Hard work? When indeed can I start at it? I am NO GOOD.
CCLXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
January, 1874
As I have a quiet moment, I am going to profit by it by talking a
little with you, dear good master! And first of all, embrace for me
all your family and accept all my wishes for a Happy New Year!
This is what is happening now to your Father Cruchard.
Cruchard is very busy, but serene and very calm, which surprises
everybody. Yes, that's the way it is. No indignations, no boiling
over. The rehearsals of le Candidat have begun, and the thing will
be on the boards the first of February. Carvalho seems to me very
satisfied with it! Nevertheless he has insisted on my combining two
acts in one, which makes the first act inordinately long.
I did this work in two days, and Cruchard has been splendid! He
slept seven hours in all, from Thursday morning (Christmas Day) to
Saturday, and he is only the better for it.
Do you know what I am going to do to complete my ecclesiastical
character? I am going to be a godfather. Madame Charpentier in her
enthusiasm for Saint-Antoine came to beg me to give the name Antoine
to the child that she is expecting! I refused to inflict on this
young Christian the name of such an agitated man, but I had to
accept the honor that was done me. Can you see my old top-knot by
the baptismal font, beside the chubby-cheeked baby, the nurse and
the relatives? O civilization, such are your blows! Good manners,
such are your exactions!
I went on Sunday to the civic funeral of Francois-Victor Hugo. What
a crowd! and not a cry, not the least bit of disorder! Days like
that are bad for Catholicism. Poor father Hugo (whom I could not
help embracing) was very broken, but stoical.
What do you think of le Figaro, which reproached him for wearing at
his son's funeral, "a soft hat"?
As for politics, a dead calm. The Bazaine trial is ancient history.
Nothing shows better the contemporary demoralization than the pardon
granted to this wretched creature! Besides, the right of pardon if
one departs from theology is a denial of justice. By what right can
a man prevent the accomplishment of the law?
The Bonapartists should have let this alone; but not at all: they
defended him bitterly, out of hatred for the 4th of September. Why
do all the parties regard themselves as having joint interests with
the rascals who exploit them? It is because all parties are
execrable, imbecile, unjust, blind! An example: the history of Azor
(what a name!). He robbed the ecclesiastics. Never mind! the
clericals consider themselves attacked.
As regards the church. I have read in full (which I never did
before) Lamennais' Essai sur l'indifference. I know now, and
thoroughly, all the great buffoons who had a disastrous influence on
the XIXth century. To establish common sense or the prevailing mode
and custom as the criterion of certitude, that is preparing the way
for universal suffrage, which is, to my way of thinking, the shame
of human kind.
I have just read also, la Chretienne by the Abbe Bautain. A curious
book for a novelist. It smacks of its period of modern Paris. I
gulped a volume by Garcin de Tassy on Hindustani literature, to get
clean. One can breathe, at least, in that.
You see that your Father Cruchard is not entirely stupefied by the
theatre. However, I haven't anything to complain of in the
Vaudeville. Everyone there is polite and exact! How different from
the Odeon!
Our friend Chennevieres is now our superior, since the theatres are
in his division. The theatrical people are enchanted.
I see the Muscovite every Sunday. He is very well and like him
better and better.
Saint-Antoine will be in galley proof at the end of January.
Adieu, dear master! When shall we meet? Nohant is very far away! and
I am going to be, all this winter, very busy.
CCLXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
January, 1874
I am seized with a headache, but, although perfectly imbecile, I
want to embrace you and thank you for having written to me on New
Year's day. All Nohant loves you and smacks you, as they say in the
country.
We wish you a magnificent success and we are glad that it is not to
be at the cost of annoyances. However, that is hardly the way of the
actors whom I have known, and at the Vaudeville I have found only
those who were good natured. Have you a part for my friend Parade?
And for Saint-Germain, who seemed to you idiotic one day when
perhaps he had lunched too well, but who nevertheless is a fine
addlepate, full of sympathy and spirit. And with real talent!
I am not reading all these horrid things that you feed on so as to
sense better apparently the good things with which you sandwich
them. I have stopped laughing at human folly, I flee it and try to
forget it. As for admiration, I am always ready, it is the
healthiest regime by far, and too, I am glad to know that I shall
soon read Saint-Antoine again.
Keep in touch with your play and don't get ill this hateful winter.
Your old troubadour who loves you.