Baudelaire to Flaubert
Tuesday, 25th August, 1857.
Dear friend, I wrote you a hasty little note before five o'clock solely to prove to you my repentance at not having replied to your affectionate sentiments. But if you knew in what an abyss of puerile occupations I have been plunged! And the article on "Madame Bovary" is again deferred for some days! What an interruption in life is a ridiculous adventure!
The comedy is played on Thursday; it has lasted a long time.
Finally, three hundred francs fine, two hundred francs for the editors, suppression of numbers 20, 30, 39, 80, 81 and 87. I will write to you at length to-night.
Yours always, as you know.
Baudelaire to Flaubert
26th June, 1860.