Part 47 (2/2)

Don't believe a word of that, do write lovely things, and love your old troubadour who always cherishes you.

G. Sand

Love from all Nohant.

CCLIX. TO GEORGE SAND Thursday

Why do you leave me so long without any news of yourself, dear good master? I am cross with you, there!

I am all through with the dramatic art. Carvalho came here last Sat.u.r.day to hear the reading of le s.e.xe faible, and seemed to me to be satisfied with it. He thinks it will be a success. But I put so little confidence in the intelligence of all those rascals, that for my part, I doubt it.

I am exhausted, and I am now sleeping ten hours a night, not to mention two hours a day. That is resting my poor brain.

I am going to resume my readings for my wretched book, which I shall not begin for a full year.

Do you know where the great Tourgueneff is now?

A thousand affectionate greetings to all and to you the best of everything from your old friend.

CCLX. TO GEORGE SAND Sunday ...

I am not like M. de Vigny, I do not like the ”sound of the horn in the depth of the woods.” For the last two hours now an imbecile stationed on the island in front of me has been murdering me with his instrument. That wretched creature spoils my sunlight and deprives me of the pleasure of enjoying the summer. For it is lovely weather, but I am bursting with anger. I should like, however, to talk a bit with you, dear master.

In the first place, congratulations on your seventieth year, which seems more robust to me than the twentieth of a good many others!

What a Herculean const.i.tution you have! Bathing in an icy stream is a proof of strength that bewilders me, and is a mark of a ”reserve force” that is rea.s.suring to your friends. May you live long. Take care of yourself for your dear grandchildren, for the good Maurice, for me too, for all the world, and I should add: for literature, if I were not afraid of your superb disdain.

Ha! good! again the hunting horn! The man is mad. I want to go and find the rural guard.

As for me, I do not share your disdain, and I am absolutely ignorant of, as you say, ”the pleasure of doing nothing.” As soon as I no longer hold a book, or am not dreaming of writing one, A LAMENTABLE boredom seizes upon me. Life, in short seems tolerable to me only by legerdemain. Or else one must give oneself up to disordered pleasure ... and even then!

Well, I have finished with le s.e.xe faible, which will be played, at least so Carvalho promises, in January, if Sardou's l'Oncle Sam is permitted by the censors.h.i.+p; if otherwise, it will be in November.

As I have been accustomed during the last six weeks to seeing things from a theatrical point of view, to thinking in dialogue, here I am starting to build the plot of another play! It will be called le Candidat. My written plot is twenty pages long. But I haven't anyone to show it to. Alas! I shall therefore leave it in a drawer and start at my old book. I am reading l'Histoire de la Medecine by Daremberg, which amuses me a great deal, and I have finished l'Essai sur les facultes de l'entendement by Gamier, which I think very silly. There you have my occupations. THINGS seem to be getting quieter. I breathe again.

I don't know whether they talk as much of the Shah in Nohant as they do around here. The enthusiasm has been immense. A little more and they would have proclaimed him Emperor. His sojourn in Paris has had, on the commercial shop-keeping and artisan cla.s.s, a monarchical effect which you would not have suspected, and the clerical gentlemen are doing very well, very well indeed!

On the other side of the horizon, what horrors they are committing in Spain! So that the generality of humanity continues to be charming.

CCLXI. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset Nohant, 30 August, 1873

Where are you to be found now? where are you nestled? As for me, I have just come from Auvergne with my whole household, Plauchut included. Auvergne is beautiful, above all it is pretty. The flora is always rich and interesting, the walking rough, the living accommodations poor. I got through it all very well, except for the elevation of two thousand meters at Sancy, which combining an icy wind with a burning sun, laid me flat for four days with a fever.

<script>