This article from The American Reader presented a letter from Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) which reflects the charged, tempestuous affair he had with poet Louise Colet. “It was to [Colet] that Flaubert addressed the now celebrated letters on his art that make the genesis of Madame Bovary (1856)one of the best-charted in fiction.”
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| Source: http://www.famousauthors.org |
TO LOUISE COLET
September 28, 1846, Croisset
No! Once again, no! I protest. I swear: others may feel
nothing but contempt after possession, but I am not like them, and I
glory in not being so. On the contrary, for me possession breeds
affection. If I weren’t afraid of shocking you yet again, I’d say—indeed I will say: “Je suis comme les cigars, on ne m’allume qu’en tirant.”
…As for Mme Foucaud, she is certainly the one I knew. Is your cousin
sufficiently reliable to be entrusted with a letter? Can I be sure he’ll
deliver it? For I feel like writing to Mme Foucaud. She’s an old
acquaintance; don’t be jealous of her. You shall read the letter if you
like, on condition you don’t tear it up. Your word will be enough. If I
thought of you as a commonplace woman I should not tell you this. I
thought at first that I would find in you less feminine personality, a
more universal conception of life. But no! The heart, the heart! That
poor heart, that kind heart, that charming heart with its eternal
graces, is always there, even in the noblest and greatest women.
As a rule men do everything they can to vex the heart, to make it
bleed. They steep themselves with subtle sensuality in all those tears
that they themselves don’t shed, in all those little agonies they see as
proofs of their strength. If I had a taste for that sort of pleasure it would be easy for me to enjoy it with you.
But no, I should like to make of you something entirely
apart—neither friend nor mistress. Each of those categories is too
restricted, too exclusive— one doesn’t sufficiently love a friend, and
one is too idiotic with a mistress. It is the intermediate term I seek,
the essence of those two sentiments combined. What I want, in short, is
that, like a new kind of hermaphrodite, you give with your body all the
joys of the flesh and with your mind all those of the soul.
Will you understand that? I fear it isn’t clear. It’s strange how bad my
writing is, in these letters to you; I put no literary vanity into it.
One thing conflicts with another. It’s as though I wanted to say three
words at a time.
…In writing this to you, I’m inaugurating my new armchair, in which I am destined to spend long years—if I live.
What will I write in it? God knows. Will it be good or bad, tender or
erotic, sad or gay? A little of each, probably—adding up to nothing. No
matter: may this inauguration bless all my future work! Winter has come,
the rain is falling, my fire is burning: now comes the season of long
hours shut indoors. Soon now the silent, lamp-lit evenings, watching the
wood burn and listening to the wind. Adieu, bright moonlight on the green grass, blue nights all spangle with stars. Adieu, my darling: I kiss you with all my soul…
friends with benefits?
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