Give me the address of the Goncourts, you have never given it to me.  Shall I never know it?  My letter is still waiting there for them.

I love you and embrace you.  I love you much, much, and I embrace you very warmly.

G. Sand

CIX.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 12 March, 1869

Poor Calamatta died the 9th, my children are coming back.  My Lina must be distressed.  I have news from them only by telegraph.  From Milan here in an hour and a half.  But there are no details, and I am anxious.  I embrace you tenderly,

G. Sand

Thank you for the address.

CX.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, at Croissset Nohant, 2 April, 1869

Dear friend of my heart, here we are once more calm again.  My children returned to me very exhausted.  Aurore has been a little ill.  Lina’s mother has come to get into touch with her about their affairs.  She is a loyal and excellent woman, very artistic, and very amiable.  I too have had a bad cold, but everything is getting better now, and our charming little girls console their little mother.  If it were less bad weather, and I had a less bad cold, I would go at once to Paris, for I want to see you there.  How long do you stay there?  Tell me quickly.

I shall be very glad to renew my acquaintance with Tourgueneff, whom I knew a little without having read him, and whom I have since read with a whole-hearted admiration.  You seem to me to love him a great deal; then I love him too, and I wish when your novel is finished, that you would bring him to our house.  Maurice also knows him and appreciates him greatly, he who likes whatever does not resemble anything else.

I am working at my novel about traveling actors [Footnote:  Pierre qui roule.] like a convict.  I am trying to have it amusing and to explain art; it is a new form for me and amuses me.  Perhaps it will not have any success.  The taste of the day is for marquises and courtesans; but what difference does that make?—­You must find me a title, which is a resume of that idea:  The modern Roman comique.

My children send you affectionate greetings; your old troubadour embraces his old troubadour.

G. Sand

Answer quickly how long you expect to stay in Paris.  You say that you are paying bills and that you are vexed.  If you have need of quibus, I have at the moment a few sous I can lend you.  You know that you offered once to lend me some.  If I had been in a hole I would have accepted.  Give all my regards to Maxime Du Camp and thank him for not forgetting me.

CXI.  TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Nohant, 17 April, 1869

I am well, I am finishing (today, I hope) my modern Roman comique which will be called I don’t know what.  I am a little tired, for I have done a lot of other things.  But I am going to Paris in eight or ten days to rest, to embrace you, to talk of you, of your work, to forget mine, God be thanked! and to love you as always very much and very tenderly.