TO GEORGE SAND.
Sunday, June 26, 1870.
Someone forgets her old troubadour, who has just come from the funeral of a friend. Of the seven friends that used to gather at the Magny dinners, only three remain! I am stuffed with coffins, like an old churchyard! I have had enough of it, frankly!
Yet in the midst of all this, I go on working! I finished last night the preface to my poor Bouilhet’s book. I intend to see whether some means may not be found to produce a comedy of his in prose. After that I shall take up Saint Antony once more.
And you, dear master, what has become of you and yours? My niece is in the Pyrenees, and I live here alone with my mother, who grows more and more deaf, so that my existence is far from lively. I should go to some warmer climate. But to do that I have neither time nor money. So I must erase and re-write, and dig away as hard as possible.
I shall go to Paris early in August. I shall stay here through October, in order to see the performance of Aïssé. My absence will be limited to a week at Dieppe about the end of the month. These are my projects.
The funeral of Jules de Goncourt was very sad. Théo was there and shed floods of tears.