[CHAPTER IV]
De Leuven makes me his collaborator—The Major de Strasbourg—My first couplet-Chauvin—The Dîner d'amis—The Abencérages
I had naïvely told de Leuven of my failure to translate Bürger's beautiful ballad; but as he had made up his mind to make me a dramatic author, he consoled me by telling me it was his father's opinion that some German works were absolutely untranslatable, and that the ballad of Lénore was first among these. Seeing that de Leuven did not lose hope, I gradually regained mine. I may even venture to say that, a few days after this, I achieved a success.
Lafarge had laughed hugely at de Leuven's idea of making me his collaborator. For, indeed, what notice would the Parisian stage take of an uneducated child; a poor provincial lad, buried away in a small town in the Ile-de-France; ignorant both of French and foreign literatures; hardly acquainted with the names of the great; feeling only a tepid sympathy with their most highly praised masterpieces, his lack of artistic education having veiled their style from him; setting to work without knowing the theory of constructing a plot, an action, a catastrophe, a dénoûment; having never read to the end of Gil Blas, or Don Quixote, or le Diable boiteux—books which are held by all teachers to be worthy of universal admiration, and in which, I confess to my shame, the man who has succeeded to the child does not even to-day feel a very lively interest; reading, instead, all that is bad in Voltaire, who was then regarded as the very antithesis of politics and religion; having never opened a volume of Walter Scott or of Cooper, those two great romance-writers, one of whom understood men thoroughly, the other of whom divined God's workings marvellously; whilst, on the contrary, he had devoured all the naughty books of Pigault-Lebrun, raving over them, le Citateur in particular; ignorant of the name of Goethe, or Schiller, or Uhland, or André Chénier; having heard Shakespeare mentioned, but only as a barbarian from whose dunghill Ducis had collected those pearls called Othello, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, but knowing by heart his Bertin, his Parny, his Legouvé, his Demoustier.
Lafarge was unquestionably in the right, and Adolphe must have had plenty of time to waste to undertake such a task, the hopelessness of which alone could take away from its ridiculousness. But Adolphe, with that Anglo-German stolidness of his, manfully persevered in the work undertaken, and we sketched out a scheme of a comedy in one act, entitled the Major de Strasbourg: it was neither good nor bad. Why the Major of Strasbourg, any more than the Major of Rochelle or of Perpignan? I am sure I cannot tell. And I have also completely forgotten the plot or development of that embryonic dramatic work.
But there was one incident I have not forgotten, for it procured me the first gratification my amour-propre received. It was the epoch of patriotic pieces; a great internal reaction had set in against our reverses of 1814 and our defeat of 1815. The national couplet and Chauvinism were all the rage: provided you made Français rhyme with succès at the end of a couplet, and lauriers with guerriers, you were sure of applause. So, of course, de Leuven and I were quite content not to strike out any fresh line, but to follow and worship in the footsteps of MM. Francis and Dumersan. Therefore our Major de Strasbourg was of the family of those worthy retreating officers whose patriotism continued to fight the enemy in couplets consecrated to the supreme glory of France, and to the avenging of Leipzig and Waterloo on the battlefields of the Gymnase and the Varies. Now, our major, having become a common labourer, was discovered by a father and son, who arrived on the scene, I know not why, at the moment when, instead of digging his furrows, he was deserting his plough, in order to devote himself to the reading of a book which gradually absorbed him to such an extent that he did not see the entrance of this father and son—a most fortunate circumstance, since the brave officer's preoccupation procured the public the following couplet:—
JULIEN (apercevant le major)
N'approchez pas, demeurez où vous etes:
Il lit ...
LE COMTE
Sans doute un récit de combats,
Ce livre?
JULIEN (regardant par-dessus l'épaule du major, et revenant à son père)
C'est Victoires et Conquêtes.
LE COMTE
Tu vois, enfant, je ne me trompais pas:
Son cœur revole aux champs de l'Allemagne!
Il croit encor voir les Français vainqueurs....
JULIEN
Mon père, il lit la dernière campagne,
Car de ses yeux je vois couler des pleurs.
When my part of the work was done, I handed it over to de Leuven, who, I ought to mention, was very indulgent to me; but this time, when he came to the couplet I am about to quote, his indulgence ascended into enthusiasm: he sang the couplet out loud—