I stayed thirty-six hours in Paris at the beginning of this week, in
order to be present at the Tuileries ball. Without any exaggeration,
it was splendid. Paris on the whole turns to the colossal. It is
becoming foolish and unrestrained. Perhaps we are returning to the
ancient Orient. It seems to me that idols will come out of the
earth. We are menaced with a Babylon.
Why not? The INDIVIDUAL has been so denied by democracy that he will
abase himself to a complete effacement, as under the great
theocratic despotisms.
The Tsar of Russia displeased me profoundly; I found him a rustic.
On a parallel with Monsieur Floquet who cries without any danger:
"Long live Poland!" We have chic people who have had themselves
registered at the Elysee. Oh! what a fine epoch!
My novel goes piano. The further I get on the more difficulties
arise. What a heavy cart of sandstone to drag along! And you pity
yourself for a labor that lasts six months!
I have enough more for two years, at least (OF MINE). How the devil
do you find the connection between your ideas? It is that that
delays me. Moreover this book demands tiresome researches. For
instance on Monday; I was at the Jockey Club, at the Cafe Anglais,
and at a lawyer's in turn. Do you like Victor Hugo's preface to the
Paris-Guide? Not very much, do you? Hugo's philosophy seems to me
always vague.
I was carried away with delight, a week ago, at an encampment of
Gypsies who had established at Rouen. This is the third time that I
have seen them and always with a new pleasure. The great thing is
that they excite the hatred of the bourgeois, although they are as
inoffensive as sheep.
I appeared very badly before the crowd because I gave them a few
sous, and I heard some fine words a la Prudhomme. That hatred
springs from something very profound and complex. One finds it
among all orderly people.
It is the hatred that one feels for the bedouin, for the heretic,
the philosopher, the solitary, the poet; and there is a fear in that
hate. I, who am always for the minority, am exasperated by it. It is
true that many things exasperate me. On the day that I am no longer
outraged, I shall fall flat as the marionette from which one
withdraws the support of the stick.
Thus, THE STAKE that has supported me this winter, is the
indignation that I had against our great national historian, M.
Thiers, who had reached the condition of a demi-god, and the
pamphlet Trochu, and the everlasting Changarnier coming back over
the water. God be thanked that the Exposition has delivered us
momentarily from these GREAT MEN.
LIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 30 May, 1867
Here you are at home, old friend of my heart, and I and Maurice must
go to embrace you. If you are still buried in work, we shall only
come and go. It is so near to Paris, that you must not hesitate to
tell us. I have finished Cadio, hurray! I have only to POLISH it a
little. It is like an illness, carrying this great affair for so
long in one's HEAD. I have been so interrupted by real illnesses
that I have had great trouble in setting to work again at it. But I
am wonderfully well since the fine weather and I am going to take a
bath of botany.
Maurice will take one of entomology. He walks three leagues with a
friend of like energy in order to hunt in a great plain for an
animal which has to be looked at with a magnifying glass. That is
happiness! That is being really infatuated. My gloom has disappeared
in making Cadio; at present I am only fifteen years old, and
everything to me appears for the best in the best possible of
worlds. That will last as long as it can. These are the intervals of
innocence in which forgetfulness of evil compensates for the
inexperience of the golden age.
How is your dear mother? She is fortunate to have you again near
her! And the novel? Good heavens! it must get on! Are you walking a
little? Are you more reasonable?
The other day, some people not at all stupid were here who spoke
highly of Madame Bovary, but with less zest of Salammbo. Lina got
into a white heat, not being willing that those wretches should make
the slightest objection to it; Maurice had to calm her, and moreover
he criticised the work very well, as an artist and as a scholar; so
well that the recalcitrants laid down their arms. I should like to
have written what he said. He speaks little and often badly; but
that time he succeeded extraordinarily well.
I shall then not say adieu, but au revoir, as soon as possible. I
love you much, much, my dear old fellow, you know it. My ideal would
be to live a long life with a good and great heart like yours. But
then, one would want never to die, and when one is really OLD, like
me, one must hold oneself ready for anything.
I embrace you tenderly, so does Maurice. Aurore is the sweetest and
the most ridiculous person. Her father makes her drink while he
says: Dominus vobiscum! then she drinks and answers: Amen! How she
is getting on! What a marvel is the development of a little child!
No one has ever written about that. Followed day by day, it would be
precious in every respect. It is one of those things that we all see
without noticing.
Adieu again; think of your old troubadour who thinks unceasingly of
you.