Dear master,
In your last letter, among the nice things that you say to me, you
praise me for not being "haughty"; one is not haughty with what is
high. Therefore, in this aspect, you cannot know me. I object.
Although I consider myself a good man, I am not always an agreeable
gentleman, witness what happened to me Thursday last. After having
lunched with a lady whom I had called "imbecile," I went to call on
another whom I had said was "ninny"; such is my ancient French
gallantry. The first one had bored me to death with her
spiritualistic discourses and her pretensions to ideality; the
second outraged me by telling me that Renan was a rascal. Observe
that she confessed to me that she had not read his books. There are
some subjects about which I lose patience, and, when a friend is
slandered before my very face, the savage in my blood returns, I see
red. Nothing more foolish! for it serves no purpose and hurts me
frightfully.
This vice, by the way, BETRAYING ONE'S FRIENDS IN PUBLIC, seems to
me to be taking gigantic proportions!
CCXXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 26 October, 1872
Dear friend,
Here is another chagrin for you; a sorrow foreseen, but none the
less distressing. Poor Theo! I pity him deeply, not because he is
dead, but because he has not been really living for twenty years;
and if he had consented to live, to exist, to act, to forget a bit
his intellectual personality so as to conserve his material
personality, he could have lived a long time yet, and have renewed
his resources which he was too much inclined to make a sterile
treasure. They say that he suffered greatly from hardship during the
siege. I understand it, but afterward? why and how?
I am worried at not having had news from you for a long time. Are
you at Croisset? You must have been in Paris for the funeral of this
poor friend. What cruel and repeated separations! I am angry with
you for becoming savage and discontented with life. It seems to me
that you regard happiness too much as a possible thing, and that the
absence of happiness which is our chronic state, angers you and
astonishes you too much. You shun friends, you plunge into work, and
reckon ass lost the time you might employ in loving or in being
loved. Why didn't you come to us with Madame Viardot and
Tourgueneff? You like them, you admire them, you know that you are
adored here, and you run away to be alone. Well, how about getting
married? Being alone is odious, it is deadly, and it is cruel also
for those who love you. All your letters are unhappy and grip my
heart. Haven't you any woman whom you love or by whom you would be
loved with pleasure? Take her to live with you. Isn't there anywhere
a little urchin whose father you can believe you are? Bring him up.
Make yourself his slave, forget yourself in him.
What do I know? To live in oneself is bad. There is intellectual
pleasure only in the possibility of returning to it when one has
been out for a long time; but to live always in this Moi which is
the most tyrannical, the most exacting, the most fantastic of
companions, no, one must not.--I beg you, listen to me! You are
shutting up an exuberant nature in a jail, you are making out of a
tender and indulgent heart, a deliberate misanthrope,--and you will
not make a success of it. In short, I am worried about you, and I am
saying perhaps some foolishness to you; but we live in cruel times
and we must not undergo them with curses. We must rise above them
with pity. That's it! I love you, write to me.
I shall not go to Paris until after a month's time to put on
Mademoiselle La Quintinie. Where shall you be?
CCXXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday night, 28 October, 1872
You have guessed rightly, dear master, that I had an increase of
sorrow, and you have written me a very tender, good letter, thanks;
I embrace you even more warmly than usual.
Although expected, the death of poor Theo has distressed me. He is
the last of my intimates to go. He closes the list. Whom shall I see
now when I go to Paris? With whom shall I talk of what interests me?
I know some thinkers (at least people who are called so), but an
artist, where is there any? For my part, I tell you he died from the
"putrescence of modern times." That is his word, and he repeated it
to me this winter several times: "I am dying of the Commune," etc.
The 4th of September has inaugurated an order of things in which
people like him have nothing more in the world to do. One must not
demand apples of orange trees. Artisans in luxury are useless in a
society dominated by plebeians. How I regret him! He and Bouilhet
have left an absolute void in me, and nothing can take their place.
Besides he was always so good, and no matter what they say, so
simple. People will recognize later (if they ever return seriously
to literature), that he was a great poet. Meanwhile he is an
absolutely unknown author. So indeed is Pierre Corneille.
He hated two things: the hate of the Philistines in his youth, that
gave him his talent; the hate of the blackguards in his riper years,
this last killed him. He died of suppressed fury, of wrath at not
being able to say what he thought. He was OPPRESSED by Girardin, by
Fould, by Dalloz, and by the first Republic. I tell you that,
because _I_ HAVE SEEN abominable things and I am the only man
perhaps to whom he made absolute confidences. He lacked what was the
most important thing in life for him and for others: CHARACTER. That
he failed of the Academy was to him a dreadful chagrin. What
weakness! and how little he must have esteemed himself! To seek an
honor no matter what, seems to me, besides, an act of
incomprehensible modesty.
I was not at his funeral owing to the mistake of Catulle Mendes, who
sent me a telegram too late. There was a crowd. A lot of scoundrels
and buffoons came to advertise themselves as usual, and today,
Monday, the day of the theatrical paper, there must be bits in the
bulletins, THAT WILL MAKE COPY. To resume, I do not pity him, I ENVY
HIM. For, frankly, life is not amusing.
No, I don't think that HAPPINESS IS POSSIBLE, but certainly
tranquillity. That is why I get away from what irritates me. A trip
to Paris is for me now, a great business. As soon as I shake the
vessel, the dregs mount and permeate all. The least conversation
with anyone at all exasperates me because I find everyone idiotic.
My feeling of justice is continually revolted. They talk ONLY of
politics and in what a fashion! Where is there a sign of an idea?
What can one get hold of? What shall one get excited about?
I don't think, however, that I am a monster of egoism. My Moi
scatters itself in books so that I pass whole days without noticing
it. I have bad moments, it is true, but I pull myself together by
this reflection: "No one at least bothers me." After that, I regain
my balance. So I think that I am going on in my natural path; am I
right?
As for living with a woman, marrying as you advise me to do that is
a prospect that I find fantastic. Why? I don't know. But it is so.
Explain the riddle. The feminine being has never been included in my
life; and then, I am not rich enough, and then, and then--...I am
too old, and too decent to inflict forever my person on another.
There is in me an element of the ecclesiastical that people don't
know. We shall talk about that better than we can write of it.
I shall see you in Paris in December, but in Paris one is disturbed
by others. I wish you three hundred performances for Mademoiselle La
Quintinie. But you will have a lot of bother with the Odeon. It is
an institution where I suffered horribly last winter. Every time
that I attempted to do anything they dished me. So, enough! enough!
"Hide thy life," maxim of Epictetus. My whole ambition now is to
flee from bother, and I am sure by that means never to cause any to
others, that is much.
I am working like a madman, I am reading medicine, metaphysics,
politics, everything. For I have undertaken a work of great scope,
which will require a lot of time, a prospect that pleases me.
Ever since a month ago, I have been expecting Tourgueneff from week
to week. The gout is delaying him still.
CCXL. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 22 November, 1872
I don't think that I shall go to Paris before February. My play is
postponed on account of the difficulty of finding the chief actor. I
am content about it, for the idea of leaving Nohant, my occupations,
and the walks that are so lovely in this weather, didn't look good
to me at all; what a warm autumn and how good for old people! Two
hours distant from here, we have a real wilderness, where, the next
day after a rain, it is as dry as in a room, and where there are
still flowers for me, and insects for Maurice. The little children
run like rabbits in the heather which is higher than they are.
Heavens! how good it is to be alive when all one loves is living and
scurrying around one. You are the only BLACK SPOT in my heart-life,
because you are sad and don't want to look at the sun. As for those
about whom I don't care, I don't care either about the evils or the
follies they can commit against me or against themselves. They will
pass as the rain passes. The eternal thing is the feeling of beauty
in a good heart. You have both, confound it! you have no right not
to be happy.--Perhaps you ought to have had in your life the
INCLUSION OF THE FEMININE SENTIMENT which you say you have defied.--
I know that the feminine is worth nothing; but, perhaps, in order to
be happy, one must have been unhappy.
I have been, and I know enough about it; but I forget so well. Well,
sad or gay, I love you and I am still waiting for you, although you
never speak of coming to see us, and you cast aside the opportunity
emphatically; we love you here just the same, we are not literary
enough for you here, I know that, but we love, and that gives life
occupation.
Is Saint-Antoine finished, that you are talking of a work of great
scope? or is it Saint-Antoine that is going to spread its wings over
the entire universe? It could, the subject is immense. I embrace
you, shall I say again, my old troubadour, since you have resolved
to turn into an old Benedictine? I shall remain a troubadour,
naturally.