Dear good master,
Your old troubadour is vehemently slandered by the papers. Read the
Constitutionnel of last Monday, the Gaulois of this morning, it is
blunt and plain. They call me idiotic and common. Barbey
d'Aurevilly's article (Constitutionnel) is a model of this
character, and the good Sarcey's, although less violent, is in no
way behind it. These gentlemen object in the name of morality and
the Ideal! I have also been annihilated in le Figaro and in Paris,
by Cesana and Duranty. I most profoundly don't care a fig! but that
does not make me any the less astonished by so much hatred and bad
faith.
La Tribune, le Pays and l'Opinion nationale on the other hand have
highly praised me...As for the friends, the persons who received a
copy adorned by my hand, they have been afraid of compromising
themselves and have talked to me of
other things. The brave are few. The book is selling very well
nevertheless, in spite of politics, and Levy appears satisfied.
I know that the bourgeois of Rouen are furious with me "because of
pere Roque and the cancan at the Tuileries." They think that one
ought to prevent the publication of books like that (textual), that
I lend a hand to the Reds, that I am capable of inflaming
revolutionary passions, etc., etc. In short, I have received very
few laurels, up to now, and no rose leaf hurts me.
I told you, didn't I, that I was working over the fairy play? I am
doing now a description of the races and I have cut out all that
seemed to me hackneyed. Raphael Felix didn't seem to me eager to
become acquainted with it. Problem!
All the papers cite as a proof of my depravity, the episode of the
Turkish woman, which they misrepresent, naturally; and Sarcey
compares me to Marquis de Sade, whom he confesses he has not read!
All that does not upset me at all. But I wonder what use there is in
printing my book?
CXXXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday, 4 o'clock, 7 December, 1869
Dear master,
Your old troubadour is being jumped on in an unheard of manner.
Those people who have read my novel are afraid to talk to me of it
lest they compromise themselves or out of pity for me. The more
indulgent declare I have made only pictures and that both
composition and plan are quite lacking.
Saint-Victor, who puffs the books of Arsene Houssaye, won't write
articles on mine, finding it too bad. There you are. Theo is away,
and no one, absolutely no one takes my defense.
Another story: yesterday Raphael and Michel Levy listened to the
reading of the fairy play. Applause, enthusiasm. I saw the moment
during the reading in which the contract was going to be signed.
Raphael so well understood the play that he gave me two or three
EXCELLENT criticisms. I found him in other ways a charming boy. He
asked me until Saturday to give me a definite answer. Then a little
while ago, a letter (very polite) from the aforesaid Raphael in
which he declares that the fairy play would entail expenses that
would be too much for him.
Ditched again. I must look elsewhere. Nothing new at the Odeon.
Sarcey has published a second article against me.
Barbey d'Aurevilly claims that I dirty a stream by washing myself in
it (sic). All that does not bother me at all.
CXXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday, two o'clock in the morning, December 9, 1869
My comrade, it is finished, the article shall go tomorrow. I address
it to whom? Answer by telegram. I have a mind to send it to
Girardin. But perhaps you have a better idea, I really don't know
the importance and the credit of the various papers. Send me a
suitable name and ADDRESS by telegram; I have Girardin's.
I am not content with my prose, I have had the fever and a sort of
sprain for two days. But we must make haste. I embrace you.