exhibition of the body of San Carlo Borromeo, and of the public
rage against the supposed poisoners. But the most vivid part of the
description begins when the author again takes up the thread of his
story and describes the return of Don Rodrigo from a carousal, where he
had excited great laughter by a funeral eulogium on his kinsman, Count
Attilio, who had been carried off by the disease two days before. There
is a powerful description of the coming on of the fatal malady, on his
return, and of the dreams that tormented him in his sleep.
“He went on from one thing to another, till he seemed to find
himself in a large church, in the first ranks, in the midst of
a great crowd of people; there he was, wondering how he had got
there, how the thought had ever entered his head, particularly
at such a time; and he felt in his heart excessively vexed.
He looked at the bystanders; they had all pale, emaciated
countenances, with staring and glistening eyes, and hanging lips;
their garments were tattered and falling to pieces; and through
the rents appeared livid spots, and swellings. ‘Make room, you
rabble!’ he fancied he cried, looking towards the door, which
was far, far away; and accompanying the cry with a threatening
expression of countenance, but without moving a limb; nay,
even drawing up his body to avoid coming in contact with those
polluted creatures, who crowded only too closely upon him on
every side. But not one of the senseless beings seemed to move,
nor even to have heard him; nay, they pressed still more upon
him; and, above all, it felt as if some one of them, with his
elbow, or whatever it might be, was pushing against his left
side, between the heart and arm-pit, where he felt a painful, and
as it were, heavy pressure. And if he writhed himself to get rid
of this uneasy feeling, immediately a fresh unknown something
began to prick him in the very same place. Enraged, he attempted
to lay his hand on his sword; and then it seemed as if the
thronging of the multitude had raised it up level with his chest,
and that it was the hilt of it which pressed so in that spot;
and the moment he touched it he felt a still sharper stitch. He
cried out, panted, and would have uttered a still louder cry,
when, behold! all these faces turned in one direction. He looked
the same way, perceived a pulpit, and saw slowly rising above
its edge something round, smooth, and shining; then rose, and
distinctly appeared, a bald head; then two eyes, a face, a long
and white beard, and the upright figure of a friar, visible above
the sides down to the girdle; it was Friar Cristoforo! Darting a
look around upon his audience, he seemed to Don Rodrigo to fix
his gaze on him, at the same time raising his hand in exactly
the attitude he had assumed in that room on the ground floor
in his palace. Don Rodrigo then himself lifted up his hands in
fury, and made an effort, as if to throw himself forward and
grasp that arm extended in the air; a voice, which had been
vainly and secretly struggling in his throat, burst forth in a
great howl; and he awoke. He dropped the arm he had in reality
uplifted, strove, with some difficulty, to recover the right
meaning of everything, and to open his eyes, for the light of
the already advanced day gave him no less uneasiness than that
of the candle had done; recognized his bed and his chamber;
understood that all had been a dream; the church, the people, the
friar, all had vanished--all, but one thing--that pain in his
left side. Together with this, he felt a frightful acceleration
of palpitation at the heart, a noise and humming in his ears, a
raging fire within, and a weight in all his limbs, worse than
when he lay down. He hesitated a little before looking at the
spot that pained him; at length, he uncovered it, and glanced at
it with a shudder;--there was a hideous spot, of a livid purple
hue.”
The unhappy man now finds that he has been betrayed by Griso, the
chief of his bravoes, who, under pretense of bringing the doctor, has
introduced into the room the horrible _monatti_, whose duty it is to
drag away the dead to their graves and the sick to the Lazaretto. They
plunder the stricken man of his treasures before his eyes, and then
carry him away.
In the meantime Renzo, who has had the plague in the Bergamascan
territory, finds it safe to return home, amid the general confusion,
and proceeds to Milan to find Lucia. The terrible scenes in the streets
are graphically described, but the realism is combined with a certain
delicacy on the part of the author which renders even its most dreadful
details not wholly repulsive. For instance, Renzo sees coming down the
steps of one of the doorways.
“A woman with the delicate, yet majestic beauty, which is
conspicuous in the Lombard blood. Her gait was weary, but not
tottering; no tears fell from her eyes, though they bore tokens
of having shed many; there was something peaceful and profound in
her sorrow, which indicated a mind fully conscious and sensitive
enough to feel it.... She carried in her arms a little child,
about nine years old, now a lifeless body; but laid out and
arranged, with her hair parted on her forehead, and in a white
and remarkably clean dress, as if those hands had decked her
out for a long promised feast, granted as a reward. Nor was she
lying there, but upheld and adjusted on one arm, with her breast
reclining against her mother’s, like a living creature; save that
a delicate little hand, as white as wax, hung from one side with
a kind of inanimate weight, and the head rested upon her mother’s
shoulder with an abandonment deeper than that of sleep: her
mother; for, even if their likeness to each other had not given
assurance of the fact, the countenance which still depicted any
feeling would have clearly revealed it.”
“A horrible looking _monatto_ approached the woman, and
attempted to take the burden from her arms, with a kind of
unusual respect, however, and with involuntary hesitation. But
she, slightly drawing back, yet with the air of one who shows
neither scorn nor displeasure, said, ‘No, don’t take her from
me yet; I must place her myself on this cart; here.’ So saying,
she opened her hand, displayed a purse which she held in it, and
dropped it into that which the _monatto_ extended towards her.
She then continued: ‘Promise me not to take a thread from around
her, nor let any one else attempt to do so, and to lay her in the
ground thus.’
“The _monatto_ laid his right hand on his heart; and then
zealously, and almost obsequiously, rather from the new feeling
by which he was, as it were, subdued, than on account of the
unlooked-for reward, hastened to make a little room on the car
for the infant dead. The lady, giving it a kiss on the forehead,
laid it on the spot prepared for it, as upon a bed, arranged it
there, covering it with a pure white linen cloth, and pronounced
the parting words: ‘Farewell, Cecilia! rest in peace! This
evening we, too, will join you, to rest together forever. In the
meanwhile, pray for us; for I will pray for you and the others.’
Then, turning again to the _monatto_, ‘You,’ said she, ‘when you
pass this way in the evening, may come to fetch me too, and not
me only.’
“So saying, she re-entered the house, and, after an instant,
appeared at the window, holding in her arms another more
dearly-loved one, still living, but with the marks of death on
its countenance. She remained to contemplate these so unworthy
obsequies of the first child, from the time the car started until
it was out of sight, and then disappeared. And what remained
for her to do, but to lay upon the bed the only one that was
left her, and to stretch herself beside it, that they might die
together, as the flower already full blown upon the stem falls
together with the bud still enfolded in its calyx, under the
scythe which levels alike all the herbage of the field.”
Renzo learns that Lucia has been taken to the Lazaretto, and he
proceeds thither. The scenes in that dreadful abode of suffering are
described in detail. Here he meets Father Cristoforo, who in tending
the sick is already falling a victim.
“His voice was feeble, hollow, and as changed as everything else
about him. His eye alone was what it always was, or had something
about it even more bright and resplendent; as if Charity,
elevated by the approaching end of her labors, and exulting in
the consciousness of being near her source, restored to it a more
ardent and purer fire than that which infirmity was every hour
extinguishing.”
Renzo learns that Don Rodrigo himself is lying unconscious in one
of the miserable hovels, and, filled at first with rage at the
recollection of the man who has caused him so much wretchedness, he is
at last brought, by the commanding reproofs of Father Cristoforo, into
such a forgiving spirit that he can pray for his enemy’s salvation.
Renzo seeks Lucia in vain amid the procession of the few persons who
were going forth cured from the Lazaretto, but he finds her at last,
convalescent in one of the little huts in the woman’s quarters. A
very characteristic conversation ensued between the lovers in regard
to the binding nature of her vow, which Renzo naturally disputes, and
calls Father Cristoforo to remonstrate and interpose. The good father
consolingly tells Lucia that she had no right to offer to the Lord
the will of another to whom she was already pledged; and by virtue
of the authority of the church he absolves her from her vow. It is
not long until the lovers, restored to their former happiness, leave
the Lazaretto; and the book concludes with the consummation of their
wishes--their marriage, and a happy wedded life.
A great deal of quiet satire pervades the story. Take, for instance,
the following, in the description of Lecco, at the very opening of the
book:
“At the time the events happened which we undertake to recount,
this town, already of considerable importance, was also a place
of defense, and for that reason had the honor of lodging a
commander, and the advantage of possessing a fixed garrison of
Spanish soldiers, who taught modesty to the damsels and matrons
of the country; bestowed from time to time marks of their favor
on the shoulders of a husband or a father; and never failed, in
autumn, to disperse themselves in the vineyards, to thin the
grapes, and lighten for the peasant the labors of the vintage.”
There is a great deal of homely philosophy intermixed with this satire.
For instance, the criticism of
“those prudent persons who shrink back with alarm from the
extreme of virtue as well as vice, are forever proclaiming that
perfection lies in the medium between the two, and fix that
medium exactly at the point which they have reached, and where
they find themselves very much at their ease.”
These delicate touches come in most appropriately, and, as it were,
spontaneously from the context. They are never lugged in head foremost,
for the evident purpose of saying a good thing.
The book abounds in apt similes; for instance, in the following
description of Perpetua’s vain efforts to keep a secret:
“But certain it is that such a secret in the poor woman’s breast
was like very new wine in an old and badly-hooped cask, which
ferments, and bubbles, and boils, and if it does not send the
bung into the air, works itself about till it issues in froth,
and penetrates between the staves, and oozes out in drops here
and there, so that one can taste it, and almost decide what kind
of wine it is.”
When the bravoes, led by Griso, in the guise of a pilgrim, attempt
to carry off Lucia from her home and are suddenly thrown into
consternation by the pealing of the bell, the author tells us:
“It required all the authority of Griso to keep them together,
so that it might be a retreat and not a flight. Just as a dog
urging a drove of pigs, runs here and there after those that
break the ranks, seizes one by the ears, and drags him into the
herd, propels another with his nose, barks at a third that leaves
the line at the same moment, so the pilgrim laid hold of one of
his troop just passing the threshold, and drew him back, detained
with his staff others who had almost reached it, called after
some who were flying they knew not whither, and finally succeeded
in assembling them all in the middle of the courtyard.”
The characters are extremely well described. Perhaps the two lovers
are the least striking of any in the book. Lucia is a simple peasant
girl; Renzo, a rash, impulsive, kindly boy, easily led, a very natural,
grown-up child such as Italy produces in greater luxuriance than colder
and severer latitudes. There are no passionate love scenes in the book.
The affection of the betrothed for each other seems rather an incident
than the principal theme of the story. Don Ferrante, the husband of
Donna Prassede, is a fine type of scholastic pedantry. The catalogue
of his ridiculous acquirements in the absurd philosophy and learning
of the time, with long lists of authors now unknown, reminds us of the
studies of Don Quixote; Don Ferrante, too, is skilled in the science of
chivalry, wherein he enjoyed the title of “Professor,” and “not only
argued on it in a real, masterly manner, but, frequently requested to
interfere in affairs of honor, always gave _some_ decision.”
The officiousness of Donna Prassede is well set forth in the following:
“It was well for Lucia that she was not the only one to whom
Donna Prassede had to do good.... Besides the rest of the
family, all of whom were persons more or less needing amendment
and guidance--besides all the other occasions which offered
themselves to her, or she contrived to find, of extending the
same kind offices, of her own free will, to many to whom she was
under no obligations; she had also five daughters, none of whom
were at home, but who gave her much more to think about than if
they had been. Three of these were nuns, two were married; hence
Donna Prassede naturally found herself with three monasteries,
and two houses to superintend; a vast and complicated
undertaking, and the more arduous, because two husbands, backed
by fathers, mothers, and brothers; three abbesses, supported
by other dignitaries, and by many nuns, would not accept her
superintendence. It was a complete warfare, _alias_ five
warfares, concealed, and even courteous, up to a certain point,
but ever active, ever vigilant. There was in every one of these
places a continued watchfulness to avoid her solicitude, to
close the door against her counsels, to elude her inquiries,
and to keep her in the dark, as far as possible, on every
undertaking. We do not mention the resistance, the difficulties
she encountered in the management of other still more extraneous
affairs; it is well known that one must generally do good to men
by force.”
The story, like some other of the greatest works of fiction--like Don
Quixote, Les Misérables, nay, like Henry Esmond itself, is somewhat too
prolix. The long historical citations, the extracts from the edicts
and proclamations of the time, look as if the author considered it
necessary to prove his story rather than to let it prove itself. That
Renzo and Lucia should leave Father Cristoforo to die alone is, to
my mind, the most serious blemish in the book; but in spite of these
shortcomings, “The Betrothed” is entitled to one of the first places in
the front rank of the masterpieces of fiction.
EUGENIE GRANDET
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
It is not quite fair to Balzac to judge him by any one of the stories
in his encyclopædic “Comedie Humaine.” The countless varieties of
life and character which he portrays show the author’s versatility
and power, and have perhaps a value from their very number which can
not be adequately treated when we consider only a single specimen of
his work. Many of his characters, it is true, are grotesques; some
are absolute deformities; others are hard to understand by any but a
Frenchman,--French human nature, as it seems to me, being a little
different from human nature elsewhere; but there is one great work of
his which, although it is not without its morbid side, must appeal to
the common consciousness of all mankind, and bring to every human heart
the conviction of its spiritual truth. “Eugenie Grandet” is a novel of
this universal kind of excellence.
The plot is a very simple one. M. Grandet is a miser who lives in an
old comfortless house in Saumur with his wife, his daughter Eugenie,
and big Nanon, the maid of all work. The Cruchots and the De Grassins
are intriguing for the hand of the heiress, and on Eugenie’s birthday,
when all these are assembled, a stranger unexpectedly appears, Charles
Grandet, her cousin, committed to the care of his uncle by his father
in Paris, who has become a bankrupt and has determined upon suicide.
Charles, however, knows nothing of this, and is overcome with pitiful
grief when he learns of his father’s death. Eugenie, a simple minded
girl, falls in love with him, but the old miser, anxious to get rid
of him, sends him to the Indies. Grandet’s tyranny over his wife and
child is graphically portrayed. The poor wife succumbs to it and
dies. It is not long till the miser follows her, and Eugenie is left
alone with a colossal fortune for which she cares nothing, and with a
lover from whom she has received no word. In the meantime Charles has
acquired a fortune of his own, and on his return writes to her that
he wishes to marry another. Her dream is over, the light of her life
is extinguished; she gives her hand without her heart to Cruchot, and
upon his death continues her hopeless life alone in the desolate home,
administering her estate with economy, but devoting its proceeds to
works of beneficence.
This is a story, the like of which has happened many a time in actual
life, but the cold skeleton of the tale as given above conveys not the
slightest idea of the warm flesh and blood with which it is invested.
The description of the old street and the dreary house and its
furniture is a literary jewel. The account of the way in which Grandet
accumulates his fortune, and of the neighborhood rumors regarding his
wealth, stirs our own acquisitiveness as we read it, and shows him to
be a very natural and almost inevitable sort of miser. He is moreover a
man of commanding ability, who extorts respect even though he inspires
abhorrence. The details of his habits, his economies, and his schemes,
as well as his personal appearance, are admirably given. Equally
lifelike are the descriptions of big Nanon, the devoted house-servant,
starved and overtasked, yet always grateful to the master who took
her when none others would; of the wife, submissive, sensitive,
magnanimous, and uncomplaining; and of Eugenie, a girl who has grown up
in perfect innocence of the world, pure, beautiful, and of a generous
and noble spirit. All these are the subjects of an odious domestic
tyranny on the part of “Goodman Grandet,” the particulars of which are
set forth with powerful fidelity.
Charles is a rather uninteresting young dandy, who comes arrayed for
conquest. It is not unnatural that an artless girl like Eugenie should
fall in love with him, and her devices to procure him such luxuries as
a cake, a wax candle, and sugar for his coffee, add to the charm of
their simple love-making. The sympathy of the two women in his sorrow
contrasts sharply with the sordid calculations of the miser, and the
scene where Eugenie learns his needs by furtively reading two of his
letters (for even her good qualities are decidedly of the French type)
and then brings him her little store of gold, and when he hesitates,
begs him on her knees to take it--this scene is very effective, as is
also her despairing cry, after he departs, “O mother, mother, if I had
God’s power for one moment!”
But the more tragic parts of this simple drama are near its close,--the
stormy scene when Grandet learns that Eugenie has given Charles her
money, her imprisonment in a room of the old house, her mother’s
illness and patient death, and, ghastliest of all, the last hours of
the miser:
“So long as he could open his eyes, where the last sparks of
life seemed to linger, they used to turn at once to the door of
the room where all his treasures lay, and he would say to his
daughter, in tones that seemed to thrill with a panic of fear:
“‘Are they there still?’
“‘Yes, father.’
“‘Keep watch over the gold!... Let me see the gold.’
“Then Eugenie used to spread out the louis on a table before him,
and he would sit for whole hours with his eyes fixed on the louis
in an unseeing stare, like that of a child who begins to see for
the first time; and sometimes a weak infantine smile, painful to
see, would steal across his features.
“‘That warms me!’ he muttered more than once, and his face
expressed a perfect content.
“When the curé came to administer the sacrament, all the life
seemed to have died out of the miser’s eyes, but they lit up
for the first time for many hours at the sight of the silver
crucifix, the candlesticks, and holy water vessel, all of silver;
he fixed his gaze on the precious metal, and the wen on his face
twitched for the last time.
“As the priest held the gilded crucifix above him that the image
of Christ might be laid to his lips, he made a frightful effort
to clutch it--a last effort which cost him his life. He called
Eugenie, who saw nothing; she was kneeling beside him, bathing
in tears the hand that was growing cold already. ‘Give me your
blessing, father,’ she entreated. ‘Be very careful!’ the last
words came from him; ‘one day you will render an account to me
of everything here below.’ Which utterance clearly shows that a
miser should adopt Christianity as his religion.”
Then follows the long waiting of Eugenie; the dastardly letter sent by
Charles after his return; the noble dignity with which she releases him
and pays his father’s creditors to preserve the honor of one who is
quite careless of it himself, and then resigns herself to her hopeless
destiny.
“Eugenie Grandet” is a consummate work of art.
DEAD SOULS
NIKOLAI GOGOL
“Dead Souls,” the masterpiece of Gogol, is not very widely known among
English readers, but it is entitled to a high rank in literature.
Perhaps the fact that it is a torso has been one cause of this neglect,
for before the second volume was finished the author was overtaken
by that madness which clouded his last days. But the first volume is
practically complete in itself. It records the efforts of the smug,
shrewd, rascally Tchitschikoff to procure from various landowners
certain paper transfers of the serfs who had died on their estates
since the last enumeration in order to effect a fraudulent loan
by means of a list corresponding with the official register. The
description of the stranger, of his sudden arrival in a provincial
city, of the various estates he visits and the remarkable people he
encounters, and then, while his enterprise is prospering, of the sudden
spreading of the scandal through the town and his forced flight to
other regions--these things are told with a power of portraiture which
is amazing. The characters he describes are sometimes grotesque, but
they are faithful to the essentials of human nature; even the wild
Nozdreff and the massive Sobakevitch are very real. Gogol has been
called the Dickens of Russian literature, and his portraits, while
fewer in number and variety, are less like puppets than many of those
drawn by the English novelist. His description of Pliushkin the miser
is quite as striking as that of L’Avare of Molière or Père Grandet of
Balzac, while his account of the way the gossip regarding Tchitschikoff
started and circulated is as fine as anything in “The School for
Scandal.” He calls his book a “poem,” and although it is quite devoid
of versification or lofty diction, yet if the word “poem” means a “work
of original creative art,” “Dead Souls” will fully justify the name.
It has the same sort of masterly quality as “Don Quixote,” and
transports us as completely to the scenes which it describes.
His patriotic apostrophe to Russia in the final chapter, and his
description of the swift flight of the hero in his troika, are
picturesque and eloquent to the last degree.
THE THREE GUARDSMEN
ALEXANDRE DUMAS