LXIX.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Paris Nohant, 12 October, 1867

I have sent your letter to Barbes; it is fine and splendid, as you are.  I know that the worthy man will be glad of it.  But as for me, I want to throw myself out of the window; for my children are unwilling to hear of my leaving so soon.  Yes, it is horrid to have seen your house four times without going to see you.  But I am cautious to the point of fear.  To be sure the idea of summoning you to Rouen for twenty minutes did occur to me.  But you are not, as I am, on tiptoe, all ready to start off.  You live in your dressing gown, the great enemy of liberty and activity.  To force you to dress, to go out, perhaps in the middle of an absorbing chapter, and only to see someone who does not know how to say anything quickly, and who, the more he is content, the stupider he is,—­I did not dare to.  Here I am obliged to finish something which drags along, and before the final touch I shall probably go to Normandy.  I should like to go by the Seine to Honfleur.  It will be next month, if the cold does not make me ill, and I shall try this time to carry you away in passing.  If not, I shall see you at least, and then I shall go to Provence.

Ah! if I could only take you there!  And if you could, if you would, during the second week in October when you are going to be free, come to see me here!  You promised, and my children would be so happy if you would!  But you don’t love us enough for that, scoundrel that you are!  You think that you have a lot of better friends:  you are very much mistaken; it is always one’s best friends whom one neglects or ignores.

Come, a little courage; you can leave Paris at a quarter past nine in the morning, and get to Chateauroux at four, there you would find my carriage and be here at six for dinner.  It is not bad, and once here, we all laugh together like good-natured bears; no one dresses; there is no ceremony, and we all love one another very much.  Say yes!

I embrace you.  And I too have been bored at not seeing you, for A year.

Your old troubadour

LXX.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset Nohant, 27 October, 1867

I have just made a resume in a few pages of my impressions as a landscape painter, gathered in Normandy:  it has not much importance, but I was able to quote three lines from Salammbo, which seemed to me to depict the country better than all my phrases, and which had always struck me as a stroke from a master brush.  In turning over the pages to find these lines, I naturally reread almost all, and I remain convinced that it is one of the most beautiful books that have been made since they began to make books.

I am well, and I am working quickly and much, so as to live on my income this winter in the South.  But what will be the delights of Cannes and where will be the heart to engage in them?  My spirits are in mourning while thinking that at this hour people arc fighting for the pope.  Ah!  Isidore! [Footnote:  Name applied to Napoleon III.]