This pale character has the great pleasure of loving you with all
his heart, and of not passing a day without thinking of the other
old troubadour, confined in his solitude of a frenzied artist,
disdainful of all the pleasures of this world, enemy of the
magnifying glass and of its attractions. We are, I think, the two
most different workers that exist; but since we like each other that
way, it is all right. The reason each of us  thinks of the other at
the same hour, is because each of us has a need of his opposite; we
complete ourselves, in identifying ourselves at times with what is
not ourselves.

I told you, I think, that I had written a play on returning from
Paris. They liked it; but I don't want them to play it in the
spring, and the end of the winter is filled up, unless the play they
are rehearsing fails. As I do not know how to WISH my colleagues ill
luck, I am in no hurry and my manuscript is on the shelf. I have the
time. I am writing my little annual novel, when I have one or two
hours a day to get to work on it; I am not sorry to be prevented
from thinking of it. That develops it. Always before going to sleep,
I have an agreeable quarter of an hour to continue it in my head;
there you have it.

I know nothing, nothing at all of the Sainte-Beuve incident. I get a
dozen newspapers, whose wrappers I respect to such an extent that
without Lina, who tells me the chief news from time to time, I would
not know if Isidore were still among us.

Sainte-Beuve is very high tempered, and, as regards opinions, so
perfectly skeptical, that I should never be astonished at anything
he did, in one sense or the other. He was not always like that, at
least not so much so. I have known him to be more credulous and more
republican than I was then. He was thin and pale, and gentle; how
people change! His talent, his knowledge, his mind have increased
enormously, but I used to like his character better. Just the same,
there is still much good in him. There is still love and reverence
for letters--and he will be the last of the critics. Criticism
rightly so-called, will disappear. Perhaps there is no longer any
reason for its existence. What do you think about it?

It appears that you are studying the boor (pignouf). As for me, I
avoid him. I know him too well. I love the Berrichon  peasant who is
not, who never is, a boor, even when he is of no great account; the
word pignouf has its depths; it was created exclusively for the
bourgeois, wasn't it? Ninety out of a hundred provincial middle-
class women are boorish (pignouf lardes) to a high degree, even with
pretty faces that ought to give evidence of delicate instincts. One
is surprised to find a basis of gross self-sufficiency in these
false ladies. Where is the woman now? She is becoming a freak in
society.

Good night, my troubadour: I love you, and I embrace you warmly;
Maurice also.

G. Sand



CIV. TO GEORGE SAND
Croisset, Tuesday, 2 February, 1869

My dear master,

You see in your troubadour a worn-out man. I have spent a week in
Paris, looking up wearisome information (from seven to nine hours in
fiacres every day, which is a fine way to make money out of
literature). Oh, well!

I have just reread my outline. All that I have still to write
horrifies me, or rather disgusts me, so that I want to vomit. It is
always so, when I get to work. It is then that I am bored, bored,
bored! But this time exceeds all others. That is why I dread so much
interruptions in the daily grind. I could not do otherwise, however.
I dragged about at funerals at Pere-Lachaise, in the valley of
Montmorency, through shops of religious objects, etc.

In short, I have enough material for four or five months now. What a
big "Hooray" I shall utter, when it is finished, and when I am not
in the midst of remaking the bourgeois! It is high time that I
enjoyed life.

I saw Sainte-Beuve and the Princess Mathilde, and I know thoroughly
the story of their break, which seems to me irrevocable. Sainte-
Beuve was outraged against Dalloz and has gone to le Temps. The
princess begged him not to do anything about it. He did not listen
to her. That is all. My opinion on it, if you wish to know it, is
this. The first wrong was done by the princess, who was hasty; but
the second and the worst was by pere Beuve, who did not behave as a
courteous man. If one has a friend, a rather good fellow, and that
friend has given one thirty thousand francs a year income, one owes
him some consideration. It seems to me that in Sainte-Beuve's place
I should have said, "That displeases you, let us talk no more about
it." He lacked manners and poise. What disgusted me a little,
between ourselves, was the way he praised the emperor to me! yes, he
praised Badinguet, to me!--And we were alone!

The princess had taken the thing too seriously from the beginning.
I wrote to her, saying that Sainte-Beuve was right; he, I am sure,
found me rather cold. It was then, in order to justify himself to
me, that he made these protestations of isidorian love, which
humiliated me a little; for it was as if he took me for a complete
imbecile.

I think that he is preparing for a funeral like Beranger's, and that
Hugo's popularity makes him jealous. Why write for the papers, when
one can make books, and when one is not perishing of hunger? He's no
sage, Sainte-Beuve. Not like you!

Your strength charms me and amazes me. I mean the strength of your
entire being, not only that of your brain.

You speak of criticism in your last letter to me, telling me that it
will soon disappear. I think, on the contrary, that it is, at most,
only at its dawning. They are on a different tack from before, but
nothing more. At the time of La Harpe, they were grammarians; at the
time of Sainte-Beuve and of Taine, they are historians. When will
they be artists, only artists, but really artists? Where do you know
a criticism? Who is there who is anxious about the work in itself,
in an intense way? They analyze very keenly the setting in which it
was written, and the causes that produced it; but the UNCONSCIOUS
poetic expression? Where it comes from? its composition,  its style?
the point of view of the author? Never.

That criticism would require great imagination and great  sympathy.
I mean a faculty of enthusiasm that is always  ready, and then
TASTE, a rare quality, even among the best, so  much so that one
does not talk about it any longer.

What irritates me every day, is to see a master-piece and a
disgrace put on the same level. They exalt the little, and they
lower the great, nothing is more imbecile nor more immoral.

At Pere-Lachaise I was seized with a profound and sorrowful  disgust
for humanity. You can not imagine the fetichism  of the tombs. The
real Parisian is more of an idolater than  a negro is! It made me
long to lie down in one of the graves.

And the PROGRESSIVES think that there is nothing better than to
rehabilitate Robespierre! Note Hamel's book! If the Republic
returned they would bless the liberty poles out of policy and
believing that measure strong.

When shall I see you? I plan to be in Paris from Easter to  the end
of May, This spring I shall go to see you at Nohant,  I swear it.



CV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 11 February, 1869

While you are running around to get material for your novel, I am
inventing all sorts of pretexts not to write mine. I let myself be
distracted by guilty fancies, something I am reading fascinates me
and I set myself to scribbling on paper that will  be left in my
desk and bring me no return. That has amused me, or rather that has
compelled me, for it would be in vain for me to struggle against
these caprices; they interrupt me and force me...you see that I have
not the strength of mind that you think.

As for our masculine friend, he is ungrateful, while our feminine
friend is too exacting. You were right; they are both wrong and it
is not their fault, it is the social machinery which insists on it.
The kind of recognition, that is to say, submission that she exacts,
depends on a tradition that the present time still profits by (there
lies the evil); but does not accept any longer as a duty. The
notions of the obliged are changed, those of the obliger ought to
change also. It must be said that one does not buy moral liberty by
any kindness,--and as for him, he should have foreseen that he would
be considered  enchained. The simplest thing would have been not to
care about having thirty thousand francs a year. It is so easy to do
without it. Let him extricate himself. They won't entangle us in it:
we aren't so foolish!

You say very good things about criticism. But in order to do as you
say, there must be artists, and the artist is too much occupied with
his own work, to forget himself in estimating that of others.

Heavens, what fine weather! Don't you enjoy it, at least from your
window? I'll wager that the tulip tree is in bud. Here, the peaches
and the apricots are in flower. It is said that they will be ruined;
that does not stop them from being pretty and not tormenting
themselves about it.

We have had our family carnival: my niece, my grandchildren,  etc.
We all put on fancy dress; it is not difficult here, one only has to
go to the wardrobe and one comes down again as Cassandra, Scapin,
Mezzetin, Figaro, Basile, etc., all that is very pretty. The pearl
was Lolo as a little Louis XIII in crimson satin, trimmed with white
satin fringed and laced with silver. I spent three days in making
this costume, which was very chic; it was so pretty and so funny on
that little girl of three years, that we were all amazed in looking
at her.

Then we played charades, had supper, and frolicked till daylight.
You see that banished to a desert, we keep up a good  deal of
vitality. And that I delay all I can, the trip to Paris and the
chapter of business. If you were there, I would not need to be
urged. But you are going there the end of March if and I can not
afford to wait till then. To conclude, you swear  to come this
summer and we count on it absolutely. Sooner than not have you come
I shall go to drag you here by the hair.  I embrace you most warmly
on this good hope.

G. Sand



CVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 24 February, 1869

I am all alone at Nohant as you are all alone at Croisset. Maurice
and Lina have gone to Milan, to see Calamatta who is dangerously
ill. Should they have the misfortune to lose him, they will have to
go to Rome to settle his estate, an irksome task added to a sorrow,
it is always like that. That sudden separation was sad, my poor Lina
weeping at leaving her daughters and weeping at not being with her
father. They left me the care of the children whom I rarely leave
and who only let me work when they sleep; but I am happier at having
this care on my shoulders to console me. I have, every day, in two
hours news from Milan by telegram. The patient is better; my
children are only as far as Turin today and do not know yet what I
know. How this telegraph changes one's idea of life, and when the
formalities and formulas are still more simplified, how full
existence will be of facts and how free from uncertainties.

Aurore, who lives on adorations in the lap of her father and  mother
and who weeps every day when I am away, has not asked a single time
where they are. She plays and laughs, then she stops; her great eyes
stare, she says: MY FATHER? another time she says: MAMMA? I distract
her, she thinks no more of it, and then she begins again. They are
very mysterious, children! They think without understanding. Only
one sad word is needed to bring out their sorrow. She carries it
unconsciously. She looks in my eyes to see if I am sad or anxious; I
laugh and she laughs, I think that we must keep her sensitiveness
asleep as long as possible, and that she never would weep for me if
they did not speak of me.

What is your advice, you who have brought up an intelligent and
charming niece? Is it wise to make them loving and affectionate
early? I thought so formerly: I was afraid when I saw Maurice too
impressionable and Solange too much the opposite, and resisting
affection. I would like little ones to be shown only the sweet and
the good of life, until the time when reason can help them to accept
or to fight the bad. What do you say?

I embrace you and ask you to tell me when you are going to Paris, my
trip is delayed as my children may be absent a month; I shall be
able, perhaps, to meet you in Paris.

Your old solitary,

G. Sand

What an admirable definition I rediscover with surprise in the
fatalist Pascal!

"Nature acts progressively, itus et reditus. It goes on and returns,
then it goes still further, then half as far, then further than
ever."  [Footnote: George Sand had copied this and fastened it over
her work table at Nohant.]

What a way of speaking, eh? How the language turns, is twisted, made
supple, is condensed under this grandiose "hand."



CVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday night

What do I say about it, dear master? Should one excite or repress
the sensitiveness of children? It seems to me that one should not
have any set rule about it. It is according as they have a tendency
to too much or too little. Moreover, the basis  isn't changed. There
are tender natures and hard natures, irremediably so. And then the
same sight, the same lesson can produce opposite effects. Could
anything have hardened me more than having been brought up in a
hospital and having  played, as a child, in a dissecting
amphitheatre? But no one is more sensitive than I am to physical
suffering. It is true  that I am the son of an extremely humane man,
sensitive in the true meaning of the word. The sight of a suffering
dog made tears come to his eyes. He did his surgical operations none
the less well, and he invented some dreadful ones.

"Show little ones only the sweet and the good of life until the time
when reason can help them to accept or to fight the bad." Such is
not my opinion. For then something terrible, an infinite
disenchantment is bound to be produced in their hearts. And then,
how could reason form itself, if it does not apply itself (or if one
does not apply it daily) to distinguish good from evil? Life ought
to be a continual education; one must learn everything--from talking
to dying.

You tell me very true things about the unconsciousness of children.
He who could read clearly in these little brains would grasp in them
the roots of the human race, the origin of the gods, the sap which
produces actions later on, etc. A negro who talks to his idol, and a
child who talks to her doll seem to me close together.

The child and the savage (the primitive) do not distinguish the real
from the fantastic. I remember very clearly that at five or six
years of age I wanted to "send my heart" to a little girl with whom
I was in love (I mean my material heart). I could see it in the
middle of straw, in a basket, an oyster basket.

But no one has been so far as you in these analyses. There are some
infinitely profound pages about it in the Histoire de ma vie. What I
say is true, since minds quite opposite to yours have been amazed at
them. For instance, the Goncourts.

The good Tourgueneff ought to be in Paris at the end of March. What
would be fine, would be for us all three to dine together.

I am thinking again of Sainte-Beuve. Without doubt one can get along
without thirty thousand francs a year. But there is something easier
yet: that is, when one has them, not to launch into abuse, every
week, in the papers. Why doesn't he write books, since he is rich
and has talent?

I am just now reading Don Quichotte again. What a tremendous  old
book! Is there any more beautiful?



CVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 7 March, 1869

Still alone with my grandchildren; my nephews and friends come to
spend two out of every three days with me, but I miss Maurice and
Lina. Poor Calamatta is at the last gasp.

Give me the address of the Goncourts, you have never given it to me.
Shall I never know it? My letter is still waiting there for them.

I love you and embrace you. I love you much, much, and I embrace you
very warmly.

G. Sand



CIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 12 March, 1869

Poor Calamatta died the 9th, my children are coming back. My Lina
must be distressed. I have news from them only by telegraph. From
Milan here in an hour and a half. But there are no details, and I am
anxious. I embrace you tenderly,

G. Sand

Thank you for the address.



CX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 2 April, 1869

Dear friend of my heart, here we are once more calm again. My
children returned to me very exhausted. Aurore has been a little
ill. Lina's mother has come to get into touch with her about their
affairs. She is a loyal and excellent woman, very artistic, and very
amiable. I too have had a bad cold, but everything is getting better
now, and our charming little girls console their little mother. If
it were less bad weather, and I had a less bad cold, I would go at
once to Paris, for I want to see you there. How long do you stay
there? Tell me quickly.

I shall be very glad to renew my acquaintance with Tourgueneff,
whom I knew a little without having read him, and whom I have since
read with a whole-hearted admiration. You seem to me to love him a
great deal; then I love him too, and I wish when your novel is
finished, that you would bring him to our house. Maurice also knows
him and appreciates him greatly, he who likes whatever does not
resemble anything else.

I am working at my novel about TRAVELING ACTORS [Footnote: Pierre
qui roule.] like a convict. I am trying to have it amusing and to
explain art; it is a new form for me and amuses me. Perhaps it will
not have any success. The taste of the day is for marquises and
courtesans; but what difference does that make?--You must find me a
title, which is a resume of that idea: THE MODERN ROMAN COMIQUE.

My children send you affectionate greetings; your old troubadour
embraces his old troubadour.

G. Sand

Answer quickly how long you expect to stay in Paris. You say that
you are paying bills and that you are vexed. If you have need of
quibus, I have at the moment a few sous I can lend you. You know
that you offered once to lend me some. If I had been in a hole I
would have accepted. Give all my regards to Maxime Du Camp and thank
him for not forgetting me.



CXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 17 April, 1869

I am well, I am finishing (today, I hope) my modern Roman  comique
which will be called I don't know what. I am a little  tired, for I
have done a lot of other things. But I am going to Paris in eight or
ten days to rest, to embrace you, to talk of you, of your work, to
forget mine, God be thanked! and to love you as always very much and
very tenderly.

G. Sand

Regards from Maurice and his wife.



CXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Monday, 26 April, 1869

I arrived last night, I am running around like a rat, but  every day
at 6 o'clock one is sure of finding me at Magny's,  and the first
day that you are free, come to dine with your old  troubadour who
loves you and embraces you.

Send word ahead to me, however, so that by an exceptional chance, I
do not have the ill luck to miss you.

Monday.



CXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday evening, 29 April, 1869

I am back from Palaiseau and I find your letter. Saturday I am not
sure of being free; I have to read my play with Chilly on account of
some objections of detail, and I had told you so. But I see him
tomorrow evening, and I shall try to get him to give me another day.
I shall write you then, tomorrow evening, Friday, and if he frees
me, I shall go to your house about three o'clock on Saturday so that
we can read before and after dinner; I dine on a little fish, a
chicken wing, an ice and a cup of coffee, never anything else, by
which means my stomach keeps well. If I am kept by Chilly, we shall
postpone till next week after Friday.

I sold Palaiseau today to a master shoemaker who has a LEATHER
plaster on his right eye, and who calls the sumachs of the garden,
the schumakre.

Then Saturday morning you shall have word from your old comrade.

G. Sand



CXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
30 April, 1869

No way of going out today. This slavery to one's profession  is
horrid, isn't it? Between now and Friday I shall write to you so
that we can again settle on a day. I embrace you, my old beloved
troubadour.

G. Sand



CXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
3 May, 1869

They are encroaching upon my time more and more. All my days are
full until and including next Sunday.--Tell me quickly if you want
me Monday, a week from today--or if it is another day. Let us fix it
for it is a fact that I don't really know whom to listen to.

Your troubadour who does not want THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS to continue!

G. Sand

Monday.



CXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 4 May, 1869

On Monday then, and if I have an hour free I shall try to embrace my
troubadour before that. But don't disturb yourself,  I know very
well that one does nothing here that one would like to do. Anyway,
on Monday between three and four, clear out your windpipe so as to
read me a part before dinner.

G. Sand

Tues. evening.



CXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Sunday, 9 May, 1869

Tomorrow, your reverence, I shall go to dine at your house. I shall
be at home every day at five o'clock, but you might meet some guys
whom you dislike. You would much better come to Magny's where you
would find me alone, or with Plauchut, or with friends who are also
yours.

I embrace you. I received today the letter which you wrote to me at
Nohant.

G. Sand



CXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 18 May, 1869

I saw Levy today, I tested him at first; I saw that he would not
give up his contract at any price. I then said to him many good
things about the book and made the remark that he had gotten it very
cheap. But he said to me, if the book is in two volumes, it will be
20,000 francs, that is agreed. So I suppose that you will have two
volumes, won't you?

However, I persisted and he said to me: If the book is a success,  I
shall not begrudge two or three thousand francs more. I said that
you would not demand anything, that it was not your way of acting,
but that for MY PART, I should insist for you without your
knowledge, and he left me saying: Be easy, I don't say no. Should
the book succeed I will make the author profit by it.

That is all that I have been able to do now, but I will take it up
again at the proper time and place. Leave that to me, I will return
your contract. What day next week will you dine with me at Magny's?
I am a little weary.

You would be very kind to come to read at my house, we should be
alone and one evening will be enough for the rest. Set the day, and
AT SIX THIRTY if that does not bother you. My stomach is beginning
to suffer a little from Paris habits. Your troubadour who loves you,

G. Sand

The rest of the week will finish up Palaiseau, but Sunday if you
like, I am free. Answer if you want Sunday at Magny's at half past
six.



CXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Then Monday, I count on you, at half past six; but as I am going to
Palaiseau, I may be a few minutes late or early. The first one at
Magny's must wait for the other. I am looking forward with pleasure
to hearing THE REST. Don't forget the manuscript.

Your troubadour Thursday evening, 20 May, 1869.



CXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 29 May, 1869

Yes, Monday, my dear good friend, I count on you and I embrace you.

G. Sand

I am off for Palaiseau AND IT IS TEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!



CXXI. TO GEORGE SAND

My prophecy is fulfilled; My friend X----has gained only ridicule
with his candidacy. That serves him right. When a man of style
debases himself to practical life, he loses caste and should be
punished. And then, is it a question of politics, now! The citizens
who are excited for or against the Empire or the Republic seem to me
as useful as those who discuss efficacious or efficient grace.
Politics are as dead as theology! They have had three hundred years
of existence, that is quite enough.

Just now I am lost in the Church Fathers. As for my novel
l'Education sentimentale, I am paying no more attention to it, God
be thanked! It is recopied. Other hands have gone over it. So, the
thing is no longer mine. It does not exist any longer, good night. I
have taken up again my old hobby of Saint Antoine. I have reread my
notes, I am making another new plan and I am devouring the
ecclesiastical memoirs of the Nain de Tillemont. I hope to succeed
in finding a logical connection  (and therefore a dramatic interest)
between the different hallucinations of the Saint. This extravagant
setting pleases me and I am absorbed in it, there you are!

My poor Bouilhet bothers me. He is in such a nervous state that they
have advised him to take a little trip to the south of France. He is
overwhelmed by an unconquerable melancholy. Isn't it queer! He who
was so gay, formerly!

My Heavens! What a beautiful and farcical thing is the life of the
desert Fathers! But without doubt they were all Buddhists. That is a
stylish problem to work at, and its solution would be more important
than the election of an academician. Oh! ye men of little faith!
Long live Saint Polycarp!

Fangeat, who has reappeared recently, is the citizen who, on the
25th day of February, 1848, demanded the death of Louis-Philippe
"without a trial." That is the way one serves the cause of progress.



CXXII. TO GEORGE SAND

What a good and charming letter was yours, adored master! There is
no one but you! upon my word of honor! I am ending by believing it.
A wind of stupidity and folly is now blowing over the world. Those
who stand up firm and straight against it are rare.

This is what I meant when I wrote that the times of politics were
over. In the 18th century the chief business was diplomacy.  "The
secrecy of the cabinets" really existed. The peoples still were
sufficiently amenable to be separated and to be combined. That order
of things seems to me to have said its last word in 1815. Since
then, one has hardly done anything except dispute about the external
form that it is fitting to give the fantastic and odious being
called the State.

Experience proves (it seems to me) that no form contains the best in
itself; orleanism, republic, empire do not mean anything anymore,
since the most contradictory ideas can enter into each one of these
pigeon holes. All the flags have been so soiled with blood and with
filth that it is time not to have any at all. Down with words! No
more symbols nor fetiches! The great moral of this reign will be to
prove that universal suffrage is as senseless as the divine right
although a little less odions!

The question is then out of place. One is concerned no longer with
dreaming of the best form of government, since all are equal, but
with making science prevail. That is the most important. The rest
will follow inevitably. Purely intellectual men have rendered more
service to the human race than all the Saint Vincent de Pauls in the
world! And politics will be an everlasting folly so long as it is
not subordinate to science. The government of a country ought to be
a section of the Institute, and the last section of all.

Before concerning yourself with relief funds, and even with
agriculture, send to all the villages in France, Robert Houdins to
work miracles! The greatest crime of Isidore is the wretched
condition in which he leaves our beautiful country. Dixi.  I admire
Maurice's occupations and his healthy life. But I am not capable of
imitating him. Nature, far from fortifying me, drains my strength.
When I lie on the grass I feel as if I am already under the earth
and that the roots of green things are beginning to grow in my
belly. Your troubadour is naturally an unhealthy man. I do not like
the country except when travelling, because then the independence of
my individuality causes me to rise above the knowledge of my
nothingness.



CXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 6 August, 1869

Well, dear good friend, here it is August, and you have promised to
come. We don't forget it, we count on it, we dream of it, and we
talk of it every day. You were to take a trip to the seashore first
if I am not mistaken. You must need to shake up your gloom. That
does not dispel it, but it does force it to live with us and not be
too oppressive. I have thought a great deal about you lately, I
would have hastened to see you if I had not thought I should find
you surrounded by older and better friends than I am. I wrote you at
the same time that you wrote me, our letters crossed.

Come to see us, my dear old friend, I shall not go to Paris this
month, I do not want to miss you. My children will be happy to spoil
you and to try to distract you. We all love you, and I love you
PASSIONATELY, as you know.



CXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 14 August, 1869

Your change of plans distresses us, dear friend, but we do not dare
to complain in the face of your anxieties and sorrows. We ought to
wish you to do what would distract you the most, and take the least
out of you. I am in hopes of finding you in Paris, as you are
staying there some time and I always have business there. But it is
so hard to see friends in Paris and one is so overwhelmed by so many
tedious duties! Well, it is a real sorrow to me not to have to
expect you any more at our house, where each one of us would have
tried to love you better than the others and where you would have
been at home; sad when you wanted to be, busy if you liked. I resign
myself on condition that you will be better off somewhere else and
that you will make it good to us when you can.

Have you at least arranged your affairs with Levy? Is he paying you
for two volumes? I would like you to have something on which to live
independently and as master of your time. Here there is repose for
the mind in the midst of the exuberant activities of Maurice, and of
his brave little wife who sets herself to love all he loves and to
help him eagerly in all he undertakes. As for me, I have the
appearance of incarnate idleness in the midst of this hard work. I
botanize and I bathe in a little icy torrent. I teach my servant to
read, I correct proof and I am well. That is my life and nothing
bores me in this world where I think that AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED
all is for the best. But I am afraid of becoming more of a bore than
I used to be. People don't like such as I am very much. We are too
inoffensive. However, love me still a little, for I feel by the
disappointment of not seeing you, that it would have gone hard with
me if you had meant to break your word.

And I embrace you tenderly, dear old friend.

G. Sand



CXXV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday

I know nothing either of Chilly or la petite Fadette. In a few days
I am going to make a tour of Normandy. I shall go through Paris. If
you want to come around with me,--oh! but no, you don't travel
about; well, we shall see each other in passing. I have certainly
earned a little holiday. I have worked like a beast of burden. I
need too to see some blue, but the blue of the sea will do, and you
would like the blue of the artistic and literary firmament over our
heads. Bah! that doesn't exist. Everything is prose, flat prose in
the environment in which mankind has settled itself. It is only in
isolating oneself a little that one can find in oneself the normal
being again.

I am resuming my letter interrupted for two days by my wounded hand
which inconveniences me a good deal. I am not going to Normandy at
all, my Lamberts whom I was going to see in Yport came back to Paris
and my business calls me there too. I shall then see you next week
probably, and I shall embrace you as if you were my dear big child.
Why can't I put the rosy, tanned face of Aurore in the place of
mine! She is not what you would call pretty, but she is adorable and
so quick in comprehending that we all are astonished. She is as
amusing in her chatter as a person,--who might be amusing. So I am
going to be forced to start thinking about my business! It is the
one thing of which I have a horror and which really troubles my
serenity. You must console me by joking with me a little when you
have the time.

I shall see you soon, have courage in the sickening work of proof-
reading. As for me I hurry over it quickly and badly, but you must
not do as I do.

My children send you their love and your troubadour loves you.

G. Sand

Saturday evening

I have just received news from the Odeon. They are at work putting
on my play and do not speak of anything else.



CXXVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 6 September, 1869

They wrote me yesterday to come because they wanted me at the Opera-
Comique. Here I am rue Gay-Lussac. When shall we meet? Tell me. All
my days, are still free.

I embrace you.

G. Sand



CXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 8 September, 1869

I send you back your handkerchief which you left in the carriage. It
is surely tomorrow THURSDAY that we dine together?  I have written
to the big Marchal to come to Magny's too.

Your troubadour

G. Sand

Wednesday morning.



CXXVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, Tuesday, 5 October, 1869

Where are you now, my dear troubadour? I am still writing to you at
the boulevard du Temple, but perhaps you have taken possession of
your delightful lodgings. I don't know the address although I have
seen the house, the situation and the view.--I have been twice in
the Ardennes and in a week or ten days, if Lina or Maurice does not
come to Paris, as they have a slight desire to do, I shall leave
again for Nohant.

We must then meet and see each other. Here am I a little sfogata
(eased) from my need for travel, and enchanted with what I have
seen. Tell me what day except tomorrow, Wednesday,  you can give me
for dinner at Magny's or elsewhere with or without Plauchut, with
whomever you wish provided I see you and embrace you.

Your old comrade who loves you.

G. Sand



CXXIX. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear good adored master,

I have wanted for several days to write you a long letter in which I
should tell you all that I have felt for a month. It is funny. I
have passed through different and strange states. But I have neither
the time nor the repose of mind to gather myself together enough.

Don't be disturbed about your troubadour. He will always have "his
independence and his liberty" because he will always do as he has
always done. He has left everything rather than submit to any
obligation whatsoever, and then, with age, one's needs lessen. I
suffer no longer from not living in the Alhambra.

What would do me good now, would be to throw myself furiously into
Saint-Antoine, but I have not even the time to read.

Listen to this: in the very beginning, your play was to come after
Aisse; then it was agreed that it should come BEFORE. Now Chilly and
Duquesnel want it to come after, simply and solely "to profit by the
occasion," to profit by my poor Bouilhet's death. They will give you
a "sort of compensation." Well, I am the owner and the master of
Aisse just as if I were the author, and I do not want that. You
understand, I do not want you to inconvenience yourself in anything.

You think that I am as sweet as a lamb! Undeceive yourself, and act
as if Aisse had never existed; and above all no sensitiveness?  That
would offend me. Between simple friends, one needs manners and
politenesses; but between you and me, that would not seem at all
suitable; we do not owe each other anything at all except to love
each other.

I think that the directors of the Odeon will regret Bouilhet in
every way. I shall be less easy than he was at rehearsals. I should
very much like to read Aisse to you so as to talk a little about it;
some of the actors whom they propose are, to my way of thinking,
impossible. It is hard to have to do with uneducated people.



CXXX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Wednesday evening, 13 October, 1869

Our poor friend is not to be buried till the day after tomorrow,
they will let me know where and when we ought to be there, I shall
tell you by telegram.

I have seen the directors twice. It was agreed this morning with
Duquesnel that they should make an attempt with de la T(our) Saint-
Y(bars). I yielded my turn to Aisse. I was not to come till March. I
went back there this evening, Chilly IS UNWILLING, and Duquesnel,
better informed than this morning, regards the step as useless and
harmful. I then quoted my contract, my right. What a fine thing, the
theatre! M. Saint-Ybars' contract antedates mine. They had thought
le Batard would last two weeks and it will last forty days longer.
Then La Tour Saint-Ybars precedes us [Footnote: This refers to
l'Affranchi.] and I can not give up my turn to Aisse without being
postponed till next year, which I'll do if you want me to; but it
would do me a good deal of harm, for I have gotten into debt with
the Revue and I must refill my purse.--Are directors rascals in all
that? No, but incompetents who are always afraid of not having
enough plays, and accept too many, foreseeing that they will have
failures.--When they are successful, if the authors contracted for
are ANGRY they have to go to court. I have no taste for disputes and
the scandals of the side-scenes and the newspapers; and neither have
you. What would be the result? Inadequate compensation and a deal of
uproar for nothing. One needs patience in any event, I have it, and
I tell you again if you are really upset at this delay, I am ready
to sacrifice myself.

With this I embrace you and I love you.

G. Sand



CXXXI. TO GEORGE SAND
14 October, 1869

Dear master,

No! no sacrifices! so much the worse! If I did not look at
Bouilhet's affairs as mine absolutely, I should have at once
accepted your proposition. But: (1) it is my affair, (2) the dead
must not hurt the living.

But I am angry at these gentlemen, I do not hide it from you, for
not having said anything to us about Latour Saint-Ybars. For the
aforesaid Latour was engaged a long time ago. Why did we not know
anything about him?

In short, let Chilly write me the letter on which we agreed
Wednesday, and let there be no more discussion about it.

It seems to me that your play can be given the 15th of December, if
l'Affranchi begins about the 20th of November. Two and a half months
are about fifty performances; if you go beyond that, Aisse will not
be presented till next year.

Then, it is agreed, since we can not suppress Latour Saint-Ybars;
you shall go after him and Aisse next, if I think it suitable.

We shall meet Saturday at poor Sainte-Beuve's funeral. How the
little band diminishes! How the few survivors of the Medusa's raft
are disappearing!

A thousand affectionate greetings.



CXXXII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 20 or 21 October, 1869

Impossible, dear old beloved. Brebant is too far, I have so little
time. And then I have made an engagement with Marchal and Berton at
Magny's to say farewell. If you can come, I shall be very happy and
on the other hand if it is going to make you ill, don't come, I know
very well that you love me and shall not be angry with you about
anything.

G. Sand



CXXXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset
Nohant, 15 Nov., 1869

What has become of you, my dear old beloved troubadour? are you
correcting proof like a galley slave, up to the last minute? For the
last two days they have been announcing your book FOR TOMORROW. I am
looking for it with impatience, for you are not going to forget me,
are you? You will be praised and condemned; you expect that. You are
too truly superior not to arouse envy and you don't care, do you?
Nor I either for you. You have the strength to be stimulated by what
discourages others. There will certainly be a rumpus; your subject
will be quite opportune in this time of REVOLUTIONISTS. The good
progressives, the true democrats will approve of you. The idiots
will be furious, and you will say: "Come weal, come woe!"  I am also
correcting proof of Pierre qui roule and I have half finished a new
novel which will not make much of a stir; that is all that I ask for
at the moment. I work alternately on MY novel, the one that I like,
and on the one that the Revue does not dislike as much, but which I
like very little. It is arranged that way; I don't know if I am
making a mistake. Perhaps those which I like are the worst. But I
have stopped worrying about myself, so far as I have ever done so.
Life has always taken me out of myself, and so it will to the end.
My heart is always affected to the detriment of my head. At present
it is my little children who devour all my intellect; Aurore is a
jewel, a nature before which I bow in admiration; will it last like
that?

You are going to spend the winter in Paris, and I, I don't know when
I shall go. The success of le Batard continues; but I am not
impatient, you have promised to come as soon as you are free, at
Christmas at the very latest, to keep revel with us. I think only of
that, and if you break your word we shall be in despair here. With
this I embrace you with a full heart as I love you.

G. Sand



CXXXIV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris
Nohant, 30 November, 1869

Dear friend of my heart, I wanted to reread your book [Footnote:
l'Education sentimentale.]; my daughter-in-law has read it too, and
some of my young people, all readers in earnest and of the first
rank and not stupid at  all. We are all of the same opinion, that it
is a beautiful book, equal in strength to the best ones of Balzac
and truer, that is to say more faithful to the truth from one end to
the other.

One needs the great art, the exquisite form and the severity of your
work to do without flowers of fancy. However, you throw poetry with
a full hand on your picture, whether your characters understand it
or not. Rosanette at Fontainebleau does not know on what grass she
walks and nevertheless she is poetic.

All that issues from a master's hand, and your place is well won for
always. Live then as calmly as possible in order to last a long time
and to produce a great deal.

I have seen two short articles which did not seem to me to rebel
against your success; but I hardly know what is going on, politics
seems to me to absorb everything.

Keep me posted. If they did not do justice to you I should be angry
and should say what I think. It is my right.

I don't know exactly when, but during the month, I shall go without
doubt to embrace you and to get you, if I can pry you loose from
Paris. My children still count on it, and all of us send you our
praises and our affectionate greetings.

Yours, your old troubadour

G. Sand



CXXXV. TO GEORGE SAND

Dear good master,

Your old troubadour is vehemently slandered by the papers. Read the
Constitutionnel of last Monday, the Gaulois of this morning, it is
blunt and plain. They call me idiotic and common. Barbey
d'Aurevilly's article (Constitutionnel) is a model of this
character, and the good Sarcey's, although less violent, is in no
way behind it. These gentlemen object in the name of morality and
the Ideal! I have also been annihilated in le Figaro and in Paris,
by Cesana and Duranty. I most profoundly don't care a fig! but that
does not make me any the less astonished by so much hatred and bad
faith.

La Tribune, le Pays and l'Opinion nationale on the other hand have
highly praised me...As for the friends, the persons who received a
copy adorned by my hand, they have been afraid of compromising
themselves and have talked to me of
other things. The brave are few. The book is selling very well
nevertheless, in spite of politics, and Levy appears satisfied.

I know that the bourgeois of Rouen are furious with me "because of
pere Roque and the cancan at the Tuileries." They think that one
ought to prevent the publication of books like that (textual), that
I lend a hand to the Reds, that I am capable of inflaming
revolutionary passions, etc., etc. In short, I have received very
few laurels, up to now, and no rose leaf hurts me.

I told you, didn't I, that I was working over the fairy play? I am
doing now a description of the races and I have cut out all that
seemed to me hackneyed. Raphael Felix didn't seem to me eager to
become acquainted with it. Problem!

All the papers cite as a proof of my depravity, the episode of the
Turkish woman, which they misrepresent, naturally; and Sarcey
compares me to Marquis de Sade, whom he confesses he has not read!

All that does not upset me at all. But I wonder what use there is in
printing my book?



CXXXVI. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday, 4 o'clock, 7 December, 1869

Dear master,

Your old troubadour is being jumped on in an unheard of manner.
Those people who have read my novel are afraid to talk to me of it
lest they compromise themselves or out of pity for me. The more
indulgent declare I have made only pictures and that both
composition and plan are quite lacking.

Saint-Victor, who puffs the books of Arsene Houssaye, won't write
articles on mine, finding it too bad. There you are. Theo is away,
and no one, absolutely no one takes my defense.

Another story: yesterday Raphael and Michel Levy listened to the
reading of the fairy play. Applause, enthusiasm. I saw the moment
during the reading in which the contract was going to be signed.
Raphael so well understood the play that he gave me two or three
EXCELLENT criticisms. I found him in other ways a charming boy. He
asked me until Saturday to give me a definite answer. Then a little
while ago, a letter (very polite) from the aforesaid Raphael in
which he declares that the fairy play would entail expenses that
would be too much for him.

Ditched again. I must look elsewhere. Nothing new at the Odeon.

Sarcey has published a second article against me.

Barbey d'Aurevilly claims that I dirty a stream by washing myself in
it (sic). All that does not bother me at all.



CXXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Thursday, two o'clock in the morning, December 9, 1869

My comrade, it is finished, the article shall go tomorrow. I address
it to whom? Answer by telegram. I have a mind to send it to
Girardin. But perhaps you have a better idea, I really don't know
the importance and the credit of the various papers. Send me a
suitable name and ADDRESS by telegram; I have Girardin's.

I am not content with my prose, I have had the fever and a sort of
sprain for two days. But we must make haste. I embrace you.

G. Sand



CXXXVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
10 December, Friday, 10 o'clock in the evening, 1869

Dear master, good as good bread,

I have just sent you by telegraph this message: "To Girardin." La
Liberte will publish your article, at once. What do you think of my
friend Saint-Victor, who has refused to write an article about it
because he finds "the book bad"? you have not such a conscience as
that, have you?

I continue to be rolled in the mud. La Gironde calls me Prudhomme.
That seems new to me.

How shall I thank you? I feel the need of saying affectionate
things to you. I have so many in my heart that not one comes to the
tips of my fingers. What a splendid woman you are and what a
splendid man! To say nothing of all the other things!



CXXXIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, Friday to Saturday during the night, 10 to 11 December, 1869

I have rewritten my article [Footnote: The article, Sur l'Education
sentimentale, de Flaubert, was printed in the Questions d'art et de
litterature, Calmann-Levy, p. 415.] today and this evening, I am
better, it is clearer. I am expecting your telegram tomorrow. If you
do not put your veto on it, I shall send the article to Ulbach, who
begins his paper the 15th of this month; he wrote to me this morning
to beg me urgently for any article I would send him. I think this
first number will be widely read, and it would be good publicity.
Michel Levy would be a better judge than we as to what is the best
to do: consult him.

You seem astonished at the ill will. You are too simple. You do not
know how original your book is, and how many personal feelings must
be offended by the force it contains. You think you are doing things
that will pass as a letter in the mail; ah! well, yes!

I have insisted on the PLAN of your book; that is what they
understand the least and it is what is the most important. I tried
to show the ordinary people how they should read; for it is the
ordinary people who make successes. The clever ones don't like the
successes of others. I don't pay attention to the malicious; it
would honor them too much.

G. S.

My mother has your telegram and is sending her manuscript to
Girardin.

4 o'clock in the afternoon.

Lina



CXL. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 14 December, 1869

I do not see my article coming out, but others are appearing which
are bad and unjust. One's enemies are always better served than
one's friends. And then, when one frog begins to croak, all the
others follow suit. After a certain reverence has been violated
every one tries to see who can best jump on the shoulders of the
statue; it is always like that. You are undergoing the disadvantages
of having a style that is not yet familiar through repetition, and
all are making idiots of themselves so as not to see it.

ABSOLUTE IMPERSONALITY is debatable, and I do not accept it
ABSOLUTELY; but I wonder that Saint-Victor who has preached it so
much and has criticised my plays because they were not IMPERSONAL,
should abandon you instead of defending you. Criticism is in a sad
way; too much theory!

Don't be troubled by all that and keep straight on. Don't attempt a
system, obey your inspiration.

What fine weather, at least with us, and we are getting ready for
our Christmas festivals with the family at home. I told Plauchut to
try to carry you off; we are expecting him. If you can't come with
him, come at least for the Christmas Eve revels and to escape from
Paris on New Year's day; it is so boring there then!

Lina charges me to say to you that you are authorized to wear your
wrapper and slippers continually. There are no ladies, no strangers.
In short you will make us very happy and you have promised for a
long time.