Little Aurore promises to be very sweet and calm, understanding in a
marvelous manner what is said to her and YIELDING TO REASON at two
years of age. It is very extraordinary and I have never seen it
before. It would be disquieting if one did not feel a great serenity
in that little brain.
But how I am gossiping with you! Does all this amuse you? I should
like this chatty letter to substitute for one of those suppers of
ours which I too regret, and which would be so good here with you,
if you were not a stick-in-the-mud, who won't let yourself be
dragged away to LIFE FOR LIFE'S SAKE. Ah! when one is on a vacation,
how work, logic, reason seem strange CONTRASTS! One asks whether one
can ever return to that ball and chain.
I tenderly embrace you, my dear old fellow, and Maurice thinks your
letter so fine that he is going to put the phrases and words at once
in the mouth of his first philosopher. He bids me embrace you for
him.
Madame Juliette Lambert [Footnote: Afterwards, Madame Edmond Adam.]
is really charming; you would like her a great deal, and then you
have it 18 degrees above zero down there, and here we are in the
snow. It is severe; moreover, I rarely go out, and my dog himself
doesn't want to go out. He is not the least amazing member of
society. When he is called Badinguet, he lies on the ground ashamed
and despairing, and sulks all the evening.
LXXV. TO GEORGE SAND
1st January, 1868
It is unkind to sadden me with the recital of the amusements at
Nohant, since I cannot share them. I need so much time to do so
little that I have not a minute to lose (or gain), if I want to
finish my dull old book by the summer of 1869.
I did not say it was necessary to suppress the heart, but to
restrain it, alas! As for the regime that I follow which is contrary
to the laws of hygiene, I did not begin yesterday. I am accustomed
to it. I have, nevertheless, a fairly seasoned sense of fatigue, and
it is time that my second part was finished, after which I shall go
to Paris. That will be about the end of the month. You don't tell me
when you return from Cannes.
My rage against M. Thiers is not yet calmed, on the contrary! It
idealizes itself and increases.
LXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 12 January, 1868
No, it is not silly to embrace each other on New Year's day: on the
contrary, it is good and it is nice. I thank you for having thought
of it and I kiss you on your beautiful big eyes. Maurice embraces
you also. I am housed here by the snow and the cold, and my trip is
postponed. We amuse ourselves madly at home so as to forget that we
are prisoners, and I am prolonging my holidays in a ridiculous
fashion. Not an iota of work from morning till night. What luck if
you could say as much!--But what a fine winter, don't you think so?
Isn't it lovely, the moonlight on the trees covered with snow? Do
you look at that at night while you are working?--If you are going
to Paris the end of the month, I shall still have a chance to meet
you.
From far, or from near, dear old fellow, I think of you and I love
you from the depth of my old heart which does not know the flight of
years.
G. Sand
My love to your mother always. I imagine that she is in Rouen during
this severe cold.
LXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 10 May, 1868
Yes, friend of my heart, am I not in the midst of terrible things;
that poor little Madame Lambert [Footnote: Madame Eugene Lambert,
the wife of the artist] is severely threatened.
I saw M. Depaul today. One must be prepared for anything!--If the
crisis is passed or delayed, for there is question of bringing on
the event, I shall be happy to spend two days with my old
troubadour, whom I love tenderly.
G. Sand.
LXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 11 May, 1868
If you were to be at home Wednesday evening, I should go to chat an
hour alone with you after dinner in your quarters. I despair
somewhat of going to Croisset; it is tomorrow that that they decide
the fate of my poor friend.
A word of response, and above all do not change any plan. Whether I
see you or not, I know that two old troubadours love each other
devotedly!
G. Sand Monday evening.
LXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 17 May, 1868
I have a little respite, since they are not going to bring on the
confinement. I hope to go to spend two days at that dear Croisset.
But then don't go on Thursday, I am giving a dinner for the prince
[Footnote: Prince Jerome Napoleon.] at Magny's and I told him that I
would detain you by force. Say yes, at once. I embrace you and I
love you.
G. Sand
LXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
I shall not go with you to Croisset, for you must sleep, and we talk
too much. But on Sunday or Monday if you still wish it; only I
forbid you to inconvenience yourself. I know Rouen, I know that
there are carriages at the railway station and that one goes
straight to your house without any trouble.
I shall probably go in the evening.
Embrace your dear mamma for me, I shall be happy to her again.
G. Sand
If those days do not suit you, a word, and I shall communicate with
you again. Have the kindness to put the address on the ENCLOSED
letter and to put it in the mail.
LXXXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 21 Thursday--May, 1868
I see that the day trains are very slow, I shall make a great effort
and shall leave at eight o'clock Sunday, so as to lunch with you; if
it is too late don't wait for me, I lunch on two eggs made into an
omelet or shirred, and a cup of coffee. Or dine on a little chicken
or some veal and vegetables.
In giving up trying to eat REAL MEAT, I have found again a strong
stomach. I drink cider with enthusiasm, no more champagne! At
Nohant, I live on sour wine and galette, and since I am not trying
any more to THOROUGHLY NOURISH myself, no more anemia; believe then
in the logic of physicians!
In short you must not bother any more about me than about the cat
and not even so much. Tell your little mother, just that. Then I
shall see you at last, all I want to for two days. Do you know that
you are INACCESSIBLE in Paris? Poor old fellow, did you finally
sleep like a dormouse in your cabin? I would like to give you a
little of my sleep that nothing, not even a cannon, can disturb.
But I have had bad dreams for two weeks about my poor Esther, and
now at last, here are Depaul, Tarnier, Gueniaux and Nelaton who told
us yesterday that she will deliver easily and very well, and that
the child has every reason to be superb. I breathe again, I am born
anew, and I am going to embrace you so hard that you will be
scandalised. I shall see you on Sunday then, and don't inconvenience
yourself.
G. Sand
LXXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 26 May, 1868
Arrived while dozing. Dined with your delightful and charming
friend Du Camp. We talked of you, only of you and your mother, and
we said a hundred times that we loved you. I am going to sleep so as
to be ready to move tomorrow morning.
I am charmingly located on the Luxembourg garden.
I embrace you, mother and son, with all my heart which is entirely
yours.
G. Sand Tuesday evening, rue Gay-Lussac, 5.
LXXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 28 May, 1868
My little friend gave birth this morning after two hours of labor,
to a boy who seemed dead but whom they handled so well that he is
very much alive and very lovely this evening. The mother is very
well, what luck!
But what a sight! It was something to see. I am very tired, but very
content and tell you so because you love me.
G. Sand
Thursday evening. I leave Tuesday for Nohant.
LXXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 21 June, 1868
Here I am again, BOTHERING you for M. Du Camp's address which you
never gave me, although you forwarded a letter for me to him, and
from WHOM I never thought of asking for it when I dined with him in
Paris. I have just read his Forces Perdues; I promised to tell him
my opinion and I am keeping my word. Write the address, then give it
to the postman and thank you.
There you are alone at odds with the sun in your charming villa!
Why am I not the...river which cradles you with its sweet MURMURING
and which brings you freshness in your den! I would chat discreetly
with you between two pages of your novel, and I would make that
fantastic grating of the chain [Footnote: The chain of the tug-boat
going up or coming down the Seine.] which you detest, but whose
oddity does not displease me, keep still. I love everything that
makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the
workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the
movement of the ships on the waters; I love also absolute, profound
silence, and in short, I love everything that is around me, no
matter where I am; it is AUDITORY IDIOCY, a new variety. It is true
that I choose my milieu and don't go to the Senate nor to other
disagreeable places.
Everything is going on well at our house, my troubadour. The
children are beautiful, we adore them; it is warm, I adore that. It
is always the same old story that I have to tell you and I love you
as the best of friends and comrades. You see that is not new. I have
a good and strong impression of what you read to me; it seemed to me
so beautiful that it must be good. As for me, I am not sticking to
anything. Idling is my dominant passion. That will pass, what does
not pass, is my friendship for you.
G. Sand
Our affectionate regards.
LXXXV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Sunday, 5 July, 1868
I have sawed wood hard for six weeks. The patriots won't forgive me
for this book, nor the reactionaries either! What do I care! I write
things as I feel them, that is to say, as I think they are. Is it
foolish of me? But it seems to me that our unhappiness comes
exclusively from people of our class. I find an enormous amount of
Christianity in Socialism. There are two notes which are now on my
table.
"This system (his) is not a system of disorder, for it has its
source in the Gospels, and from this divine source, hatred, warfare,
the clashing of every interest, CAN NOT PROCEED! for the doctrine
formulated from the Gospel, is a doctrine of peace, union and love."
(L. Blanc).
"I shall even dare to advance the statement that together with the
respect for the Sabbath, the last spark of poetic fire has been
extinguished in the soul of our rhymesters. It has been said that
without religion, there is no poetry!" (Proudhon).
A propos of that, I beg of you, dear master, to read at the end of
his book on the observance of the Sabbath, a love-story entitled, I
think, Marie et Maxime. One must know that to have an idea of the
style of les Penseurs. It should be placed on a level with Le Voyage
en Bretagne by the great Veuillot, in Ca et La. That does not
prevent us from having friends who are great admirers of these two
gentlemen.
When I am old, I shall write criticism; that will console me, for I
often choke with suppressed opinions. No one understands better than
I do, the indignation of the great Boileau against bad taste: "The
senseless things which I hear at the Academy hasten my end." There
was a man!
Every time now that I hear the chain of the steam-boats, I think of
you, and the noise irritates me less, when I say to myself that it
pleases you. What moonlight there is tonight on the river!
LXXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 31 July, 1868
I am writing to you at Croisset in any case, because I doubt if you
are in Paris during this Toledo-like heat; unless the shade of
Fontainebleau has kept you. What a lovely forest, isn't it? but it
is especially so in winter, without leaves, with its fresh moss,
which has chic. Did you see the sand of Arbonne? There is a little
Sahara there which ought to be lovely now.
We are very happy here. Every day a bath in a stream that is always
cold and shady; in the daytime four hours of work, in the evening,
recreation, and the life of Punch and Judy. A TRAVELLING THEATRICAL
COMPANY came to us; it was part of a company from the Odeon, among
whom were several old friends to whom we gave supper at La Chatre,
two successive nights with all their friends, after the play;--
songs, laughter, with champagne frappe, till three o'clock in the
morning to the great scandal of the bourgeois, who would have
committed any crime to have been there. There was a very comic
Norman, a real Norman, who sang real peasant songs to us, in the
real language. Do you know that they have quite a Gallic wit and
mischief? They contain a mine of master-pieces of genre. That made
me love Normandy still more. You may know that comedian. His name is
Freville. It is he who is charged in the repertory with the parts of
the dull valets, and with being kicked from behind. He is
detestable, impossible, but out of the theatre, he is as charming as
can be. Such is fate!
We have had some delightful guests at our house, and we have had a
joyous time without prejudice to the Lettres d'un Voyageur in the
Revue, or to botanical excursions in some very surprising wild
places. The little girls are the loveliest thing about it all.
Gabrielle is a big lamb, sleeping and laughing all day; Aurore, more
spiritual, with eyes of velvet and fire, talking at thirty months as
others do at five years, and adorable in everything. They are
keeping her back so that she shall not get ahead too fast.
You worry me when you tell me that your book will blame the patriots
for everything that goes wrong. Is that really so? and then the
victims! it is quite enough to be undone by one's own fault without
having one's own foolishness thrown in one's teeth. Have pity! There
are so many fine spirits among them just the same! Christianity has
been a fad and I confess that in every age it is a lure when one
sees only the tender side of it; it wins the heart. One has to
consider the evil it does in order to get rid of it. But I am not
surprised that a generous heart like Louis Blanc dreamed of seeing
it purified and restored to his ideal. I also had that illusion; but
as soon as one takes a step in this past, one sees that it can not
be revived, and I am sure that now Louis Blanc smiles at his dream.
One should think of that also.
One must remind oneself that all those who had intelligence have
progressed tremendously during the last twenty years and that it
would not be generous to reproach them with what they probably
reproach themselves.
As for Proudhon, I never thought him sincere. He is a rhetorician of
GENIUS, as they say. But I don't understand him. He is a specimen of
perpetual antithesis, without solution. He affects one like one of
the old Sophists whom Socrates made fun of.
I am trusting you for GENEROUS sentiments. One can say a word more
or less without wounding, one can use the lash without hurting, if
the hand is gentle in its strength. You are so kind that you cannot
be cruel.
Shall I go to Croisset this autumn? I begin to fear not, and to fear
that Cadio is not being rehearsed. But I shall try to escape from
Paris even if only for one day.
My children send you their regards. Ah! Heavens! there was a fine
quarrel about Salammbo; some one whom you do not know, went so far
as not to like it, Maurice called him BOURGEOIS, and to settle the
affair, little Lina, who is high tempered, declared that her husband
was wrong to use such a word, for he ought to have said IMBECILE.
There you are. I am well as a Turk. I love you and I embrace you.
Your old Troubadour,
G. Sand
LXXXVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Dieppe, Monday
But indeed, dear master, I was in Paris during that tropical heat
(trop picole, as the governor of the chateau of Versailles says),
and I perspired greatly. I went twice to Fontainebleau, and the
second time by your advice, saw the sands of Arboronne. It is so
beautiful that it made me almost dizzy.
I went also to Saint-Gratien. Now I am at Dieppe, and Wednesday I
shall be in Croisset, not to stir from there for a long time, the
novel must progress.
Yesterday I saw Dumas: we talked of you, of course, and as I shall
see him tomorrow we shall talk again of you.
I expressed myself badly if I said that my book "will blame the
patriots for everything that goes wrong." I do not recognize that I
have the right to blame anyone. I do not even think that the
novelist ought to express his own opinion on the things of this
world. He can communicate it, but I do not like him to say it. (That
is a part of my art of poetry.) I limit myself, then, to declaring
things as they appear to me, to expressing what seems to me to be
true. And the devil take the consequences; rich or poor, victors or
vanquished, I admit none of all that. I want neither love, nor hate,
nor pity, nor anger. As for sympathy, that is different; one never
has enough of that. The reactionaries, besides, must be less spared
than the others, for they seem to be more criminal.
Is it not time to make justice a part of art? The impartiality of
painting would then reach the majesty of the law,--and the precision
of science!
Well, as I have absolute confidence in your great mind, when my
third part is finished, I shall read it to you, and if there is in
my work, something that seems MEAN to you, I will remove it.
But I am convinced beforehand that you will object to nothing.
As for allusions to individuals, there is not a shadow of them.
Prince Napoleon, whom I saw at his sister's Thursday, asked for news
of you and praised Maurice. Princess Matilde told me that she
thought you "charming," which made me like her better than ever.
How will the rehearsals of Cadio prevent you from coming to see your
poor old friend this autumn? It is not impossible. I know Freville.
He is an excellent and very cultivated man.
LXXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Wednesday evening, 9 September, 1868
Is this the way to behave, dear master? Here it is nearly two months
since you have written to your old troubadour! you in Paris, in
Nohant, or elsewhere? They say that Cadio is now being rehearsed at
the Porte Saint-Martin (so you have fallen out with Chilly?) They
say that Thuillier will make her re-appearance in your play. (But I
thought she was dying). And when are they to play this Cadio? Are
you content? etc., etc.
I live absolutely like an oyster. My novel is the rock to which I
attach myself, and I don't know anything that goes on in the world.
I do not even read, or rather I have not read La Lanterne! Rochefort
bores me, between ourselves. It takes courage to venture to say even
hesitatingly, that possibly he is not the first writer of the
century. O Velches! Velches! as M. de Voltaire would sigh (or roar)!
But a propos of the said Rochefort, have they been somewhat
imbecilic? What poor people!
And Sainte-Beuve? Do you see him? As for me, I am working
furiously. I have just written a description of the forest of
Fontainebleau that made me want to hang myself from one of its
trees. As I was interrupted for three weeks, I am having terrible
trouble in getting back to work. I am like the camels, which can't
be stopped when they are in motion, nor started when they are
resting. It will take me a year to finish the book. After that I
shall abandon the bourgeois definitely. He is too difficult and on
the whole too ugly. It will be high time to do something beautiful
and that I like.
What would please me well for the moment, would be to embrace you.
When will that be? Till then, a thousand affectionate thoughts.
LXXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Paris, 10 September, 1868
Just at present, dear friend, there is a truce to my correspondence.
On all sides I am reproached, WRONGLY, for not answering letters. I
wrote you from Nohant about two weeks ago that I was going to Paris,
on business about Cadio:--and now, I am returning to Nohant tomorrow
at dawn to see my Aurore. I have written during the last week, four
acts of the play, and my task is finished until the end of the
rehearsals which will be looked after by my friend and collaborator,
Paul Meurice. All his care does not prevent the working out of the
first part from being a horrible bungle. One needs to see the
putting-on of a play in order to understand that, and if one is not
armed with humor and inner zest for the study of human nature in the
actual individuals whom the fiction is to mask, there is much to
rage about. But I don't rage any more, I laugh; I know too much of
all that to get excited about it, and I shall tell you some fine
stories about it when we meet.
However, as I am an optimist just the same, I look at the good side
of things and people; but the truth is that everything is bad and
everything is good in this world.
Poor Thuillier has not sparkling health; but she hopes to carry the
burden of the work once more. She needs to earn her living, she is
cruelly poor. I told you in my lost letter that Sylvanie [Footnote:
Madame Arnould-Plessy.] had been several days at Nohant. She is more
beautiful than ever and quite well again after a terrible illness.
Would you believe that I have not seen Sainte-Beuve? That I have had
only the time here to sleep a little, and to eat in a hurry? It is
just that. I have not heard anyone whatsoever talked about outside
of the theatre and of the players. I have had mad desires to abandon
everything and to go to surprise you for a couple of hours; but I
have not been a day without being kept at FORCED LABOR.
I shall return here the end of the month, and when they play Cadio,
I shall beg you to spend twenty-four hours here for me. Will you do
it? Yes, you are too good a troubadour to refuse me. I embrace you
with all my heart, and your mother too. I am happy that she is well.
G. Sand
XC. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 18 September, 1868
It will be, I think, the 8th or 10th of October. The management
announces it for the 26th of September. But that seems impossible to
everyone. Nothing is ready; I shall be advised, I shall advise you.
I have come to spend the days of respite that my very conscientious
and very devoted collaborator allows me. I am taking up again a
novel on the THEATRE, the first part of which I had left on my desk,
and I plunge every day in a little icy torrent which tumbles me
about and makes me sleep like a top. How comfortable one is here
with these two little children who laugh and chatter from morning
till night like birds, and how foolish it is to go to compose and to
put on MADE UP THINGS when the reality is so easy and so fine! But
one gets accustomed to regarding all that as a military order, and
goes to the front without asking oneself if it means wounds or
death. Do you think that that bothers me? No, I assure you; but it
does not amuse me either. I go straight ahead, stupid as a cabbage
and patient as a Berrichon. Nothing is interesting in my life except
OTHER PEOPLE. Seeing you soon in Paris will be more of a pleasure
than my business will be an annoyance to me. Your novel interests me
more than all mine. Impersonality, a sort of idiocy which is
peculiar to me, is making a noticeable progress. If I were not well,
I should think that it was a malady. If my old heart did not become
each day more loving, I should think it was egotism; in short, I
don't know what it is, and there you are. I have had trouble
recently. I told you of it in the letter which you did not receive.
A person whom you know, whom I love greatly, Celimene, [Footnote:
Madame Arnould-Plessy.] has become a religious enthusiast, oh!
indeed, an ecstatic, mystic, molinistic religious enthusiast, I
don't know what, imbecile! I have exceeded my limits. I have raged,
I have said the hardest things to her, I have laughed at her.
Nothing made any difference, it was all the same to her. Father
Hyacinthe replaces for her every friendship, every good opinion; can
you understand that? Her very noble mind, a real intelligence, a
worthy character! and there you are! Thuillier is also religious,
but without being changed; she does not like priests, she does not
believe in the devil, she is a heretic without knowing it. Maurice
and Lina are furious against THE OTHER. They don't like her at all.
As for me, it gives me much sorrow not to love her any more.
We love you, we embrace you.
I thank you for coming to see Cadio.
G. Sand
XCI. TO GEORGE SAND
Does that astonish you, dear master? Oh well! it doesn't me! I told
you so but you would not believe me.
I am sorry for you. For it is sad to see the friends one loves
change. This replacement of one soul by another, in a body that
remains the same as it was, is a distressing sight. One feels
oneself betrayed! I have experienced it, and more than once.
But then, what idea have you of women, O, you who are of the third
sex? Are they not, as Proudhon said, "the desolation of the Just"?
Since when could they do without delusions? After love, devotion; it
is in the natural order of things. Dorine has no more men, she takes
the good God. That is all.
The people who have no need of the supernatural, are rare.
Philosophy will always be the lot of the aristocrats. However much
you fatten human cattle, giving them straw as high as their bellies,
and even gilding their stable, they will remain brutes, no matter
what one says. All the advance that one can hope for, is to make the
brute a little less wicked. But as for elevating the ideas of the
mass, giving it a larger and therefore a less human conception of
God, I have my doubts.
I am reading now an honest book (written by one of my friends, a
magistrate), on the Revolution in the Department of Eure. It is full
of extracts from writings of the bourgeois of the time, simple
citizens of the small towns. Indeed I assure you that there is now
very little of that strength! They were literary and fine, full of
good sense, of ideas, and of generosity.
Neo-catholicism on the one hand, and Socialism on the other, have
stultified France. Everything moves between the Immaculate
Conception and the dinner pails of the working people.
I told you that I did not flatter the democrats in my book. But I
assure you that the conservatives are not spared. I am now writing
three pages on the abominations of the national guard in June, 1848,
which will cause me to be looked at favorably by the bourgeois. I
am rubbing their noses in their own dirt as much as I can. But you
don't give me any details about Cadio. Who are the actors, etc.? I
mistrust your novel about the theatre. You like those people too
much! Have you known any well who love their art? What a quantity of
artists there are who are only bourgeois gone astray!
We shall see each other in three weeks at the latest. I shall be
very glad of it and I embrace you.
And the censorship? I really hope for you that it will make some
blunders. Besides, I should be distressed if it was wanting in its
usual habits.
Have you read this in the paper? "Victor Hugo and Rochefort, the
greatest writers of the age." If Badinguet now is not avenged, it is
because he is hard to please in the matter of punishments.
XCII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The halcyons skim over the water and are common every where. The
name is pretty and sufficiently well known.
I embrace you.
Your troubadour.
Paris, Friday evening, 28 August or 4 September, 1868. In October,
yes, I will try!
XCIII. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday evening
I received your two notes, dear master. You send me "halcyon" to
replace the word, "dragonfly." Georges Pouchet suggested gerre of
the lakes (genus, Gerris). Well! neither the one nor the other suits
me, because they do not immediately make a picture for the ignorant
reader.
Must I then describe that little creature? But that would retard the
movement! That would fill up all the landscape I shall put "insects
with large feet" or "long insects." That would be clear and short.
Few books have gripped me more than Cadio, and I share entirely
Maxime's [Footnote: Maxime Du Camp.] admiration.
I should have told you of it sooner if my mother and my niece had
not taken my copy. At last, this evening, they gave it back to me;
it is here on my table, and I am turning the pages as I write you.
In the first place, it seems to me as if IT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN THE
WAY IT IS! It is plain, it gets you and thrills you. How many people
must be like Saint-Gueltas, like Count de Sauvieres, like Rebec!
and even like Henri, although the models are rarer. As for the
character of Cadio, which is more of an invention than the others,
what I like best in him is his ferocious anger. In it is the
special truth of the character. Humanity turned to fury, the
guillotine become mystic, life only a sort of bloody dream, that is
what must take place in such heads. I think you have one
Shakespearean scene: that of the delegate to the Convention with his
two secretaries, is of an incredible strength. It makes one cry out!
There is one also which struck me very much at the first reading:
the scene where Saint-Gueltas and Henri each have the pistols in
their pockets: and many others. What a fine page (I open by chance)
is page 161!
In the play won't you have to give a longer role to the wife of the
good Saint-Gueltas? The play ought not to be very hard to cut. It is
only a question of condensing and shortening it. If it is played,
I'll guarantee a terrific success. But the censorship?
Well, you have written a masterpiece, that's true! and a very
amusing one. My mother thinks it recalls to her stories that she
heard while a child. A propos of Vendee, did you know that her
paternal grandfather was, after M. Lescure, the head of the Vendee
army? The aforesaid head was named M. Fleuriot d'Argentan. I am not
any the prouder for that; besides the thing is doubtful, for my
grandfather, a violent republican, hid his political antecedents.
My mother is going in a few days to Dieppe, to her grandchild's. I
shall be alone a good part of the summer, and I plan to grub.
"I labor much and shun the world.
It is not at balls that the future is founded."
(Camilla Doucet.)
But my everlasting novel bores me sometimes in an incredible
manner! These tiny details are stupid to bother with! Why annoy
oneself about such a miserable subject?
I would write you at length about Cadio; but it is late and my eyes
are smarting.
So, thank you, very kindly, my dear master.
XCIV. To M. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Paris, end of September, 1868
Dear friend,
It is for Saturday next, 3rd October. I am at the theatre every
evening from six o'clock till two in the morning. They talk of
putting mattresses behind the scenes for the actors who are not in
front. As for me, as used to wakefulness as you are, I experience no
fatigue; but I should be very much bored if I had not the resource
that one has always, of thinking of other things. I am sufficiently
accustomed to it to be writing another play while they are
rehearsing, and there is something quite exciting in these great
dark rooms where mysterious characters move, talking in low tones,
in unexpected costumes; nothing is more like a dream, unless one
imagines a conspiracy of patients escaped from Bicetre.
I don't at all know what the performance will be. If one did not
know the prodigies of harmony and of vim which occur at the last
moment, one would judge it all impossible, with thirty-five or forty
speaking actors of whom only five or six speak well. One spends
hours over the exits and entrances of the characters in blue or
white blouses who are to be the soldiers or the peasants, but who,
meanwhile perform incomprehensible manoeuvres. Still the dream. One
has to be a madman to put on these things. And the frenzy of the
actors, pale and worn out, who drag themselves to their place
yawning, and suddenly start like crazy people to declaim their
tirade; continually the assembling of insane people.
The censorship has left us alone as regards the manuscript; tomorrow
these gentlemen will inspect the costumes, which perhaps will
frighten them.
I left my dear world very quiet at Nohant. If Cadio succeeds, it
will be a little DOT for Aurore; that is all my ambition. If it does
not succeed, I shall have to begin over again, that is all.
I shall see you. Then, in any case, that will be a happy day. Come
to see me the night before, if you arrive the night before, or even
the same day. Come to dine with me the night before or the same day;
I am at home from one o'clock to five. Thank you; I embrace you and
I love you.
G. Sand
XCV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 5 October, 1868
Dear good friend, I recommend again to your good offices, my friend
Despruneaux, so that you will again do what you can to be of use to
him in a very just suit which has already been judged in his favor.
Yours,
G. Sand
XCVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 15 October, 1868
Here I am "ter hum" where, after having hugged my children and my
grandchildren, I slept thirty-six hours at one stretch. You must
believe that I was tired and did not notice it. I am waking from
that animal-hibernation and you are the first person to whom I want
to write. I did not thank you enough for coming to Paris for my
sake, you who go about so little: and I did not see you enough
either; when I knew that you had supped with Plauchut, [Footnote:
Edmond Plauchut, a writer and a friend of George Sand.] I was angry
at having stayed to take care of my sickly Thuillier, to whom I was
of no use, and who was not particularly pleased about it. Artists
are spoiled children and the best are great egoists. You say that I
like them too well; I like them as I like the woods and the fields,
everything, every one that I know a little and that I study
continually. I make my life in the midst of all that, and as I like
my life I like all that nourishes it and renews it. They do me a lot
of ill turns which I see, but which I no longer feel. I know that
there are thorns in the hedges, but that does not prevent me from
putting out my hands and finding flowers there. If all are not
beautiful, all are interesting. The day you took me to the Abbey of
Saint-Georges I found the scrofularia borealis, a very rare plant in
France. I was enchanted; there was much...in the neighborhood where
I gathered it. Such is life!
And if one does not take life like that, one cannot take it in any
way, and then how can one endure it? I find it amusing and
interesting, and since I accept EVERYTHING, I am so much happier and
more enthusiastic when I meet the beautiful and the good. If I did
not have a great knowledge of the species, I should not have quickly
understood you, or known you or loved you. I can have an enormous
indulgence, perhaps banal, for I have had to practice it so much;
but appreciation is quite another thing, and I do not think that it
is entirely worn out in your old troubadour's mind.
I found my children still very good and very tender, my two little
grandchildren still pretty and sweet. This morning I dreamed, and I
woke up saying this strange sentence: "There is always a youthful
great first part in the drama of life. First part in mine: Aurore."
The fact is that it is impossible not to idolize that little one.
She is so perfect in intelligence and goodness, that she seems to me
like a dream.
You also, without knowing it, YOU ARE A DREAM ... like that.
Plauchut saw you once, and he adored you. That proves that he is not
stupid. When he left me in Paris, he told me to remember him to you.
I left Cadio in doubt between good and average receipts. The cabal
against the new management relaxed after the second day. The press
was half favorable, half hostile. The good weather is against it.
The hateful performance of Roger is also against it. So that we
don't know yet if we shall make money or not. As for me, when money
comes, I say, "So much the better," without excitement, and if it
does not come, I say, "So much the worse," without any chagrin.
Money not being the aim, ought not to be the preoccupation. It is,
moreover, not the real proof of success, since so many vapid or poor
things make money.
Here I am with another play already underway, so as to keep my hand
in. I have a novel also on the stocks, on the STROLLING PLAYERS. I
have studied them a good deal this time without learning anything
new. I already had the plot. It is not complicated and is very
logical.
I embrace you tenderly as well as your little mother. Give me some
sign of life. Does the novel get on?
G. Sand
XCVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Saturday evening
I am remorseful for not having answered at length your last letter,
my dear master. You told me of the "ill turns" that people did you.
Did you think that I did not know it? I confess to you even
(between ourselves), that I was hurt on account of them more because
of my good taste, than because of my affection for you. I did not
think that several of your friends were warm enough towards you. "My
God! my God! how mean literary men are!" A bit out of the
correspondence of the first Napoleon. What a nice bit, eh? Doesn't
it seem to you that they belittle him too much?
The infinite stupidity of the masses makes me indulgent to
individualities, however odious they may be. I have just gulped down
the first six volumes of Buchez and Roux. The clearest thing I got
out of them is an immense disgust for the French. My Heavens! Have
we always been bunglers in this fair land of ours? Not a liberal
idea which has not been unpopular, not a just thing that has not
caused scandal, not a great man who has not been mobbed or knifed!
"The history of the human mind is the history of human folly!" as
says M. de Voltaire.
And I am convinced more and more of this truth: the doctrine of
grace has so thoroughly permeated us that the sense of justice has
disappeared. What terrified me so in the history of '48 has quite
naturally its origins in the Revolution, which had not liberated
itself from the middle ages, no matter what they say. I have re-
discovered in Marat entire fragments of Proudhon (sic) and I wager
that they would be found again in the preachers of the League.
What is the measure that the most advanced proposed after Varennes?
Dictatorship and military dictatorship. They close the churches, but
they raise temples, etc.
I assure you that I am becoming stupid with the Revolution. It is a
gulf which draws me in.
However, I work at my novel like a lot of oxen. I hope on New Year's
Day not to have over a hundred pages more to write, that is to say,
still six good months of work. I shall go to Paris as late as
possible. My winter is to pass in complete solitude, good way of
making life run along rapidly.
XCVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 20 November, 1868
You say to me, "When shall we see each other?" About the 15th of
December, we are baptizing here our two little girls as Protestants.
It is Maurice's idea; he was married before the pastor, and does not
want the persecution and influence of the Catholic church about his
children. Our friend Napoleon is the godfather of Aurore, and I am
the godmother. My nephew is the godfather of the other. All that
takes place just among ourselves, in the family. You must come,
Maurice wants you to, and if you say no, you will disappoint him
greatly. You shall bring your novel, and in a free moment, you shall
read it to me; it will do you good to read it to one who listens
well. One gets a perspective and judges one's work better. I know
that. Say yes to your old troubadour, he will be EXCEEDINGLY
GRATEFUL to you for it.
I embrace you six times if you say yes.
G. Sand
XCIX. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday
Dear master,
You cannot imagine the sorrow you give me! In spite of the longing
I have, I answer "no." Yet I am distracted with my desire to say
"yes." It makes me seem like a gentleman who cannot be disturbed,
which is very silly. But I know myself: if I go to your house at
Nohant, I shall have a month of dreaming about my trip. Real
pictures will replace in my brain the fictitious pictures which I
compose with great difficulty. All my house of cards will topple
over.
Three weeks ago because I was foolish enough to accept an invitation
to dinner at a country place nearby, I lost four days (sic). What
would it be on leaving Nohant? You do not understand that, you
strong Being! I think that you will be a little vexed with your old
troubadour for not coming to the baptism of the two darlings of his
friend Maurice? The dear master must write to me if I am wrong, and
to give me the news!
Here is mine! I work immoderately and am absolutely ENCHANTED by the
prospect of the end which begins to be visible.
So that it may arrive more quickly, I have made the resolution to
live here all winter, probably until the end of March. Even
admitting that everything goes perfectly, I shall not have finished
all before the end of May. I don't know anything that goes on and I
read nothing, except a little of the French Revolution, after my
meals, to aid digestion. I have lost my former good habit of reading
every day in Latin. Therefore I don't know a word of it any more! I
shall polish it up again when I am freed from my odious bourgeois,
and I am nowhere near it.
My only excitement consists in going to dine on Sundays at Rouen
with my mother. I leave at six o'clock, and I am home at ten. Such
is my life.
Did I tell you that I had a visit from Tourgueneff? How you would
love him!
Sainte-Beuve gets along. Anyway, I shall see him next week when I am
in Paris for two days, to get necessary information What is the
information about? The national guard!!!
Listen to this: le Figaro not knowing with what to fill its columns,
has had the idea of saying that my novel tells the life of
Chancellor Pasquier. Thereupon, fear of the aforesaid family, which
wrote to another part of the same family living in Rouen, which
latter has been to find a lawyer from whom my brother received a
visit, so that ... in short, I was very stupid not to "get some
benefit from the opportunity." Isn't it a fine piece of idiocy, eh?
C. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, AT CEOISSET
Nohant, 21 December, 1868
Certainly, I am cross with you and angry with you, not from
unreasonableness nor from selfishness, but on the contrary, because
we were joyous and HILARIOUS and you would not distract yourself and
amuse yourself with us. If it was to amuse yourself elsewhere, you
would be pardoned in advance; but it was to shut yourself up, to get
all heated up, and besides for a work which you curse, and which--
wishing to do and being obliged to do anyhow,--you ought to be able
to do at your ease and without becoming too absorbed in it.
You tell me that you are like that. There is nothing more to say;
but one may well be distressed at having an adored friend, a captive
in chains far away, whom one may not free. It is perhaps a little
coquettish on your part, so as to make yourself pitied and loved the
more. I, who have not buried myself alive in literature, have
laughed and lived a great deal during these holidays, but always
thinking of you and talking of you with our friend of the Palais
Royal, [Footnote: Jerome Napoleon.] who would have been happy to
see you and who loves you and appreciates you a great deal.
Tourgueneff has been more fortunate than we, since he was able to
snatch you from your ink-well. I know him personally very little,
but I know his work by heart. What talent! and how original and
polished! I think that the foreigners do better than we do. They do
not pose, while we either put on airs or grovel: the Frenchman has
no longer a social milieu, he has no longer an intellectual milieu.
I except you, you who live a life of exception, and I except myself,
because of the foundation of careless unconventionally which was
bestowed upon me; but I, I do not know how to be "careful" and to
polish, and I love life too much, and I am amused too much by the
mustard and all that is not the real "dinner," to ever be a
litterateur. I have had flashes of it, but they have not lasted.
Existence where one ignores completely one's "moi" is so good, and
life where one does not play a role is such a pretty performance to
watch and to listen to! When I have to give of myself, I live with
courage and resolution, but I am no longer amused.
You, oh! fanatical troubadour, I suspect you of amusing yourself at
your profession more than at anything in the world. In spite of what
you say about it, art could well be your sole passion, and your
shutting yourself up, at which I mourn like the silly that I am,
your state of pleasure. If it is like that then, so much the better,
but acknowledge it to console me.
I am going to leave you in order to dress the marionettes, for the
plays and the laughter have been resumed with the bad weather, and
that will keep us busy for a part of the winter, I fancy. Behold!
here I am, the imbecile that you love, and that you call MASTER. A
fine master who likes to amuse himself better than to work!
Scorn me profoundly, but love me still. Lina tells me to tell you
that you are not much, and Maurice is furious too; but we love you
in spite of ourselves and embrace you just the same. Our friend
Plauchut wants to be remembered to you; he adores you too.
Yours, you huge ingrate,
G. Sand
I had read the hoax of le Figaro and had laughed at it. It turns out
to have assumed grotesque proportions. As for me, they gave me a
grandson instead of two granddaughters, and a Catholic baptism
instead of a Protestant. That does not make any difference. One
really has to lie a little to divert oneself.
CI. TO GEORGE SAND
Saint Sylvester's night, one o'clock, 1869
Why should I not begin the year of 1869 in wishing to you and to
yours "Happy New Year and many of them"? It is rococo, but it
pleases me. Now, let us talk.
No, I don't get into a heat, for I have never been better. They
thought me, in Paris, "fresh as a young girl," and those people who
don't know my life attributed that appearance of health to the air
of the country. That is what conventional ideas are. Every one has
his system. For my part, when I am not hungry, the only thing I can
eat is dry bread. And the most indigestible food, such as apples in
sour cider, and bacon, are what cure me of the stomach-ache. And so
on. A man who has no common sense ought not to try to live according
to common-sense rules.
As for my frenzy for work, I will compare it to an attack of herpes.
I scratch myself while I cry. It is both a pleasure and a torture at
the same time. And I am doing nothing that I want to! For one does
not choose one's subjects, they force themselves on one. Shall I
ever find mine? Will an idea fall from Heaven suitable to my
temperament? Can I write a book to which I shall give myself heart
and soul? It seems to me in my moments of vanity, that I am
beginning to catch a glimpse of what a novel ought to be. But I
still have three or four of them to write before that one (which is,
moreover, very vague), and at the rate I am going, if I write these
three or four, that will be the most I can do. I am like M.
Prudhomme, who thinks that the most beautiful church would be one
which had at the same time the spire of Strasbourg, the colonnade of
Saint Peter's, the portico of the Parthenon, etc. I have
contradictory ideals. Thence embarrassment, hesitation, impotence.
As to whether the "claustration" to which I condemn myself may be a
"state of joy," no. But what can I do? To get drunk with ink is more
worth while than to get drunk with brandy. The muse, cross-grained
as she is, gives less trouble than a woman. I cannot harmonize the
one with the other. I must choose. My choice was made a long time
ago. There remains the matter of the senses. They have always been
my servants. Even at the time of my earliest youth, I did exactly as
I wanted with them. I have reached my fiftieth year, and it is not
their ardor that troubles me.
This regime is not amusing, I agree to that. There are moments of
empty and horrible boredom. But they become more and more rare in
proportion as one grows older. In short, LIVING seems to me a
business for which I was not made, and yet...!
I stayed in Paris for three days, which I made use of in hunting up
information, and in doing errands about my book. I was so worn out
last Friday, that I went to bed at seven o'clock in the evening.
Such are my mad orgies at the capital.
I found the Goncourts in a frenzied (sic) admiration over a book
entitled Histoire de ma vie by George Sand. Which proves more good
taste than learning on their part. They even wanted to write to you
to express all their admiration. (In return I found ***** stupid. He
compares Feydeau to Chateaubriand, admires very much the Lepreux de
la cite d'Aoste, finds Don Quichotte tedious, etc.).
Do you notice how rare literary sense is? The knowledge of language,
archeology, history, etc., all that should be useful however! Well!
well! not at all! The so-called enlightened people are becoming more
and more incompetent in the matter of art. Even what art means
escapes them. The glosses for them are more important than the text.
They pay more attention to the crutches than to the legs themselves.
CII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
1st January, 1869
It is one o'clock, I have just embraced my children. I am tired from
having spent the night in making a complete costume for a large doll
for Aurore; but I don't want to turn in without embracing you also,
my great friend, and my dear, big child. May '69 be easy for you,
and may it see the end of your novel. May you keep well and be
always yourself! I don't know anything better, and I love you.
G. Sand
I have not the address of the Goncourts. Will you put the enclosed
answer in the mail?
CIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 17 January, 1869
The individual named George Sand is well: he is enjoying the
marvelous winter which reigns in Berry, gathering flowers, noting
interesting botanical anomalies, making dresses and mantles for his
daughter-in-law, costumes for the marionettes, cutting out scenery,
dressing dolls, reading music, but above all spending hours with the
little Aurore who is a marvelous child. There is not a more tranquil
or a happier individual in his domestic life than this old
troubadour retired from business, who sings from time to time his
little song to the moon, without caring much whether he sings well
or ill, provided he sings the motif that runs in his head, and who,
the rest of the time, idles deliciously. It has not always been as
nice as this. He had the folly to be young; but as he did no evil
nor knew evil passions, nor lived for vanity, he is happy enough to
be peaceful and to amuse himself with everything.
