But I have had bad dreams for two weeks about my poor Esther, and now at last, here are Depaul, Tarnier, Gueniaux and Nelaton who told us yesterday that she will deliver easily and very well, and that the child has every reason to be superb.  I breathe again, I am born anew, and I am going to embrace you so hard that you will be scandalised.  I shall see you on Sunday then, and don’t inconvenience yourself.

G. Sand

LXXXII.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 26 May, 1868

Arrived while dozing.  Dined with your delightful and charming friend Du Camp.  We talked of you, only of you and your mother, and we said a hundred times that we loved you.  I am going to sleep so as to be ready to move tomorrow morning.

I am charmingly located on the Luxembourg garden.

I embrace you, mother and son, with all my heart which is entirely yours.

G. Sand Tuesday evening, rue Gay-Lussac, 5.

LXXXIII.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Paris, 28 May, 1868

My little friend gave birth this morning after two hours of labor, to a boy who seemed dead but whom they handled so well that he is very much alive and very lovely this evening.  The mother is very well, what luck!

But what a sight!  It was something to see.  I am very tired, but very content and tell you so because you love me.

G. Sand

Thursday evening.  I leave Tuesday for Nohant.

LXXXIV.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croisset Nohant, 21 June, 1868

Here I am again, bothering you for M. Du Camp’s address which you never gave me, although you forwarded a letter for me to him, and from whom I never thought of asking for it when I dined with him in Paris.  I have just read his Forces Perdues; I promised to tell him my opinion and I am keeping my word.  Write the address, then give it to the postman and thank you.

There you are alone at odds with the sun in your charming villa!

Why am I not the...river which cradles you with its sweet murmuring and which brings you freshness in your den!  I would chat discreetly with you between two pages of your novel, and I would make that fantastic grating of the chain [Footnote:  The chain of the tug-boat going up or coming down the Seine.] which you detest, but whose oddity does not displease me, keep still.  I love everything that makes up a milieu, the rolling of the carriages and the noise of the workmen in Paris, the cries of a thousand birds in the country, the movement of the ships on the waters; I love also absolute, profound silence, and in short, I love everything that is around me, no matter where I am; it is auditory idiocy, a new variety.  It is true that I choose my milieu and don’t go to the Senate nor to other disagreeable places.