In zest, movement, and airy charm, in glittering style, precise
characterization, and compressed vividness, the French short-story
is unsurpassed. German writers have excelled in the fantastic and
legendary tale; Russians, in both mysticism and in unrestrained
naturalism; British, in those subtle moral distinctions which reveal
character under crucial stress; Americans, more or less in all these
phases; but no nation has ever developed a school of story-tellers who
say so much in so few words, and, withal, say it so artistically and
pungently as do the French.
There is a real distinction between a short-story in French and a
French short-story. The latter implies a national genre, and indeed
this implication is sustained by an examination of French shorter
fiction.
We are justified in asserting the existence of a national type of
short-story in France, or in any other land, when its special literary
product reflects in theme the typical spirit of the nation, when its
attitude toward life is characteristic, when its literary style is
decidedly marked by national idioms, and when local color--by which
I mean an individual flavor of characters and locality--is marked
enough to be recognized as a literary trait. Tested by each of these
four standards--which I have ventured to set up rather arbitrarily--the
short-story in France is the French short-story.
A single example may serve to illustrate the application of these
tests. Here, let us imagine, are two short-stories written in French
and by Frenchmen. The one deals with a baseball game, played in Hawaii.
Its argot is that of the “diamond,” and its attitude is that of the
frenzied “fan.” The tone and the Hawaiian background will furnish
local-color enough. The second story has for its theme a tragic family
schism caused by the struggle over clericalism in France. The attitude
of the characters is typical of the contesting parties, the language is
richly idiomatic, and the local-color convincing. Of course it would
require no wisdom to determine which was the French short-story and
which merely the short-story in French.
Now, when the great mass of short-stories written in France meet two
or more of these tests, we have a national type of short-story, and
I believe that the ten stories grouped in these two little books
sufficiently illustrate the French national spirit to warrant our
accepting them as types.
At first thought it might appear that the same might be asserted of any
nation where short-stories are produced--Italy, for example. But the
facts would not bear out any such statement. True, some Italian writers
are sufficiently imbued with their language and nationality, and yet
sufficiently modern, to produce little fictions which are typically
Italian and typically short-stories, but they are too few to constitute
a school. The novel, poetry and the drama have thus far claimed the
best efforts of Italian literary folk.
* * * * *
In these pages the word short-story is used somewhat broadly, yet with
an eye to the technical distinctions between it and similar forms of
short narrative.
Since the earliest story-writing of which we have record in the tales
of the Egyptian papyri (4000 B. C.?), there have been short fictional
narratives in many lands, some of which meet almost every requirement
of the short-story form as we now know it. But that every such
approach to the short-story was sporadic rather than from intention
to conform to a recognized standard is certain because in each case
there was shown no progress toward a repetition of the form, but,
instead, a reversion to the types common to all short fiction--the
straightforward, unplotted chain of incidents which we call the
_tale_; the light delineation of some mood, character, or fixed
situation, likewise without real plot, which we name the _sketch_;
the condensed outline of what might well be expanded into a long story,
which we term the _scenario_; and the brief recital of some
incident with a point, known as the _anecdote_.
With occasional accidental exceptions, as just noted, all the Egyptian
tales, Greek and Roman stories, sacred narratives, mediæval tales,
legends, and wonder-stories, and modern short fictions down to the
first quarter of the nineteenth century, were of these four types.
The short-story as a conscious genre was developed in America and in
France about the same time, with the weight of opinion favoring Poe as
its “inventor.”
In 1830 Balzac began a brilliant series of novelettes, almost
short-stories, which lack only compression and unity of impression to
stamp him and not Poe as the first consistent and conscious producer
of the new form. As it is, these remarkable stories are so near to
technical perfection (as short-stories, for there can be little adverse
criticism upon them as fiction), that he must share with two Americans
the distinction of producing little stories which must have helped Poe
materially to see the new form in clear constructive vision--I mean
Irving and Hawthorne. Prior to 1835--the date of “Berenice,” Poe’s
first technically perfect short-story--both Irving and Hawthorne had
produced short fictions incomparably in advance of any consistently
frequent short narrative work theretofore. Irving’s style was kin to
Addison’s essay-stories in the _Spectator_, and even in those
altogether admirable tale-short-stories, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the influence of the essay form is quite
evident. Hawthorne’s stories were chiefly symbolical tales, up to
1835,[1] or expanded anecdotes done to create a single effect upon
the mind. In this they rival the singularly potent unity of Poe’s
best work. But shortly Hawthorne turned more and more aside from the
short-story to the long symbolical romance, in which he stands without
a peer in any land.
Then arose in France--for other countries require no further comment
here--a series of notable story-writers, of supreme distinction in
all that goes to make the short-story the most popular literary
type: compressed delineation of a single crucial situation, highly
centralized leading character, swift characterization, deft handling
of crisis, climax, and dénouement, and, throughout, masterful work in
local color.
The short-story nomenclature among the French is not clearly
translatable, for three reasons--we have no precise English
equivalents, critics do not entirely agree upon what equivalents are
nearest to the French terms, and, best reason of all, the French
short-stories have this in common with all others: their forms often
overlap, and so bear marks of touching more than one type. And when
I have said this I have said nothing to their discredit; only the
Procrustean purist first builds a bed and then stretches or cuts every
story-guest to fit! I cannot say this in voice loud enough: to set up a
standard of what is a true short-story is no more to decry those short
fictive narratives which do not meet the form than it would be to brand
the lyric as imperfect because it does not fulfill the requirements of
the epic.
But, to be specific, the three terms which we constantly meet in
French fiction are _roman_, _nouvelle_, and _conte_. The _roman_ may
be dismissed as a general term standing largely for what we in English
variously denominate the (long) romance, the novel, and the (long)
tale. The _nouvelle_ most nearly approaches our English short-story,
but it also stands for the novelette, or very short novel, or even
the expanded short-story. The _conte_ is really a generic word for a
short fictional narrative or any story that is short, like the tale,
the anecdote, and the fictional sketch, without meaning specifically
the short-story to whose characteristics of compression, unity of
impression, and crisis, climax and dénouement of plot, I have just
referred.
So I repeat: in these studies the term short-story must be given some
latitude of interpretation.
* * * * *
The French short-story of the last eighty years is not only typically
Gallic but characteristic of the period. Just as there are four tests
of nationality in fiction so there are four forces which contribute
to its periodicity: The influence of the soil, the heritage of the
preceding period, the special characteristics of the period itself, and
the influence of surrounding nations. All these result in what may be
called the Spirit of the Period, concerning which a word must be said
presently.
The primacy of the French as _conteurs_ is doubtless due quite
as much to the rich and colorful provincial life which surrounds the
capital as to their priority as tellers of short tales. It has been
said that Paris is France. Nothing could be less true. Here is a nation
which presents the unique paradox of being at once and supremely
homogeneous and heterogeneous. The life of each province is part of
its soil, colored by the soil--or by the ever-present sea. Yet France
has a spirit of nationality equalled by no other nation. While what is
now the German Empire was still an unrelated number of minor peoples
or an integral part of some vaster state, France was a unified or at
least a closely federated kingdom. While Britain was changing under its
successive tides of invasion, what was essentially France was sending
out its national culture world-wide--it over-climbed the Pyrenees,
it spread into the Low Countries, in the west it conquered the Swiss
tongue, it permeated the Rhenish provinces, it implanted Norman life in
Britain. Thus grew the French national spirit.
Yet the provinces held tenaciously to their own picturesque types,
spoke their more than a hundred _patois_, wore their folk
costumes, sang their native songs, danced their own dances--unchanging
through the centuries. And nowhere more than in the French short-story
may we see depicted the peculiar French provincial traits. The
folk of Champagne and Picardy are shrewd, subtle, ardent, and born
_conteurs_--witness the stories of Juliette Lamber. Those of
Berry are stolid and solid, as pictured by Madame Nahant. The Gascons
are vivacious, daring, and cunning, as set forth by Emil Pouvillon. The
people of Languedoc are simple, strong and violent, as described by
Georges Baume. The happy, excitable sun-children of Provence, reveling
among their olive groves and vineyards, have been portrayed by Alphonse
Daudet; the picturesque Provençal sailors and fisherfolk live again in
the stories of Auguste Marin; while Paul Arène has done loving service
not only for Provence but for Maine as well. Maupassant has given us
notable portraits of the Norman--bold, tricky, ambitious, economical,
and of superb physique as befits the sons of sturdy men-at-arms. Loti’s
stories are redolent of the salty spume of rough, melancholy, religious
Brittany. And so, in the same recognition of rich material, Theuriet
paints Lorraine, Erckmann and Chatrian the Rhine province of Alsace,
Fabre the Cévennes, Anatole le Braz the Breton coast, Mérimée Corsica,
Maupassant Auverne, and Balzac Touraine. What a wonderful color box has
the French story-painter always open to his brush! Truly the soil and
the sea have marked this period of the short-story as well as the novel.
The inheritance of the preceding period--that of the Revolution, the
First Empire, and the First Restoration--was rich in war pictures,
dramatic episodes of intrigue, and a never-so-remarkable display
of contrasts in human passion and changing conditions. The French
short-story is therefore full of these national conditions.
The period itself, 1830-1912, witnessed kaleidoscopic social and
governmental changes--the Second Restoration, the Bourgeois Monarchy,
the Second Republic, the Second Empire, the Franco-Prussian War, the
Commune, and the Third Republic, to say nothing of numberless minor
attempts at change. All these filled the story-teller’s pack with
rich national materials. Especially are the problems of socialism,
militarism and clericalism in evidence.
Finally, the influence of surrounding peoples has been felt not only in
the content but in the form of the French short-story.
All these forces, and others less ponderable, have fused into what
I may term the nineteenth century French spirit, as illustrated and
measurably interpreted by the French short-story.
Three sub-tones of this French symphony, to use a trope, are emotional
nature, passion for military glory, and religious sentiment. Emotional
endowment the French, in common with other Latin races, possess--a
fact which calls for no comment. The military spirit, chastened by
the experiences of the Franco-Prussian War, has been decreasingly
in evidence during the last four decades, yet indications are not
wanting that the fire burns none the less vitally because smothered by
practicalities. The war-theme constantly recurs in the short-story, and
“glory” is still dear to every Frenchman. As for the third element,
religion, the evidence is more contradictory. France has always felt
a deep undercurrent of religious feeling. Her public worship has
perpetuated this ideal in churches many and noble, as well as in a
pomp of ceremonial peculiarly suited to an artistic Latin people. But
I should seek for the surest proof of the religious spirit not so much
in these signs as in the life of the provinces, the influence of the
church there, and their constant manifestations of religious faith.
The clerical crisis was not confined to the great cities, so that the
last twenty years has shown marked changes in public sentiment, but
there are potent signs of a reaction toward free religious life, for
France will be church-loving. The typical abbé lives in her fiction as
beautifully as does the soldier.
And so I have ventured to name emotion, war, and religion as three
significant sub-tones of French life. But there are five other phases
of the French spirit which show out in the short-story, though they do
not seem to me so fundamental. Of these now a few words.
We find, first, volatile sentiment, as shown in quick changes of
attitude, sudden concentrations, extremes of gayety and depression,
lively speech, and a general habit of regarding a tempest in a teapot
as a serious crisis, with now and then a surprising way of smiling away
a real tragedy. There is much of the child-nature here, and therefore
the loving, the lovable, and the sweet.
Love of hearth is another French characteristic, the mistresses and
assignations, true and fictive, to the contrary notwithstanding. The
typical homes of any nation are found less in its cities than in its
smaller centers; and so it is in France, for the bulk of high-grade
fiction is pretty certain to be a safe index of public feeling.
A third characteristic is the unique attitude of the French toward
womanhood. The mother, in France, is honored above belief; the wife
somewhat less so; the young girl knows nothing, and is therefore merely
amusing; the woman of easy morals occupies a large place because she
must be reckoned with as a _recognized_ factor. The whole attitude
of France toward its womanhood is compounded of sentiment, lightness,
and cynicism. Less independent than the American woman, less free than
the English, less domestic than the German, the French woman is more a
being to charm man than a companion for him. And so runs the current of
the short-story, side by side with the sweep of life.
A fourth trait in the French short-story is a minute, detached
observation, tinged with cynicism--the inevitable result of realism.
It is for this reason that so many French short-stories seem
unsympathetic. Scientific observation--really, a German trait--is
likely to be cold when applied to tumults of the soul! And the writer
who as a moral vivisectionist relentlessly applies the scalpel runs the
risk of becoming blasé, not to say cruel. He is more concerned with the
truth _of_ facts than with extracting the truth _from_ facts.
A final characteristic is artistry. To do a short-story with fineness,
deftness, perfection of detail, and beauty of finish; to cut an
intaglio, so to say, to paint a miniature, to inlay a jewel--that is
the Frenchman’s conception of the artistic in brief fiction, and in
that he is unsurpassed.
Here, then, are some qualities of the French spirit as evidenced in
the short-story of the period--qualities fundamental and in the phase,
but patent, as it seems to me, in a large proportion of the entire
short-story product.
Viewing the subject generally, as one must in attempting a survey
of so varied a field as the last eighty years in French fiction,
there are several periods fairly well-defined in the movement of the
short-story. As a differentiated type the short-story appeared at a
time when classical ideals of form had broken down and moral ideals
also had quite fallen. For three decades, precise, logical prose had
been as cheerfully scouted as were old-fashioned swaddling-clothes of
personal virtue. For a period equally long, “Freedom” had been the
sweet word every one uttered with unction. Rousseau had laid his blade
to the root of the existing order; Chateaubriand had broken loose from
the fetters of old literary forms; Madame de Staël had coined the word
“romanticism” with a new image and a superscription enchanting to
the mind agitated by the sudden opening of the unknown; the success
of French arms abroad had let in a flood of new ideas--the reign of
romance was undisputed. Color, movement, dreams, enthusiasm--all
these prose began to borrow from poetry. Charles Emmaniel Nodier--a
classicist in form, but a romanticist in spirit--began his florid
tales, while Théophile Gautier and Alfred de Musset applied their
poetic skill to the telling of prose stories.
But the romantic movement began to wane in the early forties, not,
however, before reaching a brilliant high-tide in the work of the elder
Dumas. Even Gautier would sometimes scoff in his supremely clever
style at the extravagances of the period. But the chief force in this
breakdown of the romantic school was Honoré de Balzac, whose brilliant
short-story work, chiefly done from 1830 to 1832, laid the foundations
of a new school of shorter fiction in France, as the de Goncourts and
Stendhal had already done for longer fiction--for Balzac was less an
originator than a developer of the psychological novel. However, in
fiction long and short, his moderate realism stands to-day as the most
important example of his school. Prosper Mérimée became a realist only
after having begun as a romanticist; Alphonse Daudet never fully came
under the sway of realistic principles; and Ludovic Halévy generally
chose a romantic theme even when treating it realistically, so that we
must turn to Balzac as the representative of his class.
In Gustave Flaubert, a stylist of the most finished order, but latterly
a severe classicist, we find an example of the slight classical
reaction which followed the reign of realism. A similar romantic
reaction is seen in the short tales of the collaborators, Émile
Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrain, as well as of François Coppée. Here
the joint influence of the German Hoffmann and the American Poe is
plainly evident.
But these reactionary movements were neither powerful nor for long.
The disillusionment and cynicism of French life was bound to find
expression in its fiction, and the more sincere and fearless the
writer the more direct would be his methods. Naturalism became the
final expression of realism, for naturalism is realism plus pessimism.
Naturalism proposes not only to see things as they are and report
things as they are seen, but it is a pessimist who sees and reports.
Result--gloom, mire, and jagged stories, unkissed by a single star of
hope! Émile Zola is the chief-priest, and Eugene Sue the industrious
acolyte at the altar of this despairing cult.
No people, however, could long enjoy an orgy of depression, and
signs of moderation soon appeared. Guy de Maupassant, with all his
abnormality, and Paul Bourget with all his pessimism, now and then
touched the joyous side, and by and by a braver, more wholesome tone
sounded in the French short-story--a tone of eclecticism, both of
method and of philosophy. Surrounded by a social order emancipated from
many past ills and having the promise of greater equity, quieted by the
more or less permanent settlement of at least two of its most vexed
questions, the France of to-day is encouraging a group of brilliant
writers--Pierre Loti, Anatole France, Gustave Droz, Jules Lemaître,
Jules Claretie, Renè Bazin, Jean Richepin, Marcel Prévost, and Paul
Margueritte--who, though mostly no longer young, represent a youthful
France in that they are emancipated from school and type and write as
the story makes its call to their own natures. Sometimes one method,
sometimes another, rises to dominance, but _the choice of the most
available_ is after all the current practice.
Of the future no man may tell, but backed by the rich traditions
of literary France, the air of artistry all about, the growth of a
more unselfish socialized life, and the promise of stable national
conditions, we may well look for the most satisfying results in the
French short-story of tomorrow.