by George Sand
NOTE ON THE TEXT
INDIANA was published in 1832 by J.-P. Roret and H. Dupuy, by Gosselin in 1833, and in a new edition by Perrotin in 1842. An illustrated edition was published by Hetzel in 1853. The last edition to be published in George Sand’s lifetime was by Calmann-Lévy in 1856, and that is the text which has been followed in this translation.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
There is an edited English translation of George Sand’s autobiography: My Life, trans. D. Hofstadter (London: Gollancz, 1979). The complete text is also available in a group translation, ed. Thelma Jungrau, Story of My Life (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1991). A translation of selected writings is available under the title In Her Own Words, trans. J. A. Barry (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1979).
There are numerous biographies of George Sand. The following is a brief list of the best of these:
Barry, J. A., Infamous Woman: The Life of George Sand (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977).
Cate, Curtis, George Sand: A Biography (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975).
Dickenson, Donna, George Sand: A Brave Man—The Most Womanly Woman (Oxford: Berg, 1988).
Maurois, André, Lélia: The Life of George Sand, trans. G. Hopkins (London: Jonathan Cape, 1953).
Toesca, Maurice, The Other George Sand, trans. Irene Beeson (London: Dennis Dobson, 1947).
Secondary works:
Crecelius, Kathryn, Family Romances: George Sand’s Early Novels (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).
Haig, Stirling, ‘The Circular Room of George Sand’s Indiana’, in his The Madame Bovary Blues (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987).
Hirsch, Michèle, ‘Questions à Indiana’, Revue des Sciences Humaines, 165 (1977), 117–29.
Kadish, Doris, ‘Representing Race in Indiana’, George Sand Studies, 11/1–2 (199z), 22–30.
Naginski, Isabelle Hoog, George Sand: Writing for her Life (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992).
Petrey, Sandy, ‘George and Georgina Sand: Realist Gender in Indiana’, in Michael Worton and Judith Still (eds.), Sexuality and Textuality (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming).
Rabine, Leslie, ‘George Sand and the Myth of Femininity’, Women and Literature, 4(1976), 2–17.
Schor, Naomi, George Sand and Idealism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
Vareille, Kristina Wingard, Socialite, sexualité et les impasses de l’histoire: L’Evolution de la thématique sandienne d’Indiana (1832) à Mauprat (1832) (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiskell, 1987).
A CHRONOLOGY OF GEORGE SAND
1804
Birth on 1 July of Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin (the future George Sand). Her father Maurice, an army officer, was the son of an eighteenth-century financier Dupin de Francueil who at 72 married the 29-year-old, illegitimate daughter of the distinguished military commander, the Maréchal de Saxe, illegitimate son of a king of Poland. Aurore’s mother, Antoinette Delaborde, daughter of a Parisian birdseller, married Maurice Dupin on 5 June 1804, the couple having had a liaison since 1800.
1808
Maurice Dupin is killed in a riding accident.
1808–18
Aurore Dupin lives with her grandmother at her country estate at Nohant. Relations between Aurore’s mother and grandmother are strained.
1810
Aurore’s mother goes to live in Paris.
1818
Aurore is sent as a boarder to the convent of the English Augustine nuns in Paris.
1819
Aurore undergoes a mystical experience and wants to become a nun.
1820
Aurore returns to Nohant.
1821
Death of Aurore’s grandmother.
1822
Her paternal relative, René de Villeneuve, becomes Aurore’s legal guardian, but she does not agree to break with her mother as her grandmother had wished. Aurore goes to live with her mother but suffers from her capricious and unstable temperament. On 19 April Aurore meets Casimir Dudevant (aged 27), the illegitimate son of a Baron of the Napoleonic Empire. On 17 September Aurore marries Casimir and in October the couple go to Paris.
1823
Maurice Dudevant (later known as Maurice Sand) is born.
1824
The marriage is unhappy; the husband and wife have no interests in common.
1825
Aurore meets Aurélien de Sèze, with whom she has a passionate but platonic relationship lasting till 1830.
1827
Aurore develops a circle of faithful friends, including Jules Néraud to whom the conclusion of Indiana is addressed. She becomes the mistress of Stéphane Ajasson de Grandsagne.
1828
Birth of Solange Dudevant (thought probably to be Stéphane’s daughter).
1830
Aurore meets Jules Sandeau.
1831
Having become his mistress, Aurore (with an allowance from Casimir) goes to Paris with Sandeau, leaving her husband and children at Nohant. In collaboration with Sandeau, she writes two novels, signed J. Sand and J.S.
1832
She returns to Nohant and then goes back to Paris with her daughter. Having written Indiana on her own, she publishes it under the pseudonym of G. Sand. Then she publishes Valentine under the name of George Sand.
1833
Beginning of George Sand’s liaison with Alfred de Musset, and journey of the couple to Italy. Publication of Lélia.
1834
George Sand and Musset fall ill, and Musset is attended by Dr Pagello, with whom George falls in love. Musset returns to France, while George stays in Venice and writes several novels and the first Lettres d’un voyageur. In July she and Pagello go to Paris; in October he goes back to Italy and George again becomes Musset’s mistress.
1835
George Sand’s liaison with Musset ends and she becomes the mistress of an eminent republican lawyer, Michel de Bourges. Proceedings begin for the judicial separation of George Sand and her husband.
1836
Legal separation of George Sand and her husband confirmed. George and her children join Liszt and Marie d’Agoult in Switzerland and go to Paris.
1837
Liszt and Marie d’Agoult visit George at Nohant. End of her liaison with Michel de Bourges. She becomes the mistress of the painter Bocage and of her son’s tutor Mallefille. She comes under the influence of the socialist thinker, Pierre Leroux. Casimir Dudevant takes Solange away, and George has to go to her father-in-law’s home to recover her daughter.
1838
Balzac visits Nohant. Beginning of George Sand’s liaison with Chopin. They go to Majorca. Chopin falls ill; they settle in a former monastery at Valldemosa.
1839
Chopin and George Sand return to France and settle in Paris. Publication of Spiridion and L’Uscoque.
1840
Publication of Le Compagnon du tour de France and other works. Beginning of George’s friendship with the singer Pauline Viardot.
1841
George Sand and Chopin stay at Nohant. Publication of Horace.
1842
Publication of Un hiver à Majorque and Consuelo. Delacroix visits Nohant.
1843
Publication of La Comtesse de Rudolstadt, sequel to Consuelo.
1844
Publication of Jeanne.
1845–6
Publication of several novels, including Le Meunier d’Angibault and La Mare au Diable.
1846
Chopin returns alone to Paris.
1847
Solange’s marriage to the sculptor Clesinger causes a rift between George Sand and Chopin.
1848
Revolution in France. George Sand is involved on the Republican side, but returns to Nohant disillusioned and disappointed.
1849
Death of Chopin.
1850
Beginning of George Sand’s liaison with the engraver Alexandre Manceau, a friend of her son,
thirteen years her junior.
1853
Publication of Les Maîtres Sonneurs and other works. 1855 Death of Solange’s daughter Jeanne, to whom George was deeply attached. 1856–9 Publication of several novels.
1859
Publication of Elle et lui, an account of George’s relationship with Musset. Reply by Alfred’s brother Paul in Lui et elle.
1860–2
Publication of three more novels.
1862
Marriage of George’s son Maurice to Lina Calamatta.
1863
Start of correspondence with Flaubert. Birth of Maurice’s son.
1864
Death of Maurice’s son. George settles with Manceau at Palaiseau after difficulties between Maurice and Manceau. The young painter Marchal becomes her lover.
1865
Death of Manceau. George attends literary dinners (the Magny dinners) in Paris.
1866
Birth of Maurice’s daughter Aurore. Visit to Flaubert at Croisset.
1868
Birth of Maurice’s daughter Gabrielle. Another visit to Flaubert at Croisset.
1869
Flaubert visits Nohant.
1865–70
Publication of more novels.
1871
Death of Casimir Dudevant.
1873
Flaubert and Turgeniev visit Nohant.
1870–4
Publication of another four novels.
1876
Final illness and death of George Sand.
INDIANA
INTRODUCTION
I WROTE Indiana in the autumn of 1831. It was my first novel. I wrote without any plan, without any aesthetic or philosophical theory in mind. I wrote at the age when one writes instinctively and when reflection serves only to confirm our natural tendencies. People wanted to see it as a carefully thought-out argument against marriage. I was not trying to do anything like so important and I was completely surprised by all the fine things that the critics found to say about my subversive intentions. Criticism is far too clever; that is what will be the death of it. It never judges straightforwardly what has been done straightforwardly. It looks for midday at two in the afternoon, as the old saying goes, and it must have done a great deal of harm to those artists who pay too much attention to its opinions.
Under all régimes and at all times, moreover, there has been a race of critics who, bringing their own talent into contempt, have imagined that they ought to ply the trade of denouncers, of suppliers of information to the authorities. What a strange role for men of letters in relation to their fellow writers! Governments’ strict regulations against the press have never been enough for these ferocious critics. They would like such regulations to be directed not only against works, but against persons as well, and if they were listened to, some of us would be forbidden to write anything at all. At the time I wrote Indiana they brought accusations of Saint-Simonism against everything. Later on they brought accusations of all sorts of other things. Some writers are still forbidden to open their mouths under pain of seeing certain journalist guardians of the law pounce on their work to bring it before the official police authorities. If a writer makes a workman express noble feelings, it is an attack against the bourgeoisie; if a girl who has strayed is rehabilitated after expiating her sin, it is an attack against virtuous women; if a scoundrel assumes titles of nobility, it is an attack against the aristocracy; if a bully behaves like a swashbuckling soldier, it is an insult to the army; if a woman is ill-treated by her husband, it is an argument for promiscuity. And so it is with everything. Worthy fellow writers, critics with pious and generous hearts! What a pity that no one is thinking of setting up a little inquisitorial literary tribunal in which you would be the torturers! Would you be satisfied with tearing the books to pieces and burning them in a slow fire or, at your own request, could you not be allowed to give a taste of torture to the writers who allow themselves to have other gods than yours?
Thank God, I have forgotten even the names of those who tried to discourage me on my first publication and who, unable to say that this humble beginning fell completely flat, tried to turn it into an inflammatory proclamation against the peace of society. I did not expect so much honour, and I think I owe these critics the thanks that the hare addressed to the frogs when, on seeing their alarm, he imagined he was entitled to think himself a warlike thunderbolt.
Nohant, May 1852
PREFACE TO THE 1832 EDITION
IF SOME pages of this book were to incur the serious reproach of a tendency towards new opinions, if strict judges were to think they have an imprudent, dangerous ring, one would have to reply to the criticism that they are doing too much honour to a work of no importance, that to tackle the great questions of social order, one must have great moral strength or lay claim to great talent, and that so much presumption does not enter into the scheme of a very simple story in which the writer has invented almost nothing. If, in the course of his task, he has happened to express cries of pain wrung from his characters by the social unease which affects them; if he has not been afraid to record their aspirations towards a better life, let society be blamed for its inequalities and fate for its whims. The writer is only a mirror which reflects them, a machine which traces their outline, and he has nothing for which to apologize if the impressions are correct and the reflection is faithful.
Consider, next, that the narrator has not taken as his text or slogan a few exclamations of suffering and anger scattered throughout the drama of human life. He makes no claim to hide a serious lesson beneath the guise of a tale; he has not come to give a helping hand to the structure which a problematic future is preparing for us, or a parting kick to that of the past which is crumbling away. He knows too well that we live in a time of moral decline, when human reason needs a curtain to soften the overbright light which dazzles it. If he had felt learned enough to write a really useful book, he would have softened the truth instead of presenting it with its crude colours and glaring effects. Such a book would have served the purpose of blue spectacles for faulty eyes.
He does not give up the idea of fulfilling that honourable, noble task some day, but, young as he is today, he tells you what he has seen without daring to draw conclusions about the great controversy between the future and the past, which perhaps no man of the present generation is very competent to decide. Too conscientious to conceal his doubts from you, but too timid to set them up as certainties, he relies on your reflections and refrains from weaving preconceived ideas and ready-made judgements into the web of his story. He performs punctiliously his job as a story-teller. He will tell you everything, even what is annoyingly true, but if you were to rig him out in the philosopher’s gown, you would find him very muddled, for he is only a simple story-teller whose task is to amuse and not to instruct you.
Even if he were more mature and more skilful, he still would not dare lay his hand on the great sores of dying civilization. One must be so sure of being able to cure them when one takes the risk of probing them! He would prefer to try to bring you back to past outworn beliefs, to old vanished forms of worship, rather than to use his talent, if he had any, to knock down overturned altars. He knows, however, that in the prevalent charitable spirit, a timid conscience is despised by public opinion as hypocritical reserve, just as, in the arts, a timid approach is mocked as a ridiculous attitude. But he also knows that in defending lost causes there is honour, if not profit.
On those who might misunderstand the spirit of this book, such a profession of faith would jar like an anachronism. The narrator hopes that, after listening to his tale to the end, few listeners will deny the morality that emerges from the facts and triumphs there as in all human affairs. It seemed to him, as he completed it, that his conscience was clear. In short, he flattered himself that he had written of social miseries without too much irritation and of human passions without too much passion. He has put a mute on his strings when they were making too loud a sound; he has
tried to stifle certain notes of the soul that should remain unheard, certain voices of the heart that are not aroused without danger.
Perhaps you will do him justice if you agree that he has shown you the misery of the person who wants to free himself from legitimate restraint, the utter distress of the heart that rebels against its destiny’s decrees. If he has not shown in the best light the character who represents the law, if he has been even less favourable to another who represents public opinion, you will see a third who represents illusion and cruelly thwarts the vain hopes and crazy enterprises of passion. Finally, you will see that if he has not strewn roses on the ground where the law pens up our desires like sheep, he has cast nettles on the paths which lead us away from it.