CCXCI. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, 10th May, 1875
A wandering gout, pains that go all over me, an invincible
melancholy, the feeling of "universal uselessness" and grave doubts
about the book that I am writing, that is what is the matter with
me, dear and valiant master. Add to that worries about money with
melancholic recollections of the past, that is my condition, and I
assure you that I make great efforts to get out of it. But my will
is tired. I cannot decide about anything effective! Ah! I have eaten
my white bread first, and old age is not announcing itself under gay
colors. Since I have begun hydrotherapy, however, I feel a little
less like a COW, and this evening I am going to begin work without
looking behind me.
I have left my apartment in the rue Murillo, and I have taken a
larger one which is next to the one that my niece has just reserved
on the Boulevard Reine Hortense. I shall be less alone next winter,
for I cannot endure solitude.
Tourgueneff seemed to me, however, to be very well pleased with the
two first chapters of my frightful book. But Tourgueneff loves me
too much, perhaps to judge impartially. I am not going to leave my
house for a long time now, for I WILL get ahead in my task, which
weighs on my chest like a burden of a million pounds. My niece will
come to spend all the month of June here. When she has gone away, I
shall make a little archeological and geological excursion in
Calvados, and that will be all.
No, I do not rejoice at Michel Levy's death, and I even envy him
that death so quiet. Just the same, that man did me a great deal of
harm. He wounded me deeply. It is true that I am endowed with an
absurd sensitiveness; what scratches others tears me to pieces. Why
am I not organized for enjoyment as I am for suffering!
The bit you sent me about Aurore who is reading Homer, did me good.
That is what I miss: a little girl like that! But one does not
arrange one's own destiny, one submits to it. I have always lived
from day to day, without plans for the future and pursuing my end
(one alone, literature) without looking to the right or to the left.
Everything that was around me has disappeared, and now I find I am
in a desert. In short, the element of distraction is absolutely
lacking to me. One needs a certain vivacity to write good things!
What can one do to get it again? How can one proceed, to avoid
thinking continually about one's miserable person? The sickest thing
in me is my humor: the rest doubtless would go well. You see, dear,
good master, that I am right to spare you my letters. Nothing is as
imbecile as the whiners.
CCXCII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday morning, 10th June, 1875
We are leaving, Lina and I, on Saturday morning, and up to then we
shall be on the move. If you wanted to come to dine with us Friday
at Magny's at six o'clock, at least we could say farewell. You
should be free at nine o'clock, for we go to bed with the chickens
in order to leave early the next day. What do you say?