05: literal mess: gustave flaubert and louise colet letter august 18, 1846 typed out

Love a good messy literary situation.

Enter Gustave Flaubert and Louise Colet and their 8 year relationship -although she was married to Hippolyte Colet. It ended badly, but I am loving reading through these letters Flaubert wrote to her.

As a consciously single woman, I enjoy reading about these classic trysts. There is something so intimate about these letters from days gone by. Writing was THE mode of deep communication, and housed in these letters is every emotion- and I just love it.

There were better letters for me to choose from, but I hardly wanted to type pages and pages. 

flaubert and santa

TO LOUISE COLET

                                                                                                  Tuesday morning [August 18, 1846]

Here I am on my feet, thanks to my stubbornness. By following my own instinct, I read it myself in 2 days of what would have lasted a week. And that against everybody's opinion. Only scars are left.

I'll arrive at your house tomorrow between half-past four and five. I am counting on it. It is sure unless the devil himself takes a hand in it this time. He is taking a hand and so many of my affairs that he might well metal in this one. So: until tomorrow. Shall we go and take Phidias out for dinner? What's your feeling? Think it over carefully before hand. Ah-- in 30 hours I'll be setting out! Pass swiftly, Today! Pass swiftly, Long Night!

It is raining now: the sky is gray. But I have the sun in my soul. Adieu-  I'd love to fill these 4 little pages, but the postman will be arriving soon, so I'll quickly close this and seal it.

A thousand loves.

The real ones tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll be touching you. Sometimes I'd think it's a dream I have read about somewhere, and that you don't really exist.

snippets from letters to vera (mr. nabokov) : part II

SO different from our current time when "wyd" is meant to signify interest. {insert huge eye roll}. Vladimir writes to his wife with an obsession passion that I enjoy slowly working my way through.

Quotes from the letters to vera...

I'm so sorry I wrote nonsense to you. My brains are disheveled- their hairpins have fallen out: just as there are bare-headed people, I'm somehow bare-brained... Do you understand?"

Without you I wouldn't have moved this way, to speak the language of flowers.

I am becoming more and more firmly convinced that art is the only thing that matters in life.

See you soon, my love, don't be angry with me. I know that I am a very boring and unpleasant man, drowned in literature... But I love you.

My delightful, my love, my life, I don't understand anything: how can you not be with me? I'm so infinitely used to you that I now feel myself lost and empty: without you, my soul.

 How strange that although my life's work is moving a pen over paper, I don't know how to tell you how I love, how I desire you.

I'll have to see you forty-eight hours a day... 

 
I'm loving these letters. Part obsession. Part entertaining. All love. Gorgeous.

Other posts in this series:

• Snippets from Letters to Vera (Mr. Nabokov): Part I 

snippets from letters to vera (mr. nabokov)

 Oh Mr. Nabokov.... 

Lolita was one of my favorite reads from 2023 and is on a permanent and constant re-read list for me. This is high high praise for any novel imho.

This collection of letters from Vladimir to his wife are beautiful, obsessive, inspirational and most importantly feel like praying into an intimate love. 

I'll be just typing out a few bits of letters. If you want exact locations, please feel free to look them up in the Modern Classics edition from Penguin.

modern classics cover

"I dreamt of you last night-as if I was playing the piano and you were turning the pages for me." VN to VéN, 12 January 1924

"How I wish you were saying, right now, with feeling: 'But you promised me!?...' I love you, my sun, my life, I love your eyes- closed- all the little tails of your thoughts, your stretchy vowels, your whole soul from head to heels."

"Do you know that you are my happiness? You are made entirely of tiny arrow-like movements- I love every one of them."

This will be a slow read for me. Taking my time. I will dip in and out of these letters as my mood moves me.

Happy epistolatory reading to you as well.