Dear good adored master,
I have wanted for several days to write you a long letter in which I
should tell you all that I have felt for a month. It is funny. I
have passed through different and strange states. But I have neither
the time nor the repose of mind to gather myself together enough.
Don't be disturbed about your troubadour. He will always have "his
independence and his liberty" because he will always do as he has
always done. He has left everything rather than submit to any
obligation whatsoever, and then, with age, one's needs lessen. I
suffer no longer from not living in the Alhambra.
What would do me good now, would be to throw myself furiously into
Saint-Antoine, but I have not even the time to read.
Listen to this: in the very beginning, your play was to come after
Aisse; then it was agreed that it should come BEFORE. Now Chilly and
Duquesnel want it to come after, simply and solely "to profit by the
occasion," to profit by my poor Bouilhet's death. They will give you
a "sort of compensation." Well, I am the owner and the master of
Aisse just as if I were the author, and I do not want that. You
understand, I do not want you to inconvenience yourself in anything.
You think that I am as sweet as a lamb! Undeceive yourself, and act
as if Aisse had never existed; and above all no sensitiveness? That
would offend me. Between simple friends, one needs manners and
politenesses; but between you and me, that would not seem at all
suitable; we do not owe each other anything at all except to love
each other.
I think that the directors of the Odeon will regret Bouilhet in
every way. I shall be less easy than he was at rehearsals. I should
very much like to read Aisse to you so as to talk a little about it;
some of the actors whom they propose are, to my way of thinking,
impossible. It is hard to have to do with uneducated people.
CXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Wednesday evening, 13 October, 1869
Our poor friend is not to be buried till the day after tomorrow,
they will let me know where and when we ought to be there, I shall
tell you by telegram.
I have seen the directors twice. It was agreed this morning with
Duquesnel that they should make an attempt with de la T(our) Saint-
Y(bars). I yielded my turn to Aisse. I was not to come till March. I
went back there this evening, Chilly IS UNWILLING, and Duquesnel,
better informed than this morning, regards the step as useless and
harmful. I then quoted my contract, my right. What a fine thing, the
theatre! M. Saint-Ybars' contract antedates mine. They had thought
le Batard would last two weeks and it will last forty days longer.
Then La Tour Saint-Ybars precedes us [Footnote: This refers to
l'Affranchi.] and I can not give up my turn to Aisse without being
postponed till next year, which I'll do if you want me to; but it
would do me a good deal of harm, for I have gotten into debt with
the Revue and I must refill my purse.--Are directors rascals in all
that? No, but incompetents who are always afraid of not having
enough plays, and accept too many, foreseeing that they will have
failures.--When they are successful, if the authors contracted for
are ANGRY they have to go to court. I have no taste for disputes and
the scandals of the side-scenes and the newspapers; and neither have
you. What would be the result? Inadequate compensation and a deal of
uproar for nothing. One needs patience in any event, I have it, and
I tell you again if you are really upset at this delay, I am ready
to sacrifice myself.
With this I embrace you and I love you.