What good news, dear master! In a month and even before a month, I
shall see you at last!
Try not to be too hurried in Paris, so that we may have the time to
talk. What would be very nice, would be, if you came back here with
me to spend several days. We should be quieter than there; "my poor
old mother" loved you very much, would be sweet to see you in her
house, when she has been gone only such a short time.
I have started work again, for existence is only tolerable when one
forgets one's miserable self.
It will be a long time before I know what I have to live on. For all
the fortune that is left to us is in meadowland, and in order to
divide it, we have to sell it all.
Whatever happens, I shall keep my apartments at Croisset. That will
be my refuge, and perhaps even my only habitation. Paris hardly
attracts me any longer. In a little while I shall have no more
friends there. The human being (the eternal feminine included)
amuses me less and less.
Do you know that my poor Theo is very ill? He is dying from boredom
and misery. No one speaks his language anymore! We are like fossils
who subsist astray in a new world.
CCXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 18 May, 1872
Dear friend of my heart, your inability does not disturb me at all,
on the contrary. I have the grippe and the prostration that follows
it. I cannot go to Paris for a week yet, and shall be there during
the first part of June. My little ones are both in the sheepfold. I
have taken good care of and cured the eldest, who is strong. The
other is very tired, and the trip did not prevent the whooping-
cough. For my part, I have worked very hard in caring for my dear
one, and as soon as my task was over, as soon as I saw my dear world
reunited and well again, I collapsed. It will be nothing, but I have
not the strength to write. I embrace you, and I count on seeing you
soon.