The year 1910 became pivotal for the relationship of Debussy and Emma. January was marked by exceptional floods in Paris during which the River Seine rose some six metres above its normal level, which cannot have lightened the mood in their household. On 12 January, Debussy signed a contract with Durand for the sum of fifteen hundred francs for the Rapsodie for clarinet with both an orchestral accompaniment and a piano reduction. Intestinal troubles meant that he was unable to attend a rehearsal of two of his Nocturnes, ‘Nuages’ and ‘Fêtes’ on 30 January conducted by Gabriel Pierné, but when he did eventually hear them he told Pierné ‘You could feel the floods in “Nuages”’. On 9 February a contract was signed with Durand for the sum of seven thousand francs for the first book of piano Préludes.

He was also receiving help from André Caplet with corrections of the proofs of ‘Ibéria’, and was able to pass on the score to Pierné in preparation for its première on 20 February. Caplet needed to recuperate from pleurisy, and left for Arcachon where he stayed in the Villa Riquet, the guest house Emma had stayed in as a child. It was she rather than Debussy who wrote to Caplet on 10 February. Memories of Arcachon had struck a chord. Her first sentence did not express sympathy for him, but rather asked him to sympathise with her and her husband in view of the distress caused by the floods, ‘this misery and the sobbing surrounding us’. The ‘sobs’ (san-glots) were perhaps not merely a metaphor. She longed to revisit the pines and the sand and felt envious, for their own health was woeful.

Debussy was certainly solicitous for his wife. Only three days later he wrote to the homeopathic specialist Dr. Vannier requesting a remedy for Emma, mentioning two other doctors who had prescribed pills for her which she had been unable to tolerate. Despite this, he and Emma were still able to maintain the regular Monday visits of the Laloys, apart from Monday 14 February, which had to be postponed a day as Pierné needed Debussy's presence at a rehearsal of ‘Ibéria’.