Thank you for the address.
CX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 2 April, 1869
Dear friend of my heart, here we are once more calm again. My
children returned to me very exhausted. Aurore has been a little
ill. Lina's mother has come to get into touch with her about their
affairs. She is a loyal and excellent woman, very artistic, and very
amiable. I too have had a bad cold, but everything is getting better
now, and our charming little girls console their little mother. If
it were less bad weather, and I had a less bad cold, I would go at
once to Paris, for I want to see you there. How long do you stay
there? Tell me quickly.
I shall be very glad to renew my acquaintance with Tourgueneff,
whom I knew a little without having read him, and whom I have since
read with a whole-hearted admiration. You seem to me to love him a
great deal; then I love him too, and I wish when your novel is
finished, that you would bring him to our house. Maurice also knows
him and appreciates him greatly, he who likes whatever does not
resemble anything else.
I am working at my novel about TRAVELING ACTORS [Footnote: Pierre
qui roule.] like a convict. I am trying to have it amusing and to
explain art; it is a new form for me and amuses me. Perhaps it will
not have any success. The taste of the day is for marquises and
courtesans; but what difference does that make?--You must find me a
title, which is a resume of that idea: THE MODERN ROMAN COMIQUE.
My children send you affectionate greetings; your old troubadour
embraces his old troubadour.