FLAUBERT Gustave - Lot 144

FLAUBERT Gustave AUTOGRAPH LETTER to [Louise COLET]. [La Bouille], [August 29, 1847] Sunday, 11 o'clock in the evening. 3 pages in-8 in ink. Superb autograph letter in tight handwriting to his mistress Louise Colet "There are people whose presence suffocates I am at ease for you with this riddance. It is not indeed the great misfortunes that are to be feared in life but the small ones. I'm more afraid of pinpricks than sabre-rattling... I too am attached to a corner of the world. To a circumscribed point in the world, and the more I feel attached to it, the more I turn with fury to the sun and the air. You accuse me in your heart of not even wanting to see you. But even if you weren't you, no matter where it came from, do you think a little love wouldn't be good for me? And I wonder when all ties are broken, when I've given my city the curse of farewell, where would I go? You ask me if I've read L'Affaire Praslin. In fragments, it's as scoundrel as any other scandal. And it gave me pleasure in the sense that I saw that man isn't dead yet, and that the animal, despite the clothes we cover it in, the cages we put it in and the ideas we stuff into it, always remains with its old natural instincts of baseness and blood. No matter how much we've tried to distort the human lyre since we've been building civilizations - we've managed to raise a few strings, but it's still complete. Farewell, poor darling, a good kiss, place it where you want it to stay".