Part 4

Once, this whim of erecting a magnificent, pretentious monument took possession of us. In the first place we were obliged to borrow the plan from the old Romans; and even before it was finished, our Panthéon tottered on its legs like a child with the rickets and staggered like a drunken man, so that we had to give it crutches of stone, otherwise it would have measured its shameful length on the ground, in sight of all the world, and would have given the nations something to laugh at for more than a hundred francs.--We thought it better to set up an obelisk on one of our squares; we had to go and filch it at Luxor, and we were two years bringing it home. Old Egypt lined its roads with obelisks as we line ours with poplars; it carried bundles of them under its arm as the market-gardener carries bunches of asparagus, and carved a monolith from the sides of its mountains of granite more easily than we make tooth-picks or ear-picks. A few centuries ago Raphael was living and Michael Angelo; now we have Monsieur Paul Delaroche, all because we are progressing.--You boast of your Opéra; ten Opéras like yours could dance a saraband in a Roman circus. Monsieur Martin, himself, with his tame tiger and his poor gouty lion, sound asleep like a subscriber to the _Gazette_, makes a very poor showing beside the gladiator of antiquity. Take your benefit performances that last till two o'clock in the morning--what do they amount to when you think of the games that lasted a hundred days, of the plays in which real ships really fought in real water; in which thousands of men conscientiously cut one another in pieces;--aye, turn pale O heroic Franconi!--in which, when the sea retired, the desert arrived with its roaring tigers and lions, awe-inspiring supernumeraries who did duty but once; in which the leading rôle was taken by some robust, athletic Dacian or Pannonian whom they would very often have found it embarrassing to produce at the end of the play, his sweetheart being a lovely and dainty Numidian lioness who had fasted for three days?--Does it not seem to you that the rope-dancing elephant was superior to Mademoiselle Georges? Do you suppose Mademoiselle Taglioni is a better dancer than Arbuscula, and Perrot better than Bathyllus? I am convinced that Roscius could have given points to Bocage, excellent actor though he is,--Galeria Coppiola played _ingénue_ rôles when she was more than a hundred years old. It is fair to say that the oldest of our _jeunes premières_ is but little more than sixty, and that Mademoiselle Mars shows no sign of progress in that direction: they had three or four thousand gods in whom they believed, and we have only one and we hardly believe in him; that is a strange kind of progress.--Was not Jupiter a better man than Don Juan and a much more successful seducer? Verily, I cannot see what we have discovered or even improved.

After the progressive journalists, as if to serve as a foil to them, come the blasé journalists, who are usually twenty or twenty-two years old, who have never left their quarter and have as yet lain only with their housekeeper. Everything bores them, tires them out; they are sated, blasé, used up, inaccessible. They know beforehand what you are going to say to them; they have seen, felt, heard, experienced everything that it is possible to see, feel, hear, and experience; the human heart has no corner so dark that they have not held a lantern to it. They say to you with marvellous self-possession: "The human heart is not like that; women are not made so; that character is falsely drawn;"--or else: "What's this! always love or hatred! always men and women! Can't you talk about something else? Why, man is worn threadbare, and woman, more so, since Monsieur de Balzac took a hand.

"'Who will deliver us from men and women?'

"Do you think your fable is new, monsieur? it is new after the fashion of the Pont-Neuf:[2] nothing in the world could be more common; I read it somewhere or other;--when I was out at nurse or somewhere else; it's been dinned into my ears for ten years.--By the way, monsieur, understand that there's nothing I don't know, that everything is worn threadbare for me, and that even if your idea were as virginal as the Virgin Mary, I would swear, none the less, that I had seen it prostituting itself on street corners to the vilest scribblers and the most contemptible pedants."

Journalists of that stamp are responsible for Jocko, Le Monstre Vert, Les Lions de Mysore, and a thousand other charming conceits.

They are constantly complaining of being obliged to read books and see plays. Apropos of a paltry vaudeville, they will talk about flowering almond-trees, limes that perfume the air, the breezes of spring, the odor of the young foliage; they set up for lovers of nature after the style of young Werther, and yet they have never set foot outside of Paris and could not tell a cabbage from a beet.--If it is winter, they prate about the joys of the domestic fireside, and the crackling fire, and the andirons, and the slippers, and the reverie and the state between sleeping and waking; they never fail to quote Tibullus's famous line:

Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem,

by the aid of which they assume a knowing and at the same time ingenuous air, the most fascinating thing imaginable. They pose as men upon whom the work of men can no longer make any impression, whom the emotions aroused by the drama leave as cold and hard as the knife with which they cut their quills, but who exclaim, nevertheless, with Jean Jacques Rousseau: "Ah! there's the periwinkle!" They profess fierce antipathy to the colonels at the Gymnase, the American uncles, the cousins, male and female, the sensitive old grumblers, the romantic widows, and try to cure us of the vaudeville by proving every day by the _feuilletons_ that all Frenchmen are not born wicked.--In truth, we see no great harm in that, but the contrary, and we are glad to acknowledge that the extinction of the vaudeville or the opera-comique in France--national style--would be one of the greatest benefactions that the press and Heaven could bestow.--But I should be very glad to know what species of literature these gentlemen would allow to be established in its place. To be sure, it could be no worse.

Others preach against false taste and translate Seneca the tragedian. Lastly, and to close the procession, a new battalion of critics has been formed, of a species never before seen.

Their formula for estimating a work is the most convenient, the most elastic, the most malleable, the most peremptory, the most superlative, and the most successful that a critic ever could have conceived. Zoilus would certainly have lost nothing thereby.

Hitherto, when it has seemed desirable to depreciate a work of any sort or to cast odium upon it in the eyes of the patriarchal and simple-minded subscriber, the ordinary method has been to make false or cunningly isolated quotations; to maim sentences and mutilate lines in such a way that the author himself would have considered himself the most ridiculous creature on earth; to bring accusations of imaginary plagiarisms; to place passages from his book side by side with passages from ancient or modern authors, which had not the least connection therewith; to accuse him, after the style of a cook and with innumerable solecisms, of not knowing his own language and of degrading the French of Racine and Voltaire; to assert in all seriousness that his book tended toward anthropophagy, and that readers would infallibly become cannibals or have hydrophobia in the course of the week; but all that was paltry, out of date, false and fossilized to the last degree. By dint of having dragged along through _feuilletons_ and _Variétés_ articles, the charge of immorality became insufficient, and so unfit for service that the _Constitutionnel_, a bashful and progressive journal, as we know, was almost the only one that had the desperate courage to continue to use it.

So they invented the criticism of the future, the Prospective criticism. Can you imagine, at first thought, what a charming thing it is and what a prolific imagination it indicates? The recipe is simple and I can tell you what it is. The book that will be considered fine and will be praised is the book that has not yet appeared. The one that has just appeared is infallibly detestable. The one to appear to-morrow will be superb; but it is always to-day. It is the same with this sort of criticism as with the barber who had these words in huge letters for his sign:

SHAVING FREE HERE TO-MORROW.

All the poor devils who read the placard promised themselves for the next day the ineffable, sovereign sweetness of being barbered once in their lives without unloosing their purse-strings: and the hair on their chins easily grew half a foot during the night that preceded that blessed day; but when they had the napkin around their necks, the barber asked them if they had any money and bade them pay up, or he would treat them like nut-pickers or apple-gatherers of Le Perche; and he swore a mighty _sacre dieu_ that he would cut their throats with his razor unless they paid him; and when the poor devils, whining and whimpering, talked about the sign and the sacrosanct inscription:--"Ha! ha! my little fatties!" said the barber, "you don't know so much after all, and you'd much better go back to school! The sign says: 'To-morrow!' I'm no such whimsical fool as to shave for nothing to-day; my confrères would say I was throwing away my trade.--Come another time, come the week that has two Sundays together, and you'll find everything all right. May I be called a niggardly fellow and a flat, if I don't shave you for nothing, on the word of an honest barber."

Authors who read a prospective article in which an existing work is attacked always flatter themselves that the book they are writing will be the book of the future. They try to accommodate themselves, as much as possible, to the ideas of the critic, and become socialists, progressives, moralizers, palingenetics, mystics, pantheists, buchezists, thinking in that way to escape the anathema; but the same thing happens to them that happened to the barber's customers:--to-day is not the eve of to-morrow. The to-morrow that we hear so much about will never shine upon the world; for the formula is too convenient to be abandoned so soon. Even while decrying the book of which they are jealous and which they would be glad to annihilate, they put on the gloves of the most generous impartiality. They apparently ask nothing better than to approve and praise it, and yet they never do it. This recipe is very superior to the one that we might call retrospective, which consists in vaunting ancient works only--works which no one reads and no one cares about--at the expense of modern books, which people do think about and which wound their self-esteem more directly.

We said, before beginning this review of messieurs the critics, that the material would fill fifteen or sixteen folio volumes, but that we would content ourselves with a few lines; I am beginning to fear that those lines will prove to be each two or three thousand fathoms long and will resemble those thick, bulky pamphlets that a cannon-ball would not make a hole through, which bear the perfidious title: "A word concerning the Revolution," a word concerning this or that. The history of the doings of the manifold loves of the goddess Madeleine de Maupin, would run great risk of being elbowed out of the first book, and you will understand that two whole volumes are not too much to sing worthily the adventures of that lovely Bradamante.--That is why, however much we may desire to continue the blazonry of the illustrious Aristarchuses of the age, we will content ourselves with the partial sketch we have drawn, adding a few reflections concerning the good-nature of our easy-going confrères in Apollo, who, as stupid as the Cassander of pantomime, stand still to receive the blows from Harlequin's lath and the clown's kicks in the stern, without budging any more than an idol.

They resemble a fencing-master, who should fold his arms behind his back during a bout, and receive all his opponent's thrusts in his unprotected breast without attempting a single parry.

It is like the trial of a cause in which the king's attorney only is allowed to speak, or a debate in which no reply is permitted.

The critic puts forward this or that theory. He makes a great dash and ostentatious display. Absurd, detestable, monstrous; it resembles nothing, it resembles everything. A drama is produced, the critic goes to see it; he finds that it bears no resemblance to the drama he had constructed in his head on the strength of the title; thereupon he substitutes, in his _feuilleton_, his own drama for the author's. He interlards it with his erudite phrases; he relieves himself of all the knowledge he has collected the day before in some library, and belabors people to whom he ought to go to school, and the least of whom could teach greater men than he.

Authors endure this with a magnanimity, a long-suffering which seems to me truly inconceivable. After all is said and done, who are these critics whose tone is so cutting, whose words are so peremptory, that one would say they were veritable sons of the gods? they are simply men who were our school-fellows, and who have evidently profited less by their studies than we, since they have produced nothing and can do nothing but befoul and spoil the work of others like genuine Stymphalian vampires.

Would it not be worth while to criticise the critics? for those disgruntled great men, who are so fond of playing the magnificent and the fastidious, are far from being infallible like the Holy Father. There would be matter enough to fill a daily newspaper of the largest size. Their errors, historical or otherwise, their distorted quotations, their mistakes in grammar, their plagiarism, their drivel, their oft-repeated, ill-bred jests, their paucity of ideas, their lack of intelligence and tact, their ignorance of the simplest things which leads them to mistake the Piræus for a man and Monsieur Delaroche for a painter, would furnish authors with ample material for vengeance, without other labor than that of drawing a line under the passages and reproducing them word for word; for one does not receive a commission as a great writer with a commission as critic, and to reproach others for errors in language or taste is not enough to ensure one against making them himself; our critics prove it every day.--If Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and other men of that stamp should become critics, I could understand that people might go down on their knees and worship them; but that Messieurs Z. K. Y. V. Q. X., or any other letter of the alphabet between Alpha and Omega, should set themselves up as little Quintilians and scold you in the name of morality and good literature--that is what always disgusts me and sends me into an unparalleled rage. I would like to have a police ordinance issued prohibiting certain names from attacking certain others. To be sure, a cat may look at a king, and Saint-Peter's at Rome, giant that it is, cannot prevent the Transteverins from defiling its base in strange fashion; but I do not believe, nevertheless, that it would be a bad idea to inscribe upon certain monumental reputations:

NO FILTH DEPOSITED HERE.

Charles X. alone understood the question. By ordering the suppression of newspapers he conferred a great service upon the arts and civilization. Newspapers are in a certain sense courtiers or jobbers, who interpose between artists and public, between king and people. We know the fine things that resulted therefrom. This perpetual barking and snarling benumbs inspiration and causes such a feeling of distrust in the heart and mind, that no one dares place his confidence either in a poet or in a government; the result being that royalty and poesy, the two greatest things in the world, become impossible, to the great detriment of the people, who sacrifice their well-being to the paltry pleasure of reading every morning a few vile sheets printed on vile paper, besmeared with vile ink, and filled with vile stuff. There was no criticism of art under Julius II., and I never heard of any _feuilleton_ on the subject of Daniel de Volterra, Sebastiano del Piombo, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Ghiberti della Porta, or Benvenuto Cellini; and yet I think that, for people who had no newspapers, who did not know the word _art_ or the word _artistic_, they had a fair share of talent and acquitted themselves reasonably well at their trade. The reading of newspapers hinders the growth of genuine scholars and genuine artists; it is like daily dissipation that brings you, enervated and weak, to the bed of the Muses, those harsh, exacting damsels who will have none but fresh and lusty lovers. The newspaper kills the book, as the book has killed architecture, as artillery has killed physical courage and muscular strength. No one realizes the pleasures that the newspapers deprive us of. They strip everything of its virginity; they prevent us from having anything of our own, even from owning a book all by ourselves; they deprive us of the pleasure of being surprised at the theatre by telling us beforehand how every play ends; they deprive us of the pleasure of spreading idle gossip and tittle-tattle and slander, of inventing false news or peddling genuine news for a whole week through every salon in society. They drone ready-made opinions to us, do what we will, and warn us against things we might like; by their means, dealers in phosphorous matches, although they have poor memories, discuss literature as impertinently as provincial academicians; by their means we hear, all day long, in place of artless opinions or individual nonsense, ill-digested fragments of newspapers, which resemble omelets half cooked on one side and burned on the other,--and we are pitilessly stuffed with news three or four hours old, which children at the breast already know; they deaden our taste, they make us like those people who drink spiced brandy, and those who swallow lemons and grape-stalks, and lose the flavor of the most generous wines and cannot appreciate their delicate, perfumed bouquet. If Louis-Philippe should suppress all literary and political journals once for all, I should be infinitely grateful to him and I would dash off on the spot a fine, rambling dithyramb, in soaring verse with alternate rhymes; signed: "Your most humble and loyal subject," etc. Pray do not imagine that there would be no further interest in literature; in the days when there were no newspapers, a quatrain engrossed all Paris for a week, and a first performance for six months.

It is true that this step would result in the loss of advertisements and puffs at thirty sous a line, and notoriety would be less sudden and less overwhelming. But I have thought out a very ingenious way of replacing advertisements. If, between now and the day when this magnificent novel is placed on sale, my gracious sovereign shall have suppressed the newspapers, I shall most assuredly make use of it, and I anticipate wonders therefrom. When the great day arrives, twenty-four mounted criers, in the livery of Renduel, with his address on their backs and breasts, carrying banners in their hands with the title of the novel embroidered on both sides, each preceded by a drummer and kettle-drummer, will ride through the city, and, halting on all the squares and corners, will shout in a loud, distinct voice: "To-day, not yesterday or to-morrow, is placed on sale the admirable, the inimitable, the divine and more than divine novel by the most illustrious Théophile Gautier, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, which Europe, not to mention other parts of the world and Polynesia, has been awaiting so impatiently for a year and more. It is selling at the rate of five hundred a minute, and editions follow one another from half-hour to half-hour; the nineteenth is already on sale. A detachment of municipal guards is stationed at the door of the shop, holding back the crowd and preventing all confusion." Surely that would be worth as much as three lines in the _Débats_ or the _Courrier Français_, between advertisements of elastic belts, hoop-skirts, nursing-bottles with indestructible teats, Regnault paste, and remedies for fluor albus.

_May, 1834._

[Footnote 1: April fools--literally, April fishes.]

[Footnote 2: New Bridge.]

MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN

I

You complain, my dear friend, of the infrequency of my letters.--What would you have me write you except that I am well and that my affection for you never changes?--Those are facts that you know perfectly well, and that are so natural to my age and to the noble qualities that every one recognizes in you, that it is almost absurd to send a paltry sheet of paper a hundred leagues to say nothing more.--In vain do I cudgel my brains, I know of nothing that is worth the trouble of repeating; mine is the most monotonous life imaginable and nothing happens to break the monotony. To-day leads up to to-morrow as yesterday led up to to-day; and without claiming to be a prophet, I can boldly prophesy in the morning what will happen to me in the afternoon.

This is how I arrange my day:--I rise, that goes without saying, and that is the beginning of every day; I breakfast, I fence, I go out to walk, I come home, I dine, make a few calls or amuse myself reading: then I go to bed precisely as I did the day before; I go to sleep, and as my imagination is not excited by unfamiliar objects, it supplies me with none but threadbare, often repeated dreams, as monotonous as my actual life: all this is not very entertaining, as you see. However, I reconcile myself to this existence better than I should have done six months ago.--I am bored, to be sure, but in a tranquil, resigned fashion, which does not lack a certain agreeableness, which might well be compared to those gray, mild autumn days in which one finds a secret charm after the excessive heat of summer.

This sort of existence, although I have apparently accepted it, is hardly suited to me, however, or, at all events, it bears but little resemblance to the existence I dream of and consider myself well adapted for.--Perhaps I am mistaken and am in reality adapted for no other kind of life than this; but I can hardly believe it, for, if it were my real destiny, I should more readily have adapted myself to it and should not be so painfully bruised by its sharp corners in so many places.

You know what a powerful attraction strange adventures have for me, how I adore everything out of the common course, extravagant and dangerous, and with what avidity I devour novels and tales of travel; I doubt if there is on this earth a madder, more vagabond fancy than mine; and yet, by some curious fatality or other, I have never had an adventure, I have never made a journey. So far as I am concerned, the tour of the world means the tour of the town in which I live; I touch my horizon on every side; I am elbow to elbow with reality. My life is that of the shell on the sand-bank, of the ivy clinging to the tree, of the cricket on the hearth.--Verily, I am surprised that my feet have never taken root.

Cupid is represented with a bandage over his eyes; Destiny should be represented in the same condition.