Part 47 (1/2)
Gustave Flaubert
otherwise called the R. P. Cruchard of the Barnabites, director of the Ladies of Disillusion.
CCLVII. TO GEORGE SAND
Dear master,
Cruchard should have thanked you sooner for sending him your last book; but his reverence is working like ten thousand negroes, that is his excuse. But it did not hinder him from reading ”Impressions et Souvenirs.” I already knew some of it, from having read it in le Temps (a pun). [Footnote: ”Dans de temps” means also, ”some time ago.”]
This is what was new to me and what struck me: (1) the first fragment; (2) the second in which there is a charming and just page on the Empress. How true is what you say of the proletariat! Let us hope that its reign will pa.s.s like that of the bourgeois, and for the same causes, as a punishment for the same folly and a similar egoism.
The ”Reponse a un ami” I knew, as it was addressed to me.
The ”Dialogue avec Delacroix” is instructive; two curious pages on what he thought of father Ingres.
I am not entirely of your opinion as regards the punctuation. That is to say that I would shock you by my exaggeration in that respect; but I do not lack, naturally, good reasons to defend my point of view.
”J'allume le f.a.got,” etc., all of this long article charmed me.
In the ”Idees d'un maitre d'ecole,” I admire your pedagogic spirit, dear master, there are many pretty a b c phrases.
Thank you for what you say of my poor Bouilhet!
I adore your ”Pierre Bonin.” I have known people like him, and as these pages are dedicated to Tourgueneff it is the moment to ask you if you have read ”I'Abandonnee”? For my part, I find it simply sublime. This Scythian is an immense old fellow.
I am not at such high-toned literature now. Far from it! I am hacking and re-hacking ”le s.e.xe faible.” I wrote the first act in a week. It is true that my days are long. I spent, last week, one of eighteen hours, and Cruchard is as fresh as a young girl, not tired, no headache. In short, I think that I shall be through that work in three weeks. After that, G.o.d knows what!
It would be funny if Carvalho's fantasticality was crowned with success!
I am afraid that Maurice has lost his wager, for I want to replace the three theological virtues by the face of Christ appearing in the sun. What do you think about it? When the correction is made and I have strengthened the ma.s.sacre at Alexandria and clarified the symbolism of the fantastic beasts, ”Saint-Antoine” will be finished forever, and I shall start at my two good fellows who were set aside for the comedy.
What a horrid way of writing is required for the stage! The ellipses, the delays, the questions and the repet.i.tions have to be lavish, if movement is desired, and all that in itself is very ugly.
I am perhaps blinding myself, but I think that I am now writing something very quick and easy to play. We shall see.
Adieu, dear master, embrace all yours for me.
Your old good-for-nothing Cruchard, friend of Chalumeau. Note that name. It is a gigantic story, but it requires one to toe the mark to tell it suitably.
CCLVIII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 4 July, 1873
I don't know where you are at present, Cruchard of my heart. I am addressing this to Paris whence I suppose it will be forwarded to you. I have been ill, your reverence, nothing except a stupid anemia, no legs, no appet.i.te, continual sweat on the forehead and my heart as jumpy as a pregnant woman; it is unfair, that condition, when one gets to the seventies, I begin my seventieth spring tomorrow, cured after a half score of river baths. But I find it so comfortable to rest that I have not yet done an iota of work since I returned from Paris, and until I opened my ink-well again to write to you today. We reread your letter this morning in which you said that Maurice had lost his wager. He insists that he has won it as you are taking out the vertus theologales.
As for me, bet or no bet, I want you to keep the new version which is quite in the atmosphere, while the theological virtues are not.-- Have you any news of Tourgueneff? I am worried about him. Madame Viardot wrote me, several days ago, that he had fallen and hurt his leg.--Yes, I have read l'Abandonnee, it is very beautiful as is all that he does. I hope that his injury is not serious! such a thing is always serious with gout.
So you are still working frantically? Unhappy one! you don't know the ineffable pleasure of doing nothing! And how good work will seem to me after it! I shall delay it however as long as possible. I am getting more and more of the opinion that nothing is worth the trouble of being said!