The spirit of the words “benevolence,” “goodness,” and “rotundity,” endlessly uttered in front of her and behind her back, has gradually saturated her speech, which is now habitually laudatory and on which her vast shape confers something like a more pleasing authority.
She has the vague and deep sensation of exercising an immense and peaceable magistrature. At times, she seems to overflow her own individuality, as if she were the stormy yet docile plenary council of benevolent judges, an assembly over which she presides and whose approval stirs her in the distance. . . .
During conversations at soirées, each person, untroubled by the contradictory behavior of these figures and heedless of their gradual adaptation to the imposed types, neatly files every figure away with his actions in the quite suitable and carefully defined pigeonhole of his ideal character; and at these moments each person feels with deeply emotional satisfaction that the level of conversation is incontestably rising.
Granted, we soon interrupt this labor and avoid dwelling on it, so that people unaccustomed to abstract thinking will not doze off (we are men of the world, after all). Then, after stigmatizing one person’s snobbery, another’s malevolence, and a third man’s libertinism or abusiveness, the guests disperse, convinced that they have paid their generous tribute to modesty, charity, and benevolence; and so, with no remorse, with a clear conscience that has just shown its mettle, each person goes off to indulge in his elegant and multiple vices.
If these reflections, inspired by Bergamo’s high society, were applied to any other, they would lose their validity. When Arlecchino left the Bergamo stage for the French stage, the bumpkin became a wit. That is why a few societies regard Liduvina as outstanding and Girolamo as clever.
We must also add that at times a man may appear for whom society has no ready-made character, or at least no available character, because it is being used by someone else. At first society gives him characters that do not suit him.
If he is truly original, and no character is the right size, then society, unable to try to understand him and lacking a character with a proper fit, will simply ostracize him; unless he can gracefully play juvenile leads, who are always in short supply.
SOCIAL AMBITIONS AND MUSICAL TASTES OF BOUVARD AND PÉCUCHET*
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
