209 - Gustave FLAUBERT (1821–1880). Autograph letter, addressed to Louise Colet, at 21 rue de Sèvres. No place. Wednesday, 2 p.m. [Paris, December 31, 1851]. 4 pp. in-4. Cross-outs and corrections. Envelope preserved with handwritten address and postmarks. Minor fraying and a tear. Small mark from a paper clip.

Gustave FLAUBERT (1821–1880). Autograph letter, addressed to Louise Colet, at 21 rue de Sèvres. No place. Wednesday, 2 p.m. [Paris, December 31, 1851]. 4 pp. in-4. Cross-outs and corrections. Envelope preserved with handwritten address and postmarks. Minor fraying and a tear. Small mark from a paper clip. A STUNNING DECLARATION OF LOVE FROM GUSTAVE FLAUBERT TO LOUISE COLET. Flaubert, kind, amiable, and so insincere it makes you want to vomit, plays the flute for Louise Colet and grows weary of it all: I won’t be coming to see you tonight, and I still don’t know if I’ll go to Du Camp’s. I had arranged to meet him yesterday and failed to show up. - What’s the point of bringing your innermost Fosse-Domange to your friends, when the stench of it suffocates even you? I’m going to put a lid on it. [ ] I swear to God that you’ll no longer have to reproach me for such incongruities. I’LL BE POLITE, KIND, CHARMING, AND SO FAKE IT’LL MAKE YOU WANT TO THROW UP; BUT I’LL BE DECENT. I WANT TO BECOME A TRULY GOOD MAN. So your head was spinning when I was leading you by the hand to the edge of the balcony? - I was leaning over there myself—and without a railing! Or at least, from leaning my elbows on it so much, it’s gradually coming loose, and I can feel it shaking. YOU HAVE HURT THE SECRET CORNER OF MY HEART. - WHY DID YOU WANT THAT HEART? WHEN I LAY ON THE MAT OF THE JEW OR THE FELLAH, I WAS DEVOURED BY LICE AND FLEAS; BUT I DIDN’T COMPLAIN TO MY HOST THAT HE HAD GIVEN ME THOSE VERMIN. Did you not understand, then, what immense friendship I must have had for you to allow myself to tell you all this, to reveal myself to you SO NAKED, SO UNCLOTHED, SO WEAK—YOU WHO ACCUSE ME OF PRIDE? There wasn’t much of it, you must admit. Let’s close this chapter—and say no more of it. The sound of those brass instruments makes your ears bleed; I’ll mute them, or play the flute for you. Just a word of explanation, and that’s all! I like to wear things out. Everything wears out; there hasn’t been a single feeling I haven’t tried to put an end to. When I’m somewhere, I try to be somewhere else. When I see any kind of end, I rush headlong toward it. Once I reach the end, I yawn. That’s why, when I happen to get bored, I sink even deeper into boredom. WHEN SOMETHING ITCHES, I SCRATCH IT UNTIL IT BLEEDS AND I SUCK ON MY RED NAILS. Distracting yourself from something means wanting that thing to come back. On the contrary, that thing must distract itself from us; it must naturally drift away from our being. I’m being a boor to complain to you. But am I really complaining? [ ] I’ll come tomorrow [ ] WITH A CHEERFUL FACE, A CHEERFUL SPIRIT, A CHEERFUL OUTFIT, [ ]. TO YOU WHO LOVE ME AS A TREE LOVES THE WIND; to you for whom I hold in my heart SOMETHING LONG AND SWEET, SOMETHING TOUCHING AND GRATEFUL THAT WILL NEVER PERISH; TO YOU, POOR WOMAN WHOM I MAKE CRY SO MUCH AND WHOM I WOULD SO MUCH LIKE TO MAKE SMILE, kind soul who bandages the leper, even though leprosy doesn’t need to be bandaged and the leper sometimes gets angry about it, I WISH YOU EVERYTHING I DON’T HAVE—PEACE OF MIND—FAITH IN YOURSELF, AND EVERYTHING THAT MAKES ONE HAPPY TO BE ALIVE. I wish for you the removal of all life’s thorns—and sandy paths to walk upon, lined with flowers, with the sound of a babbling brook—the cooing of doves in the branches and great flights of eagles in the clouds. One must never despair of anything. Three years ago, at midnight in 1849, I was thinking of China, and at midnight in 1850, I was on the Nile [which he loved so much]. It was on the road [ ], etc. Flaubert had just begun writing *Madame Bovary*. Bibliography: letter published [with transcription errors] in Gustave Flaubert, *Correspondance*, Conard, 1926, Volume II, pp. 334–336, no. 299.