LXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 31 December, 1867
I don't agree with you at all that it is necessary to destroy the
breast to draw a bow. I have quite a contrary belief which I follow,
and I think that it is good for many others, probably for the
majority. I have just developed my idea on that subject in a novel
which has been sent to the Revue and will appear after About's. I
think that the artist ought to live according to his nature as much
as possible. To him who loves struggle, warfare; to him who loves
women, love; to an old fellow like me who loves nature, travel and
flowers, rocks, fine landscapes, children also, the family, all that
stirs the emotions, that combats moral anemia.
I think that art always needs a palette overflowing with soft or
striking colors according to the subject of the picture; the artist
is an instrument on which everything ought to play before he plays
on others; but all that is perhaps not applicable to a mind like
yours which has acquired much and now has only to digest. I shall
insist on one point only, that the physical being is necessary to
the moral being and that I fear for you some day a deterioration of
health which will force you to suspend your work and let it grow
cold.
Well, you are coming to Paris the beginning of January and we shall
see each other; for I shall not go until after the New Year. My
children have made me promise to spend that day with them, and I
could not resist, in spite of the great necessity of moving. They
are so sweet! Maurice has an inexhaustible gaiety and invention. He
has made for his marionette theatre, marvelous scenery, properties,
and machinery and the plays which they give in that ravishing box
are incredibly fantastic.
The last one was called 1870. One sees in it, Isidore with Antonelli
commanding the brigands of Calabria, trying to regain his throne and
to re-establish the papacy. Everything is in the future; at the end
the widow Euphemia marries the Grand Turk, the only remaining
sovereign. It is true that he is a former DEMOCRAT and is recognized
as none other than the great tumbler Coquenbois when unmasked. These
plays last till two o'clock in the morning and we are crazy on
coming out of them. We sup till five o'clock. There is a performance
twice a week, and the rest of the time they make the properties, and
the play continues with the same characters, going through the most
incredible adventures.
The public is composed of eight or ten young people, my three great
nephews, and sons of my old friends. They get excited to the point
of yelling. Aurore is not admitted; the plays are not suited to her
age. As for me, I am so amused that I become exhausted. I am sure
that you would be madly amused by it also; for there is a splendid
fire and abandon in these improvisations; and the characters done by
Maurice have the appearance of living beings, of a burlesque life
that is real and impossible at the same time; it seems like a dream.
That is how I have been living for the ten days that I have not been
working.
Maurice gives me this recreation in my intervals of repose that
coincide with his. He brings to it as much ardor and passion as to
his science. He has a truly charming nature and one never gets bored
with him. His wife is also charming, quite large just now, always
moving, busying herself with everything, lying down on the sofa
twenty times a day, getting up to run after her child, her cook, her
husband, who demands a lot of things for his theatre, coming back to
lie down again; crying out that she feels ill and bursting into
shrieks of laughter at a fly that circles about; sewing layettes,
reading the papers with fervor, reading novels which make her weep;
weeping also at the marionettes when there is a little sentiment,
for there is some of that too. In short a personality and a type:
she sings ravishingly, she gets angry, she gets tender, she makes
succulent dainties TO SURPRISE US WITH, and every day of our
vacation there is a little fete which she organizes.
Little Aurore promises to be very sweet and calm, understanding in a
marvelous manner what is said to her and YIELDING TO REASON at two
years of age. It is very extraordinary and I have never seen it
before. It would be disquieting if one did not feel a great serenity
in that little brain.
But how I am gossiping with you! Does all this amuse you? I should
like this chatty letter to substitute for one of those suppers of
ours which I too regret, and which would be so good here with you,
if you were not a stick-in-the-mud, who won't let yourself be
dragged away to LIFE FOR LIFE'S SAKE. Ah! when one is on a vacation,
how work, logic, reason seem strange CONTRASTS! One asks whether one
can ever return to that ball and chain.
I tenderly embrace you, my dear old fellow, and Maurice thinks your
letter so fine that he is going to put the phrases and words at once
in the mouth of his first philosopher. He bids me embrace you for
him.
Madame Juliette Lambert [Footnote: Afterwards, Madame Edmond Adam.]
is really charming; you would like her a great deal, and then you
have it 18 degrees above zero down there, and here we are in the
snow. It is severe; moreover, I rarely go out, and my dog himself
doesn't want to go out. He is not the least amazing member of
society. When he is called Badinguet, he lies on the ground ashamed
and despairing, and sulks all the evening.
LXXV. TO GEORGE SAND
1st January, 1868
It is unkind to sadden me with the recital of the amusements at
Nohant, since I cannot share them. I need so much time to do so
little that I have not a minute to lose (or gain), if I want to
finish my dull old book by the summer of 1869.
I did not say it was necessary to suppress the heart, but to
restrain it, alas! As for the regime that I follow which is contrary
to the laws of hygiene, I did not begin yesterday. I am accustomed
to it. I have, nevertheless, a fairly seasoned sense of fatigue, and
it is time that my second part was finished, after which I shall go
to Paris. That will be about the end of the month. You don't tell me
when you return from Cannes.
My rage against M. Thiers is not yet calmed, on the contrary! It
idealizes itself and increases.
LXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 12 January, 1868
No, it is not silly to embrace each other on New Year's day: on the
contrary, it is good and it is nice. I thank you for having thought
of it and I kiss you on your beautiful big eyes. Maurice embraces
you also. I am housed here by the snow and the cold, and my trip is
postponed. We amuse ourselves madly at home so as to forget that we
are prisoners, and I am prolonging my holidays in a ridiculous
fashion. Not an iota of work from morning till night. What luck if
you could say as much!--But what a fine winter, don't you think so?
Isn't it lovely, the moonlight on the trees covered with snow? Do
you look at that at night while you are working?--If you are going
to Paris the end of the month, I shall still have a chance to meet
you.
From far, or from near, dear old fellow, I think of you and I love
you from the depth of my old heart which does not know the flight of
years.