The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madame Bovary, Volume 1 (of 2) by Gustave Flaubert This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Madame Bovary A Tale of Provincial Life, Volume 1 (of 2) Author: Gustave Flaubert Release Date: December 20, 2008 [EBook #27575] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADAME BOVARY *** Produced by Thierry Alberto, Henry Craig and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: Amendments can be read by placing cursor over words with a dashed underscore like this. MADAME BOVARY A TALE OF PROVINCIAL LIFE BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION BY FERDINAND BRUNETIÈRE Of the French Academy AND A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE BY ROBERT ARNOT, M. A VOLUME I. SIMON P. MAGEE, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO, ILL. Copyright, 1904, by M. WALTER DUNNE Entered at Stationers' Hall, London CONTENTS PAGE PART I. I. The New Boy 1 II. A Good Patient 13 III. A Lonely Widower 23 IV. Consolation 31 V. The New Ménage 38 VI. A Maiden's Yearnings 43 VII. Disillusion 50 VIII. Glimpses Of The World 58 IX. Idle Dreams 71 PART II. I. A New Field 85 II. New Friends 98 III. Added Cares 107 IV. Silent Homage 121 V. Smothered Flames 126 VI. Spiritual Counsel 138 VII. A Woman's Whims 154 VIII. A Village Festival 165 IX. A Woodland Idyll 193 X. Lovers' Vows 206 XI. An Experiment And A Failure 217 XII. Preparations For Flight 233 XIII. Deserted 251 XIV. Religious Fervor 264 XV. A New Delight 278 CRITICAL INTRODUCTION Domi mansit, lanam fecit: "He remained at home and wrote," is the first thing that should be said of Gustave Flaubert. This trait, which he shares with many of the writers of his generation,—Renan, Taine, Leconte de Lisle and Dumas fils, —distinguishes them and distinguishes him from those of the preceding generation, who voluntarily sought inspiration in disorder and agitation,—Balzac and George Sand, for instance (to speak only of romance writers), and the elder Dumas or Eugène Sue. Flaubert, indeed, had no "outward life;" he lived only for his art. A second trait of his character, and of his genius as a writer, is that of seeing in his art only the art itself—and art alone, without the mingling of any vision of fortune or success. A competency,—which he had inherited from the great surgeon, his father,—and moderate tastes, infinitely more bourgeois than his literature,—permitted him to shun the great [v] [vi] [ix] stumbling-block of the professional man of letters, which, in our day, and doubtless in the United States as well as in France, is the temptation to coin money with the pen. Never was writer more disinterested than Flaubert; and the story is that Madame Bovary brought him 300 francs—in debts. A third trait, which helps not only to characterise but to individualise him, is his subordination not only of his own existence, but of life in general, to his conception of art. It is not enough to say that he lived for his art: he saw nothing in the world or in life but material for that art,—Hostis quid aliud quam perpetua materia gloriæ?—and if it be true that others have died of their ambition, it could literally be said of Flaubert that he was killed by his art. It is this point that I should like to bring out in this Introduction,—where we need not speak of his Norman origin, or (as his friend Ducamp has written in his Literary Souvenirs with a disagreeable persistence, and so uselessly!) of his nervousness and epilepsy; of his loves or his friendships, but solely of his work. We know, in fact, to-day, that if all such details are made clear in the biography of a great writer, in no way do they explain his work. The author of Gil Blas, Alain René Lesage, was a Breton, like the author of Atala; the Corneille brothers had almost nothing in common. Of all our great writers, the one nearest, perhaps, to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who died a victim to delirium from persecution, was Madame Sand, who had, without doubt, the sanest and best balanced temperament. Other writers have sought,—for instance, our great classical authors, Pascal, Bossuet and perhaps Corneille,—to influence the thought of their time; some, like Molière, La Fontaine, and La Bruyère, to correct customs. Others still,— such as our romantic writers, Hugo or De Musset,—desired only to express their personal conception of the world and of life. And then Balzac, whose object,—almost scientific,—was to make a "natural history," a study and description, of the social species, as an animal or vegetable species is described in zoology or botany. Gustave Flaubert attempted only to work out his art, for and through the love of art. Very early in life, as we clearly see from his correspondence, his consideration for art was not even that of a social but of a sacred function, in which the artist was the priest. We hear sometimes, in metaphor and not without irony, of the "priesthood" of the artist and the "worship" of art. These expressions must be taken literally in Flaubert's case. He was cloistered in his art as a monk in his convent or by his discipline; and he truly lived only in meditation upon that art, as a Mystic in contemplation of the perfections of his God. Nothing outside of art truly interested him, neither science, nor things political or religious, nor men, nor women, nor anything in the world; and if, sometimes, it was his duty to occupy himself with them, it was never in a degree greater than could benefit his art. "The accidents of the world"—this is his own expression—appeared to him only as things permitted for the sake of description, so much so that his own existence, even, seemed to him to have no other excuse. It is that which explains the mixture of "romanticism," "naturalism," and I will add, of "classicism"—which has been pointed out more than once in Flaubert's work. Madame Bovary is the masterpiece of naturalistic romance and has not been surpassed by the studies of Zola or the stories of De Maupassant. On the other hand, there is nothing in Hugo, even, more romantic than The Temptation of Saint Antony. But it is necessary to look for many things in romanticism; and the romanticism of Hugo, which was one of the delights of Flaubert, did not resemble that of De Musset, (Lord de Musset, as Flaubert called him) which he strongly disliked. What he loved in romanticism was the "colour," and nothing but the colour. He loved the romanticism of the Orientals, of Hugo and Chateaubriand, that plastic romanticism, whose object is to substitute in literature "sensations of art" for the "expression of ideas," or even of sentiments. It is precisely here that naturalism and romanticism—or at least French naturalism, which is very different from that of the Russians or the English—join hands. In the one case, as in the other, the attempt is made to "represent"—as he himself puts it; and when one represents nothing except the vulgar, the common, the mediocre, the everyday, commonplace, or grotesque, he is a "naturalist," like the author of Madame Bovary; but one is a "romanticist" when, like the author of Salammbô, he makes this world vanish, and recreates a strange land filled with Byzantine or Carthaginian civilization, with its barbaric luxury, its splendour of corruption, immoderate appetites, and monstrous deities. We have done wrong in considering Flaubert a naturalist impeded by his romanticism, or a romanticist impenitent, irritated with himself because of his tendency to naturalism. He was both naturalist and romanticist. And in both he was an artist, so much of an artist (I say this without fear of contradiction) that he saw nothing in his art but "representation," the telling of the truth in all its depth and fidelity. Les Fileuses and La Reddition de Bréda are always by Velasquez; but the genius of the painter has nothing in common with the subject he has chosen or the circumstances that inspired him. From this source proceeds that insensibility in Flaubert with which he has so often been reproached, not without reason, and which divides his naturalism from that of the author of Adam Bede or that of the author of Anna Karenina by an abyss. Honest, as a man, a good citizen, a good son, a good brother, a good friend, Flaubert was indifferent, as an artist, to all that did not belong to his art. "I believe that it is necessary to love nothing," he has written somewhere, and even underscored it—that is to say, it is necessary to hover impartially above all objective points. And, in fact, as nothing passed before his eyes that he considered did not lie within the possibility of representation, he made it a law unto himself to look nothing in the face except from this point of view. In this regard one may compare his attitude in the presence of his model to that of his contemporaries, Renan, for example, or Taine, in the presence of the object of their studies. With them also critical impartiality resembles not only indifference but insensibility. Not only have they refused to confound their emotions with their judgments, but their judgments have no value in their eyes except as they separate them from their emotions,—as they emancipate themselves from them or even place themselves in opposition to them. In like manner did Flaubert. The first condition of [x] [xi] [xii] [xiii] an exact representation of things is to dominate them; and in order to dominate them, is it not necessary to begin by detaching yourself from them? We see dimly through tears, and we are too much absorbed in that which gives us pleasure to be good judges of it. "An ideal society would be one where each individual performed his duty according to his ability. Now, then, I do my duty as best I can; I am forsaken.... No one pities my misfortunes; those of others occupy their attention! I give to humanity what it gives to me—indifference!" Is not the link between Flaubert's "indifference" and his conception of art evident here? But Flaubert said besides: "Living does not concern me! It is only necessary to shun suffering." Should we not change the name of this to "egotism" or "insensibility?" We might, indeed, did we not know that this egotism germinated in Flaubert as a means of discipline. The object of this discipline was to concentrate, for the profit of his art, those qualities or forces which the ordinary man dissipates in the pursuit of useless pleasures, or squanders in intensity of life. We may take account at the same time of the nature of his pessimism. For there are many ways of being a pessimist, and Flaubert's was not at all like that of Schopenhauer or Leopardi. His pessimism, real and sincere, proceeded neither from personally grievous experiences of life, as did that of the recluse of Recanati, nor from a philosophic or logical view of the conditions of existence in which humanity is placed, like the pessimism of the Frankfort philosopher. Flaubert was rather a victim of what Théophile Gautier, in his well-known Emaux et Camées, calls by the singularly happy name of "the Luminous Spleen of the Orient." To tell the truth, what Flaubert could not pardon in humanity was that it did not make enough of art, and so his pessimism was a consequence of his æstheticism. "As lovers of the beautiful," he tells us, "we are all outlaws! Humanity hates us; we do not serve it; we hate it because it wounds us! Let us love, then, in art, as the Mystics love their God; and let all pale before this love." These lines are dated 1853, before he had published anything. Therefore, Flaubert did not express himself thus because he was not successful. His self-love was not in question! No one had yet criticised or discussed him. But he felt that his ideal of art, an art which he could not renounce, was opposed to the ideal methods, if they are ideal, held by his contemporaries; and the vision of the combats that he must face at once exalted and exasperated him. His pessimism was of the élite, or rather the minority of one who feels himself, or at least believes himself to be, superior, and who, knowing well that he will always be in the minority, fears, and rightly too, that he will not be recognised. It is a form of pessimism less rare in our day than one would think, and Taine, among others, said practically the same thing when he averred that "one writes only for one or two hundred people in Europe, or in the world." It may be that this is too individual a case! A more liberal estimate would be that we write for all those who can comprehend us; that style has for its first object the increase of such a number; and, after that, if there still be those who cannot comprehend us, no reason for despair exists on our part or on theirs. Let us follow, now, the consequences of this principle in Flaubert's work, and see successively all that his work means, and the dogma of art which proceeds from it. At first you are tempted to believe that Flaubert's work is diverse, though inconsiderable in volume; and, primarily do not see clearly the threads which unite the Education Sentimentale with the Tentation de Saint Antoine or Salammbô with Madame Bovary. On the one side Christian Egypt, and on the other the France of 1848, Madame Arnoux, Rosanette, and Frederick Moreau, the Orleanist carnival, and the "underwood" of Fontainebleau. Here, Carthage, Hamilcar, Hannibal, Narr' Havas, the Numidian hero, and Spendius, the Greek slave, the lions in bondage, the pomegranate trees which they sprinkled with silphium, the whole a strange and barbaric world; then Charles Bovary, the chemist Homais, his son Napoléon and his daughter Athalie, provincial life in the time of the Second Empire; bourgeois adultery, diligences and notaries' clerks. Then again Herodias, Salome, Saint Jean-Baptiste, or Saint Julien l'Hospitalier, the middle ages and antiquity,—all, at first sight, seem far removed, one from the other. At first one must admire, in such a contrast of subjects and colors, the extraordinary skill, let us say the virtuosité, of the artist. But, if we look more closely, we shall not be slow to perceive that no work is more homogeneous than that of Flaubert, and that, in truth, the Education Sentimentale, differs from Salammbô only as a Kermesse of Rubens, for example, or a Bacchante of Poussin differs from the apotheoses or the Church pictures of the painters themselves. The making is the same, and you immediately recognise the hand. The difference is in the choice of subjects, which is of no importance, since Flaubert is only attempting to "represent" something, and in the choice of material, when he is "representing," he is no longer free. That is the reason why, if one seek for lessons in "naturalism" in Salammbô, he will find them, and will also find all the "romanticism" he seeks in the Education Sentimentale and in Madame Bovary. From the other lessons that flow from this work, I find some in rhetoric, in art, in invention, in composition, and two or three of great import, eloquent in their bearing upon the history of contemporary French literature. A master does not mingle or engage his personality in his subject; but, as a God creates from the height of his serenity, without passion, if without love, so the poet or the artist expands the thing he touches, and, on each occasion, brings to bear upon it all the faculties that are his by toil but not innate. Nothing is demanded of the workers, and they make no confessions or confidences. Literature and art are not, nor should be, the expression of men's emotions, and still less the history of their lives. That is the reason why, while from reading René, for example, or Fraziella, Delphine, Corinne, Adolphe, Indiana, Volupté, or some of the romances of Balzac—La Muse du Departement, or Un Grand Homme de Province à Paris,—you could induct Balzac's entire psychology, or Sainte-Beuve's, or Madame Sand's, Benjamin Constant's, Madame de Staël's or Chateaubriand's, you would find in Madame Bovary or Salammbô nothing of [xiv] [xv] [xvi] [xvii] Flaubert, except his temperament, his taste, and his ideals as an artist. Let us suppose another Flaubert, who did not live at Rouen, whose life is not that related in his correspondence, who was not the friend of Maxime Ducamp or of Louise Colet, and the Education Sentimentale or the Tentation de Saint Antoine would not be in the least different from what they are now, nor should we see one line of change to be made. This is a triumph in objective art. "I do not wish to consider art as an overflow of passion," he wrote once, a little brutally. "I love my little niece as if she were my daughter, and I am sufficiently active in her behalf to prove that these are not empty phrases. But may I be flayed alive rather than exploit that kind of thing in style!" It has been but a short hundred years since, as he expressed it, romanticism "exploited its emotions in style," and made art from the heart. "Ah! strike upon the heart, 'tis there that genius lies!" But, for a whole generation, Madame Bovary, Salammbô and Education Sentimentale have been teaching the contrary. "The author in his work should be like God in the universe, everywhere present but nowhere visible. Art being second nature, the creator of this nature should act through analogous procedure. He must be felt in each atom, under every aspect, concealed but infinite; the effect upon the spectator should be a kind of amazement." Furthermore, he remarks that this principle was the core of Greek art. I know not, or at least I do not recall, whether he had observed (as he should, since Anglo-Saxons have been quick to notice it) that this "principle" underlies the art of Shakespeare. To realize this principle in work you must proceed scientifically, and, in this connection, we may notice that Flaubert's idea is that of Leconte de Lisle in the preface to his Poèmes Antiques, and of Taine in his lectures upon L'Idéal dans l'art. Romanticism had confounded the picturesque with the anecdotal; character with accident; colour with oddity. Han d'Islande, Nôtre-Dame de Paris and some romances of Balzac, the first and poorest, not signed with his name, may serve as an example. The classic writers on their side, had not always distinguished very profoundly the difference between the general and the universal, the principal and the accessory, the permanent and the superficial. We see this in the French comedies of the eighteenth century, even in some of Molière's—in his L'Avare and his Le Misanthrope, for example. Flaubert believed that a means of terminating this conflict is to be found in method; and that is the reason why, if we confine ourselves wholly to the consideration of the medium in his works, we shall find the Tentation de Saint Antoine entirely romantic; while, as a retaliation, nothing is more classic than Madame Bovary. The reason for this is, that in his subject, whatever it was, Carthaginian or low Norman, refined or bourgeois, modern or antique, he saw only the subject itself, with the eyes and after the manner of a naturalist, who is concerned only in knowing thoroughly the plant or the animal under observation. There is no sentiment in botany or in chemistry, and in them the desideratum is truth. Singleness of aim is the primary virtue in a savant. Things are what they are, and we demand of him that he show them to us as they are. We accuse him of lying if he disguises, weakens, alters or embellishes them. Likewise the artist! His function is ever to "represent:" and in order to accomplish this, he should, like the savant, mirror only the facts. After this, what do the names "romanticism" or "classicism" signify? Their sole use is to indicate the side taken; they are, so to speak, an acknowledgment that the writer is adorning the occurrence he is about to represent. He may make it more universal or more characteristic than nature! But, inversely, if all art is concentrated upon the representation, what matters the subject? Is one animal or plant more interesting than another to the naturalist? Does a name matter? All demand the same attention. Art can make exception in its subjects no more than science. If we ask in what consists the difference between science and art, on this basis, Flaubert, with Leconte de Lisle and with Taine, will tell us that it is in the beauty which communicates prestige to the work, or in the power of form. "What I have just written might be taken for something of Paul de Kock's, had I not given it a profoundly literary form," wrote Flaubert, while he was at work on Madame Bovary; "but how, out of trivial dialogue, produce style? Yet it is absolutely necessary! It must be done!" He went further still, and persuaded himself that style had a value in itself, intrinsic and absolute, aside from the subject. In fact, if the subject had no importance of its own, and if there were no personal motives for choosing one subject rather than another, what reason would there be for writing Madame Bovary or Salammbô? One alone: and that to "make something out of nothing," to produce a work of art from things of no import. For though everyone has some ideas, and everyone has had experience in some kind of life, it is given to few to be able to express their experience or their ideas in terms of beauty. This, precisely, is the goal of art. Form, then, is the great preoccupation of the artist, since, if he is an artist, it is through form, and in the perfection or originality of that form, that his triumph comes. Nothing stands out from the general mediocrity except by means of form; nothing becomes concrete, assuming immortality, save through form. Form in art is queen and sovereign. Even truth makes itself felt only through the attractiveness of form. And further, we cannot part one from the other; they are not opposed to each other; they are at one; and art in every phase consists only in this union. It is the end of art to give the superior life of form to that which has it not; and finally, this superior life of form, this magic wand of style, rhythmic as verse and terse as science, by firmly establishing the thing it touches, withdraws it from that law of change, constant in its inconstancy, which is the miserable condition of existence. All passes; art in its strength Alone remains to all eternity; The bust [xviii] [xix] [xx] [xxi] Survives the city. This it is that makes up the charm, the social dignity, and the lasting grandeur of art. This is not the place to discuss the "æsthetic" quality, and I shall content myself with indicating briefly some of the objections it has called forth. Has form indeed all the importance in literature that Flaubert claimed for it? And what importance has it in sculpture, for example, or in painting? Let us grant its necessity. Colour and line, which are, so to speak, the primal elements in the alphabet of painting and of sculpture, have not in themselves determined and precise significance. Yellow and red, green and blue are only general and confused sensations. But words express particular sentiments and well-defined ideas, and have a value that does not depend upon the form or the quality of the words. You cannot, then, in using them, distinguish between significance and form, or combine them independently of the idea they are intended to convey, as is possible with colours and with lines, solely for the beauty that results from combination. If literary art is a "representation," it is also something more; and the lapse in Flaubert, as in all those who have followed him in the letter, lies in having missed this distinction. You cannot write merely to represent; you write also to express ideas, to determine or to modify convictions; you write that you may act, or impel others to act: these are effects beyond the power of painting or of sculpture. A statue or a picture never brought about a revolution; a book, a pamphlet, nay, a few fiery words, have overturned a dynasty. It is no longer true, as a whole generation of writers has believed, that art and science may be one and the same thing; or that the first, as Taine has said, may be an "anticipation of the second." We could not in the presence of our fellow- creatures and their suffering affect the indifference of a naturalist before the plant or the animal he is studying. Whatever the nature of "human phenomena" may be, we in our quality as man can only look at them with human eyes, and could temptation make us change our point of view, it would properly be called inhuman. One might add that, if it is not certain that nature was made for man, and if, for that reason, science is wholly independent of conscience, as we take it, it is otherwise with art. We know that man was not made for art, but that art was made for man. We forget each time we speak of "art for art's sake" that there is need precisely to define the meaning of the expression and to recall that but for truth art could not have for its object the perfecting of political institutions, the uplifting of the masses, the correction of customs, the teachings of religion, and that although this may lead finally to the realization of beauty, it nevertheless remains the duty of man, and consequently, is human in its origin, human in its development, and human in its aim. Upon all these points, it is only necessary to think sensibly, as also upon the question—which we have not touched upon,—of knowing under what conditions, in what sense, and in what degree the person of the artist can or should remain foreign to his work. But a peculiarity of Flaubert's,—and one more personal, which even most of the naturalists have not shared with him, neither the Dutch in their paintings, nor the English in the history of romance (the author of Tom Jones or of Clarissa Harlowe), nor the Russians, Tolstoi or Dostoiefski,—is to despise the rôle of irony in art. "My personages are profoundly repugnant to me," he wrote, à propos of Madame Bovary. But they were not always repugnant to him, at least not all of them, and, in verification of this, we find that he has not for Spendius, Matho, Hamilcar, and Hanno, the boundless scorn that he affects for Homais or for Bournisien, for Bouvard or for Pecuchet. We recognise here the particular and special form of Flaubert's pessimism. That there could be people in the world, among his contemporaries, who were not wholly absorbed and preoccupied with art, surpassed his comprehension, and when this indifference did not arouse an indignation which exasperated him even to blows, it drew from him a scornful laughter that one might call Homeric or Rabelaisian, since it incited more to anger than to gaiety. And this is the reason why Madame Bovary, Education Sentimentale, Un Cœur Simple, and Bouvard et Pecuchet would be more truly named were they called satires and not representations. The exaggeration of the principle here recoils upon itself. That disinterestedness, that impartiality, that serenity which permitted him to "hover impartially above all objects" deserted him. A satirist, or to be more exact, a caricaturist, awoke within the naturalist. He raged at his own characters. He railed at them and mocked them. The interest of the representation had undergone a change. He was no longer in the attitude of mere fidelity to facts, but in a state of scorn and violent derision. Homais and Bournisien are no longer studies in themselves, but a burden to Flaubert. His Education Sentimentale, in spite of him, became, to use his own expression, an overflow of rancour. In Bouvard et Pecuchet he gave way to his hatred of humanity; here, as a favour, and under the mask of irony, he brings himself into his work, and, like a simple Madame Sand, or a vulgar De Musset, we perceive Flaubert himself, bull-necked and ruddy, with the moustaches of a Gallic chief, agonizing at each turn in the romance. It is not necessary to exaggerate Flaubert's influence. In his time there were ten other writers, none of whom equalled him,—Parnassians in poetry, positivists in criticism, realists in romance or in dramatic writing,—who laboured at the same work. His æstheticism is not his alone, yet Madame Bovary and Salammbô shot like unexpected meteors out of a grey sky, the dull, low sky of the Second Empire. In 1860 the sky was not so grey or so low; and the Poèmes Antiques of Leconte de Lisle, the Études d'histoire religieuse of Renan, and the Essais de Critique of Taine, are possibly not unworthy to be placed in parallel or comparison with the first writings of Flaubert. An exquisite judge of things of the mind, J. J. Weiss, very clearly saw at that time what there was in common in all these works, in the glory of [xxii] [xxiii] [xxiv] [xxv] Signature: F. Brunetière which he was not deceived when he added the Fleurs du Mai by Charles Baudelaire, and the first comedies of Alexandre Dumas fils. But the truth is, not one of these works was marked with signs of masterly maturity in like degree with Madame Bovary. It is, then, natural that, from day to day, Flaubert should become a guide, and here, if we consider the nature of the lessons he gives, we cannot deny their towering excellence. If there was need to agitate against romanticism, Madame Bovary performed the duty; and if in this agitation there was need to save what was worth salvation, Salammbô saved it. If it was fitting to recall to poets and to writers of romance, to Madame Sand herself and Victor Hugo, that art was not invented as a public carrier for their confidences, it is still Flaubert who does it. He taught the school of hasty writers that talent, or even genius, is in need of discipline,—the discipline of a long and painful prenticehood in the making and unmaking of their work. He has widened, and especially has he hollowed and deepened, the notion that romanticism was born of nature, and, in doing this, has brought art back to the fountain-head of inspiration. His rhetoric and æstheticism brought him face to face with Nature, enabled him to see her, a gift as rare as it is great, and to "represent" her—the proof of the preceding. It is the artist that judges the model. Poets and romance-writers, like painters, we value only in as much as they represent life—by and for the fidelity, the originality, the novelty, the depth, the distinction, the perfection with which they represent it. It is the rule of rules, the principle of principles! And if Flaubert had no other merit than to have seen this better than any other writer of his age, it would be enough to assure for him a place, and a very exalted place, in the Pantheon of French Literature. BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE Gustave Flaubert was born at Rouen, December 12, 1821. His father was a physician, who later became chief surgeon in the Hôtel Dieu of that city, and his mother, Anne-Justine-Carline Fleuriot, was of Norman extraction. Fourth of a family of six children, as a child Flaubert exhibited marked fondness for stories, and, with his favourite sister, Caroline, would invent them for pastime. As a youth, he was exceedingly handsome, tall, broad-shouldered and athletic, of independent turn of mind, fond of study, and caring little for the luxuries of life. He attended the college of Rouen, but showed no marked characteristic save a pronounced taste for history. After graduating, he went to Paris to read law, at the École de Droit. At this time disease, the nature of which he always endeavored to conceal from the world, attacked him and compelled a return to Rouen. The complaint, as revealed after his death by Maxime Ducamp, was epilepsy, and the constant fear of suffering an attack in public led Flaubert to live the life of a recluse. The death of his father occurring at this critical period, Flaubert abandoned the study of law, which he had begun only in obedience to the formally expressed wish of his family. Having a comfortable income, he turned his thoughts to literature, and from that time all other work was distasteful. He read and wrote incessantly, although at this period he never completed anything. Among his papers were found several fragments written between his eighteenth and twentieth years. Some bear the stamp of his individuality, if not in the substance, which is romantic,—at least in the form, which is peculiarly lucid and concise,—for instance, the slight, romantic, autobiographic sketch entitled Novembre. Flaubert wrote neither for money nor for fame. To him, art was religion, and to it he sacrificed his life. Perfection of style was his goal; and unremitting devotion to his ideal slew him. That he was never satisfied with what he wrote, his letters show; and all who knew him marvelled at his laborious and pathetic application to his work. He settled first in Croisset, near Rouen, with his family, but shortly afterwards went to Brittany with Maxime Ducamp. On his return he planned La Tentation de Saint Antoine, which grew out of a fragmentary sketch entitled Smarh (a mediæval Mystery, the manuscript tells us), written in early youth. La Tentation proved a source of labor, for he never ceased revising it until it appeared in book form in 1874. In 1847, he wrote a modern play, entitled Le Candidat, produced in 1874 at the Vaudeville. It was not his first dramatic effort, as he had already written a sort of lyric fairy-play, Le Château des Cœurs, which was published in his Œuvres Posthumes. In 1849 Flaubert visited Greece, Egypt, and Syria, again accompanied by his friend Maxime Ducamp. After his return he planned a book of impressions similar to Par les Champs et par les Grèves, which was the result of the trip to Brittany; but the beginning only was achieved. Still he gathered many data for his future great novel, Salammbô. The year 1851 found him back in Croisset, working at La Tentation de Saint Antoine, which he dropped suddenly, when half finished, for an entirely different subject—Madame Bovary, a novel of provincial life, published first in 1857 in the Revue de Paris. For this Flaubert was prosecuted, on the charge of offending against public morals, but was acquitted after the remarkable defense offered by Maître Senard. Flaubert's fame dates from Madame Bovary, which was much discussed by press and public. Many, including his friend, Maxime Ducamp, condemned it, but Sainte-Beuve gave it his decisive and courageous approval. It was [xxvi] [xxvii] [xxviii] [xxix] generally considered, however, as the starting point of a new phase in letters, frankly realistic, and intent on understanding and expressing everything. Such success might have influenced Flaubert's artistic inclinations but did not, for while Madame Bovary was appearing in the Revue de Paris, the Artiste was publishing fragments of La Tentation de Saint Antoine. In 1858 Flaubert went to Tunis, visited the site of ancient Carthage, and four years afterwards wrote Salammbô, a marvellous reconstitution, more than half intuitive, of a civilisation practically unrecorded in history. This extraordinary book did not call forth the enthusiasm that greeted Madame Bovary. Flaubert, in whom correctness of detail was a passion, was condemned, even by Sainte-Beuve, for choosing from all history a civilisation of which so little is known. The author replied, and a lengthy controversy ensued, but it was not a subject that could be settled definitely in one way or another. In L'Education Sentimentale, roman d'un jeune homme, published in 1869, Flaubert returns momentarily to the style which brought him such rapid and deserved celebrity. In 1877 appeared Trois Contes, three short stories written in the impersonal style of Salammbô, contrasting strangely with La Legende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier and Herodias, wherein Flaubert shows himself supreme in the art of word-painting. Death came to him on May 8, 1880, as he was writing the last chapters of a new work, Bouvard et Pecuchet, which was published in part after he died and later appeared in book form (1881). At the age of twenty-five, Flaubert met the only woman who in any way entered his sentimental life. She was an author, the wife of Lucien Colet, and the "Madame X" of the Correspondence. Their friendship lasted eight years and ended unpleasantly, Flaubert being too absorbed by his worship for art to let passion sway him. He remained unmarried because his love for his mother and family made calls upon him that he would not neglect. He was indifferent to women, treated them with paternal indulgence, and often avowed that "woman is the undoing of the just." Yet a warm friendship existed between him and George Sand, and many of his letters are addressed to her, touching upon various questions in art, literature, and politics. The misanthropy which haunted Flaubert, of which so much has been said, was not innate, but was acquired through the constant contemplation of human folly. It was natural for him to be cheerful and kind-hearted, and of his generosity and disinterestedness not enough can be said. At the close of his life financial difficulties assailed him, for he had given a great part of his fortune to the support of a niece, restricting his own expenses and living as modestly as possible. In 1879, M. Jules Ferry, then Minister of Public Instruction, offered him a place in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, but the appointment was not confirmed. Flaubert's method of production was slow and laborious. Sometimes weeks were required to write a few pages, for he accumulated masses of notes and, it must be said, so much erudition as at times to impede action. He thought no toil too great, did it but aid him in his pursuit of literary perfection, and when the work that called for such expenditure of strength and thought was finished, he looked for no reward save that of a satisfied soul. Alien to business wisdom, he believed that to set a price upon his work disparaged it. In Flaubert, a Romanticist and a Naturalist at first were blended. But the latter tendency was fostered and acknowledged, while the former was repressed. He was an ardent advocate of the impersonal in art, declaring that an author should not in a page, a line, or a word, express the smallest part of an opinion. To him a writer was a mirror, but a mirror that reflected life while adding that divine effulgence which is Art. Of him a French Romanticist still living says: "Imagination was espoused by Unremitting-Toil-in-Faith and bore Flaubert. France fed the child, but Art stepped in and gave him to the Nations as a Beacon for the worshippers of Truth-in-Letters-and- in-Life." The city of Rouen reared a monument to Flaubert's memory, but on the spot where he breathed his last are reared the chimneys and the buildings of a factory, a tribute—possibly unconscious—to reality in life. Before writing Madame Bovary Flaubert had tested himself, and an idea of the scope and variety of his ideas may be gained from the following list of inedited and unfinished fragments: HISTORICAL The Death of the Due de Guise, 1835 Norman Chronicle of the Tenth Century, 1836 Two Hands on a Crown, or, During the Fifteenth Century, 1836. Essay on the Struggle between Priesthood and Empire, 1838. Rome and the Cæsars, 1839. TRAVELS Various notes on Travels to the Pyrenean Mountains, Corsica, Spain and the Orient, from 1840 to 1850. [xxx] [xxxi] [xxxii] Signature: Robert Arnot TALES AND NOVELS The Plague in Florence, 1836 Rage and Impotence, 1836 The Society Woman, fantastic verses, 1836 Bibliomania, 1836 An Exquisite Perfume, or, The Buffoons, 1836. Dreams of the Infernal Regions, 1837 Passion and Chastity, 1837 The Funeral of Dr. Mathurin, or, During the XVth Century, 1839. Frenzy and Death, 1843 Sentimental Education (not the novel published under same title). 1843. PLAYS Louis XI, Drama, 1838 Discovery of Vaccination, a parody of tragic style; one act only was written. CRITICISMS On Romantic Literature in France MISCELLANY Quidquid volueris? A psychological study, 1837. Agony (Sceptical Thoughts), 1838 Art and Commerce, 1839. Several nameless sketches. Unfortunately, nearly all the works of Flaubert's youth were mere sketches, laid aside by him. Their publication would have added nothing to his fame. Still, the loss of some would have been deplorable, to wit, such gems as Novembre, The Dance of Death, Rabelais, and the travels, Over Strand and Field. These sketches will be found in this edition. MADAME BOVARY PART I. I. The New Boy. E WERE in class when the head-master came in, followed by a "new fellow," not wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those who had been asleep woke up, and every one rose as if just surprised at his work. The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then, turning to the class-master, he said to him in a low voice: "Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend to your care; he'll be in the second. If his work and conduct are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper classes, as becomes his age." The "new fellow," standing in the corner behind the door so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of about fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was cut square on his forehead like a village chorister's; he looked reliable, but very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, his short school jacket of green cloth with black buttons must have been tight about the armholes, and showed at the opening of the cuffs red wrists accustomed to being bare. His legs, in blue stockings, looked out from beneath yellow trousers, drawn tight by braces. He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hobnailed boots. [xxxiii] [1] [2] We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all his ears, as attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even to cross his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two o'clock the bell rang, the master was obliged to tell him to fall into line with the rest of us. When we came back to work, we were in the habit of throwing our caps on the floor so as to have our hands more free; we used from the door to toss them under the form, so that they hit against the wall and made a lot of dust: it was "the thing." But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not dare to attempt it, the "new fellow" was still holding his cap on his knees even after prayers were over. It was one of those head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton nightcap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile's face. Oval, stiffened with whalebone, it began with three round knobs; then came in succession lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin separated by a red band; after that a sort of bag that ended in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated braiding, from which hung, at the end of a long, thin cord, small twisted gold threads in the manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its peak shone. "Rise," said the master. He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He stooped to pick it up. A neighbor knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once more. "Get rid of your helmet," said the master, who was a bit of a wag. There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which so thoroughly put the poor lad out of countenance that he did not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave it on the floor, or put it on his head. He sat down again and placed it on his knee. "Rise," repeated the master, "and tell me your name." The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an unintelligible name. "Again!" The same sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned by the tittering of the class. "Louder!" cried the master; "louder!" The "new fellow" then took a supreme resolution, opened an inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the top of his voice as if calling some one the word, "Charbovari." A hubbub broke out, rose in crescendo with bursts of shrill voices (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated "Charbovari! Charbovari!"), then died away into single notes, growing quieter only with great difficulty, and now and again suddenly recommencing along the line of a form whence rose here and there, like a damp cracker going off, a stifled laugh. However, amid a rain of impositions, order was gradually re-established in the class; and the master having succeeded in catching the name of "Charles Bovary," having had it dictated to him, spelt out, and re-read, at once ordered the poor devil to go and sit down on the punishment form at the foot of the master's desk. He got up, but before going hesitated. "What are you looking for?" asked the master. "My c-a-p," timidly said the "new fellow," casting troubled looks round him. "Five hundred verses for all the class!" shouted in a furious voice, stopped, like the Quos ego, a fresh outburst "Silence!" continued the master indignantly, wiping his brow with his handkerchief, which he had just taken from his cap. "As to you, 'new boy,' you will conjugate 'ridiculus sum' twenty times." Then, in a gentler tone, "Come, you'll find your cap again; it hasn't been stolen." Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the "new fellow" remained for two hours in an exemplary attitude, although from time to time some paper pellet flipped from the tip of a pen came bang in his face. But he wiped his face with one hand and continued motionless, his eyes lowered. In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens from his desk, arranged his small belongings, and carefully ruled his paper. We saw him working conscientiously, looking out every word in the dictionary, and taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the willingness he showed, he had not to go down to the class below. But though he knew his rules passably, he had little finish in composition. It was the curé of his village who had taught him his first Latin; his parents, from motives of economy, having sent him to school as late as possible. His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolomé Bovary, retired assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812 in certain conscription scandals, and forced at that time to leave the service, had then taken advantage of his fine figure to get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand francs that offered in the person of a hosier's daughter who had fallen in love with his good looks. A fine man, a great talker, making his spurs ring as he walked, wearing whiskers that ran into his moustache, his fingers always garnished with rings, and dressed in loud colors, he had the dash of a military man with [3] [4] [5] the easy air of a commercial traveller. Once married, he lived for three or four years on his wife's fortune, dining well, rising late, smoking long porcelain pipes, not coming in at night till after the theater, and haunting cafés. The father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant at this, "went in for the business," lost some money in it, then retired to the country, where he thought he would make money. But, as he knew no more about farming than calico, as he rode his horses instead of sending them to plough, drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting-boots with the fat of his pigs, he was not long in finding out that he would do better to give up all speculation. For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on the border of the provinces of Caux and Picardy, in a kind of place half farm, half private house; and here, soured, eaten up with regrets, cursing his luck, jealous of every one, he shut himself up at the age of forty-five, sick of men, he said, and determined to live in peace. His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored him with a thousand servilities that had only estranged him the more. Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in growing older she had become (after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She had suffered so much without complaint at first, when she had seen him going after all the village drabs, and when a score of bad houses sent him back to her at night, weary, stinking drunk. Then her pride revolted. After that she was silent, burying her anger in a dumb stoicism that she maintained till her death. She was constantly going about looking after business matters. She called on the lawyers, the president, remembered when bills fell due, got them renewed, and at home, ironed, sewed, washed, looked after the workmen, paid the accounts, while he, troubling himself about nothing, eternally besotted in sleepy sulkiness, whence he only roused himself to say disagreeable things to her, sat smoking by the fire and spitting into the cinders. When she had a child, it had to be sent out to nurse. When he came home, the lad was spoiled as if he were a prince. His mother stuffed him with jam; his father let him run about barefoot, and, playing the philosopher, even said he might as well go about quite naked like the young of animals. As opposed to the maternal ideas, he had a certain virile idea of childhood on which he sought to mould his son, wishing him to be brought up hardily, like a Spartan, to give him a strong constitution. He sent him to bed without any fire, taught him to drink off large draughts of rum, and to jeer at religious processions. But, peaceable by nature, the lad answered only poorly to his notions. His mother always kept him near her; she cut out cardboard for him, told him tales, entertained him with endless monologues full of melancholy gaiety and charming nonsense. In her life's isolation she centered on the chi...