CCLI. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday, March 12, 1873
Dear master,
If I am not at your house, it is the fault of the big Tourgueneff. I
was getting ready to go to Nohant, when he said to me: "Wait, I'll
go with you the first of April." That is two weeks off. I shall see
him tomorrow at Madame Viardot's and I shall beg him to go earlier,
as I am beginning to be impatient. I am feeling the NEED of seeing
you, of embracing you, and of talking with you. That is the truth.
I am beginning to regain my equilibrium again. What is it that I
have had for the past four months? What trouble was going on in the
depths of my being? I don't know. What is certain, is, that I was
very ill in an indefinable way. But now I am better. Since the end
of January, Madame Bovary and Salammbo have belonged to me and I can
sell them. I am doing nothing about it, preferring to do without the
money other than to exasperate my nerves. Such is your old
troubadour.
I am reading all sorts of books and I am taking notes for my big
book which will take five or six years to write, and I am thinking
of two or three others. There will be dreams for a long time, which
is the principal thing.
Art continues to be "in the marasmus," as M. Prudhomme says, and
there is no longer any place in this world for people with taste.
One must, like the rhinoceros, retire into solitude and await one's
death.
CCLII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 15 March, 1873
Well, my old troubadour, we can hope for you very soon. I was
worried about you. I am always worried about you. To tell the truth,
I am not happy over your ill tempers, and your PREJUDICES. They last
too long, and in effect they are like an illness, you recognize it
yourself. Now, forget; don't you know how to forget? You live too
much in yourself and get to consider everything in relation to
yourself. If you were an egoist, and a conceited person, I would say
that it was your normal condition; but with you who are so good and
so generous, it is an anomaly, an evil that must be combated. Rest
assured that life is badly arranged, painful, irritating for
everyone, but do not neglect the immense compensations which it is
ungrateful to forget.
That you get angry with this or that person, is of little importance
if it is a comfort to you; but that you remain furious, indignant
for weeks, months, almost years, is unjust and cruel to those who
love you, and who would like to spare you all anxiety and all
deception.
You see that I am scolding you; but while embracing you, I shall
think only of the joy and the hope of seeing you flourishing again.
We are waiting for you with impatience, and we are counting on
Tourgueneff whom we adore also.
I have been suffering a good deal lately with a series of very
painful hemorrhages; but they have not prevented me from amusing
myself writing tales and from playing with my LITTLE CHILDREN. They
are so dear, and my big children are so good to me, that I shall
die, I believe, smiling at them. What difference does it make
whether one has a hundred thousand enemies if one is loved by two or
three good souls? Don't you love me too, and wouldn't you reproach
me for thinking that of no account? When I lost Rollinat, didn't you
write to me to love the more those who were left? Come, so that I
may OVERWHELM you with reproaches; for you are not doing what you
told me to do.
We are expecting you, we are preparing a mid-Lent fantasy; try to
take part. Laughter is a splendid medicine. We shall give you a
costume; they tell me that you were very good as a pastry cook at
Pauline's! If you are better, be certain it is because you have
gotten out of your rut and have distracted yourself a little. Paris
is good for you, you are too much alone yonder in your lovely house.
Come and work, at our house; how perfectly easy to send on a box of
books!
Send word when you are coming so that I can have a carriage at the
station at Chateauroux.
CCLIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Thursday, 20 March, 1873
Dear master,
The gigantic Tourgueneff is at this moment leaving here and we have
just sworn a solemn oath. You will have us at dinner the 12th of
April, Easter Eve.
It has not been a small job to get to that point, it is so difficult
to succeed in anything, no matter what.
For my part nothing would prevent me from going tomorrow But our
friend seems to me to enjoy very little liberty and I myself have
engagements the first week in April.
I am going this evening to two costume balls! Tell me after that
that I am not young.
A thousand affectionate greetings from your old troubadour who
embraces you.
Read as an example of modern fetidness, in the last number of the
Vie Parisienne, the article on Marion Delorme. It ought to be
framed, if, however, anything fetid can be framed. But nowadays
people don't look so closely.
CCLIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 23 March, 1873
No, that giant does not do as he likes, I have noticed that. But he
is one of the class that finds its happiness in being ruled and I
can understand it, on the whole. Provided one is in good hands,--and
he is.
Well, we are hoping still, but we are not absolutely counting on
anyone but you. You can not give me a greater pleasure than by
telling me that you are going out among people, that you are getting
out of a rut and distracting yourself, absolutely necessary, in
these muddled days.
On the day when a little intoxication is no longer necessary for
self-preservation, the world will be getting on very well. We
haven't come to that yet.
That FETID thing is not worth the trouble of reading, I didn't
finish it, one turns away from such things, one does not spoil one's
sense of smell by breathing them. But I do not think that the man to
whom one offers that in a censer would be satisfied with it.
Do come with the swallows and bring Saint-Antoine. It is Maurice who
is going to be interested in that! He is more of a scholar than I
am, I who will appreciate, thanks to my ignorance about many things,
only the poetic and great side of it. I am sure of it, I know
already that it is there.
Keep on going about, you must, and above all continue to love us as
we love you.
Your old troubadour,