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Archive for the ‘Letters to Emile Zola’ Category

As you know, Paul Cezanne and Emile Zola had a very close friendship dating from their shared teenage years at school.  Cezanne wrote many letters to Emile Zola which, on occasion, included poetry.  Here I’ve reproduced what Cezanne calls “a song” - however, I must admit to not knowing the tune to which it was to be sung to.  Paul Cezanne dedicated this song to Emile Zola in 1858:

SONG IN YOUR HONOUR!

I am going to stop at last, for I see that I am not really in the mood, alas!

Great Gods, I really don’t know what I should do.  Goodbye, my dear Zola, I keep rambling.

PAUL CEZANNE

As discussed in a previous post, Cezanne was very fond of writing poetry and would have been pleased to have been a full time poet.  The letter I’m reproducing today contains several lines of verse penned by Paul Cezanne.

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To Emile Zola,

Carissime Zola, Salve… Here are some little verses of mine which I find admirable, because they are by me – another very good reason is that I am the author.

It is very misty today.  Listen, I have just made up a couplet – here it is:

This must be sung to the tune: D’une mere cherie celebrons la douceur, etc.

My dear, I do really do believe that you are sweating when you tell me in your letter

My dear, when you have sent me your bout-rime I shall set about hunting for other rhymes both richer and more distorted; I am preparing, I am elaborating – I am distilling them in my cerebral retort.  They will be new rhymes – heum – rhymes such as one seldom sees, morbleu, in a word, accomplished rhymes.

My dear, having started this letter on the 9th July, it is right, at least, to finish it today, the 14th, but alas, in my arid mind, I do not find the least little idea, and yet, with you, how many subjects would I have to discuss, hunting, fishing, swimming, what a variety of subjects there, and love (Infandum, let us not broach that corrupting subject):

Here’s a mystical tirade, hum, you know it seems to me that I see you reading these soporofic verses, I see you (although it is rather a long way), shaking your head and saying: “It doesn’t exactly roar with him, the poetry…”

Letter finished on the 15th in the evening.

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Paul Cezanne also included a “song in your honour” – I’ll include this in my next post…

Emile Zola,

My dear, it was not only pleasure that your letter gave me; receiving it brought me a higher sense of well-being.  A certain inner sadness fills me, and, dear God, I only dream of the woman I told you about.  I don’t know who she is, I see her passing sometimes in the street when going to my monotonous college.  I am so smitten that I heave sighs, but sighs that do not betray themselves outwardly, they are mental or spiritual sighs.

That poetic piece you sent me has given me great pleasure, I loved to see that you remembered the pine tree which shades the riverbanks of Palette.  How I should like, cursed fate that separates us, how I should like to see you coming.  If I did not restrain myself I should hurl long strings of litanies of “Good God”, “God’s brothel”: “damned whores” etc. to heaven; but what’s the use of getting in a rage?  That won’t get me anywhere, so I resign myself.  Yes, as you say in another piece no less poetic (though I prefer your piece about swimming) you are happy, yes you are happy, but I, miserable wretch, I am withering in silence, my love (for it is love that I feel) cannot find an outlet.  A certain ennui accompanies me everywhere, and only for a moment do I forget my sorrow; when I have had a drop to drink.  But then I have always loved wine, and now I love it even more.  I have got drunk; I shall get drunk still more, unless by some unexpected luck, hey ho, I should succeed, nom d’un Dieu! But no, I despair, I despair, and so I shall grow a tougher hide…

The weather is improving but I am not too sure whether it will go on.  What is sure is that I am burning to go:

I see that after my brush, my pen can say nothing good and today I should attempt in vain:

I am going to stop at last, for I am doing nothing but heap stupidity on absurdity.

P.CEZANNE

It just struck me that “Baille” was referred to in my first blog entry – “Letter to Emile Zola“.  But who was Baille?  Here is a potted history…

Baille was born in 1841 with the full name of Jean-Baptiste Baille.  He was commonly known as Baptistin Baille.  He became friends with Paul Cezanne and Emile Zola whilst they attended Bourbon college Aix, France.  Because of their close friendship, they became known as “Les trios inseparables” (the three inseparables).  Whilst at college they would often swim together in the River Arc, Provence, France.  These recalled images would later become the subject of many of Paul Cezanne’s paintings of bathers.

When Baptistin Baille was nineteen years old he wrote a letter to Zola in which he described Paul Cezanne as “that poetic, fantastic, jovial, erotic, antique, physical, geometrical friend of ours”.  Baille went on to say that at twenty-seven years old “his exterior is if anything more beautiful and more flamboyant than ever”.

Baptistin Baille and Paul Cezanne remained friends long after their college days.  Baille went on to become a professor of optics and acoustics at the “École de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles” in Paris.  He died in 1918.

Now that you know a little about Baille I think I’ll dig out a few of the letters they exchanged… more very soon…

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