FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880).

L.A.S. "Gve Flaubert", Croisset Saturday 21 [20 September 1860], to Ernest FEYDEAU; 4 pages in-8 on blue paper. Very beautiful letter during the writing of Salammbô. "At last! I thought you were dead! You have only been ill. Blessed be God, if one can bless God. And you come back! I will see your portentous person a few days after his landing, for I must be in Paris towards the end of October for Bouilhet's play. [...] I will probably stay here all winter, gnawing at my body and soul in the silence of the study. I have to move forward, & I have a lot to do! Since the end of June I have written about two chapters, because I am finishing the ninth. I have six more to go - & my reading is only increasing & the difficulties are only increasing, of course. I spent three weeks last month in Paris, dragging myself through the Libraries, which is not very entertaining. - I was so bewildered by reading that I forgot Paphos. Nothing new with our friends. Maxime [Du Camp] is in Calabria with Garibaldini [...] The President [Mrs. Sabatier] has consoled herself with the Mac in Rouill [Mosselman] who is definitely giving her a pension of 6,000 fr. a year. I think she will find another mosieu. (She has not been strong in all these stories, the poor girl!). Turgan has just invented a superb thing to see the place! I don't know how many kilogr. of shit are absorbed in a second by his machine. We cleaned the polytechnic in the blink of an eye. The mathematical turds flew away like crows. It is sublime. As for me, I am working furiously. I have just read a very curious book on the medicine of the Arabs, & at present (not counting what I am writing), I am reading Cedrenus, Socrates, Sozomen, Eusebius, & a treatise by Mr. Obry on the immortality of the soul among the Jews, all of which is interspersed with Mischna as a pièce de résistance. [...] It seems that you were hot, my good man? I know what it is, if you don't mind (being hot) [...] I was in May on the shores of the Red Sea, my good man, - & I crossed the tropic in June. Hâh. Do you want me to make you a little prediction : you won't go back to Africa, a failed trip can't be repeated. If you want to go to Tuggurt in the spring, stay in Algeria until then. But I think you're bored with Paris, my friend, admit it. Come on! You won't discover the sources of the Nile. Oh, be offended, I don't care. [...] Other guitar. Why do you listen to Father Sainte-Beuve, and not continue Sylvie, which was well & very well begun? Get rid of that, - and then give us a great, great novel about Algeria. You must know enough? There is more to be done about that country than W. Scott did about Scotland [...] Goodbye, old man. Are you well tanned? Have you had your foreskin cut off for the love of the local color"... Correspondence (Pléiade), t. III, p. 115.