6550 (#540) ###########################################
6550
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
intimate friends, published by the surviving brother.
6550
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
intimate friends, published by the surviving brother.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v11 - Fro to Gre
"Here, look here," he went on: it has all
been swept and all put in order, fit for a wedding. What more
is needed? ”
"Well then, what is this? " cried flya flyitch, interrupting
him and calling his attention to the walls and the ceiling. “And
that? and that? "
He pointed to a yesterday's napkin which had been flung
down, and to a plate which had been left lying on the table
with a dry crust of bread on it.
"Well, as for that," said Zakhár as he picked up the plate,
"I will take care of it. "
## p. 6544 (#534) ###########################################
6544
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
"You will take care of it, will you? But how about the dust
and the cobwebs on the walls? " said Oblómof, making ocular
demonstration.
"I put that off till Holy Week; then I clean the sacred
images and sweep down the cobwebs. "
"But how about dusting the books and pictures? »
"The books and pictures? Before Christmas; then Anísiya
and I look over all the closets. But now when should we be
able to do it? You are always at home. ”
"I sometimes go to the theatre or go out
might - "
"Do house-cleaning at night? "
Oblómof looked at him reproachfully, shook his head, and
uttered a sigh; but Zakhár gazed indifferently out of the window
and also sighed deeply. The master seemed to be thinking,
"Well, brother, you are even more of an Oblómof than I am
myself;" while Zakhár probably said to himself, "Rubbish! You
as my master talk strange and melancholy words, but how do
dust and cobwebs concern you? "
"Don't you know that moths breed in dust? " asked Ílya
İlyitch. "I have even seen bugs on the wall! »
"Well, I have fleas on me sometimes," replied Zakhár in a
tone of indifference.
to dine: you
"Well, is that anything to boast about? That is shameful,"
exclaimed Oblómof.
Zakhar's face was distorted by a smirking smile, which
seemed to embrace even his eyebrows and his side-whiskers,
which for this reason spread apart; and over his whole face up
to his very forehead extended a ruddy spot.
"Why, am I to blame that there are bugs on the wall? " he
asked in innocent surprise: "was it I who invented them? ”
"They come from lack of cleanliness," insisted Oblómof.
"What are you talking about? "
"I am not the cause of the uncleanliness. "
"But you have mice in your room there running about at
night - I hear them. "
"I did not invent the mice. There are all kinds of living
creatures mice and cats and fleas - lots of them everywhere. "
"How is it that other people don't have moths and bugs? "
Zakhár's face expressed incredulity, or rather a calm conviction
that this was not so.
## p. 6545 (#535) ###########################################
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
6545
« One
"I have plenty of them," he said without hesitation.
can't look after every bug and crawl into the cracks after
them. "
It seemed to be his thought, "What kind of a sleeping-room
would that be that had no bugs in it? "
"Now do you see to it that you sweep and brush them out
of the corners; don't let there be one left," admonished Oblómof.
"If you get it all cleaned up it will be just as bad again to-
morrow," remonstrated Zakhár.
"It ought not to be as bad," interrupted the master.
"But it is," insisted the servant; "I know all about it. "
"Well then, if the dust collects again, brush it out again. "
"What is that you say? Brush out all the corners every
day? " exclaimed Zakhár. "What a life that would be! Better
were it that God should take my soul! "
"Why are other people's houses clean? " urged Oblómof.
"Just look at the piano-tuner's rooms: see how neat they look,
and only one maid—»
"Oh, these Germans! " exclaimed Zakhár suddenly interrupt-
ing. "Where do they make any litter? Look at the way they
live! Every family gnaws a whole week on a single bone. The
coat goes from the father's back to the son's, and back from the
son's to the father's. The wives and daughters wear little short
skirts, and when they walk they all lift up their legs like ducks
- where do they get any dirt? They don't do as we do - leave
a whole heap of soiled clothes in the closet for a year at a time,
or fill up the corners with bread crusts for the winter. Their
crusts are never flung down at random: they make zweiback out
of them, and eat them when they drink their beer! "
Zakhár expressed his disgust at such a penurious way of liv
ing by spitting through his teeth.
"Say nothing more," expostulated Ílya Ílyitch. "Do better
work with your house-cleaning. "
"One time I would have cleaned up, but you yourself would
not allow it," said Zakhár.
"That is all done with! Don't you see I have entirely
changed? »
“Of course you have; but still you stay at home all the time:
how can one begin to clean up when you are right here? If you
will stay out of the house for a whole day, then I will have a
general clearing-up. ”
XI-410
## p. 6546 (#536) ###########################################
6546
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
"What an idea! Get out of here. You had better go to your
own room. "
"All right! " persisted Zakhár; "but I tell you, the moment
you go out, Anísiya and I will clear the whole place up. And
we two would finish with it in short metre; then you will want
some women to wash everything. "
"Oh, what schemes you invent! Women! away with you! "
cried ĺlya Ílyitch.
He was by this time disgusted with himself for having led
Zakhár into this conversation. He had quite forgotten that the
attainment of this delicate object was at the expense of consider-
able confusion. Oblómof would have liked a state of perfect
cleanliness, but he would require that it should be brought about
in some imperceptible manner, as it were of itself; but Zakhár
always induced a discussion as soon as he was asked to have any
sweeping done, or the floors washed, and the like. In such a
contingency he was sure to point out the necessity of a terrible
disturbance in the house, knowing very well that the mere sug-
gestion of such a thing would fill his master with horror.
Zakhar went away, and Oblómof relapsed into cogitation.
After some minutes the half-hour struck again.
"What time is it? " exclaimed Ílya Ílyitch with a dull sense
of alarm. "Almost eleven o'clock! Can it be that I am not up
yet nor had my bath? Zakhár! Zakhár! ”
"Oh, good God! what is it now? " was heard from the ante-
room, and then the well-known thump of feet.
"Is my bath ready? " asked Oblómof.
"Ready? yes, long ago,” replied Zakhár. "Why did you not
get up? "
"Why didn't you tell me it was ready? I should have got up
long ago if you had. Go on; I will follow you immediately.
have some business to do; I want to write. "
I
Zakhar went out, but in the course of a few minutes he
returned with a greasy copy-book all scribbled over, and some
scraps of paper.
]
"Here, if you want to write-and by the way, be kind enough
to verify these accounts: we need the money to pay them. "
"What accounts? what money? » demanded Ílya Ílyitch with
a show of temper.
"From the butcher, from the grocer, from the laundress, from
the baker; they all are clamoring for money. "
## p. 6547 (#537) ###########################################
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
6547
"Nothing but bother about money," growled Ílya Ílyitch.
"But why didn't you give them to me one at a time instead of
all at once? "
"You see you always kept putting me off: To-morrow,'
always To-morrow. >>
"Well, why shouldn't we put them off till to-morrow now? "
"No! they are dunning you; they won't give any longer
credit. To-morrow's the first of the month. "
Well, why
I will get
"Akh! " cried Oblómof in vexation, "new bother!
are you standing there? Put them on the table.
up immediately, take my bath, and look them over," said Ílya
Ílyitch. "Is it all ready for my bath? "
-'ready'? " said Zakhár.
"What do you mean
"Well, now
With a groan he started to make the preliminary movement
of getting up.
>>>
――
"I forgot to tell you," began Zakhár, "while you were still
asleep the manager sent word by the dvórnik that it was imper-
atively necessary that you vacate the apartment: it is wanted. "
"Well, what of that? If the apartment is wanted of course
we will move out. Why do you bother me with it? This is the
third time you have spoken to me about it. "
"They bother me about it also. "
"Tell them that we will move out. "
"He says, 'For a month you have been promising,' says he,
'and still you don't move out,' says he: 'we'll report the matter
to the police. »»
"Let him report,” cried Oblómof resolutely: "we will move
out as soon as it is a little warmer, in the course of three
weeks. "
"Three weeks, indeed! The manager says that the workmen
are coming in a fortnight: everything is to be torn out. 'Move,'
says he, either to-morrow or day after to-morrow. "
"Eh eh eh- that's too short notice: to-morrow? See here,
what next? How would this minute suit? But don't you dare
speak a word to me about apartments. I have already told you
that once, and here you are again. Do you hear? »
"But what shall I do? " demanded Zakhár.
"What shall you do? Now how is he going to get rid of
me? " replied Ílya Ílyitch. "He makes me responsible! How
Don't you trouble me any further, but
does it concern me?
## p. 6548 (#538) ###########################################
6548
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
make any arrangements you please, only so that we don't have
to move yet. Can't you do your best for your master? "
"But Ílya Ílyitch, little father [bátiushka], what arrangements
shall I make? " began Zakhár in a hoarse whisper. "The house
is not mine; how can we help being driven out of the place if
they resort to force? If only the house were mine, then I would
with the greatest pleasure"
"There must be some way of bringing him around: tell him
we have lived here so long; tell him we'll surely pay him. ”
"I have," said Zakhár.
"Well, what did he say? "
"What did he say? He repeated his everlasting Move out,'
says he; we want to make repairs on the apartment. ' He wants
to do over this large apartment and the doctor's for the wedding
of the owner's son. "
"Oh, my good Lord! " exclaimed Oblómof in despair; "what
asses they are to get married! "
He turned over on his back.
"You had better write to the owner, sir," said Zakhár. “Then
perhaps he would not drive us out, but would give us a renewal
of the lease. "
Zakhár as he said this made a gesture with his right hand.
"Very well, then; as soon as I get up I will write him. You
go to your room and I will think it over. You need not do
anything about this," he added; "I myself shall have to work at
all this miserable business myself. "
Zakhár left the room, and Oblómof began to ponder.
But he was in a quandary which to think about,-his stárosta's
letter, or the removal to new lodgings, or should he undertake.
to make out his accounts? He was soon swallowed up in the
flood of material cares and troubles, and there he still lay turn-
ing from side to side. Every once in a while would be heard
his broken exclamation, "Akh, my God! life touches everything.
reaches everywhere! "
No one knows how long he would have lain there a prey to
this uncertainty, had not the bell rung in the ante-room.
"There is some one come already! " exclaimed Oblómof,
wrapping himself up in his khalát, “and here I am not up yet;
what a shame! Who can it be so early? "
And still lying on his bed, he gazed curiously at the door.
## p. 6549 (#539) ###########################################
6549
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
EDMOND (1822-1896) JULES (1830-1870)
E
DMOND AND JULES HUOT DE GONCOURT, French writers who
became famous alike for the perfectness of their collabora-
tion, the originality of their methods, and the finish of their
style, were born, the first in Nancy in 1822, the other in Paris in 1830.
Until the death of Jules in 1870 they wrote nothing for the public
that did not bear both their names; and so entirely identical were
their tastes and judgment that it is impossible to say of a single sen-
tence they composed that it was the sole product of one or the other.
"Charming writers," Victor Hugo called
them; "in unison a powerful writer, two
minds from which springs a single jet of
talent. " Born of a noble family of moderate
wealth, they were educated as became their
station in life. Both had an early leaning
toward the arts; but Edmond, in deference
to the wishes of his family, took a govern-
ment appointment and held the office till
the death of his mother, when he was
twenty-six years of age. Their father had
died while they were boys.
Drawn together by their common bereave-
ment and the death-bed injunction of their EDMOND DE GONCOURT
parent that Edmond should be the careful
guardian of his younger brother, whose health had always been deli-
cate, the young men then began a companionship which was broken
only by death. They set out to make themselves acquainted with
southern Europe, and at the same time to escape the political turmoils
of Paris; and extended their travels into Africa, which country ey
found so congenial that in the first ardor of their enthusiasm they
determined to settle there. Business arrangements, however, soon
recalled them to Paris, where ties of friendship and other agreeable
associations bound them fast to their native soil. They took up their
residence in the metropolis, where they lived until a short time
before the death of Jules, when, to be free from the roar of the city,
they purchased a house in one of the suburbs. Their intellectual
development may be traced through their Journal and letters to
## p.
6550 (#540) ###########################################
6550
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
intimate friends, published by the surviving brother. From these it
appears that most of their leisure hours during their travels were
taken up with painting and drawing. Jules had attempted some dra-
matic compositions while at college, and Edmond had been strongly
drawn to literature by the conversation of an aunt, of whom he saw
much before his mother's death. It was while engaged with their
brushes in 1850 that it occurred to the brothers to take up writing as
a regular vocation; and thus was begun their remarkable literary
partnership.
Their first essay was a drama. It was rejected; whereupon, nothing
daunted, they wrote a novel. It was entitled 18-,' and it is inter-
esting to observe that here, at the very outset of their career, they
seem to have had in mind the keynote of the chord on which they
ever afterwards played: the eighteenth century was the chief source
of their inspiration, and it was their life's endeavor to explore it and
reproduce it for their contemporaries with painstaking fidelity. The
novel engaged their serious and earnest attention, and when it was
given to the publisher they watched for its appearance with painful
anxiety. Unfortunately it was announced for the very day on which
occurred the Coup d'État. The book came out when Paris was in an
uproar; and though Jules Janin, one of the most influential critics of
the day, unexpectedly exploited it at great length in the Journal des
Débats, its circulation in that first edition was not more than sixty
copies, most of which were distributed gratuitously.
The blow was a hard one, but the brothers were not thus to be
silenced, nor by the subsequent failure of other dramatic ventures and
an effort to found a newspaper. They had been little more than
imitators. They now entered the field they soon made their own.
The writers of their day were for the most part classicists; a few
before Victor Hugo were romanticists. The De Goncourts stood
for the modern, what they could see and touch. In this way they
became realists. What their own senses could not apprehend they at
once rejected; all they saw they deemed worthy to be reproduced.
They lived in a period of reconstruction after the devastation of the
revolution. The refinement and elegance of the society of the later
Bourbon monarchy, still within view, they yearned for and sought to
restore. A series of monographs dealing with the art and the stage
of these days, which appeared in 1851-2, won for them the first real
recognition they enjoyed. These were followed by various critical
essays on the same subjects, contributed to newspapers and periodi-
cals, and a novel, 'La Lorette,' which had a large sale and marked
the beginning of their success from a financial point of view. "This
makes us realize," they wrote in their Journal, "that one can actually
sell a book. "
## p. 6551 (#541) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6551
Their reputation as men of letters was established by the publica-
tion in 1854-5 of 'Histoire de la Société Pendant la Revolution' and
the same 'Pendant le Directoire,' the aim of which, they said, was
"to paint in vivid, simple colors the France of 1789 to 1800. " This
object they accomplished, so far as it concerned the society of which
they themselves were descendants; but the reactionary spirit in them
was too strong for an impartial view of the struggle, and their lack
of true philosophic spirit and broad human sympathy led them to
make a picture that, interesting as it is, is sadly distorted. Their
vivid colors are lavished mainly on the outrages of the rioters and
the sufferings of the aristocrats. But for wealth of detail, the result
of tireless research, the history is of value as a record of the man-
ners and customs of the fashionable set of the period. Of the same
sort were their other semi-historical works: 'Portraits Intimes du
XVIIIième Siècle,' separate sketches of about a hundred more or
less well-known figures of the age; L'Histoire de Marie Antoinette,'
and 'La Femme au XVIIIième Siècle,' in which the gossip and
anecdote of former generations are told again almost as graphically
as are those which the authors relate of their own circle in their
* memoirs. Their most important contribution to literature was their
'L'Art au XVIIIème Siècle,' monographs gathered and published
in seventeen volumes, and representing a dozen years' labor. This
was indeed a labor of love, and it was not in vain; for it was these
appreciative studies more than anything else that turned public atten-
tion to the almost forgotten delicacy of the school of painters headed
by Watteau, Fragonard, Latour, Boucher, Debricourt, and Greuze,
whose influence has ever since been manifested on the side of sound
taste and sanity in French art.
A volume entitled 'Idées et Sensations,' and their Journal and
letters, complete the list of the more important of their works out-
side the field of fiction. The Journal will always be valuable as an
almost complete document of the literary history of France in their
time, made up as it is of impressions of and from the most important
writers of the day, with whom they were on terms of intimate friend-
ship, including Flaubert, Gautier, Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Hugo, Saint-
Victor, Michelet, Zola, and George Sand. In fiction the De Goncourts
were less prolific, but it is to their novels mainly that they owe their
reputation for individuality, and as true "path-breakers" in literature.
They have been called the initiators of modern French realism. Their
friend Flaubert perhaps better deserves the title. Their determina-
tion to see for themselves all that could be seen, the result of which
gave real worth to their historical work, even where their preju-
dice robbed it of weight, was what put the stamp of character upon
their novels. How much importance they attached to correct and
## p. 6552 (#542) ###########################################
6552
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
comprehensive observation may be gathered from their remark, “The
art of learning how to see demands the longest apprenticeship of all
the arts. " They took life as they found it, examined it on every side,
-rarely going far under the surface,—and then sought to reproduce it
on their pages as the artist would put it on canvas. Capable of terse-
ness, of suggestiveness, quick to note and communicate the vital spark,
they were yet rarely content with it alone. Every minute particle of
the body it vivified, they insisted on adding to their picture. Noth-
ing was to be taken for granted; as nothing was accepted by them at
second hand, so nothing was left to the imagination of the reader
until their comprehensive view was his. It was in this way that they
were realists. They did not seek out and expose to public view the
grossness and unpleasantness of life. Their own preference was for
the beautiful, and in their own lives they indulged their refined
tastes. But they looked squarely at the world about them, the ugly
with the beautiful, the impure with the pure, and they did not hesi-
tate to describe one almost as faithfully as the other.
Curiously, the discrimination against the masses and the bias that
mar their history do not appear in their fiction. "They began writ-
ing history which was nothing but romance," says one of their critics,
" and later wrote romance which in reality is history. " Indeed, their
novels are little more than sketches of what occurred around them.
'Madame Gervaisais' is a character study of the aunt of strong liter-
ary predilections who influenced Edmond; Germinie Lacerteux' is
the biography of their servant, at whose death, after long and faith-
ful service, they discovered that she had led a life of singular
duplicity; Sour Philomène' is a terribly true glimpse of hospital
life, and 'Manette Salomon,' with its half-human monkey drawn from
the life, is transferred without change from the Parisian studios under
the Empire. 'Renée Mauperin' comes nearest to the model of an
ordinary novel; but no one can read of the innocent tomboy girl
struck down with fatal remorse at the consequences of her own nat-
ural action, on learning of her brother's dishonor, without feeling
that this picture too was drawn from the life. Several of their
stories were dramatized, but with scant success; and a play which
they wrote, 'Henriette Maréchal,' and had produced at the Comédie
Française through the influence of Princess Mathilde, their constant
friend and patroness, was almost howled down,- chiefly however for
political reasons.
After the death of Jules de Goncourt, his brother wrote several
books of the same character as those which they produced in union,
the best known of which are 'La Fille Élisa,' and 'Chérie,' a study
of a girl, said to have been inspired by the Journal of Marie Bash-
kirtseff. The best critics in France, notably Sainte-Beuve, have given
## p. 6553 (#543) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6553
the brothers Goncourt a very high place in literature and conceded
their originality. English reviewers have been less ready to exalt
them, mainly on account of the offensive part of their realism. They
have objected also to their superficiality as historians, and to their
sympathy with the sentimental admirers of such types as Marie
Antoinette; but they too have been ready to praise the brothers as
leaders of a new fashion, and especially for their devotion to style.
In this respect the Goncourts have few rivals in French literature.
Balzac himself was not more finical in the choice of words, or more
unsparing of his time and energy in writing and re-writing until his
exact meaning, no more or less, had been expressed; and they cov-
ered up the marks of their toil better than he. In a letter to Zola,
Edmond de Goncourt said:-"My own idea is that my brother died
of work, and above all from the desire to elaborate the artistic form,
the chiseled phrase, the workmanship of style. " He himself spent a
long life at this fine artistry, and died in Paris in July, 1896.
TWO FAMOUS MEN
From the Journal of the De Goncourts
M
ARCH 3D [1862]. We took a walk and went off to find Thé-
ophile Gautier.
The street in which he lives is
composed of the most squalid countrified buildings, of
court-yards swarming with poultry, fruit shops whose doors are
ornamented with little brooms of black feathers: just such a sub-
urban street as Hervier might have painted.
We pushed
open the door of a house, and found ourselves in the presence.
of the lord of epithet. The furniture was of gilded wood, covered
with red damask, after the heavy Venetian style; there were fine
old pictures of the Italian school; above the chimney a mirror
innocent of quicksilver, on which were scraped colored arabesques
and various Persian characters, such a picture of meagre sump-
tuousness and faded splendor as one would find in the rooms of a
retired actress, who had come in for some pictures through the
bankruptcy of an Italian manager.
When we asked him if we were disturbing him, he answered:
"Not at all. I never work at home. I get through my 'copy'
at the printing-office. They set up the type as I write. The
smell of the printers' ink is a sure stimulant to work, for one
feels the 'copy' must be handed in. I could write only a novel
in this way now; unless I saw ten lines printed I could not get
on to the next ten. The proof-sheet serves as a test to one's
·
·
## p. 6554 (#544) ###########################################
6554
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
work. That which is already done becomes impersonal, but the
actual 'copy' is part of yourself; it hangs like filaments from
the root of your literary life, and has not yet been torn away. I
have always been preparing corners where I should do my work,
but when installed there I found I could do nothing. I must be
in the midst of things, and can work only when a racket is going
on about me; whereas, when I shut myself up for work the soli-
tude tells upon me and makes me sad. "
From there Gautier got on the subject of the "Queen of
Sheba. ' We admitted our infirmity, our physical incapacity of
taking in musical sound; and indeed, a military band is the high-
est musical enjoyment of which we are capable. Whereupon
Gautier said, "Well, I'm delighted to hear that: I am just like
you; I prefer silence to music. I do know bad music from good,
because part of my life was spent with a singer, but both are
quite indifferent to me. Still it is curious that all the literary
men of our day feel the same about music. Balzac abhorred it,
Hugo cannot endure it, Lamartine has a horror of it. There
are only a few painters who have a taste for it. "
Then Gautier fell to complaining of the times. "Perhaps I
am getting an old man, but I begin to feel as if there were no
more air to breathe. What is the use of wings if there is no air
in which one can soar? I no longer feel as if I belonged to the
present generation. Yes, 1830 was a glorious epoch, but I was
too young by two or three years; I was not carried away by the
current; I was not ready for it. I ought to have produced a
very different sort of work. ”
There was then some talk of Flaubert, of his literary meth-
ods, of his indefatigable patience, and of the seven years he
devoted to a work of four hundred pages. "Just listen," ob-
served Gautier, "to what Flaubert said to me the other day: 'It
is finished. I have only ten more pages to write; but the ends
of my sentences are all in my head. ' So that he already hears
in anticipation the music of the last words of his sentences before
the sentences themselves have been written. Was it not a quaint
expression to use? I believe he has devised a sort of literary
rhythm. For instance, a phrase which begins in slow measure
must not finish with a quick pace, unless some special effect is
to be produced. Sometimes the rhythm is only apparent to him-
self, and escapes our notice. A story is not written for the
purpose of being read aloud: yet he shouts his to himself as
## p. 6555 (#545) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6555
These shouts present to his own ears harmon-
he writes them.
ies, but his readers seem unaware of them. "
Gautier's daughters have a charm of their own, a species of
Oriental languor, deep dreamy eyes, veiled by heavy eyelids, and
a regularity in their gestures and movements which they inherit
from their father; but this regularity is tempered in them by
womanly grace. There is a charm about them which is not all
French; nevertheless there is a French element about it, their
little tomboyish tricks and expressions, their habit of pouting,
the shrugging of their shoulders, the irony which escapes through
the thin veil of childishness intended to conceal it. All these
points distinguish them from ordinary society girls, and make
clear a strong individuality of character which renders them fear-
less in expressing their likings and antipathies. They display
liberty of speech, and have often the manner of a woman whose
face is hidden by a mask; and yet one finds here simplicity,
candor, and a charming absence of reserve, utterly unknown to
the ordinary young girl.
NOVE
OVEMBER 23D [1863]. - We have been to thank Michelet for
the flattering lines he wrote about us.
He lives in the Rue de l'Ouest, at the end of the Jar-
din du Luxembourg, in a large house which might almost be
workmen's dwellings. His flat is on the third floor. A maid
opened the door and announced us. We penetrated into a small
study.
The wife of the historian has a young, serious face; she was
seated on a chair beside the desk on which the lamp was placed,
with her back to the window. Michelet sat on a couch of green
velvet, and was banked up by cushions.
His attitude reminded us of his historical work: the lower
portions of his body were in full sight, whilst the upper were
half concealed; the face was a mere shadow surrounded with
snowy white locks; from this shadowy mass emerged a professo-
rial, sonorous, singsong voice, consciously important, and in which
the ascending and descending scale produced a continuous cooing
sound.
He spoke to us in a most appreciative manner of our study
of Watteau, and then passed on to the interesting study which
might be written on French furniture.
## p. 6556 (#546) ###########################################
6556
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
"You gentlemen, who are observers of human nature," he
cried suddenly, "there is a history you should write,- the history
of the lady's-maid. I do not speak of Madame de Maintenon;
but you have Mademoiselle de Launai, the Duchesse de Gram-
mont's Julie, who exercised on her mistress so great an influence,
especially in the Corsican affair. Madame Du Deffand said some-
times that there were only two people sincerely attached to her,
D'Alembert and her maid. Oh! domesticity has played a great
part in history, though men-servants have been of comparative
unimportance.
"I was once going through England, traveling from York to
Halifax. There were pavements in the country lanes, with the
grass growing on each side as carefully kept as the pavements
themselves; close by, sheep were grazing, and the whole scene
was lit up by gas. A singular sight! "
Then after a short pause: -"Have you noticed that the physi-
ognomy of the great men of to-day is so rarely in keeping with
their intellect? Look at their portraits, their photographs: there
are no longer any good portraits. Remarkable people no longer
possess in their faces anything which distinguishes them from
ordinary folk. Balzac had nothing characteristic.
Would you
recognize Lamartine if you saw him? There is nothing in the
shape of his head, or in his lustreless eyes, nothing but a certain
elegance which age has not affected. The fact is that in these
days there is too great an accumulation of people and things,
much more so than in former times. We assimilate too much
from other people, and this being the case, we lose even the
individuality of our features; we present the portrait of a collect-
ive set of people rather than of ourselves. "
We rose to take our leave; he accompanied us to the door;
then by the light of the lamp he carried in his hand we saw,
for a second at least, this marvelous historian of dreams, the
great somnambulist of the past and brilliant talker of the present.
## p. 6557 (#547) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6557
THE SUICIDE
From Sister Philomène ›
THE
HE next morning the whole hospital knew that Barnier, hav-
ing scratched his hand on the previous day while dissecting
a body in a state of purulent infection, was dying in terri-
ble agonies.
When at four o'clock Malivoire, quitting for a few moments
the bedside of his friend, came to replace him in the service, the
Sister went up to him. She followed from bed to bed, dogging
his steps, without however accosting him, without speaking,
watching him intently with her eyes fixed on his. As he was
leaving the ward:-
"Well? " she asked, in the brief tone with which women stop
the doctor on his last visit at the threshold of the room.
"No hope," said Malivoire, with a gesture of despair; "there
is nothing to be done. It began at his right ankle, went up the
leg and thigh, and has attacked all the articulations.
Such ago-
nies, poor fellow! It will be a mercy when it's over. ”
"Will he be dead before night? " asked the Sister calmly.
"Oh no! He will live through the night. It is the same
case as that of Raguideau three years ago; and Raguideau lasted
forty-eight hours. "
That evening, at ten o'clock, Sister Philomène might be seen
entering the church of Notre Dame des Victoires.
The lamps were being lowered, the lighted tapers were being
put out one by one with a long-handled extinguisher. The priest
had just left the vestry.
The Sister inquired where he lived, and was told that his
house was a couple of steps from the church, in the Rue de la
Banque.
The priest was just going into the house when she entered
behind, pushing open the door he was closing.
"Come in, Sister," he said, unfurling his wet umbrella and
placing it on the tiled floor in the ante-room. And he turned
toward her She was on her knees. "What are you doing,
Sister? " he said, astonished at her attitude. "Get up, my child.
This is not a fit place. Come, get up! "
"You will save him, will you not? " and Philomène caught
hold of the priest's hands as he stretched them out to help her to
rise. "Why do you object to my remaining on my knees? "
## p. 6558 (#548) ###########################################
6558
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
"Come, come, my child, do not be so excited.
remember, who can save. I can but pray. "
"Ah! you can only pray," she said in a disappointed
"Yes, that is true. "
It is God alone,
-
And her eyes sank to the ground. After a moment's
the priest went on:-
"Come, Sister, sit down there. You are calmer now, are you
not? Tell me, what is it you want?
>>
<< It
never
"He is dying," said Philomène, rising as she spoke. "He will
probably not live through the night;" and she began to cry.
is for a young man of twenty-seven years of age; he has
performed any of his religious duties, never been near a church,
never prayed to God since his first communion. He will
to listen to anything. He no longer knows a prayer even
will listen neither to priest nor any one. And I tell you1 it is
all over with him,- he is dying. Then I remembered you
fraternity of Notre Dame des Victoires, since it is devoted to
who do not believe. Come, you must save him! "
refuse
He
I Con-
those
tone.
"My daughter-»
"And perhaps he is dying at this very moment. Oh! promise
me you will do all at once, all that is in the Confraternity
the prayers, everything, in short.
book;
You will have him prayed
for at once, won't you? "
"But, my poor child, it is Friday to-day, and the Confrater-
nity only meets on Thursday. "
«<
Thursday only — why? It will be too late Thursday. He will
never live till Thursday. Come, you must save him; you
saved many another. "
have
Sister Philomène looked at the priest with wide-opened
in which through her tears rose a glance of revolt, impatience,
and command. For one instant in that room there was no longer
a Sister standing before a priest, but a woman face to face
with
an old man.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
pause
The priest resumed:-
"All I can do at present for that young man, my dear daugh
ter, is to apply to his benefit all the prayers and good works
are being carried on by the Confraternity, and I will offer
up to the Blessed and Immaculate Heart of Mary to obtain
conversion. I will pray for him to-morrow at mass, and aga
Saturday and Sunday. "
in
eyes,
that
them
his
on
"Oh, I am so thankful," said Philomène, who felt tears
gently to her eyes as the priest spoke to her. "Now I an
rise
full
## p. 6559 (#549) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6559
of hope; he will be converted, he will have pity on himself. Give
me your blessing for him. "
"But Sister, I only bless from the altar, in the pulpit, or in
the confessional.
been swept and all put in order, fit for a wedding. What more
is needed? ”
"Well then, what is this? " cried flya flyitch, interrupting
him and calling his attention to the walls and the ceiling. “And
that? and that? "
He pointed to a yesterday's napkin which had been flung
down, and to a plate which had been left lying on the table
with a dry crust of bread on it.
"Well, as for that," said Zakhár as he picked up the plate,
"I will take care of it. "
## p. 6544 (#534) ###########################################
6544
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
"You will take care of it, will you? But how about the dust
and the cobwebs on the walls? " said Oblómof, making ocular
demonstration.
"I put that off till Holy Week; then I clean the sacred
images and sweep down the cobwebs. "
"But how about dusting the books and pictures? »
"The books and pictures? Before Christmas; then Anísiya
and I look over all the closets. But now when should we be
able to do it? You are always at home. ”
"I sometimes go to the theatre or go out
might - "
"Do house-cleaning at night? "
Oblómof looked at him reproachfully, shook his head, and
uttered a sigh; but Zakhár gazed indifferently out of the window
and also sighed deeply. The master seemed to be thinking,
"Well, brother, you are even more of an Oblómof than I am
myself;" while Zakhár probably said to himself, "Rubbish! You
as my master talk strange and melancholy words, but how do
dust and cobwebs concern you? "
"Don't you know that moths breed in dust? " asked Ílya
İlyitch. "I have even seen bugs on the wall! »
"Well, I have fleas on me sometimes," replied Zakhár in a
tone of indifference.
to dine: you
"Well, is that anything to boast about? That is shameful,"
exclaimed Oblómof.
Zakhar's face was distorted by a smirking smile, which
seemed to embrace even his eyebrows and his side-whiskers,
which for this reason spread apart; and over his whole face up
to his very forehead extended a ruddy spot.
"Why, am I to blame that there are bugs on the wall? " he
asked in innocent surprise: "was it I who invented them? ”
"They come from lack of cleanliness," insisted Oblómof.
"What are you talking about? "
"I am not the cause of the uncleanliness. "
"But you have mice in your room there running about at
night - I hear them. "
"I did not invent the mice. There are all kinds of living
creatures mice and cats and fleas - lots of them everywhere. "
"How is it that other people don't have moths and bugs? "
Zakhár's face expressed incredulity, or rather a calm conviction
that this was not so.
## p. 6545 (#535) ###########################################
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
6545
« One
"I have plenty of them," he said without hesitation.
can't look after every bug and crawl into the cracks after
them. "
It seemed to be his thought, "What kind of a sleeping-room
would that be that had no bugs in it? "
"Now do you see to it that you sweep and brush them out
of the corners; don't let there be one left," admonished Oblómof.
"If you get it all cleaned up it will be just as bad again to-
morrow," remonstrated Zakhár.
"It ought not to be as bad," interrupted the master.
"But it is," insisted the servant; "I know all about it. "
"Well then, if the dust collects again, brush it out again. "
"What is that you say? Brush out all the corners every
day? " exclaimed Zakhár. "What a life that would be! Better
were it that God should take my soul! "
"Why are other people's houses clean? " urged Oblómof.
"Just look at the piano-tuner's rooms: see how neat they look,
and only one maid—»
"Oh, these Germans! " exclaimed Zakhár suddenly interrupt-
ing. "Where do they make any litter? Look at the way they
live! Every family gnaws a whole week on a single bone. The
coat goes from the father's back to the son's, and back from the
son's to the father's. The wives and daughters wear little short
skirts, and when they walk they all lift up their legs like ducks
- where do they get any dirt? They don't do as we do - leave
a whole heap of soiled clothes in the closet for a year at a time,
or fill up the corners with bread crusts for the winter. Their
crusts are never flung down at random: they make zweiback out
of them, and eat them when they drink their beer! "
Zakhár expressed his disgust at such a penurious way of liv
ing by spitting through his teeth.
"Say nothing more," expostulated Ílya Ílyitch. "Do better
work with your house-cleaning. "
"One time I would have cleaned up, but you yourself would
not allow it," said Zakhár.
"That is all done with! Don't you see I have entirely
changed? »
“Of course you have; but still you stay at home all the time:
how can one begin to clean up when you are right here? If you
will stay out of the house for a whole day, then I will have a
general clearing-up. ”
XI-410
## p. 6546 (#536) ###########################################
6546
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
"What an idea! Get out of here. You had better go to your
own room. "
"All right! " persisted Zakhár; "but I tell you, the moment
you go out, Anísiya and I will clear the whole place up. And
we two would finish with it in short metre; then you will want
some women to wash everything. "
"Oh, what schemes you invent! Women! away with you! "
cried ĺlya Ílyitch.
He was by this time disgusted with himself for having led
Zakhár into this conversation. He had quite forgotten that the
attainment of this delicate object was at the expense of consider-
able confusion. Oblómof would have liked a state of perfect
cleanliness, but he would require that it should be brought about
in some imperceptible manner, as it were of itself; but Zakhár
always induced a discussion as soon as he was asked to have any
sweeping done, or the floors washed, and the like. In such a
contingency he was sure to point out the necessity of a terrible
disturbance in the house, knowing very well that the mere sug-
gestion of such a thing would fill his master with horror.
Zakhar went away, and Oblómof relapsed into cogitation.
After some minutes the half-hour struck again.
"What time is it? " exclaimed Ílya Ílyitch with a dull sense
of alarm. "Almost eleven o'clock! Can it be that I am not up
yet nor had my bath? Zakhár! Zakhár! ”
"Oh, good God! what is it now? " was heard from the ante-
room, and then the well-known thump of feet.
"Is my bath ready? " asked Oblómof.
"Ready? yes, long ago,” replied Zakhár. "Why did you not
get up? "
"Why didn't you tell me it was ready? I should have got up
long ago if you had. Go on; I will follow you immediately.
have some business to do; I want to write. "
I
Zakhar went out, but in the course of a few minutes he
returned with a greasy copy-book all scribbled over, and some
scraps of paper.
]
"Here, if you want to write-and by the way, be kind enough
to verify these accounts: we need the money to pay them. "
"What accounts? what money? » demanded Ílya Ílyitch with
a show of temper.
"From the butcher, from the grocer, from the laundress, from
the baker; they all are clamoring for money. "
## p. 6547 (#537) ###########################################
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
6547
"Nothing but bother about money," growled Ílya Ílyitch.
"But why didn't you give them to me one at a time instead of
all at once? "
"You see you always kept putting me off: To-morrow,'
always To-morrow. >>
"Well, why shouldn't we put them off till to-morrow now? "
"No! they are dunning you; they won't give any longer
credit. To-morrow's the first of the month. "
Well, why
I will get
"Akh! " cried Oblómof in vexation, "new bother!
are you standing there? Put them on the table.
up immediately, take my bath, and look them over," said Ílya
Ílyitch. "Is it all ready for my bath? "
-'ready'? " said Zakhár.
"What do you mean
"Well, now
With a groan he started to make the preliminary movement
of getting up.
>>>
――
"I forgot to tell you," began Zakhár, "while you were still
asleep the manager sent word by the dvórnik that it was imper-
atively necessary that you vacate the apartment: it is wanted. "
"Well, what of that? If the apartment is wanted of course
we will move out. Why do you bother me with it? This is the
third time you have spoken to me about it. "
"They bother me about it also. "
"Tell them that we will move out. "
"He says, 'For a month you have been promising,' says he,
'and still you don't move out,' says he: 'we'll report the matter
to the police. »»
"Let him report,” cried Oblómof resolutely: "we will move
out as soon as it is a little warmer, in the course of three
weeks. "
"Three weeks, indeed! The manager says that the workmen
are coming in a fortnight: everything is to be torn out. 'Move,'
says he, either to-morrow or day after to-morrow. "
"Eh eh eh- that's too short notice: to-morrow? See here,
what next? How would this minute suit? But don't you dare
speak a word to me about apartments. I have already told you
that once, and here you are again. Do you hear? »
"But what shall I do? " demanded Zakhár.
"What shall you do? Now how is he going to get rid of
me? " replied Ílya Ílyitch. "He makes me responsible! How
Don't you trouble me any further, but
does it concern me?
## p. 6548 (#538) ###########################################
6548
IVÁN ALEKSANDROVITCH GONCHARÓF
make any arrangements you please, only so that we don't have
to move yet. Can't you do your best for your master? "
"But Ílya Ílyitch, little father [bátiushka], what arrangements
shall I make? " began Zakhár in a hoarse whisper. "The house
is not mine; how can we help being driven out of the place if
they resort to force? If only the house were mine, then I would
with the greatest pleasure"
"There must be some way of bringing him around: tell him
we have lived here so long; tell him we'll surely pay him. ”
"I have," said Zakhár.
"Well, what did he say? "
"What did he say? He repeated his everlasting Move out,'
says he; we want to make repairs on the apartment. ' He wants
to do over this large apartment and the doctor's for the wedding
of the owner's son. "
"Oh, my good Lord! " exclaimed Oblómof in despair; "what
asses they are to get married! "
He turned over on his back.
"You had better write to the owner, sir," said Zakhár. “Then
perhaps he would not drive us out, but would give us a renewal
of the lease. "
Zakhár as he said this made a gesture with his right hand.
"Very well, then; as soon as I get up I will write him. You
go to your room and I will think it over. You need not do
anything about this," he added; "I myself shall have to work at
all this miserable business myself. "
Zakhár left the room, and Oblómof began to ponder.
But he was in a quandary which to think about,-his stárosta's
letter, or the removal to new lodgings, or should he undertake.
to make out his accounts? He was soon swallowed up in the
flood of material cares and troubles, and there he still lay turn-
ing from side to side. Every once in a while would be heard
his broken exclamation, "Akh, my God! life touches everything.
reaches everywhere! "
No one knows how long he would have lain there a prey to
this uncertainty, had not the bell rung in the ante-room.
"There is some one come already! " exclaimed Oblómof,
wrapping himself up in his khalát, “and here I am not up yet;
what a shame! Who can it be so early? "
And still lying on his bed, he gazed curiously at the door.
## p. 6549 (#539) ###########################################
6549
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
EDMOND (1822-1896) JULES (1830-1870)
E
DMOND AND JULES HUOT DE GONCOURT, French writers who
became famous alike for the perfectness of their collabora-
tion, the originality of their methods, and the finish of their
style, were born, the first in Nancy in 1822, the other in Paris in 1830.
Until the death of Jules in 1870 they wrote nothing for the public
that did not bear both their names; and so entirely identical were
their tastes and judgment that it is impossible to say of a single sen-
tence they composed that it was the sole product of one or the other.
"Charming writers," Victor Hugo called
them; "in unison a powerful writer, two
minds from which springs a single jet of
talent. " Born of a noble family of moderate
wealth, they were educated as became their
station in life. Both had an early leaning
toward the arts; but Edmond, in deference
to the wishes of his family, took a govern-
ment appointment and held the office till
the death of his mother, when he was
twenty-six years of age. Their father had
died while they were boys.
Drawn together by their common bereave-
ment and the death-bed injunction of their EDMOND DE GONCOURT
parent that Edmond should be the careful
guardian of his younger brother, whose health had always been deli-
cate, the young men then began a companionship which was broken
only by death. They set out to make themselves acquainted with
southern Europe, and at the same time to escape the political turmoils
of Paris; and extended their travels into Africa, which country ey
found so congenial that in the first ardor of their enthusiasm they
determined to settle there. Business arrangements, however, soon
recalled them to Paris, where ties of friendship and other agreeable
associations bound them fast to their native soil. They took up their
residence in the metropolis, where they lived until a short time
before the death of Jules, when, to be free from the roar of the city,
they purchased a house in one of the suburbs. Their intellectual
development may be traced through their Journal and letters to
## p.
6550 (#540) ###########################################
6550
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
intimate friends, published by the surviving brother. From these it
appears that most of their leisure hours during their travels were
taken up with painting and drawing. Jules had attempted some dra-
matic compositions while at college, and Edmond had been strongly
drawn to literature by the conversation of an aunt, of whom he saw
much before his mother's death. It was while engaged with their
brushes in 1850 that it occurred to the brothers to take up writing as
a regular vocation; and thus was begun their remarkable literary
partnership.
Their first essay was a drama. It was rejected; whereupon, nothing
daunted, they wrote a novel. It was entitled 18-,' and it is inter-
esting to observe that here, at the very outset of their career, they
seem to have had in mind the keynote of the chord on which they
ever afterwards played: the eighteenth century was the chief source
of their inspiration, and it was their life's endeavor to explore it and
reproduce it for their contemporaries with painstaking fidelity. The
novel engaged their serious and earnest attention, and when it was
given to the publisher they watched for its appearance with painful
anxiety. Unfortunately it was announced for the very day on which
occurred the Coup d'État. The book came out when Paris was in an
uproar; and though Jules Janin, one of the most influential critics of
the day, unexpectedly exploited it at great length in the Journal des
Débats, its circulation in that first edition was not more than sixty
copies, most of which were distributed gratuitously.
The blow was a hard one, but the brothers were not thus to be
silenced, nor by the subsequent failure of other dramatic ventures and
an effort to found a newspaper. They had been little more than
imitators. They now entered the field they soon made their own.
The writers of their day were for the most part classicists; a few
before Victor Hugo were romanticists. The De Goncourts stood
for the modern, what they could see and touch. In this way they
became realists. What their own senses could not apprehend they at
once rejected; all they saw they deemed worthy to be reproduced.
They lived in a period of reconstruction after the devastation of the
revolution. The refinement and elegance of the society of the later
Bourbon monarchy, still within view, they yearned for and sought to
restore. A series of monographs dealing with the art and the stage
of these days, which appeared in 1851-2, won for them the first real
recognition they enjoyed. These were followed by various critical
essays on the same subjects, contributed to newspapers and periodi-
cals, and a novel, 'La Lorette,' which had a large sale and marked
the beginning of their success from a financial point of view. "This
makes us realize," they wrote in their Journal, "that one can actually
sell a book. "
## p. 6551 (#541) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6551
Their reputation as men of letters was established by the publica-
tion in 1854-5 of 'Histoire de la Société Pendant la Revolution' and
the same 'Pendant le Directoire,' the aim of which, they said, was
"to paint in vivid, simple colors the France of 1789 to 1800. " This
object they accomplished, so far as it concerned the society of which
they themselves were descendants; but the reactionary spirit in them
was too strong for an impartial view of the struggle, and their lack
of true philosophic spirit and broad human sympathy led them to
make a picture that, interesting as it is, is sadly distorted. Their
vivid colors are lavished mainly on the outrages of the rioters and
the sufferings of the aristocrats. But for wealth of detail, the result
of tireless research, the history is of value as a record of the man-
ners and customs of the fashionable set of the period. Of the same
sort were their other semi-historical works: 'Portraits Intimes du
XVIIIième Siècle,' separate sketches of about a hundred more or
less well-known figures of the age; L'Histoire de Marie Antoinette,'
and 'La Femme au XVIIIième Siècle,' in which the gossip and
anecdote of former generations are told again almost as graphically
as are those which the authors relate of their own circle in their
* memoirs. Their most important contribution to literature was their
'L'Art au XVIIIème Siècle,' monographs gathered and published
in seventeen volumes, and representing a dozen years' labor. This
was indeed a labor of love, and it was not in vain; for it was these
appreciative studies more than anything else that turned public atten-
tion to the almost forgotten delicacy of the school of painters headed
by Watteau, Fragonard, Latour, Boucher, Debricourt, and Greuze,
whose influence has ever since been manifested on the side of sound
taste and sanity in French art.
A volume entitled 'Idées et Sensations,' and their Journal and
letters, complete the list of the more important of their works out-
side the field of fiction. The Journal will always be valuable as an
almost complete document of the literary history of France in their
time, made up as it is of impressions of and from the most important
writers of the day, with whom they were on terms of intimate friend-
ship, including Flaubert, Gautier, Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Hugo, Saint-
Victor, Michelet, Zola, and George Sand. In fiction the De Goncourts
were less prolific, but it is to their novels mainly that they owe their
reputation for individuality, and as true "path-breakers" in literature.
They have been called the initiators of modern French realism. Their
friend Flaubert perhaps better deserves the title. Their determina-
tion to see for themselves all that could be seen, the result of which
gave real worth to their historical work, even where their preju-
dice robbed it of weight, was what put the stamp of character upon
their novels. How much importance they attached to correct and
## p. 6552 (#542) ###########################################
6552
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
comprehensive observation may be gathered from their remark, “The
art of learning how to see demands the longest apprenticeship of all
the arts. " They took life as they found it, examined it on every side,
-rarely going far under the surface,—and then sought to reproduce it
on their pages as the artist would put it on canvas. Capable of terse-
ness, of suggestiveness, quick to note and communicate the vital spark,
they were yet rarely content with it alone. Every minute particle of
the body it vivified, they insisted on adding to their picture. Noth-
ing was to be taken for granted; as nothing was accepted by them at
second hand, so nothing was left to the imagination of the reader
until their comprehensive view was his. It was in this way that they
were realists. They did not seek out and expose to public view the
grossness and unpleasantness of life. Their own preference was for
the beautiful, and in their own lives they indulged their refined
tastes. But they looked squarely at the world about them, the ugly
with the beautiful, the impure with the pure, and they did not hesi-
tate to describe one almost as faithfully as the other.
Curiously, the discrimination against the masses and the bias that
mar their history do not appear in their fiction. "They began writ-
ing history which was nothing but romance," says one of their critics,
" and later wrote romance which in reality is history. " Indeed, their
novels are little more than sketches of what occurred around them.
'Madame Gervaisais' is a character study of the aunt of strong liter-
ary predilections who influenced Edmond; Germinie Lacerteux' is
the biography of their servant, at whose death, after long and faith-
ful service, they discovered that she had led a life of singular
duplicity; Sour Philomène' is a terribly true glimpse of hospital
life, and 'Manette Salomon,' with its half-human monkey drawn from
the life, is transferred without change from the Parisian studios under
the Empire. 'Renée Mauperin' comes nearest to the model of an
ordinary novel; but no one can read of the innocent tomboy girl
struck down with fatal remorse at the consequences of her own nat-
ural action, on learning of her brother's dishonor, without feeling
that this picture too was drawn from the life. Several of their
stories were dramatized, but with scant success; and a play which
they wrote, 'Henriette Maréchal,' and had produced at the Comédie
Française through the influence of Princess Mathilde, their constant
friend and patroness, was almost howled down,- chiefly however for
political reasons.
After the death of Jules de Goncourt, his brother wrote several
books of the same character as those which they produced in union,
the best known of which are 'La Fille Élisa,' and 'Chérie,' a study
of a girl, said to have been inspired by the Journal of Marie Bash-
kirtseff. The best critics in France, notably Sainte-Beuve, have given
## p. 6553 (#543) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6553
the brothers Goncourt a very high place in literature and conceded
their originality. English reviewers have been less ready to exalt
them, mainly on account of the offensive part of their realism. They
have objected also to their superficiality as historians, and to their
sympathy with the sentimental admirers of such types as Marie
Antoinette; but they too have been ready to praise the brothers as
leaders of a new fashion, and especially for their devotion to style.
In this respect the Goncourts have few rivals in French literature.
Balzac himself was not more finical in the choice of words, or more
unsparing of his time and energy in writing and re-writing until his
exact meaning, no more or less, had been expressed; and they cov-
ered up the marks of their toil better than he. In a letter to Zola,
Edmond de Goncourt said:-"My own idea is that my brother died
of work, and above all from the desire to elaborate the artistic form,
the chiseled phrase, the workmanship of style. " He himself spent a
long life at this fine artistry, and died in Paris in July, 1896.
TWO FAMOUS MEN
From the Journal of the De Goncourts
M
ARCH 3D [1862]. We took a walk and went off to find Thé-
ophile Gautier.
The street in which he lives is
composed of the most squalid countrified buildings, of
court-yards swarming with poultry, fruit shops whose doors are
ornamented with little brooms of black feathers: just such a sub-
urban street as Hervier might have painted.
We pushed
open the door of a house, and found ourselves in the presence.
of the lord of epithet. The furniture was of gilded wood, covered
with red damask, after the heavy Venetian style; there were fine
old pictures of the Italian school; above the chimney a mirror
innocent of quicksilver, on which were scraped colored arabesques
and various Persian characters, such a picture of meagre sump-
tuousness and faded splendor as one would find in the rooms of a
retired actress, who had come in for some pictures through the
bankruptcy of an Italian manager.
When we asked him if we were disturbing him, he answered:
"Not at all. I never work at home. I get through my 'copy'
at the printing-office. They set up the type as I write. The
smell of the printers' ink is a sure stimulant to work, for one
feels the 'copy' must be handed in. I could write only a novel
in this way now; unless I saw ten lines printed I could not get
on to the next ten. The proof-sheet serves as a test to one's
·
·
## p. 6554 (#544) ###########################################
6554
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
work. That which is already done becomes impersonal, but the
actual 'copy' is part of yourself; it hangs like filaments from
the root of your literary life, and has not yet been torn away. I
have always been preparing corners where I should do my work,
but when installed there I found I could do nothing. I must be
in the midst of things, and can work only when a racket is going
on about me; whereas, when I shut myself up for work the soli-
tude tells upon me and makes me sad. "
From there Gautier got on the subject of the "Queen of
Sheba. ' We admitted our infirmity, our physical incapacity of
taking in musical sound; and indeed, a military band is the high-
est musical enjoyment of which we are capable. Whereupon
Gautier said, "Well, I'm delighted to hear that: I am just like
you; I prefer silence to music. I do know bad music from good,
because part of my life was spent with a singer, but both are
quite indifferent to me. Still it is curious that all the literary
men of our day feel the same about music. Balzac abhorred it,
Hugo cannot endure it, Lamartine has a horror of it. There
are only a few painters who have a taste for it. "
Then Gautier fell to complaining of the times. "Perhaps I
am getting an old man, but I begin to feel as if there were no
more air to breathe. What is the use of wings if there is no air
in which one can soar? I no longer feel as if I belonged to the
present generation. Yes, 1830 was a glorious epoch, but I was
too young by two or three years; I was not carried away by the
current; I was not ready for it. I ought to have produced a
very different sort of work. ”
There was then some talk of Flaubert, of his literary meth-
ods, of his indefatigable patience, and of the seven years he
devoted to a work of four hundred pages. "Just listen," ob-
served Gautier, "to what Flaubert said to me the other day: 'It
is finished. I have only ten more pages to write; but the ends
of my sentences are all in my head. ' So that he already hears
in anticipation the music of the last words of his sentences before
the sentences themselves have been written. Was it not a quaint
expression to use? I believe he has devised a sort of literary
rhythm. For instance, a phrase which begins in slow measure
must not finish with a quick pace, unless some special effect is
to be produced. Sometimes the rhythm is only apparent to him-
self, and escapes our notice. A story is not written for the
purpose of being read aloud: yet he shouts his to himself as
## p. 6555 (#545) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6555
These shouts present to his own ears harmon-
he writes them.
ies, but his readers seem unaware of them. "
Gautier's daughters have a charm of their own, a species of
Oriental languor, deep dreamy eyes, veiled by heavy eyelids, and
a regularity in their gestures and movements which they inherit
from their father; but this regularity is tempered in them by
womanly grace. There is a charm about them which is not all
French; nevertheless there is a French element about it, their
little tomboyish tricks and expressions, their habit of pouting,
the shrugging of their shoulders, the irony which escapes through
the thin veil of childishness intended to conceal it. All these
points distinguish them from ordinary society girls, and make
clear a strong individuality of character which renders them fear-
less in expressing their likings and antipathies. They display
liberty of speech, and have often the manner of a woman whose
face is hidden by a mask; and yet one finds here simplicity,
candor, and a charming absence of reserve, utterly unknown to
the ordinary young girl.
NOVE
OVEMBER 23D [1863]. - We have been to thank Michelet for
the flattering lines he wrote about us.
He lives in the Rue de l'Ouest, at the end of the Jar-
din du Luxembourg, in a large house which might almost be
workmen's dwellings. His flat is on the third floor. A maid
opened the door and announced us. We penetrated into a small
study.
The wife of the historian has a young, serious face; she was
seated on a chair beside the desk on which the lamp was placed,
with her back to the window. Michelet sat on a couch of green
velvet, and was banked up by cushions.
His attitude reminded us of his historical work: the lower
portions of his body were in full sight, whilst the upper were
half concealed; the face was a mere shadow surrounded with
snowy white locks; from this shadowy mass emerged a professo-
rial, sonorous, singsong voice, consciously important, and in which
the ascending and descending scale produced a continuous cooing
sound.
He spoke to us in a most appreciative manner of our study
of Watteau, and then passed on to the interesting study which
might be written on French furniture.
## p. 6556 (#546) ###########################################
6556
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
"You gentlemen, who are observers of human nature," he
cried suddenly, "there is a history you should write,- the history
of the lady's-maid. I do not speak of Madame de Maintenon;
but you have Mademoiselle de Launai, the Duchesse de Gram-
mont's Julie, who exercised on her mistress so great an influence,
especially in the Corsican affair. Madame Du Deffand said some-
times that there were only two people sincerely attached to her,
D'Alembert and her maid. Oh! domesticity has played a great
part in history, though men-servants have been of comparative
unimportance.
"I was once going through England, traveling from York to
Halifax. There were pavements in the country lanes, with the
grass growing on each side as carefully kept as the pavements
themselves; close by, sheep were grazing, and the whole scene
was lit up by gas. A singular sight! "
Then after a short pause: -"Have you noticed that the physi-
ognomy of the great men of to-day is so rarely in keeping with
their intellect? Look at their portraits, their photographs: there
are no longer any good portraits. Remarkable people no longer
possess in their faces anything which distinguishes them from
ordinary folk. Balzac had nothing characteristic.
Would you
recognize Lamartine if you saw him? There is nothing in the
shape of his head, or in his lustreless eyes, nothing but a certain
elegance which age has not affected. The fact is that in these
days there is too great an accumulation of people and things,
much more so than in former times. We assimilate too much
from other people, and this being the case, we lose even the
individuality of our features; we present the portrait of a collect-
ive set of people rather than of ourselves. "
We rose to take our leave; he accompanied us to the door;
then by the light of the lamp he carried in his hand we saw,
for a second at least, this marvelous historian of dreams, the
great somnambulist of the past and brilliant talker of the present.
## p. 6557 (#547) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6557
THE SUICIDE
From Sister Philomène ›
THE
HE next morning the whole hospital knew that Barnier, hav-
ing scratched his hand on the previous day while dissecting
a body in a state of purulent infection, was dying in terri-
ble agonies.
When at four o'clock Malivoire, quitting for a few moments
the bedside of his friend, came to replace him in the service, the
Sister went up to him. She followed from bed to bed, dogging
his steps, without however accosting him, without speaking,
watching him intently with her eyes fixed on his. As he was
leaving the ward:-
"Well? " she asked, in the brief tone with which women stop
the doctor on his last visit at the threshold of the room.
"No hope," said Malivoire, with a gesture of despair; "there
is nothing to be done. It began at his right ankle, went up the
leg and thigh, and has attacked all the articulations.
Such ago-
nies, poor fellow! It will be a mercy when it's over. ”
"Will he be dead before night? " asked the Sister calmly.
"Oh no! He will live through the night. It is the same
case as that of Raguideau three years ago; and Raguideau lasted
forty-eight hours. "
That evening, at ten o'clock, Sister Philomène might be seen
entering the church of Notre Dame des Victoires.
The lamps were being lowered, the lighted tapers were being
put out one by one with a long-handled extinguisher. The priest
had just left the vestry.
The Sister inquired where he lived, and was told that his
house was a couple of steps from the church, in the Rue de la
Banque.
The priest was just going into the house when she entered
behind, pushing open the door he was closing.
"Come in, Sister," he said, unfurling his wet umbrella and
placing it on the tiled floor in the ante-room. And he turned
toward her She was on her knees. "What are you doing,
Sister? " he said, astonished at her attitude. "Get up, my child.
This is not a fit place. Come, get up! "
"You will save him, will you not? " and Philomène caught
hold of the priest's hands as he stretched them out to help her to
rise. "Why do you object to my remaining on my knees? "
## p. 6558 (#548) ###########################################
6558
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
"Come, come, my child, do not be so excited.
remember, who can save. I can but pray. "
"Ah! you can only pray," she said in a disappointed
"Yes, that is true. "
It is God alone,
-
And her eyes sank to the ground. After a moment's
the priest went on:-
"Come, Sister, sit down there. You are calmer now, are you
not? Tell me, what is it you want?
>>
<< It
never
"He is dying," said Philomène, rising as she spoke. "He will
probably not live through the night;" and she began to cry.
is for a young man of twenty-seven years of age; he has
performed any of his religious duties, never been near a church,
never prayed to God since his first communion. He will
to listen to anything. He no longer knows a prayer even
will listen neither to priest nor any one. And I tell you1 it is
all over with him,- he is dying. Then I remembered you
fraternity of Notre Dame des Victoires, since it is devoted to
who do not believe. Come, you must save him! "
refuse
He
I Con-
those
tone.
"My daughter-»
"And perhaps he is dying at this very moment. Oh! promise
me you will do all at once, all that is in the Confraternity
the prayers, everything, in short.
book;
You will have him prayed
for at once, won't you? "
"But, my poor child, it is Friday to-day, and the Confrater-
nity only meets on Thursday. "
«<
Thursday only — why? It will be too late Thursday. He will
never live till Thursday. Come, you must save him; you
saved many another. "
have
Sister Philomène looked at the priest with wide-opened
in which through her tears rose a glance of revolt, impatience,
and command. For one instant in that room there was no longer
a Sister standing before a priest, but a woman face to face
with
an old man.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
pause
The priest resumed:-
"All I can do at present for that young man, my dear daugh
ter, is to apply to his benefit all the prayers and good works
are being carried on by the Confraternity, and I will offer
up to the Blessed and Immaculate Heart of Mary to obtain
conversion. I will pray for him to-morrow at mass, and aga
Saturday and Sunday. "
in
eyes,
that
them
his
on
"Oh, I am so thankful," said Philomène, who felt tears
gently to her eyes as the priest spoke to her. "Now I an
rise
full
## p. 6559 (#549) ###########################################
THE BROTHERS DE GONCOURT
6559
of hope; he will be converted, he will have pity on himself. Give
me your blessing for him. "
"But Sister, I only bless from the altar, in the pulpit, or in
the confessional.
