PAUL BOURGET

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH

BY

JOHN DE VILLIERS

NEW YORK

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY

112 FIFTH AVENUE

LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS

CHAPTER
I. [A Provincial Corner of Paris]
II. [Simple Souls]
III. [A Lover and a Snob]
IV. [The 'Sigisbée']
V. [The Dawn of Love]
VI. [An Observer's Logic]
VII. [The Face of a Madonna]
VIII. [The Other Side of the Picture]
IX. [An Actress in Real Life]
X. [In the Toils]
XI. [Declarations]
XII. [Cruel to be Kind]
XIII. [At Home]
XIV. [Happy Days]
XV. [Colette's Spite]
XVI. [The Story of a Suspicion]
XVII. [Proofs]
XVIII. [The Happiest of the Four]
XIX. [All or Nothing]
XX. [The Abbé Taconet]

MY DEAR DE VILLIERS,

In the first place, you must let me thank you for having undertaken the task of introducing 'Mensonges' to the English-reading public; and also express the hope that this novel, which is no longer new, may not cause a recurrence of that misconception which too often arises when a work written in and for a Latin country is suddenly transplanted to Anglo-Saxon soil.

One of the most grievous results of such misconception, and one which French writers—I speak from experience—feel most keenly, is the reproach of immorality. Balzac spent a lifetime in defending himself against that charge; so it was with Flaubert; so it is with Emile Zola. I well remember how hurt I felt myself when, in the course of an action brought some ten years since against a publishing firm in London—who had, by the way, issued a translation of the work without my permission—'Un Crime d'Amour' was harshly spoken of by one of your judges. Not only then, but on many occasions, have I had an opportunity of remarking that the English regard the novelist's art from a standpoint differing entirely from that taken up by French writers. That difference is well worth dwelling upon here, for the problem it raises is neither more nor less than the problem of the whole art of novel-writing.

To French writers—and I refer more particularly to the great school which follows Balzac and Stendhal—the first quality of that art is analytical precision. Balzac called himself 'a doctor of social sciences.' Stendhal-Beyle, when asked his profession, used to reply, 'Observer of the human heart'; and upon the title-page of 'Rouge et Noir' he wrote as a motto the significant words, 'The truth, the ugly truth.' Every word of Flaubert's correspondence breathes forth the conviction that the novelist must always and before all else paint life as it is. These writers and their disciples do but follow, consciously or unconsciously, the scientific movement of the age. They are sociologists and psychologists who write in an imaginative form. The attitude they usually take up towards the object they are studying is explained by the fact that, as analysts, they are obliged to assume that absolute indifference to morality or immorality which should animate every savant whilst pursuing his investigations.

For them the whole question resolves itself into this: they must look the bare realities of life full in the face, reproduce them with absolute fidelity, and reject nothing they find; it should be their aim to produce a work of truth rather than a work of beauty. That is why Balzac, for example, did not hesitate, in 'Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes,' and in 'La Cousine Bette,' to lay bare with the brutal bluntness of a police report the lowest depths of Parisian vice. That, too, is why Flaubert had no compunction in placing before the readers of his 'Madame Bovary' the repulsive picture of Emma and Léon meeting in a house of ill-fame in Rouen. In his conception of imaginative literature the writer takes no heed of what will please or displease, what will comfort or afflict, what will affect or disgust. His aim is to add one document more to the mass of information concerning mankind and society collected by physiology, psychology, and the history of languages, creeds, and institutions. The novelist is merely a chronicler of actual life, and the value of his testimony lies in its truth.

It is easy to see, as I shall presently prove, that these æsthetics are intimately related to that great principle of intellectual conscientiousness which, under the name of science, animates the present age; and this relationship would in itself endow with idealism an art which has apparently no ideal. But a big objection to these theories has long been formulated—an objection that seems to spring up most readily in English minds when confronted with the bold utterances such theories authorise. The novel, it is said, necessarily appeals to the popular taste and places its impress upon the imagination of readers who are totally devoid of the ideal impartiality of those who take up a scientific standpoint. When such readers dip into a work like 'Splendeurs et Misères' or 'Madame Bovary,' they at once enter into the very life and spirit with which these books are permeated. The author's genius, reproducing in vivid colours scenes of questionable morality, makes them almost real, and to man, naturally imitative, such studies form a standing danger. If a bad example is contagious in real life, surely, it is urged, it is none the less so when enhanced by the magic of a master's style.

I do not think that, in stating the case for the other side I have weakened their argument. At the first glance, it seems irrefutable. I think, however, that novelists of the school of Balzac and Flaubert may justly reply that the morality of a book is something totally distinct from the danger that its perusal presents. Before deciding whether the total effect of a certain class of literature is worth the danger it incurs, it would be necessary to ascertain how far a work has been properly or improperly understood by all its readers. I, for my part, am fully convinced that the safety of society is absolutely dependent upon a true knowledge of human life, and that every work composed in a spirit of truth is on that account alone conducive of good. If the work occasionally shocks or offends a reader, it is none the less certain that it adds to the knowledge of the laws governing the minds and passions of men. Now, it is impossible to cite an example where the general conclusions drawn by a novelist of the analytical school have ever been contrary to the eternal laws set forth in the Decalogue.

Balzac might well have headed the last part of his 'Splendeurs et Misères' with this prophetic admonition from the Scriptures, The way of the ungodly shall perish. Flaubert could have chosen no better epigraph for the title-page of 'Madame Bovary' than the Seventh Commandment; and, if a modest disciple may be permitted to compare himself with these great masters, and his humble productions with their superior works, the novel now presented to the English public has its moral in the words addressed by the Abbé Taconet to Claude Larcher and in the lesson of social Christianity they teach.

These few remarks are necessary for the comprehension of passages in the following pages that might be considered crude outside the Parisian circle in which they were written. When 'Mensonges' was first published, nearly ten years ago, it was generally admitted that the picture was very faithfully drawn. On the other hand, it evoked a lively discussion in the Press concerning the value of the process by which this study had been produced—in other words, the value of psychological analysis.

Eminent critics reproached me with carrying the dissection of motives too far, and with too frequently laying bare the exquisitely delicate fibres of the heart. I well remember that amongst my masters Alexandre Dumas was most assiduous in warning me of the dangers of my method. 'It is a very fine thing to show how a watch works,' he would say to me, 'but not if by doing so you prevent it from telling the time.'

That all life is, to a great extent, unconscious is perfectly true, and a psychological analyst may therefore imperil the beauty of the particular life he proposes to describe by bringing into undue prominence and bestowing too much care upon its hidden workings. So far as I am concerned, I am quite willing to own that in so doing I may have deserved reproach; but I am persuaded that, if such be the case, the fault is mine and not that of the method employed. Every work of art, if critically considered, will be found to contain incongruities which the genius of the artist must conceal. The drama, for instance, in its use of dialogue, must compress into a few minutes conversations that would, in reality, occupy whole hours. It would therefore seem a priori as if all semblance of truth were in that case impossible. In the same way a lyric poet, by attempting to express in scholarly rhyme and in verse of complicated structure the most simple and spontaneous feelings of the heart, would seem to undertake a most paradoxical, I had almost said an absurd, task. And yet the dialogue of a Shakespeare or of a Molière has all the movement and colour of life itself. Heine's Lieder and Shelley's lyrics are real vibrations of the heart; and, to come back to the psychological novel, I may surely hold up the works of George Eliot, Tourguenieff, and Tolstoi in reply to the objection that a too minute analysis of character and feeling substitutes a dry anatomical study for the glow and ardour of passion. If 'Mensonges' may not be added to the list, it can only be because its author has not the necessary skill to wield what is, after all, a most excellent instrument.

These are a few of the ideas which I beg you to lay before the readers of the English version of my story in order that their hearts may be inclined to indulgence before they turn to the work itself. Allow me to thank you, as well as MM. Chatto and Windus, once more for having thought this study of Parisian life worthy the distinction of such a careful and masterly translation as yours.

Believe me,

Yours very faithfully,

PAUL BOURGET.

HYÈRES, January 30, 1896.