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The George Sand Gustave Flaubert Letters

G >> George Sand, Gustave Flaubert >> The George Sand Gustave Flaubert Letters




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.

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