Social Ambitions and Musical Tastes of Bouvard and Pécuchet, Marcel Proust
Social Ambitions and Musical Tastes of Bouvard and Pécuchet*
*Needless to say, the opinions ascribed here to Flaubert’s two famous characters are by no means those of the author.
Social Ambitions
“Now that we have positions,” said Bouvard, “why shouldn’t we live a life of high society?”
Pécuchet could not have agreed with him more; but they would have to shine, and to do so they would have to study the subjects dealt with in society.
Contemporary literature is of prime importance.
They subscribed to the various journals that disseminate it; they read them aloud and attempted to write reviews, whereby, mindful of their goal, they aimed chiefly at an ease and lightness of style.
Bouvard objected that the style of reviews, even if playful, is not suitable in high society. And they began conversing about their readings in the manner of men of the world.
Bouvard would lean against the mantelpiece and, handling them cautiously to avoid soiling them, he would toy with a pair of light-colored gloves that were brought out specifically for the occasion, and he would address Pécuchet as “Madame” or “General” to complete the illusion.
Often, however, they would get no further; or else, if one of them would gush on about an author, the other would try in vain to stop him. Beyond that, they pooh-poohed everything. Leconte de Lisle was too impassive, Verlaine too sensitive. They dreamed about a happy medium but never found one.
“Why does Loti keep striking the same note?”
“His novels are all written in the same key.”
“His lyre has only one string,” Bouvard concluded.
“But André Laurie is no more satisfying; he takes us somewhere else every year, confusing literature with geography. Only his style is worth something. As for Henri de Regné, he’s either a fraud or a lunatic; there’s no other alternative.”
“Get around that, my good man,” said Bouvard, “and you’ll help contemporary literature out of an awful bottleneck.”
“Why rein them in?” said Pécuchet, an indulgent king. “Those colts may be blooded. Loosen their reins, let them have their way; our sole worry is that once they spurt off, they may gallop beyond the finish line. But immoderateness per se is proof of a rich nature.
“Meanwhile the barriers will be smashed,” Pécuchet cried out; hot and bothered, he filled the empty room with his negative retorts: “Anyway, you can claim all you like that these uneven lines are poetry—I refuse to see them as anything but prose, and meaningless prose at that!”
Mallarmé is equally untalented, but he is a brilliant talker. What a pity that such a gifted man should lose his mind the instant he picks up his pen. A bizarre illness that struck them as inexplicable. Maeterlinck frightens us, but only with material devices that are unworthy of the theater; art inflames us like a crime—it’s horrible! Besides, his syntax is dreadful.
They then applied a witty critique to his syntax, parodying his dialogue style in the form of a conjugation:
I said that the woman had come in.
You said that the woman had come in.
He said that the woman had come in.
Why did someone say that the woman had come in?
Pécuchet wanted to submit this piece to the Revue des Deux Mondes; but it would be wiser, in Bouvard’s opinion, to save it until it could be recited in a fashionable salon. They would instantly be classified according to their talent. They could easily send the piece to a journal later on. And when the earliest private admirers of this flash of wit read it in print, they would be retrospectively flattered to have been the first to enjoy it.
Lemaitre, for all his cleverness, struck them as scatterbrained, irreverent, sometimes pedantic and sometimes bourgeois; he retracted too often. Above all, his style was slipshod; but he should be forgiven since he had to write extempore under the pressure of regular and so frequent deadlines. As for Anatole France, he wrote well but thought poorly, unlike Bourget, who was profound but whose style was hopeless. Bouvard and Pécuchet greatly deplored the dearth of a complete talent.
“Yet it can’t be very difficult,” Bouvard thought, “to express one’s ideas clearly. Clarity is not enough, though; you need grace (allied with strength), vivacity, nobility, and logic.” Bouvard then added irony. According to Pécuchet irony was not indispensable; it was often tiring and it baffled the reader without benefiting him. In short, all writers were bad. The fault, according to Bouvard, lay with the excessive pursuit of originality; according to Pécuchet, with the decline of mores.
“Let us have the courage to hide our conclusions from the fashionable world: otherwise we would be viewed as nitpickers, we would frighten everyone, and they would all dislike us. Let us be reassuring rather than unnerving. Our originality would do us enough harm as it is. We should even conceal it. In society we can also not talk about literature.”
But other things are important there.
“How do we greet people? With a deep bow or simply a nod, slowly or quickly, just as we are or bringing our heels together, walking over or standing still, pulling in the small of the back or transforming it into a pivot? Should the hands drop alongside the body, should they hold your hat, should they be gloved? Should the face remain earnest or should you smile for the length of the greeting? And how do you immediately recover your gravity once the greeting is done?”
Introductions were also difficult.
With whose name should you start? Should you gesture toward the person you are naming or should you merely nod at him or should you remain motionless with an air of indifference? Should you greet an old man and a young man in the same way, a locksmith and a prince, an actor and an academician? The affirmative answer satisfied Pécuchet’s egalitarian ideas, but shocked Bouvard’s common sense.
And what about correct titles?
You said “monsieur” to a baron, a viscount, or a count; however, “Good day, monsieur le marquis” sounded groveling and “Good day, marquis” too free and easy—given their age. They would resign themselves to saying “prince” and “monsieur le duc,” even though they found the latter usage revolting. When it came to the highnesses, they floundered. Bouvard, gratified by the thought of his future connections, imagined a thousand sentences in which this appellation would appear in all its forms; he accompanied it with a faint and blushing smile, inclining his head slightly and hopping about. But Pécuchet declared that he would lose the thread, get more and more confused, or else laugh in the prince’s face. In short, to avoid embarrassment, they would steer clear of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, that bastion of aristocracy. However, the Faubourg seeps in everywhere and looks like a compact and isolated whole purely from a distance! . . .
Besides, titles are respected even more in the world of high finance, and as for the foreign adventurers, their titles are legion. But according to Pécuchet, one should be intransigent with pseudo-noblemen and make sure not to address them with a “de” even on envelopes or when speaking to their domestics. Bouvard, more skeptical, saw this as a more recent mania that was nevertheless as respectable as that of the ancient lords. Furthermore, according to Bouvard and Pécuchet, the nobility had stopped existing when it had lost its privileges. Its members were clerical, backward, read nothing, did nothing, and were as pleasure-seeking as the bourgeoisie; Bouvard and Pécuchet found it absurd to respect them. Frequenting them was possible only because it did not exclude contempt.
Bouvard declared that in order to know where they would socialize, toward which suburbs they would venture once a year, where their habits and their vices could be found, they would first have to draw up an exact plan of Parisian society. The plan, said Bouvard, would include Faubourg Saint-Germain, financiers, foreign adventurers, Protestant society, the world of art and theater, the official world, and the learned world.
The Faubourg Saint-Germain, in Pécuchet’s opinion, concealed the libertinage of the Old Regime under the guise of rigidity. Every nobleman had mistresses, plus a sister who was a nun, and he conspired with the clergy. They were brave, debt-ridden; they ruined and scourged usurers and they were inevitably the champions of honor. They reigned by dint of elegance, invented preposterous fashions, were exemplary sons, gracious to commoners and harsh toward bankers. Always clutching a sword or with a woman in pillion, they dreamed of restoring the monarchy, were terribly idle, but not haughty with decent people, sent traitors packing, insulted cowards, and with a certain air of chivalry they merited our unshakable affection.
On the other hand, the eminent and sullen world of finance inspires respect but also aversion. The financier remains careworn even at the wildest ball. One of his numberless clerks keeps coming to report the latest news from the stock exchange even at four in the morning; the financier conceals his most successful coups and his most horrible disasters from his wife. You never know whether he is a mogul or a swindler: he switches to and fro without warning; and despite his immense fortune, he ruthlessly evicts a poor tenant for being in arrears with his rent and refuses to grant him an extension unless he wants to use the tenant as a spy or sleep with his daughter. Moreover, the financier is always in his carriage, dresses without taste, and habitually wears a pince-nez.
Nor did Bouvard and Pécuchet feel any keener love for Protestant society: it is cold, starchy, gives solely to its own poor, and is made
