 
 is the word love; and 3^et the feeling that I experi- 
 ence for 3^ou is undoubtedly genuine love. It is of 
 importance now to ascertain whether the sentiment 
 that animates you is likewise love. 
 
 Listen! There is within us an immaterial being, 
 in exile, as it were, within our bodies, which will sur- 
 vive to all eternity. This being, which is the es- 
 sence of all in us that is best and purest, is the soul. 
 It is the soul that is the source of all enthusiasm and 
 all affection, and upon it depend our conceptions 
 of God and of heaven. 
 
 I am treating of matters bej^ond our knowledge, 
 because it is necessary to do so in order to make 
 myself fully understood ; but, lest this talk should 
 
 55
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 strike you as unusual, let us speak of things which 
 require only simple but elevated language. To 
 continue. The soul, being superior to the body, 
 with which it is united, would remain on earth in an 
 unbearable isolation, were it not that it is permitted 
 to choose among other human souls a compan- 
 ion with whom it may share the misfortunes of life 
 and the happiness of eternity. When two souls, 
 which for a longer or a shorter time have sought each 
 other amidst the crowd, at length find each other ; 
 when they perceive that they belong to each other ; 
 when, in short, they comprehend their affinity, then 
 there is established between them a union, pure 
 and ardent as themselves, a union begun upon earth 
 in order that it may be completed in heaven. This 
 union is love; real and perfect love, such love as very 
 few men can adequately conceive ; love which is a 
 religion, adoring the being beloved as a divinity; 
 love that lives in devotion and ardor, and for which 
 to make great sacrifices is the purest pleasure. It 
 is such love as this that you inspire in me, and it is 
 such love that you will some day assuredly feel for 
 me, even though, to my ever-present grief, you do 
 not do so now. Your soul is formed to love with the 
 purity and ardor of the angels, but it may be that 
 only an angel can inspire it with love, and when I 
 think this I tremble. 
 
 The world, Adèle, does not understand this kind 
 of affection, for it is the appointed lot only of those 
 who are singled out either for happiness or misery; 
 like yourself, in the former instance, or, in the latter, 
 like me. Love, in the eyes of the world, is either a car- 
 
 56
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 nal appetite or a vague fancy, which possession ex- 
 tinguishes or absence destro3^s. That is why it is 
 commonly .said, with a strange abuse of words, that 
 passion does not endure. Alas ! Adèle, do you know 
 that passion means suffering ? And do you seri- 
 ously believe that there is any suffering in the ordi- 
 nary love of men, so violent in appearance, so feeble 
 in reality? No; immaterial love is eternal, because 
 that part of our being which experiences it cannot 
 die. It is our souls that love, and not our bodies. 
 
 Notice here, however, that nothing should be 
 pushed to an extreme. I do not intend to say that 
 the body has no place in this, the first of our affec- 
 tions. A gracious God perceived that without an 
 intimate personal union the union of souls could 
 never be made perfect, because two persons who love 
 each other must spend their lives in a community 
 of thought and action. This is, therefore, one of 
 the ends for which God has established that attrac- 
 tion of one sex towards another which, in itself, 
 shows that marriage is divine. Thus it is that in 
 youth personal union serves to ratify the union of 
 souls, and it is our souls, in their turn, which, be- 
 ing ever young and indestructible, maintain the 
 union of persons in their old age and perpetuate it 
 after death. 
 
 Do not be alarmed, then, Adèle, in regard to the 
 duration of a passion which it is not within the power 
 of God Himself to extinguish. It is this profound 
 and enduring affection that I feel for 3'ou; it is not 
 based on personal charms, but on moral qualities, 
 and it is an affection that leads to heaven or to hell, 
 
 57
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and which fills life, the whole of life, with delight 
 or with misery, 
 
 I have laid bare my soul to you; I have spoken 
 a language that I speak only to those who can 
 understand it. Inquire of yourself, in your turn; 
 ascertain if love expresses for you what it does for 
 me ; find out whether your soul is really a sister soul 
 to mine. Do not pause to consider what is said 
 by a foolish world, or what is thought by the little 
 minds that surround you; search your own heart, 
 and listen to its voice. If the thoughts expressed 
 in this letter are real to you, if the afïection that you 
 entertain for me is indeed of the same nature as that 
 which I feel for you, my Adèle, then, indeed, I am 
 thine for life, thine for eternity. If you fail to un- 
 derstand my love, if I seem to you extravagant, 
 then adieu. Nothing but death will be left to me, 
 and death will have no terrors when I have no longer 
 any hope upon earth. Do not imagine, hovv-ever, 
 that I should take my own life without regard to 
 others; so long as there are the stricken to heal, 
 and sacred combats to sustain, suicide is the act of 
 an egoist and a coward. I shall take care that the 
 sacrifice of my life shall be as useful to others as 
 it will be sweet to myself. 
 
 These thoughts, perhaps, seem to you a little 
 gloomy, addressed as they are to one for whom my 
 lips have always worn a smile, to one who does not 
 know the tenor of my habitual reflections. 
 
 Adèle, I tremble in saying so, but I believe that 
 you do not love me with such love as I offer yon, 
 and only a love such as that can satisfy me. If 
 
 58
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 you loved me thus, could you keep asking me, as 
 you do, if I have confidence in your conduct? You 
 do this so lightly that it seems to me to indicate in- 
 difference. Yet you are offended at the most natural 
 questions, and yoM ask me whether I am under any 
 apprehension that your conduct is blâmable. If 
 you loved me as I love 3^ou, Adèle, you would under- 
 stand that there are a thousand things that may be 
 done without criminality, even without real error, 
 which, nevertheless, are of a nature to alarm the sen- 
 sitive jealousy of my affection. Such love as I 
 have described to you is exclusive. I myself wish 
 for nothing, not even a glance, from any other woman 
 in the world; but I desire that no man should dare 
 to claim anj^thing from the woman who is mine. If 
 I desire her alone, it is because I wish for her wholly 
 and entirely. A glance, a smile, a kiss from you 
 are my greatest happiness; do you really believe 
 that I can patiently endure to see them bestowed on 
 some one else as well? Does this sensitiveness alarm 
 you? If you loved me, it would delight you. Why 
 do you not feel thus towards me? 
 
 Love is jealous, and ingenious in self-torture in 
 proportion as it is pure and intense. I have always 
 found it so. Some years ago, I remember, I shud- 
 dered instinctively when your little brother, who was 
 then a mere child, chanced to pass the night with 
 you. Age, experience, observation of the world, 
 have only confirmed this disposition in me. It will 
 be my undoing, Adèle, for I perceive that, while it 
 ought to increase 3^our happiness, it does but render 
 you uneasy. 
 
 59
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Speak without constraint. Make it plain whether 
 you wish me to be such as I am or no. My future, 
 as well as yours, depends upon this, and while my 
 fate is nothing to me, yours is everything. Re- 
 member that, if you do not love me, there is a sure and 
 speedy way of releasing yourself from me ; you have 
 only to agree to it. I shall not oppose you. There 
 is one kind of absence, thanks to which we are soon 
 forgotten by those who regard us with indiffer- 
 ence. It is an absence from which there is no 
 return. 
 
 One word more. If this long letter seems to you 
 sad and depressed, do not be astonished; your own 
 was so cold. You are of opinion that between us 
 passion is out of place! Adèle, ... I read over 
 again some old letters of yours, in the hope of con- 
 solation, but the difference between the old and the 
 new was so great that in place of being consoled 
 
 . . . Adieu. 
 
 Friday, October 26th. 
 
 Your little note, my Adèle, occasioned me a joy 
 which I will not try to describe. When it is a long 
 time since I have seen you, as it is to-day, I am sad, 
 cast down, indifferent to everything, oppressed by all 
 things. But now, it is only necessary for me to read 
 again your charming note, which I already know 
 by heart, to feel almost happy. Yes, my dearest 
 Adèle, j^our own assurance is all that is needed for 
 me to believe that 3^ou love me as I love j^ou; you 
 are incapable of deceiving either yourself or me. 
 It does not cause me a moment's astonishment that 
 you have at once understood such unconventional 
 
 60
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 opinions as I wrote j'ou regarding the things of this 
 world. How should you not understand them, 3'ou 
 who were created on purpose to inspire them and to 
 call them into existence? There is nothing gen- 
 erous, chaste, or noble to which your soul can be 
 insensible; for it is itself the essence of all that 
 is noble, generous, and chaste. Dear Adèle, these 
 words are not the commonplace flatteries with which 
 the deceitfulness of men so often abuses the vanity 
 of women; do not let us sink, either of us, to such 
 conditions. It is a profound appreciation of 3'our 
 worth alone which moves me to speak thus to you, 
 and the onh^ defect of which I am conscious in you 
 is ignorance of your own angelic nature. I ear- 
 nestly wish that you could fully recognize the dig- 
 nity of your own character, and that you would bear 
 yourself more proudlj^ among those women, vul- 
 gar at their best, who have the honor to approach 
 you, and who seem to abuse 3'our excessive humil- 
 ity, even to the extent of believing themselves to 
 be 3"our equals, if not, indeed, 3'our superiors. It is 
 needless to discuss this at length, but 3"ou must be- 
 lieve, my Adèle, that no one in the world is 3"our 
 superior, and that 3^ou confer a favor upon all other 
 women b3'^ condescending to treat them as 3'our 
 equals. 
 
 It is right to despise perishable advantages, such 
 as beauty, rank, fortune, etc. ; but in the same 
 measure that we do this, we should respect in our- 
 selves the imperishable gifts of the soul. The3^ are 
 so rare. Vanity is as contemptible and unreasonable 
 as proper pride is just and useful. The latter is in 
 
 61
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 no sense external; it does not injure others; on the 
 contrary, it creates a sort of pit}^ which inspires us 
 with kindly feelings. It elevates the soul in such 
 wise as to render it inaccessible to all aspirations 
 for rank or fame. When one's thoughts are wholly 
 occupied with an eternity of love and happiness, 
 one regards all the things of this earth from a height 
 at which they seem very insignificant. One accepts 
 prosperity with calmness, one confronts misfortune 
 with serenity, because all such things pass away, 
 and are, as it were, only accessaries of a union 
 which remains. 
 
 It is this union, my adored Adèle, which exists 
 between us, and it would be impossible for you to 
 comprehend the intoxication, the delirium, with which 
 I look forward to the day w^hen that union, ratified 
 in public, will permit me to possess you altogether, 
 and to belong entirely to you. Oh! my Adèle, mj^ 
 wife, what does it not mean, even now, to be able 
 to speak of this immense happiness, to form en- 
 chanting projects for the future, to dwell together 
 in hope, to — oh, God! in the presence of that future 
 what are all the troubles of the present time? 
 
 Adieu; I embrace thee tenderly. 
 
 Thy Husband for Eternity. 
 
 I have just read your letter, and I add a word more, 
 my Adèle, to thank 3^ou for it. How much happi- 
 ness I owe you ! Yet, why are your letters always 
 so short? You complain of continual preoccupa- 
 tion; if it were otherwise, my Adèle, you would not 
 love me. Are you aware that in the long eighteen 
 
 62
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 months in which I did not see you I did not pass a 
 moment without thinking of you? Do you reahze 
 that you are my end and aim in all I do, and that 
 without that aim I should do nothing? Whenever 
 I am called upon to endure mental grief or physical 
 suffering, I represent to myself that it is in honor 
 of you, or for love of you. And then everything 
 seems sweet to me. What matters all else if my 
 dearest Adèle is only gracious enough to love me ? 
 Whenever this becomes her only occupation, I shall 
 be the happiest of men. 
 
 Saturday, November 24, 1 82 1. 
 
 I stand in need of a lively faith, Adèle, to enable 
 me to believe that this correspondence does not weary 
 you. This is the last time that so long a letter 
 shall follow so short a note. Beneath the reasons 
 that you give me I have discovered another, which 
 they are intended to conceal; it is the effort experi- 
 enced in writing of which you ought to complain 
 rather than the difficulties which prevent 3^ou from 
 doing so; then you would at least be sincere. You 
 appear to attach importance to relinquishing a visit. 
 I do not feel, Adèle, that this kind of loss involves 
 any sacrifice. I never dreamed up to this moment 
 of boasting of all the sacrifices in this respect which 
 I make daily in order to see you or to write to 
 you. It is true, however, that if I have not enu- 
 merated them, it was because they cost me noth- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 My Adèle, I have just read over the beginning 
 of this letter, and I am dissatisfied with it, because 
 
 63
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I fear that it will occasion dissatisfaction to you. 
 It is impossible for me to remain long out of humor 
 with you, even when I am in the right. I am ready, 
 therefore, dear Adèle, to ask your pardon for hav- 
 ing found fault with you. Nevertheless, have I not 
 a legitimate cause for complaint? Adèle, I do not 
 ask you, since you have only brief periods of leisure, 
 to write me long letters all at once; but it is im- 
 possible that you should not find time each day to 
 write at least a page, so that at the end of several 
 days your letters would be of a satisfactory length, 
 without fatigue to j^ourself . I make this suggestion 
 to you in good faith, because I believe that you seek 
 it in the same spirit. No, dear love, I, who have 
 so much pleasure in writing to you, cannot believe 
 that what is so sweet to me is wearisome to you, 
 or that what makes me so happy you find a burden. 
 That would be a proof that you do not love me, and 
 I will never willingly admit such an idea. I am 
 in so much need of loving and of believing myself 
 loved. Forgive me, out of youi kindness, for the 
 first lines of this letter. Remember that a doubt 
 in regard to your affection tortures me much more 
 than it can distress you. If you realized how much 
 the slightest alarm causes me to suffer, you would 
 avoid giving occasion for it, were it only from pity. 
 Let us grant pardon to each other, then, and do thou 
 embrace me. 
 
 I obey 3^ou, my dearest Adèle, and I do not work 
 at night. This morning I rose earlj^ in order to write 
 to you. Thursda3^ evening, when I returned, I was 
 tempted to sit up in order to tell you all that was in 
 
 64
 
 The Love Letters of Victor HiLgo 
 
 my heart. It would be impossible for you to im- 
 agine what an indefinable effect that sight of you 
 produced upon me; to find you still up and expect- 
 ing us at nearly midnight occasioned me at one 
 and the same moment the liveliest pleasure and 
 the keenest pain. On the one hand, the sight of you 
 was suf&cient in itself to make me perfectly happy, 
 but it surprised me the more deliciously because 
 I could not help believing that it was, perhaps, a 
 little for my sake that you had resigned yourself 
 to so late a vigil. On the other hand, the idea of 
 my poor Adèle wearying herself in solitude, while 
 I was supposed to be amusing myself, filled me with 
 remorse. I thought that you might have been ill, 
 that you in your turn might have suffered, even 
 that you might have been cold. 
 
 Dear love, I reproach myself for the moments 
 spent at the café, because they were so many mo- 
 ments of sadness to you. I longed to compensate 
 for those moments with ten years of my life, and 
 when I was forced to leave you so soon, without 
 being able to thank you, or to inform myself as to 
 your suffering, and without being able to press you 
 to my heart, then, Adèle, it seemed to me that we 
 were violently parted; and for the thousandth time 
 I cursed the obstacles which separate me from my 
 wife, from her who belongs to me. I am your hus- 
 band, and yet I was obliged to part from 3'ou with- 
 out an embrace, without a word; and if I should 
 die to-morrow, Adèle, another would obtain all that 
 is denied to me, another would possess those rights 
 which I am forbidden to enjoy, another ... It 
 E 65
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 seems to me that this unbearable idea would make 
 my blood boil in my veins after death. 
 
 It is not likely that such a thing will come to pass ; 
 but who can foresee the future? On what does life 
 depend? Let but some man tread on my foot, or 
 look at me insultingly, to - day, and who knows 
 where I shall be to-morrow? If I considered only 
 myself I should assuredly cling very little to a life 
 at once widowed and orphaned. But when the re- 
 membrance of you returns to me with hope, Adèle, 
 then I freely admit that I fear death. It would be 
 horrible to me to die without having possessed you, 
 without having belonged to you. I ought, perhaps, 
 to conceal my lack of courage ; it is the correct thing 
 to despise one's life ; but to lose life would be to lose 
 you, and it would be as sweet to me to follow you 
 into a better world as it would be terrible to me to 
 leave this one without having possessed you. 
 
 I do not know what I write; I am oppressed by 
 gloomy thoughts, the cause of which I do not un- 
 derstand. Do not be surprised at this. There is a 
 certain frame of mind in which a vague sadness 
 overpowers us, a sadness that the soul does not com- 
 prehend, and against which it has no protection. 
 The remembrance of past misfortunes, or the pre- 
 sentiment of evils to come, is as the smoke of a 
 fire that has just been extinguished, or is on the 
 point of bursting into flames. These remembrances 
 and these forebodings pass like clouds between us 
 and our ideas; the}^ assume the undefined forms of 
 the future or of the past ; for in the world of imagina- 
 tion, as in the world of reality, all that is distant is 
 
 66
 
 Tbe Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 vague. The soul believes itself to be suffering, and 
 it is so indeed. All its joyous imaginations fade 
 away; all sad impressions are intensified. But let 
 happiness on a sudden reappear, the clouds disperse, 
 all things are restored to their true shape and color, 
 and we are surprised at our own depression. 
 
 This is what will happen to me on the day that I 
 see you again. I shall no longer think of anything 
 but the happiness of being near you, and the hope 
 of being some day altogether yours. 
 
 But, Adèle, you are frightened, you say, at the 
 idea of marrying so young a man ; you fear that 
 1 shall some day repent having engaged myself, etc., 
 etc. It distresses me to repeat these cruel expres- 
 sions. I do not believe I have ever given 3^ou cause 
 to think me inconstant. You say that you cannot 
 hope to restore me all that I have lost. Reflect a 
 little, Adèle, and ask yourself if you really think 
 you are not sure of being everything to me. It is 
 you alone who can give me back what I have lost, 
 but you will restore me all, and more than all. . . . 
 
 That last expression escaped me, and I ought per- 
 haps to w^ithdraw it; but it is only the truth that 
 love such as I feel for you is greater than all other 
 affections, and that a wife is more even than a mother. 
 
 Alas! am I right to say all this? But why should 
 I hide from j^ou any one of my thoughts? God 
 knows that no mother has ever been beloved as I 
 have loved my own noble mother ; God knows, also, 
 that no wife has ever been adored as I adore mine. 
 
 I sometimes fear, my dearest, that you have not 
 wholly pardoned my mother's memory. I wish that 
 
 67
 
 The Love Lettets of Victor Hugo 
 
 you had known her; I wish that she could have 
 known you. For a long time she caused me great 
 unhappiness, because she carried to an extreme her 
 desire to see me happy. Her only fault lay in her 
 failure to understand and to appreciate the beauty 
 of your character; but she w^as, nevertheless, en- 
 tirely worthy to understand it. Ah! why is she 
 lost to me and to 3"ou? Some day, perhaps, we 
 shall all be united. M}^ prolonged grief, my deep 
 depression, had begun to move her; she had per- 
 ceived that everything else failed to interest me, 
 and she would certainly not have refused me the 
 only happiness that life had to offer me. More- 
 over, her reluctance to my marriage was wholly in- 
 dependent of your personality, and she had too much 
 respect for her son not to esteem highly the person 
 to whom he was so deeply and so firmly attached. 
 Some day we shall be happy with her ; in the mean- 
 while our faith in the eternal remains with us. . . . 
 I will not finish what I have just written. It is 
 sweet to me to speak of my mother to my wife, but 
 it is profoundly sad. 
 
 I have, however, many things still to say to yoM. 
 My dearest Adèle, 3^our distraction in prayer does 
 not in the least amuse me, but it has touched me 
 very much, and it renders me happy and thankful. 
 Sometimes I venture to imagine that I am every- 
 thing to 3^ou, and then my heart is filled with a 
 ro^^al pride and an angelic felicity. All that you 
 feel, I m3^self experience, and this continual dis- 
 traction, which only makes us more in S3^mpathy, 
 compensates me for ever3^thing else. All my life 
 
 68
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 is one long prayer on your behalf. I pray for the 
 welfare of her in whom my own welfare is bound up. 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle ; think of j^our husband, 
 and remember that I stand in need of a long an- 
 swer. Forgive me for the first part of this letter in 
 consideration of its close. Adieu; tell me in detail 
 of your health. I embrace thee tenderly. 
 
 Thine Faithfully. 
 
 Friday, December yth. 
 
 You see that I am faithful to my promise, Adèle, 
 and it is, indeed, no effort to me to be so ; for when I 
 have not seen you for four daj^s, what can give me 
 greater pleasure than employing myself in writing 
 to you? I have very little idea of what I am going 
 to write. I can only express m3^self when I see j^ou, 
 and when I write to you I do not see 3^ou. In j'our 
 absence all mj^ thoughts are sad, and if I wish to re- 
 lieve myself from the present that oppresses me, I 
 am obliged to transport myself in memory to the last 
 time that I saw you, or else in hope to the next time 
 that I shall see you again. I recall what you said to 
 me, how you smiled at me, and I endeavor not to com- 
 plain when I imagine how you will speak to me and 
 smile at me once more. 
 
 In spite of all this, dear love, you cannot imagine 
 the multitude of cares that assail me. Aside from 
 my own sorrows and my domestic annoyances, I 
 am forced to endure all the vexations of literarj^ spite. 
 I do not know what evil genius drove me into a 
 career in which every step is hindered by some secret 
 enmity or some base rivalry. This is pitiable, and 
 
 69
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 it makes me feel shame for the profession of letters. 
 It is discouraging to awake each morning exposed 
 to the paltry attacks of a mob of enemies, whom one 
 has never done anything to injure, and whom, indeed, 
 for the most part one has never seen. I should like 
 to inspire you with a respect for this great and noble 
 profession of letters, but I am constrained to admit 
 that it affords a singular study in the various forms 
 of human baseness. It is, as it were, a great slough, 
 into which one must descend, unless, indeed, one has 
 wings by which one is enabled to rise above its mire. 
 I myself do not possess these pinions, but I am a man 
 apart — isolated by an inflexible character and in- 
 corruptible principles — and I am sometimes tempted 
 to laugh at all the little traps that are laid for me; 
 but more often, to the shame of my philosophy be 
 it spoken, I am moved to anger. You will perhaps 
 think, dear Adèle, and with some show of reason, 
 that I ought to be insensible to such trivialities, in 
 the presence of the important interests that occupy 
 me; but my present irritable condition is exact- 
 ly what renders them unbearable. Things which 
 would be but a passing annoyance, if I were hap- 
 py, are just now unendurable; I really suffer when 
 these miserable insects come and light upon my 
 wounds. Do not let us discuss them further; it is 
 treating them with too much consideration ; thej^ are 
 not worth the pen that I waste or the paper that I 
 spoil in speaking of them. 
 
 Saturday, December 8th. 
 
 You have reason to scold me, dear love; I have 
 been almost stupefied the entire week, preoccupied 
 
 70
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 as I was by the remembrance of that deUghtful even- 
 ing spent with you at the ball. I say delightful, 
 notwithstanding that I was very jealous, and very 
 much exasperated. I wish you would dress as you 
 were then dressed, only for me. You see how ex- 
 travagant I am, but do not laugh at it, for if you 
 laugh, it will be an acknowledgment that you do not 
 love me as I love j^ou. When I see your beauty so 
 adorned for others, I lose my head, and I could not 
 give you any idea what infernal emotions I go through. 
 I am so insignificant beside all those young men 
 who dance so well! On the other hand, there is so 
 much nobleness and simplicity in your character, 
 that it reassures me against the coquetr}^ which your 
 mirror might inspire, and beauty is so great a gift 
 when modesty and beauty are united; you are so 
 charming in your grace and innocence. Ah, my 
 adored Adèle, I entreat 3^ou preserve always that an- 
 gelic virtue without which the dignity of the soul and 
 the chastit}^ of love are forever lost ! Remember that 
 you are my type of perfection upon earth, that it is 3'ou 
 who have fulfilled the ideal of womanl3^ virtue that 
 my highest imagination can create, and that in you 
 I find realized the companion of my life as she 
 was first revealed to me in the dreams of my youth. 
 These are not idle words. Consider what an influ- 
 ence you have exercised over me ever since I have 
 known you ; think of what I have done, of what I do 
 now, of what I shall always do to keep myself worthy 
 of you in the longed-for day of our marriage, and you 
 will see how high a place you occupy in my esteem 
 and affection. 
 
 71
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 My adored Adèle, when I transport myself in mem- 
 ory to those short moments, during our return from 
 the ball, in which I held you in my arms, I am beside 
 myself. Why must I be separated from you? What 
 would it matter to the whole world if your entire life 
 expended itself thus in my arms? What harm did 
 we commit? Adèle, explain to me, I beg you, how 
 I could have done wrong in holding my wife to my 
 heart? Why should these moments end? And why 
 should a man, who has two arms and* a will of his 
 own, allow such moments to be snatched from him? 
 Who knows if they will ever return? And what hu- 
 man power can restore a lost happiness? . . . 
 
 I perceive that I am wandering. Have pity on my 
 folly, you who constitute all my happiness and all 
 my joy. Adieu, adieu ; I am but a simpleton. Pity 
 me, and love me; my soul, my heart, my life, all is 
 thine. I embrace thee. 
 
 Thy Husb.\nd. 
 
 You see that I have written you at length, more 
 so even than you asked. If this pleases you, j^ou 
 can give me a proof of it by writing to me at the same 
 length in your turn. Adieu, adieu, I do not know 
 whether you will be able to read what I have 
 written. 
 
 Saturday, December 8th, Midnight. 
 
 I have just read your letter ; it has moved me pro- 
 foundly, and, as I hope to see you to-morrow, I feel 
 the need of answering it at once. Pardon me, dear 
 Adèle, if, in order to do this, I begin by disobeying 
 you, I promise you that this shall be the last time. 
 
 72 .
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 If my habit of working at night is displeasing to 
 you, that is cause for me to abandon it. Moreover, 
 your reasons are good, and if my Adèle deigns to 
 take an interest in my health, that is enough to 
 render it precious to me. Work done at night is 
 exhausting; but the enforced idleness of sleepless- 
 ness is little less fatiguing. But, since you wish 
 it, I will try again to sleep as much as possible; 
 all the more easily because my sleeping moments 
 are those in which I am happiest, for they are al- 
 ways filled by delightful dreams which bear me to 
 your side. Ah! when will this happiness be some- 
 thing more than a dream? I promise you, then, 
 Adèle, to work no more at night, except in extraor- 
 dinary cases. I should be guilty of infringing upon 
 this promise, at the ver}^ moment I make it, were it 
 not that writing to you is not work. 
 
 You are afraid, then, Adèle, that I enjoy only so- 
 ciety, and that, therefore, my domestic life will some 
 daj^ be burdensome to me. You do not reflect, my 
 beloved Adèle, that when my domestic life is filled 
 by you, all my happiness will be centred in it. What 
 can be more attractive to me than to pass all my 
 hours of pleasure, of repose, or of labor, beside my 
 wife? Dear love, ought I to be forced to repeat this 
 for the hundredth time? 
 
 But at present, what a difference! What is there 
 to attach me to my own home, where, to the weari- 
 ness of solitude, are added memories of very recent 
 sorrow? It is just because I have once enjoyed the 
 sweetness of family life, my Adèle, that this house 
 is now so mournful to me. What domestic life is 
 
 73
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 possible to an unmarried man who is an orphan? 
 For I am an orphan, and perhaps I am even more 
 to be pitied than if I were so altogether. 
 
 You see, dear love, that if you give me your con- 
 fidence, mine is entirely yours ; there are no recesses 
 in my heart that are not known to you; and, if it 
 please God, there shall never be anything secret in 
 my life of which you are in ignorance; for be very 
 sure that all my secrets will be always of a nature 
 to be known to you. 
 
 On the other hand, you are very much mistaken 
 if you think that a society life could please me more 
 than a domestic life, even if the latter were very little 
 attractive. On the contrary, although my own room 
 does, indeed, seem sad, the streets and the salons are 
 hateful to me. I flee from all distractions; I abhor 
 les plaisirs. The life of a single man is altogether 
 odious to me ; it means isolation, both at home and 
 abroad. I long only for the happiness of a home, 
 for the pleasures of family ties; and whenever that 
 longed-for time comes, I shall have nothing to wish 
 for, dear love, if our own circle contains as much 
 happiness for you as for me. 
 
 You would not be alarmed if you knew how my 
 liberty oppresses me, and with what impatience I 
 await the time when a sweet bondage shall unite 
 my days to yours. In the meantime, except for 
 the brief and happy moments that I spend with you, 
 all my hours are equally odious to me, even more, 
 perhaps, when I am in company than when 1 am 
 alone. Alone, I can at least think of you undis- 
 turbed. 
 
 74
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I do not like to give my attention to any one be- 
 side yourself in these letters, Adèle. An intercourse 
 so intimate and so sacred ought not to be interrupted 
 by the affairs of others. Yet it seems necessary to 
 speak of your uncle and your aunt. I find myself 
 unable to like either the one or the other. Your 
 aunt's remarks, in particular, are singularly dis- 
 pleasing to me. I fail to see in what respect our 
 conduct is unusual in the eyes of the world, nor do I 
 understand why any one should criticise the privilege 
 that I enjoy of passing a couple of hours each week 
 in your society. Does it seem to be necessary, then, 
 that our too brief interviews should be devoted to 
 the entertainment of outsiders, and that I must make 
 myself agreeable to some indifferent person, while 
 some one else does the same to you? This is, on the 
 face of it, foolish in the extreme, unless, indeed, I 
 am permitted to see you more often, at times when 
 no one intrudes upon us, if such a course is insisted 
 upon for the days that you receive. Even then this 
 prescribed etiquette is absurd. I am no longer a child. 
 I have seen the world, and I honestly believe myself 
 to be exceedingly reserved. I am, and I wish to be, 
 uninteresting and dull, in fact, a nonentity, for the 
 world at large, because you are the only person for 
 whom I am able to expend all my faculties of thought 
 and emotion. In the same measure that I am ardent 
 and expansive to you, I am cold and silent to others. 
 If I am forced to assume this rôle towards my own 
 wife, nobody will be the gainer bj^ it ; I myself shall 
 certainly be less agreeable, and the effort involved 
 will be really painful to me. Remember, dear Adèle, 
 
 75
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 that for a month I have seen you every other day, 
 and in a dehghtf ul intimacj^ Do you think this habit 
 so easy to lose? But they pretend that I am doing 
 you an injury. Such words as these reduce me to 
 silence, but they impair my very existence. 
 
 Dear Adèle, continue, I entreat you, to share all 
 your interests with me. You do not know in what 
 a touching manner these proofs of your confidence 
 affect me. It is sweet to me to read your beautiful 
 soul, to study 3^our noble heart. No kindness of 
 heart is necessary, dear love, for me to tell you — and 
 to tell you with delight — my true opinion of you. I 
 cannot admit that I could feel more love for a young 
 girl whose conduct was different from yours, for I 
 cannot conceive of a love more ardent than mine for 
 you; neither can I imagine axvy conduct more ad- 
 mirable than yours; and if I were to hear of some 
 one who acted in all respects as you do, I should kiss 
 the ground under her feet. 
 
 Adieu, my beloved Adèle ; adieu, my wife. I em- 
 brace you with reverence. Tell me of your health. 
 I would that I could preserve it at the expense of my 
 own, or of my life itself. 
 
 Tuesday, December nth, 9.30 p.m. 
 It is impossible, my Adèle, for me to seek sleep 
 before having answered you. Oh, no! you are not 
 to blame, for you could never think for one moment 
 that I am capable of changing; Adèle, you could 
 never even dream it. I can only believe that dreams 
 themselves, in this respect, must tell us lies. I forget 
 you ! I cease to love you, to adore you, to idolize you 
 
 76
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 unceasingly ! My darling, such an idea did not find 
 a resting-place, even for a moment, in your mind? 
 Is it not so? Your Victor would feel the most profound 
 distress if such a suspicion ever . . . But no, it can- 
 not be, and I am mad to defend myself from such a 
 reproach. To tell me that I can ever cease to love 
 you is to tell me that I have no soul, and that there 
 is no God. And what other human creature would 
 then be worthy of a man who had been once hon- 
 ored by your love? Could he, to whom you had 
 graciously inclined, stoop in his turn to a mere woman 
 of fashion? And if you, a pure and heavenly minded 
 young girl, cherish some esteem for this man who is 
 yet so unworthy of you, for this Victor who is so hon- 
 ored in being your husband, how can you doubt for 
 a moment that it would be his greatest happiness 
 to sacrifice a thousand lives, and, if it were possible, 
 a thousand eternities, for a single one of your glances? 
 Oh, my Adèle, what being upon earth can offer 
 you a devotion equal to mine? Are not all my words, 
 all my thoughts, all my devotions addressed to you? 
 Have I ever experienced a joy which did not come 
 from you? Have you not been a sharer in all my 
 sorrows? Are you not my soul, my life, my heaven? 
 Alas ! I see God himself in you ; I love him in you, 
 because I can see and love no other thing than you. 
 It may be that these are blasphemies; but forgive 
 me! It cannot be an offence towards God to adore 
 one of His angels. He would not have created you 
 so perfect if he had not intended that the man who 
 gives you his life might forget Him sometimes to 
 think only of you. 
 
 77
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Adieu for this evening, my adored Adèle. Why 
 cannot I say to you all that oppresses my heart? 
 Why cannot I find words to express my love? Adieu ; 
 sleep well. I embrace thee, and I embrace thee yet 
 again. 
 
 Wednesday, December 12th, 4.15 p.m. 
 
 Oh! how the time lags until I shall be your hus- 
 band in the sight of all! They torment you, they 
 distress you, and yet I have not the right to snatch 
 you away from suffering, to protect you from tyran- 
 ny! This expression is not too strong, Adèle. On 
 the contrary, it is very feeble. Those persons who 
 act towards you — the sweetest and most lovable of 
 human beings — as they do, must have a self-conceit 
 which is incomprehensible to me. My Adèle, do not 
 fancy I am again exaggerating. These are simple 
 truths drawn from the deepest recesses of my heart. 
 You must recognize them as such, in spite of your 
 humility and your submissive spirit. 
 
 Dear love, I would not in any way lessen your 
 respect and affection for your parents. In your hus- 
 band's eyes, that respect and that affection are among 
 your most appealing charms. Nevertheless, I wish 
 that you could learn to resist unjust vexations, and 
 that you would not allow yourself to be sacrificed so 
 quietly to opinions which to me are inexplicable. 
 
 Great heavens! why am I not already your hus- 
 band? No matter; I am so in your eyes, and in 
 the sight of God. I am your protector, your sup- 
 port. Rely upon me, my dearest. Who should 
 raise his voice in your behalf, if not your Victor? 
 Ah, yes! rely always upon me; be very Sure that 
 
 78
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 this support at least will never fail you. My own 
 happiness, my own repose, are not the object of my 
 life; it is your repose and your happiness which it 
 is incumbent on me to secure at the cost of any sac- 
 rifice, to preserve by every kind of devotion. You 
 are weak, but I am strong, and all my strength is 
 for you. Yes, I am yours entirely ; all that is in 
 me belongs to you, both that which is earthly and 
 that which is immortal. 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle; adieu, my wife. I em- 
 brace thee most tenderly. 
 
 Sunday, December i6th. 
 
 My last words yesterday were : Sleep well. Yours 
 were: Adieu, Monsieur Victor. But to-day I write 
 to you, to-day I am ready to throw myself at your 
 feet, to accuse myself of everything, to ask pardon 
 of you for all the faults that I have undoubtedly, but 
 unconsciously, committed. You will not find in this 
 letter, my adored Adèle, anything that resembles a 
 reproach or a recrimination. You were suffering 
 yesterday evening. I was undoubtedly in the wrong, 
 and I alone. I should have liked to write you a let- 
 ter that very night, in which I should have related 
 to you some proofs of attachment which I have given 
 you, and of which you are in ignorance, in order to 
 show you that if signs of indifference during unhap- 
 piness have been shown by one of us to the other, it 
 is not I who have done so. Yesterday you brought 
 a very grave accusation against me. It may have 
 been a little thoughtless. / laughed, while you wept I 
 My Adèle, I will not give vent to angry explanations ; 
 
 79
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I will impose silence on all that rises within me in 
 revolt against such an accusation. Since you were 
 ill, I will submit to your punishing me for an invol- 
 untary error as if it were a premeditated injury. Dear 
 love, I will confine myself to assuring you that I did 
 not see you weep, that I was in ignorance of your 
 distress, and that I do not even now understand its 
 cause. 
 
 My Adèle, I want to repeat to you how I love you, 
 even at the very moment that I suffer, through you, 
 and for you. I hope to see you to-day at church. 
 You will find me in every respect the same as if you 
 had yesterday bidden me a tender and loving adieu. 
 Forgive, forgive me, for you are gentle, kind, and 
 generous, and I am none of these things. 
 
 My adored Adèle, may I embrace you here ? 
 Your Faithful and Grateful Husband. 
 
 Dear love, I ask nothing of you, not even an em- 
 brace, nor a smile, nor a glance. All I desire is that 
 you should no longer suffer, and that you should no 
 longer be angry with your Victor, 
 
 Monday, December 17th. 
 
 My beloved Adèle, I must throw myself at your 
 feet to sue for pardon. If you knew how deeply I 
 repent of having disobeyed you yesterday! I came 
 away much dissatisfied with myself, because, in spite 
 of your sweet and gracious words, I had not read my 
 pardon in your face. You were right, and doubly 
 right. I will not tell you, dear love, that you were 
 angry for a trifle, because I do not consider it so. It 
 is not the subject of the disobedience, but the dis- 
 
 80
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 obedience itself, which is of importance. I know that 
 in your place I should have been extremely displeased, 
 and I will not disguise from myself that I should not, 
 perhaps, have been as sweet-tempered about it as 
 you were. It is written in your destiny, my good 
 and generous Adèle, that you should surpass me in 
 everything except, indeed, in the love that I bear 
 you. Dear love, I have been to blame only through 
 thoughtlessness; but a thoughtlessness that is a 
 source of distress to 3^ou is very blâmable. Forgive 
 me, oh, forgive me ! I have thought of nothing since 
 yesterday but the pain that I have caused you. I 
 cannot understand how it is that I, who would not 
 willingly occasion you the slightest annoyance, 
 should have been guilty of distressing you so much, 
 without any object, and purely from carelessness. 
 
 Adieu, adieu. I adore you because you are an 
 angel, and I embrace you because you are my wife. 
 
 Friday, December 21st. 
 
 Adèle, there is an insupportable idea from which 
 I wish to escape, but which has constantly returned 
 to beset me, ever since the last time I saw you, four 
 days ago. 
 
 Great heavens ! suppose that our marriage should 
 ever result in your unhappiness ! . . . Adèle, do you 
 realize the extent of my jealous}^? Did you sufficient- 
 ly consider all its exactions, and my excitabilit}^ be- 
 fore deciding to unite your life with mine? I should 
 not know how to tell you what took place within me 
 when your mother mentioned before me the other 
 day that you had accepted the arm of some man who 
 F 81
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 is unknown to me. The idea that this favor — in my 
 eyes so immense — had been granted to a stranger ; 
 that this privilege of approaching you so nearly, 
 which belongs to me by right only, might every day 
 perhaps be shared by others — this privilege which 
 is so innocent and which fills me with such delight — 
 the very idea of this, I say, altogether overcame me. 
 It still seems to me that you must be indifferent in 
 regard to what occasions me cruel distress. Adèle, 
 this torture, joined to the necessity of keeping a re- 
 straint upon myself, threw me into a condition that 
 is difficult to describe. I came away, and ever since 
 then these ideas which possess me have poisoned 
 everything, even the pleasure of thinking of you. 
 
 I have examined myself severely, and I find that 
 I do not agree with the opinion commonly expressed 
 that jealousy is ridiculous. I have asked myself if 
 I was to blame, and not only have I found myself 
 unable to condemn my jealous passion, but I am con- 
 vinced that it is actually a part of the chaste, pure, 
 and exclusive love that I feel for you, but with which 
 I seem unable to inspire you. Dear Adèle, if you do 
 not feel this love, you are at least designed by nature 
 to comprehend it. For this reason I am sure that 
 you will not laugh at what has caused me such ex- 
 quisite pain. Ah! how happy I should be, if I 
 were beloved in the same measure that I love ! 
 
 It is evident that I must have a blind confidence in 
 you, dear, thus to unveil before you the most inti- 
 mate secrets of my soul. If I were speaking to an 
 ordinary person, I should fear that my jealousy would 
 appear only a failing. With you I have no such ap- 
 
 82
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 prehension. Whatever constitutes my entire hap- 
 piness naturally cannot be a trifle in my eyes, and 
 it will not surprise you that it is impossible for me to 
 discuss this subject with those who regard it in a 
 trivial light. 
 
 Under ordinar}' circumstances, jealous}^ is a sus- 
 picion insulting to the person who excites it, and 
 degrading to the person who indulges it. Dear love, 
 I do not do you the injustice of supposing that you 
 confound the delicacy of an imperious love, which 
 you are born to inspire, with the coarseness of vulgar 
 minds. My jealousy may be extreme, but it is re- 
 spectful. I believe that it does me honor, because it 
 proves the purity of my tenderness. If mj^ wife ever 
 gave me cause for jealousy through lightness of con- 
 duct, I should die of it, but I should never suspect her 
 for a single moment. 
 
 I have spoken at length of all my ideas on this 
 subject, because the matter is of importance. Such 
 jealousy as mine, dear Adèle, ought to give you pleas- 
 ure. If it frightens you, j'ou do not love me. If you 
 met me, who am a man, giving my arm to a young 
 girl, or to any woman, would it be a matter of indif- 
 ference to 3'ou? Reflect upon this, for if it is really 
 something that you would not care for, I am lost — 
 you do not love me. These are m^?- unvarying sen- 
 timents. Love that is not jealous is neither true nor 
 pure. Be very sure that those who are without a 
 feeling of jealousy concerning one woman are in love 
 with them all. Mj^ dear, my beloved Adèle, you 
 have once told me that you loved me, and until you 
 tell me to the contrary I intend to believe it; I intend 
 
 83
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 to cling to this delicious conviction as the only 
 belief that binds me to life. 
 
 Adieu. Only a great love for thee could have writ- 
 ten the pages that I have just concluded. A demain. 
 
 Saturday, December 22d. 
 
 I have just read over these two pages. I tremble 
 lest they should strike you as strange. That would 
 prove to me that you neither understand me nor love 
 me. Adèle, dear love! Ah, no! I will believe that 
 our souls understand each other, for is it not true? 
 And if it is true, then, my adored Adèle, what hap- 
 piness is in store for us! Come, let us not be like 
 others who fear to feel, or to express what they feeL 
 Let us be open, we who are innocent and pure. Do 
 not let us hide from each other any of our impres- 
 sions; let us tell each other all our thoughts, for in 
 this way we shall be safe against those false inter- 
 pretations that so often destroy confidence, and even 
 affection. 
 
 I have sometimes perceived, with pain, Adèle, that 
 you draw back from some of my opinions; but this 
 is because you do not enter into my ideas, and you 
 exaggerate the meaning of m}^ words. I am in ig- 
 norance as to whether j'^ou esteem me more or less 
 than I deserve; but, for pity's sake, be indulgent 
 to me. Some unknown voice within me tells me 
 that I should lose nothing if you could know me 
 exactly as I am. This testimony of my own conscience 
 is dear to me ; it represents — together with the little 
 atom of affection that you grant me — the only com- 
 fort I possess. Numerous as my faults are, there is 
 
 84
 
 Tbe Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 nothing degrading in them; and, akhough I know 
 that I am full of imperfections, I know also that you 
 are full of goodness. 
 
 Time and paper fail me, and j^et how many things 
 I have still to say to you ! I talk to you so rarely ; 
 I see you so seldom! Dear love, how much I am to 
 be pitied, and how happy are those who are permitted 
 at all times to enjo}^ your presence, your smile, your 
 words ! I am but an exile. When I go to your house 
 everything oppresses me, every one watches me. I 
 am obliged to put a force upon myself, to disguise 
 my own feelings, and there is no one in the world 
 who wears a mask or fetters with more difficult}^ than 
 I do. 
 
 Oh, when will all this end? When shall I attain 
 the unique and immense happiness that the future 
 holds out to me? Excuse this letter, hurriedty writ- 
 ten. My ideas are as much disordered as my writing. 
 
 Saturday, December. 
 
 Still a few words. I should have answered your 
 preceding letter, my love, but that which 3^ou sent 
 me yesterday evening has thrown my whole mind 
 into confusion. I do not know what ideas will fill 
 this paper. The only one which remains clear to 
 me is the same that always possesses me — that of 
 my inexpressible tenderness for you. 
 
 I smiled when I read that you imagined you saw 
 around you persons more worthy than yourself of 
 being loved as I love j'ou. I conjure j^ou for the 
 thousandth time to do no one the honor of compari- 
 son with yourself. You say, Adèle, that some day 
 
 85
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I shall become aware of your lack of knowledge, and 
 that this will be a disappointment to me. Under- 
 stand, m3^ dearest, that you possess the rarest and 
 most beautiful kind of knowledge, a knowledge of 
 all the virtues. Yet more, the useless and purely 
 relative accomplishments which you wish to possess 
 would in no wise add to my happiness. Much that 
 we learn is not worth the trouble of learning. 
 
 You once told me, with a charming simplicity, 
 that you did not understand poetry ; but that is as 
 much as to tell me that you do not comprehend vir- 
 tue. Adèle, poetry is the soul ; genius is the soul ; 
 that which people call my talent is nothing else than 
 my soul. You are, therefore, no stranger to it, dear 
 love; for, if I may venture so to believe, our two 
 souls have never failed up to this time to understand 
 each other. The most ignorant being in the world 
 can feel poetry, that pure poetry of thought to which 
 positive acquirements add nothing whatever ; a poetry 
 which weaves its imaginative fancies around living 
 images, which feeds on love, devotion, and enthu- 
 siasm, and which reveals to generous natures the 
 most secret mysteries of our souls. Such poetry as 
 this, Adèle, you will alwa3^s comprehend, because 
 you are good, gentle, noble, and sincere. What mat- 
 ters all else? In the presence of these divine in- 
 spirations, these revelations of the ideal, what are 
 the laborious acquirements of men, uncertain and 
 often false as they are? They do but drain the 
 springs of life, while poetry — that poetry which I 
 draw from your look and from your smile — is at once 
 its delight and its consolation. Pardon me; I do 
 
 86
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 not know whither this subject will lead me, but speak- 
 ing of poetry is almost the same thing as speaking 
 of yourself. 
 
 Yesterday, Adèle, I passed a delightful evening. 
 Let me go over it with you. How sweet it is to par- 
 don one's self when one loves ! Adèle, a feeling of re- 
 morse remains with me, notwithstanding. You wept ! 
 I caused you to weep! Great Heavens, dear love! 
 Oh, forgive me! What would I not give to atone 
 for those tears which you shed in silence beside me, 
 and because of me! Alas! what cause ought you 
 to have had to weep — you who are all my happiness? 
 No, I will not pardon myself, and the more I con- 
 sider it the more do I feel myself to blame. 
 
 But if I have wounded you, my poor, dear love, 
 it is only from excess of affection. I had suffered 
 so much myself in believing that you tolerated me 
 only from politeness, and that my presence was dis- 
 pleasing to you. . . . Oh, tell me that 3^ou forgive 
 me, and grant me a smile to console me for those 
 tears. 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle ; you will not tell me that 
 this letter is short. I add some verses,* which I com- 
 posed for your fête during my hours of sadness and 
 depression. I ought not, perhaps, to send them to 
 you, but they bear witness how much I think of you. 
 
 Adieu, adieu ; write me a long letter, and fill up 
 the lines completely. I embrace you, and I swear 
 to you that you shall not again weep on my account. 
 
 Your Husband. 
 
 *A toi — Odes et Ballades. 
 87
 
 Tbe Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Sunday, 23d. 
 
 What a letter you have written me, Adèle! You 
 yourself seem, in sending it me, to have foreseen and 
 regretted the efïect which it might produce upon me. 
 Therefore, I will not complain. I should not, indeed, 
 even answer it, for fear of distressing you by the 
 pain that you have given me, were it not of impor- 
 tance to reassure you, and in so doing to reassure 
 myself as well as you. Moreover, how can my time 
 be better employed than in writing to you? To what 
 greater pleasure, or to what more important duty, 
 can I devote it? 
 
 Do you know, Adèle, that some words in your let- 
 ter have completely upset me, and I would have given 
 all the blood in my veins to have had an immediate 
 explanation of them? What was in your mind when 
 you wrote that sentence — that insupportable sen- 
 tence — in which you seemed to say that your repu- 
 tation was not without stain, nor your conscience with- 
 out reproach ? Speak, oh, speak now ! tell your 
 whole thought to him who would give the happiness 
 of his life to procure j^ou a moment's pleasure — a 
 single flash of joy. Do not disguise from me any 
 part of the truth, whatever it may be; j^ou j^ourself 
 know whether I have ever hidden anj^thing in my 
 soul from you. Listen, I am going to give you an 
 example of the unbounded confidence that you owe 
 me ; I am going to tell you what a terrible suspicion, 
 what an intolerable idea, this cruel sentence has 
 caused me. Answer me, my Adèle, my beloved, 
 my adored Adèle, answer me as you would answer 
 God ! Have pity on me if some demon of jealousy has, 
 
 88
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 happily for me, misled me. Consider that I have 
 tossed all night in torturing sleeplessness, sometimes 
 accusing myself of having so easily taken alarm in 
 a matter injurious to you, sometimes seeing sus- 
 picions increase and multiply in my heart to the 
 whole extent of my tenderness for you. Speak to 
 me, then, with that sincerity which in your beauti- 
 ful soul is the inexorable truth. Answer, yes or no, 
 to this question, or else I shall die : Have you ever at 
 any time loved any man but me ? 
 
 Oh, my Adèle, if when you read this sentence 
 your heart cannot restrain its indignation, if in your 
 sincerity and in your anger you answer no ! then 
 with what joy, with what unutterable delight, I shall 
 kiss the ground under your feet, in thankful recog- 
 nition of my own senselessness and culpability in 
 having, even for a moment, so completely misunder- 
 stood one of your letters, and for having entertained 
 a suspicion of you, the being whom I respect, whom 
 I admire, whom I esteem more than all else in the 
 world. Oh, tell me, my Adèle, it is true, is it not, 
 that you have never loved any man but me? 
 
 Alas, God is my witness that ever since my infancy 
 you have been my only thought. However far back 
 I search my memory, I meet with no image but 3^ours. 
 Absent or present, I have loved you always; and it is 
 because I have, from the first, resolved to offer you 
 a worship as pure as yourself, that I have remained 
 impervious to the temptations, the seductions, to 
 which my sex and my age are too often permitted to 
 yield by the immoral indulgence of the world. 
 
 When I reflect upon all this, Adèle, and think of all 
 
 89
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 the chaste and angehc quaUties of 3^our nature, I fore- 
 see that my alarms are chimerical. Nevertheless, I 
 have told them to you because I ought to tell you 
 everything ; and, moreover, if I must own my weak- 
 ness, I wish that you should be so kind as to reassure 
 me yourself and to answer my question. For, after 
 all, what is this reproach, this stain of which you 
 speak? Perhaps (and why should I not be as ingeni- 
 ous in reassuring m3^self as in self-torture?), perhaps 
 it is on my account that your angelic conscience is 
 alarmed, and you believe your reputation to be in- 
 jured by the attentions I have paid you. If this is 
 so, my dearest Adèle, it will be I, not you, who is to 
 blame. All the fault will be mine, and if one of us is 
 unworthy of the other, it will be myself. How dare 
 you, then, tell me that you desire for me a wife more 
 worthy than yourself? 
 
 Great Heavens, Adèle ! What am I beside you? Oh, 
 I beg you — and I wish you were here, for I should 
 kneel before 3^ou as before a divinity — show a little 
 more appreciation of yourself. If you knew how far 
 you are above all others of your sex, if you could see 
 yourself morall}^ could know, as I do, all the noble- 
 ness, all the simplicity, all the greatness of your 
 character, you could not wish me, even in your wildest 
 imagination, any other wife than yourself. It is I, 
 Adèle, who am very far from your standard. All 
 my efforts are devoted to raising myself towards you ; 
 and if I have ever seemed ambitious for fame, it was 
 only because my desires habitually turn towards 3^ou ; 
 if I have ever sought to earn distinction, it was because 
 I thought that you would some day bear my name. 
 
 90
 
 The Love Letters of V ictor Hugo 
 
 Come, then, believe a little more in yourself. I 
 should like the entire universe to know that I love 
 you, that one look of yours is more precious to me 
 than all the fame in the world, and that I would will- 
 ingly submit to see all m}^ blood spilled drop \iy drop 
 if tliis would spare your eyes one tear. Why is it not 
 within my power to prove to you vay devotion by 
 actions instead of words? Ah, you are far above all 
 other women in the realms of virtue and of gener- 
 osity. Their heads do not even reach yowx feet. Do 
 not let j'our conscience reproach you for a kiss or a 
 letter; the}^ are the onlj^ comfort enjojxd by your 
 husband in his bereavement and isolation. Fear 
 nothing as regards your reputation; it is dearer to 
 me than my life. I should have to be a miserable 
 coward if it were to cease to be as pure as yourself, 
 and that time will never come. 
 
 Adieu. You are to me as my own life. 
 
 Thy Husband. 
 
 Monday, December 24th. 
 
 I should not have promised 3^ou not to work 3^ester- 
 day evening, dear Adèle, had it not been that work 
 was impossible to me. How could I, while I was 
 still under the spell of that delightful evening passed 
 at your side, devote my mind and m}" energies to a 
 labor that would be whoU}^ without interest for me, 
 were it not for the thought that it is only by labor 
 that I can make a position in life worthy of being 
 offered to you? I came back beside mj'self ! What 
 happiness mine will one day be! I retired because 
 I thought that you would retire at the same time. 
 
 91
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 For a long time I passed in review the most trivial 
 circumstances of those peaceful moments, so brief 
 and so regretted, which were passed near my adored 
 Adèle. For a long time the beloved recollection of 
 you prevented me from sleeping, and when at last 
 sleep came, it restored to me your image, radiant 
 with grace and sweetness. 
 
 Dear love, if my heart were laid bare to yom, you 
 would find there the thought of you which dominates 
 all other thoughts. Oh, how I love you, and what 
 burning words I need for the expression of my love ! 
 I yearn to tell you a thousand times that I love you ; 
 I yearn to have you tell me the same thing a thousand 
 times. My whole happiness lies in this. What lan- 
 guage of genius or of love can give me words to ex- 
 press all that I feel for you? You are so good, so 
 noble, so generous. All your virtues are depicted so 
 beautifully in 3^our face that I am astonished that 
 all men who see you are not madly in love with you. 
 But then their perception is so dull, their judgment 
 so feeble, their minds so commonplace! Yes, my 
 Adèle, each of the charms of your face reveals one 
 of the perfections of your soul. For your Victor you 
 are an angel, a spirit, a muse, a creature with only 
 so much of human nature as may suffice to keep 
 you within reach of the earthly and material being 
 whose fate and whose lot 3^ou deign to share. 
 
 Do not smile, dear love, at this enthusiasm. What 
 creature in the world is more worthy than yourself 
 to inspire it? Oh! why do you not see yourself as 
 you are, such as yow appear to him whose adored 
 companion you will be eternally! Immortality 
 
 92
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 would be for my soul a great and dreary desert if I 
 
 could not advance in it by your side. Yes, my Adèle, 
 
 it is in union with you that I shall live, in union with 
 
 you that I shall die, in union with you that I shall 
 
 enter into eternity. I must pause. Let me go to rest 
 
 dreaming of happiness. Another time I will think of 
 
 work and of fame. 
 
 Thursday, December 27, 1 821. 
 
 I passed a very happy day on Tuesday, Adèle, 
 only embittered in the evening by the thought that 
 you would, perhaps, be blamed for my assiduity in 
 paying attentions to you. Dear love, the idea that 
 you may be called upon to endure the slightest dis- 
 tress on my account, is for me the keenest of all dis- 
 tresses. Nevertheless, I still fail to understand how 
 there can be the slightest harm in what renders me 
 so happy. However that may be, I would sacrifice 
 everything, my dearest Adèle, rather than see you 
 annoyed because of me. When will all these hin- 
 derances disappear? When shall I be able to boast, 
 in the face of the whole world, that I love j^ou, you 
 of whom I am so proud, you who represent all my 
 honor and my distinction? Dear Adèle, how happy 
 your Victor, your husband, will be on the day when 
 he can publicly assume that title which, in his eyes, 
 is more distinguished than any other! Ah! we 
 shall some day be very happy. 
 
 But we are, or (to speak without presumption) / am, 
 very much to be pitied at present. To spend so few 
 hours out of so many da3^s with you, and feel them 
 always harassed by a perpetual effort to suppress 
 what I feel, truly all my other troubles, which 
 
 93
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 would perhaps seem much greater to an indifferent 
 mind, are nothing to this one. When my friends 
 ask me, as they often do, why it is I am sad and care- 
 worn, the}^ are very far from suspecting the real 
 cause of my sadness. 
 
 But, Adèle, you love me, and my imagination 
 can conceive of no misfortune so terrible that it 
 could not be consoled by this thought. It is suffi- 
 cient to transport me at once from depression to exal- 
 tation. So long as I can feel that I have a life to 
 devote to you, I shall never complain of my lot. My 
 dearest love, has not your slave two hands with which 
 to create your happiness? Oh, I beg of you, love 
 me, and have no fears for the future. Let us go for- 
 ward with faithful hearts and smiling faces. Teach 
 me, j^ou who are the noblest of creatures created in 
 God's image, teach me your angelic virtues, for I 
 am nothing except through 3^ou. If I am able to 
 unfold my past life to you without shame, is it not 
 owing to you, Adèle, that I can do so? If there is 
 no remorse to-da3^ among all my sorrows, am I not 
 indebted for this to the protecting influence of your 
 nature upon mine? How much I ought to love you, 
 you who have preserved me in every way, who will 
 protect me through everjHhing ! How I do love you, 
 you to whom I owe even the abilit}^ to love 3^ou in 
 a manner worthy of yourself ! Only love me a little, 
 as well ; then no misfortune can be of any moment. 
 
 Friday, December zSth. 
 
 It is just two j^ears ago to-day, my dearest Adèle, 
 since I passed an intoxicating evening, the remem- 
 
 94
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Htigo 
 
 brance of which will always remain among my 
 sweetest memories. We went together for the first 
 time to the play. 
 
 It was at the Theatre Français, do you remem- 
 ber? They gave " Hamlet." Tell me, dear love, have 
 you preserved any remembrance of that delightful 
 evening? Do you recall that we waited a long time 
 for your brother in the street near the theatre, and 
 that you told me ivonien were more loving than men ? 
 Do you remember that during the whole performance 
 your arm rested lightly upon mine? That I spoke 
 to you of an unhappiness that was imminent, and 
 which, in truth, was not long delayed? That I told 
 you a great many times that so happy an evening 
 would not occur again for a long time? . . . 
 
 Oh, my Adèle, when I think that two years have 
 passed since those delicious moments, and that the 
 smallest circumstances connected with them are like 
 those of yesterday in my heart, I ask myself whether 
 it is the same with you, if your memory has been as 
 faithful as mine, and I tremble in asking it, for it 
 would be presumption to believe it; and yet, if you 
 have forgotten all this, you do not love me. Oh, 
 tell me that j^ou have not forgotten; tell me, I pray 
 you, that you have sometimes, during my long ab- 
 sence, thought with regret of those moments that 
 were so quickly flown. . . . 
 
 Dear Adèle, how many times I thought of that time 
 when I was in despair. But of what moment is that 
 painful experience now, since you at last belong to 
 me, belong to me at least in hope, and in the future. 
 Who would dare, now that you are mine, to tear you 
 
 95
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ffom me? Alas! two years ago I sat beside you, 
 peaceful and serene, and four months later I was 
 obliged to bow my head under the most terrible of 
 all misfortunes; I was forcibly separated from you! 
 Now, if I see you with more restraint and less ease 
 than formerly, it is, at least, with more security. For 
 nothing but hell itself will prevent your, sooner or 
 later, being mine. 
 
 My own fate is very simple; I have only two ob- 
 jects in perspective, yourself and death. Nothing can 
 deprive me of my Adèle. Family ties and relatives, 
 without you, would be everything to me, but in your 
 presence they are nothing. I myself am nothing 
 more than your possession. 
 
 Saturday, December 2gth. 
 
 I often read over your charming letters. They are 
 to me, in some sort, like your presence. I am aston- 
 ished, dear love, that this correspondence, which is 
 so sweet to me, should still occasion you any scruples, 
 for the manner in which you blame yourself for not 
 having scruples shows me that you still feel them. 
 Do you not, then, remember that I am your husband ; 
 that I ought to be the only confidant and the legiti- 
 mate depositary of all your thoughts; that this inti- 
 mate mutual communication which is only permitted 
 us through letters is one of my rights, as it is one 
 of my duties. Oh, my Adèle, do not speak to me 
 again, I entreat you, of your dread of being overes- 
 teemed by me! Must I never cease repeating that 
 when you do so you occasion me the utmost distress? 
 I beg you to be very sure of your Victor, and to have 
 
 96
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 confidence in one who lives entirely in you and for 
 you. Do not oblige me to do what you yourself ex- 
 press with so much grace, to defend my wife against 
 my wife. 
 
 Yes, I am proud of my adored wife, of my good and 
 charming Adèle; and this is not vanity, it is pride, 
 and pride of the purest description. Your virtues 
 are my treasure, your perfections are my wealth, 
 and I will defend them against your own attacks 
 with the jealousy of a mother and the ardor of a 
 husband. 
 
 When I told you that your soul comprehended 
 poetry, I revealed to you only one of your heavenly 
 faculties. You ask : Are not verses poetry, then ? 
 Verse in itself does not constitute poetry. Verse is 
 only an elegant vestment for a beautiful form. Poetry 
 can express itself in prose, but it does so more per- 
 fectly under the grace and majesty of verse. It is 
 poetry of soul that inspires noble sentiments and 
 noble actions as w^ell as noble writings. A poet who 
 is a bad man is a degraded being, baser and more 
 culpable than a bad man who is not a poet. 
 
 This is enough of indifferent things, things in re- 
 gard to which you feel, moreover, more than I can 
 tell you. I only wish that you could know how beau- 
 tiful, elevated, and poetical is your soul. When we 
 are married, dear love, it will be you who will inspire 
 me, you with whom I shall take counsel concerning 
 all I do, and thuwS, in addition to having owed you 
 already all my happiness, I shall also owe you my 
 success, should I achieve it. 
 
 Be satisfied with yourself, without ceasing to be 
 G 97
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Htigo 
 
 modest. Humility becomes you so well! But you 
 should distinguish between the modesty which con- 
 sists in ignoring one's own advantages and that 
 which is displayed by attributing them in some sort 
 to others, and in being grateful to God for the gifts 
 of nature, as well as to our parents for the advan- 
 tages of education. This last is the only real, the 
 only enduring, modesty. It preserves us against 
 false pride, and leads us to a just sense of our own 
 value. 
 
 I weary you, my dear and noble Adèle, for you 
 know all this better than I do. Forgive me, but it is 
 you who are responsible for it, for it is you who, by 
 your scruples and your fears, have led me into these 
 dull and pointless dissertations. They are useful, 
 however, in proving that my esteem for you is not 
 less real than my tenderness. 
 
 Adieu. I do not know whether you will be able to 
 read this scrawl. Substitute I love you for all the 
 words that you are unable to decipher; then you 
 will always, have the thought. 
 
 Adieu! Tell me of your health, and permit your 
 husband to embrace you. 
 
 1822 
 
 We have seen Victor Hugo resume his sweet habits of 
 love, restored to him after a long and painful separation. 
 He was again able to see Adèle at her own home, but in 
 the presence of her parents, with considerable frequency, 
 and sometimes he met her alone elsewhere. He accom- 
 panied her and her mother to the theatre, or in walks, 
 and, above all, he wrote to her, and she answered him. 
 
 98
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 These were precious joj^'s in comparison with that sad 
 year of sohtude, but they were alloyed for Victor by one 
 mortal uneasiness. 
 
 More than six months had passed since the death 
 of Mme. Hugo, the new year, 1822, had just opened, 
 and as yet no change had taken place in his worldly 
 prospects. His father had not yet given to his marriage 
 the necessary consent, and, indeed, remained in entire 
 ignorance of his son's love affairs. As to a position 
 vmder government or the promised pension, his hopes 
 of them seemed constantly to recede. How long was 
 this state of things likely to last? 
 
 M. Foucher, worthy man, would perhaps have had 
 patience, but he was not alone. Uncle Asseline and 
 his wife, Victor Foucher, the elder brother, and the 
 cousins — above all, the cousins — expressed themselves 
 astonished at the delay, blamed the affection of the 
 lovers, and spoke of Adèle's reputation as compromised. 
 They threw the blame on poor Adèle herself, who in her 
 turn threw it upon Victor — a cruel anxiety for his sus- 
 ceptible, poetic soul. 
 
 In vain he postponed the supreme moment. It be- 
 came necessary to put an end to this clamor, to take 
 some decision, to act. He only half believed in the pen- 
 sion ; he worked at his romance, he worked at a drama ; 
 he already felt his power. Money he knew would be 
 forthcoming in the end. His greatest difficulty would, 
 he feared, be to obtain the consent of his father. 
 
 This difficult^^ which had already caused him so 
 much suffering in his mother's case, was now of far 
 greater gravitv. If General Hugo refused his consent, 
 it could only legally be dispensed with by waiting five 
 years for Victor's full majority. Victor could not dream 
 of asking the Foucher family to extend their patience 
 thus far. Would he himself be able to endure the suffer- 
 ing caused hy solitude and hopeless separation? When 
 Adèle no longer existed for him, what then? . . , 
 
 When we consider how strong love was in the heart 
 of this young man, when we remember the gravity, and 
 even gloom, of his ardent temperament, it is evident that 
 the question which he proposed to put to his father 
 would be one of life or death to him. 
 
 99
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Friday Evening, January^, 1822. 
 
 I should have done well to leave you the day be- 
 fore yesterday at your own door, for I should not 
 then have embarked on that discussion which must 
 have been a matter of indifference to you, and which, 
 nevertheless, procured for me so chilling a farewell. 
 For I can only attribute that icy adieu to the conver- 
 sation in which we had just been engaged. An 
 hour before we were in such perfect accord! Would 
 that I had quitted you then! I should have come 
 home with a glad heart, and now a thousand bitter 
 thoughts refuse to mingle with the pleasure of writ- 
 ing to you. It does not seem to me that I can have 
 said anything in our discussion which should have 
 offended you. My words were certainly not words 
 of scandal or of envy, and I fail to understand how 
 I can have displeased you by taking up the defence 
 of the only man in France who is worthy of enthu- 
 siasm.* If I myself am destined ever to achieve an 
 illustrious career, it seems to me, dearest Adèle, that 
 admiration bestowed on me by fresh minds and youth- 
 ful souls would be, after yours, my sweetest recom- 
 pense. But let us leave all this. 
 
 I must say frankly, however, that I seldom have the 
 pleasure of finding you in accord with m}'' opinions. 
 Whatever opinion I advance, even if I express before 
 you one in opposition to my own (and it is strange 
 that this seldom happens except when I am talking 
 to you), you are much more ready to agree with the 
 other side than with mine. It seems to be only neces- 
 
 *This remark refers to Chateaubriand, for whom Victor Hugo 
 entertained the most ardent admiration. 
 
 100
 
 Residence of Victor Hii^o, Rue Notre Dame des Chatnps, 1822
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 sary that a remark should pass my hps for it to be 
 an error in your eyes. I never adopt an opinion until 
 I have inquired of myself whether it is noble and gen- 
 erous — that is to say, whether it is worthy of a man 
 who loves you. Alas! when I express this opinion, 
 it may be that it hurts the feelings of some other per- 
 son who is present, it may be opposed by some one, 
 and then I naturally look for some assurance of your 
 approval, yours being the only one of which I am am- 
 bitious, or which gives me satisfaction. It is always 
 in vain! You look at once dissatisfied, your brow 
 is overcast, your words are brief. Sometimes j'-ou 
 even impose silence upon me. Then I am obliged 
 to hold my peace, and to appear like a prophet who 
 disbelieves in his own prophecies; or, if I continue 
 the discussion, I retire at last discouraged, because 
 I have displeased you by maintaining ideas which I 
 had believed to be worthy of you, but which, accord- 
 ing to all appearances, turn out to be contrary to 
 your own. 
 
 I believe, dear love, that all I am saying is simple 
 and natural. Yet I have no certainty that you will 
 not consider it self-conceit. And even if it is self- 
 conceit, it will be j'^our own fault. Have you not per- 
 mitted me to believe myself loved by you? Dear 
 love, a small and narrow self-confidence will never 
 enter into a soul which has the audacity to love you. 
 My pretensions are very much higher than the pre- 
 tensions of self-conceit. What I hope is to make 
 you happy — perfectly happy; to associate my ob- 
 scure and earthy mind with your luminous and heav- 
 enly one, my soul with j^our soul, my fate with your 
 
 lOI
 
 The- Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 fate, my immortality with your immortality. You 
 may consider all this as mere poetry if you will, for 
 poetry is love. What is there real in this world, if it 
 is not poetry? This language may strike you as 
 singular; but reflect, my Adèle, that poetry and 
 virtue, in my mind, are synonyms, and then it will 
 appear quite simple to you. When love fills up a 
 man's whole nature, self-conceit cannot easily find 
 a place there. It is true that I have not invariably 
 shown a very profound respect for the common run of 
 men. My consciousness does not tell me that I am 
 better than they are, but that I am different from 
 what they are, and this is sufficient for me. 
 
 You must not conclude, my adored Adèle, from 
 all I have just written, that I attach an extreme im- 
 portance to my opinions. On the contrary, you should 
 remark that it is not my own opinion, but yours, 
 that I rate highly. What distresses me is that I 
 should contradict your opinions, which are certainly 
 much more just than mine. When we are married, 
 dear love, I will guide myself always by what 3^ou 
 think best. I will never act without having referred 
 my actions to you, for you have an instinct in regard 
 to all things that are noble. My only regret at this 
 moment is that all my efforts to think in a manner 
 worthy of you do not appear to satisfy you. You 
 yourself have never experienced this feeling, for if 
 you had you would have complained of it to me. 
 
 Do you know, my Adèle, that the coldness of your 
 farewell has preoccupied me so painfully during these 
 last two days that I have not been able to accomplish 
 anything? Thus the fear of having displeased you 
 
 102
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 is added to remorse at having wasted my time. Every- 
 day is now precious to me, when all should be devoted 
 to working for you. 
 
 There is one idea which often occurs to me that I 
 must communicate to you. It is that all the prom- 
 ises of service from men in power may not be of so 
 much use to me as one might suppose. I rely only 
 upon myself, because only of myself am I secure. I 
 greatly prefer, dear love, to work for a dozen nights 
 in succession than to spend one hour in soliciting 
 assistance from other people. Do not you feel the 
 same? I am sure of it. And how proud I shall be 
 when I can offer you a competence that is due only 
 to my own exertions ! When I am able to say : " No 
 one but myself has contributed to the welfare of my 
 Adèle." 
 
 When, oh ! when will all these delightful hopes be 
 realized? But I do not complain. If I have not as 
 yet entered into the joys of life, mj^ capacity to do so 
 remains in reserve for the bliss in store for me. My 
 dearest, all those who love me should rejoice on the 
 morning that I wed you before the eyes of all men, 
 for then my cup of happiness will be more full than 
 that of any other man. Marriage will open for me a 
 new existence. It will be, as it were, a new birth. 
 How sweet it will be, after so long experiencing an 
 intense virginal passion, to have it fulfilled, through 
 the enjo3^ment of delights before unknown, by a 
 chaste, healthful, satisfied, and not less ardent afifec- 
 tion! 
 
 Oh, my Adèle, forgive me! I do not know whither 
 my imagination leads me, but sometimes, when I 
 
 103
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 reflect that no one except myself has any right in 
 you, that you are exclusively my own, I am amazed 
 at my unworthiness, and I ask myself what is there 
 in me to deserve such great good-fortune? If you 
 could know, dear love, with what an agony of prayer 
 I implore God to have pity on my solitude, and to 
 grant me the angelic being who is promised me, 3^ou 
 would, perhaps, be able to conceive what power an 
 immortal love can exercise over a mortal being. It 
 is this love, Adèle, that has me completely under sub- 
 jection. My intense temperament, my proud spirit, 
 my ambitious soul, have all been dominated by my 
 love; they are all concentrated on you alone, all 
 changed into one desire, one idea, one aspiration; 
 and this desire, this idea, this aspiration, which to- 
 gether constitute my entire life, are altogether yours. 
 
 At present I live an imperfect life. You are lack- 
 ing to me — that is to say, everything is lacking to 
 me. Our rare and brief interviews give me some 
 comfort, but they do not completely satisfy me. I 
 need to see you often ; I need to see you always. This 
 feeling is so deeply implanted in my nature that it 
 has become an instinct with me. The overpowering 
 necessit3^ of seeing you is constantly drawing me 
 into places where I have a slight hope that I may 
 have a glimpse of you. I am, therefore, often very 
 near you without your suspecting it. I should like 
 to be disguised or invisible, in order to be near my 
 wife at all times, to follow all her steps, to attend on 
 all her movements. I breathe freely only when in her 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Dear love, oh ! when will you belong to me? I am, 
 
 104
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 indeed, most unworthy of you, my Adèle, in that I 
 suspected you the day before yesterday of having 
 deceived me. Do not despise me, I conjure you, for 
 having for a moment conceived such an insulting 
 idea. You untruthful ! You to deceive me ! I could 
 sooner believe that the sun in the heavens and eter- 
 nity itself were liars. 
 
 Adieu, my good, my noble Adèle. Love your Vic- 
 tor, imperfect as he is, for he at least appreciates the 
 completeness of his Adèle's perfection. 
 
 Thy Faithful Husband. 
 
 Tuesday, January &h. 
 
 Adèle, all that you said to me in your letter of yes- 
 terday is perfectly just. I thank you, dear love, for 
 having written it, notwithstanding that it has aroused 
 me as from a dream. It is one of your rights to speak 
 to me of my affairs, for my affairs are yours. Even 
 more than this, it is my duty, and it is one of my dear- 
 est rights, to ask counsel of you in regard to all that 
 concerns me; and my confidence in you, as well as 
 my profound esteem for my wife, advise me very dif- 
 ferently in this respect than does her own modesty. 
 I should have wished, long since, to exercise this 
 right, had I not been afraid of filling up these letters, 
 which are my only joy, by details tedious both to you 
 and to myself. But this reason disappears of its own 
 accord from the moment that your wish in the matter 
 answers to my own. There is another and more 
 powerful reason, however, which still deters me. In 
 giving you an account of all that I am doing, and of 
 all that happens to me, I should be apprehensive of 
 
 105
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 seeming, directly or indirectly, to sing my own praises, 
 and on this account only, my dearest Adèle, the frank- 
 ness which you ask for — as if, indeed, the request 
 were necessary — will be somewhat difficult. But if 
 I am constrained, in spite of myself, to enter into 
 some explanation apparently lacking in humility, 
 I hope, dear love, that you will recollect that it is not 
 I who have sought an occasion to obtrude myself, 
 and that the details, which I shall try to make as 
 brief as possible, are essential to enable j^ou to 
 understand not only my present position, but the 
 possibilities in my future as well. 
 
 What is necessary to our happiness, dear love? 
 Some thousand francs of income, and the consent 
 of my father. That is all. What cause have we, 
 then, for uneasiness? For myself, my distress arises 
 not from uncertainty, but from dela3^ I am sure 
 that I shall be able, by my own exertions, to earn 
 the means of subsistence for 3^ou and for me. I hope 
 that my father, after having wrecked my mother's 
 happiness, will not destroy mine as well. I reh^ also 
 on being able, so soon as I attain mj^^ majorit}^ to 
 render him some service which will, in some sort, 
 oblige him to approve our union. But what reduces 
 me to despair is that patience has never been a vir- 
 tue of mine, and that I am wholly ignorant of when 
 this happiness will arrive, although I know for a 
 certainty that it will do so, at least unless death fore- 
 stalls it. 
 
 Do not ask me, Adèle, how it is that I am confident 
 of obtaining an independent subsistence, for I shall 
 then be obliged to speak to you of a Victor Hugo 
 
 io6
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 whom you do not know, and with whom your own 
 Victor is in no way desirous that you should make 
 acquaintance. It is this Victor Hugo who has 
 friends and enemies, who is entitled by reason of his 
 father's military rank to appear everywhere in so- 
 ciety as the equal of all the world, who has attained 
 a precocious reputation on account of some very slen- 
 der literary efforts, and whom every one in society, 
 where he rarely displays his cold, melancholy face, 
 believes to be occupied with some serious undertak- 
 ing, when he is really dreaming only of a sweet, 
 charming, virtuous j^oung girl who, fortunateh^ for 
 him, is ignorant of the social world. This Victor 
 Hugo, my Adèle, is a very insipid person. I could — 
 I ought, perhaps, to speak of him at some length, in 
 order to show you, by a number of details, that his 
 future offers some reasonable expectations; but I 
 beg you to agree to accept this on my w^ord, for the 
 Victor Hugo I speak of is very wearisome to your 
 own Victor, who has already endured a great deal 
 in writing these few lines. I am completelj^ con- 
 fused, my sweet love, at having been led into speak- 
 ing so much about myself, but it is your own fault. 
 I repeat that I speak of myself at such length only at 
 your own desire, for if you ask me what I look for- 
 ward to, it is needful that I should tell you on what 
 my expectations are based. 
 
 I am aware that you have been inspired with a prej- 
 udice, which has very little foundation, against the 
 profession of letters. Nevertheless, dear love, it is to 
 this that I owe the position which I now occupy. I 
 do not know whether I shall succeed, but I think it is 
 
 107
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 also doubtful whether there are many young men of 
 my age, without private fortune, who can offer you 
 the same guarantee for the future in themselves. 
 What have I done that I should be forced to tell you 
 all this? Yet, why should you not enter into my 
 real life? You will have no difficulty in understand- 
 ing me, and it may even be that your hopes will out- 
 run mine. I am obliged to have recourse to my eter- 
 nal formula, and to entreat you not to do me the 
 injustice of supposing all tliis to be the language of 
 self-love. My dearest, if there is one thing more than 
 any other that I wish, it is that you should believe in 
 my sincerity ; it is that you should believe me when I 
 tell you that there is only one thing which can ever 
 make me boastful, and that is that I am beloved by 
 you. I wish that you could be witness how the praise, 
 and even the enthusiasm, of indifferent people bores 
 me, and at the same time, my Adèle, what a pro- 
 found impression is made upon me by your approval 
 in the slightest degree. You may be very sure that 
 the man for whom you are a model and an idol can 
 never be touched by vanity, self-love, or false pride. 
 I am often told — it has, indeed, been recently said 
 to me very plainly — that I am destined to achieve a 
 dazzling reputation (I repeat this hyperbole in its ex- 
 act words). For my own part, I care only for domes- 
 tic happiness. Yet, if this can only be attained by 
 success in my profession, I should regard fame as a 
 means, and not as an end. I should live apart from 
 my own renown, while at the same time feeling for 
 it the respect to which fame, in itself, is alwa3^s en- 
 titled. If it should come to me according to predic- 
 
 io8
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 lions, I shall have neither desire nor hope in regard 
 to it, for I have no hope and no desire to give to 
 anything but to you. 
 
 Adèle, you are my only object, and all roads for 
 the attainment of my end seem good to me, provided 
 I might follow them in a straightforward and up- 
 right manner, without crawling in the dust and with- 
 out stooping. This was my idea when I told j^ou 
 that I should be much better pleased to earn a liveli- 
 hood by my own exertions than to wait upon the 
 uncertain good-nature of some man in power. There 
 are a great many ways of making a fortune, and I 
 should assuredly have made mine by some of them 
 ere this if I had been willing to do so by favor or by 
 flattery. That is not my way. I confine myself to 
 asking for the fulfilment of that to which I have a 
 right. I have obtained a promise, and I am expect- 
 ing its fulfilment. 
 
 In other respects, dear love, you are already in- 
 formed of all that concerns me. Tell me, would you 
 have advised any other course than that which I 
 have adopted? Would it have been really worthy 
 of you that your Victor should go each day to weary 
 every one, from the minister to his lowest clerk, with 
 his persistence? I am still in ignorance as to whether 
 my simple and reasonable claim has been heard, but 
 certainly neither you nor I would have wished it to 
 succeed at such a price. It is well known that men 
 sometimes obtain ever^^thing the^^ wish by means 
 of women, through intrigue, through corruption 
 and vanity — things which, bad as they are, are not 
 condemned by the world. I hate myself for telling 
 
 109
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 you, even^n the fewest possible words, that I could 
 have done this, but I am confident that it is needless 
 to add that your husband rejects such baseness with 
 horror and disgust. 
 
 What remains, then, for a young man who dis- 
 dains to push himself by the two most easy ways? 
 Nothing but the consciousness of strength and his 
 own self-respect. For me, Adèle, the knowledge of your 
 affection makes all my strength. One must follow 
 one's career with clean hands and a pure heart, and 
 advance in it as rapidly as may be without injuring 
 any one else. The rest one must leave to the justice 
 of God. 
 
 You must not conclude from all this, my love, that 
 I am satisfied to abandon myself, in my retreat, to 
 work of my own choice, which is, perhaps, unfruit- 
 ful, and that I close my eyes, through indifference, 
 to any other means of success. Great Heavens ! 
 Adèle, is not your future united to mine? If any 
 reasonable opportunity were to present itself to-mor- 
 row of doing something that an upright man might 
 do, nothing should prevent my taking advantage of 
 it with alacrity and pursuing it with vigor. If, to 
 obtain you three months sooner, all that was neces- 
 sary was to abandon the projects and the dreams 
 of my whole life, to follow a new occupation, to 
 undertake new studies, I should do so joyfully, my 
 Adèle. You would be mine, and should I then have 
 anything to regret? I would thank Heaven for all 
 the thorns with which my path might be strewn, 
 provided that path conducted me to you. Oh, tell 
 me, my adored Adèle, by what pains, by what labors, 
 
 .110
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 can I obtain you? Everything would seem to me 
 sweet and lovely, provided only there were no base- 
 ness in it. 
 
 I can tell you nothing further, dearest Adèle, nei- 
 ther more nor less. On the day that I told you that I 
 loved you I told you everything. Love is the only 
 feeling'that cannot be exaggerated. You might com- 
 mand me to-morrow to go and amuse myself, or to 
 die, and it would be my duty to obey you instantly, 
 or else I should not love you. To love is to live no 
 longer in one's self ; it is to live in another. One be- 
 comes a stranger to one's own existence — to interest 
 one's self only in that of the being beloved. Thus, 
 all your Victor's devotion to you, all his sacrifices 
 for you, are not deserving of thanks or praise; 
 they are the necessary consequences of a senti- 
 ment developed by circumstances independent of his 
 own will. If you love me, you should understand 
 me. If I love you, I ought to refer everything to 
 you. I am then no longer of any account in my 
 own sight, and if anything of mine can be of use to 
 you, it is perfectly natural that I should devote it to 
 your service on the instant, even if it be my life. 
 
 I must recapitulate, dear love, or you will lose yoxxx- 
 self in this immense letter. I am able to tell you that 
 my future is full of hope, but that I owe this hope not 
 to myself, but to pure chance. Hope, however, is not 
 certainty ; but where does one find certainty in the 
 destinies of men? (Observe here, my Adèle, that I 
 weigh all my words, and that I express myself with 
 frankness, because I am sure that you will not put a 
 false interpretation upon what is said to you.) It is 
 
 III
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 more than probable that I shall some day inherit 
 something from my father ; for, although my family 
 troubles contain more than one secret (I am now con- 
 fiding one of them to you), it is to be presumed that 
 during the four years that he has exercised vice- 
 regal functions in Spain he cannot have failed to 
 lay by something. Moreover, he has, in some sort, 
 admitted as much, though almost in spite of him- 
 self. As to his consent, I do not do him the injustice 
 to doubt it. 
 
 Now, my Adèle, if your parents wish for anything 
 more, I will offer them a heart full of courage and 
 of love for you. I cannot promise them to succeed, 
 but I can promise to do all that is humanly possible 
 to do for that end. If all my guarantees fail to sat- 
 isfy them . . . then I shall go and say to them what 
 I should have said at the beginning of this letter, if 
 I had listened to the first impulse of the feeling 
 prompted by yours. I will go to your parents' 
 house and I will say to them : " You have made me 
 very happy by allowing me to see your daughter. 
 Since you granted me this happiness of your own 
 accord, I have resigned myself to renouncing it for a 
 time. I do not know whether I shall be able to live 
 long without seeing her, but I shall try to do so, and, 
 with the hope of one day possessing her, I may suc- 
 ceed. At present it seems that you doubt my future 
 prospects. Adieu; you shall see me again when I 
 am in possession of an independence and the con- 
 sent of my father, or you shall never see me more." 
 
 This is what I have decided to do, Adèle, on the 
 morning after the first day your parents show that 
 
 112
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 they are afraid of compromising your future by unit- 
 ing it with mine. Perhaps, indeed, I should already 
 have notified them of this. The happiness of seeing 
 you has made me close my eyes up to the present mo- 
 ment ; still, I am aware that only a hint is needed to 
 arouse the susceptibility of my character. Who 
 knows? I flatter myself that, perhaps, since I have 
 suffered so much, I may have earned the right to hope 
 for a little happiness. But it may be that all this is 
 an illusion, and if I am really destined to misfortune, 
 what right have I to make you share it? Adèle, 
 your parents are right in wishing to have done with 
 me until I shall be in a prosperous position. In the 
 absence of that they do wisely to abandon me. 
 
 You yourself are happy ; you have a father and a 
 mother, both of whom are ready to sacrifice every- 
 thing for your happiness. For myself, no one takes 
 any interest in my future; I am an orphan. On 
 whichever side I turn my eyes, I see myself solitary. 
 You are generous enough to love me; but you are 
 not 3^our own mistress, and, moreover, 3^ou will soon 
 have forgotten me when I am no longer near you. 
 That is human nature. Why should I imagine that 
 there would be an exception made in my favor? Yes, 
 it is true that I myself am an exception, because the 
 love that I have for you is an exceptional one. Adèle, 
 you will see that it will be only a short time before 
 we shall say farewell to each other; and if we come 
 to that farewell, j^ou will find, Adèle, that it will be 
 our last. You are kind, you are gentle as an angel ; 
 he to whom 3^ou will some time belong will be very 
 happy. 
 
 H 113
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Adieu, dear love. May j^ou never shed tears as 
 bitter as those that have been wrung from me while 
 concluding this letter. I was deeply moved even in 
 writing all those frigid details, but it was not within 
 my power to restrain this emotion up to the end. 
 There are in these four pages a great many words 
 which will especially strike you, but which have, not- 
 withstanding, been very sad to me to write. Adieu, 
 adieu, ray dearest Adèle. I have never loved you 
 more than at this moment, when I feel that a new sep- 
 aration is in store for us. Adieu ; I had a thousand 
 things to say to you, but there is a cloud between 
 me and my thoughts. I am still your husband, am 
 I not? To tell you that I shall be so all my life does 
 not imply that I shall be so very long ! Adieu. 
 
 Sunday Morning, January \\th. 
 Now there is nothing left for me but to hide my 
 face in my hands and await the stroke. Your letter, 
 Adèle, is at once very bitter and very generous; it 
 is very generous because it is filled with a disinter- 
 estedness so much the more admirable because it 
 is not inspired by love. I remember that you once 
 said to me passion is out of place. My last letter 
 cost me a great deal. You are undoubtedly the 
 only person in the world to whom I could have 
 written all that it contained. In it I pushed frank- 
 ness as far as it is possible to carry it, perhaps 
 even to an immodest extent. You may now triumph 
 in the sacrifice j^ou have obtained. How will it 
 please you? What more can I say to you in a let- 
 ter? I do not know, for I cannot even tell whether 
 
 114
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I should have been able to give you more details 
 in a personal interview. You answer my expan- 
 sion with reticence. If I were in your place, you 
 tell me, . . . and there you pause. But, Adèle, 
 what more do I ask of you than your advice? I 
 have implored it with insistence. I would have done 
 anything to make you think me worthy of it. But 
 what does it matter? Up to the present time all my 
 actions have been directed towards one end, that of 
 obtaining you, and of obtaining you in a proper 
 manner. I was not sure of success, but I did believe 
 myself sure of a reward which is to me very sweet, 
 the happiness of being approved by you. I was 
 deceived, it seems, in that hope. At the very mo- 
 ment that I give you the highest proofs of confidence 
 and esteem, you withdraw from me your own con- 
 fidence and refuse me your esteem. Ah, well, since 
 my fate is nothing in your eyes, leave me to my 
 gloom; take away from me the hand that has sus- 
 tained me, the look that has encouraged me, the 
 voice that had the power to save me in spite of my 
 own blindness. I shall have no right to complain, 
 for I am a fool and an outcast, and you yourself 
 are too much in the right not to be happy. 
 
 None the less, it is not I who will withdraw in 
 the first instance. I shall remain up to the last mo- 
 ment such as you have always found me, ready and 
 glad to give my life if it can procure you the smallest 
 pleasure. Since you deprive me of your opinion, 
 I will do everything that your parents may suggest. 
 There is only one human creature for whose sake I 
 could submit to these humiliations without murmur- 
 US
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ing. I will submit, hopelessly, to fresh ones, if it is 
 necessary, provided that they stop short at the point 
 where humiliations become indignities. 
 
 Of the phrase in which you reproach me for my 
 amour propre I will not complain. I will take every- 
 thing upon myself, and, if any misfortune occurs, 
 it shall be my fault, and mine alone ; for I repeat, all 
 that the parents of Adèle require I will do. I wish 
 for nothing more than to give them fresh proofs 
 of a love that nevertheless stands, it seems to me, 
 in no need of being proved. I fear that too much 
 precipitation as regards my father may cost us 
 everything; but I bow to a wish which is for me a 
 law. What is my own happiness, at any rate? It 
 is yours, Adèle, which, if necessary, must be sep- 
 arated from my own deplorable future at any price. 
 Moreover, I shall not remain here to complain. My 
 life will have been crowned by a beautiful dream, 
 from which I shall emerge only to enter on a sleep 
 in which one dreams no longer. No, I shall not linger 
 here to suffer. When all is over for me, all will be 
 begun again for you. I shall have crossed your 
 life without leaving a trace behind. My soul will 
 resign itself to an eternal widowhood, if at this price 
 it can purchase any measure of earthly felicity for 
 you. May you be happy. 
 
 You are ready to exclaim at this, to ask me what 
 reason I can have to believe in your forgetfulness. 
 Adèle, I do believe in.it, and I believe it will be speedy. 
 One night I wrote you in my own mind a letter of 
 twenty pages, in which I related many proofs of af- 
 fection which I had given you during our separation, 
 
 ii6
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and of which you are in ignorance, and I compared 
 them with the evidences of indifference that up to 
 this time I have received from j^ou. But I did not 
 have the courage to write down these miserable 
 details, to record with my own hand my condemna- 
 tion of you. Moreover, what would it have availed 
 me? It would only have shown that you deceived 
 yourself when you believed you loved me ; and it is 
 better to leave this to be done by time. 
 
 If any one had come and told me a week ago that 
 you would not be mine, I should have given the lie 
 direct to the devil himself. To-day, I am even more 
 apprehensive than yourself, for you fear only hn- 
 mense difficulties. It is not what you call my plan 
 of waiting on events which is the cause of my dis- 
 tress; this lies in your parents' lack of confidence 
 in me, and in the universal suspicion I inspire in 
 your associates. I will be more generous than all 
 of you, for I am willing to destroy my own future 
 solely to show my submission to your wishes. I 
 will carry out all your intentions, and I shall do 
 so with an appearance of serenity, although I am 
 aware that I shall succeed in nothing but in destro^'- 
 ing my own hopes. I do not know what I say : My 
 future, my hopes ! Have I a future? Have I any 
 hopes? This rupture would wound me cruelly were 
 it only because it will, perhaps, cause you some mo- 
 mentary annoyance, and it would be m}^ desire never 
 to occasion you the slightest pain. You still repeat, 
 and with sincerity (for you believe it for the moment), 
 that you will be alwa3^s mine, and that no power 
 shall separate us, for j^ou will withstand every effort. 
 
 117
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Adèle, I have letters of yours extending back to 
 March, 1820, in which you tell me the same thing, 
 and yet you have been smiling and happy for the 
 last eighteen months without me. This must be the 
 case, for a marriage (I do not know with whom) 
 has been proposed for you — has been proposed to 
 your father — and it even acquired a sufficiently def- 
 inite character to be spoken of to a stranger. If 
 you had had me in your thoughts during this time, 
 would you have suffered such an ofïer to be repeated? 
 Yet, how can I stoop to discuss this matter? Some 
 one else will be successful. It may be that he will 
 make you happier than I. I love you too much. I 
 am jealous, extravagantly. It is annoying, is it not, 
 to be adored by your husband? Some day, Adèle, 
 you will appear as the wife of another man. Then 
 3^ou will collect all my letters and burn them, and 
 no vestige of my soul's path on earth will remain; 
 but if your indifferent glance rests for a moment 
 on these records, where I have foretold that you 
 will forget, you will' be unable to refrain from ad- 
 mitting to yourself that Victor, for once in his life, 
 judged rightly. What does anything matter, pro- 
 vided you are happy? 
 
 Alas! and yet I, I would with joy have resigned 
 my hopes of another and a better life to have passed 
 this narrow and gloomy existence at your feet. Do 
 not let us speak of it an^?^ more. Everything is about 
 to fall down of itself. I will do everything that vour 
 family require, Adèle. I promise you that I will do 
 so. I am most impatient now to reach the time 
 when I can lay aside my cares, although my course in 
 
 118
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 life has not been long. Only you must remember 
 that you refused me your advice, that I implored it 
 of you on my knees, and that you considered it your 
 duty to keep silence. 
 
 Perhaps you have done wisely. You ought to be 
 the best judge; for, Adèle, I owe it you to bear wit- 
 ness, once again, that the soul of an angel is not 
 more beautiful or purer than yours. I am mad and 
 presumptuous to have aspired to share your life. 
 I tell you this with heartfelt sincerity; I am of no 
 consequence compared to others; and what, indeed, 
 am I beside you? 
 
 The end of your letter touched me, because any 
 words of tenderness from my beloved Adèle must do 
 so at the moment when she ceases to be my Adèle. 
 But they are nothing but words. If I should be 
 taken ill to-morrow, I know that my bed of suffering 
 will remain as lonely as that of a criminal. You 
 will, perhaps, inquire assiduously for three or four 
 daj^s from the person whose duty it will be to inform 
 you. After that I shall be free to die if I please, or 
 according to the will of the Almighty, and all will be 
 as if I had never lived. I have no mother, and no 
 one is under any obligation to love me. 
 
 But all this would perhaps be for the best, for the 
 greater part of my ideas are false and absurd. I am 
 a fool. Oh! Adèle, it is you who will never know 
 how deeply I have loved you! How should you 
 know? You close your eyes and ears. I declare 
 to you that it is one of my rights to consult you in 
 regard to my affairs, and you answer me that you will 
 never discuss them with me, that you owe something 
 
 119
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 to your own dignity, and that I force you to remem- 
 ber that you are a young girl. Adèle, is this your 
 confidence? But I repeat that I will not endure the 
 pain of being the one to bring about another rupture. 
 It shall be the work of your father, whose consent I 
 have had for a year, and whose refusal I shall now 
 have within three months. But your parents are 
 right, and your future must no longer be compro- 
 mised. It is right for them to consider what they 
 are doing. It is right that you should think of a 
 new future, should prepare yourself for a new hap- 
 piness. For myself, I am going gradually to with- 
 draw from you. 
 
 Do not be surprised, Adèle, if in future you do not 
 find that I shall seek occasions to see you. I shall 
 go to your house when I am invited, but I should fail 
 in my duty if I sought for invitations. 
 
 Happily, I shall not have many bitter days. And 
 when my sentence shall have been pronounced I 
 shall quit Paris. If this must be done to save your 
 reputation, what is it I would not do? 
 
 But no — I will not speak any more about my death. 
 It is a grewsome subject, and possibly you might 
 esteem me less if you knew how weak I might prove 
 in the presence of misfortune. Besides, what is my 
 death to you? 
 
 Adieu. Send me an answer once more, I implore 
 you. Once more, and as soon as possible. After 
 that I shall cease to importune you. Alas ! my adored 
 Adèle, you will probably write to me as to a stranger, 
 for since my last letter displeased you, this one ... ! 
 
 Yes, you will treat me like a stranger; yet God 
 
 120
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 is my witness that the heart of him who has been 
 
 your husband was never more swollen with grief, 
 
 was never more filled with ardent love for you, than 
 
 it is now. Adieu. 
 
 Saturday, January igth. 
 
 How can I tell you, my adored Adèle, what has 
 been passing in my heart during the last two days? 
 The night of Thursday will ever be one of the most 
 sorrowful I have ever passed, and yet full of the most 
 tender recollections. But now that I have seen you 
 once more, rosy and smiling, I am delivered from 
 the worst of my anxieties, the most cruel of my fears. 
 All will go well now, and doubtless in a short time 
 you will be quite yourself again. 
 
 Who would have believed that the night in which 
 I had promised myself so much happiness would 
 have brought me so much sorrow? In the first place, 
 there was the sorrow of going without you, a disap- 
 pointment that was the greater because all day I had 
 expected to accompany you. Then I thought you 
 had made the new arrangement. After that came 
 the sorrow of seeing you so unwell, so suffering! 
 Adèle, my dearest Adèle, to have seen j^-ou so ex- 
 quisitely dressed, so charming, so radiant in beauty, 
 and then to see you lying on a bed of pain, while all 
 those other men and women in the house were dan- 
 cing, frolicking, and laughing, as if there were not 
 near them an aching heart and a suffering angel! 
 Dear love, that night will never be effaced from my 
 remembrance. I, while beside myself with despair, 
 stood in the midst of that joyous crowd, forced to smile 
 and to abstain from weeping, only anxious to be rid 
 
 121
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 of them, and then you thrust me away when I came 
 near you. You cannot conceive what I felt then. 
 In those few hours I Uved years of sorrow. My 
 Adèle, I had a heart full of pity, and no one had any 
 pity for me. Oh, what I suffered! — much more than 
 yourself ! 
 
 And yet this pain was not without its charm, for 
 it showed me the extent and the depth of my love 
 for you. Only I could have wished to be in your 
 place, for then I should certainly not have felt any 
 suffering, if you had been near me. And when we 
 returned home together, when I held my adored Adèle, 
 sick and suffering, in m}^ arms, when I felt her heart 
 beat beneath my hand, and her face lay close up to 
 my cheek, then — yes, then — I would have thanked 
 God had He let me die at that moment. How happy 
 I should have been, but for the expression of pain 
 upon your face. Oh, what am I? God! . . . 
 
 I, your protector, your husband, I could not pre- 
 vent my Adèle from suffering, even when I held her 
 in my arms! . . . My dearly beloved! Adieu, my 
 angel ; adieu, my adored Adèle. Let your poor hus- 
 band fancy that he kisses you a thousand and a thou- 
 sand times! 
 
 I will certainly write to you to-morrow. 
 
 Sunday, January 20th. 
 
 I go back again to that ball, dear love, as for three 
 days I have thought of little else. It was the scene 
 of the strongest emotions I have ever experienced. 
 That ball will be a marked epoch in my memory, like 
 one other ball. . . . 
 
 122
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Adèle, I never told you about that other ball. I 
 feel now as if I must talk about the sorrows of that 
 night, so painfully awakened by those of last Thurs- 
 day. 
 
 It was Friday, the 29th of June. Two days before 
 that I had lost my mother. It was ten o'clock at 
 night when I returned from the cemetery at Vau- 
 girard. I was walking home, hardly conscious, I 
 think I was in a state of stupor, when chance led me 
 near your house. The door was open, lamps blazed 
 in the court-yard, and light shone in the windows. I 
 stopped before that threshold which I had not crossed 
 for so long a time. I paused there, mechanically. At 
 that moment two or three men roughly brushed past 
 me, laughing loudl3^ I trembled, for I suddenl}^ re- 
 membered that the day with you was a fête Asiy. I 
 was resuming my walk, for this recollection made 
 me feel more deeply my own isolation and bereave- 
 ment. But I could not stir a step ; something seemed 
 to restrain me. I stood still, feeling as if I had no 
 power over my ideas. Bj^ degrees consciousness 
 came back to me. Some suggestion of the devil, I 
 think, impelled me to test my fate at once, to decide 
 it, as it were, at one blow. I wanted to see if I had 
 lost my wife, as well as my mother. If I had lost her, 
 what was left to me but death? Adèle, how can I 
 tell you? Despair made me a maniac. I had arms 
 about me. I had grown weak from long watching and 
 anxiety. I wished to see if you could have forgotten 
 me. A crime (is suicide under such circumstances 
 a crime?) seemed a small matter to one who was in 
 the depths of misery. 
 
 123
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 In short, I know not what insane ideas took pos- 
 session of me. I am ashamed of them now; but 
 you may see by that, at least, how much I love you. 
 I crossed the court-yard, I ran up the great stair- 
 case, I went through the rooms in the first storj^ 
 which were empty. There, by the light of the festive 
 lamps, I saw the crape on my own hat. The sight 
 of it recalled me to myself. I fled in haste. I con- 
 cealed myself in the long corridor where j^ou and I had 
 so often played together. At the end of the corridor 
 I heard, overhead, the sound of music and dancing. 
 I do not know what demon impelled me to run up a 
 back staircase which leads to the rooms of the Coun- 
 cil of War. There the sounds of gayety became 
 more distinct. I went up higher. On the second 
 story was a little square of glass which looked into 
 the ball-room. I do not know if I was then myself, 
 or what I thought of at that moment. I put my burn- 
 ing face against the cold glass, and looked round for 
 3^ou. I saw you. What tongue could tell j^ou what, 
 at that sight, passed within me? I w^ill merelj'- tell 
 you what I saw. I have no words to describe my 
 feelings. For a long time your Victor, standing 
 mute and motionless, wearing his funeral crape, 
 looked at his Adèle in her ball-dress. The sound 
 of your voice could not reach me, but I saw smiles 
 upon your lips, and, dearest, it broke my heart. I 
 was very near you, but I was doubtless very far from 
 your thoughts. I waited. There was still in my 
 heart, though abandoned to despair, some power of 
 love and pangs of jealous^^ If 3^ou had waltzed, I 
 should have been lost. It would have seemed to me 
 
 124
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 a proof that I was completely forgotten, and I could 
 not have survived it. But you did not waltz, and I 
 took it for a sign that I might hope. I stood there a 
 long time. I was present at the fête as a phantom 
 ma3^ be present in a dream. There could be no 
 jête, no joy for me; but my Adèle was enjoying a 
 jête; she could share the joy of others! 
 
 It was too much for me. There came a moment 
 when my heart was full and when I should have died 
 had I stayed there a moment longer. Just then I 
 awoke to a sense of my own folly, and I slowly walked 
 down the staircase which I had gone up without 
 knowing if I should ever come down alive. Then I 
 went back to my house of mourning, and while you 
 were dancing I knelt and prayed for you beside the 
 bed of my poor dead mother. Subsequently I heard 
 that I had been seen, but I denied that I was there, 
 for my presence in your house at such a time seemed 
 singular, and few hearts could have understood what 
 I have just been telling 3^ou. 
 
 Oh, Adèle, you will never know how much I love 
 you. My love for you could lead me to commit all 
 sorts of extravagances, possible or impossible. I am 
 mad, but I loved you so much that truh^ I do not un- 
 derstand, had I committed a crime that night, how 
 God Himself could have condemned me. Adieu. I 
 love you as men love God and the angels. 
 
 Monday, January 2ist. 
 
 You have forgiven me, Adèle, but can I ever for- 
 give myself? Upon my knees I should have wished to 
 ask your pardon ; with my lips I should have wished 
 
 125
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 to dry your angelic tears; with my blood I would 
 willingly have paid for every one of them. I have 
 been very wrong, my adored Adèle, and I am very 
 wretched for having been so guilty. You may for- 
 give me, but I say bitterly to myself, over and over 
 again, that I never can forgive myself. I thought I 
 never could have experienced greater sorrow than I 
 felt on Thursday, when I saw my beloved Adèle sick 
 and suffering. But that was nothing to what I felt 
 to-day when I saw you weeping and suffering through 
 my fault. I hate myself. I curse myself. The 
 more sweet, kind, and admirable I esteem you, the 
 more odious I seem to m3^self. To have disturbed 
 the repose of my Adèle when she was ill is a crime 
 for which I never can be sufficiently punished, and 
 your inexhaustible indulgence only makes me more 
 deeply sensible of its enormity. 
 
 And 3"et, dear love, I implore you to believe that, 
 indeed, I am not really cruel or unkind. I am wholly 
 unworthy of you, but, allowing for my imperfect nat- 
 ure, perhaps my conduct may be excused. It was 
 the first time you had ever seemed to wish me absent. 
 The idea that my presence was unwelcome, and, 
 therefore, that you no longer loved me, fermented in 
 my brain. You tried to call me back, but the blow 
 was struck. Shall I tell you everything? When I 
 got out of the house I hesitated as to whether I should 
 go back that evening. It seemed to be proved to me 
 that my presence was too much for you. Tell me, 
 dear love, could I have loved you and have been able 
 to endure such a thought with indifference? I cannot 
 now tell what I did. Only believe that I could not 
 
 126
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 bear to give you such affliction. Yes, my Adèle, I 
 am very much to blame, but think it over, and if you 
 can read the soul of your poor Victor, you will see 
 that my fault had its origin in an excess of love. 
 
 If you could but know what a night I passed ! , . . 
 But I will not speak of that; it does not signify what 
 I suffered. I would gladly have suffered a hundred 
 times more, could that have been possible, to have 
 spared you one minute's pain. 
 
 Do not imagine I am trying to justify myself. Any 
 justification would be in vain, since I made you weep. 
 Possibly you, in the first place, were a little in the 
 wrong. If you think you were not — for you cannot 
 err — I will take all the fault upon myself, and again 
 I will ask pardon for having dared to attribute any 
 wrong to you. 
 
 Ah! your tears deeply moved me. The memory of 
 the angelic sweetness with which you pardoned me 
 will live forever in my heart. Adèle, he whom you 
 love is not ungrateful. The more I see you, the nearer 
 I draw nigh to you, the more I admire you. Every 
 day thoughts of you make me feel how unworthy I am 
 myself, and this comparison, to which my thoughts 
 wander continually, has a charm for me, because it 
 shows me your perfection, j^our superiority. I am 
 proud of nothing upon earth but of my Adèle. 
 
 When will you be mine? When may I daily hold 
 you to my breast and bless Heaven for having given 
 me for my helpmate a being so generous, so virtuous, 
 so innocent? It must surely be soon. Yes, Adèle, 
 all that can be done to attain that end I will do with 
 joy. However hard the conditions may be made for 
 
 T27
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 me that I may win you, they will not seem hard to 
 me, provided only they are such as I can fulfil with- 
 out loss of honor. I will neglect nothing to secure 
 my own independence, and yours, as speedily as pos- 
 sible, and then I will ask for my father's consent. If 
 he will not grant it, I will give him back the life that 
 he once gave me. But he will give his consent, and 
 you at last will be my own ! 
 
 Adieu, my angelic Adèle. Rely upon my zeal as 
 well as on my love. Since you have forgiven me, 
 permit me to embrace you with the respect of a slave 
 and the tenderness of a husband. 
 
 I trust I shall have a long letter to-morrow, and 
 that it will contain nothing that can give me pain. 
 You have forgiven me! Adieu. Take care of your 
 health. It is dearer to me than life, and yet . . . 
 But all is forgotten, is it not? 
 
 Thursday, January 24th. 
 
 Your Victor this evening will do nothing but what 
 has reference to you. Think, dear, it is just a week 
 since we both went, not together, but separately, to 
 that ball where your husband was to suffer so much 
 because he could not claim that title in the eyes of the 
 world. If you had been mine, Adèle, I would have 
 carried you in my arms away from all those in- 
 truders; I would have watched over you while you 
 slept upon my bosom; that sad night would have 
 been less sad for you; my cares and my caresses 
 would have soothed your pain. The next morning 
 you would have awakened at my side; all day I 
 should have been at your feet, ready to anticipate 
 
 128
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 your slightest wishes, and every time you felt pain 
 1 should have interposed with some new care. In- 
 stead of all that happiness, my beloved Adèle, how 
 much constraint and embarrassment we had to en- 
 dure! 
 
 And yet there was enchantment in this torture. 
 When, after trying long to secure one moment of lib- 
 erty and solitude, I was permitted to enter the cham- 
 ber where you lay, on tiptoe, and draw near the bed 
 where you were lying still so pretty, in spite of suffer- 
 ing — ah! I was well rewarded for the ennui of that 
 ball, and the insipidity of all that crowd of fools. 
 Had I been allowed to kiss your feet, I should have 
 felt it a great happiness. And if, after having for 
 a long time motioned me away, you had given me 
 one tender, gentle word — if I could have read in your 
 charming, half-hidden face, a little love for me, in 
 spite of all you suffered, then, Adèle, I know not 
 what mingled joy and sadness might have taken 
 possession of my whole being, and I would not have 
 exchanged that painful but delicious sensation for 
 all the felicity of the angels. 
 
 The idea that you were my wife, but that others, 
 not I, had the right to surround you, made me most 
 unhappy. Oh, these barriers must soon be broken; 
 my wife must be my wife, and our marriage must 
 complete our union. They say that men go mad 
 in solitude — that solitude is worse than celibacy! 
 You cannot know, dear, what inconceivable impulses 
 assail me when I lie awake at night, and throw 
 my arms about my bed with convulsions of love, as 
 I think of you. In my dreams I call on you, I see 
 I 129
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 you, I embrace you, I utter your name ; I would like 
 to creep in the dust at your feet, to be yours for one 
 moment, and then to die. Adèle, my love for you 
 is as pure and chaste as your own breath; but that 
 makes it only the more ardent. It consumes me like 
 a flame of fire. 
 
 But it is a sacred flame, lighted only for you. You 
 alone have the right to nourish it. Towards all 
 others of your sex I am blind and indifferent. I 
 never notice if one woman is beautiful, or if another 
 is attractive; I am as little affected by their charms 
 as is the glass before which they stand to admire 
 themselves. I only know that among women is 
 Adèle, the good angel of my life, to whom I owe all 
 my virtues, as well as all my joys. Dear love ... ! 
 And so little is wanted to make us happy ! . . . 
 
 What you tell me in your last letter about the 
 night of the 17th has greatly touched me. Ah! if 
 my care could cure you! But wait; very soon I 
 shall have the right to give you every care, or my 
 will and my life will be broken to pieces. Remem- 
 ber, your Victor is a man, and this man is your hus- 
 band. 
 
 Is it true, my Adèle, that on that fatal night of 
 June 29th, you would have rushed into my arms, had 
 you been free? Oh, how much that idea would have 
 consoled me in that moment of despair, and how 
 sweet it is to me to know it, now that the first mo- 
 ments have passed, and that the proofs you have 
 given me of your generous tenderness have cicatrized 
 that cruel wound! What can you not do with me, 
 and what are not you to me? Joy and sorrow all 
 
 130
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 come to me through you; both for me depend upon 
 my Adèle. With you, misfortunes would be sweet ; 
 without j^ou, prosperity would be hateful. If I con- 
 sent to walk on my way through life, it must be with 
 you who have deigned to be my companion. Yes, 
 my adored Adèle, you can do what you like with me 
 with a smile or a tear. 
 
 I have one great faculty in my soul, the faculty 
 of loving. All my power of loving is yours, for in 
 comparison with what I feel for you the affection I 
 have for my friends and relatives, and even that I 
 had for my admirable and unhappy mother, is as 
 nothing. Not that I love them less than one ought 
 to love friends, relatives, and one's own dear mother, 
 but that I love you better than any other woman in 
 this world ever yet was loved, because no other ever 
 has deserved such love. 
 
 Adieu for this evening. I am going to bed much 
 relieved in mind (for they tell me you are well 
 again), at the same hour when, a week ago, I was 
 trembling with anxiety and pity. Adieu, my be- 
 loved Adèle; I embrace you. I am about to kiss 
 the adored lock of hair that you have given me, and 
 that I have not half thanked yç>\\ for, because I can 
 fmd no words to express my gratitude. For such a 
 pledge of love I can do nothing but, kneeling before 
 thee, beseech thee to be my good angel in this life 
 and my sister in eternity. Adieu! adieu! Thou- 
 sands of kisses! 
 
 Friday, January 2^th. 
 
 I am about to write to you, my dearest Adèle, to 
 rest myself from writing. Yet I suppose j^ou ought 
 
 131
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 to scold me. This week I have not done so much 
 work as I ought. We had such griefs on Monday, I 
 had so much to think of Tuesday, and such an amount 
 of correspondence every day since then, that it has 
 consumed all my time. And yet this is the third 
 evening I have passed at home alone. The world — 
 with its demands and its worries, its insipid duties, 
 its wearisome social obligations — is very odious to 
 me. Besides, as you will not be there, there is a good 
 reason for my not caring to go into company. 
 
 The steps I have taken with reference to the min- 
 istry have thus far gained me nothing more than 
 promises. It is true that these promises seemed pos- 
 itive. I hope, and I wait, until I can hear more. I 
 will tell you all about this matter before long, and 
 will tell 3^our parents as well. It seems quite possi- 
 ble, my love, that in a month or two I may obtain some 
 place that will bring us in two or three thousand 
 francs a year. Then, with what I may make by 
 writing, could we not live together quietly and hap- 
 pily, secure of finding our income increase, even if 
 we have an increasing familj^? When I reflect, my 
 Adèle, that such happiness is far from being im- 
 probable, and may be even near at hand, I am wild 
 with joy. 
 
 You may object that I have not the consent of my 
 father. But tell me, why should my father refuse 
 to let me be happy when he sees I can support m}^- 
 self ? Why should he not rather try to repair all the 
 wrongs he has done us by one word, which would 
 so easily give him a claim on my everlasting grati- 
 tude? It seems to me, indeed, that these prospects 
 
 132
 
 Tbe Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ought to triumph over all difficulties. My father is 
 a weak man, but he is really kind-hearted. If his 
 sons would only show him affection, I think they 
 could do much with him. He wanted very much 
 to get me a position on the London Embassy. This 
 position, which made me wretched, would have flat- 
 tered his pride and his ambition. Well, I wrote him 
 yesterday a letter wliich I feel sure will dissuade him 
 from it. 
 
 I have never told you, Adèle, how often I have had 
 to fight with many persons — even with your own 
 father — to get rid of the project of this accursed em- 
 bassy. Many people cannot understand my refusal 
 of such a position, because I cannot tell them my real 
 motive. Dear love, I should have to leave you, and 
 I would as soon be dead. To go so far from j'^ou, 
 and to lead a brilliant, dissipated life, would have 
 been what I could not do. I am good only to live 
 beside my Adèle. I only endure the days when I 
 cannot see her by anticipating the days when I can. 
 When hours only have to pass, I calculate the min- 
 utes. That is what I shall do all day to-morrow. 
 
 Alas, for three long da3^s I have not seen j^ou! All 
 the happiness I can now know has to be sacrificed to 
 those hateful proprieties, and to-morrow, when I shall 
 see you, I shall have to watch over every motion, and 
 shall fear to address you one word or to give you one 
 look — and yet to me your words and your looks are 
 everything. 
 
 Some day, Adèle, we will live under the same roof ; 
 we will share the same chamber ; you will sleep in my 
 arms ; I shall have the right to live only for you, and 
 
 133
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 no one will dare to cast a jealous or disapproving 
 glance on our happiness. Our pleasures will be our 
 duties and our rights. Our life will flow on gently, 
 with few friends, but with much love. All our days 
 will be alike — I mean they will all be happy — and if 
 we have cares and anxieties, we will bear them to- 
 gether; then the burden will be light. Does this 
 future seem attractive to you, my adored Adèle? For 
 my part, if I had not that hope, I do not know what 
 else would keep me alive. 
 
 Adieu. Write me a very long letter. Oh, how I 
 love you! I embrace you with tenderness and re- 
 spect. 
 
 Your Husband. 
 
 January 26th. 
 
 Thank you, my Adèle, for being displeased at the 
 words which so little correspond to my real feelings. 
 Your indignation and your distress convince me that 
 I am loved as I wish to be, and as I love you. Your 
 Victor always feels great joy when he perceives in 
 you some new mark of generosity, brought out by 
 an accidental circumstance. 
 
 Yes, I should be despicable if ever, in all my life, I 
 had been able to tliink of any other woman as I think 
 of you, if you were not to me all womankind, and far 
 more to me than all women. The day when I shall 
 cease to feel thus (a day which never can be), I shall 
 be vile and contemptible, both in your eyes and in 
 my own. No, my Adèle, no, I am not unworthy of 
 thee in this respect, even in the smallest, the most 
 careless, of my thoughts. If a desire is ever awak- 
 
 134
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ened in me, it turns towards her who purifies and 
 tempers all things, even desire. Every other woman, 
 in my eyes, is composed of a hat and a gown. I ask 
 nothing more of them. Forgive me, you who are so 
 gentle and indulgent, if I say over to you again what 
 I have often said before, but when I speak of my love 
 and my respect for you, how can I refrain? 
 
 Saturday, January 26th, 3 p.m. 
 
 Adèle, let us not disguise from ourselves that we 
 parted not well satisfied with each other, and yet we 
 had done our best to make it otherwise. At least I, 
 for my part, can bear witness for myself. Confess, 
 dear friend, that you treated me with some severity, 
 both during and after our conversation. I came home 
 very sad, though I had kept a smile upon my lips up 
 to the last moment. 
 
 You have told me often, Adèle, and you repeated 
 it in this conversation, that I left you and j^our par- 
 ents to do my part {que je te laissais mon rôle à faire). 
 My love, if I were twenty-five, and had an income of 
 ten thousand francs, you would not have one mo- 
 ment in which to reproach me. No one would play 
 my part; it would be so sweet to me to play it. I 
 do not see that in my situation I could act other- 
 wise than as I am doing. So long as a part of my 
 future means does not depend upon myself, I do not 
 feel it would have been generous to promise what I 
 was not sure I could fulfil. It would be a wretched, 
 cowardly abuse of confidence. I tell your parents of 
 my affairs exactl3^ as the}^ stand. I act as they wish 
 me to act. I walk in the path they have marked out 
 
 135
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 for me, even when I would rather follow a way of 
 my own. So doing, I do only my duty; but I do 
 it, and I do it joyfully. Why, then, do you say that 
 I leave you to fulfil what really belongs to me alone? 
 
 You told me once, Adèle, that you thought I was 
 not eager for our marriage, Adèle, God is my wit- 
 ness that you said that to me one day. I wish to 
 think that you said it without much thought, that 
 you carelessly spoke these inconceivable words. I 
 am now convinced — and the bitter conviction has 
 only come to me within the last hour — that of us two, 
 I am the only one who really desires this marriage. 
 It would be a very lukewarm desire, Adèle, that could 
 look forward with indifference to "waiting several 
 years, if people would not talk in the mean time." 
 For — you said it yourself just now — it is only to 
 stop the things that people say that you are anxious 
 to marry me. I admired the way in which, in one 
 of your last letters, you said you despised gossip. 
 Such generosity on your part did not surprise me. I 
 see I made a mistake. Pardon my presumption. 
 You are right. I do not desire that you should have 
 to bear any annoyances, however petty, for my sake, 
 and as soon as "talk" makes you uncomfortable, 
 it is natural you should blame me. 
 
 You alone are worthy of a sacrifice — worthy of 
 anything. I speak this from the depths of my heart. 
 I say, besides, that you are the only woman for whose 
 sake I would act as I am now trying to act, though 
 all my efforts you seem to misunderstand. I am 
 proud and shy, yet I have solicited a place from gov- 
 ernment. I wished to ennoble literature, and I am 
 
 136
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 working as a breadwinner. I love and I respect my 
 mother's memory, and I have put aside the remem- 
 brance of her wrongs in writing to my father. Adèle, 
 what is the use of these efforts? If it is only suc- 
 cess you ask of me, I shall gain it in the end, or I 
 shall fall in the attempt. 
 
 But I see I am not such a man as you desire for a 
 husband. You said to me but a few moments ago : 
 "J'aimerais un homme qui ..." You did not fin- 
 ish the sentence, leaving me, no doubt, to complete 
 your thought. I left you with the conviction that I 
 am not he whom you could love, and with the reso- 
 lution to do everything I could that you might never 
 again find cause to complain of me, even unjustl3^ 
 
 If this letter seems sad, you will tell me, perhaps, 
 that it is because you spoke to me of my affairs, but 
 that you will not mention them again, etc. I tell you 
 beforehand that such bitter irony will only make 
 things worse. You must surely know that it is 
 honor and happiness to me to receive and to follow 
 your advice. Your counsel will be always dear and 
 precious to me. What makes me wretched is to know 
 that your affection for me did not hinder you from 
 making me a foolish proposal; to know that you 
 would be willing to waii several years for our mar- 
 riage; to be told that you could love a tnan ivho . . . 
 
 Yes, Adèle, you are right. A man might win 
 your love if he forgot respect for his own character, 
 if he would abase himself, would make concessions, 
 would renounce his proper place in life for j^'ou. I 
 own that I have not been such a man, and to-mor- 
 row, if you think I have been wrong, I am still ready 
 
 137
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 to ask you for forgiveness. Adieu. Allow me to 
 force you once more to embrace me, for, until you 
 decide otherwise, I consider myself still your hus- 
 band. 
 
 Thursday, January 3isf. 
 
 I want to write you a few words to-day, that I may 
 not have been uselessly employed in thinking of you 
 all the morning, and that some of my thoughts dur- 
 ing the day, when I have not seen you, may at least 
 reach her who is my only thought. What are you 
 doing? Where are you at this moment, my adored 
 Adèle? Is there no recollection of me in the thoughts 
 that now occupy you? If it is true, as you told me, 
 that you are all the time thinking of me, it is one of 
 my greatest happinesses to believe that this sweet, 
 intimate correspondence of thought continually 
 brings our souls together, even when we are not 
 near each other. Your image is my faithful com- 
 panion; my eyes are always turning towards it, 
 and yours are always open and look at me. It is 
 to this invisible witness that I report all my actions 
 and open all my thoughts. I do nothing that I 
 should not wish my Adèle to see, and my love has 
 become to me a second conscience. 
 
 My dear and noble friend, it is thus that I endeavor 
 to keep myself worthy of you; for if I had not made 
 my Adèle, when absent from me, my judge, and my 
 consoler, who knows what might have become of me, 
 abandoned as I was to myself? But though I have 
 no mother, I have a wife who will be always mine, 
 and I am sure of never wanting in life a model and 
 an example. Only what troubles me is that I have 
 
 138
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 so many faults, for besides those I perceive there are 
 doubtless many others that I have not yet seen. I 
 wish, Adèle, that you would point them out to me, 
 and I would try to correct them so that you might be 
 able some day to put up with them. You, who are 
 perfect yourself, ought to have a perfect husband. 
 In your Victor you will find, at most, one who has 
 done all he could to become so. This is not much to 
 promise you, but it is all that I can do. 
 
 Therefore, my kind and charming Adèle, have 
 some indulgence for my errors, for they do not come 
 from my heart; but have no mercy on my defects, 
 because some day they may mar your peace of mind. 
 Save me from such a misfortune by your advice, but 
 love me always, in spite of my imperfections. Love 
 me, if you wish me to live. 
 
 Friday, February ist. 
 Mme. Delon did wrong to show any one my let- 
 ter. I am sorry for her. I am also sorry for the sin- 
 gular way in which your father spoke to me of that 
 affair." Your mother looked on it, it seems, more 
 generously. I am telling you exactly what I think. 
 The proposal was quite natural on my part. It was 
 nothing worthy either of praise or blame, and even 
 supposing it was rash and foolish, it hardl3^ deserves 
 the grave tone of displeasure with which your father 
 spoke to me of it. " You might have compromised 
 
 * Victor had offered an asylum in his house to his old plaj'fellow, 
 Edouard Delon, condemned to death for participation in the Samur 
 conspiracy. " I was too well known as a Royalist," he wrote to 
 Mme. Delon, " to make it likely that any one would come and look 
 for him in my bedchamber."
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 yourself," he said. I don't know how that might have 
 been, but before doing a right thing must one always 
 pause to think what harm may come of it? Dear 
 love, decide. I follow blindly whatever you tell me. 
 Had I been in Delon' s position, I should have been 
 very thankful had he done for me what I did for him. 
 That is enough. 
 
 Mme. Delon, they say, puts an unkind interpre- 
 tation on my letter. My letter was opened in the 
 post-office. I don't believe the story about Mme. 
 Delon, because I have made up my mind not to de- 
 spise people without good proof. I want to think 
 that your father acted on a first impression, without 
 having much real knowledge of the case. On fur- 
 ther examination, he would have found, perhaps, 
 reason to give me good advice, but he would not 
 have reproached me. That is just what your mother 
 did, because women are better than men, and your 
 mother is an excellent woman. 
 
 Allow me, my Adèle, to open my whole heart to 
 you. Your father is not always what he ought to be 
 to me. He is neither cordial nor affectionate to one 
 who would be so glad to love him, since he is your 
 father. To my entire confidence he responds by 
 discouraging coldness. His conduct to me proves 
 that he does not know my character. He ought to 
 know that openness with me will go further than 
 conduct based on careful calculations. This is what 
 her own instinctive kindliness has made known to 
 your mother. She is simple and open with me, and 
 she may be always sure of my deep and sincere 
 attachment. 
 
 140
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Do not think, dear, that I mean to blame your 
 father. What I complain of is a very slight thing, 
 and there is nothing really unkind in what he does, 
 because he does all for 3^our happiness. Only I think 
 he is sometimes mistaken in the way he acts towards 
 me. The cleverest people err sometimes. But I shall 
 never blame him, for I have no doubt he is all pater- 
 nal tenderness to j^ou, and possibly he may have a 
 little regard for me. I only wanted to relieve my- 
 self from a weight which burdened me, and, besides, 
 I ought to hide nothing from Adèle, my beloved. 
 
 Saturday, February gth, 9 P.M. 
 
 What have I done, my Adèle, that you should again 
 speak to me about cruel doubts of my esteem? . . . 
 Dear love, if I have taken from the bottom of my heart 
 a resolve to walk carefully, nobly, and without turn- 
 ing aside on that road of life where prosperity too 
 often can only be bought by baseness, be persuaded, 
 my Adèle, it is because of my enthusiastic passion 
 for you. If I had never known you, the most pure 
 and most adorable of all created beings, who knows 
 what I might have been? Oh, Adèle, it is your 
 image engraven on my heart which has developed 
 the germs of any little virtues I may have had. 
 
 May God preserve me from taking from my ven- 
 erable mother what I owe her, but it is undoubtedh^ 
 true that if I have had the strength to put in practice 
 the principles in which she brought me up, it is 
 because I have loved an angel-like 3^oung girl, and 
 have wanted not to be too unworth3" of her. Heavens ! 
 why do expressions fail me? You may see, my 
 
 141
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 angel, what a temple ardent love has raised for you 
 in your Victor's heart. Now, accuse me no more of 
 madness. Remember that the feeling you inspire 
 cannot but be as far above an ordinary passion as 
 you are above the world's vulgar women. 
 
 A demain. A thousand caresses and a thousand 
 kisses to punish you for doubting my esteem. 
 Your Faithful and Respectful Husband. 
 
 Sunday Morning, February loth. 
 
 After the bad night I have just spent I wish, at 
 least, to pass a happy morning, my beloved Adèle, 
 by writing to you at the very time that I know you 
 are writing to me. Yesterday evening when I left 
 you I did not expect to have a good night. I was 
 too anxious and too agitated. Yet, that I might not 
 disobey you, I resisted the temptation of writing to 
 you; I went, instead, to bed and tried to sleep. I 
 thought bitterly of the tears that once again I had 
 made you shed, of the fears that you still constantly 
 entertain that you may have incurred the contempt 
 of your Victor, and, above all, I thought of the fright- 
 ful account you had given me of that horrible quar- 
 ry. Imagine, my Adèle, what a night I must have 
 passed ! 
 
 Alas! it will be long before I forget that I could, 
 however involuntarily, have tortured the soul of my 
 beloved, my gentle Adèle, to do a thing like that! 
 When I think of all the circumstances that 3^ou re- 
 lated to me, I shudder. You to die! — angel! What 
 have you done that you should die? And all be- 
 cause of me — great God! — of me, whose whole life 
 
 _I42
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 is not worth one of your tears! Great God! Great 
 God! . . . 
 
 I stopped here a moment that I might think of some- 
 thing else, for these ideas are too much for me. It 
 was impossible. All that I had endured during the 
 night came vividly back to me. In vain you smiled 
 when you bade me adieu ; in vain I recall the charming 
 letter which I read and re-read yesterday evening, 
 and which I covered with kisses. One painful thought 
 pursued and overwhelmed me. I wanted to talk to 
 you about our happiness, that rapturous happiness 
 which now appears so near, and then I think how 
 nearly, only yesterday, it came to being destroyed 
 forever. What can we dare to count upon in this 
 life? 
 
 Oh, my Adèle, could you for one moment have 
 thought of leaving your Victor all alone upon this 
 earth, and of adding widowhood to his present lone- 
 liness as an orphan? If you have been so cruel as 
 ever to have entertained such a frightful idea, I tell 
 you beforehand that you would have been mistaken, 
 for I should not have survived four minutes her who 
 is my life and soul. I should have died at the same 
 moment, and in the same way, that I might be sure 
 of following her at once into eternity. 
 
 Alas! I wish I could get rid of all such thoughts, 
 which for hours have assailed me, and I am power- 
 less against myself. Adèle, oh, how I wish I could 
 see you at this moment, press you in my arms, make 
 sure that you were near me, really living — for I can- 
 not live without 3'ou ! Nothing can calm me now 
 but your presence. Until I can see you I must en- 
 
 . 143
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 deavor to be resigned. But I shall see you soon. 
 Ah ! how sad is that word soon when I need your 
 presence immediately ! 
 
 You will smile on me, will you not, my Adèle? 
 At this moment, when I am so lonely, I think of your 
 smile as if anticipating the felicity of the angels. I 
 feel as if it would cure everything — would compen- 
 sate me for all I have suffered during the past night. 
 What are you doing at this moment? Why are 3^ou 
 not beside your Victor, who needs you so greatly? 
 Come, bring him back to life by the sight of you. 
 Adèle, I am athirst to see you. I think I am going 
 mad. 
 
 What! can you really love me — you who to me 
 are a creature more divine than Divinity itself? 
 And tell me, am I worthy of so much happiness? 
 Take pity on me, Adèle, for all that reaches me from 
 you fills me either with rapture or despair. 
 
 Adèle, Adèle, my adored angel, I shall soon see 
 you. I can kiss the lines that you have written, 
 the paper that your hand has rested on! Adieu! 
 I cannot pity myself when I remember all that you 
 have done for me. Adieu, je t'embrasse, et je t'adore. 
 
 Tuesday, February 12th, 9 P.M. 
 
 One sentence in your letter troubles me very much, 
 my Adèle. It is the one in which you threaten never 
 again to tell me of what you call your " little suffer- 
 ings. " Such little sufferings give me the greatest pain. 
 I cannot tell j^ou how much that cruel threat has 
 troubled me; all the more because I feel, Adèle, that 
 you will put it in practice, and fancy that you are 
 
 144
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 doing right in doing so. You say that you do not 
 like to give me pain. Then, above all things, Adèle, 
 you ought not to hide your anxieties from me — you 
 ought to hide nothing from me. Oh, promise me — 
 I implore you on my knees — promise to continue to 
 tell me everything, absolutely everything, that you 
 experience ; promise me that in such a way that I can 
 have no doubts about it. Do not leave me, my be- 
 loved Adèle, with this horrible uncertainty in my 
 heart. 
 
 And who else, Adèle, should be your confidant 
 when you are suffering? You cannot expect that I 
 should see you suffer without suffering, too. Then, 
 how can you have the courage to deprive me of that 
 part of your confidence on which I set the most value? 
 Do not be led into error about this, dear love, by a 
 generosity which would make me miserable. 
 
 Think, rather, of the insupportable fears that I 
 should have continually if I had to imagine that my 
 Adèle, my adored wife, might be suffering from some 
 cause, mental or physical, and had not let me take 
 my share in it! If I am able, Adèle, to take some 
 sleep at night and enjo^^ some peace by day, it is 
 only if I can feel sure that you have no secret that is 
 not known to me. Think, Adèle, how impossible it 
 is that I can know that you are suffering without 
 pain, because I love you; and think, too, what would 
 be my misery if I had to imagine that you were 
 liiding any one of your troubles from me! 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle; adieu, my wife, beloved 
 angel! I cannot get accustomed to quitting j^ou at 
 eight o'clock, even if I come home to write to you. 
 K 145
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 The day will come (it is not now far distant) when this 
 hour, instead of separating us, as it does now, will 
 unite us more closely and more intimately. Adieu; 
 I will try to dream about this happiness. Mean- 
 while, je t'embrasse mille fois. 
 
 Thursday Morning, February i/ith. 
 
 I hardly know what kind of a letter I might have 
 written you to-day, Adèle, for I own I went away 
 on Sunday evening melancholy, and not satisfied 
 with you; but yesterday I saw you, and all the clouds 
 have passed away. I was sad when I met you, but 
 the unexpected joy restored my serenity. Let us for- 
 get it all. And I dare say you cannot yourself re- 
 member all that distressed me so much on Sunday. 
 Dear Adèle, I am sure you would not amuse yourself 
 by tormenting me in the few moments I can be with 
 you, if you remembered that it is only when with you 
 that I find happiness and repose. I cannot refrain 
 from blessing the chance which led me to cross your 
 path yesterday, at a moment when I had such need 
 of a sight of you. The fermentation of spirit pro- 
 duced by a solitary life, of course, has its effect on 
 my ideas. It had carried my depression to a climax, I 
 hardly know what extravagant thoughts were surg- 
 ing through my brain when my good angel sudden- 
 ly appeared before me, and offered me the only con- 
 solation for all my troubles. My only regret is that 
 sight of me cannot possibly have produced on you 
 the same impression, for I must have been looking 
 like a ghost. 
 
 Adieu then, dear, until to-morrow. 
 
 146
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Friday, Past Midnight, February i^th. 
 I shall not tr}^, my dear, my very dear Adèle, 
 to write to you about the effect your letter has just 
 produced upon me. I did not expect to be so severe- 
 ly blamed b}^ you and by all your family for a few 
 words that no doubt escaped me in the heat of a dis- 
 cussion, in which, however, I think, if my memory 
 serves me, I took the side of order and morality, 
 though possibly with an exaggeration some, however, 
 might have thought excusable at my age. I may have 
 said many flippant things; I may have put forth 
 many crude ideas. One phrase seems especially to 
 have struck you. I perfectly remember that I used 
 those intemperate words, and I was sorry for them 
 immediately. I think, as j^ou do, that the hideous, 
 ignoble names of instruments of execution, and of 
 the men whose business it is to use them, ought never 
 to sully a man's mouth. I cannot think how I ever 
 came to utter them. It must have been because I 
 was stirred out of myself by the provoking remarks 
 of those who were opposing me, and had lost my bet- 
 ter reason, a sad result, to which such controversies 
 too often lead. And that is one reason why, with 
 all my heart, I detest discussions. 
 
 But what pains me, my Adèle, and has cruelly 
 wounded me, is that any one could for a moment 
 have supposed that such ideas, expressed in a casual 
 conversation, could have thrown doubts upon our 
 chance of married happiness. 
 
 What distresses me is that they could have induced 
 you to share those fears, for I cannot think that you 
 could have conceived them by yourself, since you 
 
 147
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 never have led me to suppose that you entertain a 
 profound contempt for me. 
 
 Do you fully comprehend how bad it is for us to 
 mix up ideas of adultery with our marriage ? No, it 
 could not have struck you. Would that you really 
 knew my character ! Why could you not have heard, 
 a short time since, the jests that were made upon 
 me, because, when certain young men asked me if 
 / would not kill my wife if I should take her in adul- 
 tery, I answered simply that / should kill myself. 
 
 However, why should I tell you these things? I 
 do not need, I am sure, to justify myself to my own 
 Adèle, and the cruel letter that you sent me was not 
 from you. Oh! my Adèle, can you think I would 
 ever torment you? See, look into your own heart, 
 and you will laugh at such a supposition. Do you 
 not know I am your slave, your property, and that 
 I would give a thousand lives to spare you one tear? 
 Adèle, do not condemn me, I implore you, for a few in- 
 considerate words — I hardly know what they were — 
 but judge me by the little you know of my heart and 
 of my character. Good Heaven ! can you have written 
 thus? " What will my fate he ? I CANNOT TELL. 
 Last evening has left an impression upon me which 
 it will he hard to efface." Adèle, should you not have 
 remembered that such fatal words of doubt would be 
 impressed upon my heart, as it were, with a red-hot 
 iron? Oh! you can be very cruel sometimes, dear 
 love! Again, you say I may feel for you almost ad- 
 miration, when you know that I feel for you an ad- 
 miration strong, deep, and entire, a worship of love, 
 devotion, and enthusiasm? Ah! it is not you who 
 
 148
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 can ever have said that " some day you might tremble 
 before me." No; such ideas could never have come 
 from yourself. Beware, I implore you, my noble 
 Adèle, of adopting the suggestions of strangers; 
 judge me with your own judgment, see me with your 
 own eyes. I am already worth so little in my own 
 sight that I grow indignant at the idea of becoming 
 less so in yours. 
 
 You have reproached me with something else, and 
 it is a reproach that I feel deeply. You say I see 
 nothing but mediocrity in other people. In the 
 first place, dear, I beg you to think that my sup- 
 posed superiority is nothing in my own eyes. I 
 look at things from a higher point of view. ' Worldly 
 fame can never be anything to me in comparison 
 with the angelic happiness laid up for him who will 
 one day share your life. All I care for in this 
 world is you; to you only I aspire; for you only I 
 live. In general, it is true that the larger part of 
 mankind are vulgar and commonplace ; I think I de- 
 spise them en masse, but if I encounter among them 
 a few beings worthy of the name of men, I love and 
 admire them the more. I place you, my beloved 
 Adèle, at the head of all such beings. 
 
 I care very little, I must own, for what is merely 
 conventional, for creeds held in common, for con- 
 victions that are traditional. This is because I 
 think that a prudent man ought to examine things 
 for himself, and use his own reason, before he accepts 
 them. If he should make a mistake, it will not be 
 counted to him for a fault. Well, possibly I am 
 wrong in all my ideas, but I think I may say I have 
 
 149
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 not made the error of depreciating everybody. On 
 the contrary, men look upon me as an enthusiast. 
 The fact is that the hfe I am fitted for, if I can attain 
 it, is one that will be quiet, happy, and obscure. I 
 wish for nothing so much as domestic life and the 
 care of a family. Why cannot you know me better 
 than you do? 
 
 At all events, my love, your humility is charming, 
 though it sometimes makes me angry. You say 
 you defer to my opinions; but, indeed, thus far I 
 have not seen that deference, and you on your part 
 may have often seen what great confidence I place 
 in your advice, and with what docility I obey you. 
 I would even dare confide to you the whole manage- 
 ment of my life, secure in the nobleness of your 
 views and the grandeur of your soul. 
 
 Adieu; it is very late. I embrace you tenderly. 
 What a delicious evening I have just passed with 
 you! It makes me forgive your letter. 
 
 Adèle, love me; for Heaven knows that no one 
 has ever loved as I love you. 
 
 Adieu. Try to read my scrawl. Oh! how much 
 I love you, and how much you can sometimes tor- 
 ment me! 
 
 Your Husband; Your Faithful and 
 Devoted Slave. 
 
 Saturday Evening, February i6th. 
 Adèle, I will not read your letter before I have re- 
 lieved my heart of what is weighing on it now. 
 Alas! I am not at this moment capable of finding 
 happiness in anything. Yes, I left you with a full 
 
 150
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and aching heart. There are moments when I real- 
 ize why some men wish to die. You doubted me 
 this evening. Adèle, you expressed those cruel 
 doubts in a very cruel way. You told me — me, 
 Adèle — me — I who adore you, whose life is linked 
 with yours, whose heart is in thy heart — you said 
 \o me words that perhaps I have rather the sad 
 right to say to you. You said,/ You do not love 
 me" These words from your lips rend my heart 
 like the most cruel irony, and I might add that 
 they seemed like the most heartless ingratitude, if it 
 were possible that you ever could be ungrateful 
 to me. 
 
 Adèle, I would gladly do for you a thousand times 
 more than the little I have been able to do. I would 
 do all that I could find the means of doing. I would 
 give up my future hopes, my blood, my life, my very 
 soul; I would die in the most horrible torments if 
 that could cause you a moment's happiness, and 
 you would owe me nothing, not even a tear, not a sigh, 
 not a regret; and if between two scenes of pleasure 
 you deigned to remember for one moment the Victor 
 who had died for you, it would be his sufficient re- 
 ward, the only one he would have the presumption 
 to claim from you. Do not think I am saying any- 
 thing but what is deeply engraven in my heart. 
 No, Adèle, you owe me nothing ; you can never owe 
 me anything, whatever I may do for you — not even 
 a little gratitude. The absolute devotion with which 
 I would sacrifice all I am to j^ou is my first duty. I 
 should deserve nothing for fulfilling it, and, I repeat, 
 you would not even be ungrateful if you forgot me 
 
 151
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 the very moment after I had made my sacrifice. I 
 should only have fulfilled my destiny. 
 
 I am, therefore, very far from reproaching you 
 with having kept no remembrance of the few little 
 proofs of love I have been able thus far to give you. 
 I might die for you to-morrow, and you might not 
 even notice it. The thing would seem quite natural 
 to you. All I ask of you, Adèle, is, not gratitude, 
 but pity. It is the generosity of your angel character 
 that I invoke, entreating you never again to accuse 
 me of not loving you. 
 
 I know very well that I have no claim on your pity 
 nor on your generosity ; but, Adèle, all I ask of you 
 is to spare me a sorrow that I cannot bear, that of 
 seeing you misdoubt me. I ask you this as a boon. 
 If my words seem insincere to you, if you do not 
 choose to credit my love, at least, I implore you, do 
 not openly show me your disdain, but let me think 
 that so many words of love, so many actions so long 
 prompted bj'' love, have not been thrown away, and 
 that I have not lived without inspiring in your heart 
 some little confidence in me. 
 
 Yes, if it was only to mislead me that you led me 
 to believe you loved me, tell me so at once, frankly 
 and pitilessly; tell me that you do not believe my 
 words, that you care nothing for my love, and let me 
 die. You reminded me this evening, Adèle, of all 
 that you have done for me, of all that you would 
 deign to do for me. Alas! the day when you let 
 your glance fall upon me you did more for me than I 
 could do for you if I gave you my life. You were 
 quite right to ask me this evening what good would 
 
 152
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 my death do you. All it could do would be to bear 
 testimony to the most ardent love that ever was in- 
 spired by a human being, who is, verily, the most 
 angelic of all created things. 
 
 Adieu. When I consider that I can only offer you 
 my death in exchange for one of your glances or one 
 of your words, I am frightened at my nothingness. 
 What am I in comparison with you? Adieu, my 
 Adèle. Let me call you my adored Adèle, although 
 you refuse to believe me. I suffer much. Only you 
 could have cured me this evening. You would not, 
 and your will be done! Adieu, angel. I am now 
 going to read your beloved letter, to kiss it, and to 
 kiss your lock of hair, all of you that really now 
 belongs to me. Adieu. 
 
 Sunday, February 17th. 
 
 Your two letters, my Adèle, have filled my heart 
 with joy and gratitude, and I hasten to write this 
 morning a few words, to ask you to forget my ex- 
 travagance and my folly. 
 
 Tell me, have you been suffering much during 
 the night? I will consult an experienced doctor to- 
 morrow, and tell him all that you told me. My dear 
 love, either do not suffer yourself or let me suffer 
 with you. Give me, I implore you, courage to bear 
 your pain. The reason you are sick, Adèle, is be- 
 cause something must remind you that you are of 
 the same nature as the rest of mankind. When 
 you die you will resume your wings, but you will not 
 die until after I am gone, for you are young, beauti- 
 ful, and healthy, and God would not willingly cut 
 short a life of virtue. 
 
 153
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Adèle, do not talk to me of such melancholy things, 
 which, happily, are most improbable. Renjember, I 
 am much alone, and ideas in my brain ferment in 
 solitude. Adieu. Write me, I implore you, a very 
 long letter, since we cannot talk to each other. But 
 I must stop. I write twenty pages to you in my 
 thoughts before my pen has traced one line. Adieu. 
 I should be nothing but for the afïection that you 
 deign to feel for me, and the love I bear you. Love 
 me always, and cherish some thoughts of me in your 
 noble heart. 
 
 Your Husband. 
 
 Thursday Morning, February 21st. 
 
 Adèle, yesterday evening j^'ou repeated the re- 
 proach, which is so cruel on your part. You told me 
 once more that I love you less than I once did, while 
 it seems to me that every day I love you more and 
 more. Certainly I do not write to you, I do not see 
 you, as often as I wish. I pass very few moments 
 in your companj^ and others, which I would most 
 gladly consecrate to writing to you, I am forced — to 
 say nothing of interruptions from many friends and 
 the intrusion of acquaintances — to employ on four 
 important pieces of work, my two pensions, my 
 essay, and the romance I am writing. 
 
 It seems to me that a man so occupied ought not to 
 be expected to comply with the minor obligations of 
 social life, when his soul, as it were, is living in 
 another sphere, a sphere of enthusiasm, of enchant- 
 ment, and of love. For these are the feelings with 
 which jT^ou fill my thoughts, this the ideal world j^ou 
 
 154
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 have created for your Victor. Adèle, my adored 
 Adèle ! . . . And who knows but that this very 
 evening you will reproach me for not loving you! 
 
 Friday, February 22d. 
 
 My dearest wish, my beloved Adèle, is that you 
 could know my heart, even as you know your own. 
 Then you would be convinced that there is not (I 
 will not say one of its emotions but) one single im- 
 pulse in all my being that does not turn towards you. 
 Even when absent, my soul and my eyes turn towards 
 you; and sometimes I call aloud to you in a sudden 
 transport. If I discover that I might by chance see 
 you as you pass along some street, nothing pre- 
 vents me from watching hours for your coming. Too 
 often this is useless. If you appear, I am always 
 near enough — though at a distance — to defend you, 
 to save you from I know not what imaginary peril, 
 for I am always in fear of such for j^ou. You see, 
 Adèle, I \3iy bare to j^ou, without pity for myself, all 
 my own follies. You, perhaps, will laugh at me. 
 
 Ah! no. Is it not true, my adored Adèle, that you 
 will not laugh? But may it not be likewise true that 
 from henceforth you will no longer accuse me of 
 not loving you? Think over all my words, all my 
 thoughts, all my actions, Adèle, and confess that it 
 was a very cruel thing in you to have reproached me 
 for a want of love. 
 
 Half-past Fotir. 
 
 In a short time I shall see you! How long that 
 short time seems! At least, I can pass part of it in 
 writing to you ; that will relieve its tediousness. 
 
 155
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I have been running about again all day. One 
 has to take many useless steps before one can set 
 one that is useful. Somebody said to me to-day, 
 "You have everything that insures success, except 
 the good-luck to he unworthy of it." There is much 
 sense in that, Adèle. It is worth thinking over. All 
 sorts of people reproach me for not being pushing, 
 intriguing, and so on ; for not knowing how to solicit 
 favors from a newspaper editor or a minister, for 
 carrying what they call the conscious pride of talent 
 so far that I seem to put no value on the possession 
 of fame. For myself, Adèle, I cannot tell if I have 
 talent, but I wish I could be worthy to have it, and, 
 above all, I desire to be worthy of you. I own that 
 I despise all by-ways to success. I think that fame 
 and happiness are noble ends only to be reached by 
 noble paths. I will do all 1 think I ought, and I will 
 so conduct myself that my conduct may in every 
 respect meet your approval. Tell me, my beloved 
 Adèle, are not these thoughts your thoughts, you 
 who are to sit in judgment over all my actions 
 while you are the idol of all my thoughts? Ought 
 I to despair of the future? I have never deviated 
 from the road that I marked out for myself, and I 
 am on the eve of obtaining the two pensions which 
 will assure me the happiness of my whole life. Oh 
 no! Let us have good hope, and let cowards and 
 fools talk as they will. Adieu, angel; adieu, my 
 adored Adèle. 
 
 Your Respectful and 
 Faithful Husband. 
 156
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Saturday. 
 Far from being displeased, dear Adèle, with your 
 letter, it has made me very happy, like all those 
 that you write me in a tone of truth and tenderness. 
 How can you think that I should with any repug- 
 nance see you throw open your whole heart to me, 
 when I desire above all things to be the confidant of 
 your thoughts? Be thoroughly convinced that you 
 may — I say more, that you ought — to tell me every- 
 thing. It would be ungenerous on my part to require 
 you always to speak to me of your affection, and 
 never of your anxieties ; besides, these anxieties 
 spring from your affection. How, then, could they 
 displease me? When you ask me how I spend my 
 time, you are doing, Adèle, just what I should do in 
 your place ; what I should, indeed, have asked sooner 
 had I been you. Do not, therefore, I implore you, 
 wrong me so far as to take so many precautions to 
 lead up to so natural a question, a question that I 
 delighted to have you ask, because it showed an 
 interest in my actions. Have you not a right to all 
 my confidence, as I have to all yours? I wish 3^ou 
 could ask me every evening what I have been doing 
 during the day, because then I could have praise 
 from you when I had been well employed, and 
 blame when I had wasted my time. I feel sure that 
 then very little would be wasted. 
 
 Dear love, I am charmed to see that you are not in- 
 different to what occupies me. I have been afraid 
 you might be, and that is the only reason I have kept 
 silent on the subject. What! may mere friends 
 know what work employs me day by day, while you, 
 
 157
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 my Adèle, my wife, the inspiration of my genius, 
 you who are all in all to me, are to know nothing! 
 Why did you not speak to me on this subject sooner? 
 Why did you so long leave me to think that the 
 employment of my time and the nature of my work 
 did not interest you? 
 
 Most certainly, I shall gladly talk on this subject 
 with your father, now I know that this proof of con- 
 fidence will please you. I have not done it before, 
 Adèle, because it has never been m3^ custom to speak 
 first to others about my literary labors. I do not 
 care to call the attention of others to what I am doing. 
 It is a feeling of reserve that I know you will under- 
 stand. When you live with me, when you take your 
 place in the sphere in which I move, you will be sur- 
 prised, dear, to find in me another Victor, a Victor you 
 have never known, one of whom I have been reluc- 
 tant to speak to you, because I loved best to be to 
 you only your Victor, your slave, and your husband. 
 Be very sure, my Adèle, that the one Victor will never 
 hurt the other. It is only because I am so sure of 
 this that I can tolerate in myself the existence of 
 another individual whom you do not yet know. 
 
 I will not speak more clearly, for if I ever ought to 
 lay aside all amour-propre, it is assuredly with you. 
 However, if I must tell you the truth, yours is the 
 only house in which I visit where my occupations 
 are looked upon with complete indifference. You 
 tell me it was discretion on the part of your parents. 
 I understand that perfectly, and return them thanks. 
 You remind me, dear, that " six months have passed," 
 and you add that these six months " might have been 
 
 158
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 more profitably employed." I cannot think that that 
 was really what you meant to say, for I know you are 
 too just to condemn me before you know the truth. 
 
 One other word before I begin to tell you what 
 has kept me busy these six months. I shall talk to 
 you, Adèle, of works begun, compositions merely 
 sketched out, of enterprises, in short, which success 
 has not yet crowned. I can speak of them frankly 
 to you, who are all indulgence, and who will not 
 love me less for having experienced a reverse than 
 for having achieved a triumph; but you know it 
 would have been presumptuous on my part to raise 
 your parents' hopes on the result of works still in 
 their infancy. This consideration, joined to that I 
 have already mentioned, will explain my silence. 
 Now I come to facts. 
 
 Last May the need I felt of expressing certain ideas 
 which occupied my thoughts, and could not be well 
 done in French verse, led me to undertake a kind of 
 prose romance. My soul was filled with love, sor- 
 row, and with the thoughts of youth; I no longer 
 had you ; I dared not confide the secrets of my heart 
 to any living creature. I chose a mute confidant, 
 my pen and paper. I knew indeed that this work 
 would certainly bring in some money, but when I 
 began the book that consideration was a secondary 
 one. I wanted to pour out the tumultuous agitations 
 of my heart while they were fresh and ardent, the 
 bitterness of my regrets, and the uncertainty of my 
 hopes. 
 
 I wanted to paint a 3'oung girl who should realize 
 the ideal of all my fresh and poetic imaginations; a 
 
 159
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 young girl like her whom I had dreamed of in my 
 boyhood, whom I had known when I grew up ; pure, 
 proud, angelical — it was yourself, my beloved Adèle, 
 whom I wished to paint, in hopes of giving myself 
 sad comfort as I traced the likeness of her whom I 
 had lost, and whom thenceforth I could only see in a 
 far-distant future. I wanted to place beside this girl 
 a young man, not such as I am, but such as I wish 
 to be. These two beings controlled the development 
 of an event, partly historical and partly invented, 
 which brought out a great moral lesson, which was 
 the basis of the composition. Around the two prin- 
 cipal characters I grouped a number of other per- 
 sonages, in order to vary the scenes and to make the 
 wheels of the story go round. These personages 
 were grouped in various ways, according to their rel- 
 ative importance. 
 
 My romance was a long drama, the scenes of which 
 were tableaux, in which description supplied the place 
 of stage scenery and costume. In all other respects 
 the characters depicted themselves. It was an idea 
 which the works of Sir Walter Scott had suggested 
 to me, and that I wanted to attempt in the interest 
 of French literature. 
 
 I spent much time in collecting for this romance 
 historical and geographical materials, and still more 
 time in working out the conception, in utilizing 
 crude masses of information, in combining details. 
 I employed on this work all my faculties, so that 
 when I wrote the first line I knew what I was going 
 to say in the last. 
 
 I had hardly begun to write the book when a terrible 
 
 i6o
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 misfortune befell me, dispersing my ideas and up- 
 setting all my plans. I laid the work aside until 
 I went to Dreux, where I had occasion to speak about 
 it to your father, not as a great literary attempt, 
 but as a good literary speculation. That was all 
 your father wanted. When I returned to Paris I 
 roused myself from my long apathy. The hope of 
 belonging one day to you came back to me. I worked 
 steadily at my book until last October, when I fin- 
 ished the fifteenth chapter. 
 
 At that time a great subject for tragedy came into 
 my mind. I spoke about it to Soumet, who advised 
 me to attempt it at once. I had begun to work when 
 I received orders to prepare a rapport académique,^' 
 which I mentioned to you at the time, and which 
 kept me occupied until the end of November. Last 
 December I made an ode on the plague, that the Aca- 
 démie des Jeux Floraux requested of me for one of 
 its public meetings, and at last, on January 1st, I 
 wanted to go back to my tragedy, when the same 
 friend whom I have mentioned above came and 
 proposed to me to join him in making a drama out 
 of that admirable work, Kenilworth, which 3^ou have 
 read. As this might bring me in several thousand 
 francs, I accepted the offer, and consented to co- 
 operate with him; and now, as I write this, I have 
 finished the two first acts If Soumet were not so 
 much occupied with his tragedy of " Clytemnestre," 
 our play, of wliich I was to do three acts and he two, 
 might have been fniished in one month, and acted in 
 
 * This essay on Gil Bias, Victor Hugo was requested to write by 
 François de Neuf château. 
 
 L l6l
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 six. But it was to be anonymous. I consented to 
 undertake the work, my love, only for your sake, 
 and in order to prove to your parents that there can 
 be a money value in letters. 
 
 Adieu. I am very much hurried. From this 
 time, my adored Adèle, give your husband your en- 
 tire confidence. I will show you my work if you take 
 an interest in it; I will speak to you of my projects; 
 I will even tell you of the annoyances caused me by 
 my literary associates. Ingratitude and care for 
 number one only are two sad things. Adieu; never 
 fear you can be indiscreet. Your questions always 
 give me pleasure. I love you more than any man 
 has ever loved. Deign to permit me to embrace you. 
 
 If you can read this scrawl, remember that I am 
 very busy. It is a quarter past seven, and I am not 
 yet dressed. 
 
 Adieu, adieu! 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 To-day I have worked almost the whole time, dear, 
 and I am afraid I have done nothing of any account, 
 so I am sad and depressed. I am still absent from 
 you, but I am not forgotten, am I, my Adèle? 
 
 I shall feel great joy in showing you all that I am do- 
 ing, and all that I mean to do. Cease to feel any un- 
 certainty on this subject. I would like to show you 
 everything, were I sure that you alone would see it. 
 But I know that is almost impossible. I only ask 
 that you may judge my works without taking the 
 opinions of any other persons, for it is your judg- 
 ment only I shall care for. Your judgment alone 
 I am eager to receive, and it will be of real value 
 
 162
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 to me. Therefore, condemn or approve according as 
 things strike 3'ou. I shall religiously pay attention 
 to what you say, as one would to the judgment of 
 some angelic and superior being. When I know you 
 are guided only by your own heart and your own 
 soul, how can I fail to have a deep respect for the 
 impressions you may confide to me? I always have 
 thought that a man of letters ought to have one sole 
 adviser, either a wife such as you are or a man of 
 genius. For my part, I might make my choice 
 among the last, but it is by my Adèle I desire to be 
 judged without appeal. 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 I have read over what I wrote yesterday, and now, 
 to come back to it, I beg you to tell me, in all sincerit}'', 
 what effect, good or bad, has been produced on j^ou 
 by the writings I have sent you. They have, of 
 course I know, many faults that the indulgence of 
 my friends has not permitted them to point out to 
 me, but those faults you will show me, my Adèle, 
 when they strike you. Only try to take nobody's 
 opinion but your own. You would have discouraged 
 the author of Les Martyrs if 3^ou had spoken to him 
 of his book as you did to me the other day, onlj^ 
 assuredly- j^ou expressed second-hand opinions. The 
 more I trust you, the more I mistrust others. Be, 
 therefore, my adviser 3^ourself. You can do anj''- 
 thing with me. Let me owe vou all. 
 
 Remember that if I am talking onh^ of myself, it 
 is to fulfil a wish that you expressed to me. I hope 
 that you will not accuse me of self-love because I 
 
 . 163
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 show to that Adèle, whose good opinion is every- 
 thing to me, unfinished sketches of some poor Httle 
 works that I have undertaken. I wish you could 
 know how heartily I desire that you should tell me 
 frankly your opinion of them, though I tremble in 
 advance as to what you may say. 
 
 I was very happy last Thursday at this same hour. 
 You were near, very near me. I could feel your every 
 movement; I could almost breathe your breath. I 
 gathered up your words — all were for me. When 
 will my whole life be like that? The moments of 
 happiness passed beside you are moments of intense 
 happiness, pure and deep-felt, I can assure you. As 
 soon as they have vanished I regret them as if they 
 were never to reappear, and when I look forward to 
 their return, I long for them as if I had never before 
 known them. I feel, when I am with you, a joy 
 always immeasurably great, and always new. Such 
 are the signs of an imperishable love. Your lightest 
 word upsets me; sometimes it pains, sometimes it 
 enchants me. 
 
 Adèle, those minds are very weak and those hearts 
 very contracted that can doubt the eternity of love. 
 In the depths of the soul that truly loves is a voice 
 which tells it it will always love, for, indeed, love 
 is the life of the soul. To any one who really thinks 
 about it, it becomes a strong proof of our immaterial 
 immortality. Do not look on these, dear love, as 
 mere vain words. They are great truths, which lie 
 beyond human life, that I am now laying before you ; 
 and in your heart, as well as in mine, there should be 
 something that responds to them. These are vast 
 
 164
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and magnificent hopes which make marriage an an- 
 ticipation of heaven. For my part, when I think 
 that you have been given to me, I am reduced to 
 silence, for there are no words in human speech that 
 can adequately return thanks for such a blessing. 
 
 Saturday, March 2d. 
 
 You said to me the other day something that struck 
 me forcibly. That is why I must speak of it to you. 
 You told me that you were not sure that I ivas ahvays 
 good {que je fusse sage). I begin by telling you that, 
 if I thought you had been speaking seriously, I 
 should make you no answer. It is because I feel 
 sure that these words were said in joke that I give 
 you here some explanation of the way I view the sub- 
 ject. I should consider as only an ordinary woman 
 (that is to say, a woman of small account) one who 
 could marry a man without being morally certain, 
 from what she knew of his character and principles, 
 that not onl}^ he was " good," but, furthermore (and 
 I employ the word in its full meaning), that he was 
 chaste. I mean, as much a virgin as herself. My 
 opinion on that subject admits only one exception. 
 It is that of a young man who, having once com- 
 mitted a fault, acknowledges it, with profound re- 
 pentance, and with deep scorn of himself, to the 
 woman he is engaged to marry. That young man 
 would be an odious, contemptible traitor if he did not 
 make that confession; and then the girl might for- 
 give him, or not forgive him, without being the less 
 estimable in my opinion. 
 
 I know, as I impart to you these ideas, that they 
 
 165
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 are not such as are generally held in this age and by 
 this world. But what matter? I have many more 
 of the same kind, and I am glad I have them. I 
 think that the most severe purity is as much obliga- 
 tory on a man as on a woman. I do not understand 
 how one sex can repudiate this instinct, which is of 
 all others the most sacred, and that separates man 
 from animals. 
 
 You have sometimes reproached me, dear, with 
 being very severe as to your sex. You see I am even 
 more so towards my own, since I refuse it the license 
 too generally granted. If I were to tell you that the 
 rigorous observance of my dut}^ in this respect has 
 cost me nothing, it would be a falsehood. Often (I 
 will hide nothing from you) I have felt extraordinary 
 emotions of youth and imagination. Then I was 
 weak; the holy lessons of my mother might have 
 faded from my mind, but thoughts of you rose up, 
 and I was saved. 
 
 Last Thursday I spent my evening with some other 
 men. They were men of talent and of genius. But 
 if I had had no real friends among them, their society 
 would have wearied me. As we came out, these gen- 
 tlemen, who live in clubs and salons, exclaimed that 
 they had never had so agreeable an evening. Then I 
 thought of my beloved Adèle, and said to myself : " I 
 may have no genius, I may not have even talent, but 
 I know more about happiness than an}^ of these men. " 
 The evening they had found so delightful had seemed 
 to me very wearisome compared with one of my happy 
 evenings with you. In truth, Adèle, although my 
 life has often been very hard and bitter, I would not 
 
 i66
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 change it with any one. I should be both sick and 
 dying if I did not feel that my sole happiness was 
 to be loved by you, which is greater felicity than any 
 other that human destiny could contain. When I 
 possess you, what will anything else matter? 
 
 Adèle, you promised me your portrait. Have 
 you forgotten it? I am very sorry that I have to re- 
 mind you of it. Your portrait, drawn by yourself, 
 was what you promised me. Do you forget you 
 promised me that? Have you, indeed, forgotten, 
 Adèle, one of the greatest joys you could have given 
 me? Do you have no care for my happiness? I 
 will not believe that until j' our answer reaches me. 
 I would rather think that j^ou have had no time to sit 
 by yourself and work at it, not that 3^ou have been 
 wanting in the wish to fulfil a promise so dear to 
 me, a promise that should have been sacred in your 
 eyes. I will wait, therefore, and not murmur at the 
 delay. 
 
 Sunday Morning. 
 
 Yoift tortured me by setting me to discover what 
 could have seemed to you 50 extraordinary in the let- 
 ter I wrote you last evening. I have at last come to 
 the conclusion that you allude to ideas concerning 
 which I agree with you, that a j^oung girl ought not 
 to converse with a young man. On the other hand, 
 I thought I was your husband, and, consequently, 
 that I had certain privileges not given to others. It 
 seems to me, besides, that there was nothing in my 
 chaste reflections concerning my secret soul which 
 should have shocked you. I gave you a proof of my 
 highest confidence and my most profound esteem, 
 
 167
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 by laying bare to you the secrets of my soul and of 
 my life — secrets that no woman but yourself has any 
 right to know. What, then, has displeased you? 
 What could I have said which seemed to you unfit 
 to meet the ear of the most pure and virginal of 
 women? 
 
 I was showing you how great is the power you have 
 over me, since the mere thought of you can curb the 
 effervescence of my soul. I told j^ou that the man 
 who should be so imprudent as to unite himself, sul- 
 lied and impure, to a being all purity and spotless- 
 ness, would deserve contempt and indignation, un- 
 less he had first confessed his fault and incurred the 
 risk of her rejection. What could there have been 
 in such principles of severe virtue that could seem to 
 you to call for reproof? Assuredly, I was far from 
 expecting it. If I were a woman, and the man who 
 was to be my husband said to me : " You have served 
 me as a rampart against the seductions of other 
 women ; you are the first woman I have ever clasped 
 in my arms, the only one I ever will press to my bosom ; 
 the more I would delight to draw you to myself, 
 the more horror and disgust I should feel at any in 
 like case but you," it seems to me, Adèle, that if I 
 were a woman, such confidence on the part of one I 
 loved would be very far from displeasing to me. Can 
 it be possible that you do not love me? 
 
 Dear love, I should like to say something more to 
 you about my conduct last evening, which you at- 
 tributed to vanity and self-conceit. This gave me 
 great pain, coming as it did at a moment when I 
 thought I was acting in a manner that was proud, esti- 
 
 i68
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 mable, and worthy of you. I meant to write about 
 all that, but I find I have only time to beg of you not 
 to be vexed at the grave tone of this letter, to say to 
 yourself again and again how much I love you 
 even when you are unjust, and with what joy I now 
 see the dawn of that life which I shall pass with 
 you. 
 
 Adieu; I adore you, I respect you, and I embrace 
 you very tenderly. 
 
 Wednesday Evening, 
 This morning I sent off the letter which may lead 
 to such important consequences.* Let us both think 
 seriously of them. Possibly, my Adèle, we are on 
 the verge of one of the most important epochs in our 
 lives. Forgive me for writing our lives, and includ- 
 ing you with me in a community of fate, when pos- 
 sibly I may make an end of myself, for I should do 
 it at once the moment I found reason to fear it might 
 not be for your happiness. 
 
 Now that my letter has gone, Adèle, now that I 
 have done my duty by obe3âng one of your wishes, 
 I will venture to tell you what I have not told you 
 before, for fear I might seem to hesitate between my 
 devotion to your will and a probable danger, even 
 though this danger may involve the misery of all 
 my life. I feel, indeed, that it was very natural that 
 you should wish, at any cost, to be relieved from the 
 uncertainty in which you live. I feel this so much 
 that, two months ago, I made an attempt to forestall 
 
 *This was the letter in which Victor asked General Hugo's con- 
 sent to their marriage. 
 
 169
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 your just impatience by suggesting to your parents 
 to give me their formal authorization of our mar- 
 riage, that I might communicate it to my father, 
 going even further, and asking his direct consent. 
 They thought otherwise, and I had to yield. When 
 this same idea occurred to you, I thought it quite 
 natural, and even proper, upon your part. Therefore, 
 I took care not to tell you that I feared the result 
 would be unfavorable, and I did not care to make you 
 sensible of all its difficulties. 
 
 Now, let us both wait calmly, with a quiet con- 
 science. Have you observed me — tell me — to be 
 more depressed, less serene, since the moment when 
 I possibly destroyed with my own hand all that I 
 hoped for? No, dear love; the satisfaction that I 
 take in thinking that I have obeyed you rises su- 
 perior to any purely personal fear. In a few days 
 all will have been decided, and whatever happens I 
 shall be glad I did what I have done, since you 
 will have been relieved from the uncertainty you 
 find so painful. 
 
 If what I think I can foresee should happen, I 
 shall have the consolation of knowing that I had 
 expected it beforehand, and had resigned myself to 
 the worst, without speaking to you of what I could 
 not but apprehend, that I might give you another 
 proof of my love and my submission. 
 
 If you continue to remember me a little while, 
 perhaps it will not be with an idea that your Victor 
 "never loved you much," as you sometimes tell him 
 reproachfully. All my ambition, my beloved Adèle, 
 is to prove to you my devotion. It is to that I conse- 
 
 170
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 crate my whole life, whether it is to last for sixty 
 years, or only three months longer, 
 
 I therefore implore you not to be anxious. Things 
 will now take their natural course. My letter will give 
 them a sudden impulse over which I shall have lost 
 control. I am no more master of the event than your- 
 self. Among so many chances there must be one 
 that would make us happy, I ought only to have 
 spoken to j^ou of that one. All the grief must be 
 for me. It would have been too bad to warn you. 
 You wished me to write. That was the only thing 
 that I considered, and I have no merit in having 
 done what was only my duty. And now, if all my 
 happy dreams must pass away, I shall only have 
 to follow them ; but for you there will always be one 
 great reality, which is, that you will have inspired a 
 true, deep, and devoted love. 
 
 Now, my beloved Adèle, I speak of all this firmly 
 and seriously, because the hour may be at hand 
 when I have to confirm by actions what possibly 
 you have only hitherto considered as vain words. 
 It may be mj^ life's last joy. 
 
 And 3'et things, possibly, may turn out well. It 
 would not be the first time since I have loved you 
 that my happiness seemed beyond hope. To have 
 all turn out well is not probable, but it is not im- 
 possible. Dearest — my Adèle, forgive me for dread- 
 ing misfortune after I had told you I was resigned. 
 It is because my hopes were so precious and so sweet. 
 We must wait. 
 
 Adieu till to-morrow, I will write to you. I love 
 you better than you can ever imagine. 
 
 171
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Saturday, March gth, 4.30 p.m. 
 
 Just fancy, dear, that ever since early this morn- 
 ing I have not had one moment's Hberty. I wanted 
 to pass the whole day at work, and in writing to 
 you, and instead I have been obliged to endure vis- 
 itors. Pity me, and do not blame me. I had so 
 many things to say to you; I wanted to tell you all 
 about this week, whose beginning was taken up by 
 that letter, and all the worries of the bal du poète. 
 How could you for an instant doubt, let me say it, en 
 passant, that I should not go there, since you did 
 not wish me to? What is it to me whether I stand 
 well or ill with all those people? Only you told me 
 that I did not feel as you do — and those words pained 
 me very much, because you have been to such gayeties 
 often when I could not be there (and quite recently 
 to a party about which you wished to give me ex- 
 planations). You feel now what I have often felt, 
 and I thank you. I am ver}^ glad of it. Adieu, 
 my Adèle; if there is anything sad in the letter I 
 wrote you yesterday, remember there is nothing cold 
 in it. Far from that; I never loved you more than 
 I do now, when the inevitable hour for my sacrifice 
 is perhaps drawing near. Adieu, adieu, my adored 
 Adèle. I embrace 3'ou, and am to the last moment 
 your faithful husband. 
 
 Do not be too much afraid. Perhaps all may turn 
 
 out happily. 
 
 Sunday, March loth, 10.30 a.m. 
 
 Since I may not see you, my gentle, generous Adèle, 
 at least I may write to you. My heart is filled with 
 gratitude to you, and with a feeling I do not like to 
 
 172
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 enlarge upon (for fear I may distress you), against 
 those who made you cry. While I was standing near 
 you, to all appearance cold and calm, I was boiling 
 over, my Adèle, with impatience and indignation — 
 let me say the word. To see you worried in that way, 
 without any reason, you, the most tender, the very 
 best of daughters — no, I cannot tell how I controlled 
 myself. I wanted to lift up my voice, to protect you, 
 to defend you, with all my strength, and in all my 
 anger. Oh ! how that would have relieved me ! I 
 should not now be sitting here oppressed with tears 
 which, when you wept, I could not shed, and with all 
 the words I could not say on your behalf which fell 
 back on my own heart, and seemed to stifle me. Adèle, 
 though your mother is kind, she does not see things 
 from the higher stand-point at which you see them. 
 In that she resembles other women; and for that 
 reason I always heartily forgive her, except when 
 her commonplace view of things leads her, as it did 
 to-day, to torture my Adèle — my noble, my excellent, 
 my beloved Adèle ! — my Adèle, without whom there 
 is no happiness for me in life, and even, I may say, 
 no virtue; for I am attached to you, my angel, by 
 every tie that can bind you to my soul, and in me all 
 that aims at virtue, all that makes for happiness, is 
 associated with my Adèle — mon Adèle adorée ! And 
 that is why the ties which bind me to you on earth 
 will never break until all other ties to life are severed, 
 and then my freed soul will be once more and more 
 completely thine ! 
 
 How sweet it would have been to me to take up 
 your defence, to attack those who were distressing 
 
 173
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 you to-day! But I dared not lift my head to take 
 your part, any more than I dared fall at your feet 
 to console you. I should only have increased your 
 mother's anger, and have made her turn on you 
 reproaches which, possibly, she hesitated to heap on 
 me. And yet, dear love, I would have sacrificed 
 my pride most joyfully, if I could thereby have re- 
 lieved you from what you were suffering. I would 
 willingly have drawn down upon myself your moth- 
 er's anger if I could have diverted it from you. But 
 the fear of doing harm if I should interfere restrained 
 me. At least, dear love, if my deep gratitude and 
 my entire approval can be any comfort to you, you 
 have them in full measure. 
 
 Adieu ! I am going out, that from a distance I may 
 see you in church. You will not see me, but I shall 
 be there. I have done the same thing very often. 
 Adieu till I come back; then, Adèle, I will go on. I 
 feel less sad now that I think I am going to see you. 
 
 Half-past two. 
 
 Your little brother has just been here insisting that 
 I must take him to the exhibition of pictures, but I 
 am like you. I shall stay at home. My Adèle, you 
 no doubt are tired and out of spirits at this moment ; 
 it always pains me to think that you are leaning on 
 the arm of another man. But if I had known it would 
 bring so much trouble upon you, I would have pre- 
 ferred to bear the pain, great as it is to me. If I 
 could only think you feel the same repugnance to 
 taking the arm of another man as I do to giving 
 mine to any other woman, I could regret nothing; 
 
 174
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 but, Adèle, however much I may think of your ten- 
 derness, when I remember all the proofs of it you 
 deign to give me day after daj^ can I ever believe 
 that your feeling for me equals mine for you ? Truly, 
 when I look into myself, I dare not indulge in such 
 presumption ! 
 
 The painful scene this morning reminded me, dear, 
 of some of the disputes I had last winter with my 
 mother about things of the same kind. But my 
 noble mother knew how to stop at the point when 
 my resistance was growing painful to me. 
 
 My Adèle, forgive me for having spoken perhaps 
 a little harshly of your mother in this letter. It was 
 impossible for me to see you mistreated in that way 
 and to keep perfectly cool; the fear of distressing 
 you ought perhaps to have stopped me, but I did not 
 think of that at the first moment. Forgive me. 
 
 Our conversation yesterday evening moved me 
 greatly, and when I returned home your letter, so 
 touching and so tender, deepened the emotion, until 
 at last I fell asleep dreaming of you. 
 
 And at this very moment, my dear — my too kind 
 Adèle ! — our happiness or our unhappiness is being 
 decided for us far away. Yes, I count upon your ten- 
 derness. I see, and I admire, your courage. Your 
 devotion goes to my heart, but, I implore j^ou, do not 
 lose 3^our rest because of me. In a few daj^s perhaps 
 I shall be a poor outcast, whom others will exhort 
 you to forget, and whom you should forget, it seems 
 to me, now that such forgetfulness might secure your 
 happiness. I would say the same thing to j^ou my- 
 self, but then those words would be the last my lips 
 
 175
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 pronounced. And yet, my adored Adèle, I shall 
 have been very happy, in spite of my misfortunes — 
 happy in having inspired a devotion like that you 
 promised me yesterday. Alas! what dreams of life- 
 long happiness must I not part with ! I should have 
 passed my life in loving you. To love you will have 
 been the story of my life. I certainly ought not to 
 complain of my fate. 
 
 Adieu, adieu, my beloved Adèle ! Receive as many 
 kisses from j'^our husband as you have shed tears 
 for him. Je t'embrasse comme je t'aime! 
 
 Monday, March nth. 
 
 AU my ideas are confused, and my brain is in dis- 
 order. Last evening the devotion, the tender words 
 of my beloved Adèle, threw me into a sweet, sad 
 train of thought, whose vague emotions I would 
 gladly set down upon this paper, that I might show 
 you what is my state when I am away from you. 
 
 Your image could bring me nothing but joy, if it 
 did not renew remembrances of the past and bring 
 me sad presentiments as to our future. 
 
 I have just taken out your lock of hair, for in the 
 great and awful doubt which has taken possession 
 of me in these last three days I needed something 
 real, something which had been part of yourself, a 
 palpable pledge of that angelic love in which you 
 encourage me to believe still. For one moment I 
 covered that dear lock of hair with kisses. It seemed 
 to me, as I pressed it to my lips, that you were less 
 absent. It seemed, too, as if a mysterious commu- 
 nication were established between us, that this dear 
 
 176
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 hair had become a hnk between two separated souls. 
 Do not smile, Adèle, at the delirium which possessed 
 me. Alas! so few hours of my life, my love, have 
 been passed with you that sometimes I am con- 
 strained to try, by kissing your hair, or by reading 
 your letters, if I cannot find some way to appease 
 that immense need of 3^our presence which seems as 
 if it would consume me. It was bj^ such artificial 
 means that I contrived to exist during our long 
 separation, but then hope every day, aurora -like, 
 dawned before my ej^es. 
 
 Hope! In a week — in three daj^s — who knows if 
 any vestige of hope will remain? Why does destiny 
 change, when the heart cannot change? 
 
 However, whatever fate may have in store for me, 
 Adèle, I am prepared to meet it. I will remember 
 that you have deigned to love me, and what could I 
 not meet bravely, strengthened by that thought? 
 There is always one door open by which one can 
 escape misfortune, and the day when my last hope 
 is taken away I shall pass through it. I shall go 
 where I shall commence another life, and however 
 terrible it may be, I cannot think it will be worse than 
 this one without you. 
 
 Adieu for to-day. Oh! I am athirst to see you! 
 
 At last the answer of General Hugo arrived ! He gave 
 his consent! He was even glad to give it, for he himself 
 had to ask his son's forgiveness for a very serious thing. 
 Three weeks after his wife's death ha had married the 
 person for whose sake he had left his family, and he had 
 not told his children what he had done. Yet, even 
 under such a cloud, sunshine dawned on Victor at the 
 very moment when he least expected it. 
 
 M 177
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 As for Adèle, in a letter which has, unfortunately, 
 been destroyed, she had given Victor the most con- 
 vincing proof she loved him that could have been given 
 by a girl so timid and so pure. She believed — nay, she 
 knew — that if all hope were lost, if his father's con- 
 sent to their marriage was decidedly withheld, Victor 
 would be quite certain to take some fatal resolution, and 
 she offered to give herself into his care, and to leave her 
 home. Then, sooner or later, their friends would be 
 forced to see them married. The reply of Victor's 
 father rendered so great a sacrifice on her part unnec- 
 essary. 
 
 Victor was now officially recognized as the future hus- 
 band of Adèle! And at his earnest entreaty, and in 
 order that the two young people might not be separated, 
 he was invited to spend the summer in the country as 
 one of the family party of Mme. Foucher. An apart- 
 ment was hired at Gentilly in a house which had a gar- 
 den, at the end of which was a small detached house, 
 where Victor established himself, but he was to take his 
 meals in the company of her he loved ; he could see her 
 every day, and at any moment. . . . Nevertheless, they 
 continued to write to each other! It might have been 
 expected that interest would have lessened in their let- 
 ters, but, on the contrary, happiness, and the prospect 
 of more happiness, seemed to inspire the poet-lover with 
 his most eloquent bursts of affection — we might almost 
 call them hymns of joy — very ardent, and very beautiful. 
 
 There was nothing now to be waited for, before fixing 
 a day for the marriage, except the bestowal of that mis- 
 erable royal pension to which they looked forward. It 
 was very slow in coming! This, possibly, was some- 
 what Victor's fault, for he could not bear to solicit 
 favors and "run after ministers." We may also blame 
 the stupid formalities and slow proceedings of the 
 " Bureaux " for causing these young, ardent lovers to 
 languish in uncertainty. Ever since 1819 the odes and 
 articles written by the young poet in the interest of 
 monarchy — the only lasting and sincere testimony we 
 have to the fictitious enthusiasm of France after the 
 return of the Bourbons — did battle for the cause of the 
 Restoration, and it was not until three years later, in 
 September, 1822, that he secured the poor reward of a 
 
 178
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 pension of twelve hundred francs, which afterwards was 
 reduced to one thousand I 
 
 Wednesday, March 12th, 3.30 p.m. 
 
 Adèle, my Adèle, I am wild with joy. To you my 
 emotion must be first poured out. I had passed a 
 week preparing myself to encounter a great misfort- 
 une, and happiness arrived instead ! It has but one 
 cloud. 
 
 Adieu for a few hours. I will bring you this letter 
 myself this evening, my beloved and too generous 
 Adèle. 
 
 Friday Evening, March isth. 
 
 After the two delightful evenings spent yesterday 
 and the day before, I shall certainl}^ not go out to- 
 night, but will sit here at home and write to j^ou. Be- 
 sides, my Adèle, m\^ adorable and adored Adèle, 
 what have I not to tell you? Oh, God! for two days 
 I have been asking myself everj^ moment if such hap- 
 piness is not a dream. It seems to me that what I 
 feel is not of earth. I cannot yet comprehend this 
 cloudless heaven. 
 
 You do not 3^et know, Adèle, to what I had resigned 
 m3^self. Alas! do I know it myself? Because I 
 was weak, I fancied I was calm ; because I was pre- 
 paring myself for all the mad follies of despair, I 
 thought I was courageous and resigned. Ah! let 
 me cast m3'self humbly at j^our feet, j^ou who are so 
 grand, so tender, and so strong ! I had been think- 
 ing that the utmost limit of my devotion could only 
 be the sacrifice of mj" life, but you, mj^ generous love, 
 were ready to sacrifice for me the repose of 3'ours ! 
 
 Adèle, to what follies, what delirium, did not your 
 
 179
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Victor give way during these everlasting eight days ! 
 Sometimes I was ready to accept the offer of your ad- 
 mirable love; I thought that if pushed to the last 
 extremity by the letter from my father, I might real- 
 ize a little money, and then carry you away — you, 
 my betrothed, my companion, my wife — away from 
 all those who might want to disunite us; I thought 
 we would cross France, I being nominally your hus- 
 band, and go into some other country which would 
 give us our rights. By day we would travel in the 
 same carriage, at night we would sleep under the 
 same roof. But do not think, my noble Adèle, that 
 I would have taken advantage of so much happiness. 
 Is it not true that you would never have done me the 
 dishonor of thinking so? You would have been the 
 object most worthy of respect, the being most respect- 
 ed, by your Victor ; you might on the journey have 
 even slept in the same chamber without fearing that 
 he would have alarmed you bj^ a touch, or have even 
 looked at j^ou. Only I should have slept, or watched 
 wakef ully in a chair, or lying on the floor beside your 
 bed, the guardian of your repose, the protector of 
 your slumbers. The right to defend and to watch 
 over you would have been the only one of a hus- 
 band's rights that your slave would have aspired to, 
 until a priest had given him all the others. 
 
 Adèle, when I gave myself up to this delightful 
 dream in the midst of my unhappiness, I forgot every- 
 thing else. . . . And then came my awakening; 
 and then remorse for having for one moment conceived 
 of such things. I thought of your parents, of your 
 own peace of mind, and of your position, and I re- 
 
 i8o
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 proached myself for having shown you so httle de- 
 votion as to have been so wilHng to accept so much, 
 for having been so ungenerous as to consent to so 
 much generosit}^, when my own dream had ahvays 
 been how to increase your happiness, even if I sacri- 
 ficed m}^ own! Then I cursed mj'self — I called my- 
 self the evil genius of your life, I remembered all the 
 sufferings I had brought upon you, and I took that 
 mad resolution that yesterday cost you those tears, 
 tears I was inexcusable for having made you shed, 
 and I went in search of a friend unhapp^^ like nty- 
 self, who, like me, had lost his last hope of happiness, 
 and had nothing more to do with life but to endure 
 its last pangs. 
 
 Adèle, oh, do not hate me, do not despise me for 
 having been so weak and abject when 3^ou were so 
 strong and so sublime. Think of my bereavements, 
 of my loneliness, of what I expected from my father; 
 think that for a week I had looked forward to losing 
 3'ou, and do not be astonished at the extravagance 
 of my despair. You — a young girl — were admira- 
 ble. And, indeed, I feel as if it would be flattering 
 an angel to compare such a being to you. You have 
 been privileged to receive every gift from nature, 
 you have both fortitude and tears. Oh, Adèle, do not 
 mistake these words for blind enthusiasm — enthu- 
 siasm for you has lasted all m}^ life, and increases 
 day by day. M}^ whole soul is 3'ours. If mj' entire 
 existence had not been yours, the harmony of my 
 being would have been lost, and I must have died — 
 died inevitabl3^ 
 
 These were my meditations, Adèle, when the let- 
 
 181
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ter that was to bring me hope or else despair ar- 
 rived. If you love me, you know what must have 
 been my joy. What I know you may have felt I 
 will not describe. 
 
 My Adèle, why is there no word for this but joy? 
 Is it because there is no power in human speech to 
 express such happiness? 
 
 The sudden bound from mournful resignation to 
 infinite felicity seemed to upset me. Even now I 
 am still beside myself, and sometimes I tremble lest 
 I should suddenly awaken from this dream divine. 
 
 Oh, now you are mine ! At last you are mine ! 
 Soon — in a few months, perhaps, my angel will sleep 
 in my arms, will awaken in my arms, will live there. 
 All your thoughts at all moments, all your looks, 
 will be for me; all my thoughts, all my moments, 
 all my looks, will be for you! My Adèle! 
 
 Ah! I can at last do something to assist my own 
 career! With so much hope, what courage I shall 
 have to work! With courage, what success may 
 I not obtain! What a burden has been lifted from 
 my heart ! What ! — was it only the day before yester- 
 day! It seems to me a long time since happiness 
 was mine. I have felt so many things these last 
 two days. 
 
 And your letter last Wednesday evening. How 
 can I thank you for it, my Adèle? I did not think 
 that at such a moment anything could have increased 
 my happiness, but your letter made me feel that 
 there can be no bounds to love and joy in the human 
 breast. What a noble, tender, and devoted wife is 
 destined for me ! How can I ever deserve her? Adèle, 
 
 182
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I am as nothing beside you. The more I Hf t my head 
 when I compare myself with other men, the more I 
 sink in my own sight when I compare myself with 
 you. 
 
 And now you will belong to me! Now I am called 
 on earth to enjoy celestial felicity! I see you as my 
 young wife, then a young mother, but always the 
 same, always my Adèle, as tender, as adored in the 
 chastity of married life as in the virgin days of your 
 first love. Dear love, answer me — tell me if you can 
 conceive the happiness of love immortal in an eter- 
 nal union! And that will be ours some day. 
 
 This morning I answered my father's letter. There 
 were two things in it which gave me pain. He told 
 me he had formed new ties. My mother might have 
 read what I wrote to him this morning. My excite- 
 ment did not make me altogether forget what I owed 
 to her memory. You cannot blame me, my noble 
 love. Besides, I hope we may yet be reconciled. I 
 am his son, and I am your husband. All my duty 
 is comprised in those two relationships. 
 
 I do not forget that you told me that an account 
 of how I had passed this week would be interesting 
 to you. I own that up to Wednesday I tried in vain 
 to work. The time was passed in struggling with 
 my own emotions. I was full of thoughts of her 
 whom I expected to lose, and all my ideas centred 
 upon that loss. Yesterday I was able to work. To- 
 day I have spent in running from one ministerial 
 bureau to another, a task I shall have to resume to- 
 morrow, after having given all my morning to work. 
 In the evening I shall be very happy. 
 
 183
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 My Adèle, no obstacle will now discourage me, 
 either in my writing or in my attempt to gain a pen- 
 sion, for every step I take to attain success in both 
 will bring me nearer to you. How could anything 
 now seem painful to me? Do not think so ill of me 
 as to believe that, I implore you. What is a little 
 toil, if it conquers so much happiness? Have I not 
 a thousand times implored heaven to let me purchase 
 it at the price of my blood? Oh! how happy I am; 
 how happy I am going to be ! 
 
 Adieu, my angel, my beloved Adèle ! Adieu ! I 
 will kiss your hair and go to bed. Still I am far from 
 you, but I can dream of you. Soon perhaps you 
 will be at my side. Adieu; pardon the delirium of 
 your husband who embraces you, and who adores 
 you, both for this life and another. 
 
 Your picture? 
 
 Thursday, March 21st, 9.30 p.m. 
 
 If you knew how I had passed my evening up to 
 now, I think you might laugh at me. But no — 
 for I have known that you are worthy to be loved 
 even thus. While you are thinking of other things 
 this evening I am going to write to you, and certainly, 
 whatever happiness you may find in what I write, 
 my happiness in writing will be greater still. 
 
 I will not speak to you, Adèle, of the party; you 
 were there; that is enough. Be sure, dear love, you 
 will have no cause to fear that tyranny about which 
 you spoke to-day; never will I deprive you of an 
 amusement on the pretext that I should not be there. 
 I could not even think of such a thing, for if the day 
 ever came when you found pleasure outside our 
 
 184
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 happy life, you would have ceased to love me ; and 
 what more could I say? As for me, when I stay 
 away from a ball or a fête, where I know that I should 
 not meet you, there is no merit in my absence. It 
 is no sacrifice; it is just its opposite. I could not 
 bear to go to a scene of jo}'' where my own only joy 
 would not be present, and where I should only weary 
 for your presence ; so by staying at home I am jdeld- 
 ing to a selfishness which is simply the outcome of 
 mj^ love for you. I do not care to say more about 
 such a trifle. 
 
 However, Adèle, if you knew that part of my life 
 which is exterior and public, and of which you have 
 at present only an imperfect idea, you might think 
 that I sacrifice some pleasures for you. But as I 
 really enjoy only one pleasure in this world, all others, 
 whatever they may be, are nothing to me. Once 
 only, and that a few days since, I accepted an invita- 
 tion to a ball. I told you why I accepted it. What- 
 ever my reasons might have been, it was my duty to 
 tell you of them. You only said, what was very 
 true, that you would not be there. It was for that 
 reason I spoke to you about it. Though you have 
 not hitherto always thought the same, you deigned 
 to tell me that it would have been morally impossible 
 for you to enjoy a fête where I should not be, too. 
 These words filled me with joj^ and settled my reso- 
 lution about m3^ engagement. I pretended I was 
 suddenly taken ill. I did more ; I feigned this even- 
 ing that I was very sick. Nothing could have with- 
 held me from giving this proof of my obedience, 
 and saving myself at the same time from a weari- 
 
 185
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 some evening. You see, my dear love, that when I 
 
 will a thing, I carry it out ; and I know how to find 
 
 reasons for doing as I think best, which cannot be 
 
 set aside. 
 
 Adieu for to-night, my dear, my dearest Adèle. 
 
 You will get home late and tired. May you have 
 
 given a thought to me at your ball, and now sleep 
 
 well. Adieu. 
 
 Friday, March zid. 
 
 Dear friend, let nothing I have written above pain 
 you. I do not think that anything I said, without 
 any thought of unkindness, can be unkindly inter- 
 preted, but I wish to prevent you from feeling an- 
 noyed, even if such a feeling appears improbable. 
 
 Alas! how could I dare utter a complaint against 
 you, my Adèle, you who are so good, so tender, so 
 generous, so noble, so entirely devoted and self-sac- 
 rificing? To all the other virtues of your highly 
 endowed nature add all the noble and beautiful ones 
 that have their source in love. How can it happen, 
 dear and beloved Adèle, that a being such as you 
 are should be, so singularly, surrounded by narrow 
 minds and cold hearts? It is not on my own ac- 
 count that this environment afïïicts me. What can 
 it signify what such people think of me? It is for 
 you, who are obliged to live among them and to 
 have them treat j^ou like an equal, when you are so 
 immeasurably their superior. I suffer for you, 
 my noble love, who are being incessantly scruti- 
 nized by their peering eyes, judged by their petty 
 wisdom, tormented by their paltry tyranny. In- 
 deed, you seem to me like a dove among puddle- 
 
 i86
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ducks, and I should laugh at such an unnatural 
 combination did it not concern you. There are 
 many types of animals among mankind. 
 
 Dearest, it would be useless to tell you how much 
 the picture that you draw for me of our happiness at 
 Gentilly has touched and delighted me, although it 
 had already a pace in my expectation and in my 
 hopes. You must know, my dearest Adèle, that my 
 imagination has not been less ready than your own 
 to depict this felicity. 
 
 So great, indeed, does it appear to me, inured as I 
 have become to constant suffering, that I look sus- 
 piciously, and almost with dread, into a future when 
 I shall be free to enjoy without reservation. Young 
 as I am, grief is for me an old acquaintance, and one 
 whom I could not now renounce without cruelty. I 
 have become so accustomed to painful resignations! 
 Do not let us speak of such subjects any more. When 
 the sky above is so clear and so beautiful, why should 
 we ourselves create storms? The past is the past. 
 Do not let us force it to return and mingle with our 
 future. 
 
 Adèle, you have a Victor who loves you as no 
 woman has ever been loved before, and who knows, 
 because he is a man, that happiness can only be 
 attained through labor and peril. Be of good cour- 
 age, then. You will be my moral support in life, as I 
 shall be your physical reliance. We shall not fail 
 each other. A glance from you is sufficient to lead 
 me in any direction; it can raise me to heaven, and 
 it is able also to plunge me into the infernal regions. 
 Yes, dear love, the power that you exercise over a 
 
 187
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 man who felt, even when he was a child, the neces- 
 sity of being a man, ought to fill you with pride. I 
 am not alarmed at your immense superiority to me, 
 because it is the source of inspiration from which I 
 derive strength to reduce the distance between us. 
 Since my being is united to yours, it follows that it 
 must accompany you and walk worthily of you. 
 There are but few human ears capable of under- 
 standing the language that I use here in speaking 
 to you, but I know no one on earth more deserving 
 of being addressed through the heart and through 
 the soul than yourself. 
 
 Saturday, March 23d. 
 
 At last I shall see you daily! At last we shall 
 dwell under the same roof, while we live in anticipa- 
 tion of even greater happiness! Each morning^ 
 when I rise, I shall be able to see the first rays of the 
 sun reflected on the windows behind which all that I 
 hold most dear and most precious in this world will 
 be asleep ! I shall be stationed aloft upon that tower 
 like a sentinel who watches over your happiness and 
 your repose. I shall labor with more zeal, and with 
 even greater delight, when I realize that she who 
 is the reward of my labor is so near me. 
 
 Adèle, the only thing lacking to so great a happi- 
 ness is the presence of her who would, more than all 
 others, have rejoiced in it, for she was my mother; 
 she loved me, and she loved you also, you to whom 
 her son confides his honor and his felicity. Why 
 did she not really understand you? Only, my love, 
 because her observation stopped short at your sur- 
 
 188
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 roundings. She judged you by those whom j^ou are 
 far, indeed, from resembHng; her penetration did 
 not, Hke mine, extend into the depths of your soul. 
 If she had seen you as I see you, so noble, so superior, 
 so pure, she would certainly have loved and appreci- 
 ated you even more than I, your Victor, am able to 
 do. My continued and unchanging love for you ex- 
 cited her close observation ; my deep esteem for you 
 was slowly influencing her ; and had it not been for 
 the terrible misfortune that snatched her from us so 
 prematurely, we should, perhaps, have been happy 
 in her presence a year ago. 
 
 Forgive me, Adèle, for mingling such sad reflec- 
 tions with other and joyous thoughts; but you will 
 not blame me for devoting one moment, before I 
 abandon myself entirely to the exquisite enjoyment 
 of our own hopes, to that beloved mother for whose 
 memory you will one day, I hope, share my love and 
 worship. 
 
 It is not she who would have imposed such singu- 
 lar and almost offensive restrictions upon our re- 
 union. Holding us both in esteem, she would have 
 considered it humiliating to herself had she op- 
 pressed our freedom of intercourse. On the contrary, 
 it would have been her wish that we should prepare 
 ourselves for the holy intimacy of marriage by lofty 
 and intimate communion. She would have been 
 aware that there is nothing in my most secret 
 thoughts which could be dangerous to you, and 
 nothing in yours but what would be useful and 
 profitable to me. Your Victor would have consult- 
 ed you upon all subjects ; it would have been his de- 
 
 189
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 •light to reveal to you, when alone, all the mysteries 
 of poetry which touch so nearly the mysteries of the 
 soul and of virtue, and into which you are so worthy 
 to be initiated. 
 
 It would have been sweet to me to wander in the 
 evening, far from all disturbing sounds, under the 
 trees and amid the woodland, beside you, and in 
 the presence of a beautiful night! It is thus that 
 things for the greater part unknown manifest them- 
 selves to the soul. It is then that all the forms of 
 nature seem ecstatic and divine, and that everything 
 around us seems in harmony with the angel whom 
 we love. In such moments, my dearest, human 
 words are inadequate to embod}^ what we feel; but 
 you possess that rare intelligence which is able to 
 comprehend all that is beyond expression. Your 
 eyes, Adèle, are skilled to read all that others read in 
 them. They understand the celestial language that 
 they themselves speak. 
 
 For myself, I would have wished to studj^ in a de- 
 licious solitude, that soul which seems to me so exqui- 
 site in your beautiful expression, to watch all your 
 emotions, to listen to all 3^our doubts, to receive all 
 your confidences. I should have hoped to strengthen 
 myself with the sweetness and the depth of your con- 
 versation, to reveal to j^ou all which your modesty 
 renders you unable to appreciate in 3"ourself , to arouse 
 those lofty ideas which came into existence with you, 
 but which, it may be, still remain dormant, and to 
 show you what gratitude we both owe to God who 
 called us into being. 
 
 These are dreams, it appears. We are never alone, 
 ^ 190
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and, therefore, we are never together; for we must 
 be alone in order to be really together. Besides this, 
 no one in your home is capable of understanding the 
 language which I long to speak to you, as I speak 
 to a man of genius, and, indeed, to you much more 
 easily ; for such a soul as 3^ours is far above genius. 
 This language I speak here to you ; and in doing so 
 I have no fear that it will not be as clear to you as it 
 would be strange and incomprehensible to limited 
 minds and materialistic hearts. 
 
 Dear love, we are forced to reconcile ourselves to 
 holding intercourse only through letters. Even so 
 I shall be very happy, more happy than I had ven- 
 tured to hope. I shall see you, I shall talk to you 
 very frequently, and this constitutes happiness even 
 if I am not to possess you, which is a future hap- 
 piness that I am hardly able to imagine, but which, 
 notwithstanding, is to be mine. 
 
 Adieu, my Adèle my dearest wife; I do not think 
 you can complain of the brevity of this letter. You 
 say that you have written to me more than I have 
 written to you; listen, since the 8th of October, 1 821, 
 I have received thirty-two letters from yow, if 3^ou 
 have chanced to preserve those of mine, which date 
 from the same time, count them, and I am confident 
 that they will afford palpable proof that 3^our re- 
 proach is unfounded. Consider, also, how long my 
 letters are. Their length sometimes frightens m.e, 
 myself, because I am doubtful whether you read them 
 entirely. But yours I read, I re-read, I devour. 
 
 Adieu, although I have still a thousand things 
 to tell you. Adieu, my adored Adèle. Sleep well, 
 
 .191
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and on waking bestow a thought on me, for there will 
 be no place for me in your dreams until I shall inhabit 
 my dove-cot. 
 
 Yet once more, adieu, and in saying so, I embrace 
 you. 
 
 Saturday, March soth. 
 
 I have certainly done a great deal of work this 
 week, and I have attained very little by it, except 
 a great deal of happiness. Certainly it is not I who 
 will consider the present change a disadvantage. 
 Still, I should be better pleased if I could unite work 
 and pleasure. That is what will happen at Gentilly, 
 and it is for this reason that I am so desirous of be- 
 ing installed there. There, there will, at least, be 
 no more visits, no more letters, all my days will be 
 filled with my Adèle, and with my work. 
 
 This last week I have seen you five days, Sunday, 
 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. It is, 
 therefore, one of the happiest contained in my re- 
 membrance. But why should it be that all the time 
 which I might otherwise pass with you does not be- 
 long to me? The precious moments are consumed 
 in comings and goings, and wasted on conversation ; 
 this is an annoyance, both to my heart and my mind ; 
 for when I am not with you I feel your absence least 
 in a retirement devoted to labor; it seems to me, 
 Adèle, that working for your sake is almost like 
 being in your presence. It is true, however, that 
 this wearisome time spent in travelling back and 
 forth has also my Adèle as an object; therefore, 
 I ought not to complain. But all this will come 
 to an end, and nothing will remain, after these lit- 
 
 192
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 tie annoyances, but an immense and unalterable 
 felicity. 
 
 I look forward with terror to the annoyances that 
 will be entailed upon me by the publication of that 
 ode, and consequently of that collection, if I decide 
 definitely in favor of such a step. When I spoke, 
 just now, of the happiness of Gentilly I did not have 
 this in mind. All these accursed publications will 
 interfere with my complete enjoyment for some 
 time to come. They will oblige me to be so often 
 in Paris, in order to see printers, to speak to libraries, 
 to hurry workmen, and to correct proofs, etc., that I 
 am not sure but that this consideration alone is suf- 
 ficient to prevent my carrying the design into exe- 
 cution. What do you advise, my Adèle? I will do 
 as you say. But remember that I speak now only 
 of unavoidable embarrassments, and of those that 
 the author must discharge in person. What would 
 it be if I spoke to you of all the others that printing 
 commonly entails? 
 
 But I am resolved to do nothing to force success. 
 The habit now adopted by men of letters of going to 
 beg for fame from the journalists I regard as un- 
 worthy of a man who respects himself. A great 
 many persons consider this delicacy exaggerated, 
 but I am sure that you will not blame me for it. I 
 shall send my book to the newspapers; they will 
 notice it, if they judge proper to do so, but I will not 
 solicit their praise as though it were an alms. I 
 have been told as an objection to this course that the 
 newspapers have it in their power to make the suc- 
 cess of a poor book, or to ruin that of a masterpiece. 
 N 193
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I answer by giving examples of cases in which the 
 trick played upon the public has been of short dura- 
 tion, and time has restored a proper balance; it is 
 of much more consequence to me that the man who 
 goes to another and says. Praise me, does a contempti- 
 ble thing. If he is following custom, then I answer, 
 custom is contemptible; and do you judge for me, 
 Adèle, am I wrong? 
 
 Moreover, I have not, up to this time, taken a step 
 to advance myself with a single journalist, and it is, 
 perhaps, for this reason that the journalists accord 
 me some measure of consideration. They respect a 
 man who respects himself. I am sure that you will 
 find these opinions very obvious, dear love. And yet 
 — can you believe it? — they appear extravagant to 
 a crowd of people who, in spite of this, are neither 
 mad nor vile. Thus it is that the world adopts a 
 thousand conventionalities which are often senseless, 
 even when they are not revolting. 
 
 And, to take this occasion of speaking upon a 
 subject of interest to us both, is there anything more 
 ridiculous than the formalities with which it is cus- 
 iomsLxy to surround the holy ceremony of marriage? 
 Upon that morning one is overwhelmed, feted, bored. 
 One is the property of every indifferent person, of 
 all the world, in fact, except the being whom one 
 loves, and to whom one is of importance. It is con- 
 sidered necessary to talk in a loud voice, and to laugh 
 uproariously, as if it were possible to indulge in mer- 
 riment at a moment of such happiness. A man who 
 is deeply and truly happy is grave and serene; he 
 does not display gayet3^ What do his surroundings 
 
 194
 
 The Love Letters of l^ictor Hugo 
 
 matter to him? His enjoj^ment is within himself, or 
 even more within another, but that is all. When the 
 soul is thus steeped in happiness, it fears to overflow ; 
 it makes no effort to include indifferent people in its 
 gladness; it expands onlj^ to the soul that responds 
 to itself, and which is a sharer in the same joy. Great 
 emotions, Adèle, are mute; perfect happiness does 
 not indulge in laughter, neither does absorbing grief 
 find vent in tears. 
 
 These intimate mysteries of our moral organiza- 
 tion, dear love, are as well known to you as to me; 
 but it is surprising that they have been revealed to 
 so few. This is because, among us, the social mind 
 has altered the natural soul. 
 
 Thus, for example, instead of surrounding the hap- 
 piness of two 3^oung people with shade and silence, 
 it seems as though there could not be enough glare 
 and noise to invade it ; and to invade it is to profane 
 it. What do fêtes, banquets, and dances matter to 
 two hearts which love each other, and which are thus 
 united? Can all these add another happiness to 
 that of marriage? 
 
 Pardon me, dear love, but if I had my own way 
 nothing of tliis kind would occur. Some beautiful 
 day in summer, after having passed the happy hours 
 together with some true friends, who would, even 
 so, be unnecessary to our happiness, we would go 
 in the evening to walk alone in the fields, full of 
 sweet dreams and delicious emotions. A village 
 church would appear before us. Your Victor would 
 lead you to it; you yourself would have been in- 
 formed of nothing ; the altar would be adorned with 
 
 195
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 flowers; near the altar would be j^our parents and 
 our friends, forgotten during our walk. A priest 
 would come forward, and we should be united in a 
 moment, as if by enchantment. Then we would re- 
 turn home, side by side. All our dreams of a pure, 
 intimate, and noble union would be realized. Noth- 
 ing profane would mingle with things so sacred. 
 During the evening our sympathetic friends would 
 respect the angelic peace of our felicity. The next 
 day no indiscreet glance would disturb our happi- 
 ness ; no importunate word would probe the secret of 
 our souls and of our lives, or, rather, of our soul and 
 of our life. Adèle, this picture of our union transports 
 me ; if you love me, it will not be indifferent to you. 
 
 Oh, my Adèle! what does all this that I say to 
 you matter? Even in the midst of the most insipid 
 accessories the day of our marriage will be none the 
 less the most beautiful day of my life, together with 
 that day on which you deigned to own that you 
 loved me. 
 
 Adieu, my noble, my gentle, my beloved Adèle. It 
 is in no sense a humiliation for me to say that I am 
 not worthy to kiss the ground under your feet. I 
 do not know any one in the world who is worthy to 
 do so; and 3^et, in your adorable goodness, you will 
 permit me to embrace you, will you not? 
 
 Your Respectful and Faithful 
 Husband. 
 
 Monday, 10.15 p. m. 
 Dear love, I have just been cruelly defrauded of 
 a sweet hope. I had arranged to be at liberty this 
 
 196
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 evening at half-past seven, in order to see you once 
 more before the day ended, even though it was only 
 while getting into the carriage. At a quarter past 
 eight I was in the rue du Temple, for I thought that 
 you would not go out before the half hour. Nine 
 o'clock struck; I was still in the same place, and in 
 the same attitude. In short, it was not until after 
 nine o'clock that I lost all hope, being confident that 
 you would not return so late. Thus, instead of fol- 
 lowing afar ofï the carriage in which you sat, and 
 thereb}^ returning content, instead of this happiness 
 upon which I had counted, I was forced to retrace 
 my steps sadly along the streets to my own gloomy 
 house without having my Adèle before my eyes to 
 relieve the way of its tedium. I am now writing to 
 you, so that the day ends with a little happiness, 
 and you must pity me for not having arrived a 
 trifle sooner. 
 
 This long evening of useless expectation has car- 
 ried me back to the da3^s of our separation. The 
 extravagances of this kind which I then committed 
 would seem to you rather pitiable than acce])table, 
 if, indeed, they ought not to be altogether hidden 
 from you. Only, Adèle, when 3^ou tell me that I do 
 not love you, think again, because whatever idea 
 you may form of my devotion to you, you have, never- 
 theless, no conception of its reality. 
 
 I have something to say to you, Adèle, which em- 
 barrasses me very much. I am not fitted to say it 
 to you, and I do not know how to say it to you. I 
 can only commend myself to 3"our indulgence, and 
 trust you to regard only my intention. If 3^ou but 
 
 197
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 see it as it exists in my heart, you will appreciate it, 
 and it is that which emboldens me. I wish, Adèle, 
 that you were less afraid of soiling your dress, when 
 you walk in the street. Yesterday is not the first 
 time that I have observed with distress the precau- 
 tions that you take. ... I do not know whether you 
 do so in accordance with views held by your mother, 
 views which, to say the least, are singular, for it 
 seems to me that modesty is more valuable than a 
 dress, although a great many women think differ- 
 ently. I do not know how to describe to you, dear 
 love, the suffering I endured yesterday, and again 
 to-day, in the rue de Saints - Pères, from seeing 
 passers-by turn their heads, and perceiving that she 
 whom I respect as I do God himself was the object 
 (unaware to herself) of impudent observation under 
 my own eyes. I should have liked to warn you, my 
 Adèle, but I did not dare, for I did not know what 
 terms to employ to render you such a service. I do not 
 mean that your modesty need be seriously alarmed, 
 but such a little thing is sufficient for a woman to 
 attract attention from men upon the street! Never- 
 theless, I beg you, dearest Adèle, to be careful hence- 
 forward in regard to what I say here, unless you wish 
 me to box the ears of the first insolent bystander 
 whose glance dares to turn in your direction ; I have 
 had a great deal of trouble both 3"esterday and to- 
 day to repress the temptation to do this, and I 
 will not answer for being master of myself another 
 time. One thing is very sure, and that is that it is 
 in great part to this impatience and this torture 
 that you should attribute the air of annoyance 
 
 198
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 on account of which you have made me so many 
 reproaches,* 
 
 I have hesitated a long time, my love, before speak- 
 ing to you on this matter, which is somewhat delicate 
 in its nature, but it seemed to me that your husband, 
 who is your best friend, was the proper person to 
 bring it to your notice, and that it was no less my 
 duty to protect you from an insolent glance than 
 from any other insult. It will, doubtless, be quite 
 sufficient for me to have called your attention to the 
 subject, and I am quite aware that you can have act- 
 ed thus only from lack of thought, or from a too blind 
 
 *" . . . Marius followed Cosette with his eyes. . , . All at 
 once a puflf of wind more boisterous than the rest, and probably pre- 
 occupied with the affairs of spring, rushed around the nursery gar- 
 den, burst into the road, encircled the young girl in a delicious 
 blast, worthy of the nymphs of Virgil or the fauns of Theocritus, 
 and in doing so blew aside her dress, that robe more sacred than 
 those of Isis, almost as high as her garter. An exquisitely formed 
 calf was exposed to view, Marius saw it. He was furious with 
 exasperation. The young girl quickly lowered her dress with an 
 afifrighted movement, divinely modest, but none the less was he 
 indignant. How could such a thing be possible? What she had 
 just done was horrible. 
 
 "... Some one crossed the road. It was one of the invalides^ 
 bent, withered, and ghastly pale, dressed in the uniform of Louis 
 XV., bearing upon his breast the little oval badge of red cloth or- 
 namented with crossed swords, which is the soldier's cross of St. 
 Louis, and further decorated with a loose coat without inside sleeves, 
 a gray mustache and a wooden leg. It seemed to Marius that he 
 discerned an air of extreme satisfaction about this figure. It even 
 struck him that the elderly cynic hobbling towards him gave him 
 a friendly and joyous wink as if chance had put them in communi- 
 cal'-on, and they had some good joke in common. What had hap- 
 pened to occasion this dilapidated warrior such delight? What 
 was the connection between his wooden leg and the other just 
 spoken of? Marius gave way to a paroxysm of jealousy. 'It may 
 be that he caught sight of it !' he said to himself, and he was seized 
 with a desire to kill the ancient soldier." 
 
 199
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 obedience to your mother's wishes. What I say here 
 will only afford 3^ou an additional proof, though an 
 entirely unnecessary one, of that respect which falls 
 very little short of worship. My dearest Adèle, I 
 should be the very first person to honor your moth- 
 er's goodness, as well as all her other excellent qual- 
 ities, but I cannot help feeling that she is too indif- 
 ferent towards certain conventionalities, while she 
 originates, as it were in return, a great many others 
 that are very useless. 
 
 For example, can there be a more pernicious maxim 
 than that which you have quoted to me — that a wom- 
 an should he more reserved with the man she is going 
 to marry than with any one else ? For mj^^self, I 
 frankly admit that it would, in itself, be sufficient to 
 make me avoid a young girl who put it into practice. 
 But you, my Adèle, you have an exquisite instinct, 
 which teaches 3^ou all the proprieties. There is in 
 3^our moral organism something which strikes me as 
 miraculous when I consider how your soul has 
 emerged, whole and pure, from all the false ideas 
 which have surrounded it from infancy. 
 
 Adieu. You are an angel, and yet I dare to love 
 you. Last Monda3^ at this same hour, I was very 
 happy. Adieu, adieu. Sleep well. I will try to see 
 you to-morrow morning. 
 
 I embrace thee tenderly. 
 
 Thy Husband. 
 
 Write me a verj^ long letter, and remember the por- 
 trait, which, after ^^ourself, will be for your Victor 
 the most precious thing that he has in the world. 
 
 200
 
 Victor Hugo, aged 28
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Thursday, April 4th. 
 
 I had hoped to see you this morning at church. I 
 waited for you a long time, and entirely in vain. I 
 shall come back at three o'clock, and if I do not see 
 you then, I shall at least have the consolation of hav- 
 ing done for you what you would certainly not have 
 done for me. This will be at once a consolation and 
 a distress, for one always wishes to be beloved in the 
 same measure that one loves. 
 
 You complain, dear love, that I write to you, so 
 you say, less than formerly. It seems to me that 
 this complaint is very unfounded. If I listened to 
 my own wishes, Adèle, I would devote to the happi- 
 ness of writing to you all the hours that I cannot 
 consecrate to the happiness of seeing you. But this 
 would be egoism, and you would be the first to re- 
 mind me that all my hours should be employed use- 
 fully, rather than agreeably, and that I ought not, 
 as yet, to think of spending all my time on things 
 that are for mj^ own pleasure. I assure you I am 
 obliged to exercise all mj^ self-restraint not to send 
 you each week an immense packet, in which one 
 solitary idea, that of love and marriage, is reproduced 
 under all its forms and in all its phases. All occu- 
 pations which do not lead me directly to you are 
 without interest to me, and they must be of the most 
 necessary kind for me to resign myself to pursuing 
 them. Thus, when my days are passed in the most 
 wearisome manner, in the midst of the multifarious 
 business that is iuvSeparable from a profession and a 
 reputation, I recompense myself for all my fatigue 
 by writing to you. I forget, when doing so, that 
 
 201
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 there is an external world around me, that it is filled 
 with men moving to and fro in pursuit of good and 
 evil, and with a constant procession of events, while 
 the heavens above it are full of stars and of clouds ; I 
 forget everything, in short, to think only of her with 
 whom, for me, this moral and physical universe is 
 peopled, and without whom I should wander in it as 
 in a desert. In these moments of oblivion, when the 
 remembrance of you, and of you alone, dominates 
 every idea, and when my thoughts can cling to you 
 unreservedly and without distraction, it seems to me 
 that I am enabled to contemplate the things of this 
 earth from a lofty elevation. Then, just as I weep 
 at those things which excite men to laughter, so I 
 feel within myself an impulse to laugh at that which 
 moves them to tears. At such times I am able to 
 separate distinctly the animal in humanity from the 
 soul, which is divine. The contempt aroused in me 
 by wholly material griefs renders me the more sen- 
 sitive to the slightest suffering arising from the heart. 
 Adèle, all these things of which life is composed 
 take on a new face when one loves. When the soul 
 is steeped in love, which is, indeed, its natural life, 
 it acquires a new power by which to observe that 
 world in the midst of which it is in exile. One be- 
 comes indulgent, because one is filled with the per- 
 ception that if one is to be severe, one has need to be 
 so ceaselessly; one recognizes that very few things 
 on earth deserve hatred and indignation, and that 
 one must regard the folly and baseness of the mass 
 of mankind with very little contempt and abundant 
 pity. 
 
 202
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 You are afraid that there is no steadfastness in 
 my principles : reassure yourself, my love. It is not 
 for me to be lacking in pity for others. I am too con- 
 scious of my own deficiencies, and I feel them above 
 all when I converse with you, my beloved Adèle. 
 More than this, you do not know how to imagine 
 with what incredible tenderness I surround all my 
 brothers in humanit\\ I accustomed myself early 
 to seek in any evil which was done me for the motive 
 that had actuated a man thus to injure me. Thus 
 my anger is almost always changed in a moment 
 into a continued and profound compassion. It even 
 happens, verj^ often, that I find a praiseworthy prin- 
 ciple as the source of an evil action. And when this 
 is the case, you will admit that there is little merit 
 in consoling oneself for the injury received and in 
 pardoning it. I return always to the thought that 
 I cannot expect from ordinary mortals the perfection 
 of my Adèle. After this reflection it is very easy 
 for me to be indulgent. 
 
 Dear love, it is very remarkable that love has usual- 
 ly been regarded as folly, madness, a diseased con- 
 dition, etc. Yet love teaches the most beautiful of 
 philosophies. I have occupied you with very serious 
 thoughts, but your mind must feel itself at home 
 among them as in a native countr3^; for I am sure 
 that there is nothing in what I have here expressed so 
 feebly that you do not feel as I do, and more than I do. 
 It is only yourself whom I admit to these intimate 
 meditations. They can be understood only by a heart 
 which lives at the same time in both innocence and 
 love. A child could not 3'et comprehend them; an 
 
 203
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 old man could no longer do so. It is this youth of the 
 
 soul, Adèle, which we shall always preserve, if your 
 
 affection for your Victor is eternal, as his tenderness 
 
 for you will be. 
 
 Adieu for to-day. I am going to Saint Sulpice. 
 
 Shall you be there? 
 
 Friday, April sth. 
 
 I saw you yesterday evening after all, and I am, 
 therefore, altogether happy. What is this enchant- 
 ress's spell that 3^ou exercise upon me? In spite of 
 the fact that I now see you very often, 3^our presence 
 always produces the same effect upon me, and with 
 the same force. If I perceive you at a distance, even 
 at a great distance, as it was yesterday when I rec- 
 ognized you from the rue d'Assis, my heart beats 
 and I redouble my steps, just as I did when I saw 
 you only at long intervals, during brief moments, and 
 thanks to long-watched-for accidents. My Adèle, do 
 what I will, I cannot figure to myself what will be 
 my felicity when we are united. Forgive me for so 
 constantly repeating the same thing to you, but I 
 have only one thought, and to whom should I say 
 it if not to you? Adieu for to-day. I am going to 
 employ myself in packing my trunk for that retreat 
 in which so much happiness is in store for me. This 
 evening I must undergo the weariness of paying 
 some calls. Adieu ; to-morrow the day will be beauti- 
 ful to me from the moment that I rise, for I shall pass 
 my morning in writing to you, and the rest of my 
 day at your side. Adieu, adieu! I will not begin 
 another line because I should not be able to cease^ 
 it costs me so much to leave the paper blank. 
 
 204
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Saturday Morning, April 6th, 1822. 
 I was much distressed and very indignant, on 
 Sunday, dear love, to hear with what infamous slan- 
 ders the memory of my mother has been soiled in 
 your mind. I have implored you to believe noth- 
 ing of the sort, and I have so conjured you because 
 it is of vital importance to me that she who shares 
 my life should not think evil of her to whom I owe 
 that life itself. Adèle, if you have any esteem for 
 your Victor, think that the woman who has been 
 accused of such a vile calumny towards a young 
 girl is she who nursed me, who brought me up; if 
 this consideration is nothing to you, think of what ex- 
 cellent virtues this noble mother gave us an example 
 in the midst of the greatest griefs. My mother com- 
 plained very little, j^et she suffered much. And 
 while inspiring in her children a horror of the vice 
 that wrecked her own life, she often said that her 
 misery would itself create the happiness of those 
 whom her sons married. Alas, that she was not per- 
 mitted to witness the accomplishment of her predic- 
 tion! I regret, dear love, that you did not speak to 
 me earlier in regard to this imposture, designed, no 
 doubt, to injure me in 3"our esteem, for mj^ mother's 
 memory would then have been the sooner cleared 
 from this odious slander. For, dear love, I do not 
 doubt that you have by this time reflected on the 
 baselessness of such an accusation. I will not, 
 therefore, attach any importance to it. I will only 
 tell you that I never heard my mother speak of 3^our 
 family or of yourself with angry feeling to a stranger ; 
 on the contrary, when by chance 3'our name was 
 
 205
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 introduced into the conversation, which, to tell the 
 truth, happened but rarely, she spoke of you only 
 in terms of esteem and friendsliip. 
 
 I will tell you with the same frankness, that when 
 my mother was alone with me, and saw me always 
 sad, gloomy, and depressed, she sometimes gave 
 vent to her distress in complaints against me and 
 against you ; but as soon as she saw clearly that my 
 sadness was only increased by this she kept silence. 
 I admit that she did all that she could, with loyalty, 
 to banish you from my memory ; she tried to distract 
 me with the dissipations of the world; she would 
 have liked me to intoxicate myself with the joys of 
 self-love. My poor mother ! she herself had implant- 
 ed in my heart a disdain for the world and a con- 
 tempt for false pride. She saw very plainly that 
 everything palled upon me, because I had set my 
 heart elsewhere than in joys that fade and pleasures 
 which are evanescent. I never spoke of you, but 
 she read in my eyes that I thought ceaselessly of you. 
 
 Why should this noble mother have been am- 
 bitious for me? Why did she desire for her son a 
 prosperit}^ which is not happiness? Among all the 
 wisdom that regulated her own conduct, one wise 
 perception alone failed her : she forgot that the soul 
 cannot be nourished by riches and honor, and that 
 life loses always in happiness what it gains in 
 brilliancy. This error of my mother's will some 
 time or other be a great lesson to me. Should I, in 
 my own maturity, conceive well-calculated projects 
 and worldly expectations for my children, I will not 
 permit these to take precedence of their affections, 
 
 _2o6
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 or of the inclinations that arise in their own hearts; 
 provided always that I am sure of the purity of such 
 inclinations and the nobleness of such affections. I 
 would endeavor to direct my children by my own 
 experience towards their greatest happiness, but I 
 would never attempt to destroy that which is inde- 
 structible — a virtuous love in a pure nature. 
 
 Adèle, my beloved Adèle, you will share these cares, 
 you will aid me by your counsels, and if ever (which 
 is impossible) I should forget what I say here, and 
 should wish to treat an innocent passion with sever- 
 ity, you yourself will remind me, my sweet Adèle, 
 of what your husband at twenty years resolved for 
 the father at forty. This will come true, will it not 
 — this delightful occupation of studying our chil- 
 dren in our own home, and observing their progress 
 through what we have ourselves experienced; of 
 seeing them live over, and live over happily, all the 
 story of our own youth? Then, dear love, we shall 
 be able to say, like my noble mother, that their hap- 
 piness has arisen from our suffering. 
 
 Adieu, my Adèle ; I shall see you in a few moments. 
 This very evening I shall live under the same roof 
 with you. Embrace me in anticipation of so much 
 happiness. Adieu, my wife ; adieu, my adored Adèle. 
 I embrace you a thousand and a thousand times. 
 
 MAY AND JUNE 
 Residence at Gentilly 
 
 Monday, May 6th, 5 a. m. 
 How can you suggest, Adèle, that anj^ other occu- 
 pation gives me as much delight as writing to you, 
 
 207
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 I who, if I dared, would spend in this way every mo- 
 ment that I cannot pass at your side, in order that the 
 nature of my happiness, only, might be changed? 
 Frankly, I cannot believe that this reproach is seri- 
 ous on your part. Must I tell you all? To write 
 to you is for me such an exquisite joy that all ensu- 
 ing work becomes uninteresting and almost impos- 
 sible to me. How can you expect me to pass tran- 
 quilly from an emotion at once so sweet and so pro- 
 found to wholly indifferent considerations? How 
 can you desire that I should attempt to paint imag- 
 inary joys and sorrows when I am still overflowing 
 with my own sorrow or my own joy? Do not find 
 fault with me, Adèle. You do not understand the pe- 
 culiar suffering that is caused by the forcible exer- 
 cise of one's imagination on a thousand different 
 and indifferent things when one's whole being is 
 absorbed in one single memory, one single idea. It 
 is for you alone that my work is undertaken, from 
 you always that my inspirations proceed; but al- 
 though your image presides over all my thoughts, 
 the nature of my ideas, which is necessarily varied, 
 often necessitates its influencing them from a dis- 
 tance, on which account it only partially suffices me. 
 Now, dear love, do not attempt to scold me for these 
 confidences, and, above all, do not make me the most 
 unjust of all reproaches — that of not finding pleas- 
 ure in the thing which, from my own point of view, 
 is its chief source. Oh, my Adèle, when will you 
 believe in the extent of my love? 
 
 You reminded me in your last letter that it was a 
 long time since I had spoken to j^ou of writing to 
 
 208
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 me. This silence, which, in truth, has cost me a 
 great deal, arose only from the fact that knowing 
 you to be a great deal with your mother, I feared to 
 seem uselessly importunate. I will not disguise from 
 you that your complaint, although it had no founda- 
 tion, was a source of pleasure to me. I perceived 
 with delight that you had observed what had been 
 so painful to me, and I own that I m3^self should 
 have been keenly distressed if you had passed three 
 weeks without writing to me, and without yourself 
 perceiving the fact- I allow myself to be carried 
 3.\Y3iy, and I do not notice that the morning has 
 passed without my having worked a little for my 
 Adèle. My only happiness at present, my dear and 
 very unjust Adèle, would be to be able to talk to you 
 all the time that I am with you, and to write to you 
 all the time that I am at a distance. But alas! 
 it is always necessary to forego what one most 
 desires. 
 
 Adèle, if you still doubt my love, I will ask of 
 heaven but one thing more, and that is to show you, 
 once only, my naked soul, such as it is, in its inex- 
 pressible teaiderness for you, and then to let me die. 
 Adèle, Adèle, no one in the world, not even your 
 mother, loves you with a love that approaches mine, 
 even at an extreme distance. This is nothing more 
 than the truth, for no one knows you as I do. 
 
 Oh, how I love you! Will you come to me in the 
 morning? The more I see you, the more I have need 
 of seeing you. Adieu, adieu, my adored wife. An- 
 swer me if it is possible to do so. Your sweet letter 
 of yesterday gave me so much happiness! 
 
 o 209
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Tuesday Morning. 
 
 You wish that I should write to you before doing 
 anything else, dear love! You have a great deal of 
 confidence in my poor discretion to believe that, after 
 I have enjoyed the pleasure of writing to you in the 
 morning, I shall be able to accomplish anything in 
 the remainder of the day. 
 
 When I write to you, as I am doing now, I begin 
 where I ought to leave off ; for this happiness should 
 be the evening's recompense for labor, while, as it is, 
 it will, on the contrary, make the work in store for me 
 very onerous, by force of the contrast which must 
 unavoidably arise, 
 
 I shall be obliged, however, to find strength to tear 
 myself from you, my Adèle, in order to devote my- 
 self to some insipid correspondence and that eternal 
 romance.* When wdll you, at last, be at my side to 
 lend charm and interest to these wearisome occupa- 
 tions ? 
 
 And yet, dear love, when I dream of that time I 
 ask myself if I shall really have sufficient force of 
 mind to devote myself to my occupation when you 
 are alwaj^^s near me. It seems to me that I shall 
 need a supernatural strength to refrain from passing 
 the whole day in communion with you; it seems to 
 me that I shall be able to occupy myself only in 
 caressing you, in covering you with kisses and en- 
 dearments. M}'^ angel, tell me, would you wish me 
 to refuse to abandon myself to this intoxicating hap- 
 piness, when I shall be free to enjoy it? It must be 
 
 * Han d'Islande. 
 210
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 you, dearest Adèle, who will restrain me when it is 
 necessary, for never, no, never, should I achieve 
 such a painful victor}^ over myself! 
 
 But it is true, dear love, that the desire to see you 
 rich and happy, entirely happy, is all-powerful with 
 me, and that you will only need to recall me by a 
 word, in order to make me deny myself at once the 
 sweetest of all felicities. I wish to keep a little of 
 this happiness in store by writing to you this even- 
 ing. Therefore, adieu, for the moment. 
 
 May I2th, 5.15 P. M. 
 
 Dear love, I have just finished working, and I am 
 going to anticipate by writing to you the happy mo- 
 ment when I shall see 3"ou. I own that when I reflect 
 that I am still separated from j^ou by the time re- 
 quired to fill this page and a half, I cannot glance over 
 its extent without a certain terror. The happiness 
 of writing to you is, after all, so very different from 
 the happiness of seeing you ! I do not know why it 
 is, but the more I see you, the more I feel how neces- 
 sary the sight of j^ou is to m}^ existence; every day 
 I tell myself that it is impossible to be more perfect 
 than you are, and every evening I go to rest with 
 the conviction that I have discovered in you some 
 new perfection. This state of things has lasted for 
 such a long time, my Adèle, that it would of itself 
 be sufficient proof that my love for you will never end. 
 Oh, if you only loved me, how happy we should be! 
 
 When my thoughts travel back to that sad time, 
 which is now over, and when I compare it with the 
 happiness that I am so soon to enjoy, I stand amazed 
 
 211
 
 The Love Letters of yictor Hugo 
 
 at the distance that hfe can cover in so brief an in- 
 terval. I beheve that it is, indeed, but a step from 
 the depths of despair to the height of happiness. 
 And when I look back, from the point I have now 
 reached, to the condition I was in a year ago, I feel 
 like a traveller who regards with terror an abyss 
 from which he has just escaped. 
 
 I say to myself often: Perhaps we have still 
 many trials to undergo, many annoyances to bear, 
 it may even be many griefs to endure ; but it is im- 
 possible that we should ever live over again this ter- 
 rible past. Our happy future has been paid for in 
 advance by so much suffering, that one could not a 
 second time endure such misery without dying. 
 What does it matter to us, after all? Whatever 
 trials may yet be in store for us, if we support them 
 together we shall not suffer under them; is this not 
 true, my dearest love? Ah! if you love me, Adèle, 
 you will not deny this. But yes! you do love me, 
 my adored Adèle, you do love me, since I live! 
 
 Saturday, May 25th. 
 I spent a happy day yesterday. Those fatigues 
 that I endured for you and near you were sweet to 
 me. When your lips approached mine, when your 
 gentle hand, in wiping my brow, rested on my fore- 
 head, I would not have given those moments, Adèle, 
 for all the happiness in heaven and earth. Some- 
 times I have moments of intoxicating happiness. 
 At these times I ask myself what I have done to merit 
 them, and I find that I am in no way deserving, 
 and that all I have suffered is little, indeed, to at- 
 
 212 ^
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 tain the blissful future which is before my eyes. I 
 am worthy of you, my adored Adèle, only because 
 I am sensible that no one can be so. At least, you 
 will have in me a husband who will appreciate you 
 and honor you as you should be appreciated and hon- 
 ored. What sometimes makes me believe that I am 
 a little the superior of other men is that it is not given 
 to them as it is to me to feel your angelic superiority. 
 It must be that there is some faculty in my soul 
 which is lacking to theirs. But in other respects, 
 what am I that I should share your life? Never- 
 theless, Adèle, I shall share it. No, I cannot un- 
 derstand how such great unworthiness can merit 
 and experience such great happiness. 
 
 I am going to see you in a few moments; in a 
 few moments I shall know if your night was peace- 
 ful, if you think of me both sleeping and waking, 
 if you felt during this long morning a little wish 
 for the arrival of that hour which must unite me to 
 you. Adèle, for myself, it is these ideas which com- 
 pletely fill m3^ life; or, rather, there is only one idea 
 which does so. Does she think of nie ? Has she 
 thought of me ? And if ever an inner voice should 
 answer no, if ever I cease to possess the conscious- 
 ness that you love me, Adèle, then I shall cease to 
 exist, because mj^ existence will have no further sus- 
 tenance, because my soul will no longer have any 
 mission among the souls of men. Take care, Adèle, 
 for what I say to you is the naked truth, and I do 
 not believe that you could ever desire my death. 
 
 Adieu, my adored angel. I embrace you tenderly. 
 Answer me as soon as you are able to do so. Adieu. 
 
 213
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Monday. 
 
 I wish, my adored Adèle, that I could tell you all 
 that is passing in my soul at this moment. You 
 would not say to me then, as you so often do, that 
 you are unhappy. I wish that I could seize the 
 vague and sweet reverie which that transitory mo- 
 ment of delight occasions me. Ah! when will you 
 belong to me, my angel, in the sight of all men? 
 When shall I be able to enjoy every moment of the 
 day this happiness which has just escaped me like 
 a dream, and other happiness even greater still? I 
 can hardly believe, in truth, that this will be possi- 
 ble; but, nevertheless, it shall be so, for a day will 
 come when my caresses will no longer be cut short 
 by the alarm of my Adèle, and when, perhaps, she 
 will deign to return those of her husband. Oh, shall 
 I not then die of happiness? 
 
 I wish that you could know with what idolatrous 
 devotion my whole being prostrates itself before 
 yours, with what a profound sentiment of respect and 
 love I kiss the ground beneath your feet. Yes, 
 Adèle, nothing of all this is exaggerated; these are 
 truths only too feebly expressed. What have I done 
 that God should graciously permit me to be loved 
 by an angel, by my adored Adèle? Adieu, my 
 happiness, my life, my joy, adieu; I embrace you, 
 and I embrace you yet once more. 
 
 Paris, Wednesday Morning, June ^th. 
 My dearest Adèle, the first time I see you I should 
 like to throw myself at your knees, and kiss the ground 
 under your feet. If you knew what happiness your 
 
 214
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 letters afford me, and with what courage they inspire 
 me, you would spend all the time in which we are 
 not together in writing to me. For myself, when 
 I write to you, I wish to let my pen follow the dic- 
 tates of my own heart. It seems to me when I take 
 up this sweet occupation it will be easy to me to tell 
 you all that is in my soul; but I am suddenly sur- 
 prised to find that I cannot express what I feel, and 
 what I wish to say. Adèle, all that the mere thought 
 of you causes me to feel is inexpressible. You fill 
 my soul as if I had a divinity, a heaven on earth, 
 for myself alone. I wish, sometimes, to adore you 
 with idolatrous worship, my Adèle. You inspire me 
 with all the tender, noble, and generous sentiments 
 of which your own nature is composed. I respect 
 you, I venerate you, I esteem j^ou, I admire you, I 
 love you to the point of adoration ; and when you tell 
 me to repeat often that I am your husband, you can- 
 not divine what is the extent of my joy and of my 
 pride! Oh, yes, I am your husband, your defender, 
 your protector, your slave; on the day that I lose 
 that conviction, I am assured that my very existence 
 will cease, because there will no longer be any foun- 
 dation for my life. Adèle, you are the only person 
 to whom I can confide all that within me which de- 
 sires, loves, and hopes — that is to say, my soul itself. 
 If it is of any importance to 3^ou to spare me a lively 
 distress, do not, I implore you, dearest, repeat to 
 me again that the proofs of tenderness and devotion 
 which you deign to bestow upon me can ever inspire 
 me with any other sentiment than that of the deepest 
 and most respectful gratitude. If you only knew how 
 
 215
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 great is my delight when I find that she to whom 
 I have confided my happiness confides, in her turn, 
 in me; when you allow me, without fear, to enfold 
 your pure and virginal form in my arms, it seems to 
 me that you could give me no higher proof of esteem, 
 and I cannot tell you how great is my pride in be- 
 ing so esteemed by an angel like yourself! There- 
 fore, your husband ventures to hope that you will 
 not be inexorable, and that if you love him, you will 
 not refuse him a few mornings like that happy one 
 of the day before yesterday. I entreat you so ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 Saturday, July 20th. 
 
 Take care, Adèle, not to accuse me again of not 
 caring to write to you, or I may henceforward spend 
 all my time in doing so. You tell me truly that I 
 can easily devote an hour to an hour and a half each 
 day to writing to you, and you would be right, if an 
 hour or an hour and a half were sufficient for me to 
 write to you in. You do not know, dear love, after 
 what long meditation I begin these letters. It seems 
 to me that when I converse thus with you, I cannot 
 sufficiently search the depths of my soul. If I lis- 
 tened only to my own perpetual thought, if I gave 
 free play to my pen, I should write to you continu- 
 ally that I loved you, and always that I love you, 
 unless I devoted myself to describing to you all 
 the sentiments that this solitary, this splendid idea 
 arouses in my heart; otherwise, Adèle, these letters 
 would be simple repetitions one of another. 
 
 This explanation has doubtless wearied you, but 
 now that it has been given, dear love, do not again 
 
 216
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 repeat a cruel reproach, which ought not to present 
 itself to your heart, because it is cruel, nor to your 
 mind, because it is unjust. You, who are so kind 
 and so gentle, you would not wish to give pain to 
 your Victor? And I ask you, Adèle, my darling, 
 how can you doubt for a single moment the happi- 
 ness that I enjoy from pouring out thus in these 
 letters all that can be expressed of the inexpressible 
 love that I have for you? 
 
 You do not know, Adèle, what a weight was on 
 my heart during the sad period of our separation — 
 the burning passion that I was obliged to keep sealed 
 up in my heart, and which devoured me. Do you 
 recall or have you still the first letter that I then 
 wrote you? Alas, Adèle, do you remember what a 
 welcome you, at first, accorded it? ... I do not 
 blame you, my angel, for you knew very little of 
 me in those times. It is a year to-day since I arrived 
 from Dreux. Let us not complain of heaven. To-day 
 I am very near to my happiness, and on the day of 
 that arrival I was far from believing that a year 
 would suffice to place it within my reach. Oh, my 
 Adèle, forgive me, for I am doubting you, and I be- 
 lieve that all my happiness is disappearing. For- 
 give me ! for you have sufficiently proved to me that 
 your beautiful soul is made for all the noble virtues 
 of a constant, pure, and devoted love. Oh! how I 
 love 3^ou ! how I have always loved you ! And why 
 should I complain of life, since I have found in it 
 an angel like yourself as a companion?
 
 The Love Letters of Victor HtLgo 
 
 RETURN TO PARIS* 
 
 Tuesday Morning, 
 
 I have just awakened, my Adèle, overcome with 
 sadness at not doing so in the same house with yoiir- 
 self. You will not be able to comprehend how long 
 and unbearable the days spent at Paris seem to me. 
 All my time is a desert; all my days are empty, 
 notwithstanding they are filled with a multitude of 
 distractions that certainly did not follow me to Gen- 
 tilly. Alas, Adèle, when shall I have you always 
 beside me? At this moment you are far from your 
 Victor ; your attention is given to others ; you think 
 no longer of our happiness at Gentilly; you laugh, 
 perhaps, while he whose thoughts are absorbed by 
 you is here alone, sad, and yet thinking with dis- 
 taste of the moment when he will be obliged to cease 
 being alone, and to leave ofï appearing sad. 
 
 The day before yesterday, at the same hour, how 
 happy I was! Why should such moments pass? 
 Why cannot two human beings who love each other 
 spend their lives in each other's presence? Adèle — oh ! 
 I wish to believe that this happiness will be granted 
 us. I will believe it, for otherwise I should flee from 
 the long future which I have still to live through. 
 But why, if this happiness is in store for your Victor, 
 may he not enjoy it now? Would the prompt fulfil- 
 ment of our destiny derange in some respect the fate 
 of other men? Or is it a matter of consequence 
 to the Deity that our eternity of happiness should 
 begin a few months earlier or later? 
 
 * They only returned to Gentilly on rare and brief occasions. 
 
 2l8
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 When I think of all this, I am ready to murmur 
 like an idiot. If there is an exceptional case, it is 
 mine ; and yet I complain ! But tell me, my dearest 
 Adèle, is it not excusable to abandon oneself to im- 
 patience when one is awaiting the day on which a 
 life, that has hitherto been so full of suffering, will be 
 united to that of the purest angel who has ever ex- 
 isted? Yes, Adèle, it is as impossible to exaggerate 
 in speaking of you as in speaking of the love which 
 you deserve and which you inspire. Alas! and yet 
 I was capable of causing you to shed tears the day 
 before j^esterday. . . . Angel, at such moments I am 
 very much to blame, but I entreat you to believe that 
 I am also very unhappy. I cannot tell you all that 
 passes within me when I see my adored Adèle weep- 
 ing on my account! And if this happens in a mo- 
 ment of happiness, oh, then what I feel is beyond 
 expression. It is both heaven and hell. 
 
 Adieu for this morning, my Adèle. I am going to 
 see you soon for a few minutes. That is a happiness 
 that I enjoy a long time in advance. 
 
 Wednesday Evening, 
 You cannot realize at this moment, dear love, how 
 much good those few words of yours caused me! 
 You will be pleased, for you love me, and it must, 
 therefore, be sweet to you to perceive with what pas- 
 sion I love you in return. Do not tell me, however, 
 that I shall never understand to what an extent you 
 love me. What affection cannot I comprehend, 
 Adèle, I who love you with a love that is infinite and 
 eternal? Love me as much as I love you, my angel, 
 
 219
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and we shall enjoy the most perfect happiness that 
 life can contain. 
 
 How can you fear that I should ever desert you? 
 No ! my dearest Adèle, your husband will be your 
 companion in joy and sorrow, until death, and beyond 
 it. This is the thought which fills his soul and 
 inspires him with confidence. Adieu, my adored 
 Adèle. I will conclude to-morrow. I am going to 
 kiss your letter and the lock of your hair. That will, 
 perhaps, enable me to sleep as I hope you are now 
 sleeping at this moment. Adieu. 
 
 Thursday Morning, 
 I will not tell you that my first thought is for my 
 Adèle, for, as I think and dream continually of you, 
 I can offer 3^ou neither first nor last thoughts, but 
 the single thought which alone dominates my soul 
 and my whole life. And you, Adèle, have you slept 
 well? How I weary to see you, to read what you 
 wrote to me last evening! I hope that you have no 
 further distress, or, at any rate, that you will have 
 none this evening when I see you. Oh, my Adèle, I 
 shall not see 3^ou till this evening ! I had formed the 
 habit of happiness by seeing j^ou often, and every 
 day, and this sweet custom only renders me un- 
 happy in Paris. 
 
 Thursday Evening, 
 Alas! . . . My Adèle, it is with this word that 
 all my letters should now begin. I am very un- 
 happy. It seems to me a bad omen that I should 
 see you so seldom, and only in the midst of so much 
 embarrassment. Perhaps I should believe — and I 
 
 220
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 adopt the idea eagerly because it comes from j^ou — 
 that I have not yet sufficiently paid for the immense 
 happiness which is so near me. I have indeed suf- 
 fered greatl}^ but I am going to be so happy! Ah, 
 no suffering could pa}^ for this felicitj''. 
 
 Adèle, alas, I do not know how to tell you of the 
 state of my soul. I think of our future happiness 
 which is approaching, and I am sad ! Dear love, you 
 are at this moment the victim of so many annoyances, 
 so many cares! Angel, the handkerchief steeped in 
 your tears is not yet dry. How can I think of joy? 
 
 And this guarantee which is forever promised, and 
 which still does not come! Adèle, must I own to you 
 my weakness? These delays are torturing me at 
 present, because they disquiet 3^ou. I have confi- 
 dence only in your confidence, as I have joy only in 
 your jo3^ and pain only in your pain. Dear love, 
 when I think of those who are, perhaps, holding 
 my happiness in both their hands, I experience in- 
 expressible emotions of rage and grief. Yes, rage! 
 Oh, the man who obliges me to delaj^ for one month 
 the happiness of possessing you will not be acting in 
 his own interest. The happiness that comes to me 
 through you, Adèle, is sacred. Cursed be he who 
 interferes with it, or who ever shall interfere with it! 
 
 Adieu for this evening. To-morrow I hope to be 
 able to continue. Why cannot I write to you with- 
 out ceasing? Why am I obliged to work? 
 
 Friday, 
 I have very little time before me, dear love, for it 
 is nearly six o'clock. I have just finished my work 
 
 221
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 and dined. My whole day has disappeared without 
 my being able to write to you. All my days, Adèle, 
 are sad now, and insipid. Keep up your courage, I 
 entreat you, for my own is very nearly exhausted. 
 I had three such happy months before this sad one! 
 I had become accustomed to happiness; I almost 
 believed it was life itself. And now I am forced to 
 resume this insupportable existence, which so cruelly 
 recalls to me the past year. I must lay aside those 
 habits which it was so sweet to me to learn, and I 
 must resume the habits which it had been so sweet 
 to me to abandon. 
 
 But even at Gentilly, where I was so happy, Adèle, 
 something was lacking; everything was lacking! 
 I shall only be perfectly happy when I can pass 
 all my time at your side; and you will remember 
 that this was very far from being the case at Gen- 
 tilly. And yet, what would I not give to be there 
 still? 
 
 I remember with delight my walks to Arcueil, and 
 to Bourg-la-Reine, etc. I recall our water parties, 
 where I had the happiness of steering the boat which 
 carried you ; I recall often, with joy, and yet with 
 inexpressible sadness, those little brief visits which 
 my adored wife deigned to make me during the morn- 
 ings in my happy tower. I live again within myself 
 those moments of intoxicating enjoyment. Oh! tell 
 me that they will return, my darling Adèle, and that 
 they will then bring us an even greater happiness, a 
 more complete felicity. . . . Forgive me for saying 
 we, but you yourself wish that I should believe in 
 your love, and how, indeed, can I live if I do not 
 
 2.22
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 believe in it? Adèle, I would give twenty years of 
 my life to be only two months older! 
 
 Tuesday, 8.30 a. m. 
 I wish to relieve myself this morning of some mo- 
 ments of annoyance, and of one annoj^ance in par- 
 ticular. What are you doing at this instant? Have 
 you slept well, my Adèle? Are you thinking of me? 
 Are you writing to me? What are you sa3àng to me? 
 What is in your thoughts? Ah! is it right that I 
 should be forced to ask these questions of myself at 
 every moment of the day? Ought I not to be contin- 
 ually in your presence? It is really true that I am 
 conscious of my soul and of my life only when I see 
 your face and hear your voice. At a distance from 
 this happiness all is dark around me, and I am, in 
 a certain sense, indifferent to my own identity. I 
 see objects move around me, I hear sounds enun- 
 ciate themselves, but nothing interests me, and only 
 something of an unusual character can draw me from 
 this apathy. If conversation goes on around me, 
 I dream undisturbed; if I am directly addressed, I 
 answer incoherently. Adèle, it is you who are the 
 cause of this unbalanced condition, and it is yovi who 
 are also its remedy. Let me believe, I implore you, 
 that you think of me as I think of you, that you love 
 me as I love you ; repeat this to me continually, and 
 do not refrain from repeating it, if you wish that I 
 should love that life which is so sweet to me with 
 you, so terrible and so insupportable without you. 
 
 223
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Friday Morning, 
 Are you writing to me at this moment, or are you 
 at least thinking of me, my Adèle? I am very much 
 cast down ; I am in sore need of you at my side, with 
 your sweet voice and gentle glance. It seems now 
 such a long time since our happiness at GentilljM 
 What is going to become of me in this great Paris? 
 All my time, which at Gentilly was divided between 
 the happiness of seeing you and that of working for 
 you, is now being wasted, without happiness, and 
 almost without exertion. You may say, and with 
 truth, that I am here in a much better position for 
 conducting all our affairs, and that for this reason 
 my time will not be lost ; but obligations which take 
 me away from you are to the last degree uninteresting. 
 I do not know that I am justified in writing you at 
 the present moment, Adèle. I am deeply depressed, 
 and I cannot shake off this depression. I repeat to 
 myself all that you said to me yesterday evening, in 
 hopes of comfort, especially that we shall see each 
 other every day ; but I had formed that sweet habit of 
 being near you at all times, absent or present, of 
 sleeping and waking under the same roof with you, 
 of taking my meals at your side, of feeling your 
 hand touch mine, of waiting upon you. . . . Alas, 
 my Adèle, must there be nothing of all this hence- 
 forward? I must resume my old manner of life, I 
 must again become restless and solitary, while the 
 house which contains you might be in flames with- 
 out my being on the spot to save you in my arms. 
 
 You will treat such ideas as madness, and you 
 will be perfectly right, for my love is constantly seek- 
 
 224
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ing from my imagination fresh occasion for anxiety 
 and alarm. But you must know, as well as I do, 
 my beloved one, that souls which are endowed in a 
 high degree with the capacity of loving, create for 
 themselves, at every turn, miseries which other souls 
 do not understand. I am now in one of these mo- 
 ments of overwhelming depression. I desire to work, 
 and yet my mind contains nothing but a vague 
 uneasiness and regret for our lost happiness at Gen- 
 tilly. Two months hence, it is true . . . But two 
 months last a long time! Oh, my adored Adèle, 
 reanimate me with courage for these two long months ; 
 love me a little as I love you ; write to me often, my 
 Adèle ; speak to me constantly of all with which my 
 thoughts are filled, and love me, love me, for then I 
 shall never be unhappy. 
 
 Adieu; pardon this illegible writing, and accept 
 a thousand kisses from your poor husband, from 
 your Victor. 
 
 9 P.M. 
 
 Adèle, it seems to me that an age has passed since 
 I saw you. I cannot imagine to myself that 37^ester- 
 day at this very hour I was near you. Yesterday I 
 was entirely happy. Oh, when will all my moments, 
 each and all, be passed thus? When shall I be every 
 day your companion? When will it be in my power 
 to watch over every hour of your existence, waking 
 and sleeping? Dear love, it seems to me that the 
 more nearly this happy, and thousand times happy, 
 period approaches, the more vcvy uneasy impatience 
 redoubles. If you could only know all that passes 
 in my soul when I think of you, and of the immense 
 P 225
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 happiness which is to come to me through you! I 
 seek in vain for means of expression; vay thoughts 
 are all confused, and my mind is nothing but a chaos 
 of love, intoxication, and joy. 
 
 In truth, I fear that day when I shall be able to 
 proclaim in the face of all men : She is mine, entirely, 
 exclusively, eternally mine! Yes, I fear that on 
 that day my being will give way under so much hap- 
 piness. So much joy entering violently into my 
 soul must, so it seems to me, completely overwhelm 
 it. What a moment that will be when I shall enter 
 into all the happiness of my whole life, that hap- 
 piness which for so long a time has been held out to 
 me without my being able to reach it ! My solitude 
 will then be pervaded with an angel, and it is she 
 who will put an end to my isolation ! And when I think 
 that this well-beloved angel permits me to believe 
 that she also looks forward a little to that day towards 
 which all my desires, all my efforts, are so ardently 
 directed, then I forget all the cruel trials that I have 
 endured, to dream only of the intoxicating future 
 that is promised me, and I acknowledge that all my 
 sufferings are as nothing in comparison with such 
 great happiness. 
 
 Adèle, the time will soon come when I shall enjoy 
 in your presence the rights of a husband and the 
 duties of a slave. I shall have it in my power to 
 protect you and to do you service, to dissipate all 
 your griefs with my caresses, to dry your tears with 
 my kisses; or, rather, you shall then have neither 
 griefs nor tears. You will be happy, will you not? 
 and my joy will repose in yours. If troubles over- 
 
 226
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 take us — and in this respect let us have no illusions, 
 for they will surely come — they will be of no mo- 
 ment, because we shall bear them together, or, rather, 
 because 3^our smile will enable me to support them. 
 For in all the occurrences of our future life your part 
 will be to console me, mine to protect you. 
 
 Now, I am going to count up the days until that 
 when I may expect to receive the voucher for my pen- 
 sion, notwithstanding that I have been warned that 
 the delay may last another six weeks. No matter; 
 I feel as though all the offices must hasten their work, 
 because I expect to be happy at its conclusion. All 
 this savors of madness, but what would you have? 
 It is you yourself who are responsible. Why have 
 you caused your Victor to lose his reason? 
 
 In truth, ever since our marriage became for me 
 the most certain thing under heaven, I have been 
 surprised that each moment should be detained by 
 the business that belongs to it. I ask myself how it 
 can be that the realization of the purest and most 
 ideal hopes should be retarded by an obstacle so 
 material as money ! Yet so it is. It is like seeing a 
 cloud bound down with an iron chain. 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle. Forgive me all my wan- 
 derings, send me to-morrow a long letter, and receive 
 in exchange a thousand kisses from your husband, 
 from him whose idol and whose angel you are. 
 
 Monday, August sth, g p.m. 
 Dear love, I have just read your letter, and I am as 
 happy as it is possible for your Victor to be apart 
 from you. My only regret — and it is a regret of the 
 
 227
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 keenest— is that I did not see you take this letter from 
 your bosom. It seems to me that I enjoy a double 
 happiness when I can kiss both the characters that 
 your hand has traced and the paper that has touched 
 your bosom. Do not laugh at my folly; it really 
 seems to me that a letter which has lain near your 
 heart-beats partakes of something deeply mysterious 
 and exquisitely tender. 
 
 Monday, Aug,iist 12th, 10 p.m. 
 
 My dearest Adèle, you are suffering at this mo- 
 ment. Since I cannot see you, I am about to write 
 to you. It may be that this unexpected letter will 
 procure for you to-morrow a moment's pleasure. 
 Alas! I am much to be pitied for not being near you 
 at a time when you stand in need of support. How 
 fortunate are those who surround you! 
 
 Oh, my Adèle, if you knew with what emotion I 
 have just seen once again the deserted chamber, so 
 distant from that in which you will sleep ! I was far 
 from being completely happy, even at that dear Gen- 
 tilly, and yet it is always for me an ever-present grief 
 that we left it. 
 
 You distressed me very much yesterday, but since 
 you are ill, I will not reproach you. Yet I could not 
 refrain from observing, with pain, that when we were 
 driving you kept j^our eyes closed nearly all the way. 
 Great heavens! m}^ Adèle, I do not blame you. You 
 were suffering, and if this relieved you, you were 
 right to do so. Only if it had been I who was suffer- 
 ing, it seems to me that I should have believed myself 
 cured by fixing my eyes on you. However that may 
 
 22d>
 
 The Love Letters of Vicior Hugo 
 
 be, my dear, my dearest love, I repeat that 3^ou were 
 right to close your eyes if it relieved j^ou, and I will 
 complain of notliing, provided I find my wife com- 
 pletely restored to-morrow evening. 
 
 Adieu for this evening, my adored Adèle. I hope 
 that 3^ou will sleep. Accept a thousand kisses from 
 your husband, who is truly very sad. 
 
 Monday, August igth, 1-2 a.m. 
 
 To see you only for a couple of hours a day, after 
 so much happiness recently enjoyed at Gentilly! 
 Dear love, this in itself would be sufficient to make 
 me miserable, but it seems to be necessarj^ that even 
 when I do see you my delight should be poisoned! 
 It is not enough that we should be separated, but 
 your sleep must be disturbed, your nights broken.* 
 . . . And, notwithstanding this, what reward do you 
 obtain for your care and 3^our trouble? I must 
 own that in the few moments that I spend with you 
 my patience is verj^ nearly exhausted. I have re- 
 strained myself, but it has required all my dread of 
 creating anno3^ance for you to achieve this painful 
 victory over myself. All my being revolts when I 
 see you, my Adèle, my dearest wife, the object of 
 indirect and unjust reproach, or of unreasonable 
 demands. 
 
 No, I am not willing that you should lose 37^our 
 rest, that 3^ou should sacrifice 3'our health. Re- 
 flect, m3^ dear, good, too good Adèle, that this is just 
 the sarne thing as sacrificing my health and m3^ re- 
 
 * Mme. Foucher was then near her confinement, and her daugh- 
 ter often sat up at night with lier. 
 
 229
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 pose. I desire that you should sleep every night, for 
 otherwise how can I sleep, knowing you to be keeping 
 watch? I ask you to have pity on yourself, from pity 
 to me. Tliis may be egoism, if you will, for in all that 
 concerns you I am an egoist. I suffer through you, 
 just as I rejoice through you. 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 Do not doubt, dear love, that we have a special 
 destiny in life. We enjoy that rare intimacy of the 
 soul which constitutes the happiness of heaven and 
 earth. Our approaching marriage will be only the 
 public consecration of another marriage, that ideal 
 marriage of our hearts, of which God alone has been 
 the author, the confidant, and the witness. There 
 are moments, Adèle, when I am uneasy at the thought 
 that our exquisite union will some day be made public. 
 It seems to me the secret of our happiness is a happi- 
 ness apart. I should like to hide it from the eyes of 
 men : they would be envious of it. 
 
 Oh, Adèle, what a glorious future is that of the 
 being which heaven has associated with yours ! If 
 it be true that in the existence of all mankind happi- 
 ness and misery are equal, then I cannot conceive a 
 misfortune sufficiently great to balance the happi- 
 ness of possessing you! Or, rather, dearest Adèle, 
 I know of only one misfortune — a terrible misfortune — 
 which can punish me for having enjoyed such happi- 
 ness. Alas! I conjure you to take the utmost care of 
 your health. Reflect, my adored angel, that my life 
 is entirely yours ; remember that I fear only one mis- 
 fortune in the world, and that one I shall not survive. 
 
 Alas! 
 
 230
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Friday, August z^d, 8.30 p.m. 
 
 It is only by writing to you that I can console my- 
 self for not seeing you ; my thoughts, which are at 
 present so sad, will at least reach you, my Adèle. 
 How happy I should be if that which occupies my 
 mind at a given moment could at the same instant be 
 transported to you. Perhaps I should find in your 
 thought some remembrance of me. . . . Perhaps? 
 . . . Forgive me for having said perhaps, dear angel, 
 for you have told me that you thought of me without 
 ceasing, and since you have said it, it is so. Ah! 
 do I not need to be permeated with this conviction, 
 which is like that of my own existence? Is not my 
 love all my life, and if you ceased to share it, what 
 would that life be? 
 
 Alas, at this very moment, my Adèle, you suffer, 
 you are uneasy, you fatigue yourself, and you look 
 forward to further fatigue at night. Oh! can it be 
 that your repose, your sacred sleep, must be disturbed 
 without my having the right to protect you from it? 
 You will make an outcry, 3"ou will blame me, you will 
 invoke your filial tenderness. Dear love, I cannot 
 find fault with you, but may not I complain as a 
 husband of what you do as a daughter? Can you 
 believe me capable of looking on calmly while I see 
 your precious sleep sacrificed, your strength exhaust- 
 ed, your health injured? And all this in order that 
 you may fulfil duties which three other persons 
 ought to share. No, I will complain; I will com- 
 plain incessantly, and. moreover, I will not be si- 
 lenced. Why cannot I take upon mj^self three and 
 four times your burdens in order to spare you? 
 
 231
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Come, my Adèle, I am very deserving of pity. So 
 many nights do I spend at a distance from you. 
 Is that not suf&cient distress without having it 
 added to by continual uneasiness as to the manner 
 in which you spend yours? It seems to me that I 
 see you every minute, suddenly wakened, torn from 
 your repose, forced to dress yourself in haste . . . 
 dear love. 
 
 You know, Adèle, that you are not your own; you 
 know that you are accountable to me for all your 
 actions, and even for the impulses of your heart. Do 
 not waste your health, which is my wealth, I beseech 
 you ... ! 
 
 Alas! you will not listen to me, and that is what 
 reduces me to despair. You imagine that you are 
 at libertj^ to use and abuse your strength, that you 
 are mistress of your own actions. . . . Ah, recollect 
 what you bestowed upon me, in giving me your love. 
 Do not laugh at my fears, I conjure you, since they 
 are torture to me. You are only a woman, my 
 Adèle, although you are an angel, and you have not 
 sufficient strength to support sleeplessness and fa- 
 tigue. Your plan for passing the nights, when your 
 mother is confined, alarms me; it alarms me so 
 much, indeed, that I do not dare to believe it. 
 
 I kiss you a thousand times on your adored lips. 
 
 Your Anxious Husband. 
 
 Monday, August 26th, 9 p.m. 
 It would be very sweet to me, Adèle, to spend the 
 whole night in writing to you, as I have already done 
 so often; but in order to do so I should be obliged 
 
 232
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 to renounce another happiness equally dear to me, 
 namely, that of dreaming of you, and I prefer to 
 divide my night between these two felicities. More- 
 over, in doing so I shall obey you, and that wdll be 
 an additional pleasure. 
 
 Dear love, if you knew how great is the happiness 
 of my dreams! . . . Often the most enchanting illu- 
 sions transport you, my adored Adèle, to my side; 
 your husband presses you to his heart, your lips 
 touch his, you respond to his caresses! All his be- 
 ing, Adèle, is in unison with yours ! . . . Then I am 
 awakened, by very excess of happiness, to find va- 
 cancy! My empty room, my Adèle far away, and 
 all the sad reality ! Then, dear love, I am as much 
 to be pitied as I was before to be envied, and it seems to 
 me that I pass at once from heaven to hell. It is at 
 these moments that my courage needs to be roused 
 by the thought of that day when so many delicious 
 dreams will no longer be dreams and beyond my 
 reach. 
 
 Alas, Adèle, dreams were for so long a time my 
 onlj^ happiness! During our long and sad separa- 
 tion I had nothing in the world except the sweet false- 
 hoods of night and of sleep. Those nights, if my 
 sorrow allowed me to sleep, were indeed the only 
 happj'' portion of my life; it was then I realized that 
 the cruel misfortunes of an innocent love are tem- 
 pered by that innocence itself. It seemed to me 
 at that time, w^hen my daj^s were so sad and so 
 lonely, that all the happiness of my soul was con- 
 tained in my dreams. You appeared to me alwaj^s 
 in sleep, and if sometimes these delightful dreams
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hitgo 
 
 were mingled confusedly with sad remembrances, 
 still at least you were there, and your image spread 
 its charm over all. You appeared to me as the wit- 
 ness of my suffering, the consoler of my pain, and 
 in those cherished dreams I blessed the very sorrows 
 to which I owed the happiness of being consoled by 
 you! 
 
 But how terrible was the awakening ! I lost every- 
 thing; even hope itself, almost. While now, even 
 when you vanish with my dream, I retain the most 
 delightful, I will not say of hopes, but of certain- 
 ties. In a month, my Adèle! Do not you find this 
 same month very long? Forgive this presump- 
 tuous question. For a moment I was carried away 
 by the idea of being loved by you as you are adored 
 by me. Dear love, you have permitted me to believe 
 in such great happiness ; you have even ordered me 
 to do so ; but I dare not entertain the thought. You 
 will, perhaps, chide me. . . . Oh, do so, my love, 
 chide me, but saj^ to me, repeat to me, that you love 
 me as I love you. You are well aware, Adèle, that it 
 is by such words that I live; you know that all my 
 existence depends on yours; you know that there 
 was a day on which you held my life in your hands, 
 that day when I dared to tell you I loved you, and 
 when you deigned to answer me. . . . 
 
 Adèle, that rapturous answer decided my love, my 
 destiny, my eternity. Onl3^ you yourself can tear it 
 from my heart, for, Adèle, you alone have the power 
 to deprive me of the riches which you bestowed, of 
 your love. This is the same thing as telling you 
 that my life is at your discretion. Do to your Victor 
 
 234
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 what you will, provided always that you love him. 
 That is the single necessity for his happiness. Every- 
 thing else is of no account. And thus I, when I per- 
 ceive that you are for a moment cold or dissatisfied, 
 my sweet Adèle, I experience such pain as I do not 
 know how to describe. It seems to me that I almost 
 cease to exist, for my soul is ill at ease. A tender 
 word from you restores me to life, and that is what 
 has happened to me this evening. 
 
 Adieu. I have carried away with me as my fare- 
 well that which was lacking to me yesterday — the 
 comfort of a sweet good-bye, and I am going to sleep 
 well; that is to say, to dream in silence. When will 
 my existence as a widower cease? Still one long 
 month, and this month will have thirty days, each 
 one of which is an age, and every one of those days 
 will have twenty-four eternal hours. 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle. You are sleeping now, 
 and it seems to me that I see you in repose, your 
 charming eyes closed, your hands folded on yonx 
 breast, those hands which I have so often covered 
 with kisses ; and I seem to see your fresh, pure breath- 
 ing rising and falling regularly at intervals from 
 those lips on which I am not permitted to press my 
 own. 
 
 Oh, Adèle, when, then? ... In a month, is it 
 not? 
 
 Tuesday, August zjth. 
 
 Adèle, when a sweet expression comes from your 
 lips, accompanied by a gentle smile, you cannot 
 imagine the impression that is produced upon your 
 Victor ! If you only knew how small a thing that pro- 
 
 235
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 ceeds from you is sufficient to make me happy ! . . . 
 Sometimes wlien I am near you I am afraid of being 
 carried away by a sudden access of madness. When 
 I hear you speak with such nobleness and tenderness 
 I experience an overpowering temptation to seize you 
 in my arms or to kiss the hem of your garment. At 
 such times all the crowd of indifferent people who sur- 
 round us vanish from my sight. I no longer see any 
 but 3^ou, you, my angelic Adèle, my adored wife, you, 
 a heavenly and adorable young girl, and it requires 
 all my strength to repress the impulses of an almost 
 convulsive passion. You know nothing of all this, 
 my Adèle. If at one of these moments I express to 
 you my secret and overmastering idea, you do not 
 observe the excitement of my looks, and you answer 
 me with a smile and in a tranquil voice. Oh no ; you 
 will never comprehend the violence of my love. . . . 
 
 Alas! 
 
 Victor. 
 
 Wednesday, August zSth, 2 p.m. 
 I shall see you this evening, my Adèle, only this 
 very evening. I shall bring you good news, which 
 might indeed be better, but then I was afraid of some- 
 thing worse. A reduction of two hundred francs does 
 not alarm me.* It will be only so much more to obtain 
 b3^ my own exertions. Moreover, it is possible that the 
 Pension Department of the Interior may take pity on 
 us. And then — must I tell you the truth, dearest 
 Adèle? — it is high time that I should be happy. I was 
 
 *The promised pension of 1200 francs was reduced to 1000. 
 236
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 beginning to yield to my equivocal position. I was 
 sometimes inwardly alarmed at a future which offered 
 me nothing on which to fix mj^ will. It was unbear- 
 able to me to see the greatest and noblest happiness 
 constantly recede before m3^ ej^es by reason of that 
 miserable pension. . . . The latter was of value to 
 me only on account of the former. It is, indeed, a 
 singular circumstance in our lives that we have for 
 so long been forced to mingle money considerations 
 with the affairs of the heart. Now, now everything 
 shows that this intolerable necessity is about to 
 cease. 
 
 Oh, what a happy day will be that on which your 
 Victor will no longer be obliged to enjoy happiness 
 only in dreams! 
 
 Thursday, 9.15 p.m. 
 
 I can only repeat to you what I have already said, 
 and that which your own charming letter of this even- 
 ing says so sweetly. I act at all times, my adored an- 
 gel, as Ishould act in your presence. All my thoughts 
 are known to you — they are, indeed, only one thought. 
 But how is it possible that you can ask me seriously 
 on this, the 29th day of August, 1822, to give you 
 my entire confidence, when that confidence is en- 
 tirely yours, and has been so, ever since I have had 
 a confidence to bestow? My Adèle, are not you 
 already in possession of all my soul, all my life? 
 Listen to me, then : My whole soul is Adèle ; my 
 whole life is Adèle. And how can you imagine that 
 I should have — I — anything concealed from you? 
 Are you not much more mine than I am yours? 
 
 Oh, let us always tell each other our slightest 
 
 237
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 griefs, our smallest joys! These confidences, this 
 exquisite intimacy, are both the right and the duty 
 of love. 
 
 It is in such confidence, as in the jealousy of which 
 we spoke yesterday evening, that the essence of true 
 love lies. I am speaking, Adèle, of that pure and 
 tender jealousy which is perfectly reconcilable with 
 respect, esteem, and enthusiasm for the object of our 
 love. It is this sentiment which you have observed 
 in me a thousand times, for I am proud to own that 
 it forms part of my affection ; but I have never been 
 able to detect it in you. Adèle, I do not blame you ; 
 I am no more worthy of your jealousy than of your 
 enthusiasm, but I should have been so exquisitely 
 happy to have been worthy of them, and it is the 
 conviction that I cannot boast of possessing them 
 that has always caused me to tremble for the reality 
 of your love. 
 
 Alas, in spite of this, there are in your letter some 
 very tender words, and in what you said to me this 
 evening there were some delightful expressions. . . . 
 Adèle, if only this happiness is really and truly 
 mine! I long to sleep with this idea. 
 
 I embrace you here, delighted as I am to have 
 found an expression so tender at the conclusion of 
 your letter. I embrace you, and I tell you that you 
 are an angel! 
 
 Saturday, August 31, 1822. 
 
 Do not pity me, Adèle, for the evening of the day 
 before yesterday. Although I felt very keenly the 
 distress which was occasioned me on your account, 
 yet, oh! I beg you, my dearest Adèle, console me 
 
 238
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 always in this manner for tears which you cause me 
 to shed. I would not now exchange the grief which 
 you caused me, although it was in truth very keen, 
 for the happiness of angels, since it was the means 
 of procuring me a letter so affectionate, and conso- 
 lations so tender. Dear love, yes, that distress was 
 very severe. Tears exhaust me greatly. Those who 
 weep easily are comforted even while they weep; 
 but I have no such good fortune. Tears that I actu- 
 ally shed are indeed a relief; but for the most part 
 they remain shut up in my heart, and suffocate me. 
 My mother trained me from childhood to restrain all 
 such emotion and repress it within myself, for she 
 foresaw the value of this to one alone in life. 
 
 In spite of this, Adèle, it is very sweet to me to 
 pour myself out to you. Fatigue and suffering en- 
 dured for you are nothing ; but if I see you sometimes 
 divine and pity them, then, my adored Adèle, they are 
 dear and precious to me. 
 
 Monday, September 2d. 
 
 I have just finished working, and dined. The few 
 moments that separate me from that in which I shall 
 see you again seem to me very slow in passing. At 
 least the3^ shall be employed in writing to you, so that 
 this happiness shall be mingled with my impatience, 
 and will, perhaps, restrain it. 
 
 What have j'^ou done to-day? You must have 
 thought of me all day, for, as you 3^ourself said yes- 
 terday, so happily, if you could be a moment without 
 thinking of me, it would be the same thing as not 
 thinking at all. How happj' it makes me, dear love, 
 that it should be you who have said this! It is an 
 
 -239
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 inspiration from your angelic heart which I welcome 
 with the keenest joy. If you spoke to me always in 
 this manner, Adèle, you would never find me doubt 
 your love. There are some expressions that only be- 
 come possible when one loves, and this, which makes 
 me so happy, is one of the tenderest that a true affec- 
 tion can utter. 
 
 Adieu, my dearest Adèle; we are going to con- 
 verse together, during a few short moments, in re- 
 gard to our fast-approaching happiness; I am going 
 to hear your dear voice, to see your adored face, per- 
 haps to snatch secretly a kiss or a caress from you. 
 This expectation transports me with happiness. 
 Adieu, then, or, rather, adieu is not the right word, 
 since I am going to see you once more after a long 
 
 day. Your Husband Victor. 
 
 Thursday, September sth, 9.15 p.m. 
 My darling Adèle, I returned home this evening 
 with a headache. It was occasioned by a very tri- 
 fling thing, but a very trifling thing that concerns you, 
 Adèle, means a great deal. Yes, I am sad, and all 
 your tender words cannot dissipate my sadness; 
 your sweet caresses of this evening cannot remove 
 the impression that your farewell left with me. When 
 I approached you, and heard you say as I left you : 
 " To-morrow at six o'clock !" there was nothing that 
 showed me this interval of absence would appear 
 very long to you, as it does to me. Adèle, I do not 
 know whether it depends upon you to abridge it, but 
 it certainly rests with you to render it less insupport- 
 able to me by not appearing wholly indifferent to it. 
 
 240
 
 The Love Letters of J/ictor Hugo 
 
 A word, a gesture, a sign of regret, would have been 
 almost sufficient to console me, yet at this moment, 
 in addition to the pain of being so long separated 
 from you, I endure that of thinking that you your- 
 self do not feel the separation. 
 
 Do not remind me here, Adèle, of all that you have 
 deigned, and will still deign, to do for me. Great 
 proofs of devotion may be inspired by simple gen- 
 erosity, but it is in things of no account, in words and 
 in looks, that love reveals itself. The strongest proofs 
 of love are in a multitude of trifles imperceptible to 
 any one but the person beloved. It is in the slightest 
 movements, in the prompt, spontaneous inspirations 
 of the soul, that its whole revelation lies. Generosity, 
 alas! does not supply all this, and all that you do 
 for me may be, perhaps, nothing more than the re- 
 sult of a generous pity, for there is no certain indica- 
 tion which proves it to be love. 
 
 You are going to exclaim, to blame me, to reproach 
 me with ingratitude . . . All this, Adèle, may be 
 still only generosity. Some sign of indifl"erence es- 
 capes you spontaneously. It wounds me spontane- 
 ously also. I am weak enough to tell you of this 
 distress that you have caused me ; a simple feeling of 
 kindness and compassion leads you to make repara- 
 tion for the pain you have given, and in order to do 
 this, you employ the only efficacious means — name- 
 ly, words, or outward tokens of tenderness. All this 
 proves to me, what I have said already, that you are 
 kind, compassionate, generous, but in no sense does 
 it show me that you love me. 
 
 I foresee, Adèle, all that you are going to say to 
 Q 241
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 me to make me change my opinion, because I know 
 the excellence of your heart; but this miserable 
 thought has been for a long time in my soul. Noth- 
 ing can remove it. You sometimes lull it to sleep 
 by strong protestations of love, but more often you 
 arouse it by little marks of indifference. Adieu. It 
 is high time that this letter should end. I am really 
 unable to write more. 
 
 To-morrow, then, at six o'clock. 
 
 Recollect, above all, that I ask for nothing but 
 what is in your heart. Whatever it may cost me, 
 I desire you should show yourself to me such as you 
 really are, 
 
 Saturday, September 7th, 4.30 p.m. 
 
 I must write you a few words, my dearest Adèle. 
 You must be made aware how much emotion and 
 delight your sweet letter occasioned me. I read there 
 what, to my great distress, you did not tell me in the 
 evening — that you were sensible of my absence from 
 you until six o'clock at night. . . . 
 
 I longed to write to you yesterday evening, but I 
 was under the necessity of getting on with the ro- 
 mance, and I worked upon it far into the night. I 
 did so again all of to-day, and now I am rewarding 
 myself by writing to you. But I must close. I 
 ought even now to be at your side. Adieu, my dear 
 angel. Why should words fail me when I attempt 
 to tell you the extent of my respect and adoration 
 for you? Oh! yes ... I embrace you, and I em- 
 brace you again. YOUR FAITHFUL HUSBAND. 
 
 Can you read this scrawl? I write with a pen 
 which is not worthy of the name. 
 
 242
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Monday, September i6th, 9 P.M. 
 
 Dear Adèle, I am very sad this evening. I do not 
 know what has become of my ideas ; my whole mind 
 is in disorder, and I am completely overwhelmed. It 
 is a fact, then, that for a week or ten days I shall be 
 almost completely cut off from you? * I shall scarce- 
 ly have a moment's glimpse each day of her whose 
 presence is my joy and my life. Yes, Adèle, your 
 glances are necessary to my existence. I need to be 
 able to rest my own upon you, upon you, who are my 
 only riches, my only treasure. 
 
 This evening I am possessed by one of those inde- 
 finable moods of depression which only possess me 
 on your account. It seemed to me that you were very 
 little absorbed by the thought of our approaching 
 separation. It seemed to me you might have warned 
 me^ that we were about to be parted. Nothing in 
 your face or in your words during the whole evening 
 gave me cause to suppose that we should pass a week 
 or ten days almost without meeting, and yet you 
 were aware of it, Adèle, for you speak of it in your 
 letter. 
 
 See, dear love, these are the signs that make me 
 doubt your love. You tell me that these doubts dis- 
 tress you, and, therefore, I will not speak of them. 
 But, nevertheless, it is a very painful thing for me 
 not to have been warned that this evening was a fare- 
 well. You said the word to me with a tranquillity 
 that reduced me to despair. Not that I blame j^ou, 
 Adèle, for our speedy separation, but you made me 
 
 •Mme. Fouclier had just been confined.
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 feel that it was time for me to leave in order that you 
 might enjoy some repose, and I cannot believe that 
 you were not answerable for this. What distresses 
 me so deeply is the gayety that you displayed during 
 the evening. 
 
 God forbid, however, that I should ever wish to see 
 you disguise or constrain your feelings! I should 
 prefer that frank air of pleasure, even at a moment 
 when I am myself very sad, than a grief which was 
 assumed. Be always for me outwardly what you 
 are inwardly, for I should prefer to be grieved, as I 
 was this evening, by an excessive gayety than to be 
 rendered desperate by a simulated depression. After 
 all, hypocrisy is so far from my noble Adèle that this 
 advice is unnecessary. You must not see in all this 
 anything of the nature of a reproach. If you were 
 conscious of no distress at knowing that we should 
 be separated for so long, it is not your fault, my 
 Adèle. I felt at once that you were very excusable 
 for having forgotten your Victor, among the number 
 of things that have claimed your attention. For my- 
 self, I have passed through keen and bitter grief, I 
 have been overwhelmed by complicated business 
 affairs, and by pressing anxieties; but never has 
 your adored image ceased for a moment to possess 
 my soul. But can I expect as much from you? Who 
 am I that I should do so? 
 
 Adieu. I am very, very sad, but on reading over 
 your letter, and, above all, the line which concludes 
 it, I am a little consoled. Adieu, my cherished 
 angel, my dearest wife. I embrace you tenderly. 
 
 244
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 Tuesday, October ist. 
 
 I have just finished working. I am going to write 
 to you for relaxation. This sweet occupation is the 
 reward of my serious exertions. It is a happiness 
 with which I long to fill all the moments that are not 
 devoted to the happiness of seeing you. 
 
 But, my Adèle, each time that I write to you a fresh 
 struggle takes place in my heart and in my thoughts 
 against the insufficiency of words. Something is 
 always lacking in my letter, and that something 
 which I fail to express is, nevertheless, exactly that 
 which I most desire to reveal. Adèle, it seems to me 
 that if you love me, you will be able to read spontane- 
 ously in my soul ; but if you love me, dearest angel, 
 you must know all that I yearn to tell you, you must 
 ^be able to supplement the failure of those words, love, 
 adoration, idolatry, to picture what I feel for you. 
 There must be something within your heart which 
 reveals to you all the unspeakable, inexpressible 
 tenderness for you which is sealed up within my own. 
 
 Oh, Adèle, when I think that it might have been 
 that you did not love me, I shudder as though I stood 
 on the brink of an abyss. Alas! what would have 
 become of me great Heaven! if this angel's regard 
 had not deigned to bestow itself on me? My life 
 would, indeed, have been mocked at by heaven ; for, 
 my adored Adèle, would it not have been unjust to 
 allow me to seek the soul destined for my soul with 
 truth and purit}^ and yet not permit me to find it? 
 
 I have done nothing that makes me unworth3'' of 
 you ; but what, again, can I have done that deserv^es 
 you? Nothing, alas, but love you, with an ardent, 
 
 245
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 pure, and innocent love, and devote to you till death, 
 and after death, my whole being, my mortal and im- 
 mortal existence. What is all that, dear love, beside 
 the happiness of possessing you? 
 
 Adieu ; I shall see you this evening. Shall I have 
 a letter from you? I embrace you as a husband, who 
 is most impatient to be a husband. 
 
 Friday, October 4th. 
 
 When I reflect, my Adèle, that our happiness is so 
 near, and that henceforward nothing can hinder it, 
 my life seems to me like a dream. During two years — 
 during one year — I was miserable! To-day, what 
 happiness! Sometimes I can hardly realize that I 
 have at length escaped from that long, painful pe- 
 riod when my only joys, my only pleasures, were a 
 passing glance from you, a glimpse of your dress 
 perceived from afar off in the street or on the prom- 
 enade, and, a little later, one or two words exchanged 
 with timidity during a few brief moments' conver- 
 sation. Even these for a long time, were closely 
 watched, and rarely to be obtained. 
 
 What joy ! All this is in the past, and there is noth- 
 ing but delight in our future. Nothing can separate 
 us any longer, Adèle; nothing can now constrain 
 our interviews, our caresses, our love ! I repeat that 
 I can hardly believe in this happiness, because it 
 seems to me that I have, even yet, done so little to 
 deserve so much! The joy in my soul is in the same 
 condition as my love— that is to say, expression fails 
 me to-day for the one as it has always failed me for 
 the other. All words for passion and devotion have 
 
 246
 
 The Love Letters of Victor Hugo 
 
 been so extravagantly used that they are enfeebled 
 by force of being made common, and what I myself 
 experience is an emotion of happiness so pure, so 
 sacred, so profound, that it resembles nothing that 
 voioe or pen is adequate to express. Ask your own 
 soul, Adèle, my dearest, and if it is true that j^ou 
 love me, then it will tell you all that mine is unable 
 to present in material form. 
 
 Our history, dear love, will afford one more proof 
 of the truth, vouloir fermement, c'est pouvoir. A few 
 months have sufficed to overcome a great many ob- 
 stacles; but what is not possible to him who loves 
 you, and who knows himself to be beloved by you? 
 
 Adieu, my adored Adèle; your thrice-happy hus- 
 ,band embraces you; he is impatient to know how 
 you have passed the night, and if you are in health 
 at this moment. Once more, adieu. 
 
 The marriage of Victor and Adèle took place on the 
 I2th of October, 1822, two years and a half from the day 
 when, on April 26, 181 9, they had confessed their love. 
 
 THE END
 
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