Butscha, La Briere, and Madame Latournelle exchanged glances that were more than half derisive, and drove Modeste to a pitch of irritation that kept her silent for a moment.
“Mademoiselle, do not mind them,” said Canalis, smiling upon her, “we are neither beaten, nor caught in a contradiction. Every work of art, let it be in literature, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture, implies a positive social utility, equal to that of all other commercial products. Art is pre-eminently commerce; presupposes it, in short. An author pockets ten thousand francs for his book; the making of books means the manufactory of paper, a foundry, a printing-office, a bookseller,—in other words, the employment of thousands of men. The execution of a symphony of Beethoven or an opera by Rossini requires human arms and machinery and manufactures. The cost of a monument is an almost brutal case in point. In short, I may say that the works of genius have an extremely costly basis and are, necessarily, useful to the workingman.”
Astride of that theme, Canalis spoke for some minutes with a fine luxury of metaphor, and much inward complacency as to his phrases; but it happened with him, as with many another great speaker, that he found himself at last at the point from which the conversation started, and in full agreement with La Briere without perceiving it.
“I see with much pleasure, my dear baron,” said the little duke, slyly, “that you will make an admirable constitutional minister.”
“Oh!” said Canalis, with the gesture of a great man, “what is the use of all these discussions? What do they prove?—the eternal verity of one axiom: All things are true, all things are false. Moral truths as well as human beings change their aspect according to their surroundings, to the point of being actually unrecognizable.”
“Society exists through settled opinions,” said the Duc d’Herouville.
“What laxity!” whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband.
“He is a poet,” said Gobenheim, who overheard her.
Canalis, who was ten leagues above the heads of his audience, and who may have been right in his last philosophical remark, took the sort of coldness which now overspread the surrounding faces of a symptom of provincial ignorance; but seeing that Modeste understood him, he was content, being wholly unaware that monologue is particularly disagreeable to country-folk, whose principal desire it is to exhibit the manner of life and the wit and wisdom of the provinces to Parisians.
“It is long since you have seen the Duchesse de Chaulieu?” asked the duke, addressing Canalis, as if to change the conversation.