CHAPTER VI

THE NOVEL OF STYLE--GAUTIER, MÉRIMÉE, GÉRARD DE NERVAL, MUSSET, VIGNY

In arranging this volume I have thought it worth while to include, in a

single chapter and _nominatim_ in the title thereof, five writers of

prose novels or tales; all belonging to "1830"; four of them at least

ranking with all but the greatest of that great period; but no one

exclusively or even essentially a novelist as Balzac and George Sand

were in their different ways, and none of them attempting such imposing

bulk-and-plan of novel-matter as that which makes up the prose fiction

of Hugo. Gautier was an admirable, and Musset and Vigny at their best

were each a consummate, poet; while the first-named was a "polygraph" of

the polygraphs, in every kind of _belles-lettres_. Mérimée's novels or

tales form a small part of his whole work. "Gérard" is perhaps only

admissible here by courtesy, though more than one or two readers, I

hope, would feel his absence as a dark gap in the book. Musset, again,

not ill at short stories, is far better at short plays. _One_ novel of

Vigny's has indeed enjoyed great fame; but, as will be seen, I am

unluckily unable to admire it very much, and I include him here--partly

because I do not wish to herd so clear a name with the Sues and the

Souliés, even with the Sandeaus and Bernards--partly because, though his

style in prose is not so marked as that in verse, some of his minor work

in fiction is extremely interesting. But though so much of their work,

and in Musset's and Vigny's cases all their best work, lies outside our

province, and though they themselves, with the possible exception of

Gérard and Gautier, who have strong affinities, are markedly different

from one another, there is one point which they all have in common, and

this point supplies the general title of this chapter. Style of the more

separable and elaborate kind does not often make its appearance very

early in literary departments; and there may be (_v. inf._) some special

reasons why it should not do so in prose fiction. With the exception of

Marivaux, who had carried his attention to it over the boundary-line of

mannerism, few earlier novelists, though some of them were great

writers, had made a point of it, the chief exceptions being in the

particular line of "wit," such as Hamilton, Crébillon _fils_, and

Voltaire. Chateaubriand had been almost the first to attempt a

novel-_rhetoric_; and it must be remembered that Chateaubriand was a

sort of human _magnus Apollo_ throughout the July monarchy. At any rate,

it is a conspicuous feature in all these writers, and may serve as a

link between them.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Gautier--his burden of "style."]

Some readers may know (for I, and the others, which I shall probably

quote again, have quoted it before now) a remark of Émile de Girardin

when Théophile Gautier asked him how people liked a story which "Théo"

had prevailed on that experienced editor to insert as a _feuilleton_ in

the _Presse_: "Mon ami, l'abonné ne s'amuse pas _franchement_. Il est

gêné par le style." Girardin, though not exactly a genius, was an

exceedingly clever man, and knew the foot of his public--perhaps of

"_the_ public"--to a hundredth of an inch. But he could hardly have

anticipated the extent to which his criticism would reflect the attitude

of persons who would have been, and would be, not a little offended at

being classed with _l'abonné_. The reproach of "over-styling" has been

cast at Gautier by critics of the most different types, and--more

curiously at first sight than after a moment's reflection--by some who

are themselves style-mad, but whose favourite vanities in that matter

are different from his. I can hardly think of any writer--Herrick as

treated by Hazlitt is the chief exception that occurs to me at the

moment--against whom this cheap and obvious, though, alas! not very

frequently possible, charge of "bright far-shining emptiness," of

glittering frigidity, of colour without flesh and blood, of art without

matter, etc., etc., has been cast so violently--or so unjustly. In

literature, as in law and war, the favourite method of offensive defence

is to reserve your _triarii_, your "colophon" of arms or arguement, to

the last; but there are cases in all three where it is best to carry an

important point at once and hold it. I think that this is one of these

cases; and I do not think that the operation can be conducted with

better chance of success than by inserting here that outline,[198] with

specimens, of _La Morte Amoureuse_ which has been already promised--or

threatened--in the Preface. For here the glamour--if it be only

glamour--of the style will have disappeared; the matter will remain.

[Sidenote: Abstract (with translations) of _La Morte

Amoureuse_.]

You ask me, my brother, if I have ever loved. I answer

"Yes." But it is a wild and terrible story, a memory whose

ashes, with all my sixty-six years, I hardly dare to

disturb. To you I can refuse nothing, but I would not tell

the tale to a less experienced soul. The facts are so

strange that I myself cannot believe in their actual

occurrence. For three years I was the victim of a diabolical

delusion, and every night--God grant it was a dream--I, a

poor country priest, led the life of the lost, the life of

the worldling and the debauchee. A single chance of too

great complacency went near to destroy my soul; but at last,

with God's aid and my patron saint's, I exorcised the evil

spirit which had gained possession of me. Till then my life

was double, and the counterpart by night was utterly

different from the life by day. By day I was a priest of the

Lord, pure, and busied with holy things. By night, no sooner

had I closed my eyes than I became a youthful gallant,

critical in women, dogs, and horses, prompt with dice and

bottle, free of hand and tongue; and when waking-time came

at dawn of day, it seemed to me as if I then fell asleep and

was a priest only in dreams. From this sleep-life I have

kept the memory of words and things, which recur to me

against my will; and though I have never quitted the walls

of my parsonage, those who hear me talk would rather think

me a man of the world and of many experiences, who has

entered the religious life hoping to finish in God's bosom

the evening of his stormy day, than a humble seminarist,

whose life has been spent in an obscure parish, buried deep

in woods, and far removed from the course of the world.

Yes, I have loved--as no one else has loved, with a mad and

wild passion so violent that I can hardly understand how it

failed to break my heart.

After rapidly sketching the history of the early seminary days of the

priest Romuald, his complete seclusion and ignorance almost of the very

names of world and woman, the tale goes on to the day of his ordination.

He is in the church, almost in a trance of religious fervour; the

building itself, the gorgeously robed bishop, the stately ceremonies,

seem to him a foretaste of heaven, when suddenly--

By chance I raised my head, which I had hitherto kept bowed,

and saw before me, within arm's length as it seemed, but in

reality at some distance and beyond the chancel rails, a

woman of rare beauty and royally apparelled. At once, as it

were, scales dropped from my eyes. I was in the case of a

blind man whose sight is suddenly restored. The bishop, but

now so dazzling to me, became dim, the tapers in their

golden stands paled like the stars at morning, and darkness

seemed to pervade the church. On this background of shade

the lovely vision stood out like an angelic appearance,

self-illumined, and giving rather than receiving light. I

dropped my eyelids, firmly resolving not again to raise

them, that so I might escape the distraction of outward

things, for I felt the spell more and more, and I hardly

knew what I did; but a minute afterwards I again looked up,

for I perceived her beauty still shining across my dropped

lashes as if with prismatic glory, and encircled by the

crimson halo that, to the gazer, surrounds the sun. How

beautiful she was! Painters, when in their chase of the

ideal they have followed it to the skies and carried off

therefrom the divine image of Our Lady, never drew near this

fabulous reality. Nor are the poet's words more adequate

than the colours of the limner. She was tall and

goddess-like in shape and port. Her soft fair hair rolled on

either side of her temples in golden streams that crowned

her as with a queen's diadem. Her forehead, white and

transparent, tinged only by blue vein-stains, stretched in

calm amplitude over two dark eyebrows--a contrast enhanced

still further by the sea-green lustre of her glittering and

unfathomable eyes. Ah, what eyes! One flash of them was

enough to settle the fate of a man. Never had I seen in

human eyes such life, such clearness, such ardour, such

humid brilliancy; and there shot from them glances like

arrows, which went straight to my heart. Whether the flame

which lit them came from hell or heaven I know not, but from

one or the other it came, most surely. No daughter of Eve

she, but an angel or a fiend, perhaps--who knows?--something

of both. The quarrelets of pearl flashed through her scarlet

smile, and as her mouth moved the dimples sank and filled by

turns in the blush-rose softness of her exquisite cheek.

Over the even smoothness of her half-uncovered shoulders

played a floating gloss as of agate, and a river of large

pearls, not greatly different in hue from her neck,

descended towards her breast. Now and then she raised her

head with a peacock-like gesture, and sent a quiver through

the ruff which enshrined her like a frame of silver

filigree.

The strange vision causes on Romuald strange yet natural effects. His

ardent aspiration for the priesthood changes to loathing. He even tries

to renounce his vows, to answer "No" to the questions to which he should

answer "Yes," and thus to comply with the apparent demand of the

stranger's eyes. But he cannot. The awe of the ceremony is yet too

strong on his soul, if not on his senses and imagination; and the fatal

words are spoken, the fatal rites gone through, despite the promises of

untold bliss which the eyes, evermore caressing and entreating, though

sadder, as the completion of the sacrifice approaches, continue to make

him.

At last it was over--I was a priest. Never did face of woman

wear an expression of such anguish as hers. The girl whose

lover drops lifeless at her side, the mother by her dead

child's cradle, Eve at the gate of paradise, the miser who

finds his buried treasure replaced by a stone, the poet

whose greatest work has perished in the flames, have not a

more desolate air. The blood left her countenance, and it

became as of marble; her arms fell by her side, as if their

muscles had become flaccid; and she leant against a pillar,

for her limbs refused to support her. As for me, with a

livid face bathed as if in the dews of death, I bent my

tottering steps towards the church door. The air seemed to

stifle me, the vaulted roof settled on my shoulders, and on

my head seemed to rest the whole crushing weight of the

dome. As I was on the point of crossing the threshold a hand

touched mine suddenly--a woman's hand--a touch how new to

me! It was as cold as the skin of a serpent, yet the contact

burnt like the brand of a hot iron. "Unhappy wretch! What

have you done?" she said to me in a low voice, and then

disappeared in the crowd.

On the way to the seminary, whither a comrade has to support him, for

his emotion is evident to all, a page, unnoticed, slips into Romuald's

hand a tablet with the simple words, "Clarimonde. At the Concini

Palace." He passes some days in a state almost of delirium, now forming

wild plans of escape, now shocked at his sinful desires, but always

regretting the world he has renounced, and still more Clarimonde.

I do not know how long I remained in this condition, but, as

in one of my furious writhings I turned on my bed, I saw the

Father Serapion standing in the middle of the cell gazing

steadily at me. Shame seized me, and I hid my face with my

hands. "Romuald," said he, at the end of a few minutes,

"something extraordinary has come on you. Your conduct is

inexplicable. You, so pious, so gentle, you pace your cell

like a caged beast. Take heed, my brother, of the

suggestions of the Evil One, for he is wroth that you have

given yourself to the Lord, and lurks round you like a

ravening wolf, if haply a last effort may make you his."

Then, bidding him redouble his pious exercises, and telling him that he

has been presented by the bishop to a country cure, and must be ready to

start on the morrow, Serapion leaves him. Romuald is in despair at

quitting the neighbourhood of Clarimonde. But his seminarist

inexperience makes him feel, more than ever, the impossibility even of

discovering her, and the hints of Serapion have in a manner reawakened

his conscience. He departs on the morrow without protest. They quit the

city, and begin to climb the hills which surround it.

At the top I turned round once more to give a last look to

the place where dwelt Clarimonde. The city lay wholly in the

shadow of a cloud; its blue and red roofs were blended in

one general half-tint, above which here and there white

flakes of the smoke of morning fires hovered. By some

optical accident a single edifice stood out gilded by a ray

of light, and more lofty than the mass of surrounding

buildings. Though more than a league off, it seemed close to

us. The smallest details were visible--the turrets, the

terraces, the windows, and even the swallow-tailed vanes.

"What is that sunlit palace yonder?" I asked of Serapion. He

shaded his eyes with his hand, and after looking he

answered, "It is the palace which Prince Concini gave to the

courtesan Clarimonde. Terrible things are done there." As he

spoke, whether it were fact or fancy I know not, it seemed

to me that I saw a slender white form glide out on the

terrace, glitter there for a second, and then disappear. It

was Clarimonde! Could she have known that at that moment,

from the rugged heights of the hill which separated me from

her, and which I was never more to descend, I was bending a

restless and burning gaze on the palace of her abode,

brought near me by a mocking play of light, as if to invite

me to enter? Ah yes! she knew it doubtless, for her soul was

bound to mine too nearly not to feel its least movements;

and this it must have been which urged her to climb the

terrace in the cold morning dews, wrapped only in her snowy

nightgear.

But the die is cast, and the journey continues. They reach the modest

parsonage where Romuald is to pass the rest of his days, and he is

installed in his cure, Serapion returning to the city. Romuald attacks

his work desperately, hoping to find peace there, but he very partially

succeeds. The words of Clarimonde and the touch of her hand haunt him

constantly, and sometimes even stranger things happen. He sees the flash

of the sea-green eyes across his garden hedges; he seems to find the

imprint of feet, which are assuredly not those of any inhabitant of the

village, on the gravel walks. At last one night he is summoned late to

the bedside of a dying person, by a messenger of gorgeous dress and

outlandish aspect. The journey is made in the darkness on fiery steeds,

through strange scenery, and in an unknown direction. A splendid palace

is at length reached--too late, for the priest is met by the news that

his penitent has already expired. But he is entreated, and consents, at

least to watch and pray by the body during the night. He is led into the

chamber of death, and finds that the corpse is Clarimonde. At first he

mechanically turns to prayer, but other thoughts inevitably occur. His

eyes wander to the appearance and furniture of the boudoir suddenly put

to so different use: the gorgeous hangings of crimson damask contrasting

with the white shroud, the faded rose by the bedside, the scattered

signs of revelry, distract and disturb him. Strange fancies come thick.

The air seems other than that to which he is accustomed in such chambers

of the dead. The corpse appears from time to time to make slight

movements; even sighs seem to echo his own. At last he lifts the veil

which covers her, and contemplates the exquisite features he had last

seen at the fatal moment of his sacrifice. He cannot believe that she is

dead. The faint blush-rose tints are hardly dulled, the hand is not

colder than he recollects it.

The night was now far spent. I felt that the moment of

eternal separation was at hand, and I could not refuse

myself the last sad pleasure of giving one kiss to the dead

lips of her, who, living, had had all my love. Oh, wonder! A

faint breath mingled with mine, the eyes opened and became

once more brilliant. She sighed, and uncrossing her arms she

clasped them round my neck with an air of ineffable

contentment. "Ah!" she said, with a voice as faint and as

sweet as the last dying vibrations of a harp, "is it you,

Romuald? I have waited for you so long that now I am dead.

But we are betrothed to one another from this moment, and I

can see you and visit you henceforward. Romuald, I loved

you! Farewell; this is all I have to say; and thus I restore

the life you gave me for a minute with your kiss. We shall

soon meet again." Her head fell back, but she still held me

encircled. A furious gust of wind forced in the window and

swept into the room: the last leaflet of the white rose

quivered for a minute on its stalk and then fell, and

floated through the open casement, bearing with it the soul

of Clarimonde. The lamp went out, and I sank in a swoon.

He wakes in his own room, and hears from his ancient _gouvernante_ that

the same strange escort which carried him off has brought him back.

Soon afterwards his friend Serapion comes to visit him, not altogether

to his delight, for he, rightly suspects the father of some knowledge of

his secret. Serapion announces to him, as a matter of general news, that

the courtesan Clarimonde is dead, and mentions that strange rumours have

been current respecting her--some declaring her to be a species of

vampire, and her lovers to have all perished mysteriously. As he says

this he watches Romuald, who cannot altogether conceal his thoughts.

Thereat Serapion--

"My son," said he, "it is my duty to warn you that your feet

are on the brink of an abyss; take heed of falling. Satan's

hands reach far, and the grave is not always a faithful

gaoler. Clarimonde's tombstone should be sealed with a

triple seal, for it is not, say they, the first time she has

died. May God watch over you." Saying this, Serapion slowly

went out, and I saw him no more. I soon recovered

completely, and returned to my usual occupations; and though

I never forgot the memory of Clarimonde and the words of the

father, nothing extraordinary for a time occurred to confirm

in any way his ill-omened forebodings, so that I began to

believe that his apprehensions and my own terror were

unfounded. But one night I had a dream. Scarcely had I

fallen asleep when I heard my bed-curtains drawn, the rings

grating sharply on the rods. I raised myself abruptly on my

elbow and saw before me the shadowy figure of a woman. At

once I recognised Clarimonde. She carried in her hand a

small lamp of the shape of those which are placed in tombs,

and the light of it gave to her tapering fingers a rosy

transparency which, with gradually fainter tints, prolonged

itself till it was lost in the milky whiteness of her naked

arm. The only garment she had on was the linen shroud which

covered her on her death-bed, and she tried to hold up its

folds on her breast as if shame-stricken at her scanty

clothing. But her little hand was not equal to the task; and

so white was she that the lamplight failed to make

distinction between the colour of the drapery and the hue of

the flesh. Wrapped in this fine tissue, she was more like an

antique marble statue of a bather than a live woman. Dead or

alive, woman or statue, shadow or body, her beauty was

unchangeable, but the green flash of her eyes was somewhat

dulled, and her mouth, so red of old, was now tinted only

with a faint rose-tint like that of her cheeks. The blue

flowerets in her hair were withered and had lost almost all

their petals; yet she was still all charming--so charming

that, despite the strangeness of the adventure and the

unexplained fashion of her entrance, no thought of fear

occurred to me. She placed the lamp on the table and seated

herself on the foot of my bed; then, bending towards me, she

spoke in the soft and silvery voice that I have heard from

none but her. "I have kept you waiting long, dear Romuald,

and you must have thought that I had forgotten you. But I

come from very far--from a place whence no traveller has yet

returned. There is neither sun nor moon, nor aught but space

and shadow; no road is there, nor pathway to guide the foot,

nor air to uphold the wing; and yet here am I, for love is

stronger than death, and is his master at the last. Ah! what

sad faces, what sights of terror, I have met! With what

pains has my soul, regaining this world by force of will,

found again my body and reinstalled itself! With what effort

have I lifted the heavy slab they laid upon me, even to the

bruising of my poor feeble hands! Kiss them, dear love, and

they will be cured." She placed one by one the cold palms of

her little hands against my mouth, and I kissed them again

and again, while she watched me with her smile of ineffable

content. I at once forgot Serapion's advice, I forgot my

sacred office; I succumbed without resistance at the first

summons, I did not even attempt to repulse the tempter.

She tells him how she had dreamed of him long before she saw him; how

she had striven to prevent his sacrifice; how she was jealous of God,

whom he preferred to her; and how, though she had forced the gates of

the tomb to come to him, though he had given life back to her with a

kiss, though her recovery of it has no other end than to make him happy,

she herself is still miserable because she has only half his heart. In

his delirium he tells her, to console her, that he loves her "as much as

God."

"Instantly the glitter as of chrysoprase flashed once more from her

eyes. 'Is that true?--as much as God?' cried she, winding her arms round

me. 'If 'tis so you can come with me; you can follow me whither I

will.'" And fixing the next night for the rendezvous, she vanishes. He

wakes, and, considering it merely a dream, resumes his pious exercises.

But the next night Clarimonde, faithful to her word, reappears--no

longer in ghostly attire, but radiant and splendidly dressed. She brings

her lover the full costume of a cavalier, and when he has donned it

they sally forth, taking first the fiery steeds of his earlier nocturnal

adventure, then a carriage, in which he and Clarimonde, heart to heart,

head on shoulder, hand in hand, journey through the night.

Never had I been so happy. For the moment I had forgotten

everything, and thought no more of my priesthood than of

some previous state of life. From that night forward my

existence was as it were doubled, and there were in me two

men, strangers each to the other's existence. Sometimes I

thought myself a priest who dreamt that he was a gallant,

sometimes a gallant who dreamt that he was a priest.... I

could not distinguish the reality from the illusion, and

knew not which were my waking and which my sleeping moments.

Two spirals, entangled without touching, form the nearest

representation of this life. The young cavalier, the

coxcomb, the debauchee, mocked the priest; the priest held

the dissipations of the gallant in horror. Notwithstanding

the strangeness of the situation, I do not think my reason

was for a moment affected. The perceptions of my two

existences were always firm and clear, and there was only

one anomaly which I could not explain, and this was that the

same unbroken sentiment of identity subsisted in two beings

so different. Of this I could give myself no explanation,

whether I thought myself to be really the vicar of a poor

country village, or else Il Signor Romualdo, lover in

possession of Clarimonde.

The place, real or apparent, of Il Signor Romualdo's sojourn with his

beloved is Venice, where they inhabit a gorgeous palace, and where

Romuald enters into all the follies and dissipations of the place. He is

unalterably faithful to Clarimonde, and she to him; and the time passes

in a perpetual delirium. But every night--as it now seems to him--he

finds himself once more a poor country priest, horrified at the misdeeds

of his other personality, and seeking to atone for them by prayer and

fasting and good works. Even in his Venetian moments he sometimes thinks

of Serapion's words, and at length he has especial reason to remember

them.

For some time Clarimonde's health had not been very good;

her complexion faded from day to day. The doctors who were

called in could not discover the disease, and after useless

prescriptions gave up the case. Day by day she grew paler

and colder, till she was nearly as white and as corpse-like

as on the famous night at the mysterious castle. I was in

despair at this wasting away, but she, though touched by my

sorrow, only smiled at me sweetly and sadly with the fatal

smile of those who feel their death approaching. One morning

I was sitting by her. In slicing some fruit it happened that

I cut my finger somewhat deeply. The blood flowed in crimson

streamlets, and some of it spurted on Clarimonde. Her eyes

brightened at once, and over her face there passed a look of

fierce joy which I had never before seen in her. She sprang

from the bed with catlike activity and pounced on the wound,

which she began to suck with an air of indescribable

delight, swallowing the blood in sips, slowly and carefully,

as an epicure tastes a costly vintage. Her eyelids were half

closed, and the pupils of her sea-green eyes flattened and

became oblong instead of round.... From time to time she

interrupted herself to kiss my hand; then she began again to

squeeze the edges of the wound with her lips in order to

draw from it a few more crimson drops. When she saw that the

blood ran no longer, she rose with bright and humid eyes,

rosier than a May morning, her cheeks full, her hands warm,

yet no longer parched, fairer in short than ever, and in

perfect health. "I shall not die! I shall not die!" she

said, clasping my neck in a frenzy of joy. "I can live long

and love you. My life is in yours, my very existence comes

from you. A few drops of your generous blood, more precious

and sovereign than all the elixirs of the world, have given

me back to life."

This scene gave me matter for much reflection, and put into

my head some strange thoughts as to Clarimonde. That very

evening, when sleep had transported me to my parsonage, I

found there Father Serapion, graver and more careworn than

ever. He looked at me attentively and said, "Not content

with destroying your soul, are you bent also on destroying

your body? Unhappy youth, into what snares have you fallen!"

The tone in which he said this struck me much at the time;

but, lively as the impression was, other thoughts soon drove

it from my mind. However, one evening, with the aid of a

glass, on whose tell-tale position Clarimonde had not

counted, I saw her pouring a powder into the cup of spiced

wine which she was wont to prepare after supper. I took the

cup, and, putting it to my lips, I set it down, as if

intending to finish it at leisure. But in reality I availed

myself of a minute when her back was turned to empty it

away, and I soon after went to bed, determined to remain

awake and see what would happen. I had not long to wait.

Clarimonde entered as soon as she had convinced herself that

I slept. She uncovered my arm and drew from her hair a

little gold pin; then she murmured under her breath, "Only

one drop, one little crimson drop, one ruby just to tip the

bodkin! As you love me still I must not die. Ah, poor love!

I am going to drink his blood, his beautiful blood, so

bright and so purple. Sleep, my only treasure; sleep, my

darling, my deity; I will do you no harm; I will only take

so much of your life as I need to save my own. Did I not

love you so much I might resolve to have other lovers, whose

veins I could drain; but since I have known you I hate all

others. Ah, dear arm, how round it is, and how white! How

shall I ever dare to pierce the sweet blue veins!" And while

she spoke she wept, so that I felt her tears rain on the arm

she held. At last she summoned courage; she pricked me

slightly with the bodkin and began to suck out the blood.

But she drank only a few drops, as if she feared to exhaust

me, and then carefully bound up my arm after anointing it

with an unguent which closed the wound at once. I could now

doubt no longer: Serapion was right. Yet, in spite of this

certainty, I could not help loving Clarimonde, and I would

willingly have given her all the blood whereof she had need,

to sustain her artificial life. Besides, I had not much to

fear; the woman was my warrant against the vampire; and what

I had heard and seen completely reassured me. I had then

well-nourished veins, which were not to be soon drawn dry,

nor had I reason to grudge and count their drops. I would

have pierced my arm myself and bid her drink. I was careful

to make not the slightest allusion to the narcotic she had

given me, or to the scene that followed, and we lived in

unbroken harmony. But my priestly scruples tormented me more

than ever, and I knew not what new penance to invent to

blunt my passion and mortify my flesh. Though my visions

were wholly involuntary and my will had nothing to do with

them, I shrank from touching the host with hands thus

sullied and spirit defiled by debauchery, whether in act or

in dream. To avoid falling into these harassing

hallucinations, I tried to prevent myself sleeping; I held

my eyelids open, and remained in a standing posture,

striving with all my force against sleep. But soon the waves

of slumber drowned my eyes, and seeing that the struggle was

hopeless, I let my hands drop in weariness, and was once

more carried to the shores of delusion.... Serapion exhorted

me most fervently, and never ceased reproaching me with my

weakness and my lack of zeal. One day, when I had been more

agitated than usual, he said to me, "There is only one way

to relieve you from this haunting plague, and, though it be

extreme, we must try it. Great evils need heroic remedies. I

know where Clarimonde was buried; we must disinter her, and

you shall see the real state of your lady-love. You will

hardly be tempted to risk your soul for a vile body, the

prey of worms and ready to turn to dust. That, if anything,

will restore you to yourself." For my part, I was so weary

of this double life that I closed with his offer. I longed

to know once for all, which--priest or gallant--was the

dupe of a delusion, and I was resolved to sacrifice one of

my two lives for the good of the other--yea, if it were

necessary, to sacrifice both, for such an existence as I was

leading could not last.... Father Serapion procured a

mattock, a crowbar, and a lantern, and at midnight we set

out for the cemetery, whose plan and arrangements he knew

well. After directing the rays of the dark lantern on the

inscriptions of several graves, we came at last to a stone

half buried under tall grass, and covered with moss and

lichen, whereon we deciphered this epitaph, "Here lies

Clarimonde, who in her lifetime was the fairest in the

world." "'Tis here," said Serapion; and, placing his lantern

on the ground, he slipped the crowbar into the chinks of the

slab and essayed to lift it. The stone yielded, and he set

to work with the spade. As for me, stiller and more gloomy

than the night itself, I watched him at work, while he,

bending over his ill-omened task, sweated and panted, his

forced and heavy breath sounding like the gasps of the

dying. The sight was strange, and lookers-on would rather

have taken us for tomb-breakers and robbers of the dead than

for God's priests. The zeal of Serapion was of so harsh and

savage a cast, that it gave him a look more of the demon

than of the apostle or the angel, and his face, with its

severe features deeply marked by the glimmer of the lantern,

was hardly reassuring. A cold sweat gathered on my limbs and

my hair stood on end. In my heart I held Serapion's deed to

be an abominable sacrilege, and I could have wished that a

flash of lightning might issue from the womb of the heavy

clouds, which rolled low above our heads, and burn him to

ashes. The owls perched about the cypress trees, and,

disturbed by the lantern, came and flapped its panes heavily

with their dusty wings, the foxes barked in the distance,

and a thousand sinister echoes troubled the silence. At

length Serapion's spade struck the coffin with the terrible

hollow sound that nothingness returns to those who intrude

on it. He lifted the lid, and I saw Clarimonde, as pale as

marble, and with her hands joined; there was no fold in her

snow-white shroud from head to foot; at the corner of her

blanched lips there shone one little rosy drop. At the sight

Serapion broke into fury. "Ah! fiend, foul harlot, drinker

of gold and blood, we have found you!" said he, and he

scattered holy water over corpse and coffin, tracing the

sign of the cross with his brush. No sooner had the blessed

shower touched my Clarimonde than her fair body crumbled

into dust, and became nought but a hideous mixture of ashes

and half-burnt bones. "There, Signor Romuald," said the

inexorable priest, pointing to the remains, "there is your

mistress. Are you still tempted to escort her to the Lido or

to Fusina?" I bowed my head; a mighty ruin had taken place

within me. I returned to my parsonage, and Il Signor

Romualdo, the lover of Clarimonde, said farewell for ever to

the poor priest whose strange companion he had been so long.

Only the next night I again saw Clarimonde. She said to me,

as at first in the church porch, "Poor wretch, what have you

done? Why did you listen to that frantic priest? Were you

not happy? And what harm had I done you that you should

violate my grave, and shamefully expose the misery of my

nothingness? Henceforward all communication between us, soul

and body, is broken. Farewell, you will regret me." She

vanished in the air like a vapour, and I saw her no more.

Alas! she spoke too truly. I have regretted her again and

again. I regret her still. The repose of my soul has indeed

been dearly bought, and the love of God itself has not been

too much to replace the gap left by hers. This, my brother,

is the history of my youth. Never look at woman, and let

your eyes as you walk be fixed upon the ground; for, pure

and calm as you may be, a single moment is sufficient to

make you lose your eternal peace.

[Sidenote: Criticism thereof.]

Now, though to see a thing in translation be always to see it "as in a

glass darkly"; and though in this case the glass may be unduly flawed

and clouded, my own critical faculties must not only now be

unusually[199] enfeebled by age, but must always have been crippled by

some strange affection, if certain things are not visible here to any

intelligent and impartial reader. The story, of course, is not pure

invention; several versions of parts, if not the whole, of it will occur

to any one who has some knowledge of literature; and I have recently

read a variant of great beauty and "eeriness" from the Japanese.[200]

But the merit of a story depends, not on its originality as matter, but

on the manner in which it is told. It surely cannot be denied that this

is told excellently. That the part of Serapion (though somebody or

something of the kind is almost necessary) is open to some criticism,

may be granted. He seems to know too much and yet not enough: and if he

was to interfere at all, one does not see why he did not do it earlier.

But this is the merest hole-picking, and the biggest hole it can make

will not catch the foot or the little finger of any worthy reader. As to

the beauty of the phrasing, even in another language, and as rendered by

no consummate artist, there can be little question about that. Indeed

there we have consent about Gautier, though, as has been seen, the

consent has not always been thoroughly complimentary to him. To go a

step further, the way in which the diction and imagery are made to

provide frame and shade and colour for the narrative leaves very little

room for cavil. Without any undue or excessive "prose poetry," the

descriptions are like those of the best imaginative-pictorial verse

itself. The first appearance of Clarimonde; the scene at her death-bed

and that of her dream-resurrection, have, I dare affirm it, never been

surpassed in verse or prose for their special qualities: while the

backward view of the city and the recital of what we may call Serapion's

soul-murder of the enchantress come little behind them.

But, it may be said, "You are still kicking at open doors. The degree of

your estimate is, we think, extravagant, but that it is deserved to some

extent nobody denies. In mere point of expression, and even to some

extent, again, in conception of beauty, Gautier's manner, though too

much of one kind, and that too old-fashioned, is admitted; it is his

matter which is questioned or denied."

[Sidenote: A parallel from painting.]

Here also, I think, the counter-attack can be completely barred or

broken to the satisfaction of all but those who cannot or will not see.

In the first place one must make a distinction, which ought not to be

regarded as over-subtilising, but which certainly seems to be ignored by

many people. There are in all arts, and more especially in the art of

literature, two stages or sets of stages in the discharge of that duty

of every artist--the creation of beauty. The one is satisfied by the

achievement of the beautiful in the presentation itself; the other gives

you, in your own interior collection or museum, the thing presented.

This is not the common distinction between form and matter, between

style and substance, between subject and treatment; it is something more

intimate and "metaphysical." To illustrate it, let me take a pair of

instances, not from letters, but from painting as produced by two dead

masters of our own, Rossetti and Albert Moore. I used to think the

last-named painter disgracefully undervalued both by the public and by

critics. One could look at those primrose-tinted ladies of his, with

their gossamer films of raiment and their flowerage always suggestive of

the asphodel mead, for hours: and if one's soul had had a substantial

Palace of Art of her own, there would have been a corridor wholly Albert

Moorish--a corridor, for his things never looked well with other

people's and they could not, by themselves, have filled a hall.

But their beauty, as has been untruly said of Gautier's representation

in the other art, _was_ "their sole duty." You never wanted to kiss even

the most beautiful of them, or to talk to her, or even to sit at her

feet, except for purposes of looking at her, for which that position has

its own special advantages. And although by no means mere pastiches or

replicas of each other, they had little of the qualities which

constitute personality. They were almost literally "dreams that waved

before the half-shut eye," and dreams which you knew to be dreams at the

time; less even than dreams--shadows, and less even than shadows, for

shadows imply substance, and these did not. If you loved them you loved

them always, and could not be divorced from them. But it was an entirely

contemplative love; and if divorce was unthinkable it was because there

was no _thorus_ and no _mensa_ at which they could possibly have

figured.[201] They were the Eves of a Paradise of _two_ dimensions only.

Now with Rossetti it was entirely different. His drawing may have been

as faulty as people said it was, and he may have been as fond as they

also said of bestowing upon all his subjects exaggerated and almost

ungainly features, which possibly belonged to the Blessed Damozel, but

were not the most indisputable part of her blessedness. But they were,

despite their similarity of type, all personal and individual, and all

suggestive to the mind and the emotions of real women, and of the things

which real women are and do and suffer. And they were all differently

suggestive. Proserpine and Beata Beatrix; the devotional figures in

their quietude or their ecstasy, and the forlorn leaguer-lasses of that

little masterpiece of the novitiate, "Hesterna Rosa"; the Damozel

herself and a Corsican lady whose portrait, unpublished and unexhibited,

has been familiar to me for six-and-thirty years;--all these and all the

others would behave to you, and you would behave to them, if they could

be vivified, in ways different individually but real and live.

[Sidenote: The reality.]

Now it is beauty of reality as well as of presentation that I at least

find in _La Morte Amoureuse_. Clarimonde alive is very much more than a

"shadow on glass"; Clarimonde dead is more alive than many live women.

[Sidenote: And the passion of it.]

But the audacity of infatuation need not stop here. I should claim for

_La Morte Amoureuse_, and for Gautier as the author of it, more than

this. It appears to me to be one of the very few expressions in French

prose of really passionate love. It is, with _Manon Lescaut_ and

_Julie_, the most consummate utterance that I at least know, in that

division of literature, of the union of sensual with transcendental

enamourment. Why this is so rare in French is a question fitter for

treatment in a _History of the French Temperament_ than in one of the

French Novel. That it is so I believe to be a simple fact, and simple

facts require little talking about. No prose literature has so much

love-making in it as French, and none so much about different species of

love: _amour de tête_ and _amour des sens_ especially, but also not

unfrequently _amour de coeur_, and even _amour d'âme_. But of the

combination that _we_ call "passionate love"--that fills our own late

sixteenth, early seventeenth, and whole nineteenth century literature,

and that requires love of the heart and the head, the soul and the

senses, together--it has (outside poetry of course)[202] only the three

books just mentioned and a few passages such as Atala's dying speech,

Adolphe's, alas! too soon obliterated reflections on his first success

with Ellénore, perhaps one or two more before _La Morte Amoureuse_, and

even since its day not many. Maupassant (_v. inf._) _could_ manage the

combination, but too often confined himself to exhibitions of the

separate and imperfect divisions, whereof, no doubt, the number is

endless.

That Gautier always or often maintained himself at this pitch, either of

what we may call power of projecting live personages or of exhibition of

great passions, it would be idle and uncritical to contend; that he did

so here, and thereby put himself at once and for ever on the higher,

nay, highest level of literature, I do, after fifty years' study of the

thing and of endless other things, impenitently and impavidly affirm.

[Sidenote: Other short stories.]

What is more, in his shorter productions he was often not far below it,

save in respect of intensity. If I do not admire _Fortunio_ quite so

much as some people do, it is not so much because of its comparative

heartlessness--a thing rare in Gautier--as because for once, and I think

once only in pieces of its scale, the malt of the description _does_ get

above the meal of the personal interest, though that personal interest

exists. But _Jettatura_, with its combination of romantic and tragical

appeal; _Avatar_, with its extraordinary mixture of romance, again, with

humour, its "excitingness," and its delicacy of taste; the equally

extraordinary felicity of the dealings with that too often unmanageable

implement the "classical dictionary" in _Arria Marcella_, _Une Nuit de

Cléopâtre_, and perhaps especially _Le Roi Candaule_; the tiny

sketches--half-_nouvelle_ and half-"middle" article--of _Le Pied de la

Momie_, _La Pipe d'Opium_, and _Le Club des Haschischins_,--what

marvellous consummateness in the various specifications and conditions

do these afford us!

Sometimes, however, I have thought that just as _La Morte Amoureuse_ is

almost or quite sufficient text for vindicating the greatness or

greaterness of "Théo," so his earliest book of prose fiction, _Les

Jeune-France_, will serve the same purpose for another side of him,

lesser if anybody likes, but exceptionally "complementary." In

particular it possesses a quality which up to his time was very rare in

France, has not been extraordinarily common there even since, and is

still, even in its ancestral home with ourselves, sometimes

inconceivably blundered about--the quality of Humour.[203]

[Sidenote: Gautier's humour--_Les Jeune-France_.]

For wit, France can, of course, challenge the world; nay, she can do

more, she can say to the world, "I have taught you this; and you are no

match for your teacher." But in Humour the case is notoriously altered.

None of the Latin nations, except Spain, the least purely Latin of them,

has ever achieved it, as the original or unoriginal Latins themselves

never did, with the exception of the lighter forms of it in Catullus, of

the grimmer in Lucretius--those greatest and most un-Roman of Roman

poets.[204] In all the wide and splendid literature of French before the

nineteenth century only Rabelais and Molière[205] can lay claim to it.

Romanticism brings humour in its train, as Classicism brings wit; but it

is curious how slow was the Romanticisation of French in this respect,

with one exception. There is no real humour in Hugo, Vigny, George Sand,

Balzac, scarcely even in Musset. Dumas, though showing decidedly good

gifts of possibility in his novels, does not usually require it there;

the absence of it in his dramas need hardly be dwelt on. Mérimée, one

cannot but think, might have had it if he had chosen; but Mérimée did

not choose to have so many things! If Gérard de Nerval's failure of a

great genius had failed in the comic instead of the romantic-tragical

direction, he would have had some too--in fact he had it in the

embryonic and unachieved fashion in which the author of _Gaspard de la

Nuit_, and Baudelaire, and Paul Verlaine have had it since in verse and

prose. But Gautier has it plump and plain, and without any help from the

strange counterfeiting fantasy of verse which sometimes confers it. He

has it always; at all times of his life; in the hackwork which made

abortion of so much greater literature, and in his actually great

literature, poems, novels, travels--what not. But he never has it more

strongly, vividly, and originally than in _Les Jeune-France_, a

coming-of-age book almost as old as _mil-huit-cent-trente_, written in

part no doubt in the immortal _gilet rouge_ itself, if only as kept for

study wear like Diderot's old dressing-gown.

There are two dangers lying in wait for the reader of the book. One is

the ordinary and quite respectable putting-out-of-the-lip at its

juvenile improprieties; the other, a little more subtle, is the notion

that the things, improper or not (and some of them are quite _not_), are

mere _juvenilia_--clever undergraduate work. The first requires no

special counterblast; the old monition, "Don't like it for its

impropriety, but also don't let its impropriety hide its merits from you

if it has any," will suffice. The other is, as has been said, more

insidious. I can only say that I have read much undergraduate or but

slightly post-graduate literature of many generations--before the day of

_Les Jeune-France_, about its date, between that day and my own season

of passing through those "sweet hours and the fleetest of time," and

since that season till the present moment. But many equals of this book

I have not read.

It is of course necessary to remember that it is expressly subtitled

"Romans Goguenards," thereby preparing the reader for the reverse of

seriousness. That reverse, especially in young hands, is a difficult

thing to manage. "Guffaw" and "yawn" are two words which have actually

two letters in common; _y_ and _g_ are notoriously interchangeable in

some dialects and circumstances, while _n_ and _u_ are the despair of

the copyist or the student of copies. There remain only "ff"--the

lightest of literals. We need not cite _nominatim_ (indeed it might be

rash) the endless examples in French and English where the guffaw of the

writer excites the yawn of the reader. But this is hardly ever the case,

at least as I find it, with Gautier.

The _Preface_, in which the author presents himself in his unregenerate

and un-"young-France" condition, is really a triumph; I wish I could

give the whole of it here. And what is more, it is a sort of epitome by

anticipation of the entire Gautier, though without, of course, the

mastery of artistry he attained in years of laborious prose and verse.

For that quality of humour which his younger friend Taine was to define

happily, though by no means to his own comfort or approval, in the

phrase devoted to one of our English masters of it, "Il se moque de ses

émotions à l'instant même où il s'y livre," you must go to Fielding or

to Thackeray to beat it.

He (the supposed author) _was_ the most ordinary and insignificant

creature in the world. He had never either killed a policeman nor

committed suicide; he possessed neither pipe, nor dagger, _ni quoi que

ce soit qui ait du caractère_. He _did_ like cats (which taste

fortunately remained with Gautier himself throughout his life), and his

reflections on politics had arrived at a final result of zero (another

abiding feature, by the way, with "Théo"). He never could learn to play

at cards. He thought artists were merely mountebanks, etc., etc. But

some kind friends took him in hand and made him an accomplished

Jeune-France. He took to himself a very long _nom de guerre_, a very

short moustache, a middle parting to his hair (the history of the

middle parting would be worth writing), and a "delirious" waistcoat. He

learnt to smoke, and to get "Byronically" drunk. He bought an Italian

stiletto (by great luck he had a sallow complexion naturally); a silk

rope-ladder ("which is of the first importance"); several reams of paper

for love-letters, and a supply of rose-coloured and avanturine wax.[206]

He is going to be, if he is not as yet, "fatal," "vague,"

"fallen-angelical," "volcanic." There is only one desirable quality

which unkind fate has put beyond his reach. He is not, and cannot make

himself, an illegitimate child! Now, I am sorry for any one who, having

read this, cannot lean back in his chair and follow it up for himself by

a series of fancy pictures of Jeunes-something from 1830 to 1918.[207]

Of the actual stories "Daniel Jovard" takes up the cue of the _Preface_

directly, and describes the genesis of a _romantique à tous crins_.

"Onuphrius" honestly sub-titles itself "Les Vexations Fantastiques d'un

admirateur d'Hoffmann," and has, I think, sometimes been dismissed as a

Hoffmannesque _pastiche_. Far be it from me to hint the slightest

denigration of the author of the _Phantasiestücke_ and the

_Nachtstücke_, of the _Serapion's-Brüder_ and the _Kater Murr_--not the

least pleasing features on the right side of the half-glorious,

half-ghastly contrast between the Germany of a hundred years ago and the

Germany of to-day. But "Onuphrius" is Hoffmann Gautierised, German

"Franciolated," a _Walpurgisnacht_ softened by Morgane la Fée. "Elias

Wildmanstadius," one of the earliest, remains one of the most

agreeable, pictures of a fanatic of the mediaeval. The overture and the

finale, both pieces in which the great motto "Trinq!" is perhaps a very

little abused, nevertheless contain a considerable amount of wisdom, and

the last not a little wit.[208] But the central story _Celle-ci et

Celle-là_, which fills nearly half the book, is no doubt the article on

which one must--as far as this essay-piece is concerned--judge Gautier's

tale-telling gifts. It is "improper" in part; indeed, the thing, which

is largely dialogic, may be thought to have been a young romantic's

challenge to Crébillon. The points of the contest would require a very

careful judge to reckon them out. Although Gautier was no democrat, and

certainly no misogynist, his lady of quality, Madame de M., is terribly

below the Crébillonesque Marquises and Célies in every respect, except

the beauty, which we have to take on trust; while, if she is not quite

such a fiend as Laclos's heroine, she is also unlike her in being

stupid. The hero, Rodolphe, though by no means a cad and possessed of

much more heart than M. de Clerval or Clitandre, has neither their

manners nor their wit. But Mariette, the _servante-maîtresse_, though

much less moral, is much more attractive than Pamela; the whole of the

story is hit off with a pleasant mixture of humour, narrative faculty,

bright phrase,[209] and good nature, of which the first is simply absent

in Crébillon and the last rather dubiously present.

We may return very shortly to the later, longer, and, I suppose, more

accomplished stories before relinquishing Gautier.

[Sidenote: Return to _Fortunio_.]

I have known very good people who liked _Fortunio_; I care for it less

than for any other of its author's tales. The fabulously rich and

entirely heartless hero has not merely the extravagance but (which is

very rare with Gautier) the vulgarity of Byronism; the opening orgie,

by an oversight so strange that it may almost seem to be no oversight at

all, reminds one only too forcibly of the ironic treatment accorded to

that institution in _Les Jeune-France_, and suffers from the

reminder; the blending of East and West and the _Arabian Night_ harems

in Paris, "unbeknown" to everybody,[210] almost attain that

_plusquam_-Aristotelian state of reprobation, the impossible which is

also improbable; and the courtesan heroines--at least two of them,

Musidora and Arabelle--are even more faulty in this respect. No doubt

[Greek: pollai morphai tôn ouraniôn],

and the forms of the Pandemic as well as of the Uranian Aphrodite are

numerous likewise. But among them one finds no probability or

possibility of Gautier's Musidora of eighteen, who might be a young

duchess gone to the bad. Neither is the end of the girl, suicide, in

consequence of the disappearance of her lover, though quite possible and

even probable, at all suitable to Gautier's own fashion of thinking and

writing. Mérimée could have done it perfectly well. Of almost no others

of the delectable contents of the two volumes of _Nouvelles_ and of

_Romans et Contes_ has one to speak in this fashion, while some of them

come very nearly up to their companion _La Morte Amoureuse_ itself.

How Gautier managed to keep all this comparatively serious, if not quite

so, in treatment, is perhaps less difficult to make out than why he took

the trouble to do so. But it is the entire absences of irony on the one

side and on the other of the dream-quality--the pure imagination which

makes the impossibilities of _La Morte_ and of _Arria Marcella_, and

even of the trifle _Omphale_, so delightful--that deprives _Fortunio_ of

attraction in my eyes. Such faint glimmerings of it as there are are

confined to two very minor characters:--one of the courtesans, Cinthia,

a beautiful statuesque Roman, who has simplified the costume-problem by

wearing nothing--literally nothing--except one of two dresses, one black

velvet and the other white watered silk; and the "Count George" (we are

never told his surname), who gives the overture-orgie. One might, as the

lady said to Professor Wilson in regard to the _Noctes_, say to him, "I

really think you eat too many oysters, and drink too much [not indeed in

his case] whisky," and I can find no excuse for his deliberately

upsetting an enormous bowl of flaming arrack punch on a floor swept by

women's dresses. But he is quite human, and he makes the best speech and

scene in the book when he remonstrates with Musidora for secluding

herself because she cannot discover the elusive marquis-rajah

tiger-keeper,--and, I fear I must add, "tiger" himself,--from whom the

thing takes its title.[211]

[Sidenote: And others.]

It is, however, almost worth while to go through the freak-splendours

and transformation-scene excitements of _Fortunio_ to prepare the

palate[212] to enjoy _La Toison d'Or_ which follows. Here is once more

the true Gautieresque humour, good humour, marvellous word-painting, and

romance, agreeably--indeed charmingly--twisted together. There is no

fairy-story transposed into a modern and probable key which surpasses

this of the painter Tiburce; and the disorderly curios of his rooms; and

his sudden and heroic determination to fall desperately in love with a

blonde; and his setting off to Flanders to find one; and the

fruitlessness of his search and his bewitchment with the Magdalen in the

"Descent from the Cross" at Antwerp (ah! what has become of it?); and

his casual discovery and courtship of a girl like that celestial

convertite; and her sorrow when she finds that she is only a substitute;

and her victory by persuading her lover to paint her _as_ the Magdalen

and so work off the witchery.[213] Of course some one may shrug

shoulders and murmur, "Always the _berquinade_?" But I do not think _La

Morte Amoureuse_ was a _berquinade_.

[Sidenote: Longer books, _Le Capitaine Fracasse_ and others.]

Of Gautier's longer books it is not necessary to say much, because, with

perhaps one exception, they are admittedly not his forte.[214] Of the

longest, _Le Capitaine Fracasse_, I am myself very fond. Its opening and

first published division, _Le Château de la Misère_, is one of the

finest pieces of description in the whole range of the French novel; and

there are many interesting scenes, especially the great duel of the hero

Sigognac with the bravo Lampourde. But some make it a reproach, not, I

think, of very damaging validity, that so much of the book is little

more than a "study off" the _Roman Comique_;[215] and it is, though not

exactly a reproach, a great misfortune that in time, kind, and almost

everything else it enters into competition with Dumas, whose gifts as a

manager of such things were as much above Gautier's as his powers as a

writer were below Théo's. _Le Roman de la Momie_, though possessing the

abiding talisman of style, suffers in the first place from being mere

Egyptology novelised, and in the second from the same thing having been

done, on a scale much better suited to the author, in _Le Pied de la

Momie_. Nor are _Spirite_ and _Militona_ free from parallel charges:

while _La Belle Jenny_--that single and unfortunate appeal to the

_abonné_ noted above--really may fail to amuse those who are not "irked

by the style."

[Sidenote: _Mlle. de Maupin._]

There remains the most notorious and the most abused of all Gautier's

work, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_. Perhaps here also, as in the case of _La

Morte Amoureuse_, I cannot do better than simply reprint, with very

slight addition, what I said of the book nearly forty years ago. For the

case is a peculiar one, and I have made no change in my own estimate,

though I think the inclusion of the _Preface_--not because I agree with

it any less--more dubious than I did then. In this _Preface_ the

doctrine of "art for art's sake" and of its consequent independence of

any _licet_ or _non-licet_ from morality is put with great ability and

no little cogency, but in a fashion essentially juvenile, from its want

of measure and its evident wish to provoke as much as to prove.[216]

Without it the book would probably have excited far less odium and

opprobrium than it has actually done; it would, if separate, be an

excellent critical essay on the general subject; while in its actual

position it almost subjects the text to the curse of purpose, from which

nothing which claims to be art ought (according to the doctrine of both

preface and book) to be more free.

With the novel itself it is difficult to deal in the way of abstract and

occasional excerpt, not merely because of its breaches of the

proprieties, but on account of the plan on which it is written. A

mixture of letters and narrative,[217] dealing almost entirely with

emotions, and scarcely at all with incidents, it defies narrative

analysis such as that which was given to its elder sister in

naughtiness, _La Religieuse_. It would seem that Goethe, who in many

ways influenced Gautier, is responsible to some extent for its form, and

perhaps for the fact that _As You Like It_ plays an even more important

part in it than _Hamlet_ plays in _Wilhelm Meister_. No one who has read

it can fail thenceforward to associate a new charm with the image of

Rosalind, even though she be one of Shakespeare's most gracious

creations; and this I know is a bold word. But, in truth, it is in more

ways than one an unspeakable book. Those who like may point to a couple

of pages of loose description at the end, a dialogue in the style of a

polite _Jacques le Fataliste_ in the middle, a dozen phrases of a

hazardous character scattered here and there. Diderot himself--no

strait-laced judge, indeed _particeps ejusdem criminis_--remarked long

ago, and truly enough, that errors of this sort punish themselves by

restricting the circulation, and diminishing the chance of life of the

book, or other work, that contains them. But it is not these things that

the admirers of _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ admire. It is the wonderful and

final expression, repeated, but subtly shaded and differenced, in the

three characters of Albert, Rosette, and Madeleine herself, of the

aspiration which, as I have said, colours Gautier's whole work. If he,

as has been justly remarked, was the priest of beauty, _Mademoiselle de

Maupin_ is certainly one of the sacred books of the cult. The apostle to

whom it was revealed was young, and perhaps he has mingled words of clay

with words of gold. It would be difficult to find a Bowdler for this

Madeleine, and impossible to adapt her to the use of families. But those

who understand as they read, and can reject the evil and hold fast the

good, who desire sometimes to retire from the meditation of the weary

ways of ordinary life to the land of clear colours and stories, where

there is none of this weariness, who are not to be scared by the poet's

harmless puppets or tempted by his guileless baits--they at least will

take her as she is and be thankful.[218]

Still, as has been said, the book might have been made still better by

being cut down a little; not, indeed, to the dimensions of a very short

story, but to something like those of _Fortunio_ or of _Jettatura_. For

undoubtedly, while Gautier had an all but unsurpassed command of the

short story proper, a really long one was apt to develop some things in

him which, if they were not essentially faults, were not likely to

improve a full-sized novel. He would too much abound in description; the

want of _evolution_ of character--his character is not bad in itself,

but it is, to use modern slang, rather static than dynamic--naturally

shows itself more; and readers who want an elaborate plot look for it

longer and are more angry at not being fed. But for the short, shorter,

and shortest kind--the story which may run from ten to a hundred pages

with no meticulous limitations on either side--it seems to me that in

the French nineteenth century there are only three other persons who can

be in any way classed with him. One of these, his early contemporary,

Charles de Bernard, and another, who only became known after his death,

Guy de Maupassant, are to be treated in other chapters here. Moreover,

Bernard was slighter, though not so slight as he has sometimes been

thought; and Maupassant, though very far from slight, had a _lésion_ (as

his own school would say) which interfered with universality. The third

competitor, not yet named, who was Gautier's almost exact contemporary,

though he began a very little earlier and left off a little earlier too,

carried metal infinitely heavier than the pleasant author of _Le

Paratonnerre_, and though not free from partly disabling prejudices, had

more balance[219] than Maupassant. He had more head and less heart, more

prose logic and less poetical fancy, more actuality and less dream than

"Théo." But I at least can find no critical abacus on which, by totting

up the values of both, I can make one greatly outvalue the other. And to

the understanding I must have already spoken the name of Prosper

Mérimée.[220]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mérimée.]

All the world knows _Carmen_, though it may be feared that the knowledge

has been conveyed to more people by the mixed and inferior medium of

the stage and music than by the pure literature of the original tale.

Yet it may be generously granted that the lower introduction may have

induced some to go on, or back, to the higher. Of the unfaulty

faultlessness of that original there has never been any denial worth

listening to; the gainsayers having been persons who succumbed either to

non-literary prejudice[221] of one kind or another or to the peculiarly

childish habit of going against established opinion. For combined

interest of matter and perfection of form I should put it among the

dozen best short stories of the world so far as I am acquainted with

them. The appendix about the gipsies is indeed a superfluity,

induced, it would seem, partly by Mérimée's wish to have a gibe at

Borrow for being a missionary, and partly by a touch of

inspectorial-professorial[222] habit in him which is frequently apparent

and decidedly curious. But it is an appendix of the most appendicious,

and can be cut away without the slightest Manx-cat effect. From the

story itself not a word could be abstracted without loss nor one added

to it without danger. The way in which the narrator--it is impossible to

tell the number of the authors who have wrecked themselves over the

narrator when he has to take part in the action--and the guide are put

and kept in their places, as well as the whole part of José Navarro, are

_impayables_. If the Hispanolatry of French Romanticism had nothing but

Gastibelza and L'Andalouse in verse and José Navarro in prose to show,

it would stand justified and crowned among all the literary manias in

history.

[Sidenote: Carmen.]

About Carmen herself there has been more--and may justly be a little

more--question. Is her _diablúra_ slightly exaggerated? Or, to put the

complaint in a more accurately critical form, has Mérimée attended a

little too much to the task of throwing on the canvas a typical Rommany

_chi_ or _callee_, and a little too little to that of bodying forth a

probable and individual human girl? As an advocate I think I could take

a brief on either side of the question without scandalising the, on this

point, almost neurotic conscience of the late Mr. Anthony Trollope. But,

as a juryman, my verdict on either indictment would be "Not guilty, and

_please_ do it again."

But I had much rather decline both functions and all litigious

proceedings, and go from the courts of law to the cathedral of

literature and thank the Lord thereof for this wonderful triumph of

letters. And, in the same way, if any quarrelsome person says, "But only

a few pages back you were in parallel ecstasies about _La Morte

Amoureuse_," I decline the daggers. Each is supreme in its kind, though

the kinds are different. Of each it may be said, "It cannot be better

done," but there may be--in fact there is nearly sure to be--something

in the individual taste of each reader which will make the appeal of one

to his heart, if not to his head, more intimate and welcome. That has

nothing to do with their general literary value, which in each case is

consummate. And happy are those who can appreciate both.

Consummateness, in the various kinds, is, indeed, the mark of Mérimée's

stories. The variety is greater than in those of Gautier, because, just

as "Théo" had the advantage of Prosper in point of poetry, he had a

certain disadvantage in point of range of intellect, or, to prevent

mistake, let us say interest--which perhaps is only another _tropos_ (as

the Greeks would have said and as the chemists in a very limited sense

do say after them) of the same thing. Beauty was Gautier's only idol;

Mérimée had more of a pantheon.

[Sidenote: _Colomba._]

As to _Colomba_ compared with _Carmen_, there is, I believe, a sort of

sectarianism among Prosperites. I hope I am, as always, catholic. I do

not know that, in the terms of classical scholarship, it is "castigated"

to the same extent as its rival in point of superfluities. Not that I

wish anything away from it; but I think a few things might be away

without loss--which is not the case with _Carmen_. Yet, on the other

hand, the danger of the type seems to me more completely avoided.[223]

At any rate, my admiration for the book is not in any way bribed by that

Rossetti portrait of a Corsican lady to which I have referred above. For

though she certainly _is_ Colomba, I never saw the face till

years--almost decades--after I knew the story.

[Sidenote: Its smaller companions--_Mateo Falcone_, etc.]

But of the smaller tales which usually accompany her, who shall

exaggerate the praise? _Mateo Falcone_, that modern Roman father (by the

way, there is said to be more Roman blood in Corsica than in any part of

the mainland of Italy, and the portrait above mentioned is almost pure

Faustina), is another of those things which are _à prendre ou à

laisser_. It could not, again, be better done; and if any one will

compare it with the somewhat similar anecdote of lynch-law in Balzac's

_Les Chouans_, he ought to recognise the fact--good as that also is.

_Les Âmes du Purgatoire_ is also "first choice." Of what may be called

the satellites of the great _Don Juan_ story--satellites with a nebula

instead of a planet for their centre--it is quite the greatest. But of

this group _La Vénus d'Ille_ is my favourite, perhaps for a rather

illegitimate reason. That reason is the possibility of comparing it with

Mr. Morris's _Ring given to Venus_--a handling of the same subject in

poetry instead of in prose, with a happy ending instead of an unhappy

one, and pure Romantic in every respect instead of, as _La Vénus d'Ille_

is, late classical, with a strong Romantic _nisus_.[224]

For, though it might be improper here to argue out the matter, these

last words can be fitted to Mérimée's _ethos_ from the days of "Clara

Gazul" and "Hyacinthe Maglanovich" to those when he wrote _Lokis_ and

_La Chambre Bleue_. A deserter from Romanticism he was never; a Romantic

free-lance (after being an actual Romantic pioneer) with a strong

Classical element in him he was always.

[Sidenote: Those of _Carmen_; _Arsène Guillot_.]

The almost unavoidable temptation of taking _Colomba_ and _Carmen_

together has drawn us away from the companions, as they are usually

given, of the Spanish story among Mérimée's earlier works. More than

two-thirds of the volume, as most people have seen it, consist of

translations from the Russian of Poushkin and Gogol, which need no

notice here. But _Arsène Guillot_ and _L'Abbé Aubain_, the two pieces

which immediately follow _Carmen_, can by no means be passed over. If

(as one may fairly suppose, without being quite certain) the selection

of these for juxtaposition was authentic and deliberate, it was

certainly judicious. They might have been written as a trilogy, not of

sequence, but of contrast--a demonstration of power in essentially

different forms of subject. _Arsène Guillot_, like _Carmen_, is tragedy;

but it is _tragédie bourgeoise_ or _sentimentale_. There are no daggers

or musquetoons, and though (since the heroine throws herself out of a

window) there is some blood, she dies of consumption, not of her wounds.

She is only a _grisette_ who has lost her looks, the one lover she ever

cared for, and her health; while the other characters of importance

(Mérimée has taken from the stock-cupboard one of the cynical,

rough-mannered, but really good-natured doctors common in French and not

unknown in English literature) are the lover or gallant himself, Max de

Saligny (quite a good fellow and perfectly willing, though he had tired

of Arsène, to have succoured her had he known her distress), and the

Lady Bountiful, Madame de Piennes. How a "triangle" is established

nobody versed in novels needs to be told, though everybody, however well

versed, should be glad to read. Arsène of course must die; what the

others who lived did with their lives is left untold. The thing is quite

unexciting, but is done with the author's miraculous skill; nor perhaps

is there any piece that better shows his faculty of writing like the

"gentleman,"[225] which, according to a famous contrast, he was, on a

subject almost equally liable to more or less vulgar Paul-de-Kockery, to

sloppy sentimentalism, and to cheap cynical journalese.

[Sidenote: And _L'Abbé Aubain_.]

As for _L'Abbé Aubain_, it is slight but purely comic, of the very best

comedy, telling how a great lady, obliged by pecuniary misfortunes to

retire with her husband to a remote country house, takes a fancy to, and

imagines she has possibly excited fatal passion in, the local priest;

attributes to him a sentimental past; but half good-naturedly, half

virtuously obtains for him a comfortable town-cure in order to remove

him, and perhaps herself, from temptation. This moving tale of

self-denial and of averted sorrow, sin, and perhaps tragedy, is told in

letters to another lady. Then follows a single epistle from the Abbé

himself to his old Professor of Theology, telling, with the utmost

brevity and matter-of-factness, how glad he is to make the exchange,

what a benevolent nuisance the patroness has been, and how he looks

forward to meeting the Professor in his new parsonage, with a plump

chicken and a bottle of old bordeaux between them. There is hardly

anywhere a better bit of irony of the lighter kind. It is rather like

Charles de Bernard, with the higher temper and brighter flash of

Mérimée's style.

[Sidenote: _La Prise de la Redoute._]

All the stories just noticed, except _Carmen_ itself (which is of 1847),

appeared originally in the decade 1830-40, as well as others of less

note, and one wonderful little masterpiece, which deserves notice by

itself. This is _La Prise de la Redoute_, a very short thing--little

more than an anecdote--of one of the "furious five minutes," or hours,

not unknown in all great wars, and seldom better known than in that of

these recent years, despite the changes of armament and tactics. It is

almost sufficient to say of it that no one who has the slightest

critical faculty can fail to see its consummateness, and that any one

who does not see or will not acknowledge that consummateness may make up

his mind to one thing--that he is not, and--but by some marvellous

exertion of the grace of God--never will be, a critic. He may have in

him the elements of a capital convict or a faithful father of a family;

he may be a poet--poets, though sometimes very good, have sometimes been

very bad critics--or a painter, or a philosopher, as distinguished as

any of those whose names the Bertram girls learnt; or an elect

candlestick-maker, fit to be an elder of any Little Bethel. But of

criticism he can have no jot or tittle, no trace or germ. The question

is, for once, not one of anything that can be called merely or mainly

"taste." A man who is not a hopelessly bad critic, though he may not

have in him the _catholicon_ of critical goodness, may fail to

appreciate _La Morte Amoureuse_ because of its dreaminess and

supernaturality and all-for-loveness; _Carmen_ because Carmen shocks

him; _La Venus d'Ille_ because of its _macabre_ tone; _Les Jeune-France_

because of their _goguenarderie_ or _goguenardise_. But the case of the

_Redoute_ is one of those rare instances where the intellect and the

aesthetic sense approach closest--almost merge into each other,--as,

indeed, they did in Mérimée himself. The principles as well as the

practice of narrative are here at once reduced to their lowest and

exalted to their highest terms. The thing is not merely fermented but

distilled; not so much a fact as a formula, with a formula's precision

but without its dryness. If we take the familiar trichotomy of body,

soul, and spirit and apply it to subject, style, and narrative power in

a story, we shall find them all perfectly achieved and perfectly wedded

here.[226]

[Sidenote: The _Dernières Nouvelles_; _Il Viccolo di Madama Lucrezia_.]

About the same time as that at which _Carmen_ was published (indeed a

year earlier) Mérimée wrote a shorter, but not very short story, _Il

Viccolo di Madama Lucrezia_, which for some reason only appeared, at

least in book form, long after, with the _Dernières Nouvelles_ and

posthumously. It is, I think, his one attempt in the explained[227]

supernatural--a kind for which I have myself no very great affection.

But it is extremely well done, and if there are some suggestions of

impropriety in it, Hymen, to use Paul de Kock's phrase (it is really

pleasant to think of Paul and Prosper--the farthest opposites of French

contemporary novel-craft--together), covers up the more recent of them

with his mantle.

But some at least of the other contents of the same volume are worthy of

greater praise. One, _Le Coup de Pistolet_, is a translation from

Poushkin; another, _Federigo_, an agreeable version of an Italian

folk-tale--one of the numerous legends in which a 'cute' and not

unkindly sinner escapes not only perdition, but Purgatory, and takes

Paradise by storm of wit.[228] A third piece, _Les Sorcières

Espagnoles_, is folklorish in a way likewise, but inferior.

Yet another trio remains, and its constituents, _Lokis_, _La Chambre

Bleue_, and _Djoumane_, are among Mérimée's greatest triumphs.

_Djoumane_ is not dated; the other two date from the very last years of

his life and of the Second Empire; and, unless I mistake, were written

directly to amuse that Imperial Majesty who lives yet, and who, as all

good men must hope, may live to see the _revanche_, if not of the

dynasty, at any rate of the country, which she did so much to adorn.

[Sidenote: _Djoumane._]

Of the three, _Djoumane_--the account of a riding dream during a

campaign in Algeria--is the slightest, no doubt, and to a certain extent

a "trick" story. But it has the usual Mériméan consummateness in its own

way; and I can give it one testimonial which, like all testimonials, no

doubt depends on the importance of the giver, but which, to that

extent, is solid. I have read dozens, scores, almost hundreds of

dream-stories. I cannot remember a single one, except this, which "took

me in" almost to the very awaking.

There is no trick in either of the others, though in one of them there

is the supernatural--_not_ explained. But they are examples--closely and

no doubt intentionally juxtaposed--in two different kinds, both of them

exceptionally difficult and dangerous: the story of more or less

ordinary life, with only a few suggestions of anything else, which

resolves itself into horrible tragedy; and the story, again of ordinary

life, with a tragic suggestion in the middle, which unknits itself into

pure comedy at the end.

[Sidenote: _Lokis._]

_Lokis_ is a story of lycanthropy, or rather _arct_anthropy. A

Lithuanian Count's mother has been carried off, soon after her marriage,

by a bear, and just rescued with a lucky shot at the monster. She goes,

as is not very wonderful, quite mad, does not recover when her child is

born, and is under restraint in her own house, as wife and widow, for

the term of her life. Her son, however, shows no overt symptoms of

anything wrong except fits of melancholy and seclusion, being in other

respects a gentleman of most excellent "havings"--handsome, brave,

sportsmanlike, familiar with the best European society, and even

something of a scholar. He entertains a German minister and professor,

whose special forte is Lithuanian, in order that the pundit may study

some rare books and MSS. in his library; and his guest, being a great

traveller, a good rider, and, though simple in his ways, not at all

unlike a man of this world, makes a friend of him. It so happens, too,

that they have a common acquaintance--a neighbour, and, as is soon seen,

an idol of the Count's, Mademoiselle Julie Ivinska, very pretty, very

merry, and, if not very wise, clever enough to take in the scholar, on

his own ground, with a vernacular ("jmoude") version of one of

Mickiewitz's poems. All goes well in a way, except for occasional

apparitions of the poor mad Countess; but there is a rather threatening

episode of a ride into a great forest, which is popularly supposed to

contain a "sanctuary of the beasts," impenetrable by any hunter, and in

which they actually meet a local sorceress, with a basket of poisonous

mushrooms and a tame snake in it. Another episode gives us odd comments,

and a sort of nightmare afterwards, of the Count, when his guest happens

to mention the blood-drinking habits of the South American gauchos, in

which the professor himself has been forced to take part.

But these things and other "lights" of the catastrophe are very

artistically kept down, and you are never nudged or winked at in the

offensive "please note" manner. The guest goes away, but, not much to

anybody's surprise, is very soon asked to return and celebrate the

wedding of the Count and Mlle. Ivinska, who are both Lutherans. He goes,

and finds a great semi-pagan feast of the local peasantry (which does

not much please him) and one or two bad omens, including an appearance

of the mad old Countess with evil words, which please him still less.

But the feast ends at last and the newly married couple retire, there

being, of course, no "going away." Early in the morning the pastor is

waked by the sound of a heavy body (a sound which he had noticed before

but never interpreted) clambering down a tree just outside his window. A

little later, as the bridal pair do not appear, their door is broken

open, and the new Countess is found alone, dead, drenched in blood, and

her throat, not cut, but _bitten_ through.

The whole story is told by the minister himself to an otherwise

unidentified Theodore and Adelaide (who may be anybody, but who adroitly

soften the conclusion), and with that consummate management of the

difficult part of actor-narrator which has been noted. In every respect

but the purely sentimental one it seems to me beyond reproach and almost

beyond praise.[229]

[Sidenote: _La Chambre Bleue._]