the happiness she could bring him, and more resolved than ever to be free
from Madame de Staël. The entries in his Journaux intimes now become
fuller as he records the change in him:
The contrast between [Madame de Staël’s] impetuousness, her
egoism, her constant obsession with herself and Charlotte’s calm,
gentle, modest, self-effacing ways makes Charlotte a thousand
times more dear to me. I am tired of the masculine woman
[l’hommefemme’] whose iron hand has kept me in chains for ten
years. Now a truly feminine woman is intoxicating and enchanting
me (26 October).^93On 28 October Charlotte bade him a tearful farewell, and the next day he
returned to Rouen. On 30 October 1806 he noted in his diary ‘Wrote to
Charlotte. Began a novel which will be our story. Any other work would
be impossible for me.’
94
The intermittences of the heart 195