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MY DEAR DE VILLIERS,

In the first place, you must let me thank you for having undertaken the task of introducing 'Mensonges' to the English-reading public; and also express the hope that this novel, which is no longer new, may not cause a recurrence of that misconception which too often arises when a work written in and for a Latin country is suddenly transplanted to Anglo-Saxon soil.

One of the most grievous results of such misconception, and one which French writers--I speak from experience--feel most keenly, is the reproach of immorality. Balzac spent a lifetime in defending himself against that charge; so it was with Flaubert; so it is with Emile Zola. I well remember how hurt I felt myself when, in the course of an action brought some ten years since against a publishing firm in London--who had, by the way, issued a translation of the work without my permission--'Un Crime d'Amour' was harshly spoken of by one of your judges. Not only then, but on many occasions, have I had an opportunity of remarking that the English regard the novelist's art from a standpoint differing entirely from that taken up by French writers. That difference is well worth dwelling upon here, for the problem it raises is neither more nor less than the problem of the whole art of novel-writing.

For them the whole question resolves itself into this: they must look the bare realities of life full in the face, reproduce them with absolute fidelity, and reject nothing they find; it should be their aim to produce a work of truth rather than a work of beauty. That is why Balzac, for example, did not hesitate, in 'Splendeurs et Mis?res des Courtisanes,' and in 'La Cousine Bette,' to lay bare with the brutal bluntness of a police report the lowest depths of Parisian vice. That, too, is why Flaubert had no compunction in placing before the readers of his 'Madame Bovary' the repulsive picture of Emma and L?on meeting in a house of ill-fame in Rouen. In his conception of imaginative literature the writer takes no heed of what will please or displease, what will comfort or afflict, what will affect or disgust. His aim is to add one document more to the mass of information concerning mankind and society collected by physiology, psychology, and the history of languages, creeds, and institutions. The novelist is merely a chronicler of actual life, and the value of his testimony lies in its truth.

It is easy to see, as I shall presently prove, that these aesthetics are intimately related to that great principle of intellectual conscientiousness which, under the name of science, animates the present age; and this relationship would in itself endow with idealism an art which has apparently no ideal. But a big objection to these theories has long been formulated--an objection that seems to spring up most readily in English minds when confronted with the bold utterances such theories authorise. The novel, it is said, necessarily appeals to the popular taste and places its impress upon the imagination of readers who are totally devoid of the ideal impartiality of those who take up a scientific standpoint. When such readers dip into a work like 'Splendeurs et Mis?res' or 'Madame Bovary,' they at once enter into the very life and spirit with which these books are permeated. The author's genius, reproducing in vivid colours scenes of questionable morality, makes them almost real, and to man, naturally imitative, such studies form a standing danger. If a bad example is contagious in real life, surely, it is urged, it is none the less so when enhanced by the magic of a master's style.

I do not think that, in stating the case for the other side I have weakened their argument. At the first glance, it seems irrefutable. I think, however, that novelists of the school of Balzac and Flaubert may justly reply that the morality of a book is something totally distinct from the danger that its perusal presents. Before deciding whether the total effect of a certain class of literature is worth the danger it incurs, it would be necessary to ascertain how far a work has been properly or improperly understood by all its readers. I, for my part, am fully convinced that the safety of society is absolutely dependent upon a true knowledge of human life, and that every work composed in a spirit of truth is on that account alone conducive of good. If the work occasionally shocks or offends a reader, it is none the less certain that it adds to the knowledge of the laws governing the minds and passions of men. Now, it is impossible to cite an example where the general conclusions drawn by a novelist of the analytical school have ever been contrary to the eternal laws set forth in the Decalogue.

These few remarks are necessary for the comprehension of passages in the following pages that might be considered crude outside the Parisian circle in which they were written. When 'Mensonges' was first published, nearly ten years ago, it was generally admitted that the picture was very faithfully drawn. On the other hand, it evoked a lively discussion in the Press concerning the value of the process by which this study had been produced--in other words, the value of psychological analysis.

Eminent critics reproached me with carrying the dissection of motives too far, and with too frequently laying bare the exquisitely delicate fibres of the heart. I well remember that amongst my masters Alexandre Dumas was most assiduous in warning me of the dangers of my method. 'It is a very fine thing to show how a watch works,' he would say to me, 'but not if by doing so you prevent it from telling the time.'

These are a few of the ideas which I beg you to lay before the readers of the English version of my story in order that their hearts may be inclined to indulgence before they turn to the work itself. Allow me to thank you, as well as MM. Chatto and Windus, once more for having thought this study of Parisian life worthy the distinction of such a careful and masterly translation as yours.

Believe me,

Yours very faithfully,

PAUL BOURGET.

A LIVING LIE

A PROVINCIAL CORNER OF PARIS

'The gates are closed, sir,' said the driver, bending down from his box.

'Closed at half-past nine!' exclaimed a voice from the interior of the cab. 'What a place to live in! You needn't trouble to get down. The pavement's dry--I'll walk.'

The door of the vehicle swung open, and a young man stepped gingerly out, pulling the collar of his fur-lined coat a little more closely about his throat. The dainty patent-leather shoes that left just an inch of the embroidered silk socks visible, the plain black trousers and opera hat, showed that the wearer was in evening dress. The cab was one of those superior conveyances that ply for hire outside the Paris clubs, and the driver, little accustomed to this provincial corner of the city, began to peer, with almost as much interest as his fare, into the strange street that, although situated on the borders of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, had such an old-world look about it. At the time we write of--the beginning of February, 1879--the Rue Co?tlogon, running from the Rue d'Assas to the Rue de Rennes, still possessed the peculiarity of being shut off from the rest of the world by gates, while at night it was lit up by an oil lamp, hanging, in the old-fashioned way, from a rope swung right across the roadway. Since then the appearance of the place has changed a good deal. The mysterious-looking house on the right, standing in its own bit of garden, and affording no doubt a quiet retreat to some retiring old dame, has disappeared. The vacant land, that rendered the Rue Co?tlogon as inaccessible to vehicles on the one side as did the iron gates on the other, has been cleared of its heaps of stones. Gas jets have taken the place of the oil lamp, and only a slight unevenness in the pavement now marks the position of the posts upon which the gates hung. These were never locked, but only swung to at night; there was therefore no necessity for the young man to pull the bell, but before entering the narrow lane he stopped for a few moments to take in the strange scene presented by the dark outline of the houses on the left, the garden on the right, a confused mass of unfinished buildings at the bottom, and the old oil lamp in the middle. Overhead a bright wintry moon hung in the vast expanse of the heavens, through which sped a few swift-sailing clouds. As they scudded across the face of the moon, and flew off into the dark immensity beyond, they seemed only to enhance the metallic brilliancy of the luminary by the momentary shadow they cast in sweeping by.

'What a scene it would make for a parting!' murmured the young man, adding, in a somewhat louder tone:

Until the hour when from the vault above us Glares down the frowning visage of the moon . . .

Had any observant passer-by happened to hear these two lines from Victor Hugo he would have recognised a man of letters by the way in which they were delivered. The solitary speaker bore indeed a name well to the fore in the literature of the day. But names so quickly disappear and get forgotten in the incessant onward rush of new works, self-assertive claims, and fleeting reputations that the successes of ten years ago seem as distant and as vague as those of another age. Two dramas of modern life, a little too directly inspired by the younger Dumas, had brought this young man--he was thirty-five or more, but he looked barely thirty--momentary renown, and he had not yet spoilt his name by putting it at the bottom of hastily written articles or upon the covers of indifferent novels. He was known only as the author of 'La Goule' and 'Entre Adult?res,' two plays of unequal merit, full of a pessimism frequently conventional, but powerful in their trenchant analysis, their smart dialogue, and their painful striving after the Ideal. In 1879 these plays were already three years old, and Claude Larcher, who had allowed himself to drift into a life of idle pleasure, was beginning to accept lucrative and easy work, being no longer fit to make any fresh and long-sustained effort.

This extreme kindness of an already successful author towards a mere novice was not entirely devoid of a tinge of irony and pride. Claude Larcher, who spent his time in slandering the wealthy and cosmopolitan world in which the Comtesse Komof moved, and in which he himself was always mixing, felt his vanity slightly tickled by being able to dazzle his friend with the glamour of his fashionable connections. At the same time the malicious cynic was amused by the simplicity of the poet and by his childish awe of that magic and meaningless word--Society. He had already enjoyed, as much as a play, Vincy's shyness during their first visit to the Comtesse a few days before, and thoughts of the fever of expectancy in which Ren? must now be made him smile as he approached the house in which his young friend lived.

'What a pity he should have to go!' he exclaimed, his reverie broken by the click of the lock, adding, as he pushed the gate open, 'But it was I who advised him to accept the invitation, and who got him dressed for to-night.' He had, indeed, taken Ren? to his tailor, his hosier, his bootmaker, and even his hatter, in order to proceed to what he jestingly called his investiture. 'The dangers of contact with the world ought to have been thought of before. . . . But how foolish of me to meet troubles half way! He will be presented to four or five women, he will be invited to dinner two or three times, he will forget to call again, he will forget--and he will be forgotten.'

'Good evening, Fran?oise,' said the young man; 'is your master ready?'

The father of Emilie and Ren?, an attorney of Vouziers, had died a wretched death from the effects of intemperate habits. The practice having been sold and what little property there was realised, the widow, after paying all debts, found herself in possession of about fifty thousand francs. Feeling that life in Vouziers would recall too many bitter memories, Madame Vincy went to live in Paris with her two young children. She had a brother there, the Abb? Taconet, a priest of some eminence, who, though educated in the Ecole Normale, had suddenly, and without giving any reasons, entered into holy orders; the astonishment of his former comrades was, if possible, increased when they saw him, soon after leaving Saint-Sulpice, set up a school in the Rue Casette. A conscientious but very liberal Catholic, with strong leanings to Gallicanism, the Abb? Taconet had seen many families of the upper middle class hesitate between purely secular and purely religious colleges, not finding in either that combination of traditional Christianity and modern development they sought, and he had taken orders for the express purpose of carrying into effect a plan he had formed for realising that combination. The height of his ambition was reached on the day that he and two younger priests opened an ecclesiastical day school, which he christened the Ecole Saint-Andr?, after his patron saint. The success that attended the Abb?'s enterprise was so rapid that already, in the third year, two small one-horse omnibuses were required to fetch the pupils and take them back to their homes.

Almost immediately after her arrival in Paris--she had taken rooms in this very house in the Rue Co?tlogon, but on the third floor--Madame Vincy had become an invalid, so that from 1863 to 1871, when the poor woman died, Emilie had discharged the triple duty of nursing her mother, of carefully tending a household where fifty centimes meant much, and of superintending step by step her brother's education. All this, too, she had done without allowing the fatigue that stole the colour from her cheeks to wring from her lips a single complaint. She resembled those sempstresses in the old songs of Paris who consoled themselves in their rude, incessant toil by cultivating some tender flower upon their window sill. Her flower was her brother, a timid, loving child with wistful eyes, and he had well repaid Emilie's devotion by his successes at college--a source of great joy to women whose lives were so entirely devoid of all pleasure. It was not long before Ren? began to write poems, and Emilie had been the happy confidante of the young man's first attempts. Then, when Fresneau asked her to be his wife, not six months after the death of her mother, she consented only on condition that the professor, who had just passed his examinations, would not leave Paris, and that Ren? was to live with them, and devote himself to writing. Fresneau joyfully acceded to these demands. He was one of those very good and very simple men who are peculiarly fitted to be lovers, granting blindly all that the object of their love desires. He had been enamoured of Emilie, without daring to declare his passion, since first making the acquaintance of the Vincys as Ren?'s master at the Ecole Saint-Andr? in 1865. This man, who was not far from forty, felt drawn towards the girl by the strange similarity of their destinies. Had he not also renounced all selfish ambition and all personal aspirations in order to liquidate the debts which his father--a ruined schoolmaster--had left behind? From 1851 to 1872, when he married, the professor had paid twenty thousand francs to his father's creditors, and that by giving lessons at five francs each, taking one with the other! If we add to the number of working hours that produced this result the time required for preparing the lessons, correcting exercises, and going about from one place to another--Fresneau would sometimes have lessons at all points of the Parisian compass on the same day--we shall have the sketch of an existence, not uncommon in the profession of teaching, that is capable of wearing out the strongest constitutions. His love for Emilie had formed the one romance of Fresneau's life, too occupied as he had been during his youth to find time for such sentiments. The Abb? Taconet had given his blessing to their union, and an addition had been made to the slaves of Ren?'s genius.

Claude Larcher was not ignorant of any of these facts, which had all been of importance in developing the character and talent of the young poet. Whilst Fran?oise was hanging up his overcoat his rapid glance travelled round the dimly-lighted passage and took in all those material details which for him had a deeper and a moral signification. He knew why, in the corner near the door, side by side with the professor's stout alpaca umbrella with its clumsy handle, there stood a neat English frame with an elegant stick, chosen by Madame Fresneau for her brother. He knew, too, that it was the sister's love that had provided the dainty Malacca that adorned the hall-stand, and which had probably cost thirty times as much as the plain heavy stick carried by Fresneau when it was fine. He knew that the professor's books, after having for a long time been exposed to the dirt and dust on the blackened shelves of a bookcase in this passage, had at length been banished even from that place to a dark cupboard, and that the passage had then been given up to Ren?'s decorative fancies. The walls were adorned with engravings of his choosing--a whole row of Raffet's splendid studies of the great Napoleon, which must have been very obnoxious to the Republican tastes of the professor. But Claude knew well enough that Fresneau would be the very last to notice the constant sacrifice of the whole household to this brother, whom he, too, worshipped, out of love for Emilie, as blindly as did the servant and even the uncle--the uncle, for the Abb? Taconet had not been able to resist the influence of the young man's disposition and talent. The Abb? did not forget that his nephew possessed a modest income--the amount invested, by his advice, in Italians, and afterwards transferred to safe French stocks, now bringing in three thousand francs--and that he himself would double it at his death. Was not Ren?'s Christian education a guarantee that his literary talents would help to propagate the views of the Church? The priest had therefore done what he could to start the poet on that difficult path of letters where the fortunate youth had so far only met with happiness.

Of this happiness, consisting of pure devotion, silent affection, loving indulgence, and hearty, comforting confidence, Claude Larcher knew the value better than anyone--he who, bereft of both his parents, had, from his twentieth year, been compelled to battle alone against the hardships, the disenchantments, and the contamination of a struggling author's life in Paris. He never visited the Fresneaus without experiencing a feeling of sadness, and to-night was no exception to the rule. It was a feeling which generally made him laugh the louder and exercise his most withering sarcasm. Too enervated to bear the slightest emotion without feeling pain, he was, on such occasions, within an ace of proclaiming his agony, and in view of the hopelessness of ever conquering this excessive sensibility, ready, like a child, to be judged by his words whilst uttering the most atrocious libels on his own heart.

SIMPLE SOULS

'Doesn't his coat fit him beautifully?' she asked impetuously, before Larcher had taken a chair or even exchanged a word of greeting with the other visitors.

Ren?, it was true, was a perfect specimen of the creature so seldom seen in Paris--a handsome young man. At twenty-five the author of the 'Sigisb?e' was still without a wrinkle on his brow, while the freshness of his complexion and the look of purity in his clear blue eyes told of a virgin soul and a mind unsullied by the world. He bore a great resemblance to the medallion, but little known, which David, the sculptor, has left of Alfred de Musset in his youth, though Ren?'s wealth of hair, his fair and already full beard, and his broad shoulders gave him an air of health and strength wanting in the somewhat effeminate and almost too frail appearance of the great poet. His eyes, generally serious, spoke at that moment of simple and unalloyed happiness, and Emilie's admiration was justified by an innate grace that revealed itself in spite of the levelling effect of a dress-coat. In her tender solicitude the loving sister had even thought of gold studs and links for his shirt-front and cuffs, and had bought them out of her savings at a jeweller's in the Rue de la Paix, after a secret conference with Claude. She had fastened his white tie with her own fingers, and had bestowed as much care upon him that evening as when, fourteen years ago, she had superintended the toilet of this idolised brother for his first communion.

'Poor Emilie,' said Ren?, with a smile that disclosed two splendid rows of teeth; 'you must excuse her, Claude; I am her only weakness.'

Claude thanked him with a deprecatory smile and turned to bow to the three lady visitors, not one of whom offered him her hand. The mother, who scratched her head every now and then with one of her knitting-needles, was busily at work upon a blue woollen stocking, and her two daughters were engaged upon some embroidery. Madame Offarel's hair was quite white, and her face deeply wrinkled; through the round glasses that she managed to balance somehow or other on her short nose there flashed a glance of deep hatred upon Claude. Ang?lique, the elder of the two girls, repressed a smile as she heard the writer make a slight slip in his pronunciation; with her black eyes, that shot swift sideward glances, with her blushes that came as readily as her smiles, she belonged to the numerous family of shy but mocking females. Rosalie, the younger of the two sisters, had returned Claude's salute without raising her eyes, black as her sister's, but filled with a sweet, timid expression. A few minutes later she stole a glance from beneath her long lashes at Ren?, and her fingers trembled as her needle followed the tracing for the embroidery. She bent her head still lower until her chestnut hair shone in the lamp-light.

'I was twelve years younger then,' said Claude, as he laughed at the other's reminiscences, 'and had no rheumatism.'

'It can't be very good for one's health,' interposed Madame Offarel with some asperity, 'to go out nearly every night; and these big dinners, with their fine wines and highly-seasoned dishes, impoverish the blood terribly!'

'Don't be absurd,' said Emilie, interposing; 'we have had the honour of Monsieur Larcher's company to dinner, and you would be surprised to see what a modest meal he makes. And people can afford to go to bed a little late when they are free to sleep long in the morning. Ren? tells us that it is so delightfully quiet in your house,' she added, addressing the writer.

'Yes, so it is. I happened to come across some rooms in an old house in the Rue de Varenne, and I find that at present I am the only tenant in the place. When the blinds are drawn I can fancy it is the middle of the night. I can hear nothing but the ringing of the bells in a convent close by and the roar of the city far, far away.'

'I don't know,' replied Claude, amused by the ill-concealed rancour of his adversary; 'the "Sigisb?e" will be performed about half-past ten, and I suppose we shall sit down to supper about half-past twelve or one.'

'Come, come, once in a way!' exclaimed Emilie with some impatience, cutting short the other's words. She feared the old lady's indiscreet tongue, and changed the topic by flattering her pet mania. 'You have not told us whether Cendrillon came back for good?'

'That's strange,' she said, verifying the number of her cats--one of which was lying at full length on the counterpane of her bed, another on the only sofa, and a third on the marble chimney-piece. 'They are all here, and yet I hear a scratching.' She opened the door, and Cendrillon walked in, purring, arching her back, and rubbing her head against her old mistress with a thousand pretty little ways that charmed the good lady. The next morning Cendrillon had once more vanished. This visit, rendered more mysterious by the avowal Passart had been obliged to make of his negligence, had on the previous day been the sole theme of Madame Offarel's conversation, and the fact that she had not even alluded to the circumstance that evening revealed more than her epigrams the importance attached by Rosalie's mother to Ren?'s entry into society.

'Ah! Cendrillon,' she replied, her ill-humour tinged with the enthusiasm evoked by the mention of the dear creature. 'I don't suppose Monsieur Ren? remembers anything about it?' Upon a sign of reassurance from the young man that he had not forgotten the interesting event, she continued: 'Well, she came back this morning, carrying her little one in her mouth, and laid it at my feet like an offering, with such a look in her eyes! The day before she had come to see whether I still cared for her, and now she came to ask me to take her kitten too. It's better to bestow one's affections upon animals than upon human beings,' she added, by way of conclusion; 'they are much more faithful.'

'It's very cold to-night,' were his first words, and, addressing his wife, he added, 'Adelaide, have you any tincture of iodine in the house? I am sure I shall have my attack of rheumatism in the morning.'

'Is your cab warmed?' asked Emilie, turning to Claude.

'Oh, yes,' replied the writer, pulling out his watch; 'and I see that it's time to get into it, if we don't want to be late.' Whilst he was taking leave of the little circle Ren? disappeared through the door that led from the dining-room to his bedroom without bidding anyone good night.

'Only a suspicion,' answered Offarel.

'Monsieur Larcher!' observed the other. 'Don't you know his usual drink? Why'--he added, in a lower key, and prudently looking towards the passage--'I read an article in the paper only this evening that shows him up well.'

'It appears,' said the old man, emphasising his words, 'that wherever Monsieur Larcher appears, they offer him blood to drink instead of tea or other things.'

'Blood!' exclaimed Fresneau, taken aback by this astounding statement. 'What for?'

'To sustain him, of course,' said Madame Offarel quickly; 'didn't you notice his face? What a life he must lead!'

'I am not at all surprised,' said Madame Offarel; 'he looks like a bold deceiver.'

'I must confess,' replied Fresneau, 'that I don't like his writings much; but as for being a deceiver--that's another matter. My dear Madame Offarel, I assure you he's a perfect child. How it amuses me when the newspapers say that he knows women's hearts! I've always found him in love with the worst creatures on earth, whom he conscientiously believed to be angels, and who deceive him and fool him as much as they please. Ren? told us the other day that he spends his time in dallying with little Colette Rigaud, who plays in the "Sigisb?e"--a false hussy who'll worm his last shilling out of him.'

'It's a bad time of year for water-colours,' replied the latter; 'it gets dark so soon, and we are overwhelmed with work--but you shall have it. Why, what's the matter, Rosalie? You are quite white.'

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