If a woman has been reading this story, she will probably throw it
aside at this place, with the contemptuous remark that Eusebe is an
absurd rustic, destitute of interest, without heart, and all that,
because the poor youth did not break his glass at the breakfast at
Viroflay, and exclaim,--
“You are three cowards! You insult a woman, a charming creature,
who has done you no wrong, and whom I love. You have lied! You are
unworthy, all three of you, to kiss the toe of her boot. You shall
give me satisfaction!”
I ask pardon of the lady, but there would be no sense in the remark.
If Eusebe had used, with passionate vehemence, all these and other
fine phrases, he would simply have shown himself familiar with the
literature of the Boulevard (yellow-covered literature).
The language of truth and nature no longer exists. Society,
lamentable to say, has adopted the favorite style of the stage. I
know that the theatre professes to copy the world as it is; but
it has exaggerated every thing, under the specious pretext that
the simple truth will not amuse. Swelling words, violent gestures,
absurd mannerisms, empty phrases, and unnatural dialogue are
cherished upon the stage, and thence communicated to society. Life
has become but a transcript of a drama at the “Porte Saint-Martin”
or a poor copy of a comedy at the “Odéon.”
Under the pressure of a great sorrow, the true man is always, no
matter what his temperament, gloomy and bowed down. Speak not of
griefs that are expressed by gesticulations, or of sorrows which
are worked off in loud complaints. They are false and affected.
Our age, which has been called the age of photography, is so
oppressed with mimicry that everybody mourns in the same style for
the father, mother, or brother whom death has removed. Do not break
forth in indignant denial, but strive to recollect. Whoever has
seen one funeral has seen all. The sons weep in the same manner,
wipe away their tears _à la mode_, walk with the same step, and
lean in the same manner upon the same friend of the family. The
husbands have their peculiar mode of grief. The mothers alone weep
without busying themselves with what occurs on the way. Some sob a
little too violently; but this happens only when the lost child was
_not_ the favorite.
I do not wish to be understood as representing that society is so
positively bad,--only that it is governed by conventional comedy.
Nothing is done without an accompaniment of ready-made phrases.
When two men engage in a duel, they salute each other, as it is
done at the theatre. If a husband finds himself the victim of a
deception, he bears himself in the same style and uses the same
language he has seen and heard at the theatre. Do not take your
daughters to the theatre. They will never believe themselves truly
loved unless they are wooed in the style of the actor Lafontaine.
Eusebe had not learned to love, to suffer, and to avenge himself
according to the rules which society has borrowed from the theatre;
and this is why he did not break his glass and indulge in stormy
exclamations at the breakfast given at Viroflay.