FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880). - Lot 79

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  3. FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880). - Lot 79
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Lot n° 79
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FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880). - Lot 79
FLAUBERT Gustave (1821-1880). L.A.S. "Gve Flaubert", Vichy July 2 [1863, to Ernest FEYDEAU]; 8 pages in-4 very full (tiny cracks in the folds). Superb and very long letter in a sometimes very crude style, after reading Ernest Feydeau's novel Le Mari de la danseuse. [Le Mari de la danseuse, "étude", was published by Michel Lévy in 1863. At the head of the letter, Feydeau noted in pencil: "Mari de la danseuse - 1863"] Flaubert first remarks on the mode of publication and the preface... "I come to the Book, to the work. Well, I find the thing extremely amusing, I repeat extremely amusing. You wanted to make a novel of action, of adventure; & you succeeded. It's a new song, Feydeau in the second manner. The Dancer's Husband [...] is the antithesis of Fanny, as to subject and process. So far, these are your two extremes (Ste Beuve style) & I like one as much as the other. I am amazed by the skill of the plot & the resources of your imagination. As for my personal tastes, they are better satisfied, as you know, in books of descriptions and analysis than in those of drama"... Flaubert then analyses the book in all its details, starting with the characters. Saint-Bertrand "is an original and true creation. He becomes an insignificant scoundrel, by gradations skilfully arranged. You have not made him a monster, a character of tragedy. - He is a man [...] The graceful figure of Barberine is an exquisite counterpart. We love this Barberine, as well as the good Countess Wanda & as Me Medeline who gives me a terrible hard-on. How I would have gamahuchée with pleasure, on his couch in the small house of Bade! "... About virtue, "your book is moral, very moral, abjectly honest! What fools the critics are! If I wanted to demolish you, that's where I would attack; [...] many Barberines would not have asked for anything better than to help with the comfort of the household by lending their asses to the amateurs. [...] Your book is sympathetic, you are a smart guy"... He judges the painting of the Ball "a little thin, picturesquely speaking"; he speaks about the duel, criticizes the passage on Cocodès, "which seems to me the gandin poncif, the young man of the world whom one makes fun of in all the books. This place seems to me loose [...] All this ch. XV moreover seems to me softer in its construction, more common, & too abundant in dialogues". He praises the character of Mlle Chaussepied, "the true mother of an actress, the eternal madam given by nature oscillating between prostitution and marriage", but disapproves of "the parallel arrival of the doctor so much the worse & the doctor so much the better [...] all that does not bite, there is fatigue". It then rises again, with the Mélédine in Bade: "I like this spy. One imagines that she must have had fantastic springs in her pelvis. Yes, I feel her nutcracker! - & and I see her clitoris made in the manner of a corkscrew, with which she snatched state secrets. Her vagina seems to me full of tragic mysteries, like the corridor of a ducal palace, in Venice "... The analysis continues, Flaubert peeling the novel page after page, sometimes praising and sometimes criticizing... We will give only some extracts. "I adore Lorvieux! enormous. Is it my portrait at sixty that you wanted to do? I think so, and that flatters me. For we must not conceal it from ourselves, that is how I will be on the comeback trail. [...] From ch. X we enter the epic - and it keeps you breathless for 106 pages without interruption. - The effects of snow & landscape, the patriotic song of the exiles cut by blows & the good Eytmin all this is excellent, old man, excellent. & it doesn't falter. You had there a proud thrust, result of a well-conducted plan, & of a vigorous imagination. [...] I like your California with its wooden sidewalks, its mud, and its bundles. But everything disappears before the idea of Cerveiro! I was reading this yesterday on my bed - I jumped up, like an eel roaring like a bull. - & not only is the idea sublime, but it is admirably executed. One can see poor Barberine at a touch! [...] Finally the work ends on a small sentimental note which consoles, & moves. For you have made (I don't know if you know it) a consoling book. One "breathes" everywhere the love of the Good & one sees how the young people turn badly when they do not have principles. I don't blame it at all in a book of imagination. - You have had the art of showing only probable facts; one is carried away by the torrent of your narration. [...] I kiss you on both cheeks, raising you in my heart a PIEDESTAL! You are a guy!"... Correspondence (Pléiade), t. III, p. 339.
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