“If you accept Monsieur de La Briere, he has enough merit and influence to obtain permission from the king to bear my titles and arms.”
“Oh, if it comes to disguising himself, he will not make any difficulty,” said Modeste, scornfully.
Butscha did not understand this epigram, whose meaning could only be guessed by Monsieur and Madame Mignon and Dumay.
“When it is a question of marriage, all men disguise themselves,” remarked Latournelle, “and women set them the example. I’ve heard it said ever since I came into the world that ‘Monsieur this or Mademoiselle that has made a good marriage,’ — meaning that the other side had made a bad one.”
“Marriage,” said Butscha, “is like a lawsuit; there’s always one side discontented. If one dupes the other, certainly half the husbands in the world are playing a comedy at the expense of the other half.”
“From which you conclude, Sieur Butscha?” inquired Modeste.
“To pay the utmost attention to the manoeuvres of the enemy,” answered the clerk.
“What did I tell you, my darling?” said Charles Mignon, alluding to their conversation on the seashore.
“Men play as many parts to get married as mothers make their daughters play to get rid of them,” said Latournelle.
“Then you approve of stratagems?” said Modeste.
“On both sides,” cried Gobenheim, “and that brings it even.”
This conversation was carried on by fits and starts, as they say, in the intervals of cutting and dealing the cards; and it soon turned chiefly on the merits of the Duc d’Herouville, who was thought very good-looking by little Latournelle, little Dumay, and little Butscha. Without the foregoing discussion on the lawfulness of matrimonial tricks, the reader might possibly find the forthcoming account of the evening so impatiently awaited by Butscha, somewhat too long.
Desplein, the famous surgeon, arrived the next morning, and stayed only long enough to send to Havre for fresh horses and have them put-to, which took about an hour. After examining Madame Mignon’s eyes, he decided that she could recover her sight, and fixed a suitable time, a month later, to perform the operation. This important consultation took place before the assembled members of the Chalet, who stood trembling and expectant to hear the verdict of the prince of science. That illustrious member of the Academy of Sciences put about a dozen brief questions to the blind woman as he examined her eyes in the strong light from a window. Modeste was amazed at the value which a man so celebrated attached to time, when she saw the travelling-carriage piled with books which the great surgeon proposed to read during the journey; for he had left Paris the evening before, and had spent the night in sleeping and travelling. The rapidity and clearness of Desplein’s judgment on each answer made by Madame Mignon, his succinct tone, his decisive manner, gave Modeste her first real idea of a man of genius. She perceived the enormous difference between a second-rate man, like Canalis, and Desplein, who was even more than a superior man. A man of genius finds in the consciousness of his talent and in the solidity of his fame an arena of his own, where his legitimate pride can expand and exercise itself without interfering with others. Moreover, his perpetual struggle with men and things leave them no time for the coxcombry of fashionable genius, which makes haste to gather in the harvests of a fugitive season, and whose vanity and self-love are as petty and exacting as a custom-house which levies tithes on all that comes in its way.
Modeste was the more enchanted by this great practical genius, because he was evidently charmed with the exquisite beauty of Modeste, — he, through whose hands so many women had passed, and who had long since examined the sex, as it were, with magnifier and scalpel.
“It would be a sad pity,” he said, with an air of gallantry which he occasionally put on, and which contrasted with his assumed brusqueness, “if a mother were deprived of the sight of so charming a daughter.”
Modeste insisted on serving the simple breakfast which was all the great surgeon would accept. She accompanied her father and Dumay to the carriage stationed at the garden-gate, and said to Desplein at parting, her eyes shining with hope, —
“And will my dear mamma really see me?”
“Yes, my little sprite, I’ll promise you that,” he answered, smiling; “and I am incapable of deceiving you, for I, too, have a daughter.”
The horses started and carried him off as he uttered the last words with unexpected grace and feeling. Nothing is more charming than the peculiar unexpectedness of persons of talent.
CHAPTER XX. THE POET DOES HIS EXERCISES
This visit of the great surgeon was the event of the day, and it left a luminous trace in Modeste’s soul. The young enthusiast ardently admired the man whose life belonged to others, and in whom the habit of studying physical suffering had destroyed the manifestations of egoism. That evening, when Gobenheim, the Latournelles, and Butscha, Canalis, Ernest, and the Duc d’Herouville were gathered in the salon, they all congratulated the Mignon family on the hopes which Desplein encouraged. The conversation, in which the Modeste of her letters was once more in the ascendant, turned naturally on the man whose genius, unfortunately for his fame, was appreciable only by the faculty and men of science. Gobenheim contributed a phrase which is the sacred chrism of genius as interpreted in these days by public economists and bankers, —
“He makes a mint of money.”
“They say he is very grasping,” added Canalis.
The praises which Modeste showered on Desplein had annoyed the poet. Vanity acts like a woman, — they both think they are defrauded when love or praise is bestowed on others. Voltaire was jealous of the wit of a roue whom Paris admired for two days; and even a duchess takes offence at a look bestowed upon her maid. The avarice excited by these two sentiments is such that a fraction of them given to the poor is thought robbery.
“Do you think, monsieur,” said Modeste, smiling, “that we should judge genius by ordinary standards?”
“Perhaps we ought first of all to define the man of genius,” replied Canalis. “One of the conditions of genius is invention, — invention of a form, a system, a force. Napoleon was an inventor, apart from his other conditions of genius. He invented his method of making war. Walter Scott is an inventor, Linnaeus is an inventor, Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier are inventors. Such men are men of genius of the first rank. They renew, increase, or modify both science and art. But Desplein is merely a man whose vast talent consists in properly applying laws already known; in observing, by means of a natural gift, the limits laid down for each temperament, and the time appointed by Nature for an operation. He has not founded, like Hippocrates, the science itself. He has invented no system, as did Galen, Broussais, and Rasori. He is merely an executive genius, like Moscheles on the piano, Paganini on the violin, or Farinelli on his own larynx, — men who have developed enormous faculties, but who have not created music. You must permit me to discriminate between Beethoven and la Catalani: to one belongs the immortal crown of genius and of martyrdom, to the other innumerable five-franc pieces; one we can pay in coin, but the world remains throughout all time a debtor to the other. Each day increases our debt to Moliere, but Baron’s comedies have been overpaid.”
“I think you make the prerogative of ideas too exclusive,” said Ernest de La Briere, in a quiet and melodious voice, which formed a sudden contrast to the peremptory tones of the poet, whose flexible organ had abandoned its caressing notes for the strident and magisterial voice of the rostrum. “Genius must be estimated according to its utility; and Parmentier, who brought potatoes into general use, Jacquart, the inventor of silk looms; Papin, who first discovered the elastic quality of steam, are men of genius, to whom statues will some day be erected. They have changed, or they will change in a certain sense, the face of the State. It is in that sense that Desplein will always be considered a man of genius by thinkers; they see him attended by a generation of sufferers whose pains are stifled by his hand.”
That Ernest should give utteran
ce to this opinion was enough to make Modeste oppose it.
“If that be so, monsieur,” she said, “then the man who could discover a way to mow wheat without injuring the straw, by a machine that could do the work of ten men, would be a man of genius.”
“Yes, my daughter,” said Madame Mignon; “and the poor would bless him for cheaper bread, — he that is blessed by the poor is blessed of God.”
“That is putting utility above art,” said Modeste, shaking her head.
“Without utility what would become of art?” said Charles Mignon. “What would it rest on? what would it live on? Where would you lodge, and how would you pay the poet?”
“Oh! my dear papa, such opinions are fearfully flat and antediluvian! I am not surprised that Gobenheim and Monsieur de La Briere, who are interested in the solution of social problems should think so; but you, whose life has been the most useless poetry of the century, — useless because the blood you shed all over Europe, and the horrible sufferings exacted by your colossus, did not prevent France from losing ten departments acquired under the Revolution, — how can you give in to such excessively pig-tail notions, as the idealists say? It is plain you’ve just come from China.”
The impertinence of Modeste’s speech was heightened by a little air of contemptuous disdain which she purposely put on, and which fairly astounded Madame Mignon, Madame Latournelle, and Dumay. As for Madame Latournelle, she opened her eyes so wide she no longer saw anything. Butscha, whose alert attention was comparable to that of a spy, looked at Monsieur Mignon, expecting to see him flush with sudden and violent indignation.
“A little more, young lady, and you will be wanting in respect for your father,” said the colonel, smiling, and noticing Butscha’s look. “See what it is to spoil one’s children!”
“I am your only child,” she said saucily.
“Child, indeed,” remarked the notary, significantly.
“Monsieur,” said Modeste, turning upon him, “my father is delighted to have me for his governess; he gave me life and I give him knowledge; he will soon owe me something.”
“There seems occasion for it,” said Madame Mignon.
“But mademoiselle is right,” said Canalis, rising and standing before the fireplace in one of the finest attitudes of his collection. “God, in his providence, has given food and clothing to man, but he has not directly given him art. He says to man: ‘To live, thou must bow thyself to earth; to think, thou shalt lift thyself to Me.’ We have as much need of the life of the soul as of the life of the body, — hence, there are two utilities. It is true we cannot be shod by books or clothed by poems. An epic song is not, if you take the utilitarian view, as useful as the broth of a charity kitchen. The noblest ideas will not sail a vessel in place of canvas. It is quite true that the cotton-gin gives us calicoes for thirty sous a yard less than we ever paid before; but that machine and all other industrial perfections will not breathe the breath of life into a people, will not tell futurity of a civilization that once existed. Art, on the contrary, Egyptian, Mexican, Grecian, Roman art, with their masterpieces — now called useless! — reveal the existence of races back in the vague immense of time, beyond where the great intermediary nations, denuded of men of genius, have disappeared, leaving not a line nor a trace behind them! The works of genius are the ‘summum’ of civilization, and presuppose utility. Surely a pair of boots are not as agreeable to your eyes as a fine play at the theatre; and you don’t prefer a windmill to the church of Saint-Ouen, do you? Well then, nations are imbued with the same feelings as the individual man, and the man’s cherished desire is to survive himself morally just as he propagates himself physically. The survival of a people is the work of its men of genius. At this very moment France is proving, energetically, the truth of that theory. She is, undoubtedly, excelled by England in commerce, industry, and navigation, and yet she is, I believe, at the head of the world, — by reason of her artists, her men of talent, and the good taste of her products. There is no artist and no superior intellect that does not come to Paris for a diploma. There is no school of painting at this moment but that of France; and we shall reign far longer and perhaps more securely by our books than by our swords. In La Briere’s system, on the other hand, all that is glorious and lovely must be suppressed, — woman’s beauty, music, painting, poetry. Society will not be overthrown, that is true, but, I ask you, who would willingly accept such a life? All useful things are ugly and forbidding. A kitchen is indispensable, but you take care not to sit there; you live in the salon, which you adorn, like this, with superfluous things. Of what use, let me ask you, are these charming wall-paintings, this carved wood-work? There is nothing beautiful but that which seems to us useless. We called the sixteenth century the Renascence with admirable truth of language. That century was the dawn of a new era. Men will continue to speak of it when all remembrance of anterior centuries had passed away, — their only merit being that they once existed, like the million beings who count as the rubbish of a generation.”
“Rubbish! yes, that may be, but my rubbish is dear to me,” said the Duc d’Herouville, laughing, during the silent pause which followed the poet’s pompous oration.
“Let me ask,” said Butscha, attacking Canalis, “does art, the sphere in which, according to you, genius is required to evolve itself, exist at all? Is it not a splendid lie, a delusion, of the social man? Do I want a landscape scene of Normandy in my bedroom when I can look out and see a better one done by God himself? Our dreams make poems more glorious than Iliads. For an insignificant sum of money I can find at Valogne, at Carentan, in Provence, at Arles, many a Venus as beautiful as those of Titian. The police gazette publishes tales, differing somewhat from those of Walter Scott, but ending tragically with blood, not ink. Happiness and virtue exist above and beyond both art and genius.”
“Bravo, Butscha!” cried Madame Latournelle.
“What did he say?” asked Canalis of La Briere, failing to gather from the eyes and attitude of Mademoiselle Mignon the usual signs of artless admiration.
The contemptuous indifference which Modeste had exhibited toward La Briere, and above all, her disrespectful speeches to her father, so depressed the young man that he made no answer to Canalis; his eyes, fixed sorrowfully on Modeste, were full of deep meditation. The Duc d’Herouville took up Butscha’s argument and reproduced it with much intelligence, saying finally that the ecstasies of Saint-Theresa were far superior to the creations of Lord Byron.
“Oh, Monsieur le duc,” exclaimed Modeste, “hers was a purely personal poetry, whereas the genius of Lord Byron and Moliere benefit the world.”
“How do you square that opinion with those of Monsieur le baron?” cried Charles Mignon, quickly. “Now you are insisting that genius must be useful, and benefit the world as though it were cotton, — but perhaps you think logic as antediluvian as your poor old father.”
Butscha, La Briere, and Madame Latournelle exchanged glances that were more than half derisive, and drove Modeste to a pitch of irritation that kept her silent for a moment.
“Mademoiselle, do not mind them,” said Canalis, smiling upon her, “we are neither beaten, nor caught in a contradiction. Every work of art, let it be in literature, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture, implies a positive social utility, equal to that of all other commercial products. Art is pre-eminently commerce; presupposes it, in short. An author pockets ten thousand francs for his book; the making of books means the manufactory of paper, a foundry, a printing-office, a bookseller, — in other words, the employment of thousands of men. The execution of a symphony of Beethoven or an opera by Rossini requires human arms and machinery and manufactures. The cost of a monument is an almost brutal case in point. In short, I may say that the works of genius have an extremely costly basis and are, necessarily, useful to the workingman.”
Astride of that theme, Canalis spoke for some minutes with a fine luxury of metaphor, and much inward complacency as to his phrases; but it happened with him, as wit
h many another great speaker, that he found himself at last at the point from which the conversation started, and in full agreement with La Briere without perceiving it.
“I see with much pleasure, my dear baron,” said the little duke, slyly, “that you will make an admirable constitutional minister.”
“Oh!” said Canalis, with the gesture of a great man, “what is the use of all these discussions? What do they prove? — the eternal verity of one axiom: All things are true, all things are false. Moral truths as well as human beings change their aspect according to their surroundings, to the point of being actually unrecognizable.”
“Society exists through settled opinions,” said the Duc d’Herouville.
“What laxity!” whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband.
“He is a poet,” said Gobenheim, who overheard her.
Canalis, who was ten leagues above the heads of his audience, and who may have been right in his last philosophical remark, took the sort of coldness which now overspread the surrounding faces of a symptom of provincial ignorance; but seeing that Modeste understood him, he was content, being wholly unaware that monologue is particularly disagreeable to country-folk, whose principal desire it is to exhibit the manner of life and the wit and wisdom of the provinces to Parisians.
“It is long since you have seen the Duchesse de Chaulieu?” asked the duke, addressing Canalis, as if to change the conversation.
“I left her about six days ago.”
“Is she well?” persisted the duke.
“Perfectly well.”
“Have the kindness to remember me to her when you write.”
“They say she is charming,” remarked Modeste, addressing the duke.
“Monsieur le baron can speak more confidently than I,” replied the grand equerry.
“More than charming,” said Canalis, making the best of the duke’s perfidy; “but I am partial, mademoiselle; she has been a friend to me for the last ten years; I owe all that is good in me to her; she has saved me from the dangers of the world. Moreover, Monsieur le Duc de Chaulieu launched me in my present career. Without the influence of that family the king and the princesses would have forgotten a poor poet like me; therefore my affection for the duchess must always be full of gratitude.”
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 64