The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters Translated by A.L. McKenzie (1921) Introduction by Stuart Sherman PREFATORY NOTE This translation of the correspondence between George Sand and Gustave Flaubert was undertaken in consequence of a suggestion by Professor Stuart P. Sherman. The translator desires to acknowledge valuable criticism given by Professor Sherman, Ruth M. Sherman, and Professor Kenneth McKenzie, all of whom have generously assisted in revising the manuscript. A. L. McKenzie INTRODUCTION The correspondence of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert, if approached merely as a chapter in the biographies of these heroes of nineteenth century letters, is sufficiently rewarding. In a relationship extending over twelve years, including the trying period of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, these extraordinary personalities disclose the aspects of their diverse natures which are best worth the remembrance of posterity. However her passionate and erratic youth may have captivated our grandfathers, George Sand in the mellow autumn of her life is for us at her most attractive phase. The storms and anguish and hazardous adventures that attended the defiant unfolding of her spirit are over. In her final retreat at Nohant, surrounded by her affectionate children and grandchildren, diligently writing, botanizing, bathing in her little river, visited by her friends and undistracted by the fiery lovers of the old time, she shows an unguessed wealth of maternal virtue, swift, comprehending sympathy, fortitude, sunny resignation, and a goodness of heart that has ripened into wisdom. For Flaubert, too, though he was seventeen years her junior, the flamboyance of youth was long since past; in 1862, when the correspondence begins, he was firmly settled, a shy, proud, grumpy toiling hermit of forty, in his family seat at Croisset, beginning his seven years' labor at L'Education Sentimentale, master of his art, hardening in his convictions, and conscious of increasing estrangement from the spirit of his age. He, with his craving for sympathy, and she, with her inexhaustible supply of it, meet; he pours out his bitterness, she her consolation; and so with equal candor of self-revelation they beautifully draw out and strengthen each the other's characteristics, and help one another grow old. But there is more in these letters than a satisfaction for the biographical appetite, which, indeed, finds ITS account rather in the earlier chapters of the correspondents' history. What impresses us here is the banquet spread for the reflective and critical faculties in this intercourse of natural antagonists. As M. Faguet observes in a striking paragraph of his study of Flaubert: "It is a curious thing, which does honor to them both, that Flaubert and George Sand should have become loving friends towards the end of their lives. At the beginning, Flaubert might have been looked upon by George Sand as a furious enemy. Emma [Madame Bovary] is George Sand's heroine with all the poetry turned into ridicule. Flaubert seems to say in every page of his work: 'Do you want to know what is the real Valentine, the real Indiana, the real Lelia? Here she is, it is Emma Roualt.' 'And do you want to know what becomes of a woman whose education has consisted in George Sand's books? Here she is, Emma Roualt.' So that the terrible mocker of the bourgeois has written a book which is directly inspired by the spirit of the 1840 bourgeois. Their recriminations against romanticism 'which rehabilitates and poetises the courtesan,' against George Sand, the Muse of Adultery, are to be found in acts and facts in Madame Bovary."
The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters Translated by A.L. McKenzie (1921) Introduction by Stuart Sherman PREFATORY NOTE This translation of the correspondence between George Sand and Gustave Flaubert was undertaken in consequence of a suggestion by Professor Stuart P. Sherman. The translator desires to acknowledge valuable criticism given by Professor Sherman, Ruth M. Sherman, and Professor Kenneth McKenzie, all of whom have generously assisted in revising the manuscript. A. L. McKenzie
INTRODUCTION
The correspondence of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert, if
approached merely as a chapter in the biographies of these heroes of
nineteenth century letters, is sufficiently rewarding. In a
relationship extending over twelve years, including the trying
period of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, these
extraordinary personalities disclose the aspects of their diverse
natures which are best worth the remembrance of posterity. However
her passionate and erratic youth may have captivated our
grandfathers, George Sand in the mellow autumn of her life is for us
at her most attractive phase. The storms and anguish and hazardous
adventures that attended the defiant unfolding of her spirit are
over. In her final retreat at Nohant, surrounded by her affectionate
children and grandchildren, diligently writing, botanizing, bathing
in her little river, visited by her friends and undistracted by the
fiery lovers of the old time, she shows an unguessed wealth of
maternal virtue, swift, comprehending sympathy, fortitude, sunny
resignation, and a goodness of heart that has ripened into wisdom.
For Flaubert, too, though he was seventeen years her junior, the
flamboyance of youth was long since past; in 1862, when the
correspondence begins, he was firmly settled, a shy, proud, grumpy
toiling hermit of forty, in his family seat at Croisset, beginning
his seven years' labor at L'Education Sentimentale, master of his
art, hardening in his convictions, and conscious of increasing
estrangement from the spirit of his age.
喬治桑和古斯塔夫福樓拜的通信,如果
僅僅作為這些英雄傳記中的一個章節
十九世紀的文學,已經夠有價值了。在一個
關係持續了十二年,包括嘗試
普法戰爭和巴黎公社時期,這些
非凡的人物展現了他們多元化的方面
最值得後人記得的品質。然而
她熱情而飄忽不定的青春或許吸引了我們的
祖父們,喬治桑在她生命中成熟的秋天對我們來說
在她最迷人的階段。風暴、痛苦與危險
伴隨她精神挑戰的冒險是
超過。在諾漢特的最後一次隱居中,她被深愛的
子孫後代勤奮寫作、研究植物、沐浴
在她的小河裡,她的朋友們來拜訪,不受
舊時代的熱情情人,她展現出令人難以置信的豐富
母性美德、敏捷、理解同情、堅韌、陽光
辭職,以及一顆成熟為智慧的心的善良。
對福樓拜來說,儘管他比她小十七歲,
青春的綏爛早已過去; 1862 年,
開始通信時,他已經穩定下來,害羞、驕傲、脾氣暴躁
四十歲的隱士,在克羅伊塞特的家族宅邸開始
他在 L'Education Sentimentale 工作了七年,成為他的
藝術,堅定他的信念,並意識到日益
與他那個時代的精神相疏遠。他渴望
同情,而她,以她取之不盡,用之不竭的同情,他
她傾訴他的苦澀,安慰她;並且同樣
他們完美地展現並加強了自我揭露的坦誠
了解彼此的性格,互相扶持,白頭偕老。
但這些信中不僅僅包含著對
傳記的胃口,事實上,它的解釋是
通訊員歷史的早期章節。令人印象深刻的是
我們在這裡是反思與批判的盛宴
在這種天然對手的互動中,正如 M. Faguet 所說
他在福樓拜的研究中,有一段引人注目的文字:
He, with his craving for
sympathy, and she, with her inexhaustible supply of it, meet; he
pours out his bitterness, she her consolation; and so with equal
candor of self-revelation they beautifully draw out and strengthen
each the other's characteristics, and help one another grow old.
But there is more in these letters than a satisfaction for the
biographical appetite, which, indeed, finds ITS account rather in
the earlier chapters of the correspondents' history. What impresses
us here is the banquet spread for the reflective and critical
faculties in this intercourse of natural antagonists. As M. Faguet
observes in a striking paragraph of his study of Flaubert:
"It is a curious thing, which does honor to them both, that Flaubert
and George Sand should have become loving friends towards the end of
their lives. At the beginning,
「有一件奇怪的事,也為他們兩人帶來了榮耀,福樓拜
喬治·桑本應在
他們的生活。一開始,福樓拜可能被看作
喬治桑 (George Sand) 筆下的憤怒敵人。艾瑪(包法利夫人)飾演喬治
沙筆下的女主角所有的詩意都變成了嘲笑。福樓拜
似乎在他的作品的每一頁中都在說:「你想知道什麼是
真正的瓦倫丁、真正的印第安納、真正的莉莉亞?她在這裡,
她是 Emma Roualt。 ’ “你想知道女人會變成什麼樣子嗎?
誰的教育是由喬治桑的書籍構成的?她在這裡,
艾瑪·魯阿爾特。 ’因此,資產階級的可怕嘲笑者
寫了一本直接受到 1840 年精神啟發的書
資產階級。他們對浪漫主義的批判“
恢復和詩化妓女”,反對喬治·桑,
通姦的繆斯,可以在《夫人》中的行為和事實中找到
包法利夫人。 」
Flaubert might have been looked upon
by George Sand as a furious enemy. Emma [Madame Bovary] is George
Sand's heroine with all the poetry turned into ridicule. Flaubert
seems to say in every page of his work: 'Do you want to know what is
the real Valentine, the real Indiana, the real Lelia? Here she is,
it is Emma Roualt.' 'And do you want to know what becomes of a woman
whose education has consisted in George Sand's books? Here she is,
Emma Roualt.' So that the terrible mocker of the bourgeois has
written a book which is directly inspired by the spirit of the 1840
bourgeois. Their recriminations against romanticism 'which
rehabilitates and poetises the courtesan,' against George Sand, the
Muse of Adultery, are to be found in acts and facts in Madame
Bovary."
「有一件奇怪的事,也為他們兩人帶來了榮耀,福樓拜
喬治·桑本應在
他們的生活。一開始,福樓拜可能被看作
喬治桑 (George Sand) 筆下的憤怒敵人。艾瑪(包法利夫人)飾演喬治
沙筆下的女主角所有的詩意都變成了嘲笑。福樓拜
似乎在他的作品的每一頁中都在說:「你想知道什麼是
真正的瓦倫丁、真正的印第安納、真正的莉莉亞?她在這裡,
她是 Emma Roualt。 ’ “你想知道女人會變成什麼樣子嗎?
誰的教育是由喬治桑的書籍構成的?她在這裡,
艾瑪·魯阿爾特。 ’因此,資產階級的可怕嘲笑者
寫了一本直接受到 1840 年精神啟發的書
資產階級。他們對浪漫主義的批判“
恢復和詩化妓女”,反對喬治·桑,
通姦的繆斯,可以在《夫人》中的行為和事實中找到
包法利夫人。 」
Now, the largest interest of this correspondence depends precisely upon the continuance, beneath an affectionate personal relationship, of a fundamental antagonism of interests and beliefs, resolutely maintained on both sides. George Sand, with her lifelong passion for propaganda and reformation, labors earnestly to bring Flaubert to her point of view, to remould him nearer to her heart's desire. He, with a playful deference to the sex and years of his friend, addresses her in his letters as "Dear Master." Yet in the essentials of the conflict, though she never gives over her effort, he never budges a jot; he has taken his ground, and in his last unfinished work, Bouvard and Pecuchet, he dies stubbornly fortifying his position. To the last she speaks from a temperament lyrical, sanguine, imaginative, optimistic and sympathetic; he from a temperament dramatic, melancholy, observing, cynical, and satirical. She insists upon natural goodness; he, upon innate depravity. She urges her faith in social regeneration; he vents his splenetic contempt for the mob. Through all the successive shocks of disillusioning experience, she expects the renovation of humanity by some religious, some semi-mystical, amelioration of its heart; he grimly concedes the greater part of humanity to the devil, and can see no escape for the remnant save in science and aristocratic organization. For her, finally, the literary art is an instrument of social salvation--it is her means of touching the world with her ideals, her love, her aspiration; for him the literary art is the avenue of escape from the meaningless chaos of existence--it is his subtly critical condemnation of the world. The origins of these unreconciled antipathies lie deep beneath the personal relationship of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert; lie deep beneath their successors, who with more or less of amenity in their manners are still debating the same questions today. The main currents of the nineteenth century, with fluent and refluent tides, clash beneath the controversy; and as soon as one hears its "long withdrawing roar," and thinks it is dying away, and is become a part of ancient history, it begins again, and will be heard, no doubt, by the last man as a solemn accompaniment to his final contention with his last adversary. George Sand was, on the whole, a natural and filial daughter of the French Revolution. The royal blood which she received from her father's line mingled in her veins with that of the Parisian milliner, her mother, and predestined her for a leveller by preparing in her an instinctive ground of revolt against all those inherited prejudices which divided the families of her parents. As a young girl wildly romping with the peasant children at Nohant she discovered a joy in untrammeled rural life which was only to increase with years. At the proper age for beginning to fashion a conventional young lady, the hoyden was put in a convent, where she underwent some exalting religious experiences; and in 1822 she was assigned to her place in the "established social order" by her marriage at seventeen to M. Dudevant. After a few years of rather humdrum domestic life in the country, she became aware that this gentleman, her husband, was behaving as we used to be taught that all French husbands ultimately behave; he was, in fact, turning from her to her maids. The young couple had never been strongly united-- the impetuous dreamy girl and her coarse hunting mate; and they had grown wide apart. She should, of course, have adjusted herself quietly to the altered situation and have kept up appearances. But this young wife had gradually become an "intellectual"; she had been reading philosophy and poetry; she was saturated with the writings of Rousseau, of Chateaubriand, of Byron. None of the spiritual masters of her generation counselled acquiescence in servitude or silence in misery. Every eloquent tongue of the time-spirit urged self-expression and revolt. And she, obedient to the deepest impulses of her blood and her time, revolted. At the period when Madame Dudevant withdrew her neck from the conjugal yoke and plunged into her literary career in Paris, the doctrine that men are created for freedom, equality and fraternity was already somewhat hackneyed. She, with an impetus from her own private fortunes, was to give the doctrine a recrudescence of interest by resolutely applying it to the status of women. We cannot follow her in detail from the point where she abandons the domestic sewing-basket to reappear smoking black cigars in the Latin Quarter. We find her, at about 1831, entering into competition with the brilliant literary generation of Balzac, Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Merimee, Stendhal, and Sainte-Beuve. To signalize her equality with her brothers in talent, she adopts male attire: "I had a sentry-box coat made, of rough grey cloth, with trousers and waist-coat to match. With a grey hat and a huge cravat of woolen material, I looked exactly like a first-year student." In the freedom of this rather unalluring garb she entered into relations Platonic, fraternal, or tempestuously passionate with perhaps the most distinguished series of friends and lovers that ever fluttered about one flame. There was Aurelien de Seze; Jules Sandeau, her first collaborator, who "reconciled her to life" and gave her a nom de guerre; the inscrutable Merimee, who made no one happy; Musset--an encounter from which both tiger-moths escaped with singed wings; the odd transitional figure of Pagello; Michel Euraed; Liszt; Chopin, whom she loved and nursed for eight years; her master Lamennais; her master Pierre Leroux; her father-confessor Sainte-Beuve; and Gustave Flaubert, the querulous friend of her last decade.
Now, the largest interest of this correspondence depends precisely upon the continuance, beneath an affectionate personal relationship, of a fundamental antagonism of interests and beliefs, resolutely maintained on both sides. George Sand, with her lifelong passion for propaganda and reformation, labors earnestly to bring Flaubert to her point of view, to remould him nearer to her heart's desire. He, with a playful deference to the sex and years of his friend, addresses her in his letters as "Dear Master." Yet in the essentials of the conflict, though she never gives over her effort, he never budges a jot; he has taken his ground, and in his last unfinished work, Bouvard and Pecuchet, he dies stubbornly fortifying his position. To the last she speaks from a temperament lyrical, sanguine, imaginative, optimistic and sympathetic; he from a temperament dramatic, melancholy, observing, cynical, and satirical. She insists upon natural goodness; he, upon innate depravity. She urges her faith in social regeneration; he vents his splenetic contempt for the mob. Through all the successive shocks of disillusioning experience, she expects the renovation of humanity by some religious, some semi-mystical, amelioration of its heart; he grimly concedes the greater part of humanity to the devil, and can see no escape for the remnant save in science and aristocratic organization. For her, finally, the literary art is an instrument of social salvation--it is her means of touching the world with her ideals, her love, her aspiration; for him the literary art is the avenue of escape from the meaningless chaos of existence--it is his subtly critical condemnation of the world. The origins of these unreconciled antipathies lie deep beneath the personal relationship of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert; lie deep beneath their successors, who with more or less of amenity in their manners are still debating the same questions today. The main currents of the nineteenth century, with fluent and refluent tides, clash beneath the controversy; and as soon as one hears its "long withdrawing roar," and thinks it is dying away, and is become a part of ancient history, it begins again, and will be heard, no doubt, by the last man as a solemn accompaniment to his final contention with his last adversary. George Sand was, on the whole, a natural and filial daughter of the French Revolution. The royal blood which she received from her father's line mingled in her veins with that of the Parisian milliner, her mother, and predestined her for a leveller by preparing in her an instinctive ground of revolt against all those inherited prejudices which divided the families of her parents. As a young girl wildly romping with the peasant children at Nohant she discovered a joy in untrammeled rural life which was only to increase with years. At the proper age for beginning to fashion a conventional young lady, the hoyden was put in a convent, where she underwent some exalting religious experiences; and in 1822 she was assigned to her place in the "established social order" by her marriage at seventeen to M. Dudevant. After a few years of rather humdrum domestic life in the country, she became aware that this gentleman, her husband, was behaving as we used to be taught that all French husbands ultimately behave; he was, in fact, turning from her to her maids. The young couple had never been strongly united-- the impetuous dreamy girl and her coarse hunting mate; and they had grown wide apart. She should, of course, have adjusted herself quietly to the altered situation and have kept up appearances. But this young wife had gradually become an "intellectual"; she had been reading philosophy and poetry; she was saturated with the writings of Rousseau, of Chateaubriand, of Byron. None of the spiritual masters of her generation counselled acquiescence in servitude or silence in misery. Every eloquent tongue of the time-spirit urged self-expression and revolt. And she, obedient to the deepest impulses of her blood and her time, revolted. At the period when Madame Dudevant withdrew her neck from the conjugal yoke and plunged into her literary career in Paris, the doctrine that men are created for freedom, equality and fraternity was already somewhat hackneyed. She, with an impetus from her own private fortunes, was to give the doctrine a recrudescence of interest by resolutely applying it to the status of women. We cannot follow her in detail from the point where she abandons the domestic sewing-basket to reappear smoking black cigars in the Latin Quarter. We find her, at about 1831, entering into competition with the brilliant literary generation of Balzac, Hugo, Alfred de Musset, Merimee, Stendhal, and Sainte-Beuve. To signalize her equality with her brothers in talent, she adopts male attire: "I had a sentry-box coat made, of rough grey cloth, with trousers and waist-coat to match. With a grey hat and a huge cravat of woolen material, I looked exactly like a first-year student." In the freedom of this rather unalluring garb she entered into relations Platonic, fraternal, or tempestuously passionate with perhaps the most distinguished series of friends and lovers that ever fluttered about one flame. There was Aurelien de Seze; Jules Sandeau, her first collaborator, who "reconciled her to life" and gave her a nom de guerre; the inscrutable Merimee, who made no one happy; Musset--an encounter from which both tiger-moths escaped with singed wings; the odd transitional figure of Pagello; Michel Euraed; Liszt; Chopin, whom she loved and nursed for eight years; her master Lamennais; her master Pierre Leroux; her father-confessor Sainte-Beuve; and Gustave Flaubert, the querulous friend of her last decade.
現在,這封信的最大興趣恰恰取決於
在持續的、充滿愛的私人關係之下,
利益和信仰的根本對立,堅決
兩側均進行維護。喬治桑 (George Sand) 畢生致力於
宣傳和改革,努力讓福樓拜
她的觀點,將他重塑得更接近她內心的渴望。他,
帶著對朋友的性別和年齡的戲謔的尊重,
在信中稱呼她為「親愛的主人」。然而在本質上
衝突,儘管她從未放棄努力,但他從未
稍微移動一下;他已經佔據了自己的地盤,在他最後未完成的
布瓦爾和佩庫謝的作品,他死後仍頑強地鞏固他的
位置。直到最後,她還是以一種抒情的氣質說話,
樂觀、富有想像力、樂觀、富有同情心;他來自
性格戲劇化、憂鬱、善於觀察、憤世嫉俗、諷刺。
她堅持自然的善良;他,天生墮落。她
強調她對社會復興的信心;他發洩他的脾氣
蔑視暴民。通過所有連續的衝擊
令人失望的經歷,她希望透過
一些宗教的,一些半神秘的,改善它的心臟;他
殘酷地把人類的大部分交給魔鬼,可以
除了科學和貴族,其餘的人別無他路
組織。對她來說,文學藝術最終是一種
社會拯救——這是她用自己的方式觸動世界
理想,她的愛,她的抱負;對他來說,文學藝術是
逃離無意義的混亂存在之路-這是他的
對世界的微妙批判譴責。
這些無法調和的反感的根源深藏在
喬治桑和古斯塔夫福樓拜的私人關係;謊言很深
他們的繼任者,或多或少地享受著他們的
禮儀至今仍在爭論同樣的問題。主要
十九世紀的潮流,潮起潮落,
爭議之下的衝突;一旦聽到它的「長
撤回的咆哮”,並認為它正在消失,並成為一部分
古代歷史的開始,毫無疑問,
最後一個人作為他與
他的最後一個對手。
總的來說,喬治桑是
法國大革命。她從她的
父親的血統和巴黎人的血統在她血管裡交融
她的母親是一位女帽商,她注定要成為一名
在她內心深處準備著一種本能的反抗基礎,來對抗這一切
繼承的偏見導致她父母的家庭分裂。作為
年輕女孩在諾漢特與農夫的孩子瘋狂嬉戲
發現了無拘無束的鄉村生活的樂趣,
隨年份增加。在開始塑造的適當年齡
傳統的年輕女士,這個野蠻人被送進了修道院,在那裡她
經歷了一些令人振奮的宗教體驗; 1822年,她
她在「既定的社會秩序」中被賦予了地位
十七歲與 M. Dudevant 結婚。經過幾年
在鄉下單調的家庭生活中,她意識到這
她的丈夫,他的行為就像我們過去所學到的那樣
所有法國丈夫最終都會表現良好;事實上,他正在從
她向她的女僕們說。這對年輕夫婦從未緊密團結——
衝動的夢幻女孩和她粗魯的狩獵夥伴;他們有
相距甚遠。當然,她應該調整自己
悄悄地接受已經改變的情況並保持表面的面子。但
這位年輕的妻子漸漸成為「知識分子」;她曾經
閱讀哲學和詩歌;她沉浸在這些文字中
盧梭、夏多里昂、拜倫。沒有任何精神
她那一代的主人建議默許奴役或
痛苦中沉默。時代精神的每一句雄辯的話語都敦促
自我表達和反抗。她,順從於最深的
她的血液和時代的衝動,反抗了。
當杜德萬夫人從
婚姻的束縛,投身巴黎的文學事業,
人類生來是為了自由、平等、博愛
已經有些陳腐了。她,在自己的推動下
私人財富,使這一理論重新興起
並堅決將其應用於婦女地位問題。我們不能
從她放棄家庭的那一刻起,詳細地跟蹤她
針線籃再次出現在拉丁區抽著黑雪茄。
我們發現,大約在 1831 年,她開始與
巴爾札克、雨果、阿爾弗雷德·德·繆塞等一代文壇巨擘,
梅里美、司湯達和聖伯夫。為了表明她與
她的兄弟們才華洋溢,她卻穿著男裝:「我有一個崗亭
用粗糙的灰色布料製成的外套,配上褲子和背心
匹配。我戴著一頂灰色的帽子,繫著一條巨大的羊毛領巾,
看起來就像