CXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday
I know nothing either of Chilly or la petite Fadette. In a few days
I am going to make a tour of Normandy. I shall go through Paris. If
you want to come around with me,--oh! but no, you don't travel
about; well, we shall see each other in passing. I have certainly
earned a little holiday. I have worked like a beast of burden. I
need too to see some blue, but the blue of the sea will do, and you
would like the blue of the artistic and literary firmament over our
heads. Bah! that doesn't exist. Everything is prose, flat prose in
the environment in which mankind has settled itself. It is only in
isolating oneself a little that one can find in oneself the normal
being again.
I am resuming my letter interrupted for two days by my wounded hand
which inconveniences me a good deal. I am not going to Normandy at
all, my Lamberts whom I was going to see in Yport came back to Paris
and my business calls me there too. I shall then see you next week
probably, and I shall embrace you as if you were my dear big child.
Why can't I put the rosy, tanned face of Aurore in the place of
mine! She is not what you would call pretty, but she is adorable and
so quick in comprehending that we all are astonished. She is as
amusing in her chatter as a person,--who might be amusing. So I am
going to be forced to start thinking about my business! It is the
one thing of which I have a horror and which really troubles my
serenity. You must console me by joking with me a little when you
have the time.
I shall see you soon, have courage in the sickening work of proof-
reading. As for me I hurry over it quickly and badly, but you must
not do as I do.
My children send you their love and your troubadour loves you.