SAND (Aurore Dupin, known as George). Autograph manuscript. - Lot 193

SAND (Aurore Dupin, known as George). Autograph manuscript. 210ff. in-8, with erasures and corrections, mostly bound in 12ff. booklets, preserved in a soft cardboard wallet with fabric knotwork bearing on the first cover a title in the hand of George Sand's daughter, Aurore Sand: "Césarine (fragment original)". Draft of a play based on her own novel Césarine Dietrich, written in 1870 and published in 1871, for which George Sand drew inspiration from her daughter Solange, brilliantly intelligent but domineering and rough. The work's broader interest lies in its allusions to political issues (Caesarism in the Second Empire) and questions of morality. "...Paul. What are you suffering from? Césarine. From your injustice, because injustice revolts me. I was nurtured on generous ideas; I was taught kindness, benevolence and devotion. I've spent my life giving happiness... Paul. It's not very difficult when you have enough left over. Césarine. Don't confuse happiness with wealth. I'm rich enough to be generous without merit, but is there only money to move kindness? I thought I had a more precious wealth, that of the soul, and I have been surrounded by affections that I pass off as deserving. Paul. There's one you don't deserve. Césarine. Yours? Paul. No, the Marquis de Rivonnière's. Césarine. What do you know about it? Paul. You're humiliating him in front of me, a stranger to you. Césarine. You should tell yourself that my friendship is a great blessing for him, since he accepts it with his gusts. Paul. Then why are you offering this friendship to a stranger, as if you didn't know what to do with it? Césarine. Do I know why I need yours? Can't you see that? Paul. I can see it's a fixed idea! Well, I'll tell you why! Césarine. Yes, tell me! Paul. It's the spite of seeing, perhaps for the first time in your life, a man who asks nothing of you. Césarine. Yes, it's the first time, I agree, and it hurts me to the core. Say I'm a spoiled brat, an ambitious dominatrix, a coquette even. That proves that you lack vision, because I'm none of those things! I'm a good soul, wide open to affection and trust. I'm used to being adored. Apparently I deserved it a little, because apart from my father, nobody was forced to. I was rather in a position to make people jealous, to be denigrated by envy. But no! People see me, listen to me, feel that I'm likeable and love me. There's no prejudice, no distrust that I haven't overcome, and I've always been blessed for wanting to overcome it. Only you, near and far, resist me. It's wrong, it's unfair, it's cruel. There must be some perversity in you, or you must think that this perversity exists in me. Come on, you've got your back against the wall. You're making me angry, you're upsetting me: why? Answer me!"