CCLXXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 16th January, 1875
I too, dear Cruchard, embrace you at the New Year, and wish that you
may have a tolerable one, since you do not care to hear the myth
happiness spoken of. You admire my serenity; it does not come from
my depths, it comes from my necessity of thinking only of others.
There is but a little time left, old age creeps on and death is
pushing me by the shoulders.
I am as yet, if not necessary, at least extremely useful, and I
shall go on as long as I have a breath, thinking, talking, working
for them.
Duty is the master of masters, it is the real Zeus of modern times,
the son of Time, and has become his master. It is that which lives
and acts outside of all the agitations of the world. It does not
reason, does not discuss. It examines without fear, it walks without
looking behind it; Cronos, the stupid, swallowed stones, Zeus breaks
them with the lightning, and the lightning is the will. I am not a
philosopher, I am a servant of Zeus, who takes away half of their
souls from slaves, but who leaves them entire to the brave.
I have no more leisure to think of myself, to dream of discouraging
things, to despair of human-kind, to look at my past sorrows and
joys and to summon death.
Mercy! If one were an egoist, one would see it approach with joy; it
is so easy to sleep in nothingness, or to awaken in a better life!
for it opens these two hypotheses, or to express it better, this
antithesis.
But, for the one who must continue working, death must not be
summoned before the hour when exhaustion opens the doors of liberty.
You have had no children. It is the punishment of those who wish to
be too independent; but that suffering is nevertheless a glory for
those who vow themselves to Apollo. Then do not complain for having
to grub, and describe your martyrdom to us; there is a fine book to
be written about that.
You say that Renan is despairing; for my part, I don't believe that:
I believe that he is suffering as are all those who look high and
far ahead; but he ought to have strength in proportion to his
vision. Napoleon shares his ideas, he does well if he shares them
all. He has written me a very wise and good letter. He now sees
relative safety in a wise republic, and I, too, think it still
possible. It will be very bourgeois and not very ideal, but one has
to begin at the beginning. We artists have no patience at all. We
want the Abbey of Theleme at once; but before saying, "Do what you
want!" one must go through with "Do what you can!" I love you and I
embrace you with all my heart, my dear Polycarp. My children large
and small join with me.
Come now, no weakness! We all ought to be examples to our friends,
our neighbors, our fellow citizens. And how about me, don't you
think that I need help and support in my long task that is not yet
finished? Don't you love anyone, not even your old troubadour, who
still sings, and often weeps, but who conceals himself when he
weeps, as cats do when they die?
CCLXXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, Saturday evening
Dear master,
I curse once more THE DRAMATIC MANIA and the pleasure that certain
people have in announcing remarkable news! Someone had told me that
you were VERY ill. Your good handwriting came to reassure me
yesterday morning, and this morning I have received the letter from
Maurice, so the Lord be praised!
What to tell you about myself? I am not stiff, I have ... I don't
know what. Bromide of potassium has calmed me and given me eczema on
the middle of my forehead.
Abnormal things are going on inside me. My psychic depression must
relate to some hidden cause. I feel old, used up, disgusted with
everything, and others bore me as I do myself.
However, I am working, but without enthusiasm: as one does a stint,
and perhaps it is the work that makes me ill, for I have undertaken
a senseless book.
I lose myself in the recollections of my childhood like an old man
... I do not expect anything further in life than a succession of
sheets of paper to besmear with black. It seems to me that I am
crossing an endless solitude to go I don't know where. And it is I
who am at the same time the desert, the traveller, and the camel.
I spent the afternoon today at the funeral of Amedee Achard. The
Protestant ceremonies were as inane as if they had been Catholic.
ALL PARIS and the reporters were there in force!
Your friend, Paul Meurice, came a week ago to ask me to "do the
Salon" in le Rappel. I declined the honor, for I do not admit that
anyone can criticise an art of which he does not know the technique!
And then, what use is so much criticism!
I am reasonable. I go out every day, I exercise, and I come home
tired, and still more irritated, that is the good I get out of it.
In short, your troubadour (not very troubadourish) has become a sad
bonehead.
It is in order not to bore you with my complaints that I write so
rarely to you now, for no one has a livelier sense than I of my
unbearableness.
Send me Flamarande; that will give me a little air.
I embrace you all, and especially you, dear master, so great, so
strong, and so gentle. Your Cruchard, who is more and more cracked,
if cracked is the right word, for I perceive that the contents are
escaping.
CCLXXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
20th February
Then you are quite ill, dear old fellow? I am not worried about it,
since it concerns only nerves and rheumatisms, and I have lived
seventy years with all that nuisance in my body, and I am still
healthy. But I am sad to know that you are bored, suffering, and
your spirit turned to darkness as it necessarily is when one is ill.
I was sure that a moment would come when someone would prescribe
walking to you. All your illness comes from the lack of exercise, a
man of your strength and your complexion ought to have lived an
athletic life.
Don't sulk then about the very wise order that condemns you to an
hour's walk each day.
You fancy that the work of the spirit is only in the brain, you are
very much mistaken, it is also in the legs.
Tell me that two weeks of this regime has cured you. It will happen,
I am sure of it.