Kindred Souls. 25

It is defined as a special discernment, a rapid judgment, the power of distinguishing certain relationships.

"In short, taste is taste; but all that does not tell the way to have it."

It is necessary to observe the proprieties. But the proprieties vary; and, let a work be ever so beautiful, it will not be always irreproachable. There is, however, a beauty which is indestructible, and of whose laws we are ignorant, for its genesis is mysterious.

Since an idea cannot be interpreted in every form, we ought to recognise limits amongst the arts, and in each of the arts many forms; but combinations arise in which the style of one will enter into another without the ill result of deviating from the end—of not being true.

The too rigid application of truth is hurtful to beauty, and preoccupation with beauty impedes truth. However, without an ideal there is no truth; this is why types are of a more continuous reality than portraits. Art, besides, only aims at verisimilitude; but verisimilitude depends on the observer, and is a relative and transitory thing.

So they got lost in discussions. Bouvard believed less and less in æsthetics.

"If it is not a humbug, its correctness will be demonstrated by examples. Now listen."

And he read a note which had called for much research on his part:

"'Bouhours accuses Tacitus of not having the simplicity which history demands. M. Droz, a professor, blames Shakespeare for his mixture of the serious and the comic. Nisard, another professor, thinks that André Chénier is, as a poet, beneath the seventeenth century. Blair, an Englishman, finds fault with the picture of the harpies in Virgil. Marmontel groans over the liberties taken by Homer. Lamotte does not admit the immortality of his heroes. Vida is indignant at his similes. In short, all the makers of rhetorics, poetics, and æsthetics, appear to me idiots."

"You are exaggerating," said Pécuchet.

He was disturbed by doubts; for, if (as Longinus observes) ordinary minds are incapable of faults, the faults must be associated with the masters, and we are bound to admire them. This is going too far. However, the masters are the masters. He would have liked to make the doctrines harmonise with the works, the critics with the poets, to grasp the essence of the Beautiful; and these questions exercised him so much that his bile was stirred up. He got a jaundice from it.

It was at its crisis when Marianne, Madame Bordin's cook, came with a request from her mistress for an interview with Bouvard.

The widow had not made her appearance since the dramatic performance. Was this an advance? But why should she employ Marianne as an intermediary? And all night Bouvard's imagination wandered.

Next day, about two o'clock, he was walking in the corridor, and glancing out through the window from time to time. The door-bell rang. It was the notary.

He crossed the threshold, ascended the staircase, and seated himself in the armchair, and, after a preliminary exchange of courtesies, said that, tired of waiting for Madame Bordin, he had started before her. She wished to buy the Ecalles from him.

Bouvard experienced a kind of chilling sensation, and he hurried towards Pécuchet's room.

Pécuchet did not know what reply to make. He was in an anxious frame of mind, as M. Vaucorbeil was to be there presently.

At length Madame Bordin arrived. The delay was explained by the manifest attention she had given to her toilette, which consisted of a cashmere frock, a hat, and fine kid gloves—a costume befitting a serious occasion.

After much frivolous preliminary talk she asked whether a thousand crown-pieces would not be sufficient.

"One acre! A thousand crown-pieces! Never!"

She half closed her eyes. "Oh! for me!"

And all three remained silent.

M. de Faverges entered. He had a morocco case under his arm, like a solicitor; and, depositing it on the table, said:

"These are pamphlets! They deal with reform—a burning question; but here is a thing which no doubt belongs to you."

And he handed Bouvard the second volume of the Mémoires du Diable.

Mélie, just now, had been reading it in the kitchen; and, as one ought to watch over the morals of persons of that class, he thought he was doing the right thing in confiscating the book.

Bouvard had lent it to his servant-maid. They chatted about novels. Madame Bordin liked them when they were not dismal.

"Writers," said M. de Faverges, "paint life in colours that are too flattering."

"It is necessary to paint," urged Bouvard.

"Then nothing can be done save to follow the example."

"It is not a question of example."

"At least, you will admit that they might fall into the hands of a young daughter. I have one."

"And a charming one!" said the notary, with the expression of countenance he wore on the days of marriage contracts.

"Well, for her sake, or rather for that of the persons that surround her, I prohibit them in my house, for the people, my dear sir——"

"What have the people done?" said Vaucorbeil, appearing suddenly at the door.

Pécuchet, who had recognised his voice, came to mingle with the company.

"I maintain," returned the count, "that it is necessary to prevent them from reading certain books."

Vaucorbeil observed: "Then you are not in favour of education?"

"Yes, certainly. Allow me——"

"When every day," said Marescot, "an attack is made on the government."

"Where's the harm?"

And the nobleman and the physician proceeded to disparage Louis Philippe, recalling the Pritchard case, and the September laws against the liberty of the press:

"And that of the stage," added Pécuchet.

Marescot could stand this no longer.

"It goes too far, this stage of yours!"

"That I grant you," said the count—"plays that glorify suicide."

"Suicide is a fine thing! Witness Cato," protested Pécuchet.

Without replying to the argument, M. de Faverges stigmatised those works in which the holiest things are scoffed at: the family, property, marriage.

"Well, and Molière?" said Bouvard.

Marescot, a man of literary taste, retorted that Molière would not pass muster any longer, and was, furthermore, a little overrated.

"Finally," said the count, "Victor Hugo has been pitiless—yes, pitiless—towards Marie Antoinette, by dragging over the hurdle the type of the Queen in the character of Mary Tudor."

"What!" exclaimed Bouvard, "I, an author, I have no right——"

"No, sir, you have no right to show us crime without putting beside it a corrective—without presenting to us a lesson."

Vaucorbeil thought also that art ought to have an object—to aim at the improvement of the masses. "Let us chant science, our discoveries, patriotism," and he broke into admiration of Casimir Delavigne.

Madame Bordin praised the Marquis de Foudras.

The notary replied: "But the language—are you thinking of that?"

"The language? How?"

"He refers to the style," said Pécuchet. "Do you consider his works well written?"

"No doubt, exceedingly interesting."

He shrugged his shoulders, and she blushed at the impertinence.

Madame Bordin had several times attempted to come back to her own business transaction. It was too late to conclude it. She went off on Marescot's arm.

The count distributed his pamphlets, requesting them to hand them round to other people.

Vaucorbeil was leaving, when Pécuchet stopped him.

"You are forgetting me, doctor."

His yellow physiognomy was pitiable, with his moustaches and his black hair, which was hanging down under a silk handkerchief badly fastened.

"Purge yourself," said the doctor. And, giving him two little slaps as if to a child: "Too much nerves, too much artist!"

"No, surely!"

They summed up what they had just heard. The morality of art is contained for every person in that which flatters that person's interests. No one has any love for literature.

After this they turned over the count's pamphlets.

They found in all of a demand for universal suffrage.

"It seems to me," said Pécuchet, "that we shall soon have some squabbling."

For he saw everything in dark colours, perhaps on account of his jaundice.