Do tell M. Zola to send me his book. I shall certainly read it with
great interest.
CCCV. TO GEORGE SAND
Wednesday, 9th March, 1876
COMPLETE SUCCESS, dear master. The actors were recalled after each
act, and warmly applauded. The public was pleased and from time to
time cries of approval were heard. All your friends who had come at
your summons were sorry that you were not there.
The roles of Antoine and Victorine were especially well played.
Little Baretta is a real treasure.
How were you able to make Victorine from le Philosophe sans le
savoir? That is beyond me. Your play charmed me and made me weep
like an idiot, while the other bored me to death, absolutely bored
me to death; I longed to get to the end. What language! the good
Tourgueneff and Madame Viardot made saucer-eyes, comical to behold.
In your work, what produced the greatest effect is the scene in the
last act between Antoine and his daughter. Maubant is too majestic,
and the actor who plays Fulgence is inadequate. But everything went
very well, and this revival will have a long life.
The gigantic Harrisse told me that he was going to write to you
immediately. Therefore his letter will arrive before mine. I should
have started this morning for Pont-l'Eveque and Honfleur to see a
bit of the country that I have forgotten, but the floods stopped me.
Read, I beg of you, the new novel by Zola, Son Excellence Rougon: I
am very anxious to know what you think of it.
No, I do not SCORN Sedaine, because I do not scorn what I do not
understand. He is to me, like Pindar, and Milton, who are absolutely
closed to me; however, I quite understand that the citizen Sedaine
is not exactly of their calibre.
The public of last Tuesday shared my error, and Victorine,
independently of its real worth, gained by contrast. Madame Viardot,
who has naturally good taste, said to me yesterday, in speaking of
you: "How was she able to make one from the other?" That is exactly
what I think.
You distress me a bit, dear master, by attributing esthetic opinions
to me which are not mine. I believe that the rounding of the phrase
is nothing. But that WRITING WELL is everything, because "writing
well is at the same time perceiving well, thinking well and saying
well" (Buffon). The last term is then dependent on the other two,
since one has to feel strongly, so as to think, and to think, so as
to express.
All the bourgeois can have a great deal of heart and delicacy, be
full of the best sentiments and the greatest virtues, without
becoming for all that, artists. In short, I believe that the form
and the matter are two subtleties, two entities, neither of which
can exist without the other.
This anxiety for external beauty which you reproach me with is for
me a METHOD. When I discover a bad assonance or a repetition in one
of my phrases, I am sure that I am floundering in error; by dint of
searching, I find the exact expression which was the only one and
is, at the same time, the harmonious one. The word is never lacking
when one possesses the idea.
Note (to return to the good Sedaine) that I share all his opinions
and I approve his tendencies. From the archeological point of view,
he is curious and from the humanitarian point of view very
praiseworthy, I agree. But what difference does it make to us today?
Is it eternal art? I ask you that.
Other writers of his period have formulated useful principles also,
but in an imperishable style, in a more concrete and at the same
time more general manner.
In short, the persistence of the Comedie Francais in exhibiting that
to us as "a masterpiece" had so exasperated me that, having gone
home in order to get rid of the taste of this milk-food, I read
before going to bed the Medea of Euripides, as I had no other
classic handy, and Aurora surprised Cruchard in this occupation.
I have written to Zola to send you his book. I shall tell Daudet
also to send you his Jack, as I am very curious to have your opinion
on these two books, which are very different in composition and
temperament, but quite remarkable, both of them.
The fright which the elections caused to the bourgeois has been
diverting.
CCCVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 15th March, 1876
I should have a good deal to say about the novels of M. Zola, and it
would be better to say it in an article than in a letter, because
there is a general question there which must be formulated with a
refreshed brain. I should like to read M. Daudet's book first, the
book you spoke of to me, the title of which I cannot recall. Have
the publisher send it to me collect, if he does not want to give it
to me; that is very simple. On the whole, the thing that I shall not
gainsay, meanwhile making a PHILOSOPHICAL criticism of the method,
is that Rougon is a STRONG book, as you say, and worthy of being
placed in the first rank.
That does not change anything in my way of thinking, that art ought
to be the search for the truth, and that truth is not the picture of
evil. It ought to be the picture of good and evil. A painter who
sees only one is as false as he who sees only the other. Life is not
crammed with monsters only. Society is not formed of rascals and
wretches only. The honest people are not the minority, since society
exists in a certain order and without too many unpunished crimes.
Imbeciles dominate, it is true, but there is a public conscience
which weighs on them and obliges them to respect the right. Let
people show up and chastise the rascals, that is good, it is even
moral, but let them tell us and show us the opposite; otherwise the
simple reader, who is the average reader, is discouraged, saddened,
horrified, and contradicts you so as not to despair.
How are you? Tourgueneff wrote me that your last work was very
remarkable: then you are not DONE FOR, as you pretend?
Your niece continues to improve, does she not? I too am better,
after cramps in my stomach that made me blue, and continued with a
horrible persistence. Physical suffering is a good lesson when it
leaves one freedom of spirit. One learns to endure it and to conquer
it. Of course one has some moments of discouragement when one throws
oneself on the bed; but, for my part, I always think of what my old
cure used to say to me, when he had the gout: THAT WILL PASS, OR I
SHALL PASS. And thereupon he would laugh, content with his joke.
My Aurore is beginning history, and she is not very well pleased
with these killers of men whom they call heroes and demigods. She
calls them horrid fellows.
We have a confounded spring; the earth is covered with flowers and
snow, one gets numb gathering violets and anemones.
I have read the manuscript of l'Etrangere. It is not as DECADENT as
you say. There are diamonds that sparkle brightly in this
polychrome. Moreover, the decadences are transformations. The
mountains in travail roar and scream, but they sing beautiful airs,
also.
I embrace you and I love you. Do have your legend published quickly,
so that we may read it.
Your old troubadour,