CCCXVIII. To MAURICE SAND
Saint-Gratien par Sannois, 20th August, 1877
Thank you for your kind remembrance, my dear Maurice. Next winter
you will be in Passy, I hope,--and from time to time we can have a
good chat. I even count on seeing myself at your table by the side
of your friends whose "idol" I am.
You speak to me of your dear and illustrious mamma! Next to you I do
not think that any one could think of her more often than I do! How
I miss her! How I need her!
I had begun un coeur simple solely on account of her, only to please
her. She died while I was in the midst of this work. Thus it is with
our dreams.
I still continue not to find diversion in existence. In order to
forget the weight of it, I work as frantically as possible.
What sustains me is the indignation that the Imbecility of the
Bourgeois affords me! Summed up at present by the large party of law
and order, it reaches a dizzy height!
Has there been anything in history more inept than the 16th of May?
Where is there an idiot comparable to the Bayard of modern times?
I have been in Paris, or rather at Saint-Gratien, for three days.
Day after tomorrow I leave the princess, and in a fortnight I shall
make a little trip to Lower Normandy for the sake of literature.
When we meet I shall talk a long time with you, if you are
interested, about the terrible book that I am in the process of
concocting. I shall have enough work in it to take me three or four
years. Not less!
Don't leave me so long without news. Give a long look for me at the
little corner of the holy ground!...My regards to your dear wife,
embrace the dear little girls and sincerely yours, my good Maurice,