6
An Essay on the Bourgeois
WHY DOES EVERYONE HERE want to shrink back and shrivel and make out he is only small fry and remain as inconspicuous as is possible: “I
don’t exist, I don’t exist at all; I am hiding, walk past, please, don’t take any notice of me, pretend you don’t see me: pass along, pass along!”
“But whom are you talking about? Who shrinks back?” The bourgeois, of course.
“Come now, he is king, he is everything, le tiers état c’est tout,* and you say he shrinks back!”
Oh yes, he does; why otherwise should he have hidden himself behind the Emperor Napoleon? Why has he forgotten the lofty language he used to love so much in the chamber of deputies? Why does he not want to remember anything and runs away from any reminders of the past? Why do his thoughts, his eyes, his speech betray so much worry whenever others dare express a wish for something in his presence?
Why, whenever he foolishly forgets himself and expresses a wish for something, does he suddenly give a start and begin to deny his own words – “Good heavens, what’s the matter with me, really!” – and for a long time after that he tries scrupulously to make amends for his behaviour by conscientiousness and obedience? Why does he look and almost say: “Well, now, I’ll do a bit of trade tomorrow too, and perhaps even the day after if the Lord lets me, in His great mercy… and then, then – oh, if only I could save just a teeny bit and… après moi le deluge.”*
Why does he stick his poor out of the way somewhere and assure people that there aren’t any? Why does he make do with official literature? Why does he so much want to convince himself that his newspapers are not open to bribery? Why does he agree to give so much money for the maintenance of police spies?
Why does he not dare breathe a word about the Mexican expedition? Why on the stage are husbands made out to be so very noble-minded and rich, while lovers are all so tattered, jobless and friendless, clerks or artists, so much trash? Why does he imagine that all wives without exception are faithful to the last extreme, that the home prospers, that the pot-au-feu* is cooking on the most virtuous of hearths and that no horns disfigure his forehead?
About the horns – this has been decided once and for all, agreed without further ado and taken for granted, and though cabs with drawn blinds constantly ply up and down the boulevards, though time and place can always be found for requirements of an interesting nature, and though wives very often dress more expensively than could be warranted by the husband’s pocket, this has been agreed and ratified, and what more do you want? And why has it been agreed and ratified?
The answer is quite obvious: otherwise people might perhaps think that an ideal state of things has not been reached yet, that Paris is not yet heaven on earth, that something could perhaps still be wished for, that therefore the bourgeois himself is not quite satisfied with the state of things which he supports and which he tries to force on everyone, that the cloth of society has rents which must be mended.
This is precisely why the bourgeois smears holes in his shoes – lest, God forbid, people should notice anything! The wives in the meantime suck sweets, wear gloves of a kind to send Russian ladies in far-off St Petersburg into envious hysterics, show their little feet and lift their little skirts on boulevards with all the grace in the world. What more is needed for perfect bliss? It follows that, circumstances being what they are, novels can no longer bear titles such as, for example, “Wife, Husband and Lover”, because there are no lovers, and cannot be any.
And even if in Paris they were as numerous as the sands of the sea (and maybe they are even more numerous there), there are none there all the same, and there cannot be any, because it is thus agreed and ratified and because virtue shines everywhere.
That is the way it should be: virtue must shine everywhere. The sight of the great courtyard of the Palais Royal in the evening and up to eleven o’clock at night is surely enough to make anyone shed a sentimental tear. Innumerable husbands stroll about arm in arm with their innumerable spouses, their sweet and well-behaved children gambol around them, a little fountain tinkles and its monotonous plash reminds you of something still and quiet, everlasting, permanent Heidelbergian.
And it isn’t as if there was only one little fountain in Paris tinkling in this way; there are many little fountains, and everywhere it is the same and one’s heart rejoices at the sight of it all.
Paris has an unquenchable thirst for virtue. Nowadays the Frenchman is a serious and reliable man, often tender-hearted, so that I cannot understand why he is so afraid of something even now, and is afraid of it in spite of all the gloire militaire* which flourishes in France and which Jacques Bonhomme* pays so much for. The Parisian dearly loves to trade, but even as he trades and fleeces you in his shop, he fleeces you not for the sake of profit, as in the old days, but in the name of virtue, out of some sacred necessity. To amass a fortune and possess as many things as possible – this has become the Parisian’s main moral code, to be equated with religious observance. The same thing happened in the old days too, but now – now it has assumed, so to speak, a sort of sacramental aspect. In the old days some value was attached to other things besides money, so that a man with no money but possessing
other qualities could expect some kind of esteem; but now – nothing doing. Now you must make money and acquire as many things as possible and you will then be able to expect at least some sort of esteem, otherwise you cannot expect to have any self-esteem, let alone the esteem of other people. The Parisian has a very low opinion of himself if he feels his pockets are empty – and he holds this opinion consciously, and with great conviction.
You are allowed to do amazing things if only you have money. Poor Socrates is nothing but a stupid and obnoxious phrase-monger, and is esteemed, if anywhere, only in the theatre, because the bourgeois still likes to show esteem for virtue in the theatre. A strange man, this bourgeois: proclaims openly that the acquisition of money is the supreme virtue and human duty and yet dearly loves to play at supremely noble sentiments.
All Frenchmen have an extraordinarily noble appearance. The meanest little Frenchman, who would sell you his own father for sixpence and something into the bargain without so much as being asked for it, has at the same time, indeed at the very moment of selling you his own father, such an impressive bearing that you feel perplexed. Go into a shop to buy something, and its least important salesman will crush you, simply crush you, with his astounding nobility. These are the very salesmen who serve as models of the most exquisite refinement for our Mikhailovsky Theatre.* You are overwhelmed, you feel you have offended the salesman in some way. You have come, let us say, with the intention of spending ten francs, and yet you are received as if you were the Duke of Devonshire.
For some reason you at once feel terribly ashamed, and you want to assure people quickly that you are not at all the Duke of Devonshire, but somebody quite ordinary, just a simple traveller, and have come in to make a mere ten francs’ worth of purchase.
But the young man, who has a most fortunate appearance and an ineffably noble expression, and at the sight of whom you are ready to acknowledge yourself a rascal (because he has such a noble expression), begins to spread in front of you goods worth tens of thousands of francs. In a minute he has strewn the whole counter with his wares and when you realize how much this poor man will have to fold and wrap up again after you are gone and that he – this Grandison, this Alcibiades, this Montmorency* – will have to do it – after whom? – after you who, with your unenviable appearance, your vices and defects, your abominable ten francs, have dared to come and worry so lordly a creature – when you realize all this, you immediately, on the spot and before you have time to leave the counter, begin willy-nilly to despise yourself to the highest possible degree.
You repent and curse your fate for having only 100 francs in your pocket; you throw them down on the counter with an imploring look asking forgiveness. But the article you have bought for your miserable 100
francs is magnanimously wrapped up for you, you are forgiven all the worry and all the trouble which you have caused in the shop, and you hasten to come out and vanish. When you get home you are terribly surprised that you wanted to spend only ten francs and have spent one hundred.
How often, when walking down the boulevards of the rue Vivienne, where so many huge haberdashery stores are
