I am better. Yet I am not bold enough to go to your house Saturday and to return from such a distance in this severe cold. I saw Theo this evening, I told him to come to dine with us both on Saturday at Magny’s. Do say yes, it is I who invite you, and we shall have a quiet private room. After that we will smoke at my place.
Plauchut would not be able to go to you. He was invited to the prince’s.
A word if it is NO. Nothing if it is yes. So I don’t want you to write to me. I saw Tourgueneff and I told him all that I think of him. He was as surprised as a child. We spoke ill of you.
Wednesday evening.
CXLVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The 5th or the 6th February, 1870
(On the back of a letter from Edme Simonnet)
I don’t see you, you come to the Odeon and when they tell me that you are there, I hurry and don’t find you. Do set a day then when you will come to eat a chop with me. Your old exhausted troubadour who loves you.
CXLIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 15 February, 1870
My troubadour, we are two old rattle traps. As for me, I have had a bad attack of bronchitis and I am just out of bed. Now I am recovered but not yet out of my room. I hope to resume my work at the Odeon in a couple of days.
Do get well, don’t go out, at least unless the thaw is not very bad. My play is for the 22d. [Footnote: This refers to L’Autre.] I hope very much to see you on that day. And meanwhile, I kiss you and I love you,
G. Sand
Tuesday evening
CL. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Sunday evening, 20th February, 1870
I went out today for the first time, I am better without being well. I am anxious at not having news about that reading of the fairy play. Are you satisfied? Did they understand? L’Autre will take place on Thursday, or Friday at the latest.
Will your nephew and niece go to the gallery or the balcony seats? Impossible to have a box. If yes, a word and I will send these seats out of my allotment — which, as usual, will not be grand.
Your old troubadour.
CLI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, February, 1870
It is for Friday. Then I am disposing of the two seats that I intended for your niece.
If you have a moment free, and come to the Odeon that night, you will find me in the manager’s box, proscenium, ground floor. I am heavy-hearted about all you tell me. Here you are again in gloom, sorrow and chagrin. Poor dear friend! Let us continue to hope that you will save your patient, but you are ill too, and I am very anxious about you, I was quite overwhelmed by it this evening, when I got your note, and I have no more heart for anything.
A word when you can, to give me news.
G. Sand
CLII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Paris, 2d March, 1870
Poor dear friend, your troubles distress me, you have too many blows in quick succession, and I am going away Saturday morning leaving you in the midst of all these sorrows! Do you want to come to Nohant with me, for a change of air, even if only for two or three days? I have a compartment, we should be alone and my carriage is waiting for me at Chateauroux. You could be sad without constraint at our house, we also have mourning in the family. A change of lodging, of faces, of habits, sometimes does physical good. One does not forget one’s sorrow, but one forces one’s body to endure it.
I embrace you with all my soul. A word and I expect you. Wednesday evening.
CLIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 11 March, 1870
How are you, my poor child? I am glad to be here in the midst of my darling family, but I am unhappy all the same at having left you melancholy, ill and upset. Send me news, a word at least, and be assured that we all are unhappy over your troubles and sufferings.
G. Sand
CLIV. TO GEORGE SAND 17 March, 1870
Dear master,
I received a telegram yesterday evening from Madame Cornu containing these words: “Come to me, urgent business.” I therefore hurried to her today, and here is the story.
The Empress maintains that you made some very unkind allusions to her in the last number of the Revue! “What about me, whom all the world is attacking now! I should not have believed that! and I wanted to have her nominated for the Academy! But what have I done to her? etc., etc.” In short, she is distressed, and the Emperor too! He is not indignant but prostrated (sic). [Footnote: Malgre tout, Calmann-Levy, 1870.]
Madame Cornu explained to her that she was mistaken and that you had not intended to make any allusion to her.
Hereupon a theory of the manner in which novels are written.
— Oh well, then, let her write in the papers that she did not intend to wound me.
— But she will not do that, I answered.
— Write to her to tell you so.
— I will not allow myself to take that step.
— But I would like to know the truth, however! Do you know someone who…then Madame Cornu mentioned me.
— Oh, don’t say that I spoke to you of it!
Such is the dialogue that Madame Cornu reported to me.
She wants you to write me a letter in which you tell me that the
Empress was not used by you as a model. I shall send that letter to
Madame Cornu who will have it given to the Empress.
I think that story stupid and those people are very sensitive! Much worse things than that are told to us.
Now dear master of the good God, you must do exactly what you please.
The Empress has always been very kind to me and I should not be sorry to do her a favor. I have read the famous passage. I see nothing in it to hurt her. But women’s brains are so queer!
I am very tired in mine (my brain) or rather it is very low for the moment! However hard I work, it doesn’t go! Everything irritates me and hurts me; and since I restrain myself before people, I give way from time to time to floods of tears when it seems to me as if I should burst. At last I am experiencing an entirely new sensation: the approach of old age. The shadow invades me, as Victor Hugo would say.
Madame Cornu has spoken to me enthusiastically of a letter you wrote her on a method of teaching.
CLV. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset
Nohant, 17 March, 1870
I won’t have it, you are not getting old. Not in the crabbed and MISANTHROPIC sense. On the contrary, when one is good, one becomes better, and, as you are already better than most others, you ought to become exquisite.
You are boasting, moreover, when you undertake to be angry against everyone and everything. You could not. You are weak before sorrow, like all affectionate people. The strong are those who do not love. You will never be strong, and that is so much the better. You must not live alone any more; when strength returns you must really live and not shut it up for yourself alone.
For my part, I am hoping that you will be reborn with the springtime. Today we have rain which relaxes, tomorrow we shall have the animating sun. We are all just getting over illnesses, our children had very bad colds, Maurice quite upset by lameness with a cold, I taken again by chills and anemia: I am very patient and I prevent the others as much as I can from being impatient, there is everything in that; impatience with evil always doubles the evil. When shall we be WISE as the ancients understood it? That, in substance, meant being PATIENT, nothing else. Come, dear troubadour, you must be a little patient, to begin with, and then you can get accustomed to it; if we do not work on ourselves, how can we hope to be always in shape to work on others?
Well, in the midst of all that, don’t forget that we love you and that the hurt you give yourself hurts us too.
I shall go to see you and to shake you as soon as I have regained my feet and my will, which are both backward; I am waiting, I know that they will return.
Affectionate greetings from all our invalids. Punch has lost only his fiddle and he is still smiling and well gilded. Lolo’s baby has had misfortunes, but its clothes dress other
dolls. As for me, I can flap only one wing, but I kiss you and I love you.
G. Sand
CLVI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, in Paris
Nohant, 19 March, 1870
I know, my friend, that you are very devoted to her. I know that she [Footnote: Letter written about the rumour current, that George Sand had meant to depict the Empress in one of the chief characters of her novel, Malgre tout; the letter was sent by Flaubert to Madame Cornu, god-child of Queen Hortense, and foster-sister of Napoleon III.] is very kind to unfortunates who have been recommended to her; that is all that I know of her private life. I have never had any revelation nor document about her, NOT A WORD, NOT A DEED, which would authorize me to depict her. So I have drawn only a figure of fancy, I swear it, and those who pretended to recognize her in a satire would be, in any case, bad servants and bad friends.
But I don’t write satires: I am ignorant even of the meaning of the word. I don’t write PORTRAITS either; it is not my style. I invent. The public, who does not know in what invention consists, thinks it sees everywhere models. It is mistaken and it degrades art.
This is my SINCERE answer, I have only enough time to mail it.
G. Sand
CLVII. To MADAME HORTENSE CORNU
Your devotion was alarmed wrongly, dear madame, I was sure of it!
Here is the answer that came to me by return mail.
People in society, I reiterate, see allusions where there are none. When I did Madame Bovary I was asked many times: “Is it Madame X. whom you meant to depict?” and I received letters from perfectly unknown people, among others one from a gentleman in Rheims who congratulated me on HAVING AVENGED HIM! (against a faithless one).
Every pharmacist in Seine-Inferieure recognizing himself in Homais, wanted to come to my house to box my ears. But the best (I discovered it five years later) is that there was then in Africa the wife of an army doctor named Madame Bovaries who was like Madame Bovary, a name I had invented by altering that of Bouvaret.
The first sentence of our friend Maury in talking to me about l’Education sentimentale was this: “Did you know X, an Italian, a professor of mathematics? Your Senecal is his physical and moral portrait! Everything is exact even to the cut of his hair!”
Others assert that I meant to depict in Arnoux, Bernard Latte (the former editor), whom I have never seen, etc., etc.
All that is to tell you, dear madame, that the public is mistaken in attributing to us intentions which we do not have.
I was very sure that Madame Sand had not intended to make any portrait; (1) because of her loftiness of mind, her taste, her reverence for art, and (2) because of her character, her feeling for the conventions — and also FOR JUSTICE. I even think, between ourselves, that this accusation has hurt her a little. The papers roll us in the dirt every day without our ever answering them, we whose business it is, however, to wield the pen, and they think that in order to MAKE AN EFFECT, to be applauded, we are going to attack such and such a one.
Oh! no! not so humble! our ambition is higher, and our courtesy greater. — When one thinks highly of one’s mind one does not choose the necessary means to please the crowd. You understand me, don’t you?
But enough of this. I shall come to see you one of these days. Looking forward to that with pleasure, dear madame, I kiss your hands and am entirely yours,
Gustave Flaubert
Sunday evening.
CLVIII. TO GEORGE SAND
March, 1870
Dear master,
I have just sent your letter (for which I thank you) to Madame Cornu, enclosing it in a letter from your troubadour, in which I permitted myself to give bluntly my conception of things.
The two letters will be placed under the eyes of the LADY and will teach her a little about aesthetics.
I saw l’Autre last evening, and I wept several times. It did me good, really! How tender and exalting it is! What a charming work and how they love the author! I missed you. I wanted to give you a kiss like a little child. My oppressed heart is easier, thank you. I think that it will get better! There were a lot of people there. Berton and his son were recalled twice.
CLIX. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 3 April, 1870
Your old troubadour has passed through cruel anguish, Maurice has been seriously, dangerously ill.[Footnote: With diptheria.] Favre, MY OWN doctor, the only one in whom I have confidence, hastened to us in time. After that Lolo had violent attacks of fever, other terrors! At last our savior went off this morning leaving us almost tranquil and our invalids went out to walk in the garden for the first time. — But they still want a great deal of care and oversight, and I shall not leave them for two or three weeks. If then you are awaiting me in Paris, and the sun calls you elsewhere, have no regret about it. I shall try to go to see you in Croisset from Paris between the dawn and the dusk sometime.
At least tell me how you are, what you are doing, if you are on your feet in every way.
My invalids and my well ones send you their affectionate regards, and I kiss you as I love you; it is not little.
G. Sand
My friend Favre has quite a FANCY for you and wants to know you. He is not a physician who seeks practice, he only practices for his friends, and he is offended if they want to pay him. YOUR PERSONALITY interests him, that is all, and I have promised to present him to you, if you are willing. He is something more than a physician, I don’t know what exactly, A SEEKER — after what? — EVERYTHING. He is amusing, original and interesting to the utmost degree. You must tell me if you want to see him, otherwise I shall manage for him not to think of it any more. Answer about this matter.
CLX. TO GEORGE SAND
Monday morning, 11 o’clock
I felt that something unpleasant had happened to you, because I had just written to you for news when your letter was brought to me this morning. I fished mine back from the porter; here is a second one.
Poor dear master! How uneasy you must have been and Madame Maurice also. You do not tell me what he had (Maurice). In a few days before the end of the week, write to confirm to me that everything has turned out well. The trouble lies, I think, with the abominable winter from which we are emerging! One hears of nothing but illnesses and funerals! My poor servant is still at the Dubois hospital, and I am distressed when I go to see him. For two months now he has been confined to his bed suffering horribly.
As for me, I am better. I have read prodigiously. I have overworked, but now I am almost on my feet again. The mass of gloom that I have in the depths of my heart is a little larger, that is all. But, in a little while, I hope that it will not be noticed. I spend my days in the library of the Institute. The Arsenal library lends me books that I read in the evening, and I begin again the next day. I shall return home to Croisset the first of May. But I shall see you before then. Everything will get right again with the sun.
The lovely lady in question made to me, for you, the most proper excuses, asserting to me that “she never had any intention of insulting genius.”
Certainly, I shall be glad to meet M. Favre; since he is a friend of yours I shall like him.
CLXI. TO GEORGE SAND
Tuesday morning
Dear master,
It is not staying in Paris that wears me out, but the series of misfortunes that I have had during the last eight months! I am not working too much, for what would become of me without work? However, it is very hard for me to be reasonable. I am overwhelmed by a black melancholy, which returns a propos of everything and nothing, many times a day. Then, it passes and it begins again. Perhaps it is because it is too long since I have written anything. Nervous reservoirs are exhausted. As soon as I am at Croisset, I shall begin the article about my poor Bouilhet, a painful and sad task which I am in a hurry to finish, so as to set to work at Saint- Antoine. As that is an extravagant subject, I hope it will divert me.
I have seen your physician, M. Favre, who seemed to me very strange and a little mad, between ourselves. He o
ught to like me for I let him talk all the time. There are high lights in his talk, things which sparkle for a moment, then one sees not a ray.
CLXII. TO GEORGE SAND
Paris, Thursday
M. X. — — sent me news of you on Saturday: so now I know that everything is going well with you, and that you have no more uneasiness, dear master. But you, personally, how are you? The two weeks are almost up, and I do not see you coming.
My mood continues not to be sportive. I am still given up to abominable readings, but it is time that I stopped for I am beginning to be disgusted with my subject.
Are you reading Taine’s powerful book? I have gobbled it down, the first volume with infinite pleasure. In fifty years perhaps that will be the philosophy that will be taught in the colleges.
And the preface to the Idees de M. Aubray?
How I long to see you and to jabber with you!
CLXIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Nohant, 16 April, 1870
What ought I to say to Levy so that he will take the first steps? Tell me again how things are, for my memory is poor. You had sold him one volume for ten thousand; — there are two, he himself told me that that would be twenty thousand. What has he paid you up to now? What words did you exchange at the time of this payment?
Answer, and I act.
Things are going better and better here, the little ones well again, Maurice recovering nicely, I tired from having watched so much and from watching yet, for he has to drink and wash out his mouth during the night, and I am the only one in the house who has the faculty of keeping awake. But I am not ill, and I work a little now and then while loafing about. As soon as I can leave, I shall go to Paris. If you are still there, it will be A PIECE OF GOOD LUCK, but I do not dare to wish you to prolong your slavery there, for I can see that you are still ill and that you are working too hard.
Croisset will cure you if you consent to take care of yourself.
Complete Works of Gustave Flaubert Page 523