“Just as amusing as a monastery of the Moravian brotherhood,” he replies.  “I arrived there in the evening, and the house is a long way from the station.  My trunk was put into a thicket, and on arriving I entered by the farm in the midst of all the dogs, which gave me a fright. . . .”

As a matter of fact, Gautier’s arrival at Nohant had been quite a dramatic poem, half tragic and half comic.  Absolute freedom was the rule of Nohant.  Every one there read, wrote, or went to sleep according to his own will and pleasure.  Gautier arrived in that frame of mind peculiar to the Parisian of former days.  He considered that he had given a proof of heroism in venturing outside the walls of Paris.  He therefore expected a hearty welcome.  He was very much annoyed at his reception, and was about to start back again immediately, when George Sand was informed of his arrival.  She was extremely vexed at what had happened, and exclaimed, “But had not any one told him how stupid I am!”

The Goncourt brothers asked Gautier what life at Nohant was like.

“Luncheon is at ten,” he replied, “and when the finger was on the hour, we all took our seats.  Madame Sand arrived, looking like a somnambulist, and remained half asleep all through the meal.  After luncheon we went into the garden and played at cochonnet.  This roused her, and she would then sit down and begin to talk.”

It would have been more exact to say that she listened, as she was not a great talker herself.  She had a horror of a certain kind of conversation, of that futile, paradoxical and spasmodic kind which is the speciality of “brilliant talkers.”  Sparkling conversation of this sort disconcerted her and made her feel ill at ease.  She did not like the topic to be the literary profession either.  This exasperated Gautier, who would not admit of there being anything else in the world but literature.

“At three o’clock,” he continued, “Madame Sand went away to write until six.  We then dined, but we had to dine quickly, so that Marie Caillot would have time to dine.  Marie Caillot is the servant, a sort of little Fadette whom Madame Sand had discovered in the neighbourhood for playing her pieces.  This Marie Caillot used to come into the drawing-room in the evening.  After dinner Madame Sand would play patience, without uttering a word, until midnight. . . .  At midnight she began to write again until four o’clock. . . .  You know what happened once.  Something monstrous.  She finished a novel at one o’clock in the morning, and began another during the night. . . .  To make copy is a function with Madame Sand.”

The marionette theatre was one of the Nohant amusements.  One of the joys of the family, and also one of the delights of dilettanti,(51) was the painting of the scenery, the manufacturing of costumes, the working out of scenarios, dressing dolls and making them talk.