Love from all Nohant.
CCLIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Thursday
Why do you leave me so long without any news of yourself, dear good
master? I am cross with you, there!
I am all through with the dramatic art. Carvalho came here last
Saturday to hear the reading of le Sexe faible, and seemed to me to
be satisfied with it. He thinks it will be a success. But I put so
little confidence in the intelligence of all those rascals, that for
my part, I doubt it.
I am exhausted, and I am now sleeping ten hours a night, not to
mention two hours a day. That is resting my poor brain.
I am going to resume my readings for my wretched book, which I shall
not begin for a full year.
Do you know where the great Tourgueneff is now?
A thousand affectionate greetings to all and to you the best of
everything from your old friend.
CCLX. TO GEORGE SAND
Sunday ...
I am not like M. de Vigny, I do not like the "sound of the horn in
the depth of the woods." For the last two hours now an imbecile
stationed on the island in front of me has been murdering me with
his instrument. That wretched creature spoils my sunlight and
deprives me of the pleasure of enjoying the summer. For it is lovely
weather, but I am bursting with anger. I should like, however, to
talk a bit with you, dear master.
In the first place, congratulations on your seventieth year, which
seems more robust to me than the twentieth of a good many others!
What a Herculean constitution you have! Bathing in an icy stream is
a proof of strength that bewilders me, and is a mark of a "reserve
force" that is reassuring to your friends. May you live long. Take
care of yourself for your dear grandchildren, for the good Maurice,
for me too, for all the world, and I should add: for literature, if
I were not afraid of your superb disdain.
Ha! good! again the hunting horn! The man is mad. I want to go and
find the rural guard.
As for me, I do not share your disdain, and I am absolutely ignorant
of, as you say, "the pleasure of doing nothing." As soon as I no
longer hold a book, or am not dreaming of writing one, A LAMENTABLE
boredom seizes upon me. Life, in short seems tolerable to me only by
legerdemain. Or else one must give oneself up to disordered pleasure
... and even then!
Well, I have finished with le Sexe faible, which will be played, at
least so Carvalho promises, in January, if Sardou's l'Oncle Sam is
permitted by the censorship; if otherwise, it will be in November.
As I have been accustomed during the last six weeks to seeing things
from a theatrical point of view, to thinking in dialogue, here I am
starting to build the plot of another play! It will be called le
Candidat. My written plot is twenty pages long. But I haven't anyone
to show it to. Alas! I shall therefore leave it in a drawer and
start at my old book. I am reading l'Histoire de la Medecine by
Daremberg, which amuses me a great deal, and I have finished l'Essai
sur les facultes de l'entendement by Gamier, which I think very
silly. There you have my occupations. THINGS seem to be getting
quieter. I breathe again.
I don't know whether they talk as much of the Shah in Nohant as they
do around here. The enthusiasm has been immense. A little more and
they would have proclaimed him Emperor. His sojourn in Paris has
had, on the commercial shop-keeping and artisan class, a monarchical
effect which you would not have suspected, and the clerical
gentlemen are doing very well, very well indeed!
On the other side of the horizon, what horrors they are committing
in Spain! So that the generality of humanity continues to be
charming.
CCLXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 30 August, 1873
Where are you to be found now? where are you nestled? As for me, I
have just come from Auvergne with my whole household, Plauchut
included. Auvergne is beautiful, above all it is pretty. The flora
is always rich and interesting, the walking rough, the living
accommodations poor. I got through it all very well, except for the
elevation of two thousand meters at Sancy, which combining an icy
wind with a burning sun, laid me flat for four days with a fever.
After that I got into the running again, and I am returning here to
resume my river baths till the frost.
There was no more question of any work, of any literature at all,
than if none of us had ever learned to read. The LOCAL POETS pursued
me with books and bouquets. I pretended to be dead and was left in
peace. I am square with them now that I am home, by sending a copy
of something of mine, it doesn't matter what, in exchange. Ah! what
lovely places I have seen and what strange volcanic combinations,
where we ought to have heard your Saint-Antoine in a SETTING worthy
of the subject! Of what use are these pleasures of vision, and how
are these impressions transformed later? One does not know ahead,
and, with time and the easy ways of life, everything is met with
again and preserved.
What news of your play? Have you begun your book? Have you chosen a
place to study? Do tell me what is becoming of my Cruchard, the
Cruchard of my heart. Write to me even if only a word! Tell me that
you still love us as I love you and as all of us here love you.