XC. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 18 September, 1868
It will be, I think, the 8th or 10th of October. The management
announces it for the 26th of September. But that seems impossible to
everyone. Nothing is ready; I shall be advised, I shall advise you.
I have come to spend the days of respite that my very conscientious
and very devoted collaborator allows me. I am taking up again a
novel on the THEATRE, the first part of which I had left on my desk,
and I plunge every day in a little icy torrent which tumbles me
about and makes me sleep like a top. How comfortable one is here
with these two little children who laugh and chatter from morning
till night like birds, and how foolish it is to go to compose and to
put on MADE UP THINGS when the reality is so easy and so fine! But
one gets accustomed to regarding all that as a military order, and
goes to the front without asking oneself if it means wounds or
death. Do you think that that bothers me? No, I assure you; but it
does not amuse me either. I go straight ahead, stupid as a cabbage
and patient as a Berrichon. Nothing is interesting in my life except
OTHER PEOPLE. Seeing you soon in Paris will be more of a pleasure
than my business will be an annoyance to me. Your novel interests me
more than all mine. Impersonality, a sort of idiocy which is
peculiar to me, is making a noticeable progress. If I were not well,
I should think that it was a malady. If my old heart did not become
each day more loving, I should think it was egotism; in short, I
don't know what it is, and there you are. I have had trouble
recently. I told you of it in the letter which you did not receive.
A person whom you know, whom I love greatly, Celimene, [Footnote:
Madame Arnould-Plessy.] has become a religious enthusiast, oh!
indeed, an ecstatic, mystic, molinistic religious enthusiast, I
don't know what, imbecile! I have exceeded my limits. I have raged,
I have said the hardest things to her, I have laughed at her.
Nothing made any difference, it was all the same to her. Father
Hyacinthe replaces for her every friendship, every good opinion; can
you understand that? Her very noble mind, a real intelligence, a
worthy character! and there you are! Thuillier is also religious,
but without being changed; she does not like priests, she does not
believe in the devil, she is a heretic without knowing it. Maurice
and Lina are furious against THE OTHER. They don't like her at all.
As for me, it gives me much sorrow not to love her any more.
We love you, we embrace you.