More Cruchard than ever. I feel like a good-for-nothing, a cow,
damned, antique, deliquescent, in short calm and moderate, which is
the last term in decadence.
CCLXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Kalt-Bad. Righi. Friday, 3d July, 1874
Is it true, dear master, that last week you came to Paris? I went
through it to go to Switzerland, and I read "in a sheet" that you
had been to see les Deux Orphelines, had taken a walk in the Bois de
Boulogne, had dined at Magny's, etc.; all of which goes to prove
that, thanks to the freedom of the Press, one is not master of one's
own actions. Whence it results that Father Cruchard is wrathful with
you for not having advised him of your presence in the "new Athens."
It seems to me that people are sillier and flatter there than usual.
The state of politics has become drivel! They have tickled my ears
with the return of the Empire. I don't believe in it! However...We
should have to expatriate ourselves then. But how and where?
Is it for a play that you came? I pity you for having anything to do
with Duquesnel! He had the manuscript of le Sexe faible returned to
me by an agent of the theatrical management, without a word of
explanation, and in the ministerial envelope was a letter from an
underclerk, which is a gem! I will show it to you. It is a
masterpiece of impertinence! People do not write in that way to a
Carpentras urchin, offering a skit to the Beaumarchais theatre.
It is that very play le Sexe faible that, last year, Carvalho was so
enthusiastic about! Now no one wants it any more for Perrin thinks
it unconventional to put on the boards of the Theatre Francais, a
nurse and a cradle. Not knowing what to do with it, I have taken it
to the Cluny Theatre.
Ah! my poor Bouilhet did well to die! But I think that the Odeon
could show more respect for his posthumous work.
Without believing in an Holbachic conspiracy, I think that they have
been knocking me a bit too much of late; and they are so indulgent
towards certain others.
The American Harrisse maintained to me the other day that Saint-
Simon wrote badly. At that I burst out and talked to him in such a
way that he will never more before me belch his idiocy. It was at
dinner at the Princess's; my violence cast a chill.
You see that your Cruchard continues not to listen to jokes on
religion! He does not become calm! quite the contrary!
I have just read la Creation naturelle by Haeckel, a pretty book,
pretty book! Darwinism seems to me to be better expounded there than
in the books of Darwin himself.
The good Tourgueneff has sent me news from the depths of Scythia. He
has found the information he wanted for a book that he is going to
do. The tone of his letter is frivolous, from which I conclude that
he is well. He will return to Paris in a month.
A fortnight ago I made a little trip to Lower Normandy, where I have
found at last a neighborhood suitable to place my two good men. It
will be between the valley of the Orne and the valley of the Auge. I
shall have to return there several times.
Beginning with September, then, I shall start that hard task! it
makes me afraid, and I am overwhelmed by it in advance.
As you know Switzerland, it is useless for me to talk to you of it,
and you would scorn me if I were to tell you that I am bored to
extinction here. I came here obediently because they ordered me to,
for the purpose of bleaching my face and calming my nerves! I don't
think that the remedy will be efficacious; anyhow it has been deadly
boring to me. I am not a man of nature, and I do not understand
anything in a country where there is no history. I would give all
these glaciers for the Vatican Museum. One can dream there. Well, in
three weeks I shall be glued to my green table! in a humble refuge,
where it seems to me you never want to come!
CCLXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 6th July, 1874 (Yesterday, seventy years.)
I was in Paris from the 30th of May to the 10th of June, you were
not there. Since my return here, I have been ill with the grippe,
rheumatic, and often absolutely deprived of the use of my right arm.
I have not the courage to stay in bed: I spend the evening with my
children and I forget my little miseries which will pass; everything
passes. That is why I was not able to write to you, even to thank
you for the good letter which you wrote to me about my novel. In
Paris I was overwhelmed by fatigue. That is the way I am growing
old, and now I am beginning to feel it; I am not more often ill,
now, illness PROSTRATES me more. That is nothing, I have not the
right to complain, being well loved and well cared for in my nest. I
urge Maurice to go about without me, since my strength is not equal
to going with him. He leaves tomorrow for Cantal with a servant, a
tent, a lamp, and a quantity of utensils to examine the MICROS of
his entomological DIVISION I am telling him that you are bored on
the Righi. He cannot understand it.