Answer, and I act.

Things are going better and better here, the little ones well again, Maurice recovering nicely, I tired from having watched so much and from watching yet, for he has to drink and wash out his mouth during the night, and I am the only one in the house who has the faculty of keeping awake.  But I am not ill, and I work a little now and then while loafing about.  As soon as I can leave, I shall go to Paris.  If you are still there, it will be A piece of good luck, but I do not dare to wish you to prolong your slavery there, for I can see that you are still ill and that you are working too hard.

Croisset will cure you if you consent to take care of yourself.

I embrace you tenderly for myself and for all the family which adores you.

G. Sand

CLXIV.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset Nohant, 20 May, 1870

It is a very long time since I have had news of my old troubadour.  You must be in Croisset.  If it is as warm there as it is here, you must be suffering; here it is 34 degrees in the shade, and in the night, 24.  Maurice has had a bad relapse of sore throat, without membranes this time, and without danger.  But the inflammation was so bad that for three days he could hardly swallow even a little water and wine.  Bouillon did not go down.  At last this excessive heat has cured him, it suits us all here, for Lina went to Paris this morning vigorous and strong.  Maurice gardens all day.  The children are gay and get prettier while you look at them.  As for me, I am not accomplishing anything; I have too much to do taking care of and watching my boy, and now that the little mother is away, the little children absorb me.  I work, however, planning and dreaming.  That will be so much done when I can scribble.

I am still on my feet, as Doctor Favre says.  No old age yet, or rather normal old age, the calmness ...  Of virtue, that thing that people ridicule, and that I mention in mockery, but that corresponds by an emphatic and silly word, to a condition of forced inoffensiveness, without merit in consequence, but agreeable and good to experience.  It is a question of rendering it useful to art when one believes in that, to the family and to friendship when one cares for that; I don’t dare to say how very simple and primitive I am in this respect.  It is the fashion to ridicule it, but let them.  I do not want to change.

There is my spring examination of my conscience, so as not to think all summer about anything except what is not myself.