Letters to Louise Colet | Gustave Flaubert, 1846

“The sky is clear, the moon is shining. I hear sailors singing as they raise anchor, preparing to leave with the oncoming tide. No clouds, no wind. The river is white under the moon, black in the shadows. Moths are playing around my candles, and the scent of the night comes to me through my open windows. And you, are you asleep? Or at your window? Are you thinking of the one who think of you? Are you dreaming? What is the color of your dream? Yes, I will come back, and soon, for I think of you always; I keep dreaming of your face, of your shoulders, your white neck, your smile, of your voice that is like a love-cry, at once impassioned, violent, and sweet. I told you, I think, that it was above all your voice that I loved.”

Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet – August 1846

Gustave Flaubert. Lettre à Louise Colet, [15 août 1852]

“I love in my way: whether more than you, or less, God knows. But I love you, and when you say that I have perhaps done for vulgar women what I have done for you… I have done it for no one – no one: I swear it. You are absolutely the first and only woman whom I have ever been willing to travel to see, whom I have loved enough to do that for, because you are the first to love me as you love me. No, no one before you has ever looked at me in that sad and tender way. Yes, the memory of Wednesday night is my most beautiful memory of love. Were I to become old tomorrow, it is that memory that would make me regret what I had lost.”

Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet – August 1846

“I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports… When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.”

Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet – August 1846