And then there fell into my hands Goncourt's novel, "The Brothers Zemganno." I read it through in one night, and, surprised at the new experience, read the simple, pathetic story over again. There was nothing complicated about it, nothing interesting at first sight. In fact, the first pages seemed dry, like the lives of the saints. Its language, so precise and stripped of all adornment, was at first an unpleasant surprise to me; but the paucity of words, the strongly constructed phrases, went straight to the heart. It so aptly described the drama of the acrobat brothers that my hands trembled with the enjoyment of reading the book. I wept bitterly as I read how the unfortunate artist, with his legs broken, crept up to the loft where his brother was secretly engaged in his favorite art.
When I returned this glorious book to the tailor's wife I begged her to give me another one like it.
"How do you mean like that?" she asked, laughing.
This laugh confused me, and I could not explain what I wanted. Then she said:
"That is a dull book. Just wait! I will give you another more interesting."
In the course of a day or two she gave me Greenwood's "The True History of a little Waif." The title of the book at first turned me against it, but the first pages called up a smile of joy, and still smiling, I read it from beginning to end, re-reading some of the pages two or three times.
So in other countries, also, boys lived hard and harassing lives! After all, I was not so badly off; I need not complain.
Greenwood gave me a lot of courage, and soon after that I was given a "real" book, "Eugénie Grandet."
Old Grandet reminded me vividly of grandfather. I was annoyed that the book was so small, and surprised at the amount of truth it contained. Truths which were familiar and boring to me in life were shown to me in a different light in this book, without malice and quite calmly. All the books which I had read before Greenwood's, condemned people as severely and noisily as my employers did, often arousing my sympathy for the villain and a feeling of irritation with the good people. I was always sorry to see that despite enormous expenditure of intelligence and willpower, a man still failed to obtain his desires. The good characters stood awaiting events from first to last page, as immovable as stone pillars, and although all kinds of evil plots were formed against these stone pillars, stones do not arouse sympathy. No matter how beautiful and strong a wall may be, one does not love it if one wants to get the apple on the tree on the other side of it. It always seemed to me that all that was most worth having, and vigorous was hidden behind the "good" people.
In Goncourt, Greenwood, and Balzac there were no villains, but just simple people, wonderfully alive. One could not doubt that, whatever they were alleged to have said and done, they really did say and do, and they could not have said and done anything else.