Bouvard and Pécuchet, part 2

And the circle of youth – that was a true invention! I have noted many other things on the margins, viz.:

The physical details which Olympe gives regarding her brother; the strawberry; the mother of the abbé ready to become his pander; and her old trunk.

The harshness of the priest, who waves away the handkerchief of his poor sweetheart, because he detects thereon “an odour of woman.”

The description of the sacristy, with the name of M. Delangre on the wall – the whole phrase is a jewel.

But that which surpasses everything, that which crowns the whole work, is the end! I know of nothing more powerful than that dénouement. Marthe’s visit at her uncle’s house, the return of Mouret, and his inspection of the house! One is seized by fear, as in the reading of some fantastic tale, and one arrives at this effect by the tremendous realism, the intensity of truth. The reader feels his head turned, in sympathy with Mouret.

The insensibility of the bourgeois, who watches the fire seated in his armchair, is charming, and you wind up with one sublime stroke: the apparition of the soutane of the Abbé Serge at the bedside of his dying mother, as a consolation or a chastisement!

There is one bit of chicanery, however. The reader (that has no memory) does not know by instinct what motive prompts M. Rougon and Uncle Macquart to act as they do. Two paragraphs of explanation would have been sufficient.

Never mind! it is what it is, and I thank you for the pleasure it has given me.

Sleep on both ears, now your work is done!

Lay aside for me all the stupid criticisms it draws forth. That kind of document interests me very much.

TO GUY DE MAUPASSANT

Dieppe, July 28, 1874.

My dear friend: As Saturday is for you a kind of consecrated day, and as I could be in Paris only one day, which was last Saturday, I shall not be able to see you on your return from Helvetia.

Know, then, that Le Sexe Faible was enthusiastically received at the Cluny Theatre, and it will be acted there after Zola’s piece, that is, about the last of November.

Winschenk, the director of this little box of a theatre, predicts a great pecuniary success. Amen!

It goes without saying, it is the general opinion that I lower myself in making my appearance in an inferior theatre. But this is the story: Among the artists engaged by Winschenk for my play was Mlle. Alice Regnault. He feared that she would be taken by the Vaudeville Theatre, and that the Vaudeville would not allow her to appear in my play. Will you be kind enough to inform yourself discreetly of the state of the case when you are in Paris?

I shall return to Croisset Friday evening, and Saturday I shall begin Bouvard et Pécuchet. I tremble at the prospect, as one would the night before embarking for a voyage around the world!

All the more reason why we should meet and embrace.

TO MAURICE SAND

Croisset, Sunday, June 24, 1876.

You have forestalled me, my dear Maurice! I wished to write to you, but I waited until you should be a little more free, more alone. I thank you for your kind thought.

Yes, there are few of us left now. And if I do not remain here long, it is because my former friends have drawn me to them.

This has seemed to me like burying my mother a second time. Poor, dear, great woman! What genius and what a heart! But she lacked nothing; it is not she who calls for pity!

What shall you do now? Shall you remain at Nohant? That dear old house must seem terribly empty to you. But you, at least, are not alone. You have a wife – a rare woman! – and two exquisite children. While I was with you there, I felt above all my sadness, two desires: to run away with Aurore, and to kill Monsieur …! That is the truth: it is useless to try to analyse the psychology of the thing.

I received yesterday a very tender letter from the good Tourgueneff. He, too, loved her! But who did not love her? If you had beheld the grief of Martine in Paris! It was overwhelming.

Plauchut is still at Nohant, I suppose. Tell him I love him after seeing him weep so bitterly.

And let your own tears flow freely, my dear friend! Do not try to console yourself – it would be almost impossible. Some day you will find within yourself a deep and sweet certainty that you were always a good son, and that she knew it well. She spoke of you as a blessing.

And after you shall have joined her once more, and after the great-grandchildren of the grandchildren of your two little daughters also shall have rejoined her, and when for a long time people have ceased to talk of the things and the persons that surround us at present – in some centuries to come – there will still be hearts that will palpitate at her words! People will read her books, will ponder over her thoughts, will love as she loved.

But all that does not give her back to you! With what shall we sustain ourselves, then, if pride fails us, and what man can feel more of that for his mother than yourself?

Now, my dear friend, adieu! When shall we meet again? For I feel an insatiable desire to talk of her!

Embrace Madame Maurice for me, as I embraced her on the stairs at Nohant, also your little ones.

Yours, from the depths of my heart.

TO GUY DE MAUPASSANT

Night of August 28, 1876.

Your letter has rejoiced me, young man! But I advise you to moderate yourself, in the interest of literature.

Take care! all depends upon the end one wishes to attain. A man who has accredited himself an artist has no right to live like other men.

All that which you tell me about Catulle Mendès does not surprise me at all. He wrote to me the day before yesterday, to ask me to give him gratis the fragments of the Château des Cœurs, and also the unedited stories that I had just finished. I replied that it was quite impossible, which is true. Yesterday I wrote him a rather sharp letter, as I was indignant at the article on Renan. It attacked him in the grossest fashion, and there was also some humbug about Berthelot. Have you read it, and what do you think of it? In short, I said to Catulle, first, that I wished him to efface my name from the list of his collaborators; and, second, not to send me his journal any more! I do not wish to have anything in common with such fellows! It is a very bad set, my dear friend, and I advise you to do as I have done – let them entirely alone. Catulle will probably reply to my letter, but my decision is taken, and that is an end of it. That which I cannot pardon is the base democratic envy.

The tiresome article on Offenbach goes to the extremest limits about his comic spirit. And what stupidity! I mean the joke that was invented by Fiorantino in 1850, and is still alive to-day!

In order to make a triad, add the name of Littré, the gentleman who pretends that we are all descended from apes; and last Friday the butchery of Sainte-Beuve! Oh, the idiocy of it!

As to myself, I am working very hard, seeing no one, reading no journals, and bawling away like a maniac in the seclusion of my study. I pass the whole day, and almost the whole night, bent over my table, and admire the sunrise with great regularity! Before my dinner (about seven o’clock) I splash about in the bourgeoise waves of the Seine. —À propos of health, you do not appear to me to look very ill. All the better! Think no more about it!

TO GUY DE MAUPASSANT

Wednesday night, 1880.

My dear friend: I do not know yet what day De Goncourt, Zola, Alphonse Daudet and Charpentier will come here to breakfast and dine, and perhaps to sleep. They must decide this evening, so that I may know by Friday morning. I think they will come on Monday. If your eye will permit you then, kindly transport your person to the dwelling of one of these rascals, learn when they expect to leave, and come along with them.

Should they all pass Monday night at Croisset, as I have only four beds to offer, you will take that of the femme de chambre– who is absent just now.

Commentary: I have conjured up so many alarms and improbabilities regarding your malady, that I should be glad, purely for my own satisfaction, to have you examined by my Doctor Fortin, a simple health officer, but a man I consider very able.

Another observation: If you have not the wherewithal to make the journey, I have a superb double louis at your service. To refuse through mere delicacy would be a very stupid thing to do!

A last note: Jules Lemaître, to whom I have promised your protection in regard to Graziani, will present himself at your place. He has talent and is a true littérateur, – a rara avis, to whom we must give a cage larger than Havre.

Perhaps he too will come to Croisset on Monday; and as it is my intention to stuff you all, I have invited Doctor Fortin, so then he may extend his services to the sick ones!

The festival would lack much in splendour if my “disciple” were not there.

Thy old friend.

P.S. – I received this morning an incomprehensible letter, four pages long, signed Harry Alis. It appears that I have wounded him! How? In any case, I shall ask his pardon. Vive the young bloods!

I have re-read Boule de Suif, and I maintain that it is a masterpiece. Try to write a dozen stories like that, and you will be a man! The article by Wolff has filled me with joy! O eunuchs!

Madame Brainne has written me that she was enchanted with it. So did Madame Lapierre!

You will remember that you promised me to make some inquiries of D’Aurevilly. He has written this of me: “Can no one persuade M. Flaubert not to write any more?” It might be a good time now to make certain extracts from this gentleman’s works. There is need of it!

How about the Botanique? How is your health? And how goes the volume of verse?

Sarah Bernhardt seems to me gigantic! And the “fathers of families” petition for the congregations!

Decidedly, this is a farcical epoch!

1

This is possibly a reference to that once celebrated specimen of English didactic fiction, Fathers and Daughters, by Mrs. Amelia Opie. – Translator.

2

The manuscript of this essay, unlike all other early manuscripts of Gustave Flaubert, bears no date. It belongs to the earliest of his writing, a time when there was a far from unanimous opinion among the literary cognoscenti regarding the work of Rabelais.

3

Read at a public meeting of the Academy of Rouen, Aug. 7th, 1867.

4

Read at the Academy of Rouen, at a public meeting, Aug. 7th, 1865. (See analytical summary of the works of the Academy of Rouen.)

5

Letter of condolence to Saint-Ouen park. – Meeting of June 2, 1865. (See analytical summary of the Academy of Rouen.)

6

Winter in the city. (Letter. – Meeting of Aug. 6th, 1863.)

7

Winter in the city. (Letter. – Meeting Aug. 6th, 1863.)

8

Vacations. (Familiar letter. – Meeting of Aug. 6th, 1861.)

9

M. Decorde’s poetry. (Letter of condolence to Saint-Ouen Park, already cited.)