The Substance and the Shadow 9780271085753

Citation preview

+

the substance the shadow

The Pennsylvania State University Press //

University Park, Pennsylvania

+

the substance the shadow La proie et l’ombre

Written by Marius Roux Translated by Dick Collins and Fiona Cox Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Paul Smith

This book was published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Roux, Marius. [Proie et l’ombre. English] The substance and the shadow = La proie et l’ombre / written by Marius Roux ; translated by Dick Collins and Fiona Cox ; edited with an introduction and notes by Paul Smith. p. cm. — (Refiguring modernism) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-271-03205-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) i. Collins, Dick. ii. Cox, Fiona . iii. Smith, Paul, 1956– . iv. Title. v. Title: Proie et l’ombre. pq2389.r69p713 2007 843’.8—dc22 2007014454

Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

frontispiece: Portrait of Marius Roux, from Félix Jayher, “Camées artistiques: Marius Roux,” Paris-portrait (ancien Paris théâtre), no. 311 (10–16 July 1879). Private Collection.

contents

acknowledgments // vii

introduction // ix

the substance and the shadow // 1

appendixes // 201

bibliography // 207

index // 213

acknowledgments

The initial impetus for this volume was supplied by Cézanne’s tantalizing mention of a book he called “L’ombre et la proie” in a letter to the author, Marius Roux, of 1878 (or 1879). Copies of La proie et l’ombre are rare, and matters might have stopped there were it not for Phillip Lapsansky of the Library Company of Philadelphia, who gave me my first, thrilling, sight of the novel during a trip to the United States in the autumn of 2000. Subsequently, Michel de la Burthe of the Bibliothèque Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence, made it possible for me to study the book at leisure by unearthing a copy that could be reproduced. The present text is predominantly the work of Dick Collins and Fiona Cox, who somehow managed to translate Roux’s idiosyncratic French into clear English while preserving the flavor of his cranky language and his zany humor. Theirs is the real achievement. But several other scholars made generous contributions toward the finished product. I am grateful in particular to Clive Thomson for sending me copies of Roux’s highly informative unpublished letters to Zola. I must also thank Stephen Bann both for his many constructive remarks on the Introduction and for suggesting the form this volume eventually assumed. Joy Newton deserves special mention too for reading the original manuscript so meticulously, and for purging it of numerous errors. And I am beholden to Tim Clark for his advice on how best to render the phrase La proie et l’ombre in English. I owe thanks as well to the bookseller extraordinaire Pierre Saunier for procuring a copy of Roux’s earlier novel, Evariste Plauchu, which explained the meaning of the one phrase in La proie et l’ombre (“A Macquart . . . !”) that had thwarted all attempts at translation. Producing a book of this kind can prove a lengthy and isolated process, so I am greatly obliged to all those who allowed me to deliver my developing research on Roux in papers or lectures. These include Charles Salas, who organized my participation in two conferences on the Getty’s theme of biography in 2003, and Elizabeth Childs, who invited me to speak at CAA in the same year. It is fitting, though, that I first spoke in public about La proie et l’ombre in the Harold E. Dickson Memorial Lecture I gave at Penn State University in 2002. The research for this volume was facilitated by a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust, a Visiting Scholar grant from the J. Paul Getty Trust, and a Study Leave Replacement Scheme award from the AHRB. Acquavella Galleries, New York, generously aided its production by lending the transparency for the cover illustration. I am grateful to Jean Edmonson for arranging its loan. I also

viii

//

acknowledgments

wish to acknowledge the support of the editorial staff at Penn State University Press, Gloria Kury, Cherene Holland, Cali Buckley, and especially Patty Mitchell in commissioning this book and in bringing it into print. Their enthusiasm and professionalism have been priceless. My greatest debt of all, however, is to Elena Theodorakopoulos and Miranda Theodorakopoulou Smith, who provide my raison d’être. Paul Smith May 2007

This world is full of shadow-chasers, / Most easily deceived. / Should I enumerate these racers, / I should not be believed. / I send them all to Aesop’s dog, / Which, crossing water on a log, / Espied the meat he bore, below; / To seize its image, let it go; / Plunged in; to reach the shore was glad, / With neither what he hoped, nor what he’d had. —La Fontaine, The Substance and the Shadow1

[T]he commodity reflects . . . the social relation of the producers to the sum total of labor as a social relation between objects, a relation which exists apart from and outside the producers. Through this substitution, the products of labor become commodities, sensuous things which are at the same time supersensible or social. . . . [T]he commodity-form . . . is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves that assumes here, for them, the phantasmagorical form of a relation between things. This I call the fetishism which attaches itself to . . . commodities. —Marx, Capital2

introduction

According to its title page, La proie et l’ombre was published in 1878. The novel quickly fell into obscurity,3 however, sharing the same fate as Roux’s other works,4 and along with them, the author himself.5 Most of what else is known about the novel survives, paradoxically enough, from its association with more famous names. It appears to have been published in early April, since it was reviewed by Joris-Karl Huysmans in the Brussels-based periodical L’artiste on the 20th of the month (and slightly earlier by an anonymous reviewer in Le rappel).6 Stéphane Mallarmé also responded to Roux’s gift of a copy in a letter of 30 April.7 The copy Roux sent to the book’s dedicatee, Flaubert, also survives, and contains a profuse inscription supplementing the elaborate printed dedication, which indicates that the novel was completed in August 1876.8 It is also possible that Frédéric Mistral read the book, as one of the few extant sources on Roux are letters he wrote to the poet, which indicate he sent the older man his publications.9 La proie et l’ombre was also mentioned in a review of the fourth Impressionist exhibition published in the Petit journal in April 1879;10 but because Roux worked for this journal, it is likely that the author himself, or one of his colleagues, wrote the puff. The only further significant trace left by the novel are two cryptic remarks Cézanne addressed to Roux in a draft letter composed some time in 1878 or 1879,11 in which he implores: “I hope you will be able to separate my humble persona of an Impressionist painter from the man, and that you will only want to remember your old friend,” adding, “I call on you, not as the author of The Shadow and the Substance, but as the child of Aix-en-Provence, under whose sun I too first saw the light of day.”12 These remarks nevertheless testify to the main interest of the novel, which is that La proie et l’ombre presents an image of Cézanne—in its central character, Germain Rambert—that the painter recognized, but that he was also keen to repudiate.

All references to La proie et l’ombre, and crossreferences to the footnotes to the translation, cite the page numbers of the present edition. The page numbers of the original edition can be found in the translated text within square brackets. 1 // Translation by Elizur Wright of La Fontaine, Fables, livre vi, fable 17 (Boston:E. Wright; New York: Coleman, 1841). The French reads: “Chacun se trompe ici-bas / On voit courir après l’ombre / Tant de fous, qu’on n’en sait pas / La plupart du temps le nombre. / Au Chien dont parle Esope il faut

les renvoyer. / Ce Chien, voyant sa proie en l’eau représentée, / La quitta pour l’image, et pensa se noyer; / La rivière devint tout d’un coup agitée. / A toute peine il regagna les bords, / Et n’eut ni l’ombre ni le corps.” The title of Wright’s translation has been adopted as the translation of Roux’s French title because it conveys the allegorical purpose of his text, while the sense of the literal English translation, “The Prey and the Shadow,” is somewhat obscure. 2 // Capital, book i, part 1, chapter 1, section iv: “The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret.” It is

xii

//

introduction

Roux was able to do this because, in addition to being Zola’s oldest and intimate friend,13 his earliest collaborator,14 and a stalwart of Zola’s “jeudis” and “mardis” gatherings,15 and other reunions involving the novelist,16 Roux acted as a go-between between Zola and Cézanne in the 1860s,17 becoming the painter’s “companion,”18 until their acrimonious break up around 1871.19 During their friendship, however, Roux was Cézanne’s first (rather grudging) critic,20 and the sponsor of the artist’s first “exhibition,” which comprised one painting placed, briefly, in the window of a Marseilles art dealer.21 Roux’s novel is vital, therefore, not just to an understanding of what Cézanne did in the 1860s and early 1870s (the period it treats), but, in virtue of its characterization of these events, to any appreciation of what Cézanne’s subsequent practice was intended to refute.

not unlikely that Marx was thinking of La Fontaine’s fable when he wrote this passage. 3 // The book evaded the dépôt légal at the Bibliothèque nationale. It is not listed in the Bibliographie de France, but it is in the Catalogue général de la librairie française; see Lorenz 1887, 540. The National Union Catalogue lists only two copies: one in the Library of Congress, the other in the Library Company of Philadelphia. There is also a copy in the Bibliothèque Méjanes in Aix, which Roux probably donated himself; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 3:187–89, for letters of July 1878 from Zola to Roux concerning the Méjanes’s requests for books. The only other copy in a public collection is the copy in the Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen that Roux sent to Flaubert. 4 // Roux’s literary career began with articles of literary criticism in the early 1860s for the Mémorial d’Aix, and later in Paris he wrote for L’événement illustré, Le rappel, La globe, Le corsaire, L’avenir national, and the Petit journal, to which he contributes from 1868 (see Jahyer 1879, and Brown 1997, 155) for nearly twenty years. Roux’s other publications include two plays, [Une] Mascotte, scène burlesque (date and place of publication unknown) and Fauvette, comédie-vaudeville en 1 acte (Aix-enProvence: Remondet-Aubin, 1863), and a series of novels, including Monsieur de Fortengueule . . . réponse aux odeurs de Paris de Louis Veuillot (Paris: tous les librairies, 1867), Évariste Plauchu: Moeurs vraies du quartier-latin (Paris: Dentu, 1869), L’homme adultère (Paris: Dentu, 1875), Eugénie Lamour: Mémoires d’une femme (Paris: Dentu, 1877), La poche des autres (Paris: Dentu, 1879), Francis et Mariette (Paris: Dentu, 1884), and La cornomanie (Paris: Dentu, 1888), which also included the story “Le puits mitoyen.” In addition, Roux published a historical essay, Marseille: Notice historique sur ses théâtres privilégiés, en réponse aux questions posées par M. le ministre d’Etat. Par un ancien amateur (Marseilles: Camoin frères, 1863), and several reports on diverse matters for the municipality of Marseilles. In 1869, Roux was also responsible for publishing some poems of Paul Alexis’s as

unpublished Baudelaire poems; see Bakker 1971, 7. On Roux’s dealings with and his eventual split from Alexis, see Bakker et al. 1978–95, and Bakker 1971. 5 // The only two contemporary biographies of Roux are Zap 1869, which emphasizes his friendship with Zola and his Provençal character, and Jahyer 1879, which lists “La proie et l’ombre” among those works in which Roux “fait preuve d’un talent souple,” continuing: “Sa plume facile et claire, son esprit observateur, ont été remarqués et lui donnent une place parmi nos jeunes romanciers.” I am grateful to Michael Pakenham for drawing my attention to this article. The fullest account of Roux’s career is given in Thomson 1978, 335–38. 6 // See Huysmans 1878 (Appendix 1), and Anon. 1878, cited in Mondor and Austin 1965, 174 (Appendix 2). There is also a review of the book in Boissin, 1879, 15. 7 // See Mondor and Austin 1965, 174–75 (Appendix 3). See also Mondor and Austin 1965, 105–6, 117, 157, 209, and 272 for letters from Mallarmé to Roux of 6 March 1876, 19 May 1876, 11 December 1877, 31 December 1879, and 8 December 1884. 8 // The latter reads: “A l’artiste merveilleux, au créateur savant et infaillible, au maître Gustave Flaubert, je dédie ce livre, en témoignage de ma profonde admiration et de mon inaltérable amitié. M. R. Aug. m dccc lxxvi.” Flaubert’s copy bears the manuscript dedication: “Et merci, mon cher maître, de / l’honneur grand que vous m’avez / fait en me permettant d’inscrire votre / nom en tête de ce livre. / A la Vie, à la mort / Roux Marius.” In the Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen, there are also two letters from Flaubert to Roux, one dated 27 March 1877, and written after reading Roux’s novel, Eugénie Lamour, to arrange a meeting (Ms mm 8 55–56), and another dated “Croisset, 18 août” 1879 (Ms mm 8 55–56), which is published in Flaubert 1976, 239. 9 // See the correspondence between Roux and Mistral in Anon. 1951, 16–20.

introduction

// xiii

La proie et l’ombre may also illuminate the factual basis, and sources, of Zola’s own novel “about” Cézanne: L’oeuvre, which was first published in feuilleton in 1885—some seven years after Roux’s text.22 And although there is no mention whatsoever of La proie et l’ombre in any of Zola’s literary remains, it is inconceivable that he did not know it. An indication of a debt to Roux may perhaps have slipped out nevertheless in Ernest Vizetelly’s preface to his translation of L’oeuvre, in which he describes his friend’s “Cézanne”—Claude Lantier—as “like the dog in the fable that forsakes the substance for the shadow.”23

10 // See Anon. (1879): “Voilà les impressionnistes qui deviennent les Indépendants; bientôt ils auront renoncé à vouloir faire leur révolution à rebours du progrès; on dirait qu’ils ont lu et médité la curieuse étude de M. Marius Roux: la Proie et l’Ombre, et qu’ils ont su profiter des critiques du romancier, en prouvant qu’ils peuvent n’être pas des impuissants; que s’ils peignent mal et s’ils font laid c’est du parti pris.” The full text is reprinted in Berson 1996, 1:235. I am grateful to Ed Lilley for bringing this document to my attention. 11 // See Appendix 4. The date of this draft is indicated by the fact that, in it, Cézanne solicits Roux’s help for Cabaner, and himself, over a matter concerning the forthcoming Salon: it would seem Cézanne is asking Roux to help Cabaner have a painting admitted, although Cabaner is not known to have painted. This interpretation would indicate that Cézanne composed the draft around 28 J[anvier] 1879, when he wrote to Chocquet on behalf of “un de mes compatriotes” (undoubtedly Cabaner, who was a southerner, from Perpignan) for advice about “comment il faut s’y prendre pour faire parvenir un tableau à l’administration de Beaux-Arts dans le but de le soumettre aux appréciations du jury”; see Rewald 1978, 180–81 (where the whole word “janvier” is placed inside square brackets), and Rewald 1937, 158–59 (where the “j” of “janvier” is placed outside square brackets, which implies that this character is an indication of the latter’s date). It is clear from the phrase in the letter, “l’auteur étant en province,” that the painting was by Cabaner, who was convalescing in the South at the time, and from the fact that Cézanne tells Chocquet, as if to excuse himself of any personal ambition: “Ce n’est pas pour moi, car je me rendrai avec ma petite caravane à Paris vers les premiers jours de mars de la présente année.” Cabaner’s and Cézanne’s idea was undoubtedly to exhibit the painting at the Salon with a view to selling it later. This idea gains credence from the fact that Cabaner was poor, as well as ill, at the time (see Lefrère and Pakenham 1994, 69–70), and from Cézanne’s active involvement, a little later, in organizing a sale of works donated by friendly artists on Cabaner’s behalf in 1881. On this sale, and Zola’s preface to the eventual catalogue (reprinted in Lefrère and Pakenham 1994, 73–73), see Cézanne’s letters of 12 April and 7 and 20 May 1881 (Rewald

1978, 196, 198, and 199–200). For Zola’s replies, see Lefrère and Pakenham 1994, 68–74. On the Cabaner sale, see also Champsaur 1881. On Cézanne and Cabaner, see Champsaur 1880a and 1880b; Paul Alexis, “Trubl au vert,” Le Cri du peuple, 2 September 1887, cited in Niess 1968, 264 n. 100; Rivière 1921, 32, 21–23, and 25–32; Vollard 1938, 29; Gachet 1956, 77; Crouzet 1964, 365–67, and 369; Rewald 1973, 399–407; and Rewald 1978, 183–84 and 318–19. For the story of Cézanne’s (first?) meeting with Cabaner, see Vollard 1938, 154–55. On Cézanne and Cabaner, see also Rivière 1921, 112 n. 15; Vollard 1914, 45, 56, and 157; and Rewald et al. 1996, 179–80. 12 // Rewald 1978, 178–79: “Mon cher compatriote, / Quoique nos relations amicales n’aient pas été très suivies, en ce sens que je n’ai pas souvent frappé à ton huis hospitalier, je n’hésite pas cependant aujourd’hui à m’adresser à toi.—J’espère que tu voudras bien disjoindre ma petite personnalité de peintre impressionniste de l’homme et que tu voudras ne te ressouvenir que du camarade. Donc ce n’est point l’auteur de l’Ombre et la Proie que j’invoque, mais l’Aquasixtain sous le même soleil duquel j’ai vu le jour, et je prends la liberté de t’adresser mon éminent ami et musicien Cabaner. Je te prierai de lui être favorable en sa requête, et en même temps, je me recommanderai à toi au cas échéant où le jour du Salon viendrait à se lever pour moi. / Veuille accepter, dans l’espérance que ma demande sera bien accueillie, l’expression des mes remerciements et de sympathique confraternité. / Je te serre la main. / P. Cézanne / Pictor semper virens. / Quoique n’ayant pas [l’honneur de la connaître] puis-je faire agréer l’hommage de mes respects à Madame Roux?” The draft is reproduced in Chappuis 1973, no. 378, 2:128. 13 // According to Thomson 1978, Roux was born in Aix on 11 August 1838 and lived in the Cours Nerès. He and the future sculptor Philippe Solari met Zola at the pension Notre-Dame in Aix around 1847, when Zola entered the school. They became the famous novelist’s oldest friends; see Alexis 1882, 20. (Thomson finds no evidence that Roux subsequently attended the Collège Bourbon with Zola and Cézanne, although he assumes he did; Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1, 32, states that Roux’s Eugénie Lamour contains an account of the Collège.) Roux’s importance to Zola can be gauged from the fact that he

xiv

//

introduction

Germain Rambert In many respects, although not all, and although the action is set between 1871 and 1875, Germain is clearly modeled on the Cézanne Roux knew before they fell out around 1871,24 and whose public persona can be identified with his Self-Portrait of c. 1866.25 Germain hails from a small town in Provence, Aigues-les-Tours, which is conspicuously similar to Cézanne’s native Aix-en-Provence. Here resides his domineering father, who is reminiscent of Cézanne’s.26 And as Cézanne did around

attended private celebrations with the author in the early 1870s; see Alexis 1882, 142 and 176. Roux also attended the funeral of Zola’s mother, Emilie Aubert Zola, at Médan in 1880; see Brown 1997, 442. The Roux-Zola correspondence continues at least until August 1894, although Roux did not die until 1905. Brown conjectures that they fell out over the Dreyfus Affair; see Brown 1997, 173–74 and 759. 14 // The collaboration between Roux and Zola began when they reviewed one another’s early publications in the 1860s, Roux reviewing among others Zola’s Contes à Ninon of 1864 (see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:391) and his La Confession de Claude of 1865, and Zola Roux’s Monsieur de Fortengueule of 1867 and Evariste Plauchu of 1869 (see Thomson 1978, 337, and Zola 1869). Thomson also describes how Roux supplied Zola with documentary legal material from the Marseilles archives for the (unsuccessful) adaptation of his novel, Les mystères de Marseille of 1867, into a play; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:501–22, and Alexis 1882, 77. Zola then contributed to a column Roux wrote in La libre pensée in 1870; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:32. Roux next collaborated with Zola on a journal, La marseillaise, between September and December 1870; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:34–35 and 225–28, Alexis 1882, 169, and Bakker 1971, 38. Their correspondence of c. 1870 also shows that Roux was involved in Zola’s ambitions of gaining municipal political office in Aix. 15 // After Roux left Aix in 1863 or 1864 (Thomson 1978, 336), he was at the center of the “jeudis” Zola held in his various Paris apartments from around 1863 onward (Brown 1997, 115), and which initially gathered together Zola’s friends from Aix: apart from Roux, his close confidants, Cézanne (who first stayed in Paris in 1861), Baille, Valabrègue (who came to Paris in 1866), and later Paul Alexis (who did not reach Paris until 1869); see Rewald 1939, 57–70. By 1866 these gatherings included Cézanne, Baille, Solari, the Aixois Numa Coste, Georges Pajot, and Camille Pissarro; see Rewald 1939, 104–5, Thomson 1978, 336 n. 6, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:582–83, 2:205, and 3:189 nn. 5 and 96. (Like Cézanne, Solari and Coste attended the Ecole Municipale de Dessin in Aix; see Rewald 1939, 26, 45, 53, 68, and 70, Raimbault 1907, 1, and Baille 1981, 30–38.) Bazille also attended Zola’s gatherings in the 1860s with

Pissarro; see Brown 1997, 115. On Roux’s presence at Zola’s “mardis” in 1869, see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:195. A letter from Zola to Valabrègue of 26 September 1869 inviting him to “venir dîner chez moi” mentions Roux’s likely attendance; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:157. The Aixois in Paris and Zola’s soirées are recalled in Zola 1886, 66–109 and 247–66, and are described in Alexis 1882, 59, thus: “C’est à cette époque qu’il [Zola] commença à recevoir le jeudi :réceptions sur lesquelles je reviendrai, et dont le personnel s’est augmenté à la longue, mais dont le caractère d’intimité est resté le même. Marius Roux, le plus ancien ami . . . y fut assidu. Baille et Paul Cézanne amenèrent quelques rares camarades, entre autres Antony Valabrègue, un poète débarqué d’Aix également, le même qui m’introduisit dans la maison, quelques années plus tard. Puis, beaucoup plus tard encore, j’introduisis moi-même une partie des derniers venus.” Perhaps drawing on conversations with Cézanne, Vollard 1938, 18, describes the company attending Zola’s in the mid-1860s in these terms: “Outre ses visiteurs assidus, Cézanne et Baille,—lequel poursuivait maintenant à Paris le cours de ses études scientifiques,—il y venait aussi Antony Valabrègue, un jeune poète Aixois; Marion, autre compatriote, dont l’ambition était d’être peintre, mais qui devait finir dans la peau d’un professeur de sciences; Guillemet et Marius Roux, un très élégant jeune homme, si propre, si tiré à quatres épingles que Zola disait de lui, avec une admiration un peu ironique: ‘Ce Roux, ce n’est pas lui qu’on verrait jamais avec la marque du genou au pantalon!’” Alexis also recalls Roux’s presence at the gatherings in Zola’s “jardinet” in the 1870s: “Quelquefois, par les beaux soirs d’été, la table était mise sur l’étroite terrasse, et la famille dînait dehors. Puis, quelques intimes—Marius Roux, Duranty, les peintres Béliard et Coste, ou moi—arrivions”; see Alexis 1882, 175–76. A letter from Alexis to Zola of 22 November 1878 mentions the intention of “Roux, Coste et la petite bande” to visit Zola’s; see Bakker 1971, 128, and 129 n. 4. 16 // Roux was also an habitué of the “boeuf nature” dinners founded in c. 1875, which included Zola, Alexis, Valabrègue, and “les peintres Béliard et Coste”; see Paul Alexis, Le Cri du peuple, 23 November 1885, cited in Bakker 1971, 88 n. 3, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:356–57 n. 1. See also Paul Alexis, [review of] “Le Capitaine Burle,” Le réveil, 12 November 1882,

introduction

// xv

1860, Germain has abandoned law to live and work as a painter in Paris,27 where, like his real counterpart, he installs himself in a series of studios situated on the Left Bank.28 In Paris, Germain becomes an habitué of the Restaurant Bruno,29 the haunt of the “Ecole des Batignolles,”30 and the “Impressionists” or “Intransigents,”31 which is clearly modeled on the Café Guerbois, which Cézanne and his future Impressionist colleagues frequented from around 1866,32 where they formed a self-conscious group,33 although they mixed with several writers and other artists. It even has a

cited in Bakker 1971, 473–74. These dinners, and Roux’s presence at them, are mentioned in letters between Zola, Alexis, Coste, and Roux between September 1875 and October 1878; see Bakker 1971, 87 and 88 n. 3, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:356–57 n. 1, 426, 434, 435 n. 1, 451 and 452 n. 1, 555–56, and 3:235 n. 6, which cites an article of Zola’s in Le sémaphore de Marseille of 29 March 1877, and lists Alexis, Béliard, Coste, Valabrègue, and himself among the “convives” of “la table du Boeuf nature.” See also Athanassoglou-Kallmyer 2003, 272 n. 30. 17 // Thomson points out that Roux visited Aix at least twice a year in the 1860s, and acted as Zola’s messenger to his friends, including Cézanne and Antony Valabrègue; see Thomson 1978, 336. In two letters both dated 5 February 1866, Roux tells Zola “Tu dois avoir force choses à dire à notre cher Cézanne” and that he ought to charge him “de tout ce qu’il te conviendra pour notre cher Cézanne”; while in a letter of 27 February 1866, Roux tells Zola he is at Zola’s disposition should the author want him to convey anything to Cézanne; see Thomson 1978, 342–43. Rewald 1939, 138–39, cites a letter in which Roux tells Zola of the trouble he is having carrying out a request that involves Cézanne, who remains “un véritable sphinx.” The letter continues: “Je l’ai vu chez lui, nous avons causé assez longtemps. Il y a quelques jours, il est venu avec moi à la campagne où nous avons couché une nuit; nous avons eu tout notre temps encore pour causer. . . . je ne suis pas descendu assez profondément dans l’intimité de Paul pour connaître le sens exact de ses paroles. . . . je crois qu’il a gardé pour la peinture un enthousiasme sacré. Il n’est pas vaincu encore”; also cited in Thomson 1978, 344. In 1867, Roux sees Cézanne several times: he informs Zola in a letter of 25 January 1867 that he has sent Cézanne (among others) a copy of Monsieur Fortengueule; a letter of 28 May 1867 suggests Zola might ask Cézanne to do a chore concerning the Petit journal; on 22 August, Roux informs Zola he had tried to see “Paul,” who must have been “à la campagne”; on 3 September 1867 he tells Zola he has seen “Paul” the previous evening, who is “en parfait état de santé,” and that: “J’ai eu beaucoup de plaisir à le voir et à parler un peu des absents. Il doit t’écrire.” In a letter of the 17th, Roux tells Zola to write to Paul to tell him he is detained in Paris, and he again advises Zola about Cézanne in his next

letter of 28 September 1867, even parodying one of Cézanne’s sayings, by informing his correspondent: “‘J’ai un voile noir devant les yeux.’” And on 8 and 22 or 23 October, Roux asks Zola to send his regards to Cézanne (who is now in Paris). See Thomson 1978, 345–46, 353–57, and 359. 18 // The year 1868 was perhaps the highpoint of Roux’s intimacy with Cézanne. In letters to Zola of 22 April, Roux sends his “amitiés” to “Paul,” and on 1 December he sends Zola the following long report on a visit he made with Alexis to Cézanne, which the two writers clearly planned in order to encourage the artist to return to Paris: “Cézanne habite toujours au Jaz [sic] de Bouffan. Je l’ai vu aujourd’hui. Je suis allé à la campagne en compagnie d’Alexis. Cézanne m’a demandé des nouvelles de Madeleine Férat. Je lui ai fait savoir que l‘enfant allait recevoir bientôt l’eau du baptême de la critique. Cézanne m’a parlé le premier de son retour [to Paris], qui, disait-il, s’effectuerait dans une dizaine de jours. J’ai suivi tes instructions en ne le mettant pas mois-même sur ce terrain. Une fois là je l’ai pris au piège et lui ai dit que s’il voulait bien avancer un peu son départ, que moi, je reculerai un peu le mien et que, de cette façon, nous pourrions faire route ensemble. Il est convenu que nous [illegible] de compagnie et cela: Mercredi prochaine. Je t’écrirai du reste pour te mieux fixer sur ce grand jour quand nous-mêmes nous serons aussi plus parfaitement d’accord sur ce sujet.” See Thomson 1978, 361–63 and 365–67. If silliness is an indication of friendship, then the intimacy Roux achieved with Cézanne is indicated by his description (in this last letter) of a meal of aïoli (Cézanne’s favorite dish) that they shared with Fortuné Marion, who put in three times the normal amount of garlic. Cézanne mentioned Valabrègue’s view that garlic was “la truffe du prolétaire,” and the company toasted Cézanne and Valabrègue. Roux then tells Zola that he should mention all this in La Tribune. Zola replies to Roux in a letter of 4 December, telling Roux: “Dis à Paul que je ne lui écrirai plus, puisque je le verrai dans quelques jours. Selon l’heure de votre arrivée, venez me demander à dîner, le jour où vous débarquerez.” See Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:171–72. 19 // Roux mentions Cézanne’s name for the last time in a letter to Zola of around 1871. A letter from Alexandrine (Gabriel) Zola (the author’s wife) to

xvi

//

introduction

back room in which the painters and their associates gather, like the Guerbois.34 Here Germain joins in the Brunos’ lively polemics against the art establishment,35 and their plans to launch an independent exhibition.36 Indeed, Germain is highly voluble, as was Cézanne when roused,37 and like him readily defends an aesthetic of “temperament” and “strength.”38 But rather as with Cézanne, Germain’s imposture only barely masks the “impotence” and “doubt” that sabotage his every painting.39 Roux’s Germain is also an unscrupulous egoist whose headlong pursuit of easy money causes him to end his days “a ruined man.”40 Like the dog in La Fontaine’s fable, “The Substance and the Shadow,” which drops the food in its jaws in the attempt to seize its more enticing reflection, Germain falls foul of the delusions of avarice. To make sure the reader gets the allusion, Roux makes the rationale of his title explicit in one highly contrived scene early in the novel, in which Germain’s devoted mistress, Caroline Duhamel, takes an evening walk with

Emile Zola of 17 December 1870 may perhaps illuminate the cause of the rupture. In this, she tells her husband that although she had thought that Cézanne and his mistress were in Marseilles, she was upset to discover from Marie (Roux’s mistress) that “the ball” (Hortense Fiquet) had recently passed by her house in Aix, and that the couple were still established in L’Estaque, adding: “Ils sont polis! Tourmente-toi pour ces gens-là, en voilà encore qui doivent pas exister pour nous” (a reference to the “irregular” status of their relationship); Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:253. It would seem, in other words, that Cézanne and his mistress failed to repay the kindness they had received from the Zolas and Rouxs. Roux’s slightly later letter shows that Cézanne continued to act selfishly at the time—when he was actively being sought by police agents as a draft dodger—by turning up in Aix and telling the agents that he lived in L’Estaque with Zola, thus drawing attention to his friend; see Rewald 1939, 178–80. 20 // In his review of Zola’s La confession de Claude (which he associated with “une masse d’Aixois, tous anciens camarades de collège”), Roux described how “Monsieur Cézanne est un des bons élèves que notre école d’Aix a fournis à Paris,” and how Cézanne “a laissé chez nous le souvenir d’un intrépide travailleur, et d’un consciencieux elève,” comparing him to Zola as a Realist of a sort, and mentioning his admiration for Zurbarán and Ribera. Roux ends his plug with the backhanded compliment: “Il a trop de courage, trop de persévérance au travail pour ne pas arriver à son but. Si je ne craignais commettre une indiscrétion, je vous donnerais mon appréciation sur quelques-unes de ses toiles. Mais sa modéstie se refuse à lui laisser croire que ce qu’il a fait est suffisant, et je ne veux pas le froisser dans sa délicatesse d’artiste. J’attends qu’il étale au grand jour son Oeuvre. Ce jour-là, je ne serai pas le seul à parler. Il appartient à une école qui a le privilège de provoquer la critique.” See Roux

1865, cited in Rewald 1939, 95–96. Roux’s tone can be explained by the fact that it was Zola who asked him to mention Cézanne in his review; see Zola’s letters to Roux of 14 November and 4 December 1865, in Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:420 and 426. 21 // See the letter from Valabrègue to Zola of January recounting how “Marius” had persuaded the dealer to exhibit the painting. Although Valabrègue says the painting had “un léger succès de curiosité,” he also tells Zola that if it had remained where it was much longer the crowd would have broken the shopwindow and attacked it; see Rewald 1939, 140–41. 22 // L’oeuvre was first serialized in eighty issues of Gil Blas between 23 December 1885 and 27 March 1886. The most detailed studies of how Cézanne is used as a model for Claude Lantier are Niess 1968, esp. 78–112, Brady 1968, esp. 226–27, Rewald 1939, 299–320, and Rewald 1936, which contain more detailed references to the dossiers for L’oeuvre than the later biography. On the similarities between L’oeuvre and Roux’s novel, see La proie et l’ombre, 2 n. 6, 3 n. 9, 4 n. 12, 8 n. 17, 13 n. 27, 15 n. 34, 17 nn. 37 and 38, 18 n. 39, 19 n. 44, 26 nn. 57–58, 28 n. 60, 31 n. 65, 49 n. 80, and 82 n. 109. 23 // Vizetelly 1888, viii. 24 // Germain is twenty-nine at the beginning of the novel; Cézanne was twenty-nine in 1868. 25 // Rewald et al.1996, no. 116. 26 // See La proie et l’ombre, 24 and 24 n. 55. Germain’s brother, Philippe, describes Rambert père as “un homme terrible,” and a philistine “qui ne fait pas aucune différence entre un artiste et un badigeonneur”; see La proie et l’ombre, 46.

introduction

// xvii

her lover’s brother, Philippe—a painter on a scholarship from Aigues to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and compete for the Prix de Rome. Philippe points out how the city skyline near the Pont des Arts with the risen moon above looks like a “magic-lantern show” featuring a giant dog holding a cheese in its jaws.41 Initially, Caroline’s only reaction is to look pensive; but when Philippe describes the effect to Germain, who joins them shortly afterwards, she responds by pointing to the reflection of the scene in the waters of the Seine, and adds: “I hope . . . that the great brute doesn’t give up the substance for the shadow!” Caroline, in other words, warns her feckless lover not to forsake her and an honest career—of the kind that Philippe is carving out at the Ecole42—for more chimerical rewards. But Germain abandons Caroline all the same (when she is just about to go into labor!) for a rich widow, Ernestine Mazouillet.43 Roux’s point is, then, that Germain pursues satisfaction in the form of money instead of seeking it in natural emotional bonds, or hard work.

27 // See La proie et l’ombre, 44 and 104.

33 // See La proie et l’ombre, 16 n. 35.

28 // At the beginning of the novel, Germain is installed in the rue de Sèvres, and then moves to another studio in the same street. Later in the novel, he moves to the right bank. And he ends it moving into a studio in the Restaurant Bruno building. See La proie et l’ombre, 14, 68, 79–83, 177, 179, and 192. See also La proie et l’ombre, 14 n. 31.

34 // See La proie et l’ombre, 17 n. 37. 35 // See La proie et l’ombre, 20. 36 // See La proie et l’ombre, 51. 37 // On Germain’s and Cézanne’s habit of expostulating, see La proie et l’ombre, 20 and 20 n. 45.

29 // See La proie et l’ombre, 16. 30 // See La proie et l’ombre, 8 and 9 n. 20. This group in reality comprised a number of artists and writers, notably Zola.

38 // See La proie et l’ombre, 50 and 92. See also 50 n. 83, 93 n. 127, and 114 n. 145. 39 // See La proie et l’ombre, esp. 26 and 187, and 90, 114–15, 124, 131, 184, and 187.

31 // See La proie et l’ombre, 52 and 52 nn. 88 and 89. 32 // On Cézanne’s (and the Impressionists’) presence at the Café Guerbois, see La proie et l’ombre, 9 n. 20 and 16 n. 35. Cézanne’s presence at the Guerbois is also commemorated in L’oeuvre, where it appears as the Café Baudequin; see La proie et l’ombre, n. 36 Rewald’s account of the Café Guerbois synthesizes several sources and draws particularly on Silvestre 1892, 151–79; see Rewald 1973, 197–235. The presence of the Impressionists at the Guerbois is also recorded by Albert Wolff, who recounts: “Manet . . . devint le chef de la fameuse école, dite de Batignolles, qui tenait ses assises au Café Guerbois, et dont faisait partie: Degas, Claude Monet, Guilemet [sic], Fantin Latour, Cisley [sic], Pisaro [sic], etc., etc.” Wolff 1886, 220–21. Further references to the Café Guerbois can be found in Crouzet 1964, 239–41, and Bakker 1971, 120 n. 13. See also Gachet 1956, 77, for an account of how Dr. Gachet visited the Café Guerbois “pas . . . assidûment.” The Provençal painter Paul Gigou also attended the Café Guerbois; see Daulte 1960, 72. On the Guerbois’s clientele in the 1870s, see Rude 1877, 297.

40 // La proie et l’ombre, 180: “un homme fini” (the verdict of the character, Lespignac). Germain is thus a modification of an earlier type of the poor, struggling artist featured in the atelier novel; see Newton 1998, 177. 41 // La proie et l’ombre, 64. “un décor de lanterne magique,” “‘que la grosse bête ne lâche sa proie pour l’ombre!’” 42 // Philippe’s nearest literary relative is perhaps Joseph Brideau, the earnest, hardworking painter who successfully trains at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts while his errant brother, Philippe, brings ruin upon his family. See Balzac 1842. 43 // Mallarmé was impressed by Roux’s sympathetic treatment of Caroline; see his letter to Roux of 30 April 1878 (Appendix 3). On women in the atelier novel, see Newton 1998, 176–78. Germain’s seduction of Ernestine is described in La proie et l’ombre, chapters ix–xii, xiv, xx, and xxii.

xviii //

introduction

Even Germain’s dealings with Ernestine evince his complete and unnatural subjugation to money. Although he feels strongly attracted to her physically, it is the prospect that her wealth will resurrect his career as a painter that decides him to seduce her. So, for instance, when Germain thinks that Ernestine will receive only twenty-five thousand francs from her deceased husband’s estate, he makes up his mind to call off their impending wedding—although he eventually realizes that she has other assets that bring her fortune to forty-thousand francs.44 Unsurprisingly, their relationship fails, as does Germain’s ambition to use Ernestine’s money to promote his artistic ambitions. Despite setting himself up in a sumptuous atelier, Germain attracts no clients; and after an abortive attempt to master photography, he is forced to collaborate with Ernestine in a series of shop-keeping ventures, all of which turn sour (not least because Germain insists on keeping jealous guard over his wife when any customers are present).45 In a last-gasp bid to set things right, Ernestine buys the business at the Restaurant Bruno; but in the face of Germain’s continuing dissipation, she elopes with the visiting wine merchant, Calixte, her childhood sweetheart. As the narrative draws to a close, Germain is rumored, understandably enough, to have committed suicide; but in the last two pages Philippe stumbles upon his brother lurking, completely deranged, in the shadows near the Louvre.46 Germain’s “unnatural” and compulsive attachment to money emerges again and again in the novel. Germain even resorts to suing his own father, when, on the eve of his marriage to the young family maid, Annette, the old man threatens to withdraw his son’s allowance. Worse still, when Rambert père eventually settles seven thousand francs on his two children to be shared equally (despite having

44 // La proie et l’ombre, 166–67. The saga is described in chapters ix–xi and xx–xxii.

tenebat ore dimisit cibum, / Nec quem petebat potuit adeo attingere.”

45 // These ventures are summarized in La proie et l’ombre, 179–80.

50 // La Fontaine was one of Cézanne’s favorite authors; see Vollard 1938, 29. Cézanne not only read many Latin authors in later life, but he won several prizes for Latin translation at school; see Mack 1938, 18–20, and the copy of Antoine Caillot, Abrégé des voyages modernes, réduit aux traits les plus curieux, 4th ed., 2 vols. (Paris: Ledentu, 1834), conserved in the Atelier des Lauves, volume 1 of which is inscribed: “1er prix de version Latine 1854” (volume 2 is signed “Cézanne Paul,” and is annotated: “Souvenir de Jeunesse de Cézanne trouvé chez sa soeur Marie”). See also Reff 1960, 307.

46 // La proie et l’ombre, 199. 47 // See La proie et l’ombre, 158. The narrative is unfolded in chapters ix, xiv, xx, and xxii. Germain is still a little better than Annette, though. She not only contributes to Rambert père’s reduced circumstances by drawing him into lavish expenditures, but she hooks her husband on fine living precisely in order to kill him with kindness, and so facilitate a salubrious reunion with her secret lover. See chapter xxi. 48 // On the complicity of Impressionism with laissez-faire economics, see Herbert 1987. 49 // Liber I Fabularum Phaedri, iv: “Canis per fluvium carnem ferens”: “Amittit merito proprium qui alienum appetit. / Canis per flumen carnem cum ferret natans, / Lympharum in speculo vidit simulacrum suum, / Aliamque praedam ab alio cane ferri putans / Eripere voluit; verum decepta aviditas / Et quem

51 // Cf. Carver 1998, 20, on Marx’s supernatural imagery. I am grateful to Rebecca Niblock for this reference. 52 // Roux 1879. Flaubert congratulated Roux on this story line in his letter of 18 August 1879; see Flaubert 1976, 239.

introduction

// xix

J.-J. Grandville, Les fable de La Fontaine (Tours: Mame, 1864), 216.

eminently fulfilled his paternal obligations), Germain pockets the whole amount.47 Clearly, Roux’s novel is an attempt to bring La Fontaine’s allegory up to date with the capitalist world: it draws the analogy between Germain and La Fontaine’s dog, in other words, in order to represent the artist as an opportunist complicit with a laissez-faire economy that creates an alluring but devastating image, or phantom, of personal satisfaction in the form of wealth.48 This last point can be appreciated better when it is realized that La Fontaine is not mistaken in using the French word “ombre” (shadow) to mean “reflection,” but he does so because his model, Phaedrus’s collection of Aesop fables, uses the Latin term “simulacrum” (meaning apparition, shade, or ghost), a synonym of umbra (or shadow), to describe the “alienum” (other) that the dog sees in the “speculum” (mirror) of the water.49 (Cézanne, an admirer of La Fontaine, and an assiduous Latinist, would surely have known this.)50 It would seem, then, that Roux is struggling to describe Germain’s embroilment in a world of illusion, in which an excessive and exclusive love of money cuts him off from every source of real, embodied happiness, and eventually renders him a mere shadow of himself. It is perhaps only a coincidence that Marx draws on similar, “spectral” imagery to describe the closely related phenomenon of commodity fetishism with the term “phantasmagoria” (referring to the insubstantial ghostly images projected by magic lanterns, which enjoyed a vogue in the first half of the century).51 But although no Marxist, Roux can nevertheless fairly be credited with holding views that were critical of something he specifically identified as capitalism, since—among other things—he produced a humorous but devastating critique of speculation and fraud in his novel of 1879, La poche des autres, which describes a conspiracy to sell shares in a nonexistent company executed by the directors of the journal La gazette des petits capitalistes.52

xx //

introduction

The Roman à Clef Of these two sides to Germain—artist and money-grubber—it may seem that only the first is relevant to an understanding of Cézanne. But the great interest of Roux’s novel lies precisely in the connection it makes between both aspects of Germain’s character and Cézanne’s.

Fiction and Fact Cézanne’s response to La proie et l’ombre, like his response to Zola’s L’oeuvre,53 shows that novels like these could be seen to refer to real events and characters. Its other readers also reacted to La proie et l’ombre as if it were a roman à clef.54 It is clear from Mallarmé’s response, for example, that he thought it contained coded representations of real events and characters that were meant to be read as such by an informed section of its intended audience, accustomed to deciphering novels in this way.55 Thus he chided Roux in his letter of 30 April 1878 (that he sent in response to receiving the book) for treating “the Impressionists (of whom some are miraculously gifted beings, who have found their way belatedly after many struggles) [as] a band apart, extravagant and stupid.”56 Similarly, Huysmans declared in his review of the book, that he did not share Roux’s view that “the Impressionist painters” were “impotent buffoons.”57 The anonymous reviewer of Le rappel also recognized that La proie et l’ombre treated “the world . . . from which the Impressionist have sprung.”58 To some considerable extent, therefore, La proie et l’ombre follows an established literary convention in alluding to real people, even if most failed to recognize, or state, that it was primarily concerned with the persona Cézanne adopted in his early career. More particularly, it was one of several books published at the time that took the Impressionists and their milieu as their overt, and sometimes recog-

53 // Upon receiving L’oeuvre, Cézanne sent Zola the following note: “Mon cher Emile, / Je viens de recevoir l’Oeuvre que tu as bien voulu m’adresser. Je remercie l’auteur des Rougon-Macquart de ce bon témoignage de souvenir, et je lui demande de me permettre de lui serrer la main en songeant aux anciennes années. / Tout à toi sous l’impulsion des temps écoulés.” See Rewald 1978, 225. Cézanne never communicated with Zola again. 54 // La proie et l’ombre is not mentioned, however, in Drujon, 1885–88. For a history of the roman à clef, see Jean-Jacques Lefrère and Michel Pierssens et al. 1999. 55 // See Wagneur 1999, 48. 56 // See Appendix 3. 57 // See Huysmans 1878 (Appendix 1).

58 // Anon. 1878. 59 // Burty 1880, on which see Niess 1968, 15–16. Burty, an habitué of the Guerbois (see La proie et l’ombre, 9 n. 20 and 16 n. 35), described cityscapes of a Gare de chemin de fer (consisting of “rien que des taches”) and of the quais, a painting of skaters in the Bois, a picture of “Les bains de la Seine,” a female portrait in Japanese costume, a painting of a woman in her box at the Opera dressed in yellow, and a portrait of a woman painted unaware in profil perdu; see Burty 1880, 66, 143, 145, and 238–39. In the same year as Roux’s novel appeared, there was also a play “about” Impressionism: La cigale (Meilhac and Halévy 1877), in whose design Degas, and possibly Monet and Renoir, collaborated; see Rewald 1973, 408 and 435 n. 18. The following year, there appeared Les impressionnistes: Comédie-vaudeville en un acte by Eugène Grangé and Victor Bernard (Paris: Librairie théâtrale, 1879).

introduction

// xxi

nizable subject matter, the most notable of which was Philippe Burty’s novel of 1880, Grave imprudence, which also describes pictures closely comparable to the works of Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, and Degas, some of which are clearly modeled on specific paintings.59 Like Grave imprudence, Roux’s novel does more than present real events and characters in the guise of fiction, as did several romans à clefs of the 1880s and 1890s representing literary and artistic circles (and which sometimes signaled duplicity by employing the parenthetical subtitle roman parisien, or roman contemporaine). In this respect, it is more complex and elusive than, for example, the archetype of these later novels: Félicien Champsaur’s scurrilous Dinah Samuel of 1882.60 This novel identifies the real people represented by its characters through transparent cryptonyms, or descriptions of their telltale physical and behavioral idiosyncrasies, while also cannibalizing “chroniques” that Champsaur published elsewhere.61 Some passages of La proie et l’ombre do have the feel of reportage, yet fact cannot be extracted straightforwardly even from these. Roux’s novel is also equivocal because it harks back to an earlier tradition of atelier novels (particularly the Goncourt brothers’ Manette Salomon of 1867),62 which are more concerned with treating aesthetic and philosophical themes of general interest than they are with representing specific individuals and their foibles.63 It is, in addition, a plainly caricatural text in many places, Germain being an especially hyperbolic character. Germain also possesses characteristics that Cézanne does not,64 since Roux’s text combines several real identities in the one character at the same time as it distributes the characteristics of the same individual among several characters. It also toys with the locations and chronology of real events. Roux thus builds an imaginary world at the same time as he records fact, weaving both together into one cloth. It could even be said that he creates a “world” of sorts, within which things seem coherently organized like they are in the real world, but that is actually its own to a considerable degree.65

60 // Champsaur was an “ami” of Pissarro’s, on whose account he visited Cézanne at the Jas de Bouffan, who gave him some paintings, including Rewald et al. 1996, no. 537; see Vollard 1938, 43–44. (Champsaur is thus the “S” in Vollard’s book on Cézanne of 1914.) The visit must have occurred some time before 1899, when the Jas was sold (Rewald 1939, 349). 61 // On the use of such strategies in the roman à clef of the third quarter of the nineteenth century, see Wagneur 1999, 48–49. On Dinah Samuel, see Champsaur 1999, edited by Jean de Palacio. The visit to the Rat Mort described in the novel (Champsaur 1999, 288–306) is closely comparable to two accounts of the same venue that Champsaur had published earlier as fact: see Champsaur 1880a and 1880b. Champsaur, however, alters (and even swaps around) some of the names of the characters in this novel in later editions.

62 // The similarity to Manette Salomon is noted in Boissin, 1879, 15. See also Appendix 3. See also La proie et l’ombre, 2 n. 3, 2 n. 6, 9 n. 18, 50 n. 83, 56 n. 90, 70 n. 101, 92 n. 125, 93 n. 128, and 171 n. 181. See also 50 n. 83 on Cézanne’s interest in Manette Salomon. 63 // See Newton 1998 on the tradition of the “atelier novel,” and Wagneur 1999, 47, on the different types of romans à clef. 64 // For all his strong resemblances to Cézanne, Germain does have many dissimilar traits also. He is described as “capitaine” in the army during the Franco-Prussian war, while Cézanne evaded the draft; see La proie et l’ombre, 7. Germain was also conventionally handsome and sexually confident, very unlike Cézanne; see La proie et l’ombre, 7. And while Cézanne may have been a misogynist of sorts, he was not the domineering sort Germain was.

xxii

//

introduction

The same is true of Zola’s L’oeuvre. Hence, even though its many similarities with La proie et l’ombre could seem to corroborate the factual basis of Roux’s text (in the events of Cézanne’s life),66 they could equally well indicate its dependency on his friend’s novel, or their common dependency on earlier atelier novels.67 Novels like Zola’s and Roux’s do draw upon fact, in other words, but not in ways that allow any algorithms capable of extracting fact from fiction to be applied to them. Perhaps, then, the technique of relating this kind of text to the real, historical world is best compared to dream analysis, inasmuch as both involve tracing displaced, condensed, and revised contents to their source in reality on the basis of an arduous, and necessarily tentative, process of reconstruction. The interest of art-novels does not reside solely in how they follow from fact, however. Rather, a large part of their significance comes from how they help shape and constitute the world they represent. Art-novels, for instance, contribute to the discursive field that makes artistic practice possible, in some aspects at least, only in certain forms. In particular, literature of this sort supplies a repertoire of roles for artists that entail particular career trajectories and aesthetic and moral values. Cézanne himself certainly identified closely with at least two of these. In the first place, he aspired in 1859 to living a “bohemian life” in the manner of Murger’s illustrious clichés,68 and he even admitted in later life to having been a “bohemian” until he was forty. Very likely, then, he identified with the “bohemian,” Anatole, in Manette Salomon.69 Cézanne also saw himself as a raté in the mode of—among others—Frenhofer, the solipsistic visionary in Balzac’s story of 1831, “Le chef d’oeuvre inconnu,”70 and Naz Coriolis, the painter in Manette Salomon ruined by his own sensitivity to color and what is portrayed as his wife’s

65 // Cf. Wittgenstein 1977, 89e: “If Shakespeare is great . . . then we must be able to say of him: Everything is wrong, things aren’t like that—& is the same completely right according to a law of its own. . . . If Shakespeare is great, then he can be so only in the whole corpus of his plays, which create their own language & world.” 66 // Roux himself declared that the “dénouement” to Evariste Plauchu was “l’expression de la vérité vraie” concerning the fate of one of his Aixois colleagues; see Roux 1869, i–ii. 67 // On the prototypes for L’oeuvre, see Niess 1968, 6–25. 68 // In a letter to Baille of 29 December 1859, Zola recounts how he and Cézanne plan to live “une vie de bohèmes”; see Bakker 1978–95, 1:118. See also Murger 1849 and 1851. 69 // Cézanne declared in later life: “Je suis un timide, un bohème,” and “Jusqu’à quarante ans j’ai vécu en bohême”; see Bernard 1921, 25 and 43; cited in Gasquet 1926, 64. Cf. Vollard 1938, 18.

70 // In the document known as “Mes confidences,” a questionnaire filled in by Cézanne, the artist replied to the question: “Quel personnage du roman ou du théâtre [vous est le plus sympathique]?” with “Frenhoffer” [sic]; see Chappuis 1973, 50–51. Cf. Bernard 1921, 44: “Un soir que je lui parlais du Chefd’oeuvre inconnu et de Frenhofer, le héros du drame de Balzac, il se leva de table, se dressa devant moi et, frappant sa poitrine avec son index, il s’accusa, sans un mot, mais par ce geste multiplié, le personnage même du roman.” Cf. Gasquet 1926, 67 and 152. Gasquet also recalls that “le volume des Etudes philosophiques où se trouvent la Peau de Chagrin, JésusChrist en Flandre, Melmoth réconcilié, le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu, la Recherche de l’absolu, tout fripé, sali et décousu, étaient un de ses livres de chevet” (ibid., 71). Cézanne’s edition could have been from the Oeuvres complètes of 1842–48, 1874, or 1877. Cf. de Beucken 1955, 21. Germain also resembles Frenhofer inasmuch as “lui seul savait ce qu’il faisait,” and only reluctantly let others see his pictures; La proie et l’ombre, 85. 71 // On Coriolis’s extreme color sensitivity, see La proie et l’ombre, 55 n. 90, 81 n. 105, and 92 n. 125. On his ruination at the hands of his mistress, see La proie et l’ombre, 70 n. 101 and 93 n. 128. Cézanne’s idol,

introduction

// xxiii

venality.71 Zola actually spoke of Cézanne as a “raté” in later life,72 and used the word to characterize Claude Lantier.73 At the very least, then, Cézanne must have often felt that the fate of the raté beckoned strongly to him. The intertwining of literature and life is more complex still, since recognizable literary representations of individual artists can strongly affect those they portray—as is evident from Cézanne’s response to Roux’s and Zola’s novels “about” him. Also among such works is Duranty’s story “Le peintre Marsabiel” of 1867, which portrayed the “temperamental,” coarse, and specifically Provençal persona Cézanne presented in public in the early and mid-1860s—as part of his calculated attempt to become the enfant terrible of the avant-garde.74 In Duranty’s story, for example, Marsabiel/Cézanne declares: “‘I have realized that paintings are made with temperament (he pronounced it ‘damnbéramminnte’) rather than brushes.’”75 Marsabiel also declares: “‘Nature is bourgeois! I give it temperament!’”76 More significant than the fact that Duranty (only mildly) caricatured Cézanne is that by bothering to do so he effectively supported what can only be interpreted as the painter’s deliberate campaign of self-promotion. Strong evidence for this conclusion comes in a letter of 1868 from Fortuné Marion to the German musician Heinrich Morstatt, which describes Cézanne’s tactics with regard to the Salon. Marion states that although Cézanne’s “name is already too well known, and too many revolutionary ideas in art are connected with him for the painters on the jury to waver for a moment” (that is, accept him), he nevertheless retains his “persistence and nerve,” and has even vowed that “they will be fucked like that for all eternity with all the more persistence”77 (in other words, that he would continue to bait the jury by submitting outlandish paintings). Marion thus also adds sagely:

Delacroix, is described as “le plus grand des ratés” in Manette Salomon; see Goncourt 1867, xxxv, 1:197. 72 // Vollard 1938, 79 and 32. 73 // See Zola 1886, 59, 328, 354, 428, and 448, which describes “Claude, ce grand peintre raté.” 74 // See Duranty 1867, and Crouzet 1964, 247 and 613–15. Marsabiel was identified with Cézanne by the authors in de Nittis 1895, 192, and Larguier 1947, 94–95; these references are from Crouzet 1964, 246 n. 67, which discusses Marsabiel/Cézanne further. On Cézanne’s strategy of baiting the Salon jury, see La proie et l’ombre, 4 n. 12. Cézanne seems to have behaved most conspicuously as an enfant terrible at the Café Guerbois; see La proie et l’ombre, 16 n. 35. Here, Vollard recounts, “Décidément Cézanne ne pouvait s’y plaire. ‘Tous ces gens-là sont des salauds! disait-il à Guillemet. Ils sont aussi bien mis que des notaires!’ En manière de protestation, il posait au cynique. Manet lui demandait, un jour, ce qu’il préparait pour le Salon, s’attira cette réponse: ‘un pot de m . . . de.’ See Vollard 1838, 22. Cézanne’s outrageous behavior is also recollected by Monet, who recalls that, upon his arrival, Cézanne would cast: “Un coup

d’oeil méfiant sur l’assemblée. Puis, écartant sa veste, d’un mouvement de hanches très zingueur, il remontait son pantalon et rajustait ostensiblement la ceinture rouge à son flanc. Après quoi, il serrait les mains à la ronde. Mais en présence de Manet il se découvrait et nasillait avec son sourire: ‘Je ne vous donne pas la maing, monsieur Manet, je ne me suis lavé depuis huit jours.’” See Elder 1924, 48, cited in Rewald 1939, 142. 75 // Duranty 1867, 6: “‘J’ai reconnu que la peinture se fait avec du tempérament (il prononça damnbéramminnte) plus qu’avec des brosses.’” 76 // See Duranty 1867, 6: “‘La nature est bourgeoise! Je lui donne du tempérament!’” 77 // “Son nom est trop connu déjà et trop d’idées révolutionnaires s’attachent à lui pour que les peintres membres du jury faiblissent un seul instant. Et j’admire la persistance et le sang-froid avec lequel Paul m’écrit: ‘Et bien! on leur foutra comme cela dans l’éternité avec encore plus de persistance.’ Avec tout cela, il devrait bien songer à trouver un moyen autre et plus grand encore de publicité”; Rewald 1939, 150, citing Barr 1937, 48.

xxiv

//

introduction

“For all that, he ought to think about finding a different and all altogether finer means of getting publicity.” What suggests that Cézanne positively appreciated Duranty’s story is that he played up to its caricatural image, vaunting his individualism and eccentricity, as if in emulation of Marsabiel. He continued to employ, for example, the same tactics with respect to the Salon in 1868, 1869 (probably), 1870, 1876, and 1879 that originally won Duranty’s attention.78 (And no doubt such behavior made it all the easier for Duranty to republish his Marsabiel story four times.)79 On the occasion of the rejection of his Portrait of Achille Emperaire and a lost nude from the Salon of 1870, when he again turned up on the last day for submitting paintings, Cézanne even gave an interview to the caricaturist Stock outside the Palais de l’Industrie recorded in a portrait-charge (or affectionate caricature), which shows he continued to act like Marsabiel, drawing attention to himself by his strong southern accent,80 his sartorial idiosyncrasy, and with the impassioned profession: “The others [Courbet, Manet, Monet] feel and see as I do, but they have no courage. They paint pictures for the Salon. . . . I have the courage of my convictions, and he who laughs last, laughs best.”81 Cézanne was not just joking here, since he obtained multiple copies of Stock’s image to show to his friends—as is clear from a letter of 7 June 1870 to the Aixois artisan, Justin Gabet, in which Cézanne tells his friend that he might obtain one from his uncle.82 The rationale behind Cézanne’s irrational behavior was more complex, and specific, however, than that of publicity-seeking. It springs from the fact that, in the market of the midcentury onward, the exchange value of a work of modern

78 // See La proie et l’ombre, 4 n. 12. 79 // Duranty’s story was first republished, in a bowdlerized version, within a longer story, in 1872 (Duranty 1872). It then appeared twice in 1887: a short version in a newspaper (Duranty 1877a) being used to advertise a longer version in the book (Duranty 1877b; see also the review by A. de Lostalot, cited in Crouzet 1964, 246 n. 67). In the last version, of 1881, Maillobert declares: “La peinture ne se fait qu’avec du tempérament (il prononça temmpérammennte)”; Duranty 1881, 318. See also Shiff 1984, 280 n. 2 and 293 nn. 6 and 8 (on Duranty and Camoin), and 29–30, 43–44, 189, and 192. 80 // Duranty 1867 records Marsabiel’s “accent . . . hypermarseillais.” Lucien Pissarro later noted how Cézanne would utter imprecations such as “Va te faire foutre . . . avec un fort accent marseillais”; see Pissarro 2005, 18 and 214 n. 28. Cf. Vollard 1938, 60. 81 // Stock Album (Paris, 1870): “Courbet, Manet, Monet . . . vous êtes dépassés! . . . J’ai l’honneur de vous présenter votre maître: M. Cézannes [sic]. . . . Ecoutez-le plutôt me disant avec un accent méridional prononcé: ‘Oui, mon cher monsieur Stock. . . . J’ai le courage des mes opinions . . . et rira bien qui rira le dernier.’” See Rewald 1954, 8, and Rewald 1973, 246.

The two paintings are Rewald et al. 1996, 139 and 140. On Cézanne and strong sensations, see Shiff 1984, 293 n. 8. See also La proie et l’ombre, 49 n. 81 and 114 n. 145, on the Stock interview. 82 // See Rewald 1978, 135–36. Cézanne refers to the image as a “charge,” meaning “portrait-charge,” a genre that does not necessarily imply parody in French. It may not have been coincidence that it was an Aixois to whom Cézanne sent Stock’s caricature, since his manner of taunting the Salon jury was predicated on an assertion of his Provencal identity according to Athanassoglou-Kallmyer 2003, 26–28 and 78–87. 83 // In two pioneering articles, Nicholas Green has shown how, already in the 1850s, dealers like Petit, and later Durand-Ruel and Brame, working with entrepreneurial capitalists, inflated the value of paintings, and particularly landscapes, by employing renowned critics such as Charles Blanc, Philippe Burty, and Albert Sensier to produce advertising copy (in the form of prefaces to sales catalogues and the like) that effectively singled out works by certain “masters,” including Delacroix and the Barbizon painters, as rare and valuable commodities in virtue of being works of “temperament.” See Green 1987, 68–73.

introduction

// xxv

French art was increasingly becoming tagged to (what passed for) the artist’s “temperament.”83 Cézanne’s vaunting of his own temperament can therefore be seen as an attempt to manipulate the price his art could fetch on the market—if not with an eye to immediate success, then with a view to the “futures” market. Emulating Marsabiel was thus a risky, but potentially very lucrative, ploy within a broader commercial strategy. This picture of Cézanne as a painter motivated by financial gain is certainly unfamiliar; but evidence for seeing things this way occurs in early letters from

Portrait-charge of Marius Roux by Lemot, from Le Monde pour rire, no. 73 (24 July 1860). Private Collection.

xxvi

//

introduction

Zola to his friend, which indicate that Cézanne did indeed embark on his career as a painter with the aim of achieving commercial success. In the first of these, a letter of April 1860, Zola warns Cézanne against the “disaster” of “commerce” and “commercial painting,” even while purporting to believe that Cézanne “dream[s] . . . of making art and not engaging in commerce.”84 A measure of urgency can be detected in Zola’s admonitions in his next letter (of the same month), since he warns Cézanne three times against “commercial painting.”85 But most revealing of all is the letter Zola sent Cézanne in August 1860, in which he not only warns his friend against the example of the popular novelist and “businessman,” Ponson du Terrail, but also urges him: “Do not think of money, and do not let this thought obstruct that of art.” Zola even tells Cézanne that the artist “must not prostitute art,” words that, although those of their mutual friend, Baptistin Baille, nonetheless indicate the author’s own unease about the probity of his friend’s ambitions.86 Indeed, only slightly later, Zola told Baille in a letter of the end of June or the beginning of July 1861 that Cézanne “would like to succeed . . . despite the somewhat affected contempt in which he holds glory.”87 Cézanne, of course, responded with anything but enthusiasm to Roux’s portrayal of his earlier venal and temperamental character, since by 1878 the painter had changed radically. Roux’s novel nevertheless left a lasting impression and shaped the Cézanne that emerged in the following years.

“Substance” and “Shadow” A further difficulty (of a very different kind from the last) entailed by regarding La proie et l’ombre as an account of Cézanne’s embroilment in capitalism is that for all that Roux does describe what the effects of capitalism are like for artists like Germain, he tends to spiral away from any causal explanation of how capitalism works into the circularity of an ad hominem, moralizing invective. Notwithstanding, Roux clearly struggled to make sense of what he could not entirely grasp (from within “bourgeois” ideology), and his real concern can thus fairly be identified with the problem of how money seems possessed under capitalism, once this is sufficiently ubiquitous, of a particular but mysterious power in consequence of its de facto ability to put a price on everything. Of course, countless stories, some of them premodern, describe the ruinous fascination money has exerted.88 But Roux’s account points to something new and distinctive about the kind of allure that money could exert under mature capitalism: not only that its blandishments were illusory, and destructive as a consequence, but also that it promised comfort, power, and social status, to an unprecedented extent because of its universal reach. Put another way, what Roux strains to analyze is what Georg Lukács analyzes as the qualitative change in human experience brought about when capitalism reaches a point of quantitative maturity, when it can remold life “in its own image” by subjugating consciousness to a “second nature,” or an ersatz world, in which human nature, human relationships with the natural world, and

introduction

// xxvii

the social relationships these would otherwise foster all become corrupted.89 Roux is certainly perceptive enough to make Germain do serious allegorical duty, and not only does he behave with an uncanny resemblance to La Fontaine’s dog but also to the alienated subject of Marxist analysis. As will emerge, Germain’s love of money is blind and irrational, as if money were something magical that must be had at all costs.90 He also regards his own creativity merely as a means of making money, thus making it almost into a reified “thing” that exists beyond his control, like a commodity cast adrift in the marketplace.91 Indeed, to all intents and purposes, Germain becomes a mere commodity himself.92 He even exchanges a cooperative relationship with his fellows for a bitterly competitive antagonism against them.93 What is more, Germain thinks he finds the “answer” to his existential and social impoverishment in a fetishized attachment to commodities and

84 // Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:146. 85 // Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:150. 86 // Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:219. 87 // Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:300: “désirerait à réussir . . . malgré le mépris un peu affecté qu’il fait de la gloire.” 88 // Bede and Chaucer, for instance, both cite the phrase, attributed to Christ: “Radix omnium malorum cupiditas est,” normally translated as “Money is the root of all evil.” 89 // See Lukács 1971, 84–86. 90 // This takes many forms. According to Marx, money in the guise of “investment” or “interestbearing” capital appears to be inherently productive of value within the “topsy-turvy” world of capitalism, even though it only “grows” when it is put to use in hiring labor that can be bestowed upon raw materials. See Lukács 1971, 94–95; cf. Cohen 1978, 116–19, and 122–24. Money has an additional allure, or fetish value, because it is the “pure” (quantified) form of the value that commodities seem to possess inherently. The fundamental fact underlying commodity fetishism is that commodities acquire a value in excess of the value of the raw materials from which they are made because of the labor bestowed upon them in the productive process. But this fact is concealed by the way that the commodity is made to appear on the market as if it were already and inherently possessed of this additional value. See Cohen 1978, 115–16, 119–22, and 124. The commodity gains further allure from the way that it appears on the marketplace possessed of an “exchange value,” a value over and above any “use value” it has as a thing, which is actually the sum of three values: that of the raw materials out of which it is made, that of the labor incorporated in it, and a mysterious value it possesses as a consequence of a deception the

capitalist perpetrates in order to make a profit. To be successful, capitalists must—obviously—set the price of any commodity they sell in excess of the costs they incur. Since they cannot easily do this by manipulating the cost of “constant capital” (raw materials, but also plant, etc.), they instead manipulate the cost of “variable capital,” or the labor power they use. The capitalist therefore makes a profit by paying the workers less than the actual value of the goods they make, and by selling those goods for more than they are worth (not least to workers paid by capitalists). Precisely to conceal this double deception, the commodity is made to appear on the market as if inherently and always already possessed of its mysterious extra value. This fetish value is, of course, capable of being expressed in money; and so money acquires a further allure in virtue of being the universal means of appropriating this mysterious quality. See Cohen 1978, 124–25, and 126–28. On commodity fetishism and art, see Wood 1996, 257–80. See Roux 1879 for a witty and extended exposé of the lure that capital in the form of shares held at the time. 91 // Capitalism does this by imposing the situation wherein people value themselves as human beings largely, or only, in terms of the price their labor can fetch on the market. Once in this trap, individuals regard their labor as something independent of themselves to be sold for money. See Lukács 1971, 86–87. On Lukács and alienation more generally, see Craven 2002, 280. 92 // To the extent that the individual workers “are” the labor they each perform, they come to regard themselves as commodities too; see Lukács 1971, 92. 93 // Not simply because he is in competition with them, but perhaps also because of a ramification of the effect of rationalized labor to make it impossible for the isolated individual worker to make common cause with fellow workers in the manufacture of goods having communal purpose. See Lukács 1971, 91–92.

xxviii //

introduction

the abstract representation of their fetish value, money.94 His solace, of course, is only a phantom: a mere “shadow” (to use La Fontaine’s words) of real life, or (to draw on Marx) a “phantasmagoria,” or ghastly shadow world that lures the subject away from the satisfaction of real, embodied existence with disastrous consequences.

Cézanne, Germain, and the Alienation of Artistic Creativity Germain’s imaginary slide into alienation corresponds closely in many respects to aspects of Cézanne’s actual practice, and arguably illuminates it. Most obvious perhaps, Germain’s venal and alienated relationship to his own “temperament” seems to provide a model for explaining Cézanne’s, who evidently did regard his “temperament” as a commodity, too. Roux establishes the framework for his treatment of Germain’s relationship to his own “temperament” by making it clear from the outset that his fantasies of financial success come to supplant any intrinsic interest painting has for him. Very early in the novel, for example, it is established that Germain dreams of making a splash at the Salon with a “bombshell” of a painting,95 and soon afterward, Roux details the painter’s whimsy over the “Glory” he enjoys from this success.96 Later, describing Germain’s memories on the train back to Paris from Aix, he reveals how the painter had come to Paris ten years before to achieve “glory,” and was still gripped by a fantasy of the world at his feet,97 believing now that he would achieve

94 // Commodities possess another dimension of fetish value because any person who buys a commodity expresses the buying power of her or his own labor in relation to that of the labor embodied in that commodity. In this way, commodities represent the social relations involved in their production in a “reified” form (i.e., they pass away from the powerless worker into the commodity itself). Commodities thus acquire a curious character whereby merely having them seems to promise a person social status and a certain quality of social life. But, in fact, these fantasies can profoundly alienate the consumer from reality. Money participates in this illusion since it is not only the de facto expression of a commodity’s fetish value, but in virtue of this is also the universal means of “acquiring” this value—and hence the signifier of the power to do so. See Lukács 1971, 91. 95 // La proie et l’ombre, 9. 96 // La proie et l’ombre, 15. 97 // La proie et l’ombre, 106–7. 98 // La proie et l’ombre, 132.

99 // See La proie et l’ombre, 46 n. 78, on the model for this newspaper. 100 // La proie et l’ombre, 45. 101 // See La proie et l’ombre, 1, 2, and 7–9. See also La proie et l’ombre, 1 n. 1 and 2 n. 6, for details of Cézanne’s stays in the region, the paintings he made there, and his familiarity with its inns. 102 // La proie et l’ombre, 1. See La proie et l’ombre, 2 n. 3 and 52 n. 88, on the “impression” and its relation to feeling. 103 // Roux 9: “Le maître, un des princes du paysage.” See La proie et l’ombre, 9 n. 18, on the models for this character. 104 // La proie et l’ombre, 8: “Tu comptes à passer à la postérité?” See La proie et l’ombre, 9 n. 19, on the allusion here. 105 // La proie et l’ombre, 9: “L’esquisse . . . il ne l’avait pas sentie.” Conversely, Philippe’s portrait of Caroline is “senti”; see La proie et l’ombre, 171.

introduction

// xxix

“glory” through the independents’ exhibition.98 Most tellingly of all, Roux exposes how Germain’s fatuousness was well known within the world of the novel: the hapless Monsieur (Amédée) Mazouillet, for instance, plays up to Germain while in Paris by telling him how he had attached “glory” to his name in an article in the Mémorial d’Aigues-les-Tours,99 mentioning his role in the Impressionist Society of Free Art.100 All in all then, Germain’s practice is almost entirely devoted to satisfying his lust for glory; and his professions of following his “temperament” (and the like) are almost entirely empty, being at best inextricable from venal ambitions of the kind Zola associated with Cézanne’s own quest for commercial success.

The Color of Money Roux begins his demolition of Germain’s aesthetic impostures, or his exposé of Germain’s venality, on the second page of the novel, in an episode describing a conversation about a small landscape sketch he makes while staying at an inn in Marlotte, near Fontainebleau.101 Roux’s protagonist here is Caroline, who articulates the (authorial) voice of reason throughout. She first suggests something is amiss with Germain’s claims when she says she cannot “feel” the “impression” he says the painting expresses.102 Since the term impression (which, is closely related to sensation, meaning “sensation” or “feeling”) is meant to refer to sincerely felt experiences, Caroline’s comment strongly suggests that Germain’s work is insincere, or forced. Caroline also dismisses the resemblances between Germain’s work and Epinal and Japanese prints, which might otherwise be taken as signs of naïveté or sincerity, simply as signs of incompetence. Having sewn the seeds of doubt about Germain’s sincerity, Roux then equates his practice with commercial ambition in a slightly later episode, in which Germain shows his painting to “the master,” a “prince among landscape painters,” who presides over the painters at the inn in Marlotte.103 One of his followers, evidently a sincere artist with a genuine feeling for nature, sees through Germain immediately, asking him if it is his wish “to pass down to posterity” that makes him sign his work “Germanicus Rambërr.”104 That is, it is clear to his peers that Germain has pretensions to making a name for himself that are inconsistent with proper artistic motives. Taken together with an authorial aside following on the heels of this exchange, to the effect that Germain “had not felt” the painting,105 it is only too clear that Germain is prepared to fake his art for success. To further undermine Germain’s credibility as a sincere artist with a feeling for nature, Roux contrasts the deep affection that Caroline displays for the forest of Fontainebleau upon the couple’s departure for Paris, with Germain’s complete insensitivity toward it. Hence, as their train enters the forest, not only does Caroline force herself to close her eyes in a poignant attempt to “forget” the two huge oaks, “Velázsquez” and “Murillo,” standing by the chemin de la Gorge-aux-Loups, but she curls up in a corner of the carriage “to escape the various impressions along the road, sown with so many happy memories”—and

xxx //

introduction

even whispers, “Farewell” to the Fourceau rock as she passes it.106 Germain, on the other hand, is completely oblivious both to Caroline’s emotions and to their object. So, as she suffers, he indulges in a solipsistic diatribe against the secondrate, “official ‘machine’” art originating from the nearby castle of Fontainebleau. A little later, while Caroline smiles in sympathy with “the gaiety of the greenery,” Germain is “seduced by the color,” roughs out a tableau in green, a sublime green.”107 By analogy with Duranty’s Marsabiel, who used “a trowel of green” in the belief that “a kilogram of green was greener than an ounce of the same color,”108 Roux implies that Germain’s fondness for green has nothing to do with sensations of nature at all, but is rather the affected enthusiasm of a persona that he must present in public as “temperamental.” That Cézanne did make large paintings in the Fontainebleau region in 1866, perhaps in Roux’s presence,109 may be some indication that the author’s remarks reflect the spirit in which the real artist envisaged his early landscapes. Roux casts doubt once more on Germain’s love of the motif for itself in a passage recounting his dreams of making a picture of the Parisian quais. Although this begins with Germain declaring, during a cab ride along the quai, “Ah! What a beautiful subject!” the painter goes on to make twenty imaginary “masterpieces” between the Pont de Bercy and the Pont des Saints-Pères,110 and then to entertain more venal fantasies, in which he imagines himself as a successful, decorated painter.111 Roux, in other words, suggests that Germain paints for success, or for money. And again, Germain’s ambitions may very well represent ambitions that Cézanne cherished himself.112 Germain sees in one quai motif “subtleties of color that he had no way of rendering.”113 His experience has a close parallel in the experience of the painter Brissot, in Burty’s Grave imprudence,114 who comes across a superb view from Bercy toward Notre-Dame while promenading “as a Parisian flâneur,” and in which the metropolis offers itself up “through color and line” as “the city unique in slenderness and strength, in ideals and resources.”115 Brissot, that is, like Germain, sees Paris in a surface of sensations of color as a place whose logic is that of the commerce. What this suggests is that some artists—including perhaps Cézanne—were attempting to effect an accommodation between sensation and the visual ideology of capitalism. But while the individualism so central to Impressionist aesthetics can easily be likened to laissez-faire ideology, there is nevertheless a profound and

106 // La proie et l’ombre, 11: “pour s’échapper aux impressions diverses de la route, semée de tant d’agréables souvenirs.”

kilogramme de vert était plus vert qu’une gramme de la même couleur.” 109 // See La proie et l’ombre, 1 n. 1 and 9 n. 19.

107 // La proie et l’ombre, 12: “souriant avec tendresse à la gaieté de la verdure. . . . Germain, séduit par la couleur, faisait à grandes phrases le tableau du vert, du sublime vert, crevant ses coffres de bronze oxydé pour répandre ses trésors de pierres verdoyantes, émeraudes et malachites.” 108 // Duranty 1867, 6: “Marsabiel croyait qu’un

110 // La proie et l’ombre, 13: “‘Ah! Le beau motif!’” 111 // La proie et l’ombre, 13–14: “Il ne comptait plus ses succès au Salon; et les trois médailles réglementaires, décrochées avant que d’avoir dépassé Notre-Dame, l’avaient fait chevalier de la Légion d’honneur au pont Saint-Michel, officier au pont

introduction

// xxxi

ineluctable contradiction between embodied delight in the real physical world of color and fantasies of satisfaction in the shadow world of phantasmagoria. This may explain why Germain imagines using spectacular colour in his quai paintings: “his brush no longer put black on top of blue; his brush ‘spewed the color onto the canvas.’”116 It may also explain the somewhat flashy, or superficial, quality of color in Cézanne’s Quai de Bercy, which (although likely a copy of a painting by Guillaumin) arguably exhibits a color sensitivity hijacked by capitalism, and a preference for the “bariolages” (gaudy, motley colors) of the advertising hoarding, or the commodity on display.117 Indeed, Germain moots the idea of painting the “bariolée” crowd of the railway station,118 and he installs a screen in his second atelier whose “bariolages” (along with other things) color the room.119 Roux develops the notion that Germain’s sensitivity to color is impeded by the love of money most systematically in those passages that concern his inability to make a painting of the beautiful countryside around Aigues. Back on his home ground, Germain resolves to paint “certain corners of the landscape that had stayed in his mind’s eye,” believing that he, “the painter of the great outdoors, was going to find himself once again in the land of the sun, amidst this powerful nature that was completely born of streams of light from the star-king.” Clearly the landscape is conducive to Impressionist painting, and Germain’s enthusiasm grows rapidly as he thinks of “the wide horizons, the high hills clearly defined by their brittle ridges against a background of fire; hills strewn with spindly pines and full of hollows of shadow, of large holes overlooked by massive rocks, of huge stones making blue stains on the red land.” Germain even tells himself that this, and not

Neuf. Il était de l’Institut avant que de passer devant le palais Mazarin.” 112 // See La proie et l’ombre, 13 n. 27. 113 // La proie et l’ombre, 13: “Quelques barques, amarrées dans un coin de l’Isle Saint-Louis . . . lui donnaient des tons pour le rendu desquels il ne trouvait pas d’expression.” 114 // See Niess 1968, 15–16, who suggests that Zola appropriates this passage in L’oeuvre, for the description of Claude Lantier’s quai painting. 115 // Burty 1880, 55–56: “Une promenade de Parisien qui flâne et qui regarde, l’avait un jour conduit au pont d’Austerlitz. Il remontait vers Bercy. En revenant, il fut frappé par la singulière beauté de la toile qui se déroulait devant lui. D’aucun autre endroit Paris ne s’annonce mieux, par la couleur et par le dessin, la ville unique en sveltesse et en force, en idéal et en ressources. La Seine y glisse entre de vastes berges grises, claire, large, tranquille, tachetée à quai par les chalands réchampis de rouge, enrubannée par la fumée des Mouches, reflétant à petits flots l’azur rompu, les flottantes vapeurs, les nuages aux découpures fines. Le clair domine. Des ponts enjambant d’une rive à l’autre fourmillent de vie. Les

omnibus roulent des taches jaunes par-dessus les parapets. Les édifices alternent avec les maisons, dont les cheminées vomissent des fumées. . . . NotreDame, avec son abside aux flancs évidés, sa flèche, ses tours, son ton robuste sur un ensemble élégant, établit la masse du fond. Un massif de l’ancien Paris l’accoste à droite. . . . Les âges primitifs dorment dans cette pointe de l’Ile, qui tranche en deux le fleuve. . . . Si l’on regarde, c’est un tableau clair et grandiose. . . . Si l’on pense, c’est la vision de la Ville suprême du travail attrayant.” 116 // La proie et l’ombre, 13: “Sa brosse ne posait plus du noir sur du bleu” sa brosse ‘crachait le ton sur la toile.’” 117 // On Impressionism and “bariolage,” see Prendergast 1992, 31–35. 118 // La proie et l’ombre, 79. 119 // La proie et l’ombre, 80: “Le vermillon et le jaune des tentures, les bariolages crus du paravent, les taches violentes des faïences, et l’or des galeries des portes et des cadres de quelques toiles, mettaient dans l’atelier un flamboiement de maître-autel à l’heure de la bénédiction.”

xxxii //

introduction

the “ludicrous herb omelette” of the Île-de-France, is the kind of “splendid motif” he ought to paint.120 However, even here, where everything is congenial to his talent, and to the rendition of sensation, financial intrigues (over his father’s estate and Ernestine’s inheritance) exert a deadening effect on Germain’s sensibility, and he paints nothing.121 Roux evidently intends to suggest that the contradiction between sensitivity to nature and color and the love of money is ineluctable. Germain, in other words, is no better than the member of the “public” described by Théophile Thoré in his Salon de 1847, whose preoccupation with “money” renders him “blind in front of paintings colored by light,” or insensitive to nature.122 Roux develops this antinomy between the love of nature and the love of money one more time in the wake of an episode where Germain enjoys a minor success at the Salon with his Marlotte landscape sketch (as a result of a subterfuge perpetrated by Philippe, who finished the painting, and Caroline, who submitted it). Flushed with success, Germain tries to cash in on his new status as a Salon artist, and so signs the painting, as is now his wont, “Germanicus Rambërr”: to brand it—as that of “a name.” It is in much the same spirit that Germain attempts, afterward, to make a killing by specializing in the “rich, powerful nature” of his native land, the “colossal,” “majestic” nature of the Midi that would allow him “to impose his originality.”123 But this does not happen because Germain simply cannot bring himself to paint the landscape. Landscape painting, it would seem, can be done only when the doing of it is intrinsically worthwhile; once commodification enters the picture, it blocks the activity altogether. There are few significant Cézanne landscape paintings of Aix from the 1860s or early 1870s, and none that have the richness either of Roux’s descriptions or of Cézanne’s own later depictions (or descriptions).124 Germain’s inability to perceive or paint nature and its color could therefore easily represent Cézanne’s own immature inability to see or represent the phenomenological depth and chromatic variety of his own world. It would appear, then, that both Germain and Cézanne

121 // La proie et l’ombre, 104 : “le gai soleil invitait à la promenade; mais Germain avait oublié la peinture et le paysage.”

les tableaux des peintres aveugles, de préférence aux images poétiques. L’argent éblouit plus que le soleil.” One reason this happens is that people interested in the material value of things tend to pay less attention to immaterial effects of light and color; see Smith 1992. Another explanation is that capitalism creates a “false variety” of colors in the “commodity world” (through advertising, constant change for the sake of novelty, etc.), thus ultimately wearing the eye and making everything seem “steeped in gray”; see Adorno 1974, 227. I am indebted to Rebecca Niblock for this reference. See also Eisenman 1994, 247–50, on how the evenly divided, purely optical surface of the Impressionist painting equates with a “phantasmagorical” mode of perception in which everything is experienced as the same, objectified stuff as a function of its conversion into “exchange-value.”

122 // Thoré 1868, 381: “le public, aveugle devant les tableaux colorés par la lumière, adopte souvent

123 // La proie et l’ombre, 138: “grâce à l’émerveillement du succès inespéré, le peintre

120 // La proie et l’ombre, 97–98: “Lui, le peintre du plein air, allait se retrouver dans le pays du soleil, au milieu de cette nature puissante, toute faite des incandescences de l’astre-roi. Ce n’était plus ce paysage frais, intime, des environs de Paris, ‘cette ridicule omelette aux herbes qu’il avait dédaigné de rendre’, c’était les larges horizons, les hautes collines qui se découpent avec des arêtes sèches sur un fond d’incendie; des collines semées de pins maigres et pleins de trous d’ombre, de grands trous surmontés de rochers gigantesques, de grosses pierres faisant des taches bleues sur la terre rouge. C’était ce motif splendide qu’il revoyait et qu’il allait peindre.”

introduction

// xxxiii

were so preoccupied with the exchange value represented by landscape painting that they lost touch with its “use value,”125 or its ability to express and thereby revivify the painter’s embodied sensation of nature. What is more, for the Cézanne of the late 1870s, very likely a reader of Thoré,126 Roux’s text must have touched a raw nerve.

The Commodification of Temperament Implicit in these passages is another major theme of Roux’s text: that Germain regards his talent, or what he calls his “temperament,” as a commodity, and thus as an independent, almost alien “thing” existing beyond himself in the marketplace. The motif is developed, for example, in the picture Roux gives of Germain newly installed in his lavish second studio, where the artist fantasizes about being a “temperament” capable of producing a “masterpiece”—as if possessing the commodities that come with success somehow corresponds to, or expresses, the value of his “temperament.”127 Roux’s parody of Germain’s aspirations has some poignancy, however, because, and for all his ineptitude, he really does have “temperament.” What Roux proposes, therefore, is that Germain’s inability to paint can be put down to the effect his avarice has of making him lose touch with himself. The deadening effects of regarding “temperament” as a commodity are made plain in an episode describing Germain’s attempts to produce a sentimental genre picture for the Salon—as part of a fantasy campaign of making “fifty thousand francs” a year.128 The scene opens with Germain’s realizing that he must make “concessions” to “bourgeois” taste, as “his temperament had always pushed him too far for his painting to have a salable worth.”129 Accordingly, he embarks on a highly improbable painting of a “society lady” who suckles the infant of a dying woman, whom she encounters in the Bois de Boulogne—even though making such

revint alors à ses paysages en pleine lumière, à la riche et puissante nature du Midi, qui devait lui fournir de splendides motifs. . . . il parla d’utiliser sa réussite au Salon. Il devait plus que jamais cultiver le paysage; c’était là sa voie. Le paysage des environs de Paris avait ses peintres patentés; et puis, ‘lui, ne sentait pas cette nature intime, d’un vert si frais qu’elle ressemble à un décor de scène amoureuse.’ . . . Alors, lui, était décidé à recourir aux larges horizons, à cette nature puissante du Midi, colossale, majestueuse, qu’il sentait d’instinct, qu’il était capable de rendre, et qui devait l’aider à affirmer, à imposer son originalité.” 124 // See Cézanne’s letters of 21 July 96 and 3 June 99 to Joachim and Henri Gasquet; in Rewald 1978, 252 and 270. 125 // On the use-value of art, see Rose 1984, 12, 75–78.

126 // Cézanne’s friend Valabrègue declared in 1885: “nous préférons de beaucoup les études réelles et vivantes, les reconstitutions énergiques et exactes de ce maître de la critique qui se nomme Bürger”; Valabrègue, 1886. 127 // La proie et l’ombre, 85. 128 // La proie et l’ombre, 112–13: “Peuh! . . . des tableaux comme ça . . . on peut en pondre dix à douze par an et s’en faire cinquante mille francs de rente. Si je voulais!” 129 // La proie et l’ombre, 112: “son tempérament l’avait toujours poussé trop loin pour que sa peinture prît une valeur marchande; mais, avec beaucoup de bonne volonté, il se sentait de taille à faire toutes les concessions voulues pour plaire au bourgeois, sans pour cela s’écarter trop de son idéal.”

xxxiv //

introduction

a “slick” (chic) painting is averse to his “temperament.”130 Like most of Germain’s other efforts, however, the painting ends up as an “abortive . . . masterpiece.”131 But Roux is at pains to make it clear that its failure is not simply a result of Germain’s lack of skill. Instead, he explicitly argues that the “pretty” technique Germain is forced to use in order to please his audience is incompatible with his real “strength.” So, too, the painter’s “impressions” are “too intense” for him to ignore.132 Indeed, Germain’s “strength” and “artistic temperament” are comparable to “the unknown strength of nature”; his “strength” is even such that it seeks to pour out and “fertilize art” just as the storm-cloud “fertilizes the earth.”133 But what Germain might do spontaneously is incompatible with, and is defeated by, what commodification demands. This contradiction eventually causes him to lapse into nightmares, “doubt,” thoughts of death, and subsequently to undergo more mood swings—like Cézanne, who was notoriously moody and given to constant feelings of depression over his ability.134 It is possible, then, that Roux not only reflects what was the case, but that he actually suggests a tangible cause for Cézanne’s irrational moods. As he slides into penury in the wake of his blocked creativity, Germain seeks help from his rival, Damasquère (who is modeled on Carolus-Duran), an adept at exploiting the art market, who tells him of some ruses of his own, and of some practiced by his friend Lespignac (based on Zacharie Astruc).135 True to form, Damasquère’s response is highly informative for Germain, but it is also revealing for the modern reader, since it shows how the business of making money could alienate some artists so completely from the creative (or life-enhancing) dimension of painting that it caused the artwork to become all but meaningless to them as the product of their own labor. For instance, Damasquère tells Germain of a confidence-trick practiced by his colleague Lespignac in his quality as a painter.136 This works as follows: Lespignac hands his hat to an accomplice outside the shop of an art dealer to whom he has already sold some work; he then enters the shop and begs a louis from the dealer on the pretext that he needs to replace the hat he has just “lost” in the wind. Lespignac can scoop sixty francs in one day in this way—money that he “repays” only in the form of otherwise worthless pictures. Another subterfuge Lespignac resorts to involves using a relative to create

130 // La proie et l’ombre, 113: “Réflexion faite, ‘lui ne pouvait pas peindre du chic; cela était rebelle à son tempérament.’” 131 // La proie et l’ombre, 113: “Après dix jours de labourieux efforts, Germain saisit son couteau à palette, prêt à gratter le nouveau chef-d’oeuvre avorté.” 132 // La proie et l’ombre, 113: “Si le rendu sortait du ‘joli’ convenu, c’était simplement une affirmation de sa force. . . . ‘Mais . . . il devait se méfier de son propre jugement, l’impression étant chez lui trop intense.’” Roux describes Germain’s “force” twice more on the same page.

133 // La proie et l’ombre, 114: “La grande force de son être, son tempérament artistique était comme la force inconnue de la nature. . . . La grande tache noire du ciel . . . se fond et se répand en onde bienfaisante; et cette onde féconde la terre. Ainsi devait se répandre sa force, pour féconder l’art.” 134 // La proie et l’ombre, 114. See also La proie et l’ombre, 119 n. 121. 135 // La proie et l’ombre, 116–17. On the models for Damasquère and Lespignac, see La proie et l’ombre, 18 nn. 39 and 40.

introduction

// xxxv

a spurious demand for his work among any dealers unfortunate enough to be new to the trade.137 The scam is simple enough: the relative approaches the dealer, asking for works by Lespignac, and shortly afterward the painter turns up to fill the “gap” in the market. It is perhaps no surprise that Lespignac ends up as an art dealer himself, selling to a “rich clientele.”138 Among the other possibilities Damasquère suggests to Germain is that he join him in making copies of paintings in the Louvre, which a dealer operating through the Hôtel Drouot will pass off as copies of the old masters made by Ingres, Delacroix, and suchlike.139 Damasquère also proposes that Germain organize an auction of his work at the Hôtel Drouot and push up the bidding himself.140 But Germain eventually opts to act on Damasquère’s suggestion that he make some paintings for the fashionable dealer Dramard, who can give them a role in a prestigious exhibition—among, for example, the fifty-thousand-francs-worth of paintings recently bought by the famous singer Fortini, who will—of course— allow some to be sold.141 Even though eventually Dramard declines to take the few reasonably finished paintings Germain manages to muster, the painter nevertheless enjoys a vivid fantasy of anticipation, in which he sees his name on a poster trumpeting the figure of fifty thousand francs. Here, then, in his own dream world, Germain has turned his temperament, and himself along with it, into a monetary quantity tout court. It may seem that, for all this, the artist-painter and his art in these episodes are still a cut above the ordinary artisan and his wares. But Roux makes it clear how mistaken any such assumption is in an episode where Germain flirts with the idea of joining the sculptor Godet in manufacturing bondieuserie (religious statues and the like) five or six days a week. (“Père” Godet is clearly based on Cézanne’s one-time housemate, Philippe Solari, who did work in a bondieuserie.)142 Godet is evidently suffocated (or alienated from himself) by his labor, even though he tells Germain he is still “a sculptor properly speaking for one or two days” a week.143 So when Germain goes to visit Godet with the ambition of joining him in his work, he experiences a strong sense of unease the moment he looks in the window of the adjoining shop, where the garish statues of the Virgin and the Saints made by his friend are displayed.144 He feels that behind each picture or artifact lurks “the

136 // La proie et l’ombre, 117.

and speculation, see La proie et l’ombre, 119 nn. 146 and 148.

137 // La proie et l’ombre, 118. 138 // La proie et l’ombre, 177–78.

141 // See Roux 198–99. Fortini is undoubtedly based on the singer Jean-Baptiste Faure, who bought (and sold) Impressionist paintings, including Cézanne’s; see La proie et l’ombre, 119 n. 148.

139 // La proie et l’ombre, 116. On the involvement of the Hôtel Drouot in speculation, see Green 1987, 62–63, 69, and 76 nn. 16 and 18, and Green 1989, 32–33. See also Champfleury 1867, esp. 216–18 (on the “Salle des colonies,” where copies of contemporary paintings were sold) and 257–69 (for “Soixante conseils aux collectionneurs qui fréquentent l’hôtel Drouot).

143 // La proie et l’ombre, 122: “Je suis . . . un sculpteur propre pendant un ou deux jours.”

140 // La proie et l’ombre, 198. On Impressionism

144 // La proie et l’ombre, 123–24.

142 // See La proie et l’ombre, 17 and 132; see also La proie et l’ombre, 17 n. 38 and 81 n. 108.

xxxvi //

introduction

soul of an artist”;145 and fearing the “possible death of his faith” in art, he resolves not to “bury himself there” simply because his doubt in his own “strength” had forced him to consider expedients.146 The irony here of course is that Germain is just as alienated by his own practice as Godet is by his: both, in effect, have transformed themselves into commodities by selling their talent. Germain thus offered Cézanne several cautionary tales about the pitfalls awaiting the artist who sold himself. But since Cézanne was actually connected with the real models for Roux’s commercial artists, and was attuned to the commercial possibilities of art himself from the outset of his career, it could be that Roux was actually describing the dangers of what had once been Cézanne’s own trajectory.

Estrangement Between Artists For Roux, one of the more distasteful aspects of Germain’s and his Impressionist colleagues’ practice is that they pursue success and money opportunistically, without, for instance, putting in the kind of hard work Philippe expends at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. But worse still for Roux is how Germain and his colleagues go after money without showing any scruples about doing one another in. In one (admittedly caricatural) passage of La proie et l’ombre, Roux even assimilates Germain’s competitiveness to a form of misanthropy that can only be described as evil. The passage in question describes how Germain, while pursuing Ernestine in Aigues, realizes that the ailing Monsieur Mazouillet (fatally infected during a visit to the Paris sewers) is not “expected to last the night.” Forsaking all decency, Germain urges himself on in his pursuit of Ernestine’s inheritance by telling himself that he is “very smart [très fort] to be daring enough to hatch a macabre plan, an engagement settled over the corpse of an adversary.” Although there is no evidence to suggest that Cézanne ever thought such thoughts, it is nevertheless significant that Roux connected the painter’s Stendhalian aesthetic of “strength” and “daring” to a wholly self-centered and immoral venality. But Roux does not stop there; rather, he continues by explicitly connecting Germain-the-schemingsuitor to Germain-the-painter, as if to suggest that the fascination with money so subsumed his personality that it made him regard everyone, Mazouillet and his

145 // La proie et l’ombre, 124: “Et l’immense magasin, semé de figures peintes, lui apparut comme . . . un de ces petits cimetières propres de la banlieue de Paris. Là, derrière ces grandes vitres, sous chacune de ces toiles marquées d’une croix, sous chacune de ces figures d’argile ou de pierre, sous chacune de ces tombes, reposait l’âme d’un artiste.” 146 // La proie et l’ombre, 125–26: “Son coeur se serra . . . en songeant . . . à la mort possible de sa foi. . . . s’il était venu jusque-là, quoique ce ne fût pas pour s’y enterrer, c’était toujours qu’il avait renoncé à demander à son art l’argent dont il avait besoin;

c’était que, dans le doute de sa force, il en était réduit aux expédients.” 147 // La proie et l’ombre, 99: “Mazouillet était condamné; il ne devait même pas passer la nuit. . . . Il riait dans son for intérieur, se complimentait, se trouvait très fort d’oser combiner un plan macabre, des fiançailles conclues sur le cadavre d’un gêneur. Il pensait même à fixer la chose sur la toile. ‘Un rude tableau, tout de même! et qui ferait joliment de l’épat, au Salon.’ C’était au Salon qu’il portait son tableau. La fortune lui dessillait les yeux; il savait à quoi s’en tenir désormais sur ce troupeau de pauvres diables qui se

introduction

// xxxvii

painter colleagues alike, as competitors. So it is that Germain starts to fantasize about making a blockbuster picture by “setting the scene [of his scheme] down on canvas” and submitting it to the Salon in the hope of showing a thing or two to his rivals, a “pack of poor devils wearing themselves down to the bone with abortive attempts.” And Germain continues to tell himself: “‘With money, you do what you want; you have friends, people in the right places who open doors for you.’”147 Even if this passage is all but grand guignol, it could nevertheless indicate the sort of fantasies that painters of Cézanne’s generation might have had as a consequence of finding themselves in competition with one another in a radically new and cutthroat, capitalist marketplace, where an especial exchange value could be attached to the work of art solely in consequence of its claim of uniqueness.

The Sex Appeal of the Commodity Roux also describes brilliantly how the imperative for painters to regard, and produce, their works as commodities plays out in Germain’s practice (perhaps without fully realizing it). Early in the novel, for instance, Germain is shown trying to attach a kind of sheer novelty to his painting that might set it apart from the work of other painters. In effect, Germain is seen attempting to give his work what Walter Benjamin describes as the fashionable (but inorganic) “sex appeal” bound up in commodities:148 an alluring, pristine uniqueness that renders its competitors redundant. So it is that Germain plans to outdo Damasquère at his own game by producing a painting of a duchess for the Salon that will be a “modern” version of the lush, Medici-like portrait in which the successful painter specializes.149 Accordingly, Germain orders a huge “canvas of 120” from his dealer, Martin,150 and he employs a fashionable rive droite model named Sarah to pose for the figure. And although Germain comes unstuck when he is forced to return the large canvas because his atelier is too small to accommodate it, he nevertheless attempts to lord it over his fellow Brunos, especially Damasquère, by describing the painting he has made (in his own fantasies) at length.151 Later, even though Germain does acquire a large atelier, and new pigments from a manufacturer at Saint-Ouen,152 his dream of “a veritable glut of yellow and vermilion” comes to nothing,153 because he cannot control the repetition of colors in the foreground and background, and “the magisterial work” ends up as “a smearing of whitewash.”154 The rub is, though,

consumaient en des efforts stériles, parce que le meilleur leur manquaient. ‘Avec de l’argent, on fait ce que l’on veut; on a des amis, des gens bien posés, qui vous ouvrent toutes les portes.’ Il se voyait déjà décoré.”

150 // See “La proie et l’ombre,” 36. See also La proie et l’ombre, 27 n. 60 and 112 n. 137.

148 // See Benjamin 1983, 166.

152 // La proie et l’ombre, 91.

149 // La proie et l’ombre, 26. Germain also believes himself “supérieur à Damasquère”; La proie et l’ombre, 112. And after the failure of the Dramard scam, Germain tells himself that Damasquère merely invented the plan in order to steal his ideas; La proie et l’ombre, 121.

153 // La proie et l’ombre, 85: “une vraie débauche de jaune et vermillon.”

151 // La proie et l’ombre, 73–75.

154 // La proie et l’ombre, 91: “l’oeuvre magistrale n’était plus qu’un barbouillage d’un badigeonneur.” In his final despair, Germain scrapes the painting

xxxviii //

introduction

that in his desperation Germain resorts to treachery by asking his model, Sarah, to betray the technical secrets of the other painters for whom she poses. While parody, elements of the story are nevertheless strongly reminiscent of Cézanne’s attempts to work on a huge scale in the 1860s. By extension, Roux also provides an economic rationale for Cézanne’s aim (as he described it to Stock) to surpass Courbet, Manet, and Monet by producing paintings more saturated with strong sensation than they dared to. That is, the rationale of competition seems to explain why Cézanne produced several paintings in the 1860s that were specifically designed to outshine similar works by these very artists. Cézanne, for example, produced a version of Lot and His Daughters around 1865 that far exceeds Courbet’s relatively tame version of the same theme in its pornographic explicitness and emotional charge.155 He also painted a Déjeuner sur l’herbe around 1870 that seems to address the relative emotional flatness of Manet’s and Monet’s versions of the same theme.156 And Cézanne produced two highly emotional and expressly “modern” versions of Manet’s “Olympia” in the early 1870s.157 So for all that Germain’s efforts are caricatured by Roux, they nonetheless suggest that Cézanne employed the tactics he did as a direct result of the way that capitalism made “mutual” antagonism the price of artistic success.

The Impressionists and the Salon The great problem with Roux’s account is that it can only “explain” how competition affects artistic practice by appealing to an ideology that characterizes agency solely in terms of people’s “private” reasons for acting, and that cannot embrace the fact that causes beyond the purview of agents often determine these reasons.158 Nevertheless, even though Roux would have the reader believe that innate character traits like avarice, envy, and duplicity explain the competitiveness, mutual suspicion, and double-dealing that artists perpetrate upon one another, his account is still suggestive for the informed reader about the ways in which more fundamental social and political forces operate upon and within artistic practice in its alienated form. Most especially, Roux’s jaundiced description of how the Impressionists relate to one another seems to indicate something real and significant about the effects that laissez-faire ideology had on this particular community. What Roux narrates is a tale in which the Impressionists and Germain are tarred with the same, quite appallingly unscrupulous, brush. This emerges not least of all in the selfishness and duplicity of their motives for banding together. Germain, for instance, purports to support the independent grouping because he considers the Salon hostile to “temperament”; but he expresses this opinion only to make his mark within a bitter, bickering discussion where each artist seeks to establish his “authority.”159 In the same episode, Germain agrees to subscribe to sixty shares in the new venture, as do his associates; but talk is cheap, and only a few Brunos actually pay for their shares.160 Lespignac is nevertheless confident

introduction

// xxxix

of financing the exhibition (and its attendant journal) because he has cynically enlisted the “bourgeois” and “capitalist” Mazouillet, who aspires to become a dramatic poet, to their cause. Subsequently, Damasquère warns Germain that Lespignac’s relationship with Mazouillet is leading to his “embourgeoisement,” and that he is likely to exploit the rich man for his own purposes.161 (At which point he also tells Germain of Godet’s job at the bondieuserie, thereby exposing the older man’s pose as a “martyr to art” for what it is as well.) But shortly afterward, Damasquère sets principle aside when, together with Lespignac, he recruits two well-off but inept painters to aid the Society’s finances—a wine merchant’s son and the son of a “viscount.”162 And when the venal augmentation of members’ numbers causes too many paintings to be submitted to the exhibition, the Brunos’ organizing committee conspire to fix the hanging arrangements in their own favor by assigning the best places to the original “subscribers.” In such passages, Roux evidently characterizes the Bruno Impressionists’ opposition to officialdom, and their attempts to organize themselves into an independent exhibition society, as having nothing to do with commitment and everything to do with opportunism. That is, the Bruno painters will do anything to gain access to the public that their persistent refusal by the Salon has denied them. Hence, they behave toward one another in a particularly egotistical, or self-seeking, fashion whenever acceptance at the Salon is at stake. This behavior emerges with special clarity after an episode in which Germain is at the hub of the Impressionists’ machinations. Fearing the corrupting influence of Caroline, despite Germain’s continuing resistance to embourgeoisement, the Brunos try to persuade Sarah to seduce him away from his mistress. This plan backfires, however, since Sarah informs on his colleagues to Germain, which turns him against them. It then emerges that the Brunos’ reason for keeping tabs on Germain is that they, and especially Lespignac, fear he is working on a picture for the Salon. Accordingly, they send a delegation of three of the more peripheral members of their group to persuade Germain to keep faith with them. The move works, since the delegation pronounces his art to be like “nature,” and thus unacceptable to the Salon jury; furthermore, they deem his work “a revolution in art” and thus eminently suitable to the Impressionist cause. The episode ends, therefore, with Germain agreeing to join the Impressionists after all.163

down with his palette knife, making it into a “nuage” resembling his own thoughts, which have become “un brouillard de poussière jaune et rouge” (like the colors of his atelier); see La proie et l’ombre, 92.

159 // La proie et l’ombre, 49–50. 160 // See La proie et l’ombre, 51 and 51 n. 86. 161 // La proie et l’ombre, 81.

155 // Rewald et al. 1996, no. 76. 156 // Rewald et al. 1996, no. 164.

162 // La proie et l’ombre, 89. The gullible, but wellheeled, “viscount” recalls the Vicomte Lepic; see La proie et l’ombre, 89 n. 119.

157 // Rewald et al. 1996, nos. 171 and 225. 163 // La proie et l’ombre, 88. 158 // MacIntyre 1967; reprinted in Harrison and Orton 1984, 215–27.

xl

//

introduction

This is but the quiet before the storm, however. Germain later visits Bruno’s on the evening of the last day for submitting paintings to the Salon to find most of his “false brothers” absent because they had gone off to enter their works.164 Shortly afterward, as if they had done nothing of the sort, the Brunos brazenly hold meetings in Germain’s atelier aimed at finalizing the arrangements for their exhibition—but only because they have been notified of their rejection from the Salon. Worse still, once the Bruno Impressionists get wind of Germain’s (unplanned) appearance at the Salon, they hypocritically declare that he has broken his word, and they move their meetings to the basement of the Brasserie Bismarck in a fit of (not-so-righteous) indignation. Next, at the Salon opening, they churlishly attempt to sabotage the reception of Germain’s painting; but they make so much noise in front of it that they attract the sympathy of the crowd and the critics to his landscape, and are forced to withdraw in frustration and anger. The Impressionists have to be content instead with denigrating Germain’s painting among themselves, calling it “a spineless, colorless machine with no personality, perfectly suited to featuring in the market of the Champs-Elysées.”165 The depths to which they are prepared to sink become clear when Germain visits the Brunos’ new headquarters, to discover that they have settled their plans for the exhibition, and that Lespignac has legislated for his exclusion from the Society. Lespignac even pursues his campaign against Germain in a journal of his own, Le justicier: beaux-arts, littérature, théâtres, writing an article that uses the ineptitude of Germain’s landscape as an argument against the Salon jury and in support of the Society’s own exhibition.166 All this is but a prelude to Roux’s exposé of Germain’s even greater incorrigibility. To start with, though, Germain appears to act decently, even honorably, as he defends his colleagues against Caroline’s skepticism over their motives for opposing the Salon; he also maintains his intention to exhibit with the Impressionists even after she tells him of their attempts to sneak their work into the Salon unseen. But just when the reader may be about to take Germain’s side, Roux discloses that his position is determined solely by the hope that his work will fetch “crazy sums of money” if exhibited with the Bruno group.167 Just as

164 // La proie et l’ombre, 128: “faux frères.”

la gloire de la France.”

165 // La proie et l’ombre, 134: “une machine veule, sans couleur, sans caractère, et bien digne de figurer dans la boutique des Champs-Elysées.”

171 // Lespignac’s title diminishes in ambition as the novel progresses, beginning as “la Mer de sang,” becoming next “la Rivière de sang,” then “la Fontaine de sang,” then “le Baquet de sang, and ending (still unpublished) as “les Gouttes de sang”; see La proie et l’ombre, 26, 50, 88, 137, and 178.

166 // La proie et l’ombre, 135–36. 167 // La proie et l’ombre, 132: “sommes folles.” 168 // La proie et l’ombre, 133: “petites gens.” 169 // La proie et l’ombre, 134: “le plus grand paysagiste des temps modernes. Ce n’était plus lui qui le disait à lui-même; c’était tous les peintres.” 170 // La proie et l’ombre, 136: “plus grands maîtres,

172 // See La proie et l’ombre, 13 n. 28. Cézanne gained admission only once to the Salon, in 1882. 173 // Cézanne, Pissarro, Guillaumin, and Numa Coste were also involved in a squabble between the Impressionists and L’Union, a rival society, which held its own exhibition in 1875; see La proie et l’ombre, 51 n. 86 and 128 n. 152.

introduction

// xli

inevitably, once Germain finds he has been accepted at the Salon, his competitiveness toward his rivals emerges in its full ugliness. So, for instance, he privately denigrates his former colleagues as “small fry,”168 but—believing he is “the greatest landscape-painter of modern times”—he revels nonetheless in the praise they heap upon him (to his face, at least).169 Germain even manages to take pleasure in the defamatory article in Lespignac’s journal, which he comes across in the Brasserie Bismarck, since he believes it links his name with the “the greatest masters, the glory of France.”170 He takes malicious pleasure too in the fact that to find a copy of the journal for sale, he is forced to resort to a humble kiosk near the Odéon omnibus station, where he also revels in how Lespignac is now reduced to advertising his projected magnum opus, formerly “The Sea of Blood,” as “The Tub of Blood . . . impressionist poetry.”171 All this may seem far removed from Cézanne. Yet it should be remembered that although the artist was involved in several independent exhibition ventures, he never abandoned hope of success at the “Salon of Bouguereau.”172 He even wrote to Roux in 1878: “I am going to Paris with my little wheelbarrow at the beginning of March this year,” meaning he was taking paintings to the Salon. Many of Cézanne’s painter colleagues also succeed in gaining admission to the Salon in the 1860s and early 1870s, despite their membership of groups at least notionally opposed to it. It is by no means impossible, therefore, that the self-interest with which Roux’s Impressionists act toward one another merely exaggerates the expediency with which Cézanne and his colleagues actually behaved in consequence of having to work within the competitive marketplace.173

The Painter as Commodity The final outcome of the Germain narrative has little verifiable relevance to the known facts of Cézanne’s practice, but it is nevertheless a vivid projection of where a commercial art career might have led him. In essence, what Roux describes is how Germain turns ever inward into a fantasy world where he eventually becomes trapped—or how he goes mad. Part of this catastrophe is occasioned by what a modern reader might see as a peculiar form of alienation, wherein his personality (or “temperament”) passes over so completely into being a commodity that he has no other existence aside from that of an isolated commodity in competition with other commodities. Signs of the isolation entailed by this process are already apparent in the episode concerning the exhibition of Germain’s Marlotte landscape at the Salon, where his small success leads him into such exorbitant vanity, and vivid fantasies of omnipotence, that he dismisses reality altogether. He cannot cope, for instance, with the “indifference” his painting encounters from the general public, so tells himself that this is “‘made up of ignorant ironmongers’”—unlike the superior audience that enthused over his work at the vernissage, composed of artists and collectors “‘who scorn bourgeois images and pause only in front of masterly works’”—like his

xlii

//

introduction

own.174 Germain even takes enormous pride in a complimentary article about his work appearing in the Mémorial d’Aigues-les-Tours—which he wrote himself.175 To cap it all, Roux gives the measure of Germain’s moral decrepitude by contrasting his behavior with Philippe’s patient progress toward success in the Prix de Rome. In this scheme, Philippe is a “peaceful river,” a man who keeps his pride to himself in the knowledge that success will not come before his time has arrived; Germain, however, is a “torrent that stays dry and then rumbles and overflows,” a man consumed by “vanity.”176 The more extreme sense of isolation that competition brings with it surfaces toward the end of the novel, where Germain becomes ruined and completely paranoid. He is so bitterly opposed to the enemies who, he believes, prevented him from exhibiting “on the boulevard” that even in extremis he holds back from throwing himself off the Pont des Arts in order to spite them, and plot his “revenge.”177 Germain’s awful fate is, it would seem, the traditional consequence of hubris (and a punishment for deserting Caroline, who has pined away in his absence, despite a deathbed marriage to her beloved Philippe). But it makes sense to think that Roux invests so much bitterness in his treatment of Germain because doing so allows him to deny feelings (through projection) that he himself has experienced. Certainly, it could have been no easier for Roux to compete with equanimity against a commodity as alluring as Zola than it was for Germain to square up to Damasquère, or Cézanne to Carolus-Duran. A further homology between Germain’s fate and the predictions of materialist theory is provided by his peculiarly fetishistic attachment to his third atelier in the rue Pigalle. Financed by Ernestine’s money, the atelier is decked out with eye-catching commodities once owned by the painter Goldsmith. Lespignac, who provides the studio and its decorations (at an enormously inflated price),178 justifies Germain’s expenditure (to Philippe) by arguing that the painter needs good accommodation in order to land the collector in a world where “art is the secret of making oneself superior.”179 Lespignac’s remarks reveal the deeper truth, however—that commodities function to represent social prestige in the fantasies of those who own them. More specifically, his words indicate how the possession of commodities gives Germain, who cannot actually manage to make works to sell, the wholly illusory status of a successful painter within an imaginary set of social

174 // La proie et l’ombre, 135: “‘composé de quincailliers ignorants qui ne s’arrêtent que devant les batailles, les scènes tragiques ou comiques’ . . . composé d’artistes et d’amateurs ‘qui dédaignent les images bourgeoises et ne s’arrêtent que devant les oeuvres maîtresses.’” 175 // La proie et l’ombre, 137. 176 // La proie et l’ombre, 140–41: “Germain était le torrent qui reste sec, et puis gronde et déborde; Philippe était le fleuve paisible qui, sans bruit, accomplit son oeuvre puissante. . . . Philippe n’avait

pas tiré vanité de ses succès . . . il [portait] en luimême un orgueil fort qui se gardait tout entier pour n’éclater qu’à l’heure du vrai triomphe. . . . Germain . . . tout gonflé de vanité.” 177 // La proie et l’ombre, 196: “‘je veux ma revanche. Que voulez-vous que je fisse, entouré d’envieux et de méchants! Pas un ami vrai; rien que des traîtres. . . . J’aurai exposé au boulevard.” Cf. La proie et l’ombre, 121. 178 // La proie et l’ombre, 188.

introduction

// xliii

relations. In effect, what Roux all but says is that Germain has passed over into a disembodied, phantasmagorical realm, in which he is no more than a commodity himself, isolated amidst a slew of other commodities, which offer only a bogus consolation for the real satisfaction and sociality that competition has robbed him of. In a passage clearly designed to sum up the novel’s allegorical meaning, Roux offers an extraordinarily perceptive insight into Germain’s condition by having Caroline declare that Germain “ran into life’s hardships when he . . . wanted to make fortune a means of attaining success, whereas fortune is the result of this success.”180 Roux sees perfectly clearly, in other words, that Germain’s problems are caused by the estrangement from a properly human form of life that ensues from regarding money as a substitute for the kind of creative work that it was increasingly impossible to pursue in modern Paris.

Conclusion All in all, even though La proie et l’ombre falls short of providing a causal analysis of capital or commodity fetishism, it still touches tellingly on many of the social and psychological phenomena that these mechanisms bring about. To this extent, Roux makes it possible to explain aspects of Cézanne’s practice by appealing to social and political processes larger than the artist’s (“innate”) personality. This is not to say that Cézanne never to came to grasp these processes, or never came to see their effect on his early practice at all. Rather, when its full implications are taken into account, his draft letter to Roux suggests the opposite. Nevertheless, even though Cézanne appears keen to renounce any resemblance to Germain in this document, he signed himself “P. Cézanne, Pictor semper virens,” by which he meant “still vigorous,” or better, “strong-willed,” as he explained in a letter of 1868 to Numa Coste containing the same phrase.181 It could appear, then, that Cézanne continued to hold to the basic aesthetic of “strength” that Germain embraced, and that Roux pilloried so mercilessly; but it is nearer the mark to suggest that Cézanne understood, or perhaps even experienced, “strength” differently in 1878. The key fact here is that, whereas Cézanne had made a show of

179 // La proie et l’ombre, 179: “‘Une installation sérieuse est une bonne chose pour amorcer l’amateur. . . . L’art, c’est le secret de se rendre supérieur.’” 180 // La proie et l’ombre, 184: “‘Il a voulu faire de la fortune, qui est la conséquence du succès, le moyen d’atteindre à ce succès.’” 181 // In a letter of the end of November 1868, Cézanne tells Coste, with respect to the collapse of a planned expedition to paint the Mont Sainte-Victoire: “il paraît qu’on n’est pas toujours vibrant, on dirait en latin ‘semper virens,’ toujours vigoureux, ou mieux

voulant”; see Rewald 1978, 131–34. Rewald gives “virus” in place of “virens,” but this is not consistent with usage, albeit that phrase is uncommon in Latin. It is used, for instance, in Columella, De Re Rustica, ix, to describe the evergreen pine (“semper virens pinus”). Cézanne’s source is more likely Balzac’s Illusions perdues, where the abbé Marron tells Lucien de Rubempré: “Il se trouve derrière toutes vos belles qualités une force semper virens”; see Balzac 1977, 698. Another source for the phrase is a description of a “portrait-charge” by Langibout in Manette Salomon: this represents a connoisseur in a goldfish bowl underneath a gherkin surmounted by the device: “semper viret”; see Goncourt 1867, v, 1:28.

xliv

//

introduction

“strength” in an effort to make a reputation and money in the previous decade, he no longer did so. Instead, it would seem that he emancipated his notion of “strength,” or creativity, from any connection with fetishized capital by gaining a critical purchase on its workings. In an extraordinary letter to Zola of 24 September 1878, for instance, Cézanne tells his friend: “Marseilles is the oil capital of France, just as Paris is the butter capital . . . this fierce population . . . has but one instinct: for money. It is said they earn plenty of it, but they are very ugly—their ways of communicating are wiping out the distinguishing features of the different types. In a few centuries it will be quite futile to be alive; everything will be flattened out.”182 Put another way, what Cézanne reveals in this letter is that he has grasped the fundamental mechanism, or premise, of capitalism: that it converts all value into money, and in the process empties human life of lived content by making the mirage of money its goal. Capitalism, that is, gives everything a price and thereby enshrines value as something that only money can secure. In the process, we therefore lose touch with all other values: notably the satisfaction of labor and the cooperative relationships it can bring. To approach Roux’s terms: capitalism destroys human content by turning it into one homogeneous but empty, or immaterial pseudo-substance—“shadow” as opposed to “substance.” This marked shift in Cézanne’s thinking and the rise in the aesthetic quality of his work are undoubtedly connected, and are perhaps one and the same—as Walter Benjamin suggests they must be.183 Both changes certainly owe a great deal to Camille Pissarro, who in the 1870s teased Cézanne out of his fantasy world, and at the same time raised his political awareness by encouraging him to read the radical journals La lanterne and La réligion laïque and “democratic” novels like Zola’s L’assommoir.184 It seems to be the case, in other words, that Pissarro emancipated Cézanne from a solipsism that was in part the result of his thralldom to money. That done, Cézanne could move toward a more spontaneous and undistorted exploration of the real world, and of its aesthetic significance for his individual talent—or what he (still) called his “strength,” or “temperament.”185 Reading Roux, then, must at the very least have encouraged this shift of commitment from “shadow” to “substance.” Not only did it dramatize the catastrophic possibilities of the opposite trajectory vividly, but it also showed Cézanne how

182 // Rewald 1978, 173–74: “Marseille est la capitale à l’huile de la France, comme Paris l’est à la beurre . . . cette féroce population . . . n’a qu’un instinct, c’est celui de l’argent; on dit qu’ils en gagnent beaucoup, mais ils sont bien laids,—les voies de communication effacent les côtés saillants des types. . . . Dans quelques centaines d’années, il serait parfaitement inutile de vivre, tout sera aplati.” On the Southern oil industry, see La proie et l’ombre, 104–5. 183 // See Benjamin 1982, 213–16. 184 // See Cézanne’s letters to Pissarro and Zola of 2 July 1876 and 1 June 1878; Rewald 1978, 152–54 and 167.

185 // The terms “force” and “tempérament” remained touchstones of Cézanne’s aesthetic until the end of his life. He told Charles Camoin in a letter of 22 February 1903: “Il n’y a que la force initiale, id est, tempérament, qui puisse porter quelqu’un au but qu’il doit atteindre”: see Rewald 1978, 293. 186 // On style formation, and Cézanne’s exceptional pattern of development, see Wollheim 1987, 26–36, esp. 29.

introduction

// xlv

he had fallen victim to an alien persona, which he had allowed to subsume and block his whole personality, including the personality he could otherwise have discovered in his work. La proie et l’ombre, in other words, showed Cézanne just what he needed to transcend in order to become the artist he was beginning to enjoy being. Perhaps, then, Roux’s story and Cézanne’s response to it help explain a small, but significant, aesthetic mystery: why it took Cézanne so long to form the distinctive individual style he always had within him,186 or to find out who he was as an artist.

Title page from La proie et l’ombre. Private Collection.

the substance and the shadow i [1] The sun was falling to the horizon; and the fleecy sky, which an instant before was hauling bales of cotton, was suddenly ablaze.1 It seemed an immense furnace, a gigantic heap of burning embers. The reflections of the great house threw, across the trees of the hedge, a flaming light, more alive, more joyful than the pale flames of the star, shining in its midday glory. She came up to him and said worriedly: “Why stop your sketch there?” But he, drawing his signature, answered simply: “The motif has changed. The Sun of the title has gone to bed.” “Perhaps you took its photograph?” “Without touching it up.” [2] “That! the sun?—that old mint pastille, sucked too much!—” “The star.” “Lost in a web of rusty matting!—” “The rays.” “We never saw a sun like that—unless perhaps at Epinal.”2 “I’m involved with it!” “Don’t tell me you have looked directly at your model; don’t you dare.” “It’s a matter of impression.” “I don’t feel it, your impression;3 and I see too clearly, with eyes that aren’t tired, this monster with red hair. Your sketch isn’t at all bad, all the same— the rocks are well placed, and the trees are well leafed. Look at your model, look—see that sky of embers. Quick! a brush-stroke on that mint-pastille and on the matting. Catch that effect of the light that gives the sky the appearance of a burning furnace—There—like that—very good. Look again. The

1 // The scene is set near Marlotte, on the edges of the forest of Fontainebleau. This was a favorite spot for painters around 1870, see Denecourt 1875, 138. Renoir, Sisley, Monet, and Pissarro all painted in and around the forest of Fontainebleau in the later 1860s; see Rewald 1973, 121 and 132–33. Cézanne made some paintings in the region of Fontainebleau in 1866, dur-

ing a stay with Zola at Bennecourt; see n. 6; see also Rewald 1936, 127, Rewald 1978, 119, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:453. 2 // Caroline’s comment refers to the popular woodblock prints colored by stencil produced in the area of Epinal, most famously in the nineteenth century

2

//

marius roux

trees in the foreground are going well; don’t touch them—Just a few flashes instead of that dubious steam that fills the foliage—Perfect! As for the trees in the background—wait, wouldn’t you say that nature has copied a Japanese picture?4 The trees are black and they stand out like Chinese shadows.5 Put in some black—don’t be afraid—there!—some ink blots.” “Ah! you tyrant!” “If only I could paint! But look, look—that rock, the stones that you have made dull—Look [3]—on the angles, on the edges, on the lumps—a gilding, like the edge of a plate.” “You’re right—Yes—There, it’s done. Are you happy now?” “Delighted! And now, since I’ve played my part, I’m going to write the date by the signature myself.” Since she had great difficulty working the brush, he took the woman’s hand in his. Between them, they wrote: “28 September 1871. Souvenir of Marlotte.”6 He had closed his box and was getting ready to leave. She watched him with interest, without speaking; but his manner seemed careworn, and, as if she could not master the thought that obsessed him, she said brusquely: “Ah! if only you wanted to!” “If only I wanted to listen to you—I would be one of those painters they fling medals at, wouldn’t I?”7 “No.” by the Pellerin family; see Allen 1993. It implies that Germain’s style was naive or awkward, after the fashion of similar remarks made about the work of Courbet and Manet; see, for example, Schapiro 1941, 51–52, 62–63, and Mauner 1975, 29, 38, 39, and 76. 3 // Cf. La proie et l’ombre, 9, where it is made clear that the painting was not “sentie.” Germain’s personal subjective “impression” is also mentioned in La proie et l’ombre, 113 and 115. (Another painter of his circle, Béju, has an “impression . . . jaune”; see La proie et l’ombre, 52.) The relationship between the painter’s “impression,” and “sensation”, and sincerity is discussed in Shiff 1984, 14–26, 33, 41–44, 190–91, and passim. The painter’s “impression,” and/or “sensation,” is mentioned in several places in Manette Salomon; see Goncourt 1867, chapters xvi, xxv, xlv, lvii, lxi, lxxxiii, lxxxv, cvi, cxvi, cxliii, and cliv,, 1:83, 136, 233, 289, and 303, and 2:64–65, 71, 143–44, 179, 265, and 307. 4 // See La proie et l’ombre, 40. See also nn. 40 and 72. 5 // “Ombres chinoises” refers to the popular entertainment, developed in the later eighteenth century from Oriental models, which employed backlit (and sometimes articulated) puppets to cast moving shadows onto a screen. (The term also

referred to the shadows cast by the hand on a wall.) These are generically similar to “phantasmagoria,” as is indicated by the contemporary book, Les ombres chinoises et la fantasmagorie par F* (Limoges: Ardant, 1875). In this context, Caroline’s remark indicates that Germain’s drawing is flat. 6 // Cézanne spent the summer of 1866 at Bennecourt, near Marlotte and the forest of Fontainebleau, with Zola and his friends; see Rewald 1939, 126–28, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:450–53. In 1866, or subsequent years, Jean-Baptiste Baille, Chaillan, Guillemet, Pissarro, Antony Valabrègue, and perhaps Coste also stayed with Zola; see Walter 1961, 23–35, and Walter 1962, 103–18. The Bennecourt summers are recalled most vividly in Alexis 1882, 70: “L’été venu, il put s’offrir une débauche de verdure, aux bords de la Seine, à Bennecourt. Là, pendant quelques semaines, les amis de Provence, Baille, Cézanne, Marius Roux, Valabrègue, vinrent tour à tour; et je vous laisse à deviner les parties de canot, coupées de discussions artistiques qui faisaient soudain s’envoler les martinets de la berge.” In L’oeuvre, Claude Lantier and his mistress, Christine, visit Bennecourt, which is renowned for its an “auberge d’artistes,” and later live near there; see Zola 1886, 181–84 and 193–219. A further Bennecourt episode is described in Zola 1886, chapter xi, esp. 420–31. Cf. Walter 1961, 21 n. 9. Zola also wrote two

The Substance and the Shadow //

3

“No?—thank you very much.” “That isn’t what I meant to say.” “What then?” “Nothing.” She fell silent. He didn’t bother her with questions. And together, he walking quickly and whistling a tune from an opera, she holding back at times to pick blackberries, they arrived back at the inn. He was an ordinary lad, neither too big nor too thin for his twenty-nine years, well-proportioned for his height, artlessly bearing a broad, soft-felt hat on his short-haired head, and wearing, with a sufficiently careless air, a suit of [4] brown velvet. His face could be read like the most banal of passports: gray eyes, ordinary nose, medium mouth. He came originally from Aigues-les-Tours8 and his name was Germain Rambert. She was a beautiful creature. She was not yet one of those who lie about her age, and would say to anyone who wished to listen that she would soon be in her nineteenth year. Her blond hair stood out against the black of her eyes, and the regular lines of her face with its classical profile accentuated the fold of her lips, a little full, as red as a gaillard rose. Her fine supple body gave to her gray cotton dress, poorly sewn together, the strong gracious contours, the divine charm, of a Greek statue. Her name was Caroline Duhamel.9 Germain Rambert, while still young, having had a few easy successes at the art school in Aigues-les-Tours,10 had come to Paris quite puffed up with short stories relating to the Bennecourt summers: “Une farce” (revised as “Bohèmes en villégiature),” and “La Rivière”; see Rewald 1939, 126–27, and Rewald 1976, 109. See also Rewald 1939, 310, for a letter from Guillemet describing how he recognized the Bennecourt episode in the serialized version of L’oeuvre. Roux himself spent part of the summer of 1866 at Gloton (near Bennecourt) at Zola’s “hameau,” as did Cézanne, Solari, and Valabrègue; see Rewald 1939, 126–27. Zola chides Roux for his absence from Bennecourt in a letter of 6 July 1868; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:134. Roux also joined his friends on other summer trips; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:19. In Manette Salomon, Coriolis spends time in Fontainebleau with his mistress, Manette; see Goncourt 1867, lxxi–xcviii, 2:16–111. Many of Corot’s paintings used the word “souvenir” in their titles. 7 // The Salon (see n. 12) awarded a variety of medals from third-class to first-class, and from 1853 a medal of honor; see White 1965, 26 and 31, and Roos 1996, 13–14. Germain’s brother, Philippe, wins a first-class medal at the Salon of 1874; see La proie et l’ombre, 175. 8 // The name alludes to the town of La Tour d’Aigues, which is about thirty kilometers from Aixen-Provence. Once a Roman spa, Aix appears as “Aiguières-les-Bains” in Duranty 1877b, according to

Crouzet 1964, 617. The spectacular landscape surrounding Aix and the plane trees characteristic of the town itself are described in La proie et l’ombre, 97–98, 103, and 138. 9 // The closest relative to Caroline is Claude Lantier’s mistress, Christine, in L’oeuvre. That both Zola and Roux suggest their “Cézanne” had a mistress in the 1860s may have had some basis in fact, but no evidence to this effect survives. In a letter to Joachim Gasquet, preserved in the Bibliothèque Méjanes, Elie Faure asks his correspondent: “L’histoire du collage avec Christine répond elle à racontée par Zola dans L’oeuvre répond-elle à une [unreadable] réelle, et [. . .] que savez-vous de cette aventure et comment finit-elle?”; Ms. 1872 (1735), fol. 410: Dimanche (1920?). Unfortunately there is nothing in Faure’s work to suggest that Gasquet’s answer was either affirmative or informative. The episode in which Caroline and Germain stay at Marlotte is perhaps based on Zola’s stay in Bennecourt with Gabrielle (Alexandrine) Meley, as was the Bennecourt episode in L’oeuvre; see Walter 1962, 117 n. 10. So there is little to suggest that Caroline or Christine are based on any mistress of Cézanne’s. Indeed, Vizetelly suggests that Zola’s Christine is in fact based on the unfortunate mistress of “a certain rather dissolute engraver”; see Vizetelly 1902, vi, and Niess 1968, 59 (who identifies the engraver as Emile Bellot).

4

//

marius roux

vanity, thinking himself on first-name terms with Fame as with a casual mistress. But alas! the presumptuous young man found thickets and thorns in his path. In vain he sought to force open the gates of the Ecole des BeauxArts;11 in vain he tried to be shown at the annual exhibitions at the palace of the Champs-Elysées.12 He didn’t lose heart, and came to believe that only the envy of those whom official art had made masters had created obstacles to ruin him, the master of independent art. Each week, at times each day, he created a system; at certain times, suddenly, he created painting. If he permitted his companion to destroy and rebuild his sketch, it was because he had just renounced [5] his last obsession, the sun in splendor. The sketch he was carrying said nothing to him; he had daubed it out of pure civility, to satisfy a whim of the young woman. His new idea was to do some views of Paris. “Modern painting,” he had said to himself a few days before, “is landscape.” At this moment he believed that modern painting must be Paris. “The streets, the quais, the houses, the passersby, the movement, the life!”13 But, to go back to Paris, he would have needed Caro’s consent, and she had his sworn promise that they would live far from the big city, as far away as possible, for ever and ever. That same morning, already shaken in his resolve, pierced by the new obsession, he had confessed his plan. Caro had made no reply. They had sulked in silence. He had acted boorishly, she had acted humbly; then they made it up, they put off the decision until the next day, and they went back to the subject of the painting, without really knowing why, out of old habit. Caroline was the daughter of a chemist in Versailles. She had been to school when a little girl and had spent a few years at boarding school after her first communion. She was a girl brought up neither better nor worse than the 10 // In 1858 Cézanne gained a second prize at the Ecole Spéciale de Dessin (the free drawing academy) in Aix run by Joseph Gibert; see Rewald 1939, 26, and Ratcliffe 1960, 394 n. 107. Rewald also records how Cézanne won a prize for painting at school in 1854. Cézanne’s friend, the sculptor Philippe Solari, won the “prix Granet” from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Aix, and was sent to Paris in 1863 to study for the Prix de Rome in the studio of François Jouffroy; see Baille 1981, 90, and Gasquet 1926, 47. 11 // On Cézanne’s failed applications to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, see Rewald 1939, 70, 75, and 77. Cézanne admitted in conversation that he submitted himself twice to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts without success; see Rivière and Schnerb 1907, 812. See also Vollard 1938, 17–18, for the comments of one of the Ecole examiners on Cézanne’s “tempérament de coloriste.” 12 // This refers to the Salon organized by the State (whose official name was the “Exposition des artistes vivants’), which took place during the 1860s

and 1870s at the Palais de l’industrie on the ChampsElysées; see Roos 1996, 1–17, esp. 8. Germain declares an ambition to succeed at the Salon at several other points in the novel; see La proie et l’ombre, 9, 13, 28, 99, 138, and 139. Cézanne aspired to be admitted to the Salon, exhibiting first at the Salon des Refusés in 1863; see Rewald 1948, 37. He also visited the exhibition with his cronies in tow, according to Duranty 1881, 330–31, and Zola 1966, 147–80. Cézanne also contrived his rejection from the Salons of 1865, 1866, and 1867 by submitting extremely contentious paintings. On 1865, see Rewald 1939, 106, and Rewald 1978, 112–13 (for a letter to Pissarro of 15 March 1865 mentioning Cézanne’s intention to “faire rougir l’Institut de rage et de désespoir’). In 1866, Cézanne invited rejection by delivering his works to the Salon on the very last day for submissions, in a wheelbarrow drawn by his friends—who afterward celebrated his refusal with an “ovation”; see Rewald 1939, 106–10, and Rewald 1978, 94, and 114–15 (for a letter mentioning the rejection of two of his paintings). Cézanne was not without all hope of being admitted to the Salon, however. In a letter of June 1866, Zola told Coste that

The Substance and the Shadow //

5

other girls in the neighborhood. Monsieur Duhamel, who was a thoroughly decent chap, had started work to live, and thereafter had been condemned to it in order to grow rich. Madame Duhamel did not scorn to help out with her husband’s business. When the family was struggling to earn a living, the good wife weighed out the drugs, for a penny or for a pound; afterward, when the business was prospering, the head of the household [6] ran the business and took on three shop assistants; she took charge of the accounts. If the chemist’s shop had remained a poor shop, Caroline, when she came of age, should have taken her place at the counter and wrapped up half-asou’s worth of pepper, four sous of mastic; but the beautiful child was all too easily mixed up with the three lads of the establishment, the youngest watching her with goggle-eyes, and where as much love as admiration was soon found, the two older boys often engaging in conversations between themselves that were too near the mark. She was relegated to the flat, where they had furnished especially for her a little sitting room. A poor room, smelling of papa’s cinnamon; but well set up, and in which the young girl spent some happy hours in the company of her little school friends; but also, sadly, a poky place, where the child sometimes found herself quite alone with herself. Her dreams were more often bad than good. Unaware of sorrow, ignorant of life, she never worried about the daily sacrifices of her parents, had no idea of the troubles of the world. If she took up a needle, it was to pin up her hair; if she opened a book, it was to browse through the foolish tales in adventure novels. While her father sweated blood and water to turn a barrel of red powder into a good liquid varnish, while her mother ruined her eyes checking her accounts, ma’amselle was off to the land of shadows, on the arm of some Arthur,14 a handsome young man with a pale complexion, with eyes of Cézanne, Solari, and the others were “certains qu’ils ont dix ans devant eux avant de se faire accepter”; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:451, and Rewald 1939, 127. In April 1867, Cézanne enjoyed a minor succès de scandale when Zola was embroiled in defending his Salon des Refusés exhibit and his most recent Salon submissions in Le Figaro against the diatribes of a certain Arnold Mortier; see Rewald 1939, 133–38. A letter from Solari to Zola of 1868 shows that Cézanne submitted one painting that year, perhaps a (lost) portrait of his young sister Rose, which he had said he would send to the Salon in a letter of the end of October 1866 to Zola; see Rewald 1939, 143 and 167. In a letter of the end of November 1868 to Numa Coste, Cézanne suggests he is working on a landscape of the banks of the river Arc for the Salon of 1869 (perhaps); see Rewald 1978, 132–34, and Rewald 1939, 169. On Cézanne’s campain in 1870, see Rewald 1954, 8, and Rewald 1973, 246. Cézanne mentions his unsurprising rejection from the Salon of 1876 in a letter to Pissarro of April 1876; see Rewald 1978, 150–51. Cézanne also continued to submit to the Salon until well after the period described in La proie et l’ombre, and he told Vollard as

late as 2 April 1902 that “j’eusse beaucoup souhaité envoyer au Salon de 1902”; see Rewald 1978, 286. In L’oeuvre, Zola describes how “Lantier . . . reconnaissait du reste l’utilité du Salon, le seul terrain de bataille où un artiste pouvait se révéler d’un coup.” See Zola 1886, 271 (cited in Rewald 1939, 106). 13 // There are clear echoes in this proclamation of Baudelaire’s 1859 essay, “Le peintre de la vie moderne,” which contains the remarks: “il y a dans la vie triviale, dans la métamorphose journalière des choses extérieures, un mouvement rapide qui commande à l’artiste une égale vélocité d’exécution,” and “il a cherché partout la beauté passagère, fugace, de la vie présente, le caractère de ce que le lecteur nous a permis d’appeler la modernité”; see Baudelaire 1976, 686 and 724. Cézanne’s own understanding of Baudelaire’s text appears to have been more complex. He told Gasquet: “L’héroïsme de la vie moderne . . . comme a dit Baudelaire . . . Manet l’avait entrevu. Mais . . . ce n’est pas encore ça. . . . Je voyais plus large”; see Gasquet 1926, 48.

6

//

marius roux

fire, his hair blown by the wind, and a drooping moustache. Arthur, topped off with a feathered hat, dressed [7] in an amaranthine doublet, girded with a sword, told her things that often made her say: “Lord! but honestly—how funny mama and papa are!” Funny as they were, this mother and father were to have brought the play to its natural dénouement. Caroline should have brought her future husband a dowry of thirty thousand francs. This future husband was to present himself, and Arthur’s platonic lover was to be made a woman like the generality of women; neither more stupid nor more witty, neither better nor worse than, for example, her young friend Marie Chevalier, who had married one of her own cousins, Monsieur Anatole Dutilleux, chief clerk at the firm of Mr. Lefebure, notary, to whom he was articled. But unforeseen events were to spoil all this. Caroline, on leaving the convent, was seventeen years old and seemed barely fifteen. She showed herself only rarely; on Sundays, going to Mass with her mother, and sometimes on Thursdays, visiting her sister Madeleine, younger than her by fourteen months, and still at boarding school. To her parents, as to everybody, Caroline was only a child; the idea of marrying her off would never have occurred to anyone at that time. This idea might have been born and affirmed when Caroline, reaching the age of eighteen, filled out and blossomed overnight; but, just at that moment, her parents had other worries to occupy their minds. Versailles was in the hands of the enemy. Caroline and her sister were locked away to escape the insolent stares of the victors; and their mother and father took [8] good care to avert the lusts of these all-powerful men, to whom the right of the strongest gave license for anything. The young girl tasted a secret voluptuousness in keeping herself in hiding. She entered for real into her role of romantic heroine. “She was a prisoner of those northern barbarians, but she trusted in the promises of the noble Arthur. She knew he might appear at the most unforeseen moment, to avenge her, to deliver her.” Alas! The moment chosen by the fair Arthur was not the least unexpected; but he did not miss their rendezvous, and Caroline saw him appear, one evening, his ticket to billet in his hand. Everything happens at last, in this vile world. The glittering lover had forgotten neither his pale complexion nor the drooping mustachios; he was covered with a feathered felt hat and dressed in an azure doublet trimmed with gold on the sleeves, around his neck, on his stomach and around to his back; his great saber made a noise like a thousand 14 // “Arthur” was a stock expression for a suitor or lover, and had been in use since the earlier part of the century. See, for example, Alhoy, n.d., 5–6. 15 // Of the Impressionists, the only active participant in the Franco-Prussian War (for any time) was

Frédéric Bazille, who enlisted in the Zouaves (and was killed in action in November 1870); see Rewald 1973, 248 and 253. Cézanne’s attempts to avoid being conscripted are described in Rewald 1939, 177–89. 16 // See La proie et l’ombre, 18.

The Substance and the Shadow //

7

devils striking the iron railings, as he mounted the stair. He had a great saber, the irresistible Germanicus Rambert, captain of Freedom’s own snipers.15 You are a patriot, or you are not; and Monsieur Duhamel the pharmacist, whose business had suffered much during the invasion, was himself a fervent patriot; a better patriot than the other patriots of Versailles, who didn’t dare withdraw their custom from the wine merchants next door, “a pig, that one, who had poured it out for the Prussian soldiery, and who made it known that, as far as he was concerned, thalers [9] didn’t smell worse than hundred sou pieces.” Captain Germanicus expressed his disgust with all the wine merchants of Versailles; but he laid on the ground only those bottles they emptied at his hosts’, toasting the return of the French forces. Things went well with these fine men for about a month; until the moment when changed circumstances forced the sniper to run away as fast as he could. The handsome Germain left Versailles one very dark night, carrying with him the beautiful Caroline’s heart. The poor child heard nothing of her sweetheart until three months later, when the sweetheart asked Monsieur Duhamel for a good character, to get from off his back the claws of the public prosecutor, who was sending him before a court-martial, there to cleanse him from his immoderate love of braided uniforms. Monsieur Duhamel came back from the court-martial, arm in arm with Germain, acquitted “for lack of evidence,” said the verdict, acquitted “thanks to me!” cried the hearty pharmacist. They celebrated. The handsome young man had left his rich fantasy costume at the costumier’s. He was dressed like everyone else. But Caroline saw no change in him, her heart was won. Versailles, that great paved garden, took on a new sparkle and became a true town; the hotels were stuffed with travelers, people argued over seats in the restaurants. The crowd flocked to [10] spectacles that were new to it: the National Assembly and the courts-martial. Germain, by the good offices of his friend Lespignac,16 by way of some journalists, got hold of passes for the Assembly and the courts; he even offered seats in the Paris theaters. The pharmacist and his wife barely had time to use Germain’s passes; but Caroline had nothing else to do than to accept these kind invitations. Her mother would not have let her go out alone; but they always found some charitable neighbor, ready to share the pleasures of the show, and who came to offer to accompany the young girl. This gave the lovers their chance, and they used and abused their freedom, so much so that, mother and father having so often refused tickets for the Opera, Caroline decided to go on her own. She went, poor girl! She abandoned her home to follow her Germain.

8

//

marius roux

Two months had passed since the fatal moment; and almost every day the unfortunate girl had occasion to say that she would pay for an hour of madness with a lifetime of remorse. The truth was she was having doubts. Then, he had promised to make their love legitimate; now, he spoke no more of the visit he had to make to the mayor and the curate. Then, he had promised, waiting for the solemn day, to hide their crime, to flee Paris; now, he announced his intention to go back to Paris. “Come on, now, Monsieur Germain, cried the landlady of Marlotte,17 come on, now, my turtledoves—Hurry [11] up, madam; we’re waiting for you to start dinner. The master is here.”18 The master, a prince among landscape painters, an old man with white hair, was standing in the doorway, with an entourage of a dozen young painters, his fervent disciples. They had all shown their work of the day, and were piously listening to the old man’s advice. “Step lively,” said one of them, noticing Germain. Then, when the master had taken the sketch, and while he was considering it, one of the bons vivants of the group began to lark around, showing the signature. “Oh! la! la!—Get you!—Germanicus!—But that’s the name of a young man who was poisoned, by a nasty little brat who did a lot of bad in the neighborhood, since he spent his life fighting. Why not Germain?” “I knew a dog called Germain, and I always think they’re calling him when they talk to me.” “Did you also know another brute-beast by the name of Rambert?” “When I altered the forename, I altered the surname too. Germanicus Rambërr—That goes well—With that—”19 “You hope to pass down to posterity?” They had warned the master that Germain, discouraged, wasn’t far from affiliating with the Ecole des Batignolles;20 so he tried to reassure him. “This sketch is good,” he said; “you’ve caught the effect.21 [12] You can get a good likeness. Go back to the subject, and press on with it, firmly.” The evening was gay enough. Germain had received enough compliments 17 // The inn at Marlotte, run by an “hôtesse,” could have been modeled on the establishment at Gloton run by Mère Gigoux, where Cézanne did stay in 1866; see Cézanne’s letter to Zola of 30 June 1866, mentioning its “patron,” in Rewald 1978, 119–20. Roux is likely to have attended this inn while visiting Zola in the 1860s. The inn of Mère Gigoux is described in “Une farce” (‘Bohèmes en villégiature’); see Rewald 1939, 126–27, and Walter 1962, 105 and 117 n. 10. It is said to have been “inventée” by the painter Bernicard, who is clearly modeled on Cézanne; see Zola 1889, 20, and (for the identification of Bernicard with Cézanne) Walter 1962, 111 and 116 n. 7. Daubigny

may have alerted Cézanne or Zola to the existence of Mère Gigoux’s inn; see Walter 1962, 104. A similar inn appears in L’oeuvre; see Zola 1886, 182–84, and Walter 1962, 117 n. 10. Mère Gigoux’s inn is also the model for the inn in Zola’s story “La rivière”; see Zola 1883, 220–23, and Walter 1962, 105. The prototype for Roux’s inn culd have been the establishment located near Robinson, popularized by “une bande de peintres réalistes, vers 1845” in Zola’s story “Le Bois”; see Zola 1883, 207–8. Alternatively its model could have been the inn of Mère Anthony at Marlotte, which was frequented by Millet and others; see Denecourt 1875, 414–16. This inn was painted by Renoir in 1866;

The Substance and the Shadow //

9

from the master to tickle him all the evening; unfortunately, these praises could only restore his vanity and did nothing for his lack of conviction. The sketch they said was a success, he had not wanted to do it, he had not felt it. All the congratulations it had earned were like waftings of incense that perfume the idol without bringing it to life. He sulked, and would not let go of his obsession. “You’ll see,” he said triumphantly, “you’ll see at the next Salon,22 the fine bombshell I’ll drop with certain tableaux of a certain part of Paris.” Caroline, joining in the conversation, had been encouraged to believe her painter was converted by these compliments from the master and his comrades; but, at the word “Paris,” she turned pale. It was late. She rose from the table to go to her room, and contented herself with saying to Germain, by way of a goodnight: “Sleep on it.” The advice was to give up the forest of Fontainebleau; for, ever since he had got up, Germain had talked about packing his trunks and leaving immediately. Left alone at the inn, the two lovers chatted together. “But you promised me—” said Caroline. “To flee Paris?—” answered Germain. “I’ve kept my promise.” [13] “For two months. And you said: forever.” “Give it up! Forever—that means a week—and it’s been a long week—long.” see Vollard 1938, 159–63, and Rewald 1973, 135. See also La proie et l’ombre, 197, which mentions another painters’ inn in the bois de Verrières, belonging to a “Mère Sens,” whose sign—hung between two trees—has been painted by “des peintres très célèbres.” 18 // “Le maître, un des princes du paysage, vieillard à cheveux blancs,” most closely resembles the old painter, Crescent, the doyen of the painters at the inn in Fontainebleau in Manette Salomon; see Goncourt 1867, lxxxiii–xciii. Unlike Germain, Crescent abhors the pursuit of money through painting; see Goncourt 1867, lxxxviii. Goncourts’ character is perhaps based on Millet, who was an important presence at the auberge Ganne in Barbizon; see Sensier 1881, 115–16, and Denecourt 1875, 415–16. But he also resembles Corot in many respects, especially in painting emotionally nuanced landscapes. 19 // It is undoubtedly the pretensions of CarolusDuran—who was born plain Charles Durand—that Roux refers to here. Carolus-Duran painted in Fontainebleau from 1855 to 1861, and again after 1867; see Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 62–55. 20 // The Ecole des Batignolles refers to the loose

alliance of artists and writers who attended the Café Guerbois. In his novel La poche des autres of 1879, Roux describes this venue as follows: “café Guerbois: Des peintres, des sculpteurs, des littérateurs, tous jeunes encore et inconnus, venaient de fonder une société d’admiration mutuelle. Cela s’appelait l’Ecole des Batignolles, et cela devait servir à établir la fortune de tous les adhérents. Les uns aidant les autres, tout la bataillon se promettait d’arriver au faîte de la Renommée.” See Roux 1879, 157. Roux wrote to Zola on 28 May 1867: “Je me montrerai aux Batignolles un jour ou l’autre.” He may have meant at Zola’s house (then at 1 rue de Moncey); but perhaps he meant the Café Guerbois; see Thomson 1978, 347. The presence of “L’Académie des Batignolles” at the Café Guerbois—and specifically “Mallarmé, Zola, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Castagnary, Philippe Burty et autres écrivains”—is mentioned in Rivière 1921, 23. Bazille also presented Cézanne and Pissarro to Renoir in his studio in the Batignolles; see Vollard 1938, 20. 21 // On the “effet” as one of the aims of Impressionism, see Shiff 1984, 18, 42–44, and 108. 22 // See n. 12 for Cézanne’s attempts to gain admission to the Salon.

10

//

marius roux

“So this promise was just like the others.” “You get on my nerves.” “Very well. You can go your way; I shall go mine.” “Not at all. I thought you would come with me.” “Be lovable and you will be loved.” “It’s no fun being loved. I want to be obeyed.” “Germain!—” “You annoy me. But if that doesn’t suit you, then do as you said: you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine.” Caroline didn’t answer. She was crying. “God! What stupid creatures women are—”cried the young man. Moved by her tears, he felt himself disarmed, turned humble, begged, pleaded. He reminded her of his oaths, swore by his love; and despite the oaths, notwithstanding his love, Germain found a way of telling more than one lie, to soil his kisses with harsh insults; so that in the end, drying her tears and holding out her hand, Caroline could not stop herself adding: “It’s all right for me, all that, for me, an unfortunate; but remember what I say: if ever you marry—” “Marry you, my lovely Caro.” “Marry me, no. I know what’s waiting for me. If ever you marry—don’t treat your wife like [14] you have treated your Caro; that will take you too far.” “All the same, I’m a good devil. My method, if it is a method, isn’t the worst, since I have your love.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Ah! There you are!” he cried, “if you didn’t love me!—” “We would be even.” “What a strange woman you are.” “Every woman is strange to a man who has no discernment.” “You see how you exchange roles. It’s you now that is talking nonsense.” “If only you had wanted.” “Very well. I want.” “Too late.” “Look, my darling—if I had wanted?—Well, what?” “Nothing.” The entry of the landlady, carrying a letter, brought an end to the discussion. This letter informed Germain that his brother Philippe had arrived in Paris. “All I can do is go back to the studio,” said Germain. “I think so,” answered Caro. And without further discussion they both set to packing trunks and tying up packages. They were ready to join the afternoon train.

The Substance and the Shadow //

11

The carriage that took them to Fontainebleau entered the woods by the Gorge-aux-Loups road,23 [15] passing close to two giant oaks, Velázquez and Murillo,24 that lift their powerful arms to the heavens, as if to emphasize the grandeur of the impression felt by the profane, admitted to the astonishing solemnities of the immense forest. Caro closed her eyes, to see no more, to forget. The carriage ran on, turning, rising, descending; and the poor woman huddled in her corner to escape the various impressions along the road, sown with so many happy memories. She gave in to their invading charm only to express her regret, and from the softness of the thick shade she guessed the route the carriage was taking. “Farewell,” she murmured, “my lovely rock of Fourceau.”25 She opened her eyes only once, when they had come in sight of the château. She was forced to look, to see what Germain was doing: he had risen up, clinging to the coach-seat by one hand as he waved the other at the château, shouting out: “Oh! you beggars! oh! you criminals! oh! you blasphemers! There is the school where they came to take lessons; that’s where they invented the official “machine,” that impoverished thing they call French art.26 They were told from the very beginning, we have been shouting it at them ceaselessly ever since: Raphael was no part of it, Michelangelo disdained to come there, Andrea del Sarto only passed through, and Leonardo da Vinci hadn’t the time to show up. All the others, those who made up the school—Primaticcio, Rosso, Niccolò dell’Abate, Vignola, Serlio—they were nothing but strawmen: [16] second-class medalists, eh! They didn’t understand, they didn’t want to understand.” “Hey! come on!”—Caro cut in, “don’t punch like that; look, you’ve broken that string. The little trunk is coming apart. Quickly, tie that string back up.” It took them half the time putting their parcels back in order that the carriage took to travel the endless alley of plane trees that led to the station. When it left the station, the train plunged into a nest of greenery. The great trees of the forest masked the horizon and, from the banks of the railway, still carpeted with high bushes, the young shoots of the shrubs lifted 23 // The road through the Gorge aux loups was one of the many “sights” to be found in the forest of Fontainebleau; see, for example, Denecourt 1875, 112–23. 24 // Many of the great oaks of Fontainebleau were named after painters by Denecourt. On Velázquez and Murillo, see Denecourt 1875, 122. 25 // On this rock, see Denecourt 1875, 113. 26 // This is one of several diatribes against official and academic art and its institutions; see La proie et

l’ombre, 40–41, 50–52, 86–87, 89, 128, 130–31, and 196. These discussions probably recall those of the Guerbois. Astruc, for instance, was a vociferous opponent of the Salon Jury (cf. La proie et l’ombre, 52) and a defender of the principle of artistic liberty, maintaining a strongly anti-Jury position in his published work of the 1860s and early 1870s, and holding to the maxim: “Il n’est plus d’écoles; que chaque artiste apprenne désormais à être lui-même.” See “Le public—les artistes,” Le salon quotidien, 1 May 1863, cited in Flescher 1978, 111 (and 228). See also Astruc 1859, 367, and Astruc’s articles in Le peuple souverain of 1872, cited in Flescher 1978, 208–17.

12

//

marius roux

their green foliage. All these branches deafened the growling of the engine and the train, which glided and ran no more. It was the sound of a waterfall, a pure song, something like the trembling of the monster that arrived, its belly on fire, its mouth smoking, which fled, terrified, out of breath, beneath the refreshing breeze of the green colossus. With her head by the window, Caro contemplated her beloved forest, breathing in with delight the freshness of its shadows, smiling tenderly at the gaiety of its greenery. And its charm was so strong that her soul strayed in the sweet shade of a life now gone, her life of a smiling and innocent child. All this time Germain, seduced by the color, made with broad sweeps a tableau in green, a sublime green, exhausting his boxes of bronze oxide to lay out his treasures of verdant stones, emerald and malachite. [17] “The first canvas I sell,” he said, “I’ll buy you a necklace.” “You don’t mean that,” said Caro simply, shrugging her shoulders. Suddenly, after Blis-le-Roi, the train threw itself from the green hedges into a plain burned by the sun. One moment it went back into the shadows to cross the woods at Rochette; the next, it was back in the light, never again to leave the immense bare plain. The engine was fleeing, and you would have thought the forest was falling behind it, with a vertiginous movement, the trees turning on themselves, like spinning tops. Caro held out her hands as if to grasp the fugitive forest, hold it, embrace it in her arms. She sighed, moved to another corner, and sat with her eyes closed. She tried to go back to her dream where she had broken it off; but the illusion had disappeared with the regions of shadows, with the refreshing greenery; and poor Caro could not leave the reality of her being. She felt herself borne away toward Paris; and Paris frightened her.

ii [18] Philippe Rambert, who was waiting for his brother at the gare de Lyon, was younger than Germain. He had only just turned twenty-four. This was not the only difference between them. Philippe had delicate features, a finely sculpted face, superbly framed by short hair and a light beard that was as black as a raven’s wing. His large brown eyes were pleasingly wide, warm and shining, and added a spark of intelligence to his face. He was a gentle and shy boy, who observed a great deal and didn’t say much. If Germain took after his father, Philippe had inherited everything from his mother, in terms of both his features and his character. The shy young man was hugely embarrassed when he saw his brother getting off the train and offering his arm to a woman. And his embarrass-

The Substance and the Shadow //

13

ment only grew worse when Germain, who had brought Philippe and Caro together without introducing them to each other, left them alone while he went to pick up his luggage and hail a carriage. [19] Philippe gazed fearfully upon this beautiful child—he didn’t know what her position really was and his brother hadn’t even told him her name. Caro didn’t dare even to lift her eyes to the young man, who, on first seeing her, had looked both surprised and suspicious, which she had found greatly troubling. And there they stood, next to each other, trembling and blushing and not saying a word to each other. Germain came back toward them and pushed them toward the door and into the carriage where he made them take the front seat. He settled down on the fold-up seat as he gave his address to the cabman—rue de Sèvres. Philippe and Caro didn’t have much chance to engage in social niceties on the way. The sight of Paris had reminded Germain of his latest dream and he monopolized the conversation, determined not to let anyone else take over. As they reached the quais the painter waxed lyrical. He came out with bursts of admiration every ten feet, exclaiming,“Ah! What a beautiful motif!” The houses had corners that “came out of a painting”; the bridges had perspectives that “were too much for a painting.” He made the cabman stop in front of the Île-Saint-Louis, where a few boats, docked in a corner, offered him subtleties of color that he had no way of rendering. His brush no longer put black on top of blue; his brush “spewed the color onto the canvas.”27 From the Pont de Bercy to the Pont des Saints-Pères, Germain had completed twenty masterpieces. He no longer counted his successes at the Salon; and the three regulatory medals that he picked up before they had gone past Notre-Dame had made him into a knight of the Legion [20] of Honor by the time he reached the Pont Saint-Michel, and an officer by the Pont Neuf.28 He 27 // Germain is described making sketches of the quais once more in La proie et l’ombre, 24. These passages allude to what seems to have been Cézanne’s ambitions to paint a picture of the quais. In the 1870s, he copied a painting of Guillaumin’s Quai de Bercy; see Rewald et al. 1996, no. 293, and Rewald 1985, 106–9. (These sources date the first painting 1876–78, that is, to after Cézanne vacated his atelier on the Quai d’Anjou. Ratcliffe 1960 dates the painting after 1875.) Cézanne may have done this as part of an ambition to make a large painting akin to the one that Claude Lantier strives to make throughout L’oeuvre; see Zola 1886, 282–83, 286–87, 307–9, 315, 339–40, 346–47, 397, 461–73, 480, and 483. There is also a description of the quais that closely matches Cézanne’s painting in Zola 1886, 3: “Mais ce qui la suffoquait surtout, c’est l’encaissement de la rivière, la fosse profonde où la Seine coulait à cet endroit, noirâtre, des lourdes piles du pont Marie aux arches légères du nouveau pont Louis-Philippe. D’étranges masses peuplaient l’eau, une flottille dormante de canots et d’yoles, un bateau-

lavoir et une dragueuse, amarrés au quai; puis, là-bas, contre l’autre berge, des péniches pleines de charbon, des chalands chargés de meulière, dominés par le bras gigantesque d’une grue de fonte. Tout disparut.” 28 // Germain also aspires to a medal in La proie et l’ombre, 99. Cézanne did too, according to Gustave Geffroy, who records that the artist painted his portrait “avec l’espoir d’exposer la toile au Salon, au ‘Salon de Bouguereau,’ spécifiait-il, et ‘peut-être, ajoutait-il, pourrons-nous y obtenir une médaille!’”; see Geffroy 1922, 197. (See also Bernard 1921, 26 and 54, and Vollard 1938, 20.) Cézanne clearly aspired to the Légion d’honneur in later life, and was disappointed that Octave Mirbeau’s efforts to gain the decoration for him were unsuccessful; see Rewald 1939, 286 n. 1. Gasquet recalls that Cézanne’s friends had made efforts to obtain him “la croix”; see Gasquet 1926, 104. What Roux refers to is the fact that (from 1866) artists who enjoyed frequent and considerable success at the Salon could be awarded

14

//

marius roux

was a member of the Institute before they had gone past the Palais Mazarin.29 “Greet them, old chap,” he cried to his brother when the carriage flew past the Palais. He himself had called out a greeting, and Philippe was doffing his hat without knowing why. “We’re nearly there,” said Caro when they had turned into the rue des Saints-Pères, “and Germain has still only spoken to us about himself. And yet we should be busying ourselves with Monsieur Philippe.” “Monsieur!—what do you mean by that—monsieur? Don’t you really mean Philippe, short and simple, or, better still, that cretin of a brotherin-law! In fact, my good man, for today we don’t have to bother about you. You’ve got a room somewhere?” “Yes, I’m staying not far from your house in a hotel on the rue Jacob.” “Very good. If your lodgings suit you, you’ll keep them; if they don’t suit you, we’ll look elsewhere. In the meantime you can use my studio. You’ll be at home there.” The carriage stopped in the rue de Sèvres, right at the end of the street, next to the Croix-Rouge crossroads.30 Philippe offered to help his brother carry the parcels upstairs. They went into the house. Caro led the way, a box of rags under each arm; after her came Germain, his box in one hand and a packet of canvasses in the other, Philippe, who was weighed down by a small suitcase, and the concierge, Monsieur Lessandre, a strapping man who carried an enormous square trunk [21] as if it were a feather. The ramp trembled, the steps groaned; and muffled echoes carried the brittle sound of knocks against the wall. The rowdy band didn’t stop until they’d reached the top floor of the house. On the square landing a small stairway, a ladder with a wooden handrail, crawled up to a small door. The studio was there.31 It was a large, square room with a sloping ceiling that had a large picture window cut into it. Some studies, some quick sketches hung on the wall; a few plaster medallions and two earthenware dishes were hanging next to the canvasses. On the black marble mantelpiece, half hidden behind a little the Légion d’honneur at the discretion of the State (previous to this, there was a more systematic relation between winning medals and gaining the honor); see Roos 1996, 13–14, and White 1965, 47 and 52–53. 29 // Created in 1795, the Institut de France, housed in the Palais Mazarin, was the parent organization of the five scholarly national academies, including the Académie Française (see La proie et l’ombre, 131 and n. 155) and the Académie des Beaux-Arts (which was itself reorganized in 1816 to bring together the former academies of painting and sculpture, music, and architecture). The Institut symbolized the State’s control over the fine arts adminsitration system for

many young artists, not least because its members were Professors at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and/or members of the Salon Jury. On the Institut, see Boime 1971, 5–7. 30 // This places Germain’s studio a small way south of the bouvard Saint-Germain in the 6th arrondissement. 31 // The location of this studio in the rue de Sèvres in the 6th arrondissement recalls that of Cézanne’s early Paris studios: between 1862 and 1864, Cézanne stayed in the rue de Feuillantines, in the “quartier du Luxembourg” (in the 5th arrondissement), between 1868 and 1869 in the rue de Chevreuse and the rue de

The Substance and the Shadow //

15

cast-iron stove and its long pipe, there were still two vases crammed with various kinds of paintbrush; in one corner there was a bureau-bookcase whose shelves were adorned with little plaster figures, five or six different kinds of pipe, a pot of tobacco next to two albums, and a dozen ill-matched books; on the board the model’s address was written in chalk: Georgette Mangin, cité des fleurs, aux Batignolles. Finally, at the foot of the good wall, the one that formed the base to the ceiling’s slope, there was a sofa with three cushions in a worn and faded repp32—you couldn’t make out its color now, but it must once have been red. There was as much dust on the floor as if it were the open road; cobwebs stretched across the ceiling’s corners as if it were in a stable. The easel was still in the middle of the room and on its ledge it bore an earthenware pipe and an opened packet of tobacco; on its arms were hanging a man’s jacket on one side and a lady’s hat on the other. To the side, by the door leading into the studio33, was [22] a low and narrow bedroom where a bed, trunk, and small washstand jostled for space. “There,” said Germain, once he had shown his “apartments” to Philippe, “there my good man, is the beginning of Glory. People have no idea about that in the provinces.” Philippe, for his part, was quite simply thinking how there was no use in being dirty to show your talent. His look of distaste was noticed by Caro, who hastened to say: “You need my touch around here. Tomorrow there’ll be no sign of this mess.”34 She had opened the suitcase and taken out a brush, a comb, and a box of rice powder. For a moment she gazed at herself in the washstand’s mirror, ran the comb through her hair a few times and gave her face a liberal application of rice powder. She wiped her eyebrows with the edge of her handkerchief that she’d put over the end of one finger and lightly moistened with saliva. It didn’t take her long to touch up her appearance, and Germain hadn’t had time to grow impatient. It was even the young woman who spoke up to point out that it was some time since they’d eaten. “Let’s go,” replied Germain cheerfully. “You’re coming with us, aren’t you, Philippe?” Vaugirard (in the 6th arrondissement), and between 1870 and 1871 in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs (also in the 6th arrondissement); see Rivière 1923, 193. All of these streets run in close proximity to the rue de Sèvres. (Rivière also records that Cézanne stayed in the rue Beautreillis in the 4th arrondissement between 1865 and 1867.) 32 // “Repp” (French reps, which is not in any dictionary): the English word “repp” is supposed to come from the French via the English, “rib,” meaning corded cloth, and this is undoubtedly the sense here. The word is used again in La proie et l’ombre, 83. (Translators’ note.)

33 // On this studio, see also pages 106–7. The more lavish studio nearby to which Germain moves is described on pages 129–35. Cezanne painted a studio interior in the early 1860s, which shows a stove and pictures on the wall (Rewald et al. 1996, no. 90). 34 // Caroline’s reaction to the disarray of Germain’s studio is echoed in the reaction of Claude’s mistress, Christine, to the messiness of Lantier’s first studio in L’oeuvre: “L’atelier, il est vrai, continuait à l’effarer un peu. Elle y jetait des regards prudents, stupéfaite d’un tel désordre et d’un tel abandon.” Zola 1886, 17; cited in Rewald 1939, 125.

16

//

marius roux

“Where’s that?” “To Bruno’s.”35 “That’s still the only restaurant that I know. I went straight to Bruno’s, not knowing that you had gone off to Fontainebleau and thinking that I would meet you there.” “It’s real student fodder, isn’t it?—Who cares! We’ll make it up to ourselves later; when we [23] have a little less talent and a little more money. That’s the way of the world; you only sell your pictures when you start to have nothing more to say in them.” They had left the studio and had reached the street. Bruno’s restaurant was two hundred feet further up, right next to the large Brasserie Bismarck,36 so called because the barmaid resembled Bismarck with her large round eyes that looked like the enamel eyes of a well-seasoned pipe. Once they had got to the restaurant, Philippe, who had barely had time to talk, announced that two friends of the family, Monsieur and Madame Mazouillet, would be visiting. He had traveled with them from Aigues-lesTours to Paris. “Have you, by any chance, condemned them to Bruno’s food?” “Yes, they kept me company a couple of times and they’ve promised to 35 // A central location within the novel, the Restaurant Bruno is evidently the Café Guerbois, where the Impressionists and other Batignolles notables met. See chapters ii, vii, xiii, xvi, and xxviii. According to an account by Vollard, Guillemet first took Cézanne to the Guerbois in 1866: “De . . . 1866 datent . . . les réunions du café Guerbois, où se rencontraient Manet, Fantin, Guillemet, Zola, Cézanne, Renoir, Stevens, Duranty, Cladel, Burty. . . . Ce fut Guillemet qui conduisait Cézanne au Guerbois”; see Vollard 1938, 22. John Rewald states that Vollard’s account is based on material supplied by Guillemet; see Rewald 1973, 624. Georges Rivière, a friend of Renoir’s from the 1870s, recalls events in much the same way, mentioning not only Cézanne but also Carolus-Duran, Astruc (who exhibited at the first Impressionist exhibition), and several Impressionists among the habitués of the Guerbois. He states: “C’est lui [Guillemet] . . . qui présenta Cézanne à Manet. Le peintre d’Olympia l’accueillait aimablement mais il n’avait rien de ce qu’il fallait pour apprivoiser un ‘sauvage.’ . . . Les relations des deux peintres se bornèrent aux rencontres, d’ailleurs assez fréquentes, que les expositions de peintures et les soirées du café Guerbois leur ménagèrent. Ce fut encore Guillemet qui, vers la même époque, mit son ami en relations avec Frédéric Bazille. . . . Bazille voulut emmener tout de suite Paul Cézanne, rue des Beaux-Arts, à l’atelier qu’il occupait avec Renoir . . . ‘le Guerbois’ devint le rendez-vous d’artistes et d’écrivains dont les tendances s’opposaient généralement aux doctrines de l’Institut ou au régime impérial. On y voyait, plus au moins assidus, Manet, Degas, Pissarro, Fantin-

Latour, Desboutins, Monet, Cézanne, Sisley, Renoir, Bazille, Carolus Duran et quelques autres. Les gens de lettres y étaient moins nombreux que les peintres et, presque tous, il étaient les adversaires de l’Empire, tels Zola, Duranty, Philippe Burty, Castagnary, Léon Cladel, Th. Duret. . . . Paul Cézanne, ne trouvait pas grâce devant ces bourgeois républicains. . . . C’était un rude Scythe égaré sur l’Agora. Quand il se mêlait—ce qui était rare—aux discussions artistiques de ses voisins, ses opinions formulées avec une franchise sans atténuation, scandalisaient ses auditeurs. En outre, il ne supportait jamais la contradiction, il quittait la place dans un subit mouvement de colère qui stupéfiait ceux qui en étaient les témoins.” See Rivière 1923, 19–20 and 34–35. Paul Alexis confirms that it was around 1866, that is, immediately upon his return from his first summer in Bennecourt with Zola, that Cézanne first visited the Guerbois, in company with other future Impressionists: “A Paris . . . Zola avait fait de nouvelles connaissances, surtout dans le monde des peintres. Avec Cézanne, qui venait alors de rencontrer Guillemet, il fit le tour des ateliers, surtout des ateliers de l’école dite ‘des Batignolles,’ qui fut le berceau des impressionnistes d’aujourd’hui. C’est ainsi qu’il se lia avec Edouard Béliard, Pissarro, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Fantin Latour, etc.” See Alexis 1882, 71. Rewald mistakenly suggests that Cézanne was taken to the Guerbois by his friend, the musician Cabaner, on the basis of an account in which Renoir tells Vollard: “Cézanne ne descendait guère jusqu’au boulevard. A peine l’ai-je rencontré trois ou quatre fois au Guerbois ou à la Nouvelle Athènes. Et encore fallait-il qu’il y fût entraîné par son ami Cabaner.”

The Substance and the Shadow //

17

come back this evening in order to meet you.” “That’ll be fun.” “I’m off—” said Caro. “On no, stay, my sweet. I want you to.” Germain was the first to go in, with Caro on his arm. He crossed the restaurant’s dining room, stopped for a second at the counter to speak briefly with Mother Calypso, and made his way into the room at the back.37 A long table, set for twenty, filled the room. Two gaslights, attached to a rod that hung from the middle of the ceiling, cast a shadowy light over twenty plates, as thick as [24] pebbles, placed on an oilskin. Only one habitué was present, old Godet,38 the chief, who was sitting at one end, next to the window that looked out over the yard. Germain sat at the other end with Caro on his left and Philippe on his right, saving two seats next to Philippe. Behind him the waiter was coming and going, taking bottles out of a sideboard, pouring out half-measures and putting them on a large pewter dish. The door to the kitchen was on the left, and indistinguishable smells were wafting through along with a music of grease, composed of the trills of frying fat and the casserole pots’ tuneless buzzing that accompanied the waiter’s thundering baritone as he shouted out: “One mixed salad!—two See Rewald 1939, 142, Vollard 1938, 186–87, and cf. Tabarant 1947, 117–19. Tabarant also states that Friday nights were the “really important occasions” at the Guerbois, when Fantin-Latour, Renoir, Degas, and “more seldom” Monet and Cézanne would turn up; see Tabarant 1925, 18. Cézanne is also placed at the Guerbois by his friend Guillemet, who is cited by Félicien Champsaur in a short biography of the painter, thus: “‘Connaissance faite, au café Guerbois, de Manet, et coetera. Bref, l’école de Batignolles. Duranty, très intime, puis Zola, Césanne [sic], les terribles. Inauguration de la peinture, au pistolet. Quid est? Charger un pistolet de tubes et le faire partir sur une toile. Moins cela ressemble à quelque chose, plus on est proche du génie.—Refus au Salon. Lutte homérique.’” See Champsaur 1887 and 1889, 27. The phrase “peinture au pistolet” dates the recollection to the period around 1866, when—according to a letter from Valabrègue to Marion—a member of the Salon Jury had used it to describe Cézanne’s submission; see Rewald 1939, 107. 36 // The Bismarck brasserie recalls the restaurant de Père Lathuile, located near the Café Guerbois; cf. Silvestre 1892, 151, and Rivière 1923, 34. 37 // This “salle du fond” is where the painters and their associates meet, rather as Zola describes the Café Baudequin in L’oeuvre; see Zola 1886, 90–95, 135, 155, 157, 232, 262–65, and 433–34. Duranty also mentions a “seconde salle” inside the thinly disguised “café Barbois,” in his posthumously published conte à clef of 1869 about Cézanne, “La double vie de Louis

Séguin,” in which he states that “Paul Séguin, avait une véritable passion pour cet endroit.” See Petrone 1976, 236, Crouzet 1964, 239 n. 32, Brady 1968, 146, Tabary 1954, 29, and Shiff 1984, 280 n. 2, which identifies Cézanne as the model for Duranty’s eponymous antihero. Roux, however, situates his brasserie on the Left Bank, in the rue de Sèvres (6th arrondissement), while the Guerbois was situated at 9 Grande rue des Batignolles (in the 9th arrondissement), which is now 11 avenue de Clichy. 38 // Godet’s model, Philippe Solari, was a close friend of Cézanne’s in the mid-1860s. Solari is said to have attended the Guerbois with Cézanne; see Gasquet 1926, 46–47, Rewald 1939, 195, and Baille 1981, 90. Godet is perhaps known as “père” because Solari was “creusé”; see Rewald 1939, 174. In L’oeuvre, the republican sculptor Mahoudeau is modeled on Solari (and Valabrègue); see Niess 1968, 41–43, Vizetelly 1902, vii, Bernex 1923, 50, and Gasquet 1926, 46. Zola 1886, 80, states that Mahoudeau shares accommodation with another artist, which refers to how penury led Solari to share lodgings with Cézanne for about six months in 1871; see Gasquet 1926, 46–47, and Rewald 1939, 195. See Bakker et al. 1978–95, 3:459–60 and 463 for letters from Zola to Solari of 1880 describing the novelist’s attempts to gain a public commission for his friend.

18

//

marius roux

beef bourguignon, that’s two!—and a macaroni cheese—with a nice crust!” Philippe wasn’t wholly comfortable. “Why don’t we stay in the dining room?” he said. “It’s cleaner, the light’s better and you have a table to yourself.” “—A table to yourself?—placed next to the first cretin to walk in off the street! We’re among friends here. Papa Godet, may I introduce my brother Philippe. My good man, it’s my pleasure to show you Old Godet, who has taken up the chisel of Michelangelo. In a minute you’re going to be sharing water and salt with the cream of France’s youth: there’s my friend Damasquère-Velázquez,39 my friend Lespignac-Shakespeare,40 and twenty others who are all future members of the Institute. Here we can talk—Could you pass the menu, Old Godet—Waiter, we’ll have three crispy mashes and two bottles of the ‘green-seal’ wine—Read the menu, my lambs, and select something.” The room was filling up. [25] Damasquère-Velázquez,41 who was a tall, dark fellow with closely cropped hair, was sitting next to old Godet; Lespignac-Shakespeare,42 a fat ruddy boy with curly hair, was seated next to Caro. The twenty future 39 // Described as “un grand brun aux cheveux ras,” and as “maigre et dépenaillé” and sarcastic, and known for painting “que de grands seigneurs et de grandes dames du temps des Médicis” (see La proie et l’ombre, 18, 81, and 26), Damasquère-Velázquez transparently represents Carolus-Duran, who was dark and thin, and specialized in the lush, especially female, society portrait from the early 1870s; see Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 16 and 19, 94–96, 104, 108–9, 110–11, 130–31, and 151. (Zola referred ironically to such portraits in “Lettres parisiens,” La Cloche, 12 May 1872, asking rhetorically: “L’artiste avait-il bien besoin de mettre une femme dans tous ces décrochez-moi ça éclatants”; see Brady 1968, 101 and 101 n. 165, which also mentions that Carolus-Duran appears in Zola’s notes for L’oeuvre.) Carolus-Duran began his Salon career in 1863; see Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 202. Pissarro commented in a letter of 21 January 1884: “Carolus-Duran . . . ce n’est pas de l’art!” See Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 276. Carolus-Duran’s fascination with Velázquez was well known to his contemporaries. One day in the Louvre, toward the end of his life, Cézanne even remarked to Guillemet: “Tu as vu Carolus-Duran! . . . Il doit trouver qu’il s’est foutu dedans avec Vélasquez!”; see Vollard 1938, 26. Similarly, Georges Rivière (who is one of several witnesses to Carolus Duran’s presence at the Café Guerbois) points out that “Il adopta Vélasquez. . . . Carolus Duran se donna entièrement à son nouveau maître. . . . ‘Vélasquez et moi’, disait-il souvent”; see Rivière 1921, 24. See also Claretie 1876, 35, which states, in the chapter on Carolus-Duran: “On devine en lui l’admirateur passionné de Vélasquez.” Carolus-Duran’s fascination with Vélasquez is also mentioned in Champsaur 1886,

73–74, and in Valabrègue 1886–1902, which records that after 1866 “Monsieur Carolus Duran . . . partit en Espagne où il étudiait avec amour Vélasquez.” See also Jean-Louis Augé, “Carolus-Duran et l’Espagne,” in Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 23–26. 40 // Lespignac is clearly modeled on Zacharie Astruc, whom he closely resembles in many respects. He is nicknamed “Shakespeare,” is described as “gros,” a “poëte . . . aussi à ses heures musicien et peintre” (with journalist friends), and an “homme de la couleur,” who makes formulaic watercolors of landscapes, animals, and “intérieurs parisiens, traités à la mode japonaise”; see La proie et l’ombre, 50 and 81, 40 (and 7), 80–81, 88, and 40. Lespignac’s sobriquet (and Damasquère’s) evidently refers to the fact that Carolus-Duran and Astruc called one another “Shakespeare” and “Vélasquez.” Julie Manet, for instance, recounting a conversation she had in Degas’s studio regarding their friendship, recalls how they would say to each other: “‘Comme tu es beau Shakespeare, comme tu es beau Vélasquez.’”; see Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 56, citing Julie Manet, Journal (Paris: Klincksieck, 1979), 73. Their friendhsip probably went back to 1853; see Flescher 1978, 9–10. Carolus-Duran also painted Astruc’s portrait twice, in 1859 and 1884 (see Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 56–57), and supplied the etched frontispiece (which included the author’s portrait) for Astruc 1860, which also mentions Shakespeare (ibid., 33, 48, 59, 79). Astruc reviewed Carolus-Duran’s work several times; see Astruc 1859, 54–55, and Flescher 1978, 77 and 284–85. Astruc’s admiration for Shakespeare is evident in his writing; see Astruc 1859, 46–49, and Astruc 1860, 22, 31, 33, 47–48, and 59; see

The Substance and the Shadow //

19

members of the Institute were squashed around the table, grumbling about Germain’s insistence on saving places for intruders, for bourgeois types.43 There was no linen on the table, where the white sleeves of Germain, Philippe, and Caro stood out in stark contrast to the other wrists leaning on the table, all of which were clad in grubby cuffs. “Ah, pooh! What poor wine—” Germain cried, as he tasted the green seal. “Serves you right!”—said his neighbor, little Béju,44 who was a pale, sharp-faced little runt. “That’s what happens when you want to play at being upper class—Mother Calypso sends you back to her excellent everyday wine, which costs three sous for a quarter and six sous for a half.” Mother Calypso was the barmaid, Madame Anaïs Boutemard, the sister of the chef, Bruno. When her husband left her, the wretched woman had raised the roof of the restaurant with her laments. That’s how she got her nickname, which certainly could not be thought to come from her shifty eyes, her mouth of broken teeth, or the large cyst that formed a big lump on the right side of her bonnet. It was she who kept the keys to the cellar while her brother slaved over the saucepans. That was the source of the distich, which was well known in the rue de Sèvres: also Flescher 1978, 24 and 27. Like Lespignac, Astruc produced watercolors, which reflected his interest in Japanese art, and was musical (he played the guitar and sang); see nn. 70–72. 41 // Accounts of the Café Guerbois that mention the presence of Carolus-Duran include Rivière 1921, 24–25, which mentions how “Carolus Duran . . . y fréquenta et . . . peu s’en fallut, à cette époque, qu’il passât dans le camp de la nouvelle peinture dont les tendances le troublaient fort.” 42 // With Carolus-Duran, Astruc may have attended the Café Guerbois from as early as 1860; see Flescher 1978, 98. Astruc also features in the long account of the Guerbois given by another of its habitués, Armand Silvestre, which recounts how “Zacharie Astruc, le sculptuer et l’aquarelliste . . . vous tenait aisément deux heures sous le charme d’une conversation toujours élevée,” and lists Zola, Manet, Duranty, Desboutin, Fantin-Latour, Degas, Renoir, and Jean Béraud among its regular clients; see Silvestre 1892, 167 and 153–79. The Astruc of the Café Guerbois is described in a similar vein by Clément-Janin as a “brillant causeur”; see ClémentJanin 1922, 91. Astruc is also mentioned in an account of the Guerbois gatherings given by Duret, according to which they began in 1866, and were attended by Manet, Fantin-Latour, Desboutin, Bellot, Duranty, Zola, Degas, Alfred Stevens, Burty, and others, besides Astruc; see Duret 1939, 10–11. Astruc is mentioned too in Clément-Janin’s biography of Marcellin Desboutin (which dates the arrival of the latter to 1867, and mentions the presence at the Guerbois of Zola, Degas, Manet, Silvestre, Fantin-Latour (‘par-

fois’), Léon Cladel, Jean Béraud, Willette, Duranty, Burty, Bellot, and others; see Clément-Janin 1922, 89–93; cf. Crouzet 1964, 364–65 n. 62. Despite these many similarities between Lespignac and Astruc, it is conceivable that Roux also incorporated elements of Cézanne’s Aixois friends, Numa Coste and Antony Valabrègue, into his character; see nn. 58 and 85. 43 // Germain was reserving space for visitors from Aigues: the Mazouillets (see La proie et l’ombre, 21). 44 // Béju is described by Roux as “un avorton pâle et sec,” who, “sous prétexte de faire du paysage, peignait des carrés jaunes et des carrés verts”; La proie et l’ombre, 50. Béju may thus allude to Béliard, a meticulous and unoriginal landscapist in Zola’s opinion; see Bakker 1971, 66 n. 4. He may equally well be modeled on the Paris-based Aixois painter Chaillan, who was not only a mediocre painter but portrayed Cézanne using a “teinte jaune” in his cheeks, according to a letter from Zola to Cézanne of 16 January 1860; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:131. Zola derided Chaillan’s abilities as a painter in a letter to Baille of 14 May 1860; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:165 (and 174). Chaillan and his technique are also caricatured in L’oeuvre in a description of the work of the painter Chaîne; see Zola 1886, 79–81, and Niess 1968, 33–34. Cézanne, however, was himself accused of “Un amour trop exclusif de jaune” by the critic of La rappel in 1874; see Rewald 1939, 209, and Berson 1996, 1:35. See also n. 81.

20

//

marius roux

My name is Bruno, Bruno the poisoner. I prepare the meals; but leave the wines to my sister. [26] Philippe was finding his feet in this world of practical jokes inhabited by the future members of the Institute, while wondering what the point of all of it could be, and whether it was the famous distich that had won Lespignac the nickname Shakespeare. The young man, fresh from his education in Aigues-les-Tours, did not perhaps have as yet the key to all the secrets of the art that he was coming to study in Paris; but he brought with him a great willingness to learn and a host of reasonable, considered views. Above all he had in mind his teachers’ advice to “Visit the Louvre, and see what the old masters produced; visit the Musée du Luxembourg and see what today’s masters are doing. Try to find your own path quickly so that you can work, and work without respite. Don’t imitate those painters you come across in the brasseries; they’re fine orators who talk a great deal about their pictures and never paint them.” His brother was beginning to come across to him as one of those “storytellers of paintings,” for he could hear him holding forth about the Louvre, and especially about the Musée de Luxembourg, and offering opinions that went against the grain of everything he was able to have gathered already from the two museums.45

45 // On Germain’s (and his colleagues’) glib theorizing, see also La proie et l’ombre, 21, 23, and 42. Cézanne too could expand on art and theory on occasions. Valabrègue, for instance, writes to Zola in the winter of 1865: “Paul . . . a changé . . . car il parle, lui qui semblait votre nègre muet. Il expose des théories, il développe des doctrines.” Cited in Rewald 1939, 103. In L’oeuvre, Zola also describes how, one day, Claude Lantier “avait eu une crise furieuse de travail, inabordable pour tous, d’une violence de théories telle que ses amis eux-mêmes n’osaient le contrarier.” See Zola 1886, 115–16. 46 // Godet’s model, Solari submitted regularly to the Salon, with some success. According to the Salon catalogues, Solari exhibited a plaster statue, Bacchante (no. 2476) in 1867, a plaster statue, Baigneuse, and a plaster medallion, Portrait de Monsieur * (nos. 3719 and 3720) in 1869, a plaster statue entitled Le message, and a bust in terra cotta, Portrait de Monsieur H. (nos. 4860 and 4861) in 1870, a plaster bust of Zola under the rubric Portrait de Monsieur Z., and and a plaster bust, Portrait de Monsieur L. Lehmann (nos. 1883 and 1883) in 1873; a plaster bust, Portrait de Monsieur L (no. 3247) in 1874; and a plaster medallion entitled Portrait de Monsieur B. (no. 3398) in 1875. 47 // Jean-Léon Gérôme studied under Paul Delaroche and Charles Gleyre at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and in 1847 enjoyed a major succes at

the Salon with his “néo-grec” painting Le combat des coqs. Gérôme also painted Oriental subjects. And his work was widely reproduced by the photgrapher Goupil, whose daughter he married in 1853. Gérôme was eventually appointed a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1863 and was elected to the Institut the following year. On Gérôme, see Mainardi 1987, 169–72. 48 // The insistence of Germain and his colleagues on painting, and seeing, in “taches” after the fashion of Manet recalls remarks of Zola’s about Manet in Mon salon, and a widespread interest in seeing and painting “taches” of color among the Impressionists themselves. Zola had pointed out how Manet “s’est . . . mis courageusement en face d’un sujet, il a vu ce sujet par larges taches, par oppositions vigoureuses, et il a peint chaque chose telle qu’il la voyait.” He also argued: “Tout son être le porte à voir par taches, par morceaux simples et énergiques.” See Zola 1866b, 44 and 46. Gasquet 1926, 136, records that late in life Cézanne told Gasquet: “Je vois. Par taches.” And according to Bernard 1904, 23, Cézanne stated: “Lire la nature, c’est la voir sous le voile de l’interprétation par taches colorées se succédant selon une loi d’harmonie.” The earliest indication of an aesthetic of color-patch vision in Cézanne’s circle is the letter of September 1865 in which his close colleague, Guillemet, advises their mutual friend, the artist Franciso Oller: “Vois par tâches; le métier n’est rien,

The Substance and the Shadow //

21

His brother’s friend Damasquère-Velázquez was making some astounding statements, and all the other future members of the Institute were speaking with a marked lack of respect about those who were so out of line as to hold the positions that ought to be theirs. Art was dressed in various ways that seemed to him to be on a par with the gravy in which old Bruno served veal or mutton. “—The Institute!—oh, come on!” shrieked old Godet, who paid no heed to his hoary locks, [27] “the Institute!—it’s just a load of jiggery-pokery by old windbags—there isn’t a real sculptor among them.”46 “They’re cretins!” added Damasquère. “You can’t teach art!” screeched a third. And the discussion grew so rowdy and heated that only a few snatches of the sentences could be made out: “Art, a gift—Gérôme,47 a tobaccochewer—Paint in stains,48 like Manet—The wonderful Cabanel,49 a ladies’ hairdresser—Meissonier,50 a fly taxidermist—Can’t tell his ass from his elbow!—” The “ass from his elbow” theme was what came up most often in this heated outburst. It was old Godet, this misunderstood old man, who was branding all successful artists as people who couldn’t tell their ass from their elbow. No one could hear themselves speak, when Mother Calypso ran up and demanded silence with a brisk “sssh!” She told Germain that his guests had arrived. Everyone fell silent; Monsieur and Madame Mazouillet appeared. He was a man of about thirty, thin, quite tall, with a pale face, prominent cheekbones and bluey-green eyes behind glasses delicately framed in gold; he was dressed all in black, in fine linen. She was a woman of about twenty-five or pâte et justesse: telle être le but à poursuivre [sic].” See Ponce Art Museum 1983, 226, and Pissarro 2005, 35 (and 37 for another letter by Guillemet mentioning “taches”). Later in Roux’s novel, Lespignac is said to paint in “des taches de couleurs crues” (see La proie et l’ombre, 40). Caroline also accuses Germain of falling victim to his colleagues’ aspiration to “faire la tache” (see La proie et l’ombre, 72). The Impressionists,’ and particularly Monet’s, theories of color-patch vision, and their relation to the ideas of Taine, are discussed in Stuckey 1984. See Smith 1996, 48–51, for a discussion of Cézanne’s interest in Taine’s ideas about color-patch vision in the 1870s. The critic Emile Cardon singled out the use of “taches” among the Impressionists in his review of their first exhibtion; see Berson 1996, 1:13, and Pissarro 2005, 56. John Ruskin, who held the same broadly Empiricist theory of perception as a twostage process (in which an initial sensation is shaped by knowledge) as Hippolyte Taine, uses the word “stains” to describe the “childish perception” that marks “the innocence of the eye.”

49 // Alexandre Cabanel exhibited at the Salon from 1843, and in 1845 won second place in the Prix de Rome competition. He was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1855, and in 1863 was elected to the Institut, following the succes of his Naissance de Vénus at the Salon that year, a painting that sets off the body of its voluptuous model against long, flowing tresses of red hair. Cabanel also painted several female portraits that might have prompted the Bruno painter’s remarks. On Cabanel, see Mainardi 1987, 56–57. 50 // Ernst Meissonier developed a very minute style, having trained as a wood-engraver. He specialized in military, and particularly Napoleonic, subjects, and enjoyed wide popularity with collectors. He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1861, and was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1889. On Meissonier, see Mainardi 1987, 172–74.

22

//

marius roux

twenty-six who was thickset and dressed in figure-hugging clothes; she had a round face that was pretty, very pretty, if slightly doll-like; she had the hat, the gloves, the outfit of a true Parisian. “One! Two! Three!—” shouted Shakespeare. The whole lot of them made a racket as they banged their knives and forks on the glasses and plates and remembered to shout as well: “Ran—plan— ran, plan, plan.” [28] Monsieur Mazouillet, who had turned puce and seemed most put out, did not respond to Germain’s invitation and looked as if he might make for the door again. Madame Mazouillet pushed him down onto his chair and held him there as she whispered into his ear: “Just leave it!—we should try and see everything.”51 The battery of knives and forks had stopped, and conversations started up again in low voices. Madame Mazouillet was, in turn, rather put out when she saw that the Rambert brothers were with a woman. She gave Caro a long, hard stare; then she pursed her lips and turned back to her husband’s side. He understood what was behind her quizzical glance and pointed out to his wife in a quick aside: “That’s too bad—we should try and see everything.” The company gathered there thought that they could tell from the way in which Madame Mazouillet had looked at Caro and Germain that there must have been an affair between this lady and the painter.52 This observation earned the poor woman the highest esteem of all these gentlemen, who didn’t dare to treat her as someone who had just arrived from the provinces. A single word, spoken quite loudly by the attorney Mazouillet, was enough to fire the general conversation, and the high priests of art were the best friends of this bourgeois gentleman who thought the same way as they did on everything. “Yet—,” Madame Mazouillet would venture from time to time, “we saw some Raphaels in the Louvre!” “Yes, madam, some Raphaels—but Sanzio belonged to his time and not to ours.”53 “Like the divine Racine—,” observed Shakespeare. 51 // This phrase is repeated several times by the Mazouillets, indicating their compulsion to consume Paris as spectacle. 52 // The affair was more properly a flirtation, or infatuation, that took place when both were young and living in Aigues: see La proie et l’ombre, 60 and 103. The affair between Germain and Ernestine Mazouillet that develops as the novel progresses perhaps alludes to the relationship that some believe took place between Monet and Alice Hoschedé (like Monsieur Mazouillet, a supporter of the Impressionists) beginning around 1876; see Adhémar

1984, 62. For a more skeptical view (and bibliography of the Monet–Alice Hoschedé “affair’), see Tucker 228 n. 34. Moreover, if Roux did complete La proie et l’ombre in August 1876, the allusion would seem to be a coincidence. 53 // Like Germain, the other Bruno painter’s insistence on contemporaneity matches the aesthetic of modern life associated with Baudelaire’s “Peintre de la vie moderne,” and Manet, who (like Daumier) famously insisted: “Il faut être de son temps,” and that the painter should “faire ce que l’on voit.” See Proust 1913, 7.

The Substance and the Shadow //

23

[29] “I see what you mean,” replied the attorney. “You can see what I’m getting at, can’t you? That the imitators of these fellows are nothing more than puppets, imitators, with no personality of their own. What you need in art is the personal touch.” “Like me!” said old Godet; “and me!” added Velázquez; “and me!” shouted all these fine sages. “Me!—Me!” All you could hear was this “me!” in the middle of all the sentences thrown together into the conversation and where, quite probably, each of them had to assert his talent and genius by ranking his work above that of the artists who imitated Raphael and the other old masters, who were past it. Philippe was beginning to grow impatient in the middle of this frenetic discussion about art that laid forth a jumble of mindless theories. Occasionally a reasonable idea emerged from this chaos; but, to be frank, these ideas were all the more banal for being reasonable, and the young man told himself that there was no point in shouting so loudly to uphold truths that were worthy of Monsieur de la Palisse.54 He stopped listening, and took refuge in a quiet conversation with Madame Mazouillet. While the worthy Monsieur Mazouillet was, for his part, holding his own with Shakespeare, with Velázquez, and with the others, Madame, was gleaning information about this “person” who was on familiar terms with Germain. The room had emptied little by little. The time came when the Ramberts and the Mazouillets found themselves alone with each other. There was a moment’s hesitation. Madame Mazouillet and Caro, who hadn’t spoken a word to each other, were looking out of the corner of their eyes at each other, [30] and seemed embarrassed. Monsieur Mazouillet was worried about putting his wife in a compromising position. Philippe, who was watching over his family, seized the situation by the horns and, since Madame Mazouillet was complaining of a migraine, said: “I must get back to my hotel. Allow me to offer you my arm. Germain, dear chap, goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow.” As he was about to go through the door, his eyes rested affectionately on both Germain and Caro, and he added: “Good evening, my friends.” Then, while Germain stopped to settle up the bill at the counter, he dragged away the attorney and his wife. Once they had made their escape, Monsieur and Madame Mazouillet let rip about the trouble they had been put to. Both of them went on endlessly. They didn’t use long sentences to vent their complaints; but he emitted some

54 // By this period Monsieur de la Palisse was a proverbial figure for someone who stated the obvious. The “original” Monsieur de la Palisse was a

captain who died in 1525 fighting for François 1er, of whom a comic song recorded: “Un quart d’heure avant sa mort / Il était encore en vie!”

24

//

marius roux

“well reallys!” and she some “come comes!” that were loaded with meaning. He admitted that he had been excessively obliging toward these maniacs; and she declared that she had really tried her best by staying at the table in the company of one of those “creatures.” Philippe defended his brother. “What would be seen as scandalous in our small town passes unnoticed in Paris,” he said. “I can’t count the number of false marriages here! The important thing is that such a situation can resolve itself honorably. That’s Germain’s case; for, I can assure you that that person is from a good family and conducts herself quite properly.” He didn’t think that he had spoken very well. And so the following day, once he had furthered [31] his acquaintance with Caro, Philippe ventured to take his brother aside. He broached the subject by saying: “You know—the Mazouillets said—if our father knew55—“And he stopped, inviting his brother to regularize his position. “Get married! Me!” shrieked Germain; “but, what are you thinking of, my dear fellow?” “Who’s stopping you?” “Well really! Come now—what about art?”

iii This idea of marriage, so serious at bottom, so absolutely logical, since it sprang from a solemn promise that was begun by Caro’s romantic novel, didn’t seem to disturb for long either the one who had made it or the one to whom it was made. Germain had just buckled down to his new tasks; he spent his mornings under the bridges, making sketches, and his afternoons in the studio, making studies from the sketches. Caro followed the theme of his painting, kept him company in the studio, concerned, at least in appearance, to see the artist succeed with his new painting. Philippe showed himself only at rare intervals, much occupied during the day with the paintings he entered at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he hoped to be admitted; he was even very seldom at Bruno’s in the evenings, where he felt distinctly ill at ease. Monsieur and Madame Mazouillet, busy with “seeing everything” in this immense Paris, used their last two weeks of holiday running around [33] in a frenzy. To tell [32]

55 // Germain’s strained relationship with his father is described in chapters ix, xiv, xx, and xxii. On Cézanne’s difficult relationship with his own father,

see Rewald 1939, passim, and Rewald 1972. For a psychoanalytic interpretation of the relationship, see Reff 1963.

The Substance and the Shadow //

25

the truth, Monsieur Mazouillet had no need to worry about Caro, and it mattered little to him if his friend Rambert lived with a mistress or a lawful wife. As for Madame Mazouillet, she had only mentioned that the situation had to be regularized to defend her offended sense of propriety, to reproach, in some way, Monsieur Rambert’s devil-may-care attitude, which had put her into a more than delicate position. But if these two friends lost interest in the question, and if Germain forgot his first resolutions and didn’t think to look more closely about him, quite taken up as he was with his new painting, Caro, despite her apparent indifference, certainly remembered it; and Philippe, despite his forced labors, did not forget it either. Philippe had spoken only idly about regularizing the situation, when he answered the Mazouillet family’s comments, the evening of the unfortunate meeting. He would have lost interest in the matter if, soon, he had not learned the whole truth. From the beginning, he had felt for his brother’s mistress a respectful sympathy. Fresh down from his province, he came to Paris with his obligatory load of false notions. The “Modern Babylon” appeared to him,56 as it appeared to the eyes of other ignorant men down from their little hole in the country: a hell, when he was thinking seriously; a paradise, when he was given over to his mad dreams. He arrived, and the first person presented to him was a young woman; an angel, perhaps?—the exquisite charm of her person seemed to say so;—a demon, rather!—his brother’s contempt for propriety cried out to him that [34] this woman he was so close to admiring was nothing but a strumpet.—But the flirt did not really match the portrait that he had painted of her; and during the journey from the Gare de Lyon to the rue de Sèvres, he remained in a trance before this young and beautiful woman, with an air so sweet, with a demeanor so tranquil. She truly interested him. And it was this interest, this secret sympathy, that had led him to accept the rendezvous at Bruno’s, where they were to meet Monsieur and Madame Mazouillet. Caro didn’t seem to him as if she would offend the prejudices of these provincial types. And it was again this secret sympathy that allowed him to answer, a little at random, it is true, but with a convincing voice, when the attorney and his wife revolted against the effrontery of his brother Germain. Philippe lost not a moment in finding the right moment for trying to get her to explain. This moment came from her; for women have a particular flair for knowing who loves them and who likes them. After these first confidences, Philippe and Caro never again met without broaching the dangerous question. They didn’t always have time for a long conversation; they were more often than not bothered by the presence of Germain; but, at these awkward moments, their way of exchanging a look, 56 // This phrase, from Revelation 17:5, had been used to describe Paris from at least the 1840s, as in, for example, Alexandre Dumas’s novels Georges

(1843) and Le comte de Monte Christo (1845). See also Menant 2002.

26

//

marius roux

of shaking hands, said just as much as the longest speeches. In their “hello— goodbye—” these two words: “dear friend—dear friend”—took on a tone that translated all their warmest thoughts. Germain mistook this tone, which he noticed [35] without being very surprised. This discovery would not have moved him—nothing being able to move him outside of his painting—if, almost at the same time, he had not noticed that his “views of Paris” were not fulfilling the end he had wished to achieve. Grand painting, the sublime art, was not there. He did not dare, he could not, admit to himself his impotence to produce the paintings he had envisaged;57 he sought the judgment of his friends; of Damasquère, who assured him that the street stuck out like a gray thumb; of Lespignac, who found the Seine too lifeless. Damasquère himself was now only painting great lords and great ladies from the time of the Medici, “people sparkling with gold and silk and velvet; and the hair!—twisted locks, strewn with pearls and precious stones; real hairdos, don’t you know, that enhanced the face—oh! they were so special, these Medici, such damned good artists!” Germain had had the same thought. And now here was this other fellow blowing his secret, and perhaps going to steal his success. Even Lespignac, who was able to overturn all Paris before him; for he had a great idea, this devil of a Lespignac. The poet had just confided to him the subject of his great poem: “The Sea of Blood—” Progress, unstoppable Progress, was shaking the whole world.58 The Old World and the World to Come squaring up to each other. It was a war to the utter destruction, a general massacre; and the Ocean, the infinity of waters, ran red. Damn clever, Lespignac! Damn clever, Damasquère!59 [36] “And would he let himself share in their fame?—Very well, then! He only had to want to; and he’d beat Damasquère. He had had a better idea! The Medici were fine to paint, certainly; but these models from the past 57 // Rewald cites notes for L’oeuvre describing Lantier’s despair over his “impuissance” as a painter; see Rewald 1939, 124, and Rewald 1936, 59, which refers to “feuillets 221 and 224,” and Zola 1886, passim. Here Claude also experiences “une semaine d’impuissance et de doute.” And on the last page of L’oeuvre, Bongrand declares of Claude: “Il a avoué son impuissance et il s’est tué.” See Zola 1886, 116 and 491. 58 // Lespignac later lowers his aspirations finally to publishing only Les Gouttes de sang—but he remains unable even to complete this work. In this respect he resembles Astruc, who never fulfilled his plans to publish his poetry in a collection during his lifetime; see Flescher 1978, 10, 29–30, 198, and 508. The Aixois friend of Cézanne’s, Antony Valabrègue, was also something of failed poet, finally published his Petits poèmes parisiens in 1880, a work whose modest

achievement was anticipated for some time by the Parisian Aixois. Alexis wrote to Zola in June 1875 to tell him he did not want to end up like as “un Valabrègue, un Cézanne”; cited in Bakker 1971, 78. Zola writes, in the notes for L’oeuvre: “L’impuissance radicale . . . un cerveau qui rétrécit . . . du grand au petit, qui finit dans l’infiniment petit. Prendre tout mon Valabrègue pour le transposer”; cited in Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:474 n. 3. Zola also casts aspersions on Valabrègue’s laziness as an artist in a letter of June 1871, although he had advertised Valabrègue’s plans for a volume proclaiming “les joies et les souffrances du peuple” in 1869; see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:289 n. 7 and 157 n. 1. However, that the finale of Lespignac’s poem of “L’art moderne, la vie matérielle” is set in Les Halles may indicate some connection to Zola’s Le ventre de Paris (Paris: Charpentier, 1873). The fullest biography of Valabrègue is Boyé 1952–53. (Valabrègue may have

The Substance and the Shadow //

27

could no longer interest the modern world. Gold, silk, velvet? oh, the devil! there are women nowadays who barely stint themselves of it; not to mention the fabric-makers who make some damned fine draperies and furnishings. He would do the portrait of a duchess, garbed in silk and lace, seated on a couch of dark red velvet with yellow studs; he would put a red fan in her hand; as well, he might cut off one corner of the painting with a velour curtain with golden gossamer;—Gold, silk, velvet? huh! there was no need to dig up a Medici. He was doing a modern painting, a living figure.” Quick, down to work. “Caro, my dear, go down and run over to Martin’s.60 You’ll take the tubes marked on this note, and you’ll tell them to send me immediately a size onetwenty canvas.”61 done some painting alongside Cézanne in the 1860s, as he appears in Rewald et al. 1996, no. 99, Marion et Valbrègue partant pour le motif, of 1866, although not apparently carrying any painting equipment.) 59 // “Très-fort, Lespignac. Très-fort, Damasquère!” The phrase, “très fort,” which is also used in La proie et l’ombre, 41, 99, 123, 146, and 157, relates to Germain’s, and Cézanne’s, aesthetic of “force”; see nn. 127 and 145. Toward the end of his life, Cézanne described Achille Emperaire as “très fort,” and a little like Frenhofer, according to Gasquet 1926, 39; and in “Le peintre Marsabiel,” the character based on Emperaire tells the narrator about Marsabiel: “‘C’est un drôle d’homme, mais crânement fort.’” See Duranty 1867. 60 // Martin is the only character in La proie et l’ombre to appear under his own name, and clearly represents the color-merchant and small-scale dealer Pierre-Firmin Martin, known as “Le Père Martin,” who had a shop at 52 rue Lafitte. Gachet fils mentions Martin’s contact with Cézanne, recollecting that his father acquired “impressionniste” paintings—by “Pissarro, Cézanne et Guillaumin”—from Martin, shortly after he made the painters’ acquaintance; see Gachet 1956, 78. Rewald describes Martin as one of the few dealers interested in Cézanne in the 1860s, for whose work he charged around 50 francs in 1868; see Rewald 1973, 214. It certainly seems probable that Cézanne was already dealing with Martin in the 1860s, as Pissarro’s letters show that he began dealing with Martin in 1868; see BaillyHerzberg 1980, 61. Working from notes supplied by Guillemet on art dealers, Zola based the eccentric, art-loving, and unexploitative dealer in L’oeuvre, “le père Malgras,” who buys a painting from Claude Lantier for a lobster, largely on Martin; see Niess 1968, 15, and 50–51, and Zola 1886, 60–63 (see also 82, 107, 167, 187, 194, 202, 243, 278, and 480). Cf. Zola 1886, 45: “Claude . . . commençait à vendre de petites toiles achetées des dix et douze francs par le père Malgras, un marchand rusé.” The fullest biography of Martin is

by Arsène Alexandre, who recounts in the preface to the sale catalogue of the collection of Count Armand Doria: “Le père Martin, marchand comme il ne s’en fait plus, et qui paraîtrait aujourd’hui tiré d’une conte d’Hoffmann, a tenu ferveur l’étrier à tous les maîtres qui feront la gloire de notre école de peinture dans la seconde partie du siècle; dès qu’un de ces maîtres commençait à bien vendre ses tableaux, il cessait, non pas de l’admirer, mais de le suivre, mettant autant d’acharnement à ne pas récolter qu’il en mettait à semer. Cet humble ami du Comte Doria conserva envers lui le ton du respect le plus profond . . . le père Martin était radical et libre-penseur à tous crins.” See Alexandre 1899, 19–20. Doria was the first person, apart from the artist’s friends, to own a Cézanne, having bought La maison du pendu (Rewald et al. 1996, no. 202) from the first Impressionist exhibition; but it is not unthinkable that Martin may have had some part in this purchase, especially as no commission for the sale went to the Société Anonyme; see Rewald et al. 1996, 2:152, and Rewald 1973, 334. On Martin, see also Vollard 1938, 177–78. Pissarro’s dealings with Martin are recorded in Tabarant 1925, 20, which also dates their initial contact to 1868. Pissarro’s letters show that Martin bought his paintings for modest sums and sold them for modest profits; see Pissarro’s letter to Duret of 5 June 1871 in Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 64 and 65 n. 4, citing Theodore Duret, “Quelque lettres de Manet et de Sisley,” La Revue Blanche 18, 15 March 1899. Duret also mentions Martin in a letter of 2 June 1874 to Francisco Oller; see Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 94 n. 2. On Pissarro and Martin, see also Pissarro’s letters of 26 December 1873 and 5 May 1874, in Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 88–89 and 93–94 (cf. Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 130 n. 4). Pissarro mentions the deceased Martin, who died on 1 October 1891 at the age of seventy-four, in a letter of November 1891; see Bailly-Herzberg 1988, 143 and 144 n. 1. 61 // A size one-twenty canvas was the largest of the standard-size canvasses available at the time: approximately six by four feet; see Callen 2000, 18–19. Zola wrote to Numa Coste on 26 July 1866 to

28

//

marius roux

Caro was getting ready to go out when Philippe turned up. They met just at the studio door, and exchanged a cordial good-day. It was at this moment that Germain noticed the singular intonation of their voices; he saw in the light of their eyes, in the shaking of their hands, all that his depraved imagination told him to see. Germain was giving some positive thought to getting rid [37] of Caro; so, far from being jealous of his brother, he greeted him like a savior. He hid his thoughts, however, and wanted to be a superior sort of man by approaching the question from the other direction. “Don’t trust women,” he said. “Don’t trust them!—Why not?” “Don’t follow my example—or rather, imitate the example I shall give you tomorrow.” “Tomorrow?—what are you going to do tomorrow?” “Tomorrow—or the day after—because it’s hard, all the same. Ah! if some good loving soul could take Caro off my hands—” Germain trusted he had sown the seed, which would grow and flourish in his brother’s heart. Philippe didn’t answer. He stood there aghast. Then, by way of explanation, Germain added: “From tomorrow, I’m dropping these views of Paris. I’ve had an idea—an astounding idea, OK!—I could have make Caro pose for it; but she is a blonde, and I need a brunette; but she has only a black silk dress, and I need a toilette of unthinkable opulence. So, I’m going to have Sarah pose, the model that’s in fashion on the other side of the water; the side of the decorated painters. There will be costs—and, you know, I can’t sacrifice all my future to a whim.” “My friend, you are going mad.” “Not at all!—I know what I’m saying. And then, you see, where is it taking me, this life of domestic intimacy?—It’s been a while. I shall have to get myself in order—I shan’t even have enough of my allowance, and I shall just have to borrow; because I’m moving out of here to take a suitable studio. You should understand, just [38] from hearing me speak of the opulent toilette of the model Sarah. What a depiction it will be!—that’s all I’m saying—I shall show the piece at the next Salon—What a bombshell!—I shall glorify Sarah with the name of a duchess: madame la duchesse de Three-Stars.62 Yes, there will be a cartouche on the crimson velour curtain with golden gossamer—It is impossible that, among all the real duchesses, you couldn’t find at least a dozen who dream of having their portraits painted by the celinform him that Cézanne was working on “de grandes oeuvres, des toiles de quatre à cinq mètres”; see Rewald 1936, 127, Rewald 1978, 119, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:453.

62 // Salon catalogues often used only the initial letter of the surname followed by three stars when giving the titles of portraits.

The Substance and the Shadow //

29

ebrated Germanicus Rambërr—Even if we say there’s only three—two, if you want—all right, then, one! Very well! just one—that’s ten thousand in the bank, and the glory would be worth a hundred thousand. But I still need another setup, a less bohemian interior, and less seedy company—you see, old fellow, Caro is holding me back.” Philippe stayed silent; he found nothing to say, he was so flabbergasted. And no doubt Germain was going further to expatiate on his plan when Caro appeared, out of breath, red-faced. “Back already!” said Germain. “I’m not back from Martin’s. I only got as far as the concierge’s lodge. A police officer brought this card—I came back up the stairs four at a time.” “A police officer?—a card?—” “Monsieur Mazouillet’s card. He is at the police station on the place Saint-Sulpice and needs to be called for.” “At the police station?—Mazouillet?—This is some joke.” “And his wife?” said Philippe in his turn, with a serious, troubled air. [39] “She has fainted. They took her into a pharmacy on the rue de Rennes.” While she was speaking, Caro had slipped on a jacket and was adjusting her hat. “Go to the police station,” she said; “go on, both of you, fetch your friend; I’m going to the pharmacy. I’ll take Madame Lessandre, who can help Madame Mazouillet back to her hotel.” All three ran to the stairs, carrying on the conversation. “What has happened then?” said Germain and Philippe. “Oh, nothing!—just nonsense. They’ll tell you that at the police station. I didn’t understand any of it;—I was stunned, when the police officer spoke to me.”

iv In their mania to see everything, the Mazouillets had embarked on an adventure. The previous day in the Louvre they had come across Damasquère, who was making a copy of the Mona Lisa. The painter, whose vanity was tickled at being seen, had greeted them first; then, immediately, had put himself at the visitors’ disposal to show them the marvels of the museum. But Madame Mazouillet, who was very weary, had declined this obliging offer. “My head’s spinning from seeing so many paintings,” she said. “They ought to exhibit fewer at any one time.” [40]

30

//

marius roux

She had dropped onto a neighboring bench while Mazouillet stopped next to Damasquère, whose work interested him. The attorney watched the painter narrow his eyes, his brush clenched between his lips; and he also narrowed his eyes. He observed him as he mixed together colors on his palette, and curiously followed the brushstrokes on the canvas. [41] “It doesn’t seem like anything—” he murmured; “and yet—” The painter puffed himself up and didn’t deign to reply. “What a delectable person this Mona Lisa was,” Mazouillet was saying, having read her name in his Tourist Guide.63 But the ravishing Mona—this exquisite woman who does more than draw everyone’s gaze upon her since she provokes confidences, and once you are in her presence you have to speak with her—the ravishing Mona said nothing to Damasquère, who was improvising as he copied; likewise she said nothing to the attorney’s wife, who, having come back to her husband’s side, also stopped to look over the painter’s work and ended up declaring that she found the copy “much prettier than the original.” “Much prettier” was not a very artistic compliment; “but this little woman from the provinces didn’t have the vocabulary of those who had been initiated into great art.” That’s what the vain Damasquère told himself, as he drank down the compliment as if it were a cup of milk. They became good friends, and the painter was already planning “to do a portrait of these good people,” when Monsieur Mazouillet offered himself up as material of his own accord. “I would have been interested,” he was saying, “to see a studio.” “Oh, yes—” added his wife, who must have been imagining something insane. Unfortunately Damasquère didn’t have a studio. He lived in a shabby attic on the rue Taranne,64 [42] where he had never tried to work, for want of space and daylight. He only painted at the Louvre and at old Simon’s.65 This was hardly the occasion to admit to his attic; and it was difficult for him to introduce philistines to old Simon’s. However, he reflected upon the fact that the session there only began at midday. “Are you free at ten in the morning?” he said. “If we have to be!—” answered Madame Mazouillet. “We’ve come here to see everything,” the attorney added hastily, “and we won’t waste any opportunity through our own fault. 63 // This point makes more sense in the French, where the name of the painting is “La Joconde,” so that Mazouillet would not automatically have known the name of the Mona Lisa. (Translators’ note.) The “Guide de l’étranger” that Roux mentions was perhaps the Guide de l’étranger à Paris, which appeared from the midcentury, although other works incorporate this phrase in their title.

64 // Carolus-Duran is not known to have lived in the rue Taranne (now replaced by the boulevard Saint-Germain); but he did live in other streets nearby in the 6th arrondissement, including the rue Jacob (in 1859), the rue des Saintes-Pères (in 1861), the rue Childebert (in 1866, now defunct), and the rue NotreDame des Champs (in 1870). See Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 202–3.

The Substance and the Shadow //

31

“Right, then, come to ‘my’ studio tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, no sooner, no later. Here’s the address of the studio written down. It’s in the rue de Rennes, right at the top, where you turn into it, next to Saint-Germaindes Prés.66 The free Academy in the rue des Rennes was one of the strangest of its kind in Paris. It consisted of a huge room where young people, who wouldn’t have had the necessary money to pay for a model, came along for a modest fee each month to study the models put at their disposal by old Simon. The decoration of the room showed the effects of its owner’s sharp practice and of its regulars’ slovenliness. The room, which was lit from above like all studios, had stools and easels scattered throughout; it was like a field covered with poles. All around, on three walls, as high as your hand, were large, deep cubby holes where the pupils left their canvasses, paint boxes, and all their small accessories. Up against the wall at the end [43] there was a platform for the model around which were left scattered about bits of cloth in all colors; reds, yellows, blues, violets—enough to make up twenty different settings. At the very top of the walls, on the cubbyholes as well as on the platform, were unframed canvasses; there were two landscape paintings, seven portraits, and about fifty paintings from the academy; “keepsakes from old Simon.” Some of these, now already old, bore illustrious signatures. There were also plaster casts, some placed on top of the cubbyholes, others hanging on the wall, somewhat haphazardly: Galba’s head under the arm of Mounmont,67 the strongest of strong men; a marvelous arm that had been molded in the studio; Houdon’s Ecorché,68 next to the torso of Mélanie, a modestly priced model. 65 // The “académie libre de Père Simon” described by Roux is modeled closely on the independent drawing studio, the Académie Suisse—so called because it was run by a certain Suisse, a former model—where several of the future Impressionists worked, including Cézanne, Guillaumin, Guillemet, and Pissarro. Cézanne first attended the Académie Suisse in 1860; see Zola’s letter to Baille of 26 April 1860, in Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:151 (cf. 152, 178, 272, and 293). See also Ratcliffe 1960, 66, for Pissarro’s recollections (in a letter of 4 December 1895) of Cézanne at the Académie Suisse in 1861. See also Zola’s letter of 10 June 1861 to Baille, in Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:293. Solari also worked at the Académie Suisse; see Baille 1981, 90. So too did Achille Emperaire; see Gasquet 1926, 38, and Baille 1981, 82–86 (which also mention his presence at the Ecole Municipale de Dessin in Aix with Cézanne and Solari). Cézanne’s eccentricity at the Académie Suisse was noted by Monet and Pissarro, who worked there as well; see Rewald 1973, 62. On the Académie Suisse, see Mack 105; and Rewald 1973, 49, 61, 116, and 139, Rewald 1939, 58, 73, and 76, Tabarant 1925, 14, and Pissarro 2005, 17. Zola later alluded to the Académie Suisse in L’oeuvre; see Zola 1886, 47 (and 61, 138, 186, 189, and 204).

66 // While Simon’s “académie” is located just south of the church of Saint-Germain-des-Près, the Académie Suisse was located on the Quai des Ofrèvres (part of the 1st arrondissement) on the south bank of the Île de la Cité between the Pont Neuf and the Pont Saint-Michel, that is, opposite the northern limit of the 6th arrondissement. 67 // Servius Sulpicius Galba was emperor of Rome for a brief period between A.D. 68 and his death in A.D. 69. His life is commemorated by Plutarch (and others), and there is a Roman bust of Galba in the Louvre. 68 // This refers to Houdon’s marble statue of a flayed man, completed in 1767, which was widely reproduced in casts for training student artists in anatomy.

32

//

marius roux

By inviting the Mazouillets to come to the studio at ten o’clock, Damasquère was hoping to use the time to broach the question of portraits. “He would settle it with old Simon, who wouldn’t ask for anything better.” While he was away, as bad luck would have it, the regulars of the house had taken over the room. They were supposed to be taking in a new boy; and they had arranged to meet at ten o’clock, so as not to waste the hour with the model. When the Mazouillets appeared, Damasquère received them in front of the door leading onto the street, and he had no choice but to admit that he wasn’t at his own home. “That doesn’t matter,” said Madame Mazouillet; “it must be even more intriguing, a free academy!” “Most intriguing, yes, madam,” said the painter, pursing his lips; “it’s just that—the workmates are awkward. Listen, at the moment [44] they’re taking in a new fellow. This young fool has refused to pay for the punch at the welcoming party; so—” “Well?” “Damn it! They’re in the middle of stripping him.” “What for?” “To punish him. He’ll be tied to the torture chair; a historic chair, sir— historic, madam—on which can be traced the terrible sentences visited upon youngsters, some of whom became masters.” “If that’s all it is,” hazarded Mazouillet. “Just hang on. Once he’s as naked as a worm and firmly bound, his body will be tattooed in Prussian blue, which is a notoriously difficult color to get out. They’re going to do his head.” “His face?” “His whole head. They’ll stick down his hair with starch. They’ll leave it to dry; then they’ll add mordant, and they’ll gild it following the normal practice.” “Good grief!” “When the patient has been sufficiently prepared, they’ll take him for a turn around the neighborhood. As for the finale—Oh, hang onyou’re going to be there for the finale. I can hear my workmates pelting downstairs.” Alas! The Mazouillets were only too present at the finale. The gang burst out onto the street laughing and singing, while the torture victim—a chap from the Auvergne, who had preferred being bullied to buying punch—by this time demented with rage, was clenching his teeth and shouting: “I’ll make you pa-a-ay. You blackguaaaards!—you’ll pa-a-ay!” 69 // Meilhac’s and Halévy’s farce La cigale, which was first performed in October 1877, opens with a version of this song, consisting of the first four lines (with some minor changes) in a different order. It

is sung by the painter Michu, an Impressionist who works “à Barbizon, dans la forêt de Fontainebleau.” See Meilhac and Halévy 1877, 1.

The Substance and the Shadow //

33

[45] These shouts added a dramatic touch to the song the gang was singing as they marched along, singing over and over again to the tune of the De Profundis:

Watercolors Are not too tricky, But oil paintings Are far more pretty Oil paintings Are really tricky But much more pretty Than watercolors. Watercolors Are not too tricky—69 And so on and so forth, right up to the minute when they all took to their heels on hearing this warning from a scout: “There are the boys in blue!” Damasquère had taken to his heels like the others; and the Mazouillets remained on their own; they were still on the corner of the rue de Rennes; the victim was right in the middle of the crossroads, in front of the church of Saint Germain-des-Prés, sitting on his gaudily attired chair, his arms and legs tied up, his body blue, his head golden, in the solemn, awkward pose of an Egyptian god. As Madame Mazouillet was turning away so as not to see this naked young man, Monsieur Mazouillet was running over to him to set him free. Two guardians of the peace were arriving at the same moment; and rather than hear himself being thanked, the valiant attorney was subjected to the patient’s fury as he began to shout: “Arrest him—he was with them!” In fact there was among the pupils a tall [46] blond man who wore glasses. The tortured man, whose vision was blurred, was making a mistake in all good faith. The policemen threw a cape over the naked man’s shoulders and got ready to take him to the station. They asked Monsieur Mazouillet to follow them. He wanted to object; but a firm hand collared him and a voice said to him: “Walk, and don’t you try any funny tricks!” His wife hadn’t had time to intervene. She stood rooted to the spot, overcome by emotion. When she saw the guardians leading her husband away, the poor creature lost consciousness. And that is how the Mazouillets found themselves that morning caught up in a ridiculous and unpleasant adventure.

34

//

marius roux

v Germain and Philippe had run to the police station; Caro, followed by Madame Lessandre, had gone to the pharmacy on the rue de Rennes; but neither the former nor the latter had to use their goodwill. Monsieur Mazouillet, who had sent for all his friends and acquaintances to call for him, was no longer at the station; and Madame Mazouillet, having mastered her emotions, had got back to the hotel without trouble, on the arm of her husband, who had come to collect her. The two Ramberts were already at the hotel on the rue Jacob to console the Mazouillets, when Caro, who had sent the concierge back, had stopped at the police-station, thinking she would find her friends there. She too, having had it explained to her, thought of going home, when her attention was caught by a great gathering that was forming in front of the church of SaintSulpice. A line of gala-carriages was waiting for a wedding; and the flow of people, moving on the steps of the church, told her this wedding was about to show itself. [48] Caro could not resist the desire that took hold of her; and, like all the women going past on the square, from the smart bourgeoise to the skivvy in the shop, she ran over to join in the crowd of the curious. The moment she got there, the verger threw open the door, the bride and groom showed themselves; he tall, dark and thin in his suit, like an exclamation mark; she all in white, light and like a vapor, beneath her veil of tulle, like a cloud fallen from the sky. Seeing the bride a stream of blood flowed into Caro’s face, and beads of sweat stood out on her temples. She thought she recognized her young sister Madeleine. She ventured to stare at her, however, believing she must be mistaken, she must be hallucinating; but, behind the married couple, in the middle of the cortège of parents, she had just seen her mother and father; he with a forced smile, as if he didn’t want to spoil everyone else’s joy; she cross, worried, weighed down, as if she were directing all her thoughts elsewhere. Caro pushed violently through the crowd, without thinking to excuse herself; and, unable to think, mechanically, she began to run, right to the bottom of the rue Férou, in the opposite direction from the side on which the horses of the wedding party were standing. She ran, without turning her head, as far as the rue de Vaugirard. Once there, sheltered from all indiscreet looks, she stopped. And, still as if moved by a spring, as if she were subject to a force greater than her will, she came back to the corner of the street, pressed against the wall, her head just far out enough to see around the corner, [49] like a criminal stalking her victim. The carriages moved off. She saw the last of them file away, and she followed them, her eyes alight, flaming with anxiety, large enough to burst. She heard the rumble of the carriages, which laid down on the paving stones a [47]

The Substance and the Shadow //

35

false bass line that reverberated with a treble from the shop windows placed around her, in her head. Soon this noise ceased; the carriages had not gone very far. Frightened by their silence, as if she had expected from their noise some reassuring revelation, Caro stood disconsolate, not knowing any more what to do, incapable of sorting out the thoughts that tumbled through her head. She went down the street, crossed the square, came back as far as the studio, without shaking herself, without losing her desperate appearance, her head down, her eyelids drooping, her arms hanging, her hands open, like a beseeching Madonna. On the way the passersby, curious or concerned, stopped to look at her.

vi [50] The two Ramberts, each of whom had been privately ruffled by the Mazouillets’ adventure, were chatting and laughing. The young men’s bursts of laughter did not break Caro’s gravity. On the contrary, their laughter vexed her, and brought a shudder of rage to her eyes and lips. “At last!—” yelled Germain, “we might end up having some lunch today. It was time for lunch ages ago, and I’m dying of hunger. Quick—let’s get going.” Philippe noticed that Caro was looking strange. He went up to her, took her hand and gave her a questioning look. “Come on, you lovebirds!” said Germain, who was already in the doorway. He dropped the word into the conversation. It was the seed, sown in the morning, that was bearing fruit. But Philippe, who was always serious, didn’t answer his brother. He was questioning Caro: “Are you feeling unwell?” [51] “No—it’s nothing” she replied. “Go and have lunch, my friend; I’m not hungry. I ate some cakes on my way here, and that’s made me feel a little queasy. I’m going to drink a glass of water. I’m not hungry, I tell you. I’ll have some tea this afternoon. Go on—” And she pushed Philippe toward the door. The two brothers obeyed her, believing what she said. It wasn’t the first time that she skipped a meal. Women have these sorts of whims, they said; and they remained quite unperturbed. Once she was alone, Caro bolted the door; she walked around the studio, looking in corners, under chairs, under the desk, without really knowing why. After she had bumped into the couch she let herself fall. And she wept.

36

//

marius roux

She wept, at first in silence, and then with abandon. She raised her head, no longer wiping away the tears that furrowed her cheeks, crying out senseless words, her mouth wide open and her fists clenched—her whole being was shivering, twisted and frenzied. Then she fell silent. She remained standing for a long time, her eyes dry, her mouth closed and her arms folded. She gradually resumed her mechanical pacing across the studio. She stopped in front of the small desk where there was some blank paper on top of a drawing case. She sat down, dipped her pen in the ink, and boldly wrote: “My dear parents—” She had written these words in one go; but once this effort was made, she stopped, no longer knowing what to say. [52] And she went over the phrase in her head. “My dear parents, I—” Nothing, still nothing to say. It wasn’t she who had to speak to her father and mother; it was they, these good parents of hers, who were crying out their misery to her in desperation and sorrow. With her head bowed she listened to her father’s shout of anger and indignation; she hid her head in her hands so that she wouldn’t see the tears of her mother, who was broken by anguish. And in this transfixed state she allowed her thoughts to wander over the past; her carefree childhood, those sweet, wholesome years when all her anxieties hung on a brioche and all her happiness on a kiss; those golden years that had fled on the breath of time, just as the smiling sun flees on the evening breeze. She saw herself again as a little girl, in her loosely cut dress; it was a dress made of heavy wool with blue diamonds marked out in black netting. For several winters she always wore this same, good, hard-wearing dress. As summer approached the little dress multiplied into dresses that were light and difficult to press. There must have been piles of these dresses in the linen closet, these flimsy rags that often were good for no longer than a day. Two or three of them had printed their pattern on her mind’s eye; the prettiest was the white one with small pink flowers. Yet she had also been very fond of the blue one with white stripes, and the yellow one with large leaves of all colors; that one had been an expensive calico bought with a coupon that had been forgotten in Grandmother Elise’s old wardrobe. She had had time to know her kindly grandmother, who would say to her gravely, as if addressing a big girl: “Always be a good [53] girl, my darling!” It is true that the kindly grandmother couldn’t stay serious for very long when with her Ninette, who would be crying, laughing and foraging for some sweetmeat. And the excellent woman crammed her small pockets with pralines, lumps of sugar and cakes stuffed with jam so that she herself would have time to rejoice in the child’s laughter, so that she could gobble her up with cuddles with the same appetite, the same greedy pleasure that Ninette took in crunching the sweets. “Oh—the spoilt little girl!” said her father, breaking into their loving circle,

The Substance and the Shadow //

37

“Oh, you spoilt little thing!” And he would take her in his large hands, lift her off the floor and place her face against his. Papa’s large eyes would smile into the child’s small eyes; then she would feel herself being shaken; it was Papa who was rubbing his head in his darling’s tousled hair. She could feel something warm on her neck; a big kiss. She saw again the big eyes smiling at her; then she felt hot all over; papa was kissing her cheeks, her eyes, her arms, her neck; he was nibbling her. At last, he would put her on the ground again and would push her by her shoulders over to her mother, who was looking at both of them, her head bent down, her eyes raised to them, pink in the face and breathless with pleasure. And the kissing would start all over again. But how sweetly her mother spoke. In her voice was something gentler than her grandmother’s indulgences and warmer than her father’s transports of affection. The child never defended herself against her mother; the child never wearied of this play of tenderness. For the most part she herself went to seek out her mother’s caresses, these sweet [54] caresses, too many of which her heart could never have. The child had grown up. She saw herself again in the middle of a group of friends from her boarding school. All of the schoolgirls had set their sights beyond the schoolmistress’s rostrum. They looked upon the world with a curiously innocent gaze, the world in which they would soon have to mix; and they fashioned this world in the image of the world that they discovered in the novels they read in secret. All life ahead of them was contained in a love song’s old refrain, a stupid and sentimental love song; a common flower that conceals the most insidious of poisons beneath the violent brilliance of its gaudy colors. Caro made her confession to herself and admitted her fault to herself. And this fault took on a tangible form when she saw herself again leaving boarding school, presiding over her household, and when she gave over her soul to substanceless illusions. A crazy dream had driven her into Germain’s arms. It was still nothing to have believed in the love of this man, at a time when she forced herself to believe in illusions; but how had she been able to forget the past, to dream no more of the future, from that fatal moment onward? It was because she had accepted the flight to Fontainebleau as a promise; because the charm of the unknown, the poetry of the mighty forest, had deceived her tender heart. The return to Paris had put paid to the dream and its enchantments. The veil that weighed on her eyes had been torn. She could see now—she measured all the distance lying behind and in front of her being: the joyful past, the terrible future, yesterday’s cheery sun, tomorrow’s dark night. “She was just an innocent; [55] Germain was an egoist. Why hadn’t she copied her sister Madeleine’s sound common sense? She had had time to read in the light of her eyes, down there, on the steps of Saint-Sulpice. Madeleine was happy, yes, she was! Her happiness was built on all the joys of

38

//

marius roux

the past and all the joys promised for he future. That was because Madeleine was an upright woman.” “Upright!—Was that the great secret, then? All one’s life was written into a single word.” Caro had another fit of weeping; then she shook herself, lifted her head again, rose from the couch and began to pace furiously up and down. A thousand confused thoughts no longer troubled her soul; a single, clear, precise thought spurred her to action. She had read also on the brows of her father and mother the thought they were sparing for their absent daughter. “These good parents could not be without mercy. They would welcome her, that was certain, and they would forgive her today, immediately, rather than tomorrow. Moreover, why wait for tomorrow? She knew for sure that her seducer didn’t love her; he had no part for her in his future; and there was no tomorrow for this contract of love that had been built on bad faith.” She unburdened her heart of all the anger she had stored there, and cried out curses: “Ingrate, faithless man, coarse being, savage egoist!” And, as she was unable to think of a sufficiently contemptuous phrase, she fell silent; then she burst into fury once more, but this time to heap calumny upon herself: “Fool, fool! she cried, you poor idiot, poor witless idiot! But I no longer love him—I no longer love this man! No, I have never loved him. I hate him; I loathe him.” [56] She had opened the door and was dashing out onto the stairs, completely disheveled, without her cloak and her hair loose, running any which way, when she found herself in front of Germain and Philippe. “What’s up?” asked Germain, unmoved and lightly mocking. “Mother—mother—I want mother,” cried the poor woman who was out of her mind. She had retreated instinctively, and she went back into the studio, ahead of the two brothers; but her gait was increasingly unsteady, her eyes opened alarmingly wide and her lips trembled; and she kept saying in muffled, breathless tones: “Mother—mother—I want mother!” Philippe took his brother to one side and spoke quietly to him. Germain answered, and he made no effort to lower his voice. “Ill?—Oh, come, come. It’s just a female whim. She’s already put me through this scene.” “Possibly—but look at her—Go and ask for a doctor quickly.” “I don’t know any doctors, do I! Where am I to find a doctor—just like that, at the drop of a hat?” “Go to the pharmacist next door. He’ll give you a name.” “To hell with women!” Germain went out, grumbling and repeating his oath, which he embellished each time with a new epithet, another harsh obscenity. Left alone with the young woman, Philippe sat down next to her, on the

The Substance and the Shadow //

39

couch, and wiped away her tears. He had taken her hands in his own, and spoke gently to her, asking her about her trouble: [57] “It will turn out to be nothing. There, there, you’ll see her again, you’ll see your mother—Just think!—Your friends are seeing to it. You mustn’t be put off by Germain’s strange ways—An artist!—is a peculiar person. And he is perhaps even more eccentric than others; but he’s a good man at heart. He loves you—” Caro had calmed down, soothed as she breathed in these kind words. Her eyes had recovered their natural gentleness, there was a smile on her lips, her nerves were relaxing, her whole being was becoming herself again. An excess of feeling, something like a need to pour out the last dregs of bitterness from her overburdened heart, still showed the signs in her of the violence of the emotion she had just endured. She put her arm around Philippe’s neck and, drawing him to her, giving herself to him entirely she drew her lips near to kiss him on the cheek. But she didn’t dare to do so, and her mouth missed. She simply said, without changing her position, still embracing her friend, drawing him even closer to her: “How good you are!—You see nothing of human baseness, because you judge other people as yourself, because you look upon all things with eyes that deceive you; but—.” She let go of his hand, drew back her arm, and pushed him away gently and firmly, as if to tell him that she was making no demands on his help to see through her resolution: “I have had enough of this life. I want to win back my place in my home. Mercy is shown for all sins!—My fault is great; but there is no fault that cannot be forgiven by a father and a mother. [58] The fatted calf is killed when the prodigal child returns to its parents’ home. I will show myself to be humble, I will say how sorry I am, I—” Philippe silenced her. She seemed no longer to hear anything around her; and he had just caught the sound of footsteps on the little staircase leading to the studio. It was Germain, who was coming back. He had in his hand a vial that held a yellow liquor. “It’s a mixture to calm you,” he said; “you’re to take a spoonful of that— the pharmacist assured me that it was sweetened—one spoonful every hour. The doctor’s coming this evening at about seven o’clock. He’s going to see nothing but high drama, this doctor; because by then all this will have passed, won’t it? my sweet Caro, my beautiful, darling little cat?—” Caro took the vial and drank a spoonful. She responded to Germain’s caresses by admitting that “women are fanciful creatures who fall ill over nothing and who are cheered up by a kind word.” But her attitude wasn’t new. In this submission more was due to habit than to willingness. Like a crease folded into material that will not disappear of its own accord, this was

40

//

marius roux

humility shown by the weaker party before the stronger one. Caro garnered all her bitter thoughts within her heart. They spent the afternoon chatting, giving each other fresh heart. The intimate scene was disturbed for a while by Lespignac’s visit. The poet, who had moments of being a musician,70 and painter as well, was coming to show them his watercolors71—Parisian interiors done in the Japanese style:72 splashes of harsh color; women without contours—flat beneath their stiff clothes, which were colored [59] mauve and yellow; lacquered furniture weighed down by trinkets of dark bronze, in the middle of porcelain vases that were splashed with pink and gold. “Stunning!—stunning!” cried Germain. Philippe, for his part, refrained from voicing his opinion of these watercolors which seemed to him to have been done through a kaleidoscope. “It’s like the pharmacist’s shop,” added Germain; “a firework display of jars in all hues and shades. I’ve taken from there a pattern that I’m going to work on.” “That’s what he was so happy about!” thought Caro. “He came home from the pharmacist’s full of sweetness and light, because he’d taken his favorite hobbyhorse to feed on some ideas there.” “Philippe” she said, in order to start up the discussion that her agitated nerves sought, “you’re not saying anything. Why is that? I’ve still never heard you talk about painting. These gentlemen talk themselves hoarse the livelong day, here, at old Simon’s, in the restaurant, in the brasserie and even out on the street; it always seems as if they’re going to hang their canvasses in the sky, using the stars for nails—And you say—nothing!—You never say anything.” “What’s the point?” answered the painter simply. “Pshaw!” said Germain with a shrug. “Pshaw!” added Lespignac. Philippe and Caro exchanged a smile. They understood each other. “He didn’t want to follow my advice,” added Germain. “He looks down on me and my friends. He was dead set on closeting himself away in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, like a cobbler starting out on his apprenticeship; [60] he’ll make shoes, possibly just as well as other people do.” “Like Gérôme” said Lespignac. “He’s amazing, that Gérôme, once you get him onto the subject of shoes.” “And then, what more is there?—Your Gérôme is a second-rate painter— 70 // This is undoubtedly an allusion to Astruc’s musical talents; see Flescher 1978, 7, 33, and 65. 71 // Astruc produced numerous watercolors. He exhibited some of these at the Salons of 1869, 1870, 1874, 1875, 1877, and 1878 (and continued to exhibit watercolors and sculptures at the Salon until 1908); see Flescher 1978, 405–35 and 480–84. Astruc also exhibited several watercolors at the

first Impressionist exhibition; see Moffett 1986, 118 and 124, and Berson 1996, 1:3, 21, 24, 26, 27, and 30, and 2:3 and 15. The work he exhibited there was mentioned by his journalist friends Burty, E[rnest] C[hesneau], and Silvestre; see also Berson 1996, 1:9, 11, 15, 17, 37, and 40, for reviews mentioning Astruc. 72 // Astruc, with Burty and Chesneau, was at the forefront of the Japonist movement, an interest that

The Substance and the Shadow //

41

don’t you see? They’re a pack of idiots in your Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the whole lot of them.” “So you’ve never tried to get into that Ecole yourself?” answered Philippe, who had been stung into retaliating. “I was young, like yourself; I came from my country village;—but I saw the light in time and I kept my distance. There is no Ecole; or, if you want there to be one, you must be the master of it.” “All right,” replied Philippe. “I’ll go further still; there’s no art.” Germain and Lespignac jumped up to protest. “Ah—that’s foxed you, my friends, you, the high priests of the absolute. Well no, there is no art; there are only artists; just as there’s no Buddha even though millions of Buddhists exist. And being an artist doesn’t mean building a hundred new projects a day or inventing a new religion twice a week. One needs to keep quiet and work. One needs to seek and find. One shouldn’t exhaust one’s neighbors’ patience with outbreaks of vanity; rather one should have the pride to say to oneself: ‘What is true is what I am saying; what is fine is what I am feeling; what is good is what I am doing; art is me.’” “Damn clever,73 my lad!” cried Lespignac “—splendid! We’ll make something of you yet.” “All in good time!” said Germain in turn; “but then what’s the point of your Ecole?” [61] “To learn the spelling, or the tricks of the trade, if you’d rather. A peasant who is a born poet wouldn’t be able to write a quatrain as well as the child who comes bottom in the eighth class; a painter who catches a world of color in the blink of an eye will not know how to fix his picture on the canvas unless his hands have learned the trade. I can understand perfectly what you are saying. And yes, you have a feeling for what is beautiful, what is great; but I can also see what you are producing. Damn it—you spur yourselves on to create nonsense. Come—Germain, look at your last sketch. You wanted to copy a sunrise behind the Pont Neuf. The color is accurate enough; but everything is dancing around in the foreground—the bridge, the spire of Sainte-Chapelle, the clouds at the back. There’s no perspective. You’ve definitely spoiled more than twenty canvasses in your efforts to catch the effect; and the amount of reasoning and calculation that’s gone into your misguided understanding! Well, all that would be sorted out in two or three sessions at the Ecole. A teacher explains the knack at the blackboard, just as you would manifests itself in his watercolors; see Flescher 1978, 328–404, esp. 390 (and 32, on Burty and Astruc) and 341 (on Chesneau and Astruc). Astruc probably contributed to discussions on this subject at the Guerbois, which are undoubtedly represented in conversations between Germain and Lespignac on Japanese prints that take place at Bruno’s; see La proie et l’ombre, 40, and Rewald 1973, 207–9, for an account of the interest in Japanese prints at

the Café Guerbois. Rewald notes that, according to Castagnary, the Impressionists were called “les Japonais de la peinture” (cited in Berson, 1:16). The name “Lespignac” is perhaps a pun on the word “L’Espagne,” referring to the fact that Astruc was also a leading Hispanist in the 1860s; see Flescher 1978, 145–73. 73 // “Très fort.”

42

//

marius roux

do for any mathematical problem. Like this, like that—a couple of lines drawn in chalk; and we understand, and it’s over; perspective is no longer a problem. That and a hundred other things. It’s like you, Lespignac—” Shakespeare raised his head and cast him a contemptuous look. “Yes, yes, I know—,” said Philippe, “you too pontificate. But I’m sorry to have to admit to you that your watercolors leave me cold. They’re colorful, but not at all colored properly; they’re as raw as [62] paintings sold for a penny and as bad as drawing exercises done by little schoolgirls.” “Go off then and polish your teachers’ shoes,” shouted Lespignac; “go on—and stop meddling with things that you understand nothing about.” The great man had put the watercolors back in a box as he was speaking, and had left, slamming the door, quite forgetting to doff his hat to Caro and to bid good evening to his friend Germain. Germain wasn’t happy either. He gave his brother a sideways look and was getting ready to give him a serious talking to, when Caro forced him to attend to her. The poor woman was very overwrought and had tried to combat her discomfort by fueling the conversation. She knew that there was no better subject for these gentlemen than that of their art. As they took the bait she managed to distract herself; but if she listened in on Germain and Lespignac with a smile at their wayward theories, she had been unable to ward off the emotion that overcame her as she listened to her friend Philippe speaking. She was won over to his cause; she grew passionate; and, when he raised his hand in a familiar gesture, it seemed to her that she could see the talons of an eagle about to swoop down on the others who, themselves, were poor goldcrests. And as Lespignac took flight, as Germain was showing signs of temper, she, riled, and giving in to the fragile state of her nerves, seemed to be on the verge of screaming; her eyes grew wet, her lips quivered. “Oh, come on now!—There goes the other one.” shouted Germain. “What is it now?” The doorbell to the studio had just rung. [63] “And visitors—on top of everything else.” It was the doctor, sent by the pharmacist, who was coming to make his call. “—Well timed. You’re very welcome, doctor—Well, good heavens if it’s not that animal Caseneuve!—You’re well, my dear fellow?—It’s true then that you can play the fool and study, that you can pull down chandeliers at Bullier’s ball,74 and pick up degrees from the Medical Faculty?—There you are, set on your career, a serious doctor. I admit that I simply said to the pharmacist: ‘Send me the local doctor.’ And that’s you—the licensed doctor? Well, accept my compliments, my dear fellow, my warmest compliments. Splendid outfit—you really look the part; all in black with a white tie, cleanshaven and a sensible haircut—Perfect! perfect!”

The Substance and the Shadow //

43

Germain would have carried on like this forever. The student’s cheeky attitude was taking hold of him at this moment of meeting up again with one of his former companions at cafés and balls, a good boy, who yesterday had been sloppily dressed, but who appeared decent and serious today. The doctor let Germain talk on, and made a few jokes in turn, but without wasting any time. He looked at his watch and seemed to ration the conversation to within a few seconds of the time he had. He hadn’t asked to go into the patient’s bedroom, as he guessed whom he had to attend. He immediately went over to Caro, who was reclining on the couch. The young lady’s posture helped the doctor to make a diagnosis. He felt her pulse, laid the back of his hand against her temples, and smiled at the invalid as he said to her: “You know yourself that this is nothing and that you’ll have to put up with these little aches and pains—you’ll have the occasional fit of nerves—some retching—In the end it will all pass [64] with no lasting damage. Your breathing is good; you have a sturdy frame—” He scribbled out a prescription and took his leave, adding as he went: “My dear monsieur Rambert, all you have to do is ask madame to follow this prescription until you’re advised otherwise. One spoonful before each meal. There’s an infusion for moments of crisis, but these will become less and less frequent. That’s all. I’m at your disposal should anything untoward happen; but, I say again that things will take their course, without significant mishap, right up to the day of her delivery.” “Delivery!—” shrieked Germain, Philippe and Caro simultaneously. Germain was upset; Philippe was concerned; Caro was devastated. “You didn’t know then?—” said the doctor, “and there I was trying to say what I meant in veiled terms!—” “Like you would in society—” retorted Germain, who was turning the doctor’s words into a joke. But Philippe didn’t laugh, and Caro had turned terribly pale. The doctor was already on the other side of the door; the two brothers brought him back. “When will her delivery be?” asked Philippe. “In eight months—Madame Rambert is four weeks pregnant, five at the very most.” However, Caro had got up to ask him some questions herself. Once she had got out onto the landing, she stopped, and clung to the doorframe with her hands. And there she remained, motionless, staring dully ahead, as if she had been turned into a marble statue.

74 // The Bal Bullier refers to the dance hall of the Closerie des Lilas on the Avenue de l’Observatoire in the 5th arrondisssement, which was owned by François Bullier from 1847. It was renowned as a venue for students (and “grisettes”), the University

of Paris being based in the same arrondissement. An episode of Evariste Plauchu takes place at the Bal Bullier; see Roux 1869, 73–86. Curiously, Roux gives the owner’s forename as Théodore.

44

//

marius roux

vii Each of them had changed their behavior since the doctor’s revelation; most certainly because each of them had been mulling over new thoughts. Caro gave up on all her plans. The past no longer existed; she no longer lived either for herself or for her parents; and in this faith, this passionate love that is the secret of women-mothers, her whole being was annihilated so that it might live once more later on, might come into being in a new guise. Often, too often, Germain had shown himself to be brutal and self-centered; but at present he was in a tender mood and he was promising to give up his life for his child. So Caro no longer had cause to regret the past, and would no longer have to quake at the thought of the future. At the end of her path she was going to find once more all the joys that she had lost, since recovering her good name through marriage was no longer anything but a matter of form. Germain had promised to give his name to the mother of his child. He had made this promise quite naturally, by [66] himself, without being put under any pressure. While Caro was emerging from her stone statue position and had begun to sob, off his own bat, as he was coming back into the studio, Germain had forced her to dry her tears and to smile at him. “Fear nothing,” he had said as he kissed her brow, “fear nothing; I know what duty dictates that I should do. Forgive me if I have shown myself to be short sometimes; it has only ever been my hot temper speaking. You know that I love you, that I have given you my whole life—” “Ah, mouth, what lies you are telling!” Caro had replied. That had been her reply; but it was given as if she was reassured—the sparkle had returned to her eyes, her face was smiling. She was only defending herself to be playful; for she had longed too much to hear these sweet things being said to her not to believe that he would carry out his vows. Philippe showed his approval by nodding, without saying a word. He was smiling as well and seemed pleased. He only spoke when he heard himself being addressed directly by his brother. “Is it not the case, Philippe, that we mustn’t rush into anything? Our father will start to get annoyed; but at the end of the day this isn’t going to change his way of thinking any more than anything else has.” “Anything else” was an allusion to the fights of old, when the eldest of the family and, following him, the youngest, had refused to continue the lofty deeds of the Rambert dynasty of notaries,75 and, as their father put it, had “drowned themselves in a paint pot of color.” [67] Despite the resistance that Germain foresaw, despite all the possible vexations, Caro might well have pressed for a swift resolution—and Philippe would have pleaded her cause—if Monsieur Mazouillet had not come along and lent weight to Germain’s fears. Monsieur Mazouillet had only five days left in Paris. He had “seen every[65]

The Substance and the Shadow //

45

thing,” and could have left that very moment, had it not nevertheless been the case that he still had to visit the sewers. In truth, he could not leave the capital without having seen the sewers,76 “that miracle of Utility”; and the cards that he had got hold of through Lespignac’s agency, these cards that he had sought so keenly and awaited so patiently, set the date of the visit for five days’ time. He was therefore using these last days to look again at certain monuments that one would never grow tired of seeing—for example, the Louvre; and since, as of now, he could savor the experience as a connoisseur, “take his favorite liqueur in small doses,” he found he had time to take his leave from his friends. He didn’t want to leave without shaking hands with all the gentlemen from Bruno’s Restaurant, where he had not returned “because it was stifling there”—with all these gentlemen then, and most especially with the notable Monsieur Godet, that great sculptor; with the uncommon Monsieur Damasquère, such an extraordinary painter; with the amiable Monsieur Lespignac, so modest a poet, who had refused to read his verses to Madame Mazouillet, while all the time he had in his portfolios works that would make Victor Hugo himself turn pale. In short, he would have failed utterly in his duty if he had not made at least one visit to his “countrymen and friends Germain and Philippe, who were [68] often spoken of at Aigues-les-Tours and who would be spoken of for a long time to come, for they were on the road that leads to fame, to posterity.” The solicitor repeated the end of his sentence, highly pleased with his compliment. “To fame, to posterity!”—Yes, indeed, my friends. And to think that your father had bent over backwards to try and make you crawl through the dust of his office!—that even today he is utterly aghast, utterly humiliated!—Oh, no one dares to speak of your successes in front of him. In fact, as recently as four months ago, you know Germain, about that Society of Painters?77—you had written me. “Yes—what of it?” “I wrote an article in the Aigues-les-Tours Memorial to try and recruit members.78 I named you in the article.” “You sent me a copy.” 75 // After passing his baccalauréat in November 1858, Cézanne studied law, reluctantly and intermittently, at the Univeristy of Aix until around February 1860; see Rewald 1939, 35, 45, and 47. For Cézanne’s views on the law, as expressed in his letters and the poems contained in them, see Rewald 1978, 39–41 and 50–53. 76 // The Paris authorities introduced visits to Haussmann’s new sewers, lit by electric light, in 1867. On the sewers, and the ideology of progress they were made to represent, see Gandy 1999, esp. 26, and 23, which cites Eugène Belgrand (Haussmann’s chief engineer), Les travaux souterrains de Paris v:

Les égouts et les vidanges (Paris: Dunod, 1887), 174: “Les grands égouts de Paris ont toujours préoccupé l’attention publique et ont été honorés des plus illustres visites. Il n’est pas un souverain étranger, pas un personnage important qui ait quitté Paris sans avoir visité les collecteurs.” Tourist guides, such as Baedeker, announced sewer visits from 1876, warning that demand for visits was considerable; see Gandy 1999, 24 n. 38). 77 // This refers to an organization resembling the Impressionist “Société Anonyme”; see La proie et l’ombre, 51, 51 n. 84, 53, 58, 81, 87, 88–89, 127, 128, 131–33, 134, 136, 190, and 192.

46

//

marius roux

“You saw the terms I used to speak about you and your friends, but particularly of you. Well, as soon as your father found out about this article he went around all the cafés and all the circles to get rid of the Memorial.” “It’s true,” said Philippe, “I remember. He was livid. What do you expect—except for notaries, there’s no salvation. He’s a terrible man. He doesn’t understand, and makes no distinction between an artist and a dauber, because he doesn’t know, he’s never seen things from up close, and he’s always remained in his notary’s shell.” [69] It was quite clear that with a notary of this mettle Germain could not, ought not, to rush into the ending that Caro was looking for. Germain went even further than a sense of precaution allowed for; for, as he was leading his friend Mazouillet as far as the front door, he begged him to keep quiet about his relationship with Caro. “It’s a meaningless thing,” he said, “—a passing romance with a flirt; but as you yourself have just said, our fine compatriots are extraordinary people and you have perfectly judged the possible effects of their sempiternal gossip.” In fact Monsieur Mazouillet had not, for his part, forgotten his escapade in the rue de Rennes; and before taking his leave of the Rambert brothers, had brought them into line with exquisite courtesy so that they would never speak of the matter, either in their letters or when they met their countrymen. “Ah! on this subject!—” he had said rather anxiously, “if people down there knew that I had been dragged off to the station, I would very quickly be being accused of all manner of crimes. The station would be called Mazas or à la Roquette,79 and the misunderstanding would turn into an outlandish tale, a web of fraud, of thefts, perchance even of murders. People would look at me as if I had escaped from the galleys and that my reprieve had only been won through some unmentionable little scheme. People would speak of me and of my fine wife as they do of Monsieur and Madame de Saint-Calian. Do you remember Philippe?—” “It’s a strange story.” “Just think, my dear Germain, that the lovely [70] Madame de SaintCalian, who lives in the rue de Rome, had fallen ill. She was close to death and was suffering a great deal from the noise from the street. This rue de Rome is one of the very few streets in Aigues-les-Tours that has a few people passing through it and quite a number of carriages, because of the market; and because of this, it is as noisy as your rue de Rivoli since it opens out onto the sewers and onto the cellars that used to be the ground floor of the voie Julienne. Monsieur de Saint-Calian had the idea of spreading out straw in 78 // A reference to the Mémorial d’Aix-en-Provence, the local nespaper of Cézanne’s hometown. In 1865, Roux had written an article discussing Cézanne in the Mémorial; see Roux 1865.

79 // The names refer to two Parisian prisons, founded in 1841 and 1836–37, respectively.

The Substance and the Shadow //

47

front of his house. That must already have looked odd to neighbors and passersby, but then a storm blew up. The street was flooded, and the straw was brushed to the door so suddenly and in such big heaps that it gathered at the corner of the street in front of the opening to the sewer. The pile of straw created a stopper, and the water spilt out over the pavements, and possibly even as far as a few shops. What a catastrophe! There you had the street thrown into revolution. Obscenities were falling thick and fast, and the poor invalid was treated like a—well let’s just leave it there. . . . It was a scandal; so much so that the mayor had to send in all the town sergeants to put an end to it. That evening in the circles and the cafés people spoke of nothing but what had happened; but apart from those who lived in the rue de Rome—and not even all of them—nobody knew the truth of the matter. And so they embroidered the story. The next day people began no longer to speak of the matter out loud; they spoke in hushed tones and whispered details in each others’ ears. Three days later it was well known that Monsieur de Saint-Calian, who had fallen out with the shopkeeper opposite and consequently was on awkward terms with the baker and clockmaker, who were friends of this shopkeeper, had pulled off [71] a great stunt to poison the water in their well; and the worst thing about it was that if the stunt had been successful the whole street would have been affected as all the wells would have been contaminated. Well a fortnight later, one Sunday, as Madame de SaintCalian, who had recovered from her fever, was making her way to Mass and taking her husband’s arm, everyone who passed by stopped in front of them to stare. People could not understand how such a heinous criminal was not locked up in prison. An explanation was needed, by God!—Somebody had to give it; for, from that moment on everyone knew for a fact that what people had said about an affair between Madame de Saint-Calian with the presiding judge was henceforth a proven fact. And while the scholars split hairs over the matter, doing their best to argue that, when it comes to poison intent is not enough to establish culpability, the crafty ones were shrugging their shoulders and saying that Monsieur de Saint-Calian only owed his safety to the long arm of a certain magistrate who was extremely powerful and who had hushed up the matter.” They had taken their leave from each other after this last piece of gossip about the fine people from their fine birthplace. Germain and Mazouillet continued to exchange confidences on the stairs and ended up agreeing a pact: “The Ramberts would keep quiet about the business at the station, and the Mazouillets wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone about the strumpet.” Left alone in the studio, Philippe and Caro were chatting idly, speculating on what Mazouillet had told them about old father Rambert’s particularly bad behavior. And by way of rounding off their [72] inconsequential thoughts, this idle chatter led the two friends to conclude that:

48

//

marius roux

“They ought to trust Germain’s noble promises and not provoke a possible refusal from the paterfamilias. Their father was a good man at heart; but they had to reckon with his prejudices. By holding back and by approaching him cleverly, they would bring him around to giving his blessing to the marriage.” “I have not fallen short by loving the father of my child,” said Caro, stung to revolt by this thought of a possible refusal. “I belong to an honorable family. I shall certainly look just as good in a notary’s household as Madame Mazouillet does in that of a barrister.” The conversation changed tack; they talked again about the Mazouillets. Caro asked questions, and Philippe said again what he’d had occasion to say at least once a day since they had met them at Bruno’s: “Mazouillet was the son of an extremely wealthy barrister, far wealthier than the notary Rambert, who lived in shabby gentility, when all was said and done. Mazouillet had married for love; he had wed a well-known figure from the trader’s part of town; a good girl, to be sure! but a girl whose position was more than humble. The parents of Madame Mazouillet, the Couton couple, had kept a small pasta store on the Grand’Place; their daughter Ernestine was on first-name terms with all the shop girls at the market hall and had seen her beauty spoken of from the rooftops by these fine women, who called her “the beautiful pasta seller.” It was this story, full of impossibilities that were even more [73] impossible than all those facing her, that ended up confirming her hopes with all the deductions that she drew from it. “That’s not all there is—” said Germain coming back into the studio. “It’s getting on for dinnertime; we’re going to make a detour and drop in on Martin. I need my size one-twenty canvas.”

viii [74] The following day the size one-twenty canvas was set up on the easel; but this easel was too small and too spindly to support a large canvas; also the canvas took up too much room in the studio, given its width and then its length. There was no way of walking around the room and there was no longer anywhere good for the model to pose. “You can’t work on a large scale in these sorts of conditions” cried Germain, grumbling away. He stood for a while in front of his canvas, looking anxious. “It’s no good,” he said eventually; “I’m going to have to move.” Philippe had come to watch the preparations made by the painter who

The Substance and the Shadow //

49

was embarking on “grand painting.” “And then there’s you,” Germain added—“you can’t carry on living in a hotel room. You need a studio; do you want this one? The rent is four hundred and fifty francs, with ten francs a month to the concierge for housekeeping. You won’t find anything better, [75] unless you too want to paint only on size one-twenty canvasses. I’ll leave you half of the ornaments; you’ll only need to find yourself an iron bed. Are we agreed?” “We’ll see—yes, go and look—I’ll leave you now, good evening, goodbye. Goodnight, Caro.” “Goodbye—but we’ve agreed. I’ll go and tell Martin to put the canvas away at his place. It’s going to have one of our eyes out, this canvas—Damn! what a nuisance it all is though.” And he stood stock still in front of the bare canvas, smiling this time, as if he were entranced by the effect of the colors that he could see blending together under his brush. The lady with the red fan, the dark red velvet sofa with yellow studs, the crimson curtain with gold braiding, the picture as a whole took shape, and he was pleased. Germain was so pleased that once he had reached Bruno’s, he imposed on all the friends there by describing his painting. He looked over all the painters with a superior eye, and thought that he could see their faces grow longer under the blow of this astounding revelation.80 All of them seemed to him to wilt in front of him, all of them, even Damasquère, who had found Velázquez’s range of colors but only used them to dabble in a dead world. He, on the other hand, understood painting differently. “Do you meet many Medici among your acquaintances?” he was asking. Hey, Velázquez, my friend!—where have you seen living creatures in large ruffs? I, for my part, do what I can see.81 I make my pictures come alive, so I do! All painting is there.” The friends were crushed. Only the uninvolved artists—the sculptors and architects, [76] dared to raise their heads and voice their opinions. “He’s right,” shouted the illustrious Godet, shaking his hoary locks. “All art is there. I myself have never copied an antique; it corrupts your taste and spoils your skill. I’ve never dreamed even of reproducing a Michelangelo, despite the high regard in which I hold this master. I do only what I can see. 80 // Germain’s prominence among the Bruno painters is mirrored in L’oeuvre, which describes how, among the artistic radicals of his set, “Déjà Claude, en chef accepté, sonnait la victoire, distribuait des couronnes” (Zola 1886, 103). 81 // “Moi, je fais ce que je vois.” This remark is echoed, further down the page, by Godet and by Béju’s rhetorical question: “Est-ce que je fais autre chose que ce que je vois?” These remarks all recall a statement Cézanne made to Stock in 1870: “Je peins comme je vois, comme je sens”; see Stock Album (Paris, 1870), cited in Rewald 1954, 8. The American

painter Mathilda Lewis also recorded in 1894 that “he [Cézanne] doesn’t believe that everyone should see alike”; see Gerdts 1993, 118 and 253 n. 6 (and Breeskin 1979, 25, where the letter is attributed to Mary Cassatt). See also La proie et l’ombre, 113, where it is stated of Germain: “il peignait comme il voyait, lui.” On the notion of personal vision and its connection to “tempérament,” “force,” and daring, see La proie et l’ombre, 50 and 50 n. 83. See also Goncourt 1867, xvi, and cliv, 1:83–84, and 2:307. Cf. cxliii, 2:265 (on Coriolis’s “optique personnelle’).

50

//

marius roux

Old Mother Calypso’s magnifying glass would serve me better as a model than the Belvedere Antinous.82 What is that—the Antinous? Who has seen this famous Antinous?—whereas everyone can see old Mother Calypso’s magnifying glass.” “He’s right,” said portly Lespignac in his turn. “It’s like me—I’d imagined a sea of blood for my poetic masterpiece. It was a bold image—but it was impossible actually to do. And so I changed my title. I’m doing The River of Blood. Do you see?—There’s a more general involvement!—A river is possible. I’ll use some river or other, dictated by the conclusion of the poem—the Seine or the Rhone, possibly the Danube.” But all the painters agreed with Germain, and even pushed his argument further. He was talking about his painting as if it were a discovery, and all of them had already said to themselves what he had taken so long to admit to himself. If they hadn’t responded, that was because he hadn’t given them the time to do so, and that Godet and Lespignac had taken the floor after him, in accordance with their authority. “What I think,” was saying little Béju who painted yellow squares and green squares and called it landscape painting, “what I think is—do I do anything other than what I see?” “And I?—” was adding a still-life painter. [77] “And I?—and I?—and I?” They were all shouting at one and the same time. “And what about me then?—” was shrieking Damasquère, who was livid not to have been able to say his piece yet, “—what about me! If I borrow a costume and a background from an ancient era—an era which, when all is said and done, was marvelously artistic—am I not dressing the model who I’ve got posing for me?—is the background not a pose also?—We’re only doing what we can see, damn it! The secret is to see truly.” “We’re in agreement,” Germain condescended to reply. “We’ve always been in agreement, and if those idiots at the Ecole had only half of our temperament83—we’d be seeing different Salons—” “Speaking of the Salon,” said Lespignac, demanding silence and inviting 82 // A famous statue of the fourth-century B.C. in the Belvedere in the Vatican, now believed to represent Hermes. 83 // “Tempérament” is a key term of Germain’s aesthetic theory; see La proie et l’ombre, 85, 86, 89, 112–13, 114, 121, and 196. Germain is still trying to give “libre carrière” to his “tempérament d’artiste” even at the end of the novel; see La proie et l’ombre, 192. “Tempérament” was no less a key term in Cézanne’s aesthetic: in a letter to Zola of 2 November 1866 (with a postscript by Cézanne), Guillemet even described how “les gens sans tempérament fuient épouvantés” from Cézanne; see Rewald 1978, 126–28. “Tempérament” is closely allied to the concept of

“force” in Germain’s thinking, as it is in Cézanne’s; see La proie et l’ombre, 92 and 112–15 (for the use of the terms in close conjunction), and esp. 190. See also nn. 127 and 145. The opinions voiced by the various Brunos on “tempérament” also recall those advanced in Mon salon of 1866, where Zola used the word “tempérament” more than thirty times. Zola’s texts undoubtedly represent ideas that he shared with Cézanne, or learned from him, a debt Zola acknowledges by dedicating his article of 20 April “A mon ami Paul Cézanne” (and noting: “Il y a dix ans que nous parlons arts et littérature”). Joachim Gasquet, who knew Cézanne well from 1896, says with regard to Mon salon that it was “causeries” between Cézanne and Zola that “en grande partie

The Substance and the Shadow //

51

all the friends to listen carefully, “—by the way, it’s agreed, isn’t it? None of us will send the slightest thing to that ridiculous exhibition—nothing, nothing at all—isn’t that so?” They looked at one another; nobody seemed very sure of being able to make that promise. But Lespignac was continuing: “We’ll have our own counter-exhibition.84 The Society of Free Art—”85 “That’s capital,” shouted Béju, the little scab. “We don’t make up twenty members. Each of us has signed up to buy a share for sixty francs;86 but not everybody has paid—We only have insufficient funds in the safe, only a paltry amount.” “What if I were to put up the money?”— Lespignac asked solemnly, with a wink and a crafty twist of the mouth. “He’s got the money!” shrieked the assembled company. ont inspiré toutes ces lignes qui pétillaient de courage et de vérité”; see Gasquet 1926, 51. Cézanne certainly approved of Mon salon, since, according to Vollard, he commented on its censure of Salon artists: “N . . . de D . . . , . . . comme il les arrange bien, tous ces merdeux!” Vollard also recalls that Guillemet supplied Zola with much of his material for Mon salon, and it may therefore represent Guillemet’s contributions to the Guerbois discussions; see Vollard 1938, 22. Rivière 1923, 17, also notes that “ses [Zola’s] articles de critique étaient inspires par Guillemet. . . . Les invectives dont l’écrivain usait immodérément, remplissaient de joie Paul Cézanne.” Astruc occasionally emphasized the importance of an artist’s “tempérament”; see Astruc 1859, 371 (on Courbet), and Astruc 1860, 62 and 84. On Astruc’s terminology, see also Flescher 1978, 279, and 285. The artist’s “tempérament” is frequently invoked in Manette Salomon (sometimes in connection to “originalité”); see Goncourt 1867, iii, ix, xv, xvi, xxxvi, xliv, lv, c, cvi, cxxviii, and cxliii, 1:18, 51, 79, 84, 201–2, 232, 280, and 2:116, 141, 208, and 266. Ratcliffe 1960, 372, notes that Cézanne’s interest in this novel was recorded by Camoin, Larguier, and by Vollard. See also Gasquet 1926, 70 and 110, and Rewald 1978, 318–19, on Cézanne and the Goncourts. On Cézanne and “tempérament,” see also Shiff 1984, passim. 84 // Clearly a reference to the Impressionists’ formation to the Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs etc. in 1874, which held its “Exposition” in the same year, in which Cézanne participated; see Rewald 1973, 309–18, Moffett 1986, 17–20, and Roos 1996, 190–92, 204–20. Cf. Brady 1968, 104, which states that the first Impressionist exhibition was organized in part by a group comprising Roux, Alexis, and Béliard. Astruc. The Brunos’ plans for an exhibition are further aired in La proie et l’ombre, 81, 87–89, 128, 132, 134, 136, and 191–92, 234, and 333. Roux may be conflating these events with attempts among the future Impressionists to organize their own exhibition in the 1860s. The future

Impressionists of the Café Guerbois planned an exhibition in 1867 (which never took place because of lack of funds), as Mallarmé later reported: “a special exhibition of the works of Manet and some few of his followers gave the semblance of a party to the then nameless school of recent painting”; see “The Impressionists and Edouard Manet,” The Art Monthly Review and Photographic Portfolio, 1, no. 9 (January 1876): 117, cited in Moffett 1986, 17, and Rewald 1973, 213. Bazille also told his mother in letters of April and May 1867 that a group of about a dozen painters decided to rent a space in order to hold a Jury-free exhibition, but failed for lack of funds; see Mainardi 1987, 137–38, Roos 1996, 87–88, and Rewald 1973, 213 (which dates the episode to 1869). 85 // It is just conceivable that there is an allusion here and below to Coste’s journal L’art libre: tribune des artistes, which Roux probably knew about in advance of its starting publication on 15 December 1880, since he was one of its founders, along with Zola and Alexis; see Raimbault 1907, 2. (Cézanne was also interested in L’art libre; see Rewald 1978, 208, and Athanassoglou-Kallmyer 2003, 272 n. 30, concerning a mention of Cézanne in L’art libre in 1883.) Coste, like Lespignac, was also a writer as well as a painter; see Zola’s letter to Coste of July 1878, in Bakker et al. 1978–95, 3:187. In his capacity as a painter, Coste exhibited a painting, Portrait de Monsieur de B . . . , capitaine à l’escadron du train de la garde, at the Salon in 1865 (no. 512); and he also exhibited in 1878 and 1880; see Provence 1926, 68, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 3:458–59, and 459 n. 3, for a letter from Zola to Coste mentioning his 1880 Salon submission (nos. 898 and 899). See also Baille 1981, 117–18, on Coste’s paintings. 86 // The constitution of the Société d’Art Libre as a limited company owned by the holders of shares costing sixty francs recalls that of the Impressionists, whose charter was drawn up by Pissarro; see Rewald 1973, 312–13, Rewald 1986, 383–89 (for the documents), and Roos 1996, 198–99. Shares were also

52

//

marius roux

[78] “The Salon is done for.” “To Macquart’s with the Jury!”87 “The public will judge.” “We’ll be on everyone’s lips.” “I’ll take care of that,” added Lespignac. “I’ve got some friends on the papers. An art critic, to whom I showed a few watercolors, has even found a slogan that is suitable for the group: ‘That gives the impression,’ said he; hold your exhibition and I promise you a storming article, with this title which will highlight the difference between you and those painters of the Ecole—with this title: The Impressionists.”88 “Yes, that’s the one!” pointed out Béju, the landscape artist, whose habitual impression was yellow. “Well, I think,” said Germain who was staying on his high horse that night, “I think I’d prefer: ‘The Intransigents’.”89 “Brilliant! ‘The Intransigents’—” answered Lespignac. “I’ll pass the word on to another journalist; better still, I’ll use it; for, it’s all decided, you know,

issued by L’Union, the independent society of artists founded in 1875 (after the dissolution of the Société Anonyme), which was organized “sur le modèle des associations coopératives ouvrières.” According to the description that Numa Coste supplied to Zola in November 1875 (so that he could publicize its aims), this society’s declared aims were as follows: “Les adhérents se proposent d’exposer eux-mêmes leurs oeuvres et de les vendre directement au public sans aucun intermédiaire. La société n’arbore aucun drapeau. Elle admet toutes les opinions artistiques dans son sein et pense arriver ainsi à présenter au public un ensemble complet du mouvement de l’art de notre époque. Son but est l’affranchissement moral et matériel de l’art en le rendant indépendant de l’Etat et des marchands.” See Bakker et al. 1978–95, 3:213–14, and 214 n. 3. Cézanne and Pissarro were involved with L’Union, and pulled out of its 1877 exhibition at the last minute; see Rewald 1978, 153 n. 8 and 153, for a letter from Cézanne to Pissarro of 2 July 1876 concerning the conflict between this organization and the Impressionists, who revived their own society in 1876. On L’Union, see also Rewald 1973, 362–63, 366, 375–76, and 390. 87 // The French reads: “A Macquart, le jury!” Roux explains in the notes to Evariste Plauchu that Parisian cab drivers used the expression “A Macquart ça!” to exhort laboring horses to greater effort: Macquart being a knacker, or horse-slaughterer (équarrissur [sic]); see Roux 1869, 325. Although the Salon règlements of 1863 and 1866 extended the right to accede to the Jury to artists (and critics) who were not members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, it was nevertheless still a largely conservative body for the greater part of the later 1860s (when Roux

was closest to Cézanne) and early 1870s (the period overtly represented in Roux’s text), since its members were effectively elected from among previous Salon medal winners (who were mostly members of the Académie, or holders of the Légion d’Honneur), apart from the few nominated directly by the State; see Mainardi 1987, 124, and Roos 1996, 9–12 (esp.), 36–39, 76, 103–4, 137–38, 169–70, and 184, for a minute analysis of the variations in the regulations governing the constitution and membership of the Jury, and its selection policy. Zola directed a good part of Mon salon against the policies of the Jury; see Zola 1866b, esp. 17–30, and Roos 1996, 62–64 (which also discusses Zola’s attack on the Jury over the suicide of the rejected artist Jules Holzapfel, in the article “Un suicide” published in L’événement on 19 April 1866, but not included in the book, Mon salon). Cézanne also requested the reinstatement of the Salon des Refusés in that year; see n. 158. Exclusions at the hands of the particularly harsh Jury of 1867 caused Bazille, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Guillemet, and Manet to petitition for the reinstatement of the Salon des Refusés in March of that year (and some of them to try again in April); see Mainardi 1987, 136–37, and Roos 1996, 83–86. And in 1872, Cézanne, Béliard, Pissarro, Renoir, Fantin-Latour, and Manet all signed a petition requesting the reinstatement of the Salon des Refusés; see Roos 1996, 175, and Rewald 1973, 272. On the Impressionists and the Jury, see Rewald 1973, passim. For a neat statistical table of the Impressionists’ rejections from and appearances at the Salon (and other bodies), see White 1965, 142–43. 88 // “Un critique d’art, à qui je montrais quelques aquarelles, a même trouvé l’enseigne qui convient au

The Substance and the Shadow //

53

I’m starting up my journal: Free Art.” “So you’ve got endless amounts of money?” “Me—I don’t have a penny; but I’ve got my capitalist.” “Hey?” “I’ll show him to you tomorrow. It’s that nice bourgeois whom Germain brought along the other night—you know?—with his wife. We’ve become great friends. He’s confided in me. He’s a poet, that attorney!” “It can’t be true!” said Germain. “He only came to Paris to try and get a drama in five acts and in [79] verse accepted by a theater. He’s read his drama to me. There are some verses in it, by God, that aren’t too bad. He’s one of us; he’s even published an article on the Society of Free Art in the something Memorial—Hey, Germain, what’s your capital called?” “Aigues-les-Tours.” “In the Aigues-les-Tours Memorial. Well obviously he didn’t manage to find a theater to take his drama, but he has understood that matters to do with art aren’t dealt with like that, in passing. He has taken account of our struggles, and he wants to struggle along with us, in turn. He’s only going to go home to sell off his practice, and he’ll come back to us in three months— with the loot. He’s very rich!—Isn’t that so, Germain, he’s rich, our friend?” “Yes, yes—very rich, but he’s not a poet.” “What do we care! So long as he takes lots of shares. But speaking of shareholders, I do hope that that cretinous brother of yours will give a subscription—” “I wouldn’t count on him.” “You shouldn’t count on it at all,” ventured Caro, who had stayed quiet throughout the lengthy discussion, and who was only speaking now to defend her absent friend. She gave special emphasis to her retort; she was personally offended by the disrespectful way in which Lespignac was talking about her friend. “Stand up for your brother, then,” she said in a low voice, nudging Germain. groupe. ‘Cela rend l’impression, a-t-il dit; faites votre exposition, et jous vous promets un article tapé, avec ce titre qui marquera bien la ligne de démarquation entre vous et ceux de l’Ecole . . . avec ce titre: les Impressionnistes.” In all likelihood, this remark is an allusion to the articles on the first impressionist exhibition that used the term “impressionnistes,” which were published by Castagnary and Philippe Burty (both members of the Café Guerbois group,) on 29 April 1874 and on 30 May 1874; see Berson 1996, 1:15 and 9. Both uses of the term “impressionniste” nevertheless postdate its coinage by Louis Leroy in his review of 25 April 1874; see Berson 1996, 1:25. But it was Armand Silvestre, another friend of Astruc’s from the Guerbois, who first used the term “impression” in

his review of 22 April; see Berson 1996, 1:39. 89 // “j’aimerais mieux: les Intransigeants.” The term “Intransigents” seems to have been coined in the review of the first Impressionist exhibition of 3 May, signed “Henri Polday”; see Berson 1996, 1:32–33, and Eisenman 1986, 51–57. See also Georges Rivière, “Les intransigeants de la peinture,” L’Esprit moderne (13 April 1876), cited in Pierre Dax, “Chronique,” L’artiste (1 May 1876), 347–49; reprinted in Berson 1996, 1:70–71. Roux uses the term several times, and has Germain state, in La proie et l’ombre: “On est intransigeant ou on ne l’est pas.” For a discussion of the term and its meanings, see Eisenmann 1986, and Roos 1996, 216.

54

//

marius roux

“It’s not up to me to stand up for him. Philippe is shirking all his responsibilities by turning into a stick-in-the-mud at the Ecole, and seeming to look down on our group. Well, that’s his lookout; I’ve warned him. He’s turning a blind eye, and that’s that—” “I’m sorry for the lot of you!”

ix [80] “I feel sorry for the lot of you!” Caro had said.

Germain had felt wounded to the heart. His anger had been too great to contain; it had been brutal, and noisy. A woman, an outsider, daring to feel sorry for painting! She had said, all! She despised them all, even him! Him, the high priest of color! His own woman, to whom he had given his soul, who sought the favor of bearing his name, who had seemed happy to attach herself to him for life, had no faith in him! The painter was white when they left the restaurant. He answered the goodbyes and good-evenings of his companions with a distracted air. And, on their way home, his legs trembled as if unable to carry him; he did not think to offer his arm to Caro. Both walked, measuring out their steps. She was used to Germain’s caprices and didn’t seek to explain his mood. “Some [81] new whim!” she thought, “some effect of color going through his head.” “You hurt me, Caro,” he said in the end, pale with emotion, clenching his fists, containing his rage. She didn’t remember it any more. “Do you have no faith in me then?—” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s got into you? What have I done?” “‘I feel sorry for the lot of you!’ you said; ‘all!’—So, me as well?” “No faith in you?—That’s not true, you know it isn’t! I said: all—yes, all— but I didn’t mean you.” Caro was lying; but her judgment prompted her to avoid a quarrel on a subject like this. She knew her Germain by heart, and was quite aware that he would capable of sacrificing everything to his vanity. Thus, without giving him the time to reply, she went on: “I wasn’t talking about what is preoccupying you, and I was only responding to Monsieur Lespignac’s boorishness—and perhaps to your blameworthy willingness to let it happen. Treating your brother like he is a cretin!—” “Whosoever would believe in me, if you—”

The Substance and the Shadow //

55

“But I do believe in you. If I didn’t, I would be too unhappy.” And he, half reassured, turned coward; without being aware of it, his vanity became a beggar. He tried to interest Caro in his faith. “Imagine, then,” he was saying, “—I must be someone—not that I have to prove my strength to myself; but to impose that strength on the public—to impose it on my father, from whom we’re [82] expecting you-know-what. The finest moment of a fighter’s life is when he is bearing his blows. His joy in the hour of triumph is made up of the sum of those efforts.” “That time will come.” “Say those beautiful words again, say them aloud. I love that trust; I am happy when I know I am understood.” Caro repeated her words, and added others, all honeyed and affectionate, such as would revive the fond self-love of her Germain. The evening ended without incident: they even managed to agree on the point that they should give the studio to Philippe and look elsewhere. The two lovers, no longer tied by passion, reached the same end, each obeying their own obsession. He saw only his painting; she thought only of her situation as a woman compromised. The next morning, Caro set off on a hunt for advertisements. She was keen for the painter to have somewhere spacious; but she promised herself to choose only a studio that came with a small apartment. They would cook at home. Little by little, Germain would get used to family life. He could not refuse; for, in a very short time, she would no longer be able to display her pregnant belly in a restaurant. As for him, he would be delighted that his work would no longer be disturbed. She would have him all to herself, she would make him hers again, like in the first days of their union, at Marlotte. And by the same token, by taking him away from his bad company, she gave him back to himself. Certainly, in matters of art, [83] she admitted her incompetence; but, in place of specialized knowledge, she relied on her instinct; and her instinct cried out to her that Philippe was right when he assured her that “art belongs to those who know how to shut up and work.” While the poor woman battered the pavement, Germain stayed at home, and tried several rough canvasses and abandoned them one after the other, finding them all weak, always coming back to his dream of extreme color.90 He grew tired, and, in the end, gave up the match. He was smoking his sixth cigarette when his friend Mazouillet turned up. “I came to ask you a favor,” said the attorney. “Two, my dear fellow.” “I would very much like to take my leave from those gentlemen in Bruno’s. I am hoping to dine this evening in their company, and, if they accept, to take them all along to the Brasserie Bismarck. As I will be home late, I would like 90 // Germain’s color sense compares to Coriolis’s in Manette Salomon; see Goncourt 1867, cxvi–cxvii

and cli, 2:178–81 and 293–96. See also Ratcliffe 1960, 372–73 and 447 n. 160.

56

//

marius roux

to ask you, you or your brother, to keep my wife company. There will be the hotel’s boiled beef for you.” “With pleasure. I will dine with Madame Mazouillet and I’ll keep her patient until you get home,” Germain hastened to reply, not worrying at all about leaving his wife alone. Mazouillet thanked him heartily, happy that he had accepted. Deep down, he would have invited Philippe only with regret. They had been together from Aigues-les-Tours to Paris; and during the voyage, Madame Mazouillet had shown great solicitude for the young man. Since then she had often spoken of him, praising his success [84] at the Ecole, where he had immediately been ranked as number two, an excellent number! She found him rather sentimental, which was all to the good. Therefore, Monsieur Mazouillet, who was no doubt making too much of it, had a point of jealously against Philippe. He felt himself on safer ground with Germain, since he found himself, in effect, in the position of a married man; and again, his wife didn’t seem to be very interested in him; indeed, she often spoke rather badly of him. “I shall go,” he said, “and inform Madame Mazouillet of our arrangement immediately.” The two friends took their leave of each other, exchanging a few stock phrases, each forgetting to pay the other the expected compliment. “Not a word about my painting!” Germain said to himself, feeling humiliated. “Nothing about true poetry!” said Mazouillet to himself, most contritely. These two fellow countrymen still didn’t trust each other, like two peasants from the same village, keeping an eye on each other. And Mazouillet, back home, said to his wife: “If that fellow ever gets to hang a painting at the Luxembourg—I’ll use the rainbow as a tie!” And Germain, meeting up with his brother, said: “Oh, no, never!—I have more faith in his money than in his verses!” When dinnertime came, Germain went to keep Madame Mazouillet company, and Philippe went with Caro to the restaurant. Caro had come home late; Philippe had waited nearly an hour for her. She made him wait longer; for she had done a lot of walking, [85] and, as it had been raining, she had come back with her dress in ruins. “Paris,” said Philippe, “is a proper aquarium; we live in it, like carp. Ah! my beautiful sun of Provence!”—91 The conversation went on. They chatted through the connecting door; he in the studio, she in the bedroom. Caro gazed at herself in the mirror, made herself beautiful, without being aware of her coquetry, and without daring to say to herself that she was taking care with her toilette to please him, him! Philippe and Caro had still not left the apartment, and Germain and 91 // References to the sun of Provence occur in Cézanne’s letters from 1858 to 1899; see Rewald 1978,

19, 56, 178 (letter to Roux), 261, and esp. 270.

The Substance and the Shadow //

57

Madame Mazouillet had long been installed in the dining room of the hotel, at a little table apart from the others, in a corner. They felt at their ease and forgot themselves as they chatted, for they communicated by saying very serious nothings. “What! You have a studio, and Amédée said nothing to me about it!—I would so much love to see a studio!” “Oh! A very modest studio, but a real studio!” “Amédée claimed that you lived in an attic.” “I suspect he envies me—Perhaps too our attorney imagines that a studio is a golden salon, on the first floor, like the Salon carré in the Louvre. Something with a little jumble, a little disorder: fencing foils and a hunting horn hanging on the wall, a mannequin in a musketeer’s uniform, a skeleton for the danses macabres, stuffed animals, and on a sofa—oriental colors—the classical odalisque, the naked model.” [86] He explained why all studios are on the top floor of the house: “Because of the daylight that you get from the good side, with the help of a wide bay window opening on the north.” “He really must take me there. In the first place, we owe you a visit. It’s true that—you have that person with you—” Germain gave a shrug of the shoulders that sent “that person” to all the devils. “I will be alone,” he said. Matching sacrifice with sacrifice, Madame Mazouillet gave a little gesture of her right hand that sent Amédée too far, far away. “And I shall come alone. Since Amédée has his little secrets from me—” As they said this they sat down at table. The ice was sufficiently broken. One word—and that a magic word—should bring out their confidences, lead them to lay bare their thoughts. After a short silence, and between two servings of soup, Madame Mazouillet had just permitted a sigh to escape her. “Ah!” said Germain, as if to calm the unknown pain, “life is no laughing matter.” “You are telling me!” Then she and he, bent over their plates, gazing into each others’ eyes, spoke low together. Meanwhile, Philippe and Caro, taking each other’s arm, made their way to Bruno’s. She, coquettish, radiant, unspeaking, but smiling at her ease; he also silent, but thinking of the [87] young girl’s dream of happiness, a happiness that was certain if Germain could only understand, if Germain deigned to look around him. When they arrived in the back room, it was already late; everyone there was getting ready to go. They were waiting only for old Godet, who was eating unhurriedly, because of his bad teeth; but there, he was done, now Godet

58

//

marius roux

had nothing left on his plate but a piece of brie, as big as a nut. They got ready to follow Monsieur Mazouillet, who had offered coffee and beer, to be had at the brasserie; and they were still moved by the reading he had just given. The poet had not resisted the temptation to read a few verses; his quoting had not been long, just one tirade, the tirade from the third act. Lespignac called him “my dear Master,” and they all but fainted away, declaring that they had never heard anything so beautiful, even at the Théâtre Français. But little Béju, who had been to classes—a rare thing—liked to think of himself a critic. “I clapped with both hands,” he said, “I find your tirade full of fire, and wittily delivered—only, I don’t quite understand your love of the periphrasis. That seems a little old-fashioned, the periphrasis—” “If you would allow me—” “So, you speak of a woman carried away by passion. Three times the word woman is on your hero’s lips; and three times, instead of that word, he says: ‘a person of the feminine gender.’” “It is more elegant, more discreet. The word ‘woman’ is often rather vulgar; as, for example, in [88] that saying, ‘He lives with a woman’; in any case, that word is really not very respectful. While on the other hand: ‘a person of the feminine gender!’”— “You mind you own business, you!” cried Lespignac, widening his eyes and imposing silence by a gesture on the clumsy idiot who was daring to endanger the funding of the society. “You are right, Mazouillet, right a thousand times. ‘A person of the feminine gender,’ that means absolutely the same thing and it’s far better in the context. Radicalism in poetry doesn’t consist in calling a woman ‘a woman,’ but in painting sentiments that these cowardly cliché-merchants wouldn’t dare render. And that is why your little piece shines, why it is superior. You are absolutely up to date.” Philippe and Caro took their place at the table at the moment when all the others got up, taking down their overcoats that were hung all over the room, lighting cigarettes, cigars, pipes. Only Mazouillet remained sitting, waiting for old Godet, who was finishing his cheese, slowly. Mazouillet behaved amiably to Caro, from whom he had stolen “her husband.” The word didn’t seem an exaggerated compliment; and Philippe, in a few careful phrases, brought his friend up to date on the situation. The marriage was a done-deal, definitively; they only had to await the consent of the father of the family. If they went no further for now, it was purely out of filial affection. “And also—so as not to lose the inheritance!” Mazouillet retorted, slipping back to being an attorney. This observation annoyed Philippe, who spoke of [89] the projected union, this time at length, with fire. He said “we” like an attorney who puts himself in his client’s skin, and makes the case he is pleading his own.

The Substance and the Shadow //

59

Mazouillet listened to him, seduced by the charm of his honest and convinced words, when père Godet himself cried from the other side of the restaurant: “Well! Are you coming—the late Ponsard?—”92 Left alone, Philippe and Caro carried on the conversation they had already begun. They built their plans for the future; and, with all seriousness, with a little emotion, they interrupted each other to say: “Pass me the salt, my dear little sister-in-law.” “Break me a little bread, my dear little brother-in-law.” They hardly suspected that, at that very moment, Germain was breaking his vows. Madame Mazouillet, once the dinner was over, had coffee served in her room to allow Germain to smoke, something forbidden in the dining room of the hotel. “You may smoke,” she said, “the smell of tobacco doesn’t worry me. I will even ask you to roll me a cigarette—But you wouldn’t give me away, would you? If Amédée knew! He is so straitlaced!—” This intimacy, these familiar manners, followed naturally from the confidences they had just exchanged. They were drunk on their memories of childhood, and they were becoming good friends. Perhaps some inappropriate desires troubled the [90] young man’s mind; but, certainly, Madame Mazouillet remained mistress of herself. Her virtue was a little common, heavy, like those fat sous she had piled up on the counter long ago in the pasta store; but, also like those fat sous, it was of sterling worth. If she had told her troubles to Germain, it was only through the need to talk. She had no one in Paris to confide in; she had no one to gossip with there, no neighbors. That made her heart heavy. She had made a marriage of convenience, in obedience to her parents, perhaps also to annoy her friends; but this marriage was still a sacred act. She did not love her husband; she found him demanding, capricious, disagreeable; but he was her master, and for ever and ever she would be submissive and faithful to him. Germain was mistaken, because she had not imposed silence on him when he had come to recall his escapades as a love-struck urchin. In those days, he had still not broken with his father, and was doing his training as a notary.93 He was only twenty; she was hardly fifteen; and he had invented errands, to pass and repass in front of the pasta store. Often, he had come into the shop, on the pretext of buying four sous worth of pasta. Ah! good times!—happy times! 92 // Ponsard: François Ponsard (1814–67), a French playwright. He rejected Romanticism, and attempted a return to the old Classical rules. He was elected to the Académie Française but achieved very little success and no lasting fame. In comparing Mazouillet to

Ponsard, père Godet is showing himself a very witty critic. (Translators’ note.) 93 // See n. 75.

60

//

marius roux

Madame Mazouillet did not say no; her eyelids fell slowly; all her physiognomy took on a resigned expression; she, too, thought of the happy times. “I loved you!—” said he. But there came no answer. Madame Mazouillet [91] stayed thoughtful. Then he tried some little turns of phrase, without mentioning himself, to allow the woman to let slip her confession of love. “Between ourselves—let’s see! Were you ever in love yourself?” Well of course she had been in love! She remembered. She took pleasure in chatting with her thoughts. And, still silent, she smiled. She smiled at the image of the beloved, a handsome boy, robust and proud, her cousin Calixte,94 under-manager of the factory that supplied the shop. One time, on a trip to the country, when they had eaten aïoli, her handsome cousin had offered her a cigarette; and she had smoked, without it going any further. It was because she had remembered that first cigarette that Madame Mazouillet had asked Germain to make her one. Germain had hastened to obey. This little license allowed him to suppose all sorts of things. He constantly showed himself gallant; and the evening went on as it had begun, in an intimate tête-à-tête; he, tormented by his secret desire to push the adventure further; she, at her ease, her soul amused, but insensible to the provocations of her lover. Her instinct as an honest woman even compelled her to use a little caution. The room was lit only by a candle; she was afraid he might blow it out. She apologized for this habit of hotelliving, since normally they only came home to go to bed. “We seem,” she said, “like two shades who run through the night, announced by a will-o’-the-wisp.” [92] She summoned the boy and told him to light the candelabras on the mantle. The boy, terribly serious, as if he were indifferent, lit the six candles. The faded curtains, the aging furniture, came alive under the sparkle of the flames; the entire room was transformed and took on the gay allure of a private drawing room. That, at least, was what the boy thought to himself, as he offered, still impassive, serious and correct, to “warn madame when monsieur was about to come back.” But madame did not understand this coarse remark at all; and, once again alone with Germain, she took up the conversation again from where they had been interrupted, taking the moment to turn it in another direction, to escape the possible intentions of her adversary. 94 // Calixte makes a dramatic reappearance later in the text: see La proie et l’ombre, 194. 95 // “Franciote”: an Occitan word taken into French, meaning more or less what it seems to mean: a cheeky girl from the north, one who gives herself airs “above her station.” In American terms “yankee” or rather “little yankee minx” might cover the sense. (Translators’ note.)

96 // Louis-Auguste Cézanne, like Germain’s father, seems to have had an infatuation with a maid in 1874, as Cézanne told Zola in a letter of September: “Je crois qu’il [‘Papa’] fait de l’oeil à une petite bonne charmante que nous avons à Aix; moi et maman nous sommes à l’Estaque.” See Rewald 1978, 173. Cézanne père was eighty-four at the time.

The Substance and the Shadow //

61

“And what did you do with all that vermicelli you bought at the shop?” “I gave it to the maid, who didn’t seem at all upset by it; it was after all so much saved for her on the housekeeping.” “She was young and very pretty, too, your maid. Annette—I think?” “Yes, Annette.” “And such a flirt!—She had a decided advantage over the other maids in the neighborhood; just like all the girls from the north. They rather like that at home, all those saucy franciotes.”95 “Why are you telling me all this?—Do you suppose?—” “I suppose nothing. In any case it would be too foolish; because today, Annette is something rather more than just your maid.” [93] “What do you mean?” “You know how everyone gossips at Aigues-les-Tours. Perhaps not everything they say is true. Whatever the case may be, she is more of a flirt and above all much smarter than before. Mademoiselle wears a hat! She has a housemaid to help her out and gives herself the rather pompous title of ‘Monsieur Rambert’s housekeeper.’ You find that funny?—Go on, you probably know more about it than I do.” “No—you have just told me about it for the first time. It doesn’t surprise me—that’s all. Damn! A man may be a notary, but it doesn’t mean he’s made of stone. My father has been a widower for a dozen years.”96 Madame Mazouillet had led the conversation where she had wanted it to go. She kept it on this neutral territory, and fed it with all the pieces of gossip she knew. When Monsieur Mazouillet came home toward midnight, he found them both very relaxed, very calm, talking about people from their homeland and saying a great deal of bad about them. Mazouillet saw Germain right down to the street, perhaps just to recognize his debt to him, but certainly also to tell him some of the things that had happened that evening. They had drunk a great deal, laughed an enormous amount, and they had got mildly drunk. At the brasserie, where they had met a crowd of friends, among them some colleagues of his, authors, poets, Mazouillet had had to declaim again the notorious tirade of the third act of his great play. “Bravos all down the line.” [94] “There were some women there, my dear fellow, some women!— They were giving me the eye all the time!” “Gosh!” said Germain, who was thinking of the funding that Lespignac must have spoken of. “I was born to live the high life. And to think that—But I am going to give studying up. For me there will be only my wife—I married her for love, my wife! I still love her, certainly!—but I would like to see her more—how shall I put it?—less—” “Well now, is it more? is it less?”

62

//

marius roux

“More up to date, there!—less prosaic. She doesn’t understand poetry. I have had to give up reading my verses in front of her—they send her to sleep.” “Well, tonight, it’s late enough to think of going to bed; she probably won’t need a reading.” “Hey! That is very witty; but it isn’t exceedingly funny.” “It is you, old chap, who isn’t funny. Go to bed—you can hardly stand up.” “You are right. Good night, until tomorrow!” “Until tomorrow!” Arriving at his door, Germain met Philippe and Caro. They too were coming home late.” The little brother-in-law and the little sister-in-law had made the dinner last. It is so good to bite on the same scrap of bread when there are so many things to say! You share your thoughts, in that moment, just as you share the water and the salt. It is the time of deep confidences. “The people in my country,” said Philippe, “have an [95] expression to paint the peace of these long meals. They say ‘taùleja,’97 a word that is quite untranslatable in French, to mean stay at the table, stretch out the dessert and the conversation.” “Well,” replied Caro, getting up, in the end, around half-past-nine, “it is very good to taùleja.” Yes, the intimate conversation was very pleasant. Yes, all the hopes the young girl nourished needed to take comfort under the warm breeze of her companion’s friendly words. This prolonged dinner, this intimate little feast, was like a foretaste of those family dinners to come, the future feasts of home. What a word that is, “home!” To dream you will have somewhere of your own, when you are a bohemian wanderer; to think you will sit down at your own table, when you are resting your elbows on the tawdry table of a restaurant; that you will be alone, husband, wife, child, and that from time to time to break the monotony of the spell, you will have a visit from your good old relatives, who talk enthusiastically about times past, while you consider the child made to yawn by these incomprehensible tales, and you think about the times to come; you see yourself already in the midst of this household, beside a roaring fire, behind a firmly closed door, when you are tired of this disheveled existence, this existence through which the indiscreet street crowd passes; what a beautiful dream! and how sweet and good the awakening seems to be! And it was already more than a dream; Caro was walking straight into reality. The good little brother-in-law gave her his arm, and they [96] went on with their interminable conversation out on the sidewalk. A beautiful evening had come out of a stormy day; the street was clean, the air was fresh,

The Substance and the Shadow //

63

the sky clear and bright. They had time in front of them; why go home so soon? They walked. First they were curious to stop in front of the brasserie, to see Mazouillet’s head; but they could see only vague shadows, a blur of faces, in the middle of the fug of tobacco, made thicker still by the opacity of the mist-covered windows. They went down toward the quais, stopping on the way in front of every shop. In the windows of the dress shops, of the novelty shops, Caro chose a present for herself from each of her future relatives; from all the useful things she saw she built up her household. It was only a game, a pleasing distraction, and the choices she made didn’t ruin her; all the same, in front of a certain shop, she nearly put herself to some expense. She took out her purse and counted her money, prepared to satisfy her whim right then and there. She had noticed a cradle,98 wrapped in material of pink and white padding, with various drapes. When it came down to it, she wasn’t rich enough. Philippe wanted to offer her the cradle, but she refused it, saying “that was a matter for the husband; she would ask Germain to come and choose.” Philippe offered again, and still Caro said no, that they were already a long way from the shop. They were coming near to the Seine, and crossing the end of the rue des Saints-Pères, a dark place, where the novelty sellers who lit their shops [97] with a candle seemed to be holding a vigil for the dead.99 On the quai, the air was fresher. The two young people pressed closer to each other; and, since they were thinking of their plans for the future, and the question Caro asked referred to certain details of their father’s house, Philippe replied by giving his beautiful little sister-in-law a name more sweet, more caressing, more loving: “Yes,” he said, “yes, my little sister.” “Ah! well, then—thank you, my little brother.” This enchanting intimacy of two chaste souls was so natural that, at one particular moment, without noticing it, Philippe and Caro had no more formality between them but had became utterly familiar. When a group of running children had come between them, separating them, they had climbed the steps of the Pont des Arts and rejoined each other, he smiling, she serious, suddenly troubled by an afterthought. “Who knows?—who knows?—” she said; “perhaps we are going to be building on sand. What if Germain no longer loved me!—” Philippe devoured her with his eyes and could not hide his wonder at her. “That could never happen, no!” he replied. “That is impossible—you are too lovely.” 97 // “Taùleja”: Provençal, from the Occitan taula, a table. It means to settle down at the table for the whole evening, and is pronounced towel-ay-JA. (Translators’ note.) 98 // “Cradle”: barcelonnette, a cradle often made of wicker and normally equipped with a hood.

99 // Ironically, Germain and Ernestine later run a “magasin de curiosités” for a brief period; see La proie et l’ombre, 180.

64

//

marius roux

“And you my friend—you are too good.” They fell silent. The same fear attacked them. They had had no time to ask each other; they did not doubt themselves, but they were afraid of each other. “What if he fell in love with me!” she thought, [98] pained. “If she would only give herself to me!” he said to himself, in dread. “Look, Caro, the curious skyline—” he hurried to say, to change his thoughts’ direction. Caro bowed her head; then she, too, tried to speak of other things. “Look, Philippe, at this black water; you would think it was watered silk.” “Over there, by the Trocadéro, all those gas lamps—that dark hole, with a rain of stars falling into it.” “On the other side, by the Pont Neuf, the effect is more noticeable.” “Too obvious; it looks like a magic-lantern show—but the outline of the houses is in great style—Look at the moon hanging from the monster’s teeth. Wait—look. Wouldn’t you say it’s like a monstrous dog carrying a cheese in its jaws?” Caro could not stop thinking about it. She had fallen back into her reverie; and, head low, she watched the water where the image of the moon was reflected— “Yes,” she replied, absently, “the moon, yes, the moon.” They had left the bridge, turned and turned about on the nearby quais; then they reached the rue de Sèvres again, letting the conversation dwell on nothing, forgetting to take each others’ arm. “And where are you coming back from then, at this time of night!” Germain asked them. The question was asked without meaning anything more; Germain [99] asked it for the sake of asking it, just for something to say. They nearly took fright. Caro turned her head away, Philippe babbled some excuse. But before Germain could read the depths of what they were thinking, Philippe nevertheless replied hastily, but with confidence, speaking about the pleasure of their walk, the beauty of the skyline. “Such a beautiful effect. Imagine, on the magnificent background of the sky, the group of houses standing out, a colossal monster with the moon caught in the gap. You would think it was a giant hound with a cheese in its jaws.” “That’s just what it was like,” Caro added quickly, seizing on the giant dog to shake away her own troubles. “At one point, I was even grasped by the image of it all in the water: ‘I hope,’ I said to myself, ‘that the great brute doesn’t give up the substance for the shadow!—’”

The Substance and the Shadow //

65

x The following day, while Caro plodded around the neighborhood once more, while Monsieur Mazouillet visited the sewers, accompanied by other foreigners brandishing cards, Germain and Madame Mazouillet met up at the studio. This studio did not live up to the way in which the excellent bourgeoise woman had imagined it. She didn’t hide her surprise, and cried out as her arms fell to her side: “But Amédée was right—it’s a hovel!” This outburst of surprise saved the poor woman from great danger. Germain was most put out and extremely humiliated and thought only of defending his thing. “The studio was like any other studio,” he was saying, but he vaunted the excellence of its daylight in vain. Madame Mazouillet was disillusioned and her thoughts wandered over her apartment at Aiguesles-Tours, which was rich set alongside the supposed riches of artists, and pleasant, convenient and comfortable, however you looked at it. [101] Her dream of the previous night was slipping away from her. During the evening, for as long as she was talking with Germain, she was instinctively protecting herself from the young man’s bold desires; she had viewed the besotted man in her role as an important, upright member of the bourgeoisie. When, later, she found herself once again in her husband’s company, she thought that she had viewed him wrongly. Her husband came home dazed, stinking of beer and tobacco, sullen and distracted. What a contrast to Germain! And then she had seen Germain in his guise of inspired artist, with the thoughtful attentions of a well-brought-up man, with the tenderness shown by him of a man who is genuinely in love. The image grew and took on a superhuman form; he was the idol of her aching heart. They were to see each other again the next day, alone, with no onlookers. Who knew what might happen?—At that moment she was afraid and huddled up beneath the sheet as if to escape her imaginings, and she promised herself that she would miss their meeting. But the sweet pictures of him hounded her, whispering into her ear exquisite words that left her quivering through and through; she was becoming more and more familiar with the new thoughts that haunted her, she was obeying the fascination of this alluring wrong; she put up no resistance as she gave in to the desires of her awakened senses, and, my word! she made up her mind to embark upon the adventure. Her idiot husband, who was also dreaming at her side, had been unable to resist telling her about his great success. He talked about the “bravos” from these ladies and gentlemen. “These ladies! Well, yes, artists, smooth-talking women.—Women!” [102] Ernestine turned her back on Amédée, silencing him. For a moment [100]

66

//

marius roux

she was so overwrought that her mind was blank and her eyes roamed here and there, following the spots of the room that were lit by the nightlight. In the end her gaze rested on the left side of the sofa. It was there that the other man had stayed seated throughout the whole evening. She saw him again, just as if he had come back. He gestured to her, blew her a kiss. She put two fingers to her lips and sent back the kiss as if to say to him, “That’s settled then, until tomorrow!” And she gradually fell asleep, very late, hugging herself as she dreamed of the unknown pleasures of plucking the forbidden fruit. When the moment came to release her suppressed desires, to give in to her fancy, the young woman remained quite ill at ease; it was not even that she was undecided—she was resolutely sensible, and angry with her lover and with herself. She was upright—upright in a coarse way—but upright. She made the excuse of having errands to run and didn’t linger on her visit. There are so many things to take home from this accursed city! and it was settled—they were to leave the following day on the morning express. She made a show of talking about her husband, of feeling pity for his poor health. “—So long as the poor fellow doesn’t pick up some fever in those sewers, or even just a nasty cold. It’s just that the slightest thing sets him off course. Ah—if I didn’t look after him!—” Self-assured and in control of her gestures, Madame Mazouillet made her escape without hurrying. She took a tour of the studio, to see one last [103] time “this hovel.” She walked past the studies of landscape hanging on the wall in complete indifference, and pouted in front of a portrait that had been started, a portrait of Lespignac,100 that had been put on the easel. “No,” she said, “I don’t like that head there.” What she meant was “that picture”; but she didn’t dare to crush the painter by saying all that she thought. The flirtatious woman paused in front of the small mirror on the mantelpiece to adjust the veil on her hat and to look sideways at herself from the shoulders up to see if her jacket was hanging properly. She had a delightful russet hat that matched her outfit, an outfit that had been cut to highlight her figure, allowing everything that it hid to live. She was very seductive; and Germain didn’t let her leave without regrets. She saw what he was thinking in the glint of his eyes. So, refining her flirtations, with the self-confidence born of knowing of the strength at her disposal, she played around with him, like a cat who, scorning to eat the mouse she has caught, paws it around. She even thought of prolonging this game that she was enjoying. “You know,” she said, placing the tip of her charming foot on the first step of the staircase, “you know that you are invited to come to dinner with us this evening. Amédée is most eager to say farewell to you and to your brother. 100 // Carolus-Duran did paint a portrait of Astruc, although around 1860, when Astruc was slim; see

Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2003, 56–57.

The Substance and the Shadow //

67

You’ll see to that won’t you—if Monsieur Philippe forgets to come back to the hotel early enough to pick up his invitation directly, you’ll take it to him. You’ll give us anything you want taking back to your father.” This was untrue. Amédée hadn’t dreamed of [104] issuing this invitation. She was turning cruel, for she was perfectly aware that there was a woman whom she was condemning to remain alone all night at Germain’s house. The cat who paws a mouse scorns the tasty morsel in vain—that doesn’t stop it from biting; a cracking bone, a spurt of blood—it all kindles its frolicsome mood. Germain accepted the invitation without embarrassment. And Madame Mazouillet descended the staircase, lifting her head from time to time in response to the courtesies shown by the young man who was accompanying her. She contented herself with smiling, with answering him by gestures, as if she were following the conversation, but, in truth, she was distracted, completely taken up by her victory, pleased by her opponent’s weakness, proud of her upright behavior. Germain only remembered Caro when he found himself alone in the studio. It was nearly five o’clock; and that was the time that she had arranged to come home. He heard a noise on the stairs, the sound of a hand brushing the banister. “It’s her,” he thought; and he sank into gloom. He couldn’t hold back a sigh and he cried, “What a cross to bear!” But it wasn’t Caro coming up the stairs. Two minutes later Philippe came into the studio. Germain didn’t dare ask his brother to stay with Caro, as he had done the night before. Philippe might be set on saying goodbye to the Mazouillets; he might have something to send back with them for his father. As for himself, he had promised himself not to [105] miss the rendezvous. He took the coward’s way out and lied to Philippe. “The Mazouillets are expecting you at dinner,” he said; “I promised I’d tell you.” And he tried to change the subject, while picking up his coat and giving every appearance of going out. “Did they invite you as well?” asked Philippe. “Yes—are you coming?—Go ahead, before I lock up.” “Well—what about Caro?” “I think she told me that she was dining with a girlfriend. In any case I’ll tell her about it in this note.” He pelted downstairs, trembling in case he ran into Caro. The concierge’s room was shut; he didn’t waste any time waiting, and said that he was going to leave his note with Joseph, the doorman. He was jittery, and held his breath until they had turned the corner of the street, on the Croix-Rouge, on the opposite side of the street to the one by which Caro would come home.

68

//

marius roux

xi When seven o’clock struck, Caro had been home about an hour. She hadn’t lit the lamp, and was sitting on the couch, still in her hat. And she waited, in the dark, telling herself that Germain couldn’t be far away, that he too was going to come home, though not to stay, to beckon to her and take her out to dinner. Time passed, without burdening her with its slowness. The fact was that she was overjoyed to have found the studio they were looking for so hard; a beautiful studio of sufficient size, with the daylight coming a little from the east; but with no sun, after nine o’clock in the morning. There was a little apartment off the studio, and the price was reasonable, seven hundred francs, a price that was within their means. This was not all; this studio was barely a few steps from the house next door. She had traipsed the entire district, pounded the sidewalk all the way to Montparnasse, and found nothing; she was coming home in despair, when, by chance, she had looked about her and had spotted [107] the sign just beside her, a sign she had walked in front of so many times without noticing it. It would work out perfectly for everyone. Since Philippe was going to take the empty studio, they would be neighbors, almost together, near enough to live like a family, far enough apart for everyone to have their own place, independent, free from all care. It was a real find. The great pleasure she felt thinking about the surprise she had arranged for Germain left her to her thoughts and allowed her to pass the time untroubled, without impatience. But Caro had turned these thoughts around and around in all directions; she told herself again for the hundredth time that she was happy and that Germain was going to be very satisfied, when she noticed that it was getting late. The cuckoo clock told her. She stayed sitting, silent, listening without paying any attention to the confused noises rising from the street, the rolling of the carriages, the shouts of the children, the voices of the women, the voices of the men, awakening the echoes all around; and this far-off grumbling, this vague noise did not smother the persistent tick-tock of the frail cuckoo clock hanging in a corner of the studio. Suddenly the mechanism scraped, and the chime sounded eight times. “Eight o’clock!—But that’s impossible. Germain has never been back at eight o’clock. He only goes out to work, and his work finishes when the day does. He has never left me alone at this time of the day. I didn’t come home so late that he could have lost patience. I was back, today, a half-hour earlier than yesterday. If he had business somewhere else, he would have told me; he would have left a note, in any case, [108] and the concierge said nothing to me when I came past her lodge. Maybe he has written?” She searched with her hand for the matchbox hanging beside the little bookshelf; then she lit one, and ferreted in vain on the desk. Nothing. The [106]

The Substance and the Shadow //

69

third match she had struck died, the charcoal burned her fingers; she dropped it, and was in darkness again. “What if I go and catch him out at the restaurant? It’s certainly a bad trick that he wanted to play on me. He would have missed me, and he’ll have been angry; but it’s eight o’clock, and we’re always back by this time. If he has dined without me then he’s a brute not to have come straight back. What is this mood all about? What! I half kill myself running around all day, to save him the bother, and this is the thanks I get? Well, too bad, I won’t dine tonight. I’m not hungry; no, I’m not hungry. I have a fever. When he gets home I’ll make him sorry; I shall have to torture him, telling him I’m dying of hunger, and I can barely stand any more. He’ll go and fetch me something to eat; he can wait on me, and that will be his punishment.” Suddenly the studio lit up. The moon had cast in the sky its beams of electric light. The very noise from the street became more vibrant, as if the light had given more life to the earth. The iron of the carriages made a shrill squeaking noise, the rolling of the wheels became more sonorous, and the voices that awoke the echoes became more distinct. Caro listened attentively to the shouts of a baby crying for its nurse. Somewhere people were arguing, probably [109] in a neighboring house; a man’s voice, a gross rasping brutal voice, shouted: “No, there’s no more money.” A woman’s voice shouted him down, hurling angry words and insults. There was the noise of overturned furniture, two shouts; a coarse insult, a cry for help, then a great silence. Perhaps a crime had just been committed there, next door, to the left or the right, not far away in the neighborhood, for the great silence was succeeded by a confused murmuring, a coming and going of big boots that could not care and do not try to hide the cracking of their nails. The police, no doubt, picking up the body of the woman and taking the man away with them? However, the rumpus died down; and in the midst of the vague murmuring of the noises from the street a clear sweet voice stood out, singing a love song. The child, who had been asking for the breast, was now sleeping in its mother’s arms, and its mother was telling it delightful things, to a rambling melody, decorated with tender notes, and caressing words, sweeter than the sighs of a harmonious flute. These sounds of the neighbors, these shouts, songs, terrible and enchanting, shook her being, inflamed her imagination, gave shape to her sensations. She had seen herself in Germain’s presence while the man’s oaths and the woman’s cries had been heard. She was exaggerating, no doubt; but there were certain forebodings she couldn’t fight off. Germain, intoxicated by his own vanity, had appeared to her, furious and threatening. He blamed her for his lack of success. It was her, the woman demanding money for the housekeeping; she, the wretch who was barring the way for the misunderstood artist.101 She was, [110] admittedly, devoted to him, but vanity is the worst of poisons, and the misunderstood artist, drunk on pride and stupidity, was no

70

//

marius roux

longer master of his resentment. But the rumpus had ceased; a sweet, good voice was awakening the echo. This mother, cradling her child, singing her song of love, it was she, suckling102 her darling baby; and she realized that she had come to the end of her uncertainties, and she was calm, relaxed, happy, having regained her place in the family, giving new birth to hope with the fruit of her belly. A cloud passed before the moon; for an instant it was night, then the light broke forth again, brighter than before. The décor of the room changed before Caro’s eyes. She saw herself again crossing the quais and the bridges on the arm of her friend Philippe; and she told herself again all the good things she and the good little brother-in-law had said to each other, all those good words that promised a happy future, all those good words that had planted in her heart this flame, that her troubled being needed to warm itself again. But had they not gone a little far in their outpourings? He seemed to have confided in her with a word; and she had been afraid of him. This love of Philippe, if it could be, it would be a crime! She had shuddered for him alone. The foolish woman! But the truth was she must distrust herself; it was her heart that she must silence, for she was the one in love, yes, she! Why accuse him, so open, so loyal? He had not learned to hide his feelings, like she had, she who had played such a long act, while Germain was away at his father’s house. From what mud has a woman’s heart been fashioned then, so that she only knows how to deceive, deceive everyone, deceive herself? [111] A woman’s heart!—How unjust and evil she had become! She accused the entire human race, so as to have the right to absolve herself. But it was her heart that was made of impure mud. There are women who do not deceive. Her mother was a saintly woman; her sister, a virtuous wife. This thought brought her back to her young years. She remembered this dream she had so often, and went again into her mother’s home to abase herself and ask for pardon. For a moment she wept. Sitting on a corner of the sofa, her elbows on her knees and her forehead in her hands, she tormented herself wildly, bringing forth all those memories; then she sank down into her thoughts, until she no longer found herself in this chaos; and she stayed there, unconscious of her being, following the noise of the cuckoo-clock, the tick-tock of the mechanism, regular, monotonous, dry. The mechanism cracked and chimed ten o’clock. Then Caro came out of her stupor. She got up, but immediately fell back in the same place. Her heart pounded fit to burst, and her burdened senses made her dizzy. She placed one hand on her chest, to count the beats of her heart; poor machine, her heart, more broken even than the cuckoo-clock; a 101 // This topos recalls Manette Salomon, in which Coriolis is ruined by Manette’s ambitions; see Goncourt 1867, esp. cxvi and cxlii–iii, 2:262–68. 102 // “Suckling”: Roux uses the word poupelinant,

which does not appear in any French dictionary we have. It comes from Occitan popel, a little breast or teat. Note how, as with taùleja, the kindest and most intimate moments of life bring Occitan back to Roux. (Translators’ note.)

The Substance and the Shadow //

71

damaged mechanism, her heart, whose movement had never been regulated and kept on speeding up. “But that is what we are!” she said to herself. “Ah! wretched! wretched!” While her hand was on her heart, she pressed the other on the sofa. This hand wandered at random, tightening, biting the material. [112] Something stopped her fingers as they found a small object, quite tiny, apparently insignificant: a hairpin. This pin was crinkled, and she herself had only pins with straight branches. So a woman had been there and sat here, in her place, while she was not there? A woman!—And Germain had not turned up at dinnertime; and Germain had not yet come home! She got up, ran toward the door, ready to go out. She was going to tear the eyes out of both of them; him first, then her. But who?—was she! Were they worth getting angry over? Was he worthy of her rage? Was she not rather to be pitied, this unknown rival? The unhappy girl came back and sat on the corner of the sofa. She struck superb poses, lifting her forehead and making a disdainful moue. She was talking to him, without shouting, without making grand speeches; she pinned him with a single word, proclaimed her indifference to him, averred that she had never loved him. Then she put on the air of a good woman and said to her rival: “Keep him—you will pay for your sins with him.” The cuckoo-clock said that it was eleven o’clock. The chime seemed to sound the retreat and to announce the curfew, for at that very moment the moonlight dimmed, and little by little the shadows thickened. When it was quite night, Caro, trembling all over, went over to the little bookshelf and groped around for the matchbox. Ferreting there, her hand met the neck of a carafe placed on the desk. She lifted the carafe to her lips and drank a mouthful of water, in one swallow; [113] but, far from cooling her, the water only fed her fever. She forgot about the light and stood there, lost in her thoughts. Then, when she had no more left to think, she struck a match against the wall. The match failed, leaving on the wall a luminous trail, a blue line, trembling, evaporating. Her eyes went from this line to the carafe, which she could not see, but which she knew was there. A terrible thought bloomed in her brain. She took a handful of matches, rubbed them between her fingers to make them blue; and she brought the fistful of matches close to the carafe, repeating aloud this sentence, an order from her maddened soul to her tired body: “They say this is a cure for life!” And quickly she let go of the matches; but her hand, badly aimed, missed the carafe and plunged into a bouquet of faded roses arranged in a jar of water. A thorn stuck into her little finger, and the pain she felt, tiny though it was, shook her as if she had been struck by a knife. She bent down, searched on the floor for the matchbox, took one and struck it forcefully. “Light! light!” she cried without knowing why. And while she carried the flame of the wood to the wick of a candle, she

72

//

marius roux

began to laugh, a foolish laugh, a sick woman’s laugh. “Yes, yes—” she said aloud, emphatically, as if she were on stage. “Yes, God! when the dying Goethe cried out ‘Light! [114] light!’ the poor man was asking for a candle!” She brought her injured little finger to her lips and sucked the drop of blood the thorn had brought forth; then she took the bouquet, a bridal bouquet, of pale autumn roses, which crumbled at the touch of her hand and dropped onto the parquet floor spots of white and yellow. Seated again still in the same place, on the corner of the sofa, she turned the faded bouquet over and over in her hands. She caressed it, spoke to it, played with it, like a child with her doll. She stopped only to let out a sigh, raising her eyes to heaven, saying to herself things that cannot be repeated, crazy thoughts, stupid things, that rise up when the heart is too full, but which do not stay and for which we would be sorry if memory brought them back to us when we had returned to our senses. In the end she broke the bouquet apart, and threw the flowers far from her, one by one, and at last keeping only two roses, a large rose, with spreading leaves, showing her heart; a little rose, with tightly furled leaves, bearing on its bent stem its head like a tired child, its faded face like a young sickly rose. Caro looked at these flowers. Little by little, her lips stammered, as if to accentuate her thoughts; and soon she fell back into her reverie, until she said quite aloud: “Poor little roses! Ambitious little roses—why did you leave the garden? Were you not well there, in the open air, under the fine sun? [115] You wanted to seek your fortune, to travel the world; and look at you, reduced to the final misery, ready to die? It’s not your fault, you say? I understand. You were born to live in peace on the rosebush that gave you the daylight; but a savage man gathered you, as he passed by. It was for his pleasure he brought you here, not for yours. He offered you a rich hospitality. Oh! There, you were at your ease, you feet in water, your head high, in a faïence vase whose colors could not match yours. And you kept up good appearances, and you kept a laugh breaking out on your innocent lips, when he whose whim you were took you for a model, when he came to you and said: ‘Nature has given you a few days of life, art will give you immortality!—’ Oh! yes, art! immortality!—Look, you naïve fools, what he has done to you, your painter; look at that canvas. You don’t recognize yourselves in that green sauce. No? That isn’t your portrait. They call that painting in stains.103 You have been duped; and you are going to die like you have lived, sadly, without having drunk a last ray of sunlight. Too bad, in the end! The sun isn’t a true friend; he often hides from you and always lets things just happen. Life is stupid, isn’t it? and we suffer and we die as well on the rosebush as in a pot of water. I remember I grew rosebushes. Oh! I have known your family a long time, sweet little roses, poor dying roses; and I know your story by heart. I have seen others born, live, and

The Substance and the Shadow //

73

die, the roses from my rosebush; the roses of May like the roses of October. How much [116] those bushes promise, loading themselves with buds! But rosebushes aren’t the masters of the earth, and the earth is very badly peopled. Some are not born, some hardly show their bright heads, the body still imprisoned in their green corset, on which the slugs and a hundred insects have already fed; those die young, or lead a wretched existence. The lucky roses are not so many, the beautiful flowers that pass their youth, a long day, drinking the morning dew, smiling at the noonday sun, giving off an odor of good health. The day never ends without some accident. The dawn is not past without the butterflies are not already come to gather the purest of your perfume. They do no more than brush their lips lightly against yours, these gentle lovers; but, as subtle as they are, the fickle things carry off on their wings something of your youth, of your beauty. The sun hardly comes down toward you, when the bees come in their turn, and those bite you to the heart, destroy your flesh. We take them for magnificent queens, these lovely flies dressed in gold; but they are just industrial misers, who are going to hide the treasures they steal from you in the depths of their attics. And the next day, in your ripe age, and the day after that for those who die old, it’s just a tortured existence: the rosebush is pillaged. It’s the ladybug, a good beast, not a vicious one, who comes to you, never suspecting they show the way for all the bohemia of the garden, for all the parasites that gorge themselves on your last scent, while the foul caterpillars [117] wrap themselves in your leaves, to enjoy the excess of your beauty, to live on the remains of the rosebush. Life is stupid, isn’t it? The garden, like the rest of the world, is a filthy place. Oh, how wretched! Everything is wretched in this base world.” She shook the flowers. The large rose was at last stripped of its crown; the little one bent its body further down its weak stem. She cut this stem, leaving near the body just a little stub to carry the flower between her fingers; then she looked through the bookshelf for a dictionary, through which she leafed. She placed the little rose on the word “Love”; but, as she came back to sit down, she thought again, and went back to the dictionary, and leafed through it again. Then she smiled, the same madwoman’s smile that had already worried her mouth; and she threw the flower between the pages, pointing with her finger to the word that must serve as its epitaph: “Lie.” And she went back to the corner of the sofa, laughing aloud. There, she looked again at the naked body of the large rose. “Yes, yes,” she said, “I see your thin faded body. You didn’t have the joys of a rose in the garden. You die, without leaving behind you the seed you owe to the earth. Whatever life is, and in spite of the foolish things she does, her love with the butterflies, her commerce with the bees, her shame with the 103 // On this technique, see La proie et l’ombre, 21. See also n. 48.

74

//

marius roux

caterpillars, despite the faults, despite the crimes, those roses still have one consolation that you will not have, that of perpetuating the eternal lie. Go away, poor rose; have done with dying, useless rose.” [118] She threw the stem to the floor and crushed it with her heel. She was standing and her lips were trembling again: “The fault was mine, mine! I dipped my feet in the filth of this dirty world; but I have this consolation, that I am no longer myself, that I am part of the world that is coming, that I forget the gay sun of yesterday without regret so that I may watch the first rays of tomorrow’s sun. My faith is not dead, my hope is reborn, my love has stayed whole; and that love, that is the truth.” All in a dream she posed before the mirror; she looked at herself direct, in profile, with her arms upturned behind her head, with her chest high, with her stomach forward. And, at each pose, she contemplated long, admiringly, with ecstasy, the swollen figure of a pregnant woman.

xii [119] Toward midnight Germain came home, full of smiles and rubbing his hands; but his smiles stopped as soon as he reached the door and saw the lights on in the studio and Caro sitting on the sofa. The poor woman was unrecognizable; her hair had come undone and her eyes were open unnaturally wide and unblinking, like two burning fires in her ashen face, a face that was pale and gleaming like a waxwork. Everything in her posture, her huddled up body, her arms hanging slack, spoke eloquently of the state of her mind, her despair, her madness. He took fright; he pitied her; he went over to her gently and submissively. As she didn’t speak, as she stared at him from large, wild eyes, his patience and pity left him, and he ended up flying into a rage: “Come on, now! Yet more nonsense—what are you doing there, you great goose?” The goose buried her head in her hands, curled up on the sofa and dissolved into tears. He went into the bedroom and got undressed, all the while [120] grumbling, swearing, and barking out insults. He had got himself into bed and was holding in his fury, so that he could listen and see what Caro would do. He heard nothing. So he turned over to face the wall and said, as a sop to his conscience, as he nestled down under the blankets: “That’s enough idiocy! Come on, now! When you want—” The next morning, when he woke up very late, at about nine o’clock, Germain found himself alone.

The Substance and the Shadow //

75

He called out. There was no reply. And so, he went into the studio half-dressed. Nobody. Caro had spent the night on the sofa; the way the cushions were arranged gave her away. He finished getting dressed and went out, without knowing exactly where he would end up wandering. When he reached the concierge’s lodge, he stopped. Caro was there. Madame Lessandre was in the middle of telling her about the horrible crime that had just thrown the neighborhood into turmoil—the death of Perrette, the bread-lady, that fine woman who was so good and so devoted to her children, whom everyone liked and respected, whom everyone pitied; for a very great deal was known about the base acts and sacrifices that she endured through the fault of her drunkard husband. It was always going to end badly. The previous day in the evening, at about nine o’clock, Joseph had come home drunk; there had been a quarrel, a beating, and, in the end, death. The police had arrived, the neighborhood was at sixes and sevens, and there was a scandal!—That monster of a man had followed the guardians of the peace, singing: “She is dead and will bother me no more!” [121] “So then,” said Germain, in order to appear unconcerned, and as if he weren’t looking for Caro—you’re talking about Joseph, the doorman on the corner? I saw him just last night, at five o’clock; he was already well on the way to being drunk.” And turning to Caro, he said: “It was him who delivered my note, telling you I’d be late, remember?” Caro didn’t answer; but she got up and went out onto the staircase, gesturing to Germain to follow her. She had understood. There was a misunderstanding. It was all the fault of the doorkeeper, that murderous drunk, who had almost brought misfortune upon her. Barely had they got through the door of the studio when Caro threw herself on Germain’s neck. “Forgive me,” she said, “I was mad. You’ve just explained everything to me, without meaning to. Of course it might arise that you go out. I mustn’t stand in your way. You wanted to let me know; but I didn’t get your note. That’s why I was afraid and angry and hurt. Forgive me. If you only knew!— how I suffered, all alone. And that monster, who was killing his wife, there, next door, I heard him; his cries of anger and the gasps of his victim carried over to me and added to my horror.” Germain let her speak, nodding encouragement at her. He was well rested and asked nothing more than to forget. “You do forgive me, don’t you? I won’t do it again. Come on, my little dog, come and give your good little Caro a kiss. There—it was an unhappy episode; it’s over. And please take note, sir, that I’m not asking you [122] what you did or where you spent your evening—even though I have here a hairpin—” “What’s this?”

76

//

marius roux

“A crinkled hairpin that I found here.” “It will have fallen out of your mop.” “I don’t have any like that.” “Well, I don’t know—Not a single woman has come in here since I’ve known you.” “That can’t be true.” “I swear to you. It’s an old pin. Some model—ages ago—for goodness sake! The floor isn’t swept every day; and anyway little things get stuck in the corner and stay there for years.” Caro had begun to look playful again. She leapt to the door, saying that she would be back. “But where are you going like that?” “To do a little errand. I’ll be back right away.” “It’s just that I’m going out too, and I’m letting you know this time—Take some chocolate, something, anything, just have some kind of snack—because we’ll be having lunch late. I must take the Mazouillets to the station. The train leaves at eleven o’clock. I won’t be back again before midday.” They went downstairs together; he went out, she stopped off with the concierge. That was where her business was. The little errand was to finish off the neighborhood gossip, which she wanted to hear in the minutest detail. And so on and so forth; Madame Lessandre and Caro began to rant about it. They each excited the other’s curiosity; the concierge, by giving details about the arrest of the criminal and the victim’s removal [123] to the Morgue; Caro, by recounting how she felt when she had heard the argument and had had a presentiment of the drama that was about to unfold. They interrupted each other, and returned to the sentences that they had begun. Madame Lessandre’s great interest was in knowing whether the unfortunate Perrette had provoked her brute of a husband; and Caro would have liked to enlighten herself as to the precise number of knife blows, since some said two, others four, and the concierge was asserting that there were seven. “Seven!—that’s a lot.” “They’ll see when they do the autopsy; for it’s to see that they’ve taken the poor thing to the Morgue.” “Yes, poor woman!—poor unhappy woman!” “Of course!—but when it comes down to it, perhaps she didn’t have much stamina. You have to be able to withstand your husband. When mine comes home drunk, I leave him to grumble. He goes to bed and I wait for him to fall asleep.” They’d reached the point of talking about personalities, of asserting the good, fine qualities that they possessed. “Well I say—well I do—” And in these matters the young woman was nearly as indiscreet as the old. They exchanged several confidences, which naturally led to the fatal conclusion: “Oh! men!—men!—”

The Substance and the Shadow //

77

“Don’t trust them, little one,” said Madame Lassandre.” “Oh well, in my case—I’m confident. I’m sure that—” “Hmmm!—there are things that could be said.” “You can say everything.” “Hold on—not now, because you’ve [124] recovered; but a little while ago, your eyes were red, your face was drawn; you had been crying. I bet that it was that cow from yesterday who brought that about.” “You’re mistaken. I was upset, yes, but—” “But you would like to fool me into believing that you aren’t jealous.” “Jealous—of whom?” “I’ve just told you.” “Another?—A woman?” “Who came over yesterday.” “Yesterday?” “And indeed they both stayed up there for a very long time! I was saying to myself: ‘What they need is for Madame Rambert, who is foolish enough to go chasing around following up advertisments, to come back unexpectedly!’ Do you know her, this woman?” “No, but she looks like a strapping girl—and she is nothing to write home about, I can tell you!” Caro turned white. All her torments of the previous day took hold of her again. She drew herself up to hide what she was feeling, and even pretended to have taken offense, by accusing Madame Lessandre of jumping to hasty conclusions. That lady, about whom she was speaking, was a friend, a very correct person, who had been promising for a long time to come and see the painter’s work. Madame Lessandre didn’t look convinced, and yet Caro was speaking in a genuinely sincere tone. By mulling over this idea of a friend, an upright friend, paying a visit, the wretched woman had ended up by persuading herself [125] that this is what had happened. “Who knows?—This explanation was logical, after all; and Madame Lessandre’s conjectures weren’t sufficiently substantiated. They had come over from Fontainebleau, they had only been in Paris a month, and they had seen each other every day.” The bread-lady’s corpse caused yet another stir. Two neighbors on their way back from the morgue had stopped off in the concierge’s lodge for a moment. They had seen the dead woman and had counted the knife-blows. There were nine. “For mercy’s sake!” shrieked Madame Lessandre. And the prurient gossip started up again. It was past midday before a single one of these women had given a thought to her lunch. During this time, the two Rambert brothers had driven the Mazouillets to the station. Everything had taken place according to the usual procedures—leaving the hotel, traveling across Paris, arriving at the station. The

78

//

marius roux

conversation had not moved beyond everyday commonplaces. It was only at the last moment, while Philippe and Monsieur Mazouillet were busying themselves with the luggage, that Madame Mazouillet and Germain found themselves alone face to face for a moment. “In a moment I will kiss you,” said he, “because that’s what’s done, and because you will not be able to spurn my kiss; but let me tell you beforehand of all the love that this kiss will hold.” “Don’t trouble yourself, my handsome friend. When it comes down to it, your love is hardly compromising.” “Leave it to the gossipmongers in our fine town of Aigues-les-Tours to say that sort of thing. To compromise oneself! [126]—It’s not a nice thing for a pretty woman to say.” “You’re teasing me! Maybe it wasn’t me I was thinking about when I said it. Maybe if I’d wanted to say—” “To say?” “That I don’t attach much significance to your declarations of love. You’re very generous with your promises.” “I’ve only made one promise in my life.” “Just one.” “Yes—one day when I was buying four pennies worth of vermicelli.” “For heaven’s sake! And—since then—” “That doesn’t count. I was lonely—certain circumstances—I have only ever truly loved one woman, and that woman—” “Is me. Thank you. Luckily the train leaves in five minutes.” “We will see each other again.” “Probably. But hush!—Here comes Monsieur Mazouillet.” The bell announced the train’s departure. The locomotive could be heard from the other side of the wall, spewing out its excess boiling water. People were hurrying toward the waiting room. Monsieur Mazouillet, whose arms were weighed down with parcels and who was clutching the handle of a basket in each hand, bid farewell hurriedly. “Thank you, goodbye. We hope to see you soon, take care of yourselves!” while Madame was very calm and very dignified and took her leave of her friends and accepted their kisses, starting with the youngest. “So that I can take your kisses away with me!” she whispered into the ear of the eldest. [127] The crowd rushed forward, the bell rang, one of the workers called out. They could hear the sound of the doors shutting, the machine blowing as it tried out its breath before going on its way; then the purring of the wheels, with the clunk-clunk-clunk of the whole train going on the turntable, and then, already far distant, the blast of a whistle. Germain and Philippe were still in the waiting room, where new booths were being opened up, where new travelers were running up, men in overalls, women in short dresses, servicemen, sisters of charity, children, a whole

The Substance and the Shadow //

79

band of weary folk, of sad faces; it was the band of the poor, the omnibus train, which leaves after midday. “Stunning!—” Germain said, as he gazed upon this motley crowd. “It’s worth painting. That’s life, that’s art. I’ll come and make a sketch of that.” “In the meantime, let’s go and take a bite of lunch,” replied Philippe, going through the door and getting back into the carriage that had brought them there. When they reached the rue de Sèvres, Caro was still in the concierge’s lodge. She greeted them indifferently, forgetting the walk she had taken in the moonlight with Philippe and no longer remembering her quarrel with Germain, completely beguiled by the drama that was thrilling all the local gossips, feasting her insatiable curiosity on all the monstrous details that were being bandied about. “Just a moment,” she said. “I’ll go and get my hat.” “Well, I’m dying of hunger,” answered Germain. “I’ll [128] go on ahead. You can come to Bruno’s on your own.” Caro did not go alone to the restaurant. Philippe had waited for her. He wasn’t hungry, he assured her, and he could wait. The truth was that he wanted to ask Caro to explain a few things. His brother had hastily sketched out the scene of the day before to him and had vaguely complained about it. “You’re wrong,” said the kind little brother-in-law. That woman who came over yesterday was Madame Mazouillet. She owed you a visit. It was with the Mazouillets that we dined and spent the evening. I thought you’d been told about it, since Germain had left a note. Unfortunately—” “It’s fine! Don’t let’s talk about it any more. I’ve acknowledged that I was wrong—let’s not talk about it any more, I tell you; the matter is over and done with—Do you know what he did, that wretch who made me upset? He killed his wife. You know that; but, guess how many times he stabbed her, the monster—Eleven!—eleven times!—three times in the stomach.”

xiii [129] The very next day they busied themselves with moving in to the new lodgings. Germain carried his furniture to the house nearby, from the small to the large studio. Philippe went to fetch his suitcase and his parcels from the hotel, to take possession of his brother’s former lodgings. It was done in half a day; but setting things up took longer. Philippe took only three days; to cover the walls he took out some souvenirs that he had brought from his father’s house and from the school in Aigues-les-Tours: two portraits, of his parents; some views of the town and its surroundings;

80

//

marius roux

two studies in pencil; the pieces that had won him first place in the competition. Several of his brother’s ornaments stayed behind: some faïence pieces, a shelf, the little mirror, and, last, the white-wood easel, condemned after it had been deemed unable to bear a size one-twenty canvas. A furniture dealer in the neighborhood provided an iron bed with box-spring mattress, bolster [130] and pillow, for eighty francs. A chest of drawers, in the Empire style, completed with the chest the furniture of the room. As for Germain, he was still not finished. They tried draperies before making their choice. Draperies were a dream cherished for years past. There were a lot of Beauvais rugs, certain Henri II scenes with very striking borders, not to mention some small Gobelins, which had for a long time caught the painter’s eye; but the specialist merchants were prohibitive, first because of their high prices, then because of their insistence on payment on the spot. Germain was forced to apply to an ordinary carpet seller, who had agreed to allow him credit. Two doors stood face to face, the one to the landing and the one to the bedroom; they were covered by a curtain of vermillion velour, edged with light yellow satin. The chairs and the sofa were done out in the same material. And the red and the yellow were repeated again, mixed with all the other colors of the prism, on a Chinese screen placed in a corner of the studio, where it could be a changing room for the model. The faïences offered to Philippe were replaced by some first-class pieces: four plates, two horn-shaped Rouen, a Delft, and a Moustier signed d’Olery.104 They hung them on the wall, to make a splash of color. On the mantle, to hold the various brushes, two vases, one pharmacy-pot of pure faïence, and a little blue Nevers pot. The new mirror was modern, but beveled like a Venetian mirror, and framed with exotic wood, [131] very broad, cut in whipcords, in the style of Louis XIII. The vermillion and the yellow of the draperies, the garish motley of the screen, the violent splash of the faiences, and the gold of the collections, the doors, and the frames of various canvasses gave the studio the flamboyant appearance of the high altar at the hour of benediction.105 Those canvasses deemed worthy of a frame were all by the painter Germain. On the walls there was not an inch of another painter’s work, unless you count, in a corner, by the spittoon and the wooden chest, right at the back, and almost invisible, a watercolor by his friend Lespignac, a Lion at Rest, in a simple everyday mount, the glass held together at the edges by a thin strip of black paper. Friend Lespignac had come often, very often, to keep an eye on the setting-up, to give out his advice as a man of color. The fact is, for the moment, he was on the move. He had found a way of making yellow and red come alive, by only painting animals henceforth. His models were the lions in the Jardin des Plantes. The background of his watercolors never varied; it was always the same oak, the same bush, the same rock.

The Substance and the Shadow //

81

“It’s slick,” he would say, “but it doesn’t matter. It’s the required sauce, the background to stage the person.” But the animal, oh, it was sketched just as in nature; it was alive, that animal! “As if it were about to eat the acorns,” said his little friends. They were not delicate, his comrades, and in particular [132] Damasquère, who did not scruple to say that the Lion at Rest didn’t come from the Jardin des Plantes, but from the gingerbread market. “Lespignac is turning bourgeois,” the successor to Velázquez would say. “You can see he wants to please, that he’s making concessions.106 Our friend has changed; and it’s all since he has been lodging with the lawyer Mazouillet and got a sniff of that philistine’s money. Will it ever come, that money! And will we be able to set up our society and organize our exhibition? I doubt it, because Lespignac is already talking of taking the exhibition for himself. I’m assured he’s looking for shops to hire, down toward the Boulevard.107 That fat lad will end badly; he’s going to explode from too much fat in the skin of a color dealer. It’s like old Godet—and there’s another joker! He makes out he’s a martyr to art. These unknown means, that help him live and are supposed to come down from on high—well!—it’s a joke. He’s a parcel-wrapper, Godet. I found out his secret, I’ve no doubt of it. For more than twenty years this false apostle has been employed on the rue Bonaparte, in a workshop making religious goods.”108 Germain, who was fixing in nails, had taken long pauses, hammer in hand, ears open, ready to answer Lespignac and Damasquère, who, regularly each day, sometimes one after the other, sometimes both together, would turn up to see “if it was taking shape.” Lespignac, who did not suffer and who had long since realized his dream of a comfortable lodging in the district, this fat boy full of bloody steaks, [133] gave his opinion with a disinterested air. He found the setup convenient; and he was always of the same opinion as Germain. “He gives you his blessing,” said Damasquère, the thin and ragged Damasquère. 104 // The reference is to the late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century porcelain made by Joseph Olery at Moustiers in Provence. 105 // The warm and motley colors of Germain’s atelier, including “les bariolages crus du paravent,” have much in common with that of Coriolis’s atelier, which has “bariolés” features and yellow-tinted light, as described in Goncourt 1867, xxxv and xlvii, 1:186–91 and 246–49 (which also includes a description of the “couvertures bariolées” of the albums of Japanese prints owned by Coriolis). Germain is also taken with the “foule bariolée” he sees at the railway station; see La proie et l’ombre, 79.

106 // See La proie et l’ombre, 88, where Lespignac is contrasted with his friends who have not made any “concession” to the “bourgeois,” and 187–88, where Germain attempts a “slick” (“chic”) painting, which involves making “concessions” to the “bourgeois.” 107 // The phrase “le boulevard” here probably refers to the (contiguous) boulevards des Capucines and des Italiens. The first Impressionist exhibition that Damasquère alludes to took place on the boulevard des Capucines. 108 // Solari worked in “une bondieuserie.” His occupation is documented in Rewald 1939, 195; see also Niess 1968, 262 n. 60 (which gives a reference to

82

//

marius roux

This latter raged; he could not always cover up the longing that gnawed at his heart. He gave a compliment only ever in a bitter tone; and when he laughed, his little staccato laugh was disturbing. “Enough!—” he said, without noticing Germain’s position, perhaps deliberately and with the intention of being unpleasant to him, “enough!— another one who’s happy to have come after his father! Lespignac claims that he sells. I haven’t been to see that; but—if he wasn’t subsidized by his daddy, that big baby!—” Lespignac was said to be rich. He had been loaned a château and immense lands on the banks of the Garonne. The truth was that he spoke sometimes about the ruined tower of his family’s old castle, near the house built by his grandfather, a snapper-up of national assets. He had even done a picture in sepia, representing the ruined tower. With Lespignac and Damasquère, the other comrades, all the habitués of Bruno’s and the Brasserie Bismarck, had come to have a look and offer their compliments; but all of them had just passed by, and only old Godet had stayed sometimes. He had no château on the banks of the Garonne, but he too had his legend. They said he was the son of émigrés. Certain highly placed people, [134] who were not names, paid him a pension; this allowed him to pursue art for art’s sake. “You’ve got no plaster-casts here,” he ended by saying to Germain, when he had admired everything. There was no choice, and when old Godet started to hold forth about a figure, he invariably meant his Democ-Soc.109 the same letter that Rewald cites). Cf. Zola 1886, 78, which describes Mahoudeau as someone who “s’était vu forcé, pour vivre, de se mettre aux gages d’un marchand de bons dieux, où il grattait dix heures par jour des Saint-Joseph, des Saint-Roch, des Madeleine, tout le calendrier des paroisses.” 109 // The Democ-Soc sculpture alludes to Solari’s projected work, La Guerre de séccession, which was to represent the Negro Scipio fighting off a pack of dogs; see Baille 1981, 90 and 92). (See also Rewald et al., 1996, no. 120, 108, for an account of a painting of the related subject, Le nègre Scipion of c. 1867, by Cézanne.) This last sculpture, which Gasquet refers to as Nègre poursuivi par des chiens, collapsed (and hence “fell asleep”) under its own weight owing to the weakness of its improvised armature in the presence of Manet, Cézanne, and Zola; see Gasquet 1926, 47–48, Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:128 n. 4, and Crouzet 1964, 614. The incident is recapitulated in L’oeuvre, where Mahoudeau’s Baigneuse couchée suffers the same fate. The Salon catalogue indicates that Solari exhibited a Nègre endormi at the Salon of 1868, and gained a silver medal at the Salon of 1870 with a Nègre en buste.

110 // Zola praised the works Solari exhibited at the Salons of 1867 and 1868: Bacchante and Nègre endormi (the latter for showing “le tempérament de l’artiste’); see Rewald 1939, 143 and 147, and Hemmings and Niess 1959, 142–44. (These works do not correspond exactly with those described in the Salon livret.) Zola’s article, published in L’Evénement illustré of 16 June 1868, was the subject of an exchange of letters between Zola and Solari: see Bakker et al. 1978–95, 2:127 and 128 n. 5. See also Rewald 1939, 128, and Baille 1981, 92. Zola’s article is alluded to in L’oeuvre, where Sandoz (“Zola”) promises Mahoudeau to write an article praising his Vendangeuse, a sculpture that began as a “bacchante” but was modernized in response to a suggestion of Claude Lantier’s; see Niess 1968, 37, and Zola 1886, 82 and 79. On Zola’s criticism of the work Solari exhibited at the Salon, see Scott 1998, 109–11 and 116 n. 12. There is also a short review of Solari’s submission to the Salon of 1874 in Clément 1874. 111 // See n. 32.

The Substance and the Shadow //

83

The illustrious continuator of Michelangelo had been working for forty years on an immense group portrait, with enormous effect. It was to be called: The 29th of July. It was a corner of a barricade, with the dead crushed on the paving-stones, and furious combatants in superb poses; on the nearest paving-stones a child, a sublime urchin, bellowed out the Marseillaise. The head of this child was done. It was the only part of this monumental group that was completed. It was this head that, from 1834 to 1872, had figured in four exhibitions of refused work, in clay, in terra cotta, in marble, in bronze, and that the artist has christened his Democ-Soc. This martyr for art showed himself by the same token to be an apostle of political ideas; and that had been worth the scrap-end of an article to him here and there, in the militant newspapers.110 The Democ-Soc made its way into the studio, at the same time as the painter’s new easel, an easel with a hook, all in walnut, broad and solid, on which was hung, for the session, the famous size one-twenty canvas. The little urchin, poised on a console, seemed to sing the glories of the painter and to shout to him: “Forward, march!—” There was really only marching to be done. The setup [135] was complete, and the size one-twenty canvas had already been awaiting the first stroke of the brush for three days. Germain decided to bolt his door, saying to his friends: “And now, to work! You’ll see it, when it’s ready to be seen.” If the studio was complete, decorated, spruced up, the rest of the house wasn’t done. Caro turned around in her empty kitchen, like a soul in torment. She too had had things to distract her. The furniture dealer had not limited his credit to draperies; he had also supplied a bedroom suite, all in palissander-wood and thuja. The mirrored cupboard, between two windows with blue repp,111 with awnings of embroidered chiffon, was a marvel. And the young woman forgot herself for hours on end, lost as she gazed upon herself in front of this agreeable glass that told her of her beauty and advised her on the least detail of her toilette. However, she had an object in mind when she chose this broad and convenient apartment, that came with its little dining room and its kitchen; but how could you get by, when you are ruined having to pay for these tiny ornaments, little odds-and-ends you can only buy for cash? The household utensils had seemed rather less important than a Rouen plate, or a Nevers pot; and they could get the crockery and the kitchen tools only from obscure dealers, in bazaars, where you can only go with cash in hand. That’s where the trouble came from. And then, Germain didn’t go for the idea of a stay-at-home life; [136] Germain was afraid of turning bourgeois; Germain needed the atmosphere of the restaurant, where they went less to eat—such a banal bodily function, eating!—than to smoke pipes and discuss things with the comrades, “to keep

84

//

marius roux

in touch, wind up the springs of action.” Caro was stubborn with her own ideas; furthermore, she began to grow uneasy in public, especially with these impudent rapins, who did not scruple to make some remark about her interesting condition and invariably greeted her with some coarse joke. She seized the opportunity and used a stratagem. It was the early days of November; Germain and Philippe had just picked up their allowance. It was six hundred francs each.112 Caro calculated thus, because she knew she could depend on Philippe’s help. At the same time as his monthly money, Germain had five hundred francs from a friend in Aigues-les-Tours, to whom he turned on special occasions; but she didn’t talk to Germain, and let him do and redo his accounts. She contradicted him in nothing and agreed with his calculations, when standing in front of the size one-twenty canvas he added up the costs of the model and the costume-hire. She even praised him and soothed him with compliments, trotting out splendid phrases all to the following end, prepared in advance on a cliché: “The artist must live in his studio.” It was then half-past eleven in the morning, and, as Germain [137] was talking of going to the restaurant, Philippe half opened the door of the dining room crying: “Madame is served.” The lunch was ready. Caro had borrowed only thirty francs from her accomplice Philippe; and while waiting for the complete set of pots and pans, the matching tableware, she had bought some heavy saucepans, a broiler, a dozen plates, three glasses, three wrought iron covers. Then she had improvised a dinner: a slice of ham, some grilled cutlets, a piece of brie and some pears, all washed down with a pint of wine,113 got from the grocer. They were going to play dinner-parties. That amused Caro, pleased Philippe her guest, and made Germain laugh, as he let her boss him around. Germain had begun by joking; but once at the table he heaped praises on it. They didn’t serve rich bread at Bruno’s; the wine was unarguably better than they had at the restaurant; since he left his father’s house he didn’t remember eating such excellent cutlets. And all this cost less than it would 112 // This allowance is also mentioned in La proie et l’ombre, 28. Cézanne’s father cut his allowance to one hundred francs a month in 1878 upon discovering that that Paul had a family. (He did this on the pretext that this sum was enough for a bachelor, which Cézanne maintained he was.) See Rewald 1939, 230–31. In later editions of his biography of Cézanne, Rewald states that the painter had previously received two hundred francs a month. This sum seems to be confirmed by the fact that Cézanne reports to Zola that “Papa m’a rendu 300 francs ce mois-ci. Inouï.” See Rewald 1978, 173. See also La proie et l’ombre, 154, which mentions how Rambert père had agreed to give Philippe two hundred francs a

month. Cezanne’s dealings with his father over money in 1878 are detailed in Mack 1935, 28–34. 113 // “Liter à seize”: an archaic form of measurement, surviving in the wine trade. A boisseau was approximately ten liters; a litron was one-sixteenth of this. So a liter à seize is approximately a pint of wine: rather little between three people. (Translators’ note.) 114 // Cézanne was reluctant to be seen painting, which implies that he was reticent about showing work in progress; see Vollard 1938, 58–59.

The Substance and the Shadow //

85

have at that poisoner’s! He consented to think about it. It was, definitely, wasted time that was spent outside the studio. He would not leave his canvas again and could take his meals between two strokes of the brush, while the model could have a cigarette to relax herself. That was decided, done; from now on, he would have lunch at home. As for dinner, they would see. “You don’t work in the evenings,” he added; “and it’s also good to keep in touch with things.” “But, darling,” said Caro then, certain of [138] her victory, “I can hardly keep dragging myself along with all those gentlemen.” “That’s fair enough. All right, we’ll lunch and dine here—not to mention that from time to time I could entertain here at the domestic oven—a matter of not dropping your friends and knowing where you are with them.” A new life began for Caro, who saw herself halfway to her dream, ready to regain the place she had lost in the family and in the world. A new life began also for the painter, who, with no material worries, devoted entirely to his work, could give free rein to his temperament and paint the masterpiece he foresaw. The model Sarah came to pose for two hours per day. She sat enthroned at the back of the studio in front of a red and gold drape, on a red and gold seat, wrapped in a red satin dress pinned with gold. It was a veritable glut of yellow and vermillion. And the model’s fine head was admirably framed in a high coiffure, her tresses loaded with pearls, in a ruff of light lace, delicately cut. The painter squinted his eyes, made a few strokes of the brush, sketched the lines with broad brush strokes, made the light leap from the painting, so pure in its form, so sparkling in its color. But he alone knew what he was doing, he alone was the judge of the effect he obtained. Neither Philippe, nor Caro, nor even the model had the right to come near. His friends were made to stay curious. Each time the bell rang, the painter turned his canvas to the wall.114 [139] This secrecy of Germain’s made the friends gossip, almost as much as the way he threw himself into it. The jokes had a good run, for a fortnight and more, at the restaurant and the brasserie, about this coward Germain, who had had a skirt put on him. Sarah, a good girl, whom the rapins called “the Sister of Mercy,” obliged by her acquaintances and by the nearness of the restaurant to take some of her meals at Bruno’s, found herself mixed up in this tittle-tattle. All the comrades, and Lespignac in particular, had been trying to persuade her to seduce her painter, so that she could turn him away from his unhappy passion for Caro’s boiled beef. The good girl had laughed and joked like the others. The good girl had promised to serve the cause of great art; but she took great care not to follow up on her promise. She stuck to her ten francs per pose; and the bright girl knew that the young painters who pay regularly are not the ones

86

//

marius roux

for whom the model need do little favors. Sarah ended up by betraying the conspirators; she told her boss everything. She told even more than there had really been, which at first made Germain furious, and then just strengthened him in his resolve. He swore he would never again set foot in Bruno’s, and he’d fling the first one of those jokers who dared show his face here out of the door. He showed no one the door, and he still had the good sense to show himself at Bruno’s sometimes; but that was because he could win. His canvas was coming on. He spoke very little about it, in brief sentences; and his reticence doubled his comrades’ curiosity, [140] multiplied their longing. “Who knows?” they would say, when he wasn’t there; “perhaps he’s a temperament.” The truth was, Germain got up at dawn and didn’t leave his canvas until night. He worked without rest, and took care over his work. The two hours of posing were two hours well used. Sarah became breathless through staying still so long. Decidedly, he was going to bring a masterpiece out of this unheard-of effort. They began to talk of Germain with respect. He was a false friend, that had been decided a long time ago; but here he was mixed up with wanting to shock the bourgeois, dreaming of official success. Without doubt Germain was working for the Salon. Abomination upon desolation! Most of all it was Lespignac who cried aloud. The instigator of the Impressionist Salon saw one of his co-religionists fleeing the true church; he even suspected him of being something more than a mere deserter, but an infamous traitor; for it could only be him who had dissuaded Mazouillet from sending the promised funds to the disciples of great art. The lawyer had shown no more sign of life; they had news of him only through Germain, who said he had had a letter from Madame Mazouillet, telling him that her husband was seriously ill. “A singular messenger,” said Lespignac, “and a still more singular malady!” Lespignac, pondering his suspicions, gave birth to a grotesque idea. [141] “Let us swear,” he said one evening when he was on his seventh bock,115 “let us swear to remain together for always. The traitors will be those who try to negotiate with the official clique. Hatred and contempt for anyone who tries to send a work to the Salon!” Germain wasn’t there to swear with the others; but three of these gentlemen were picked to take him the group decision. They were three of his least close friends; three apostles able to speak severely to the one suspected of treason. These three, one long-hair, one pointy-beard, and one bald-head—the hair of a poet, the beard of a philosopher and the head of a fighter—found Germain more outraged than they were themselves against the official

The Substance and the Shadow //

87

clique, the Salon and the salonniers. “Donkeys!” cried Germain, who had just found an effect in vermillion, and who had got as much of the color on him as on the canvas, on his hands, his shirt, his beard, and his hair.116 And to these three apostles, who were not his close friends, he deigned to show his work. The canvas, turned around when the bell rang, was led to the middle of the studio, placed back in the daylight. The curtain in the background was well advanced, the accessories were coming on, and the figure was beginning to stand up. The head was still a bit of a sketch and the robe was iron-white; but—it was the effect given to it by nature. “Nature!” cried the painter, “there’s the rub. Let them take on nature, those gentlemen of the Jury.” “Very good!” said Long-Hair, Pointy-Beard, and Bald-Head, one by one. “Perfect! my boy.” [142] “You are in the right. The success of the Impressionists’ Exhibition will be for you.” “And, one by one again, the three apostles put some questions.” “Talking of which—this Monsieur Mazouillet, who was meant to—” “Sick, unto death,” answered Germain. “I had more news of him last night. Since he got back, he hasn’t left his bed. He is unconscious. His wife thinks he got it in the sewers. You remember his visit to the sewers?—The absolute truth is that that gentleman has never been robust. I always knew him as a sickly man. At high school we called him the External Skeleton. On his wedding day, at the Mayor’s Office, in the throng outside the door, a fishmonger pointed to the bride and shouted out: ‘Oh! The poor little sweety-pie!—they’ve given her a bone to gnaw on!’” “So, the money for our society is threatened?” “I think you might have to look elsewhere.” “Look elsewhere!—Oh! oh!” “God! yes, we’ll have to talk, see for ourselves if there’s a way of getting enough money. As for me, I’ll agree in advance with anything you wish.” “With anything we wish!” Long-Hair, Pointy-Beard, and Bald-Head went away convinced that he was no false friend. “His painting, at least, was affirmative enough.” “Surprising!” “Overwhelming!” [143] “A revolution in art.” Such was the first word of the three delegates, reporting back that night 115 // A bock was a beer, strictly speaking a heavy German lager, normally served in measures of a pint. (Translators’ note.) 116 // In a letter to Zola of 1878, Duranty describes how Cézanne would appear at the Nouvelle Athènes

wearing a “cotte bleue, veste de toile blanche toute couverte de coups de pinceau et autres instruments, vieux chapeau défoncé,” and how “ce sont des manifestations dangereuses”; see Rewald 1973, 406, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 3:137 n. 7 (citing Auriant, “Duranty et Zola,” La nef, July 1946, 50–51).

88

//

marius roux

at Bruno’s on their delicate mission. They discussed at length the masterpiece in progress; then Lespignac concluded: “If that’s the way it is, that our friend is going to be the hero of our Exhibition, let him cough up for it! He’s got sackfuls!” “And you, old chap, you’ve got sackfuls, too,” said that nasty piece of work Béju. “Me! Me!” replied Lespignac, “I’ve only got what I work for. I’m not denying my family inheritance; but my father still has very good teeth and still knows how to bite it all himself. If I didn’t sell—” “He sells!—he sells!—” This last cry went around the table. Each one said it in a different way. Surprise, astonishment, envy, distrust, irony, joke, exploded out in one blast. It was the joke that carried the day. No one begrudged this fat lad his glorious lie. If he had spoken the truth, they would have been able to condemn him, treat him as a renegade, shout the truth in his face; but it was too evident that he was lying. He wasn’t worth the anger of these pure souls who had never made any concession to the bourgeois,117 and who would rather be condemned to death for the great and good cause. “And what do you sell,” said Damasquère, “cows? calves?” “Lions!” replied the haughty watercolorist! [144] “It astounds you; but that’s the way it is. We have our public. Believe me, let us put on our exhibition, and you’ll see—those who produce will find collectors. Oh, joke, joke, good masters; you’ll see what Bibi can do. He has several strings to his bow, does Bibi! And the day isn’t far off when he’ll sell something other than watercolors. I have the subject of my poem.” On the subject of poetry there was no argument, and consequently no possibility of jealousy. They let the poet blather on at his ease. The plan is made, the situations are found; I even have the division into chapters and the place set aside for the principal pieces. It is still the development of the idea that you know: the struggle between the ancient and the modem world. It finishes in a general battle; but I’ve given up on the battle in open field. The action is concentrated in Paris, at Les Halles!—Infamous, Les Halles—modern art, the material life, the things we need every day that belong to all time—A great and beautiful tableau.118 The battle changes the fountain of the Innocents into a fountain of blood. I call my poem: The Fountain of Blood. Quite a title, that!—Splendid! The Fountain of Blood. “Very fine, that title; but it’s still not that fountain that will provide us with the means to set up our society,” said Damasquère at last. “We must think. This winter should not go past, like the winters have before it, with all talk and never deciding anything. We should be ready for spring, before the opening of the official Salon, if [145] that’s possible. We already have some money. Let’s get busy getting new subscriptions, let’s look for recruits; in

The Substance and the Shadow //

89

short, let’s get organized. Since Germain is still one of us and will agree to anything, let’s begin by deciding to meet at his place, tomorrow at four. He has a fine big studio at his disposal; that means something. The recruits we gather won’t tell us we’re good-for-nothings. I won’t hide how I feel from you: we’ve got to take on some dandies; yes, we’ve got to search out, in those nice little studios on the Right Bank, some nice little rich people who can help us in our project. I know two or three myself, who come to the Louvre. Their canvasses are turned down at the Salon; they’re furious.” “Understood!” said Lespignac, who also knew some wealthy collectors. The next day the meeting took place. Lespignac and Damasquère each brought along their dandy, the son of a viscount,119 and a wholesale wine merchant, two fine lads, well groomed, smelling good, and talking dirty. The salon was “just rubbish” to the wine-merchant; “crap” to the little viscount. They both subscribed while the meeting was still in progress, each for five shares at sixty francs each,120 that is, six hundred francs that they offered in cash. Lespignac rushed to call on several journalists that very evening to announce that the Society of Free Art was well on the way to being founded, and that they would organize an exhibition for next Spring. The Society was calling on “all the young talents, all the genuine producers, [146] all the independent artists, the true, the only temperaments.” The Society found its subscribers. A month later it had serious funds at its disposal, a sum of about ten thousand francs. What frightened the organizers was that among the newcomers there were those who could cover the walls of a large hall with nothing but their own works. That didn’t work for the group at Bruno’s. Thus the organizing committee, that notorious band of rebels against all rules, began by rewriting the statutes—to reserve the best places in the coming exhibition for themselves and to build a rampart against the invading fleet of compromising money. Article 2 of the regulations said that places would be distributed in the order of subscriptions received; and Article 3 said that new subscribers would be entitled to send in only two canvasses. In the numerous confabs held about the rules, they sometimes met with Germain, who was no longer turning bourgeois, despite his increasing taste for his boiled beef at home. Caro’s cooking, while it was excellent, was also very simple; so she had a lot of time to devote to her interior affairs. She kept her painter company, settling herself in a corner of the studio, and wove a rug when she was not 117 // See n. 106. 118 // Roux seems to refer here to Zola’s Le ventre de Paris of 1873, which contains many evocative descriptions of Les Halles. 119 // Undoubtedly modeled on the Vicomte Lepic, whom Degas recruited to the Impressionist exhibition

of 1874, and who “had no talent at all” according to Caillebotte (in a letter to Pissarro); see Rewald 1976, 150 note c, and cf. Tabarant 1925, 30. 120 // On these sixty-franc shares, see La proie et l’ombre, 51. See also n. 86.

90

//

marius roux

darning her stockings or her husband’s socks. She said “my husband.” It was her right, hers by natural right, hers by right of conquest. Even if she had [147] not said it, one could read her confidence in all her satisfied expression. One day, when she had no more socks to darn, looking around for something to keep her needle busy, she had talked about the baby’s layette. Germain, all in the red and yellow of his painting, had not heard. Used to the painter’s ways, Caro had taken this silence for acquiescence to her request. The next day the sofa was laden with the pieces of cotton and wool needed to make up the layette; and Caro tore, cut, tacked, turned the household upside down, without getting any more of Germain’s attention, more and more possessed as he was by his work. The model Sarah didn’t leave that day without glancing at the display of baby things, without feeling the material, which she thought very fine and of good quality. Nothing turned the painter from his obsession. It was the evening of that same day that Caro, hurt by Germain’s indifference, and believing in him more than ever, hazarded a few words on her situation, spoke of the future and of the time when she would be completely rehabilitated. Germain still was not listening; and since certainly Caro explained neither at length nor categorically, and asked her questions only timidly, by hints and suggestions, the painter’s abstraction was perhaps reasonable. It was from that evening that the poor woman, full of confidence, sure from then on of her fate, hesitated no longer but said: “my husband.” It was also from that evening, a snowy evening, a vile evening in December, that a [148] note of doubt afflicted the painter’s spirit.121 He had failed, he thought he had failed to achieve the effect he had dreamed of. The model’s two hours had not been used as they had the previous days. Germain hadn’t touched a brush, and the session had gone by in searching for attitudes, poses, effects. The repetition of the same colors, in the background of the painting and in the costume the figure was wearing, seemed to him an illusion, a difficulty it was impossible to overcome. He had tried everything, had kept the background and left the model in her ordinary costume, a robe of black silk. That wasn’t right. Then the model had donned her red and gold costume again, and they had placed a white curtain in the background, a 121 // Germain is continually afflicted by doubt; Cézanne was no more self-confident. As early as 25 June 1860, Zola writes to Cézanne expressing his dismay at hearing his friend is “découragé,” and that he speaks of nothing “que de jeter tes pinceaux au plafond”; Rewald 1939, 47, Rewald 1978, 82, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:191. In a letter of July 1860, Zola once again tells Cézanne how sad he is to hear he throws his “pinceaux au plafond,” and asks: “Pourquoi ce découragement, ces impatiences? . . . tu n’est pas en ton droit de te juger incapable”; see Rewald 1978, 85–86, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:213. Zola writes to Baille toward the end of June 1861,

telling him how Cézanne has “de nombreux accès de découragement” and is “toujours mécontent de lui,” concluding: “Paul peut avoir le génie d’un grand peintre, il n’aura jamais le génie de le devenir. Le moindre obstacle le désespère.” See Rewald 1939, 63–64, and Bakker et al. 1978–95, 1:300–301. A letter from Cézanne’s painter friend Marion of 1868 tells of Cézanne’s “noirs désespoirs moraux et de tempérament”; see Rewald 1939, 156. And in July 1869, Guillemet replies to Zola’s news of Cézanne with: “Ce que vous me dites de Paul m’attriste beaucoup; le brave garçon doit souffrir comme un damné de tous les essais de peinture où il se jette à corps perdu

The Substance and the Shadow //

91

piece of material from the layette. That wasn’t right, either. He would have to look for something else. Germain asked the model about his fellow-painters’ tricks; she, who had wandered through the studios of Paris, must have known many tricksters. Sarah named plenty of names, recommended two or three in particular. But going and asking those people would be to compromise himself. “Enough!” he said at last, “Difficult isn’t impossible. Too bad—I shall win.” And the very next morning he started again brushing furiously, pushing the yellows and the reds in the foreground to the point of crudity; so much so that in three months of sessions, the magisterial work was nothing but a smearing of whitewash. The mistake was too obvious. The painter, armed with his palette-knife, scraped off several pieces; then he started his labors again, putting to work all the procedures he knew, looking for [149] new ones, fighting desperately to achieve the desired effect. At that moment, Germain would have shown his canvas to no one, not even to the three apostles whom he had thought inoffensive enough, one day, to reveal his secret to them. At the least sound from the bell, the easel was turned around and pushed against the wall. Caro still did not have the right to come close; but she didn’t try to see, all wrapped up in her swaddling clothes, in her dreams. But one day—a day usually devoted to something other than work—Caro penetrated into the studio, to invite her painter to come and enjoy a little surprise she had arranged for him. It was New Year’s Day;122 Philippe was their guest for lunch. In return for the sugared almonds she had received the previous evening—for Germain, in spite of his indifference and his preoccupations, had remembered, when he saw his brother carrying a box of marrons glacés—the young woman had put on Philippe’s chair a golden frame, destined for a certain figure-painting that had won her good little brother-in-law a gold medal at the Ecole competition;123 and, under Germain’s serviette, eighteen tubes, a series of yellows and a series of reds, made by a recent invention, which you couldn’t get at most dealers, and which she’d had to go to Saint-Ouen to get, in the inventor’s very factory.124 et qui ne réussissent que bien rarement”; cited in Rewald 1939, 163. Rewald also cites Gasquet’s account of the younger Cézanne “désespéré de ne pouvoir se satisfaire” and caught between “de doutes et d’affirmations dogmatiques”; see Gasquet 1926, 50, and Rewald 1939, 124. There is also a model for such a painter in the Goncourts’ Coriolis, who swings between “étonnements” and “désespoirs” when working, and is subject to “les rêveries que l’heure douteuse fait passer dans les yeux d’un peintre devant son oeuvre”; see Goncourt 1867, xxxv, 1:193–94. Claude Lantier’s “doute” is described in

Zola 1886, passim. 122 // It is now 1872. 123 // Students training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were eligible to enter a number of competitions as they progressed (e.g., the Prix de composition historique); see White 1965, 19 and 23, and Boime 1971, 141–46. The culmination to these was the Prix de Rome, see La proie et l’ombre, 140. See also n. 164. 124 // Yellow pigments based on cadmium were

92

//

marius roux

The present pleased Germain very much. The thought behind her choice touched him, and he wanted to give Caro a mark of confidence. He took his time and waited until his brother had [150] gone. Philippe had visits to pay. He, Germain, didn’t pay visits. “What’s the point, all those how-d’ye-doodies?” said Germain. “If you came back from all these chores a better painter, well, that would be different!” When they were alone, he led Caro to the painting. “Look,” he said—“oh! look carefully and tell me what you think.” “Lovely.” “Too quick. Don’t say that because it’s me. Look at it, study it, and then tell me the truth.” In vain did Caro proclaim it a work of genius. Her look of distress spoke of all her disappointments. Germain bit his lip and invited Caro to leave him alone, to work, he said. An hour later the canvas showed nothing more than a cloud of yellows and reds, a piece of land worked after the rain.125 Armed with a palette knife, Germain had scraped furiously, had torn away even the least particle, had annihilated the masterpiece.126 All the doors of the studio were locked; and alone, all alone, the miserable man turned and turned again about his ruined work. He was going to let it dry and start again; but the picture to be redone was badly drawn in his troubled mind, as nebulous as the drying canvas, and, like the canvas, losing itself in a fog of yellow and red dust. His soul desperate, his body broken, Germain fell onto the sofa where trailed scraps of material and wool, balls of thread. [151] “Damn!” he cried, “what’s this?” He picked up armfuls of rags and threw them into a corner. “Did you ever see such a thing in a painter’s studio?—Well that was my mistake, that’s the trap that I’ve let my strength fall into.127 What an idiot I am! All my friends warned me; I told myself often enough. It’s the eternal weakness of strong men. Samson and Delilah; Hercules and Omphale.”128 He stood in front of his daubed canvas. “God! This is nothing to do with me. A simple association of facts, that’s produced as early as 1817, but they began to become commercially available in the late 1860s, although they remained very expensive, and the Impressionists prefered cheaper, chrome-based pigments. Synthetic alternatives to natural red pigments became available after 1868, when alizarin (a crimson synthetically manufactured from coal tar) was first produced. On these and other developments in the technology of yellow and red pigments, see Callen 2000, 147–48. 125 // The hot colors and cloudy nature of this painting recall those of a painting by Coriolis in Manette Salomon; see Goncourt 1867, cxvi, 2:175–78. See also La proie et l’ombre, 113, where Germain’s

yellow and red studio causes him to paint figures in the same colors. 126 // Cézanne was known to his contemporaries to have a habit of ruining his works by reworking them. See Gachet 1956, 56, and Rewald 1939, 200–201, for accounts of how Dr. Gachet took works, including Une moderne Olympia of 1873–74 (Rewald et al. 1996, no. 225), from Cézanne to prevent him from spoiling them. Cézanne clearly scraped away earlier work around the face of the sitter in Rewald et al., no. 292, Portrait de Victor Chocquet, as was pointed out by Robert Ratcliffe in the “Cézanne Lectures” he delivered at the Courtauld Institute from the 1960s.

The Substance and the Shadow //

93

all; but nothing of myself. Caught up in skirts, I could see nothing any more to paint but rags. That isn’t painting; there’s nothing there but nakedness. I shall write this page in my story, which I see clearly, which I feel, and I shall portray it in a powerful way. Sarah will pose Omphale for me; old Christophe will be Hercules. I’ve found it. There’s my painting. That, that is true art.” He pulled the bolts, banged the doors, which he left wide open, and ran down the stairs. Caro, who had retired into her room, very troubled, listening, noticing the least noise, noting the silence and then the coming and going of her painter, warned by the rumpus of banging doors, threw herself after Germain. She could not catch up with him; he had already turned the corner of the street when she reached the door into the alley. “He went past with his nose in the air, your mister,” said the concierge. “There was no point me calling him; he ran off like a dog with [152] a saucepan tied to his tail. I wanted to give him this letter that just came.” Caro took the letter, which she stopped herself from opening. The envelope carried the postmark of Aigues-les-Tours, and she had recognized the writing of Monsieur Rambert, his father. Germain had gone to stroll in the Jardin du Luxembourg, hands in his pockets, nose in the air, a thousand wild thoughts careering through his head. At dinnertime, he went into the first restaurant he came to. Then he went back to the rue de Sèvres, to the Brasserie Bismarck, to shake hands with his friends, wish them a Happy New Year; and he, usually so sober, swallowed an uncountable number of bocks, until he was completely drunk. He went home past midnight, his hat crumpled, his tie undone, looking for the step, smacking the wall. Philippe, who had expected him for dinner, and who had stayed to keep Caro company, to persuade her to be patient, to calm her fears, was still there. Germain didn’t see him, and suddenly, addressing Caro, banging his fist on the table, he started to shout: “Damn! What are you doing here?—Haven’t you understood then? I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get out. If you haven’t left this place by this time tomorrow night, I shall set fire to this dump.”129 See also Ratcliffe 1960 for an analysis of scraping in the still-life, Rewald et al. 1996, no. 326. For accounts of Cézanne damaging his own work, see Gasquet 1926, 99–100, Vollard 1938, 23, 46–47, 57, 63, 65, and 78, and Ratcliffe 1960, 59, 61, 66, 262, 404 n. 1, and 426 n. 129. 127 // “Force” and “fort” are also key terms in Germain’s aesthetic. In a moment of omnipotent fantasy, Germain even thinks of himself as a “trèsfort peintre”; see La proie et l’ombre, 146. See also 55, 94–95, 99, 101, 114–15, 121, 125, 126, 137, 139, and 142. “Force” is intimately connected to the concept of “tempérament” in Germain’s thinking, as it was in

Cézanne’s; see n. 145. In several places in the novel, Germain and his colleagues praise one another (and themselves) for being “très fort”; see n. 59. 128 // The god Hermes sold Hercules as a slave to Omphale, queen of Lydia (because the hero needed to atone for murder and theft). He performed women’s work while a slave, and was subsequently married to Omphale temporarily. This passage alludes to the theme of the painter’s enslavement by a woman developed in Manette Salomon especially; see La proie et l’ombre, 69. See also n. 101. 129 // “Set fire to this dump”: the French has je mets

94

//

marius roux

Caro lowered her head, swallowing her tears, saying nothing. He went on: “Yes, yes—I get it—I understand—You’re going to throw your brat into my lap. Is that anything to do with me?—” [153] Philippe took his brother by the shoulders and pushed him toward the bedroom. “Go to bed,” he said; “you are in a pathetic state. Tomorrow you’ll be ashamed of what you said, if you happen to remember it. I’ve been waiting to tell you some serious news; but you’re in no state to understand me. Go on, go to bed.” “Tell me the news.” “Tomorrow.” “I want to hear the news.” With that stubbornness peculiar to men soaked in drink, Germain refused to go to bed. “Tell me the news,” he said more than twenty times; “come on, tell me.” “Very well,” said Philippe, tired of arguing with him, “we haven’t got a sou. Our father has cut off our allowances.” The news was grave indeed. Suddenly, Germain was almost completely sober. He sat and looked serious, looking for something to say; then he got up, but only to sit down again, broken, beaten, erased. His eyes grew damp. He cried like a child, blubbering in a whining, pitiful tone. “That’s wonderful. Nothing left! I deserved that. God! Why would he send me any money, my father? At my age, you shouldn’t still be begging. If I had eaten anything, I’d throw it up; but nothing, nothing—I am drained. I shall be a grocer’s boy. We’ll go and see Dad, won’t we, Caro? I’ll say to him: ‘Take me into your shop.’ I shall become [154] a grocer—a good father, a good husband. Yes, I said wrong things. Forgive me, Caro. It’s not my fault. They got me drunk, to make fun of me, to show me I don’t have a shred of will-power, that I have no strength—finished—drained—gone soft—a grocer—not artist—no—grocer.” They had to help him to undress, hold him up, carry him, when he wanted to go to bed. “Do you pity me?” he went on; “but when you cry, it’s in spite of yourself. Your tears choke your throat and come out all on their own. God! How you would have done that work you carried in you; but me, I had nothing in my belly. Finished! drained!—If it wasn’t for my child, I’d kill myself.”

le feu à la baraque, for which this is the literal translation. But Germain is more confused than the English allows: casser la baraque means to have a runaway success; but casser la baraque à quelqu’un means to mess things up for someone. (Translators’ note.)

130 // “Blotch.” Roux uses the word “tache,” but seems not to imply any connection in this instance with Impressionist color-patch vision. 131 // Chambre des notaires: a local civil court, run by senior solicitors. (Translators’ note.)

The Substance and the Shadow //

95

xiv [155] The next day Germain had forgotten everything, both the distressing news

brought by Philippe and the terrible confession that he had made to himself. He had taken up his work again, bravely. A very small canvas was replacing the large one on the easel; and Germain was producing the sketch of the future painting with great zeal. Omphale was shown only by a vague blotch,130 but Hercules was already a fearsome fellow, very tall and very strong, as indicated by the exaggeration of his features and his muscles; very submissive and very weak, as indicated by his humble, shapeless posture. “That’s it!” the painter was saying to himself, enchanted. Germain had no choice but to emerge from his ecstasy when Philippe came back over to him. Caro had not breathed a word and had left the painter to his illusions. “It’s a funny kind of New Years Day!” cried Germain as he [156] listened to his brother. “What a lovely present! And he wrote that to you, did he, the old man?” “Our father set out his reasoning at length. He was in difficulties, in debt. Hell! That’s life! He had to sell his practice before he was forced to by the District Court.131 We’ve got nothing to complain about; he’s helped us on far enough. His letter is very dignified. As far as I’m concerned, he assures me that he wouldn’t want to earn the reproach of having done less for the younger son than the elder; he’s going to give me two hundred francs a month still until the end of the year. His reasoning is fair; a man of my age must be able to fend for himself. A year is reasonable. And then . . . if he himself isn’t able to do more!” “Well, yes, a year . . . yes . . . between now and the end of the year I’ll have had a crowning success.” “It’s just that . . . Haven’t you read his letter then?” “There’s a letter for me.” “The two of them, yours and mine, came by the same post.” “Caro, hey Caro. Come here then. It seems that there’s a letter for me. What have you done with it? Why not tell me that there’s a letter.” Caro responded to his calls and handed over the letter, whose seal was still intact. “By the way,” said Germain, “how do you know what this letter says?” “Our father touched on it with me.” Germain hastened to read it. He turned pale, thrust the letter down on the easel and made as if to take up his palette again. He wanted to play at not caring. He was putting on an act in front of his brother. [157] The letter told him bluntly that it was over, as far as he was concerned.

96

//

marius roux

His father was sick of sending him money for nothing, money to support his laziness. “Lazy! . . . me? He thinks I’m lazy?” No, laziness was not Germain’s shortcoming. His father was mistaken about him. Like all the friends, like all those who take up art, Germain had times when he lazed around. The best thing on certain days was still his cigarette—as it burned down slowly he could see through its smoke all the fine, sweet elements of his ambition lost in a dream: the acclaimed masterpiece, the woman whose beauty placed her on high, the impossible fortune. But his dreams drove him inexorably back to work; and on he slogged without respite or pause. He was just mulling over this unpalatable letter when the concierge brought him another one. This one was enclosed in a satin-embossed envelope and emitted a faint scent of violets. Germain didn’t need to look at the signature to know who was speaking to him. He kept himself at a distance to read it, doubtless believing in the intimate confidence, the indefinable something that made up the bond between himself and Madame Mazouillet and to which he didn’t want to confess. The letter contained nothing to do with any of those things; it was simply a post-scriptum to add to the one sent by Monsieur Rambert the father. Germain gave it to his brother to read, and called Caro so that she too might know all the secrets of the drama. This letter, after a few sentences leading into the subject, said: [158] “You’re going to see much more of this shortly. The town is talking of nothing else. It would indeed be nothing to stop paying you your allowance; but when the time comes it will be your entire inheritance that you will find has been swept away. If you don’t sort things out, the sacrifice will have been completed in less than a month; mademoiselle Annette will have become Monsieur Rambert’s legal spouse; and he will have cast into the wedding basket everything that he owns. Not content with selling his office, he has sold the house also. The land at Blachet and the farmhouse at Saint-Marc are also for sale. In short, people are claiming that, of all his assets, your father is only going to keep his small house on the boulevard Saint-Louis, where he is planning to retire.” “Oh really. But, really, but . . .” said Germain, spluttering, finding nothing to say, and venting his fury in disconnected expostulations. “Perhaps we would be as well to find out where we stand,” ventured Philippe. “We should see how things are at closer quarters . . . make sure . . .” “That’s women for you,” Germain ended up shouting, showing no pity for Caro; “just as disastrous for a solicitor as for an artist.” “What you’re saying is meaningless. We must decide upon something.” “It’s all decided. I’m going to go to the house and I’ll have their guts for garters.”

The Substance and the Shadow //

97

“Come on, there’s to be no nonsense. Lets talk seriously.” “I’m going to go down there, I tell you.” “All right, yes, you’ll do well to go there; but once you’re there, here’s what you must do. Don’t rush into anything, go along with our father, in fact, soften him up. While you’re doing this, you’ll see our friends, you’ll interest them in our cause, you’ll get them to reason with the poor [159] lunatic. Well! . . . if he wants to get married, let him get married . . . but . . . well, I’ll say it again, tread carefully. The situation is too delicate for you to go barging in. Amongst those who might help us don’t forget the curate of Saint-Jean, our parish, where our father is a churchwarden. I’ve no doubt that the curate will agree that they should marry, because it will bring a close to a scandalous situation and will bring them in line morally; but, as far as the inheritance is concerned I’m sure that the curate . . .” “Oh so you’re leaving things in the hands of the Men in Skirts then!” “I’m not leaving things with anyone at all. I believe in everything, and I believe in nothing. I take things as they come, and people for what they are. Our father is suffering from an illness that we, his children, cannot cure. Anything that we might try would be to our disadvantage. Our friends will hardly be able to find a way of easing the situation. The proper solution, the radical solution, can be brought about only by the curate of whom I speak. Let’s think practically. Since life is an illusion, let’s be canny enough to place our hands on the thread guiding the mechanism of the trap. Our father is a churchwarden, our father has always shown absolute confidence in the curate of his parish; well, this curate is a decent man, and most likely to allow himself to be won over and to help us sort out these troubles.” Germain promised everything that was wanted. He listened to his brother’s views, and accepted Caro’s reprimands without demur; but if he had been questioned at length it would quickly have become apparent that he wasn’t really listening. He had his own ideas. Two days later, as he was just about to set off, [160] when all that remained to do was to carry his trunk down and hail a carriage, Germain had still not given any thought to the poor woman whom he was leaving alone, quite possibly for several months, with no money and no credit. The notion that had a hold of him at that time was the old, bad thought that he had already voiced on the day when he said to his brother: “Oh! If only some kind, besotted heart would rid me of Caro!” When it came down to it, she was always a sacrifice to his dominant passion, which was painting; for in the journey upon which he was about to embark, he could see his father and his future stepmother less than certain corners of the landscape that had stayed in his mind’s eye. He, the painter of the great outdoors, was going to find himself once again in the land of the sun, amidst this powerful nature that was completely born of streams of light from the star-king. It was no longer this fresh, intimate landscape of the surrounding areas of Paris, “that ludicrous herb omelet that he

98

//

marius roux

had scorned to draw”; it was the wide horizons, the high hills clearly defined by their brittle ridges against a background of fire; hills strewn with spindly pines and full of hollows of shadow, of large holes overlooked by massive rocks, of huge stones making blue stains on the red land. It was this splendid motif he could see again and that he was going to paint.132 At the very last moment, when his brother came to say that, if he failed in his efforts, whatever funds he had, however small they might be, would be put at his disposal, that he would share his two hundred francs a month with him, Germain barely replied. He simply accepted that as his due. Finally, when Philippe reassured him over Caro’s fate, [161] whom he promised to help in his brother’s absence, Germain made no comment. That too, he accepted as something that was due him. Germain left Paris on the fourth of January. The following evening he was sleeping at Aigues-les-Tours, with his father. That night was the only one that he spent in his father’s house. From the very beginning, Germain gave to the man whom he wanted to defeat legitimate cause to throw him out. He forgot everything—friends, the curate, the necessary precautions. He went straight to the point, foolishly and carelessly, like a man with no judgment and no native wit. He heckled his stepmother-to-be, the lovely Annette, as he would have heckled a waitress at the Brasserie Bismarck, coarsely and at point-blank range; and when the lovely Annette shouted for help and old Rambert came running, Germain spouted on, getting everything off his chest, and plumping only for unfortunate expressions to describe his father’s behavior, to reproach him for his madness and his bad action. The scene came to its logical conclusion. Germain was driven from the house and the wedding, which was still only in the planning stages, was announced that very day. It is true that the plans were serious; but they could have fallen through if the intended spouses had waited the conventional amount of time, say, three of four months. As it was, once the wedding was announced, Monsieur Rambert settled for a date that was very close to hand, three weeks away. Germain withdrew to a friend’s house, the same one who had sometimes lent him money, an oil-merchant on the outskirts of the town, Monsieur Lafont, who was planning to benefit [162] from the opportunity by having his portrait drawn.133 But Germain was not to be able to find the time to satisfy this innocent whim; he was even to forget the powerful patterns in the rich landscape surrounding them. Every evening, as he sat down to dine with his friend, he apologized for the delay brought to starting on the portrait; and moaned about the impossibility of going out to study the landscape. He put his disappointments and setbacks down to his father, that old lunatic who was on course to kill himself and ruin his children.

The Substance and the Shadow //

99

In truth, he gave his unhappy experience scarcely a thought. He had immediately found a distraction from the family matters that had been preoccupying him. Having gone to visit his friend Mazouillet, to ask after his health and about all to give himself the pleasure of seeing Madame Mazouillet once again, he had come back from the visit with a head teeming with new plans. Mazouillet was doomed; he was not expected to last the night. So he, Germain, was arriving just in time to look after the widow. And a widow who was still young, still pretty, and rich. Very rich! There were grounds for temptation there. Germain no longer told himself that “women were a hindrance, that one might have destroyed his strength; because that one was in possession of a fortune, and because affluence is never harmful to an artist who knows how to use it intelligently.” Deep down, he was laughing and congratulating himself; he found himself very smart134 to be daring enough to hatch a macabre plan, an engagement settled over the corpse of an adversary. He even thought of setting the scene down on canvas. “It would certainly be a formidable picture! and would cause quite a stir, at the Salon.” It was to the Salon that he was taking his picture. Wealth opened up his eyes; [163] from now on he had a clear understanding of that pack of poor devils wearing themselves down to the bone with abortive attempts, because the best was slipping away from them. “With money, you do what you want; you have friends, people in the right places who open doors for you.” He saw himself already being awarded medals. And how easily he appeased his conscience! His friend, the oil merchant, had upbraided him for his clumsy handling of his father. He made no reply to this excellent friend’s worthy arguments; but he told himself that, if he had lost a paltry fortune, he was going to gain a fantastic one. He made up for his wrongs toward Philippe, whom he had helped to fleece. He himself was generous to Philippe, and opened up his purse strings for him. Nor did he forget Caro; he set up a considerable pension for her and for her child. He did some figures: fifteen hundred francs as an annual payment for that good 132 // This description recalls a passage in Roux 1869, 247–48, purporting to cite a letter from a friend from Tarascon describing a walk in the vicinity of the Mont Sainte-Victoire: “‘Nous avions à côté de nous et sur nous une forêt de pins,—des pins qui remuaient en cadence sous le souffle du vent, comme des musiciens échevelés se balançant devant leurs pupitres, et qui répondent au commandement de celui qui les guide par des accords éclatants d’harmonie.—Çà et là et par dessus la forêt se levaient des rochers, des rochers plantés comme des torses antiques, qui faisaient sur le tableau des taches blanches et bleues.—Sous nos pieds, nous voyions un paysage impossible à décrire: des carrés de terre aux grosses mottes rouges. . . .—Par dessus tout cela . . . cette myriade d’insectes de toutes couleurs, qui semblent

tomber sur la terre comme résidus de la palette du Créateur. . . . On s’arrêtait au Tholonet, dans cette petite forêt de platanes au bout de laquelle se trouve le château de Monsieur de Galifet . . . où dorment les souvenirs du passé.’” It is not inconceivable that this letter is based on one Roux may have received from Cézanne, or Zola; see Smith 1998, 14–15. 133 // The resulting portrait is decribed in La proie et l’ombre, 159. 134 // “Very smart.” Again Roux uses the phrase “très fort.”

100

//

marius roux

girl, and a lump sum, ten thousand francs, in the name of the child, who, with interest, would have a capital of more than twenty thousand francs when he came of age. The whole night long he was prey to these thoughts, which hammered away at his mind, excited his nerves, and kept him awake despite himself. The softness of the bed, the sweetness of clean linen, the deep darkness, the deafening silence of a still town—nothing could afford him any rest or induce sleep. From hour to hour he could hear the far-off chimes of a large clock bell; and each time that the hour struck he wondered whether “that hour counted as part of his future and part of the other man’s past?” When day came, he could no longer [164] stay put and he rose; but he was slow to dress and very unsettled before going out. “Sometimes science works wonders; nature performs miracles. What if the other were to come back to life?” He needed to know. He left his room suddenly and went out onto the street. It was seven o’clock, and the outskirts of the town were filling with people coming and going, with gardeners from surrounding areas who were bringing their vegetables to the market, with cart-drivers transporting goods for the traders in the neighborhood, with workers making their way to their sites, with women on the lookout for household bargains, with children playing on the pavement as they munched on a hunk of bread, with laborers opening up their workshops, with saddlers, cartwrights, farriers, boilermakers—a whole host of early birds, making a racket, speaking loudly, injecting a flash of life into the damp mist of a January dawn; it was still night for those who had no obligations, and who were having their lie-in. Germain kept his ear open to what people were saying in their loud voices. He would have liked to hear from some passerby the news that he was going to look for. The people of Aigues-les-Tours are of a gossipy disposition; for them the slightest thing is turned into a significant event. The death of the wealthy Monsieur Mazouillet would have to provoke a great many comments. “If these people weren’t breathing a word about it, it meant then that the invalid was not dead.” He slowed his pace accordingly. Twice he went up and down the deserted path that linked the outskirts to the main street of the town. “After all, he wasn’t wearing his secret feelings written on his forehead; his early-morning visit could only be [165] well viewed. Was he not the invalid’s close friend?” He went up the main street again; the lawyer Mazouillet’s home was at the far end, four numbers further up from the home of the solicitor Rambert. As he passed in front of the door of his father’s house, whence he had had himself driven, Germain clenched his teeth and gave it a sideways look out of the corner of his eye. He would have liked to remain unmoved; but a dull rage oppressed him. The sight of this house, the memory of the scenes that were being played out there, scenes that had turned into a drama, the picture of

The Substance and the Shadow //

101

everything from the past, his mother’s kisses and caresses, his whole life, his thirty years on earth, rose up before him. Disappointed hopes, long, wasted days, crushing regrets. He lowered his head, bowed down by the burden that was falling on him. But, a few steps further on, he recovered his strength, shook off his languor and lifted his head again. He was by now in front of the Mazouillet’s door. No longer was it the thirty years that had passed that were rising up, inflaming and kindling his regrets; it was the thirty years to come, the new hope, the golden dream of a life made up exclusively of delights. His step was firm; his gaze was bold. At that moment he would have been capable of helping death perform her task. All the doors were open; he didn’t need to ring or have himself announced. As he was setting foot in the large salon on the first floor, he heard groans; someone was weeping out loud. It was Mazouillet’s father, who, on hearing noises at the door, left the neighboring bedroom and ran out in front of Germain. He understood that death had arrived. [166] It felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach; and he turned pale. The father misunderstood his attitude. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “thank you for hurrying around here. You were a true friend to him, yes, you were!” He opened his arms and drew Germain to his chest and embraced him wildly, all the while weeping, lamenting, crying out: “My lovely child! . . . my poor child.” When Germain raised his head again, he noticed the widow standing next to the old man. She was in a blue dressing-gown, her hair was disheveled, her face was worn out and her eyes red. She had spent the night up, had witnessed the dying man’s last moments, and had kept watch over his body. Germain and the young woman stopped still for a moment in front of each other, not knowing quite what to do, their eyes dry, their gaze unwavering. “Embrace him, my daughter,” Mazouillet’s father was saying, “embrace this dear friend. It is good to cry out your sorrow to someone who is good and caring.” The two of them kissed each other, at arm’s length and simply skimming their cheeks with a brush of the lips; and, having been extremely pale, they turned very red. “Come and see him, come and embrace him one last time before they take him away,” Mazouillet’s father was still crying as he drew Germain toward the bedroom. But at the same time Mazouillet’s wife held Germain back with the other arm; and by a gesture she said to him: “Don’t go.” He let go of both their hands, looked for a chair and dropped down into it. “In a moment,” he said to the sorrowing father, “in a moment. I’m devastated. I’m afraid of giving in to uncontrollable feelings, and then I wouldn’t have the [167] strength to comfort you others, who have so great a need of

102

//

marius roux

consolation. Sit down, sir, and let’s try to calm down and think rationally!” To change the subject, he spoke of the kindnesses that friends ought to do in these situations. He himself had come to offer his services, to take charge of notifying the town hall and the church, sorting out the cortège, sending off letters announcing the death. “There’s no rush,” Mazouillet’s father replied. For him these things would be done all too soon; and all too soon again they would come and take away from him the remains of his dear child. Yet these details needed to be looked after. The poor father let his daughter take out pen and paper, dictate a death notice and give addresses to this dear friend, who was so good, so devoted. Time was slipping by and the morning was drawing on. Visitors arrived—relatives, friends, and neighbors. The wretched old man told all of them of Monsieur Rambert’s early morning call, how good he was, how he had a heart of gold. That day was a day of errands, the next day was the funeral, the day after that and following Germain didn’t leave Monsieur Mazouillet’s house. He would come there after breakfast and wouldn’t take himself off again until the evening, around dinnertime. Several times he had to accept the invitation to stay and share the meal, to console this family, reduced to two members, an elderly father broken by grief and a poor, young, inconsolable widow. Germain would not have shown such diligence if the widow had not given him signs of something more than her attachment to the memory of the dead man. [168] They weren’t free to speak of their hopes. On the very rare occasions when they found themselves alone together, they succumbed to the pervading atmosphere in spite of themselves: mourning dress, the furniture in disarray, trinkets left lying about, a cigar-holder placed on a corner of the mantelpiece, photographs, a violin case left open and empty because he who was absent had played the instrument one more time, one day when he thought he was better and the doctor had allowed him this distraction. And they kept quiet, not daring to voice aloud the secret thoughts that they confessed to each other through a look, through a clasp of the hands. “—It’s stifling here,” said Germain, one particular day when the maid had opened the bedroom door to air the room. It was toward that door that Mazouillet, the old man, had drawn him, as he invited him to embrace his dead son; it was from that room that they had taken out the bier. He turned his head away so that he wouldn’t see; there was dirty linen there, clothes scattered all around. Doubtless they were the dead man’s cast-offs. Gradually, whether he was imagining it or not, he felt acrid fumes slapping his face; he was breathing in the smell of fever. It was the odor of the other man who was pursuing and invading him. “It’s stifling here,” he said again. Germain didn’t tarry there that day.

The Substance and the Shadow //

103

Once he was alone again in the street he strolled off to look for adventure. It was his first day of freedom for nearly two weeks, since he had arrived from Paris. He thought that he would go to the Notre-Dame gate that opened out onto a picturesque hill. It was a gray day; but the clouds [169] seemed to be melting away, and the afternoon might well be fine. If the sun showed its face, he would go and catch the pattern; for he needed the sun. It was, after all, time that he thought of making use of the marvelous nature that was to provide him with such precious studies. In order to reach the gate of Notre-Dame, he had to cross the large square and go past the pasta shop that had belonged to Madame Mazouillet’s parents, before her marriage, before she had had this unique opportunity of giving them an old age of leisure. Germain couldn’t ward off the irresistible need to stop for a moment in front of this shop, to the shutters of which he had attached a part of his heart, something of his youth, some of the happy illusions of his twentieth year. And how well placed everything was to give him the emotion he was looking for. Nothing in the neighborhood had moved; there were the broad plane trees eaten away by dust, the old fountain covered with moss, the stone benches worn to a shine, the ill-fitting cobblestones on the street, the neighboring shops, everything was still in the same place, with the same colors and the same appearance. The pasta shop didn’t have a single tile more on its front—it had remained within its frame of graypainted wood with a thin brown line. On display there were still the same little oval baskets, decorated on the inside with rough blue paper and filled with the same kinds of pasta—tresses of vermicelli, macaroni, cannelloni, ravioli; there were still the same jars full of semolina, of stars, of alphabet figures, and stopped with a large top of fake cork hidden in a ruff of [170] blue paper, the same rough blue paper of the baskets. His heart swelled as he breathed in the fresh air of his youth in front of the door—it made him smile with well-being and strengthened his resolve to stay true to his new faith, this faith that was absolutely full of the charms of renewal. An ill-met voice broke in to pull him away from his delight. He fell from the seventh heaven to which he had ascended to land with his feet on the ground, to slave away in the midst of brutal and stupid reality. In the market, as in the outskirts of a town, the rabble speak loudly. Three women, herb sellers, who were sitting around their baskets, were chatting a few feet away from him. The conversation turned to the family of the former pasta merchants. “Ah, ah,” was saying a small, ruddy, fat woman, “if they haven’t made a packet for themselves, that lot, then it’s a poor lookout for them.” “Oh yes!” replied another, a small, skinny woman, pale this time, “I’ve a notion that the beautiful pasta seller won’t be playing the part of little Miss Hoity-Toity quite so much.” “It’s the law,” added the third, a tall, strapping woman whose voice

104

//

marius roux

boomed out like a trumpet. “Since her husband hasn’t made a will in her favor, nothing belongs to her. I’ve seen that before with my former masters, from when I used to be a servant.” Germain’s heart was no longer given over to poetry. He went off, hanging his head, mulling over the words he had heard. It was just that they seemed so certain, these nasty gossips! One of them had talked about the law, and added that she’d seen that before. In vain did he try to comfort himself by telling himself that he’d never seen such a thing; but he had always lived far away from this prosaic world where people call upon the law. [171] He couldn’t remember ever hearing this barbaric law being cited, even at the time when he had half-heartedly studied law.135 He remained very uncertain and very troubled. He would perhaps act wisely by going to consult someone who was better informed so that he could clarify the matter. It was a really lovely afternoon—the bright sun was inviting people to take a walk; but Germain had forgotten about painting and landscape. He had taken refuge in his friend’s shop, the oil merchant, looking out for an opportunity to be alone with Lafont so that he could voice his fears, craftily, without revealing what was at the back of his mind, in short to consult him about this matter of rights: “What, precisely, is the position of a rich man’s widow?” The opportunity didn’t present itself. The shop was swamped: some employees were emptying jars of oil and were blending together different kinds. In a group in front of the door—that was as high and as wide as a shed door—tinsmiths were welding together tin cans. The employees were emptying their jars with quiet resolution; only the tinsmiths were gabbling away. “Bloody hell!” said one of them “—fifty percent poppy-seed oil and twenty percent sesame oil! That’s not olive oil! Hey, come on now, you lot, do you want to poison everyone around?” “This oil isn’t for here, it’s for Paris.” “Oh, right!” “If you gave Parisians pure oil, they’d spit in it and put it in their lamps.” [172] “Without even thinking about the fact, let’s say, that there’s a bigger profit? Ah—when all’s said and done, what a wonderful thing business is!” Germain’s friend Lafont was completely taken up with his order—it was a very important order that had to be sent off that very night by rail. He couldn’t be approached that day. He barely gave himself time to have dinner. Nevertheless, at that point Germain found the opportunity of saying a few words; but his friend only half-listened to him—partly because he was preoccupied by sending off his goods and mostly because he was beginning to feel taken for granted by Germain’s extended visit in his home, by Germain, who didn’t condescend to keep him company in his spare time, who was forgetting that he’d promised to paint his portrait, and who, quite unconcernedly, looked upon his house as a hostel where you only go to eat and sleep.

The Substance and the Shadow //

105

That evening, given that the merchant was preoccupied and consequently short-tempered, Lafont couldn’t hide his feelings. More than one doubleedged comment, more than one tart word, fell like blows on his guest’s ears, so that he ended up realizing that he had outstayed his welcome. The insult hit home. Germain didn’t let anything show, but privately promised himself to get out of there as soon as he could. “So I wanted to tell you that I’m going to go back to Paris.” “Oh, right!” said his friend, with a satisfied sigh. “I’ll come back in the very near future with the sole purpose, the sole purpose, do you hear, of doing this portrait that I’ve forgotten to do. You must forgive me. My father’s [173] addled my wits; and then I was taken over by the Mazouillets. They really seemed to think that I had nothing to do, and they took advantage of me, without realizing it.” “Hell! . . . she’s a pretty widow to have to comfort.” “Pah. I really have no time for women! And then that one—well, she’s a friend’s widow! . . . and such a wealthy woman; for she’s too wealthy for a poor devil like me ever to . . .” “Yes—she’s got pots of money.” “Right.” It was Germain’s turn to give a sigh of satisfaction. Nevertheless, he tried to make the right impression, and went back to the conversation by saying neutrally: “Didn’t Amédée die without making a will?” “Yes, but she’s got her dowry.” “Her dowry—she’ll keep that?” “At the time people were saying that Amédée had got a million francs from his wife.” “A million!” “For a fortnight or even a month, people were talking of nothing else. Here, on the outskirts, people were telling stories that would make you sleep on your feet; but, at the Club, where you only find sensible people and, among them all, barristers, solicitors, lawyers, in short, people who know other peoples’ business, there was talk of a million. Let’s accept that it’s been greatly exaggerated, by half, if you like; that’s still a sizable amount. Hell, the Mazouillet woman will find someone to talk to, to comfort her.” Germain’s mind was put to rest. Since he couldn’t marry the widow within a week and he’d have to wait until ten months were up; besides, [174] since he himself had his reasons as far as this was concerned, to think that there’d be a good outcome; and what’s more, since his friend had let it be known that he was in the way, he had only one care, and that was to hasten his departure. He stayed for another three days, doing what he had done on all the 135 // See La proie et l’ombre, 44. See also n. 75.

106

//

marius roux

previous days, devoting his attentions to the charming widow, deceiving old Mazouillet. On the evening of his departure, old Mazouillet and his daughter came to the station to say goodbye, in spite of the wind and the cold darkness of that time of year. His friend Lafont, who had let himself be talked into lending another hundred écus, had also come to drive his friend there. The cold prompted this fine friend’s generosity—when they were at the counter, he handed over a new hundred-franc note so that Germain could take the express, and wasn’t condemned to freezing in a third-class carriage of the local train. Old Mazouillet, who had seen the scene, took Germain aside and offered to help him. “If you were in need of some money, just say so; I’d be happy to speak of my esteem for and gratitude to you.” “Thank you, sir, thank you!” answered Germain, raising his head and placing a hand on his chest. In Mazouillet’s eyes this was the gesture of a kind-hearted man; in the young woman’s eyes it was a sign of thanks, for she knew that under that hand, in the jacket pocket, in a little red wallet, there was a five-hundredfranc note. She had lent him five hundred francs. [175] When the bell signaled the train’s departure, they shook hands; and that was it. Immediately Germain forgot both his father and the beautiful widow. The last cry of the guard stationed at the door of the waiting room, “Travelers for Lyon and Paris to embark,” had ruffled his thoughts. This train that was hurtling along at full speed, the purring of the wheels, the roar of the steam, the shrillness of the whistle made him feel as if he were in a dream, took him back to that evening ten years ago when he was flying off to the big city to achieve glory. But no sooner had they reached the first station when the dream evaporated; and he was himself once again. He no longer had the unwavering faith of early youth, that boldness that drove him on into the unknown with his head down, that crazed pride that led him to believe that the whole world was his, that he had only to raise his hand to bring down the stars. The last ten years weighed on the shoulders of this vanquished man with all their weight; and it was a source of worry to him to walk out on his birthplace, where he was leaving behind a father who was in the process of fleecing him, and a lover who was quite capable of forgetting him; and a source of worry to him to go back to Paris, where a nuisance of a brother was waiting for him and a burden of his wife . . . , for she believed she had the right to call herself his wife, that madwoman! In truth, his courage had failed him. He ought to have fought with his father, to have wrested his goods from him. Perhaps he would have done better to say nothing, to employ tactics, to play in front of his father that role of

The Substance and the Shadow //

107

good apostle that he had played in front of old Mazouillet, without at first realizing that he was doing so. The role was no more difficult than any other; in any case [176] it was within his means. He had a sense of diplomacy, to be sure. And what a splendid game to play! It would have needed so little, so little, to jeopardize the wedding to the beautiful Annette. And he had done nothing, had attempted nothing—he hadn’t even thought of using the curate of whom his brother had spoken. And perhaps the idea his brother had had was not a bad one either? And what was he going to say in answer to the questions that would be put to him when he arrived? What he had answered already in the only two letters that he had written during his stay in Aigues-les-Tours—one addressed to Philippe, the other addressed to Caro: “It’s over. There’s nothing to be done.” Perhaps this answer was the best thing for him personally. From the moment he had warned them that everything was lost, they themselves must have put their thinking caps on, must have taken sides. He was doubtless going to find something new. What? He hardly dared let himself imagine it. He had no scruples and delicate situations hardly alarmed him. If it turned his stomach to think of a possible affair between Caro and Philippe, it was because of the child. This affair would not last— and Caro would inevitably fall back on him, would be forever throwing the child across his path. The best thing would be if Caro had gone back to her parents. Ah—if such fine inspiration could have struck her! It is true that, in such an instance, she would merit his consideration. He would not lose sight of her and would show himself to be generous, as he had promised himself he would be when he was totting up his future fortune. This fortune! Five hundred thousand francs at the [177] very least. Ah! It would be better to let his mind rest on this happy thought. To hell with regrets and with the recriminations of disagreeable people! The past was behind him—and long live the future! From Lyon, where the train started up again in the early hours of the morning, to Paris, where they arrived at night, Germain went over and over all the calculations in which his soul was so keenly interested, and allowed himself to be lulled by this new hope of an impossible fortune. More swiftly than the train that was hurtling along, more subtly than his eye that could see the landscape flying past, his imagination poured forth masterpieces. “He was the wealthy, happy, celebrated and acclaimed artist. Paris, the whole world, fell at his feet.” Once again—but this time for real—he was going in pursuit of glory. At the station, where no one was waiting for him, since he hadn’t told anyone that he was coming back, he sank into gloom for a moment. His stop in the waiting room at the luggage office, rubbing shoulders with travelers, people of all kinds, people who were tired and bored and who spoke little, scanning the room for their relatives or friends who were gathered together on the other side of the grid, rushing over to exchange an embrace, then shouting

108

//

marius roux

out loud their business, telling of what they’d done, asking after people who weren’t there: “How’s my father? What are the children up to?” and a hundred other questions like this—this image of real life was too palpable and brought Germain back to the concrete matters that he had to deal with. But as soon as he breathed in the air on the street, when the carriage bore him across Paris, he felt utterly reinvigorated. He filled his lungs with the city air—[178] he withstood the shock, that indefinable something, that electricity that, for him, came out of the ground of Paris and fired his imagination. He smiled, fell back against the seat in the depths of the carriage—and utterly in thrall to his daydreams, he let the carriage run on, happy to feel himself to be there, impatient to arrive.

xv [179] Philippe and Caro were leaving the table when Germain came home.

Philippe had kept his promise, watching over the abandoned woman, seeing to her needs; and the poor woman, a genius at thrift, hadn’t abused her generous friend’s purse. They had lived, contenting themselves with what was strictly necessary, serving themselves at table with what a needy working family would have had. The good little brother-in-law had continued to follow classes and to go to the studio at the Ecole. The only change in his habits consisted of using his free time in his brother’s studio, instead of in his own, and taking all his meals with his friend. She really was his friend; to the point where he had watched himself so as not to take it to that degree, selfish at bottom, that he had averred one night, in a walk with the [180] young woman, on the quais, in the moonlight. Their intimacy, to be more complete, was all the more correct. In this there was something like an affirmation of what was promised. Philippe behaved to his sister-in-law like a proper relative, a true friend. Thus neither she nor he showed any embarrassment when Germain turned up. Nor was their astonishment long in fading. Certainly, he should have let them know; they weren’t really expecting him. If they had known, Philippe would have gone to wait for him at the station. Caro would have put dinner back and got another cutlet ready. In the end there was nothing to say about matters of propriety, of little personal satisfactions. What was done was done, and Germain was welcome. Caro went to prepare something to eat for him, while he changed his linen and shook off the dust of the journey, then he would sit down at table, then they could chat; for they had things to chat about. Germain, seeing his brother and his woman again, wasn’t mistaken about

The Substance and the Shadow //

109

their situation. He judged the situation very neatly. Assuredly, his brother was naïve, a sucker, and his woman was crafty, a leech. They were the strongest, for the moment; but they opened an escape route for him to the future. “Perfect!” he said to himself, while he had shut himself up alone in the bedroom to change his clothes, wash his hands and face; “perfect! My simpleton and my leech have got together; the sucker and the bitch will end up in love. Getting rid of her will be easier than I thought. I simply have to run away again, [181] under some pretext or other; they’ll just go back to playing dinner-parties and being truly sentimental. Once my marriage is in the bag, the rest will follow on by itself; and if they suck each others’ faces, well, too bad for them.” If he had not had to explain to his brother about the family melodrama he had just been mixed up in, nothing would have seemed changed either in his outward appearance or in his intimate thoughts. He didn’t seem like a man returned from his home village, and seemed not to have left his own place. He was the Germain of the last days of December, the painter who spent his day in the studio; for he spoke of his canvas as if he had just scraped it yesterday and must go back to it tomorrow. With his brother, with Caro, he was, as always, gentle and teasing at the same time, very yielding and very prompt to get angry, obeying the movements of his nerves, the instincts of his skeptical character and his brutal mood. At bottom he was playing a part. If he spoke of his painting, it was to distract their attention, give himself time to prepare the explanations he was going to have to provide and that he had really thought too little about. If he took up again with his brother and his mistress in the old way they had got into, it was to fool them, to put a mask on his face, and stop them from penetrating his secret. He was playing a trick on them. The time for explanations arrived, all the same. Germain had dined indifferently on a piece of cold veal and the left-over cheese. Caro poured the tea for them all, put the tobacco jar on the table, and sat [182] between the two brothers, signaling to Philippe from the corner of her eye to start questioning him. “So,” said Philippe, “now tell us what happened on your errand.” Without a murmur Germain set off on an endless account. To listen to him, he had moved heaven and earth, and dared all to stop his father perpetrating his evil deed: but the game was up before he even began. It was impossible to fight such an evil passion. All his friends who had involved themselves on his behalf had given up the fight. Many of them came back angry, boiling mad with that old gasbag. Even the parish priest had forgotten his Latin there. He hadn’t been to the parish priest’s house, because he knew himself too well, and he knew he was incapable of crawling to a biretta; but he had rushed off to a friend’s wife, near the old man’s, a really devoted friend, she was, whom he wouldn’t name, because things had turned out so

110

//

marius roux

badly that the good lady was mortified and wanted to remain incognito. So, the priest, who seemed as if he were going to do it by decree, failed like all the others. That was when he decided he would have to do it himself. Of course, he had tried first all the means of persuasion; but his father had been so stubborn, had affected such a profound indifference to him, such a detachment, that in the end he had lost his temper. They had thrown him out of the house; yes, out of the house! That was the ending they had been planning for him; but he had taken comfort from the thought that, at least, he had been able to tell the old fool some home-truths. “When I’d read your letter,” said Philippe when he had finished, [183] “I also took my courage in both hands and wrote to our father.” “Ah!—” said Germain, fearing for a moment that his lies had been exposed. “I have had no answer.” “You see—there’s nothing to be done. There was nothing that could have been done.” “We shall have to see what the future brings for us.” “If one or other of them doesn’t peg out in the next three days, the marriage will take place and our ruin will be accomplished; that’s the future. I left just in time not to be a witness to this latest scandal, to make my protest by my absence. If it hadn’t been for that, I would still be there; I would have tried—I don’t know what.” “While we’re waiting, we must think of how to replenish our funds; we must look to work to provide the money we lack. I’ve seen a dealer who works in exports and who wants copies of the French school. Do you want to help me beat back need?” “Pooh! I find the French school so babyish.” “Oh, come on! We’re not at the brasserie now—this isn’t a time for posing.” “I do not pose; I never pose, me! and the proof is, I shall confess, I’m no good at it. I’m incapable of doing copies, what you would call a commercial copy. No, there’s something deep inside me that forbids me from doing such banal work, something that commands me to be myself, to affirm myself. You might retort that the painting I dream of has never surfaced, but it will. I will do my masterpiece and—masterpieces sell for more than copies. No, don’t talk to me about your penny-halfpenny trade.” [184] “And eating?” “You wouldn’t say that I sulk at the idea of work!” “If you would hurry up and get your masterpiece out—” “We’re certainly not reduced to begging yet. Have patience! We’ll talk about all that sort of thing again.” “So be it.” The two brothers parted, that evening, saying they would meet the next

The Substance and the Shadow //

111

morning at lunchtime. Their explanations were just a roundup of their impressions, an overview of the things that were coming; and there were still so many things for them to say! The next day, however, the conversation did not drag. Philippe had made a decision, and for several days past he had dedicated two hours of his afternoon to making copies in the Louvre. Germain seemed determined to follow his good example. He too asked to sacrifice certain hours of the day to purely productive labor. “That won’t stop me riding my hobbyhorse,” he said. “You can tackle art and boiled beef head-on. Thinking and eating are two functions laid down by nature.” He still didn’t talk about helping his brother with the work of copying. Still he declared his inability on this point; but he assured him he would go and look for something within his capacity, some industry in which he could use his noble aptitudes, his taste for color and outside things. And he said this seriously, with a convinced air. His brother didn’t argue; and Caro, playing her part in [185] this beautiful devotion, could not hide her emotion. She leapt upon Germain’s neck. He was sincere, but the poor woman had no place in his determination. If Germain had thought all night, if the conclusions he came to were close to the result they wished, it was just one more encounter, one more trick, one more hypocrisy to add to all those the false fellow had made himself guilty of. He had hardly ever thought of his daily bread, of protection against the material world. Did he not have his share in those funds his brother was still spending, and had he not brought in to swell those funds a round sum of eight hundred francs, lent to him by his friend Lafont and Madame Mazouillet? He had nothing to worry about. Their needs were assured for the few months he still had to stay in Paris. He should disappear just in time so as not to have to listen to everyone’s complaining. His creditors did not have to remind him of a due date, all his promises of repayment had been put back to a distant date; his brother didn’t need to complain, because he could do more or less the same as he; and, as for Caro, she had absolutely no cause for complaint, since nothing in his budget was changing. But these calculations led him to a deadly impasse; and he didn’t want to have to go back to Aigues-les-Tours with no money. There he would have to wait for the day of his marriage; and when that day came, he would certainly have unavoidable expenses. On the other hand, he hated having to be in debt to Madame Mazouillet and his friend Lafont. “He could have accepted their services, without blushing, [186] because, after all, he was still the son of Monsieur Rambert, whose friends knew how he had passed, in the space of a night, from a comfortable position into the deepest poverty, an undeserved poverty, an glamorous poverty. His friends had done their duty only when they came to his aid. If he had stayed away from them, he would have been

112

//

marius roux

able to pay them by showing them great recognition; but by coming back to them he owed them something more than a token of gratitude. His friend Lafont had turned hard on him; he had not hidden his displeasure and had made him feel he was being importunate; he had made him beg for the last hundred écus he had lent him; he would have to pay him off. He could not, in all decency, remain in debt to Madame Mazouillet, to give the impression of anticipating the fortune she was going to bring him; she also would have to be reimbursed. Such were the thoughts that pushed Germain into mercenary labor. He had done his accounts. To his friend Lafont he owed, with the previous loans and the last hundred francs he had offered him at the station, around fifteen hundred francs, all told, interest and principal; for he wanted to offer this businessman interest. This amount, and that of five hundred francs due to Madame Mazouillet, made two thousand francs. That was not all. He would need, also, for his expenses, a rather larger sum. All in all, and bringing things down to the bare necessities, he would be all right with two or three thousand francs. In total, he needed a round figure of five thousand francs. Selling a painting would bring in that amount on its own. [187] He was going to knuckle down to his painting. “The devil! Damasquère sold copies. He was better than Damasquère, he was; he could easily sell a canvas. Lespignac sold watercolors; and there was no possible comparison between the slovenly technique of Lespignac and his own know-how. Sure, yes, his temperament had always pushed him too far for his painting to have a salable worth; but, with a great deal of goodwill, he felt he was big enough to make all the concessions you needed to make to please a bourgeois,136 without departing too far from his ideals for all that. And then, doing it once doesn’t make it a habit; and, then, he had to.” “I’ve found it!” he cried, “I’ve found it! Something really classy: ‘A society lady meets a pauperess in the Bois de Boulogne. The pauperess dies and lets fall a child from her sling, whom she no longer had the strength to suckle. The society lady picks up the baby and gives it the breast.’ Isn’t that just the thing to smack the bourgeois with? With that I can paint the people, take care with the background and do a work that isn’t second-rate. Pooh! Paintings 136 // See n. 106.

on Lespignac’s “chic” work.

137 // Cézanne experimented in genre in his early career, and succeeded in selling La partie de pêche of 1873–74 to the dealer Martin; see Rewald et al. 1996, no. 245. In February 1874, Duret advised Pissarro to make “des tableaux où il y ait sujet” for the Salon; see Ratcliffe 1960, 276.

139 // At the end of the novel, Germain comments on his one appearance at the Salon: “Je n’étais pas fait, moi, pour cette peinture officielle; il fallait me laisser à mon tempérament”; see La proie et l’ombre, 196. See also Brady 1968, 86, which cites Zola 1886, 332–33: “Claude avait dû se résigner à des travaux de commerce, si répugné, si désespéré de culbuter à ce bagne où il jurait de ne jamais descendre, qu’il aurait préféré mourir de faim, sans les deux pauvres êtres qui agonisaient avec lui. Il connut les chemins de croix bâclés au rabais, les saints et les saintes à la grosse, les stores dessinés d’après des poncifs, toutes les besognes

138 // “Chic” (as here and below) was used by Baudelaire as a derogatory term in section x of his Salon de 1845 (Paris: Labitte, 1845): “Du chic et du poncif,” as pointed out in AthanassoglouKallmyer 2003, 79. See also La proie et l’ombre, 81,

The Substance and the Shadow //

113

like that—you can knock out ten or a dozen a year and make fifty thousand francs. If I wanted to!—but in my opinion that isn’t art. Better to pick up the fifty thousand working in an ironmonger’s; that would be more honorable. But, since I must—let’s go.” The studio was looking once again as it did in the good old days. The painter was at his easel. Nothing had changed but the great canvas, genre subjects needing [188] to be treated in a smaller way.137 The absence of a model was nothing remarkable, since Germain was tired of trying to be slick,138 and since Caro should soon take the place previously occupied by Sarah, in a manner that was just as cumbersome: for she would have to wear a rich person’s costume and pose with accessories. For only three days, Germain strove to get his composition going without any model, without even using the dummy. It was so easy, this little genre painting! Having thought about it, he could not do a slick painting; his temperament rebelled against it.139 Something troubled his sight.140 He painted as he saw;141 and since the yellow and red décor of the studio hit his eye, he saw only yellow trees and red women.142 So, he scraped his canvas, took up another, and only worked with his model in sight. He used a study done in the Forest of Fontainebleu to prepare his background; then Caro came, now in a long dress, now in a short skirt, to pose for the great lady and the pauperess. From the market they got a doll and swaddled it up, to represent the poor little thing to whom the great lady was giving her breast. Like the time of the great painting, no one was allowed to see the work in progress. Philippe and Caro never came near the easel, which too was turned against the wall at the first ring of the bell.143 After ten days of laborious effort, Germain grabbed his palette knife, ready to scrape the [189] abortive new masterpiece. A false shame stopped him. He didn’t want to admit that he was beaten by so little. If the final effect was outside the “pretty” expectation, it was simply an affirmation of his strength.144 However, he was aware that the figures just didn’t stand up. “It wasn’t that. But he had to mistrust his own judgment, since his impressions were too intense. Without seeming to do so, he would invite those closest to him to give their opinion.” basses encanaillant la peinture dans une imagerie bête et sans naïveté. Même il eut la honte de se faire refuser des portraits à vingt-cinq francs, parce qu’il ratait la ressemblance: et il en arriva au dernier degré de la misère, il travailla ‘au numéro’: des petits marchands infimes, qui vendent sur les ponts et qui expédient chez les sauvages, lui achetèrent tant par toile, deux francs, trois francs, selon la dimension réglementaire.” 140 // Hippolyte Taine, whose thinking impressed Zola (see Brown 1997, 86–88, Zola 1866a, and Pissarro 2005, 25 and 216 n. 58) maintained a systematic link, in his Philosophie de l’art of 1865 and elsewhere, between the artist’s “tempérament” and perceptual

eccentricity, arguing that creative “temperaments” inevitably magnified and distorted their “sensations” as a result of a “primitive” inner impulse to do so; see Taine 1865, 61–62. On Taine’s likely relevance to Cézanne, see Shiff 1984, 24–29, 36, and 42–45. 141 // See La proie et l’ombre, 49–50. See also n. 81. 142 // See La proie et l’ombre, 92, where Germain also paints in yellow and red. 143 // Cf. La proie et l’ombre, 85. 144 // See n. 127.

114

//

marius roux

No, the figures just didn’t stand up. The countryside was all right, copied from a careful study; but the great lady and the pauperess seemed to be collapsing. They were like two mixed ice-creams, apricot and mocha, red currant and pistachio; it was not something to look at with your eye, it was something to eat with a spoon. When those closest had given their opinions, with that cruel sincerity called forth by the satisfaction at the botched work of a brother-painter, the miserable painter had to give up his work. He kept his temper and didn’t run back to the palette knife to scrape it. The anger that took hold of him was a cold anger. He descended into terrible thoughts. He would have killed the first person to come in; but he was afraid of touching his canvas. He gave in to the need to see, to reflect on this failed painting, to seek out the secret of his unknown strength, that strength that could not bow to the necessities of a simple job. And this slender canvas took on gigantic proportions in his eyes; it grew, filled the field of his sight, placed upon his ideal the immense [190] black stain of the cloud that the storm trails across the blue sky. The great strength of his being, his artistic temperament, was like the unknown strength of nature, which troubles the elements.145 The great black spot of the sky, traversed by flashes of light, dissolves and disseminates itself in a beneficent wave; and this wave fertilizes the earth. So his strength must swell, to fertilize art, to make the powerful work of a master-painter spring from his brush. This troubled vanity overexcited his nerves, sent his whole being off course. For long days yet, Germain remained indecisive and trembling. His hand refused to take up the palette and brush again; but his imagination went wandering where it would across the wild dream. Little by little only, at night, at a certain time, he began to doubt himself. As long as he stayed up, the agitation that possessed him led him to a land of chimeras, and he gave up nothing of his ideas, nothing of his techniques. People had to hear him speak of great art, the only art, his own. He went to bed, past midnight, all the evening going over again his grievances against those who stood in his way: Caro, Philippe, certain of his friends who deliberately came to get in his way, who never breathed a word about the successful works and howled at those pieces that had turned out badly; they were just envious! He went through the things he had observed, the things he had found; for he was sure he was on the trail of some new, unknown technique. And he put himself to 145 // The use of the terms “tempérament” and “force” together in this sentence (and passage) recalls Cézanne’s use of the two terms together. In a letter to Zola of 1878 dated “mercredi soir,” he mentions “le tempérament ou la force créatrice” of Zola’s work; see Rewald 1978, 162–63. Cézanne also told the caricaturist Stock: “J’ai les sensations très fortes. . . . Moi, j’ose, Monsieur Stock, j’ose,” see Stock album (Paris, 1870), cited in Rewald 1954, 8. Cézanne undoubtedly

conjoined the words “tempérament,” “fortes” (or “force”), and “j’ose” (from the verb “oser”) because he was impressed by Stendhal’s Histoire de la peinture en Italie, in which all three are key aesthetic terms. See Ratcliffe 1960, 312–27, and Stendhal 1868, 117, 285, 289, 278, 307, 338. Ratcliffe also documents Cézanne’s interest in Stendhal; see in addition Rewald 1978, 176–77, Camoin 1920, 26, Larguier 1925, 89–90, and Gasquet 1926, 40, 70, and 110. See also Kirsch

The Substance and the Shadow //

115

bed, promising himself that he would take up the fight again the very next day, try out the new idea, this idea that had just detached itself, clearly and precisely, from the jumble he carried in his head. It was only at the moment [191] of falling asleep, at that time when the being is between sleeping and waking, when the body becomes soft and the soul lax, that he felt himself invaded and possessed by this cruel thought: doubt! He managed to shake himself, to call all his reason to his aid, to make his mind breathe again, to chase away the terrible, the horrifying thought; but he could not overcome the mysterious power that oppressed him, destroyed him, and he abandoned himself to sleep with the hopelessness of a dying man who trembles before death. The awful dream ended up by troubling his sleep, impressing itself in his memory so as to pursue him after he woke. Thus he had his days of sadness, his hours of depression; but his vanity still held the upper hand. “Doubt,” he said to himself, “is certainly a virtue. It’s only fools who never doubt anything. Superior men have the strength to question themselves, to debate within themselves.” He was a true artist, a mind with a broad view; he could question himself, he must debate within himself. He had fallen so far as to try commercial painting because he needed to get his life into shape, because he needed a sum of several thousand francs. That painting wasn’t within his capacity? Too bad. Where was the harm? What good was it to give yourself so much heartache over so little! He was staying whole. He was still the master-painter of the future. His genius was robbing him of five thousand francs. That was a commercial failing; art had nothing to do with it. While he waited to get into his great business, to go back to his darling studies, since he must suffer what comes along, take [192] life as it was offered to him, he was going to get the money he had lost by some other means. “When you are intelligent, you always find something; and he was certain to find something.” Days went by. At first Germain kept himself locked up in his studio, ready to try something other than genre painting. He would circle his easel, smoking a cigarette; then he would fall onto the sofa, calling inspiration to his aid. His mind trod the countryside, following the material impressions of his senses; there was a clear hope, when the daylight flooded the studio; a vague hope, mixed with fear, when his eye, through the bay window, followed the flight of a passing cloud. It sometimes happened that he slept, lulled by the nasal music of a Barbary organ that he heard from time to time in a neighboring courtyard; 1987, 21. Although Cézanne did not read the Histoire de la peinture en Italie until 1869 (see Rewald 1978, 176), he could have found many of its main ideas encapsulated in chapter xvi of Manette Salomon of 1867, in which the critic Chassagnol performs a prosopopoeia of Stendhal, using both terms; see Goncourt 1867, 1:83–84. Even late in life, Cézanne coupled the words “tempérament” and “force” when speaking of what made an artist an artist; see Rewald 1978, 293 (and

314). Zola uses “tempérament” and “force” (or “fort”) together in Mon salon, as when he described Manet and Courbet as artists “d’un tempérament original et fort”; see Zola 1866b, 47, and Hemmings and Niess 1959, 68.

116

//

marius roux

and in these moments of lassitude, sometimes he “went into another country, seeking happiness,” at Aigues-les-Tours at his widow’s side, sometimes he recited his Miserère, and nothing equaled the sufferings of his misunderstood genius. In the end the studio wearied him. Then he went out, wandered through the neighborhood at random, to the Jardin du Luxembourg, on the boulevard Montparnasse, along the quais. It was constantly beside the water, from the Pont des Arts to the Pont Royal, that he ended up. Coming home, he sometimes gave to Caro or Philippe, by way of pretext, the need he had to do certain studies again, to see certain motifs; but he always forgot to take his color-box [193] with him, and once under way he forgot that he had a sketchbook in his pocket. Nothing; absolutely nothing, he did nothing. But he was looking for something. “I’ll never find these thousands of francs I need,” he would often say in Caro’s presence, forgetting she had no part in his calculations. “Oh, you will—you will—my darling,” the poor woman would say again, taken in by her painter’s fine plans. “Look at Damasquère, who obviously can’t hold a candle to you, Lespignac, a dirty confectioner, old Godet, even, an old man gone soft, and so many others—they make a living. How will you not find it?” “It’s just that—I—!” “Yes, yes—I know; but the sun rises for all creatures; and rare plants don’t spread least before the sun. Be brave, my darling, your time will come.” By evil chance, Germain was led into sharing confidences with his friends who knew the trick of “making dough.” He spoke first to Lespignac, in whom he had most confidence. He sold his watercolors. How did he handle selling them? That was the whole secret. Lespignac only had to start things off; and certainly he was big enough to put a wash on a watercolor as the dealers asked. Lespignac acted mysterious. They were very difficult to place, watercolors. He had not managed it [194] at the first try; but after a long time and with much perseverance. Germain had his doubts. “Lespignac was just a joker. He hasn’t sold anything at all.” So Germain went to Damasquère, but Damasquère knew nothing at all about business. He knew a dealer in the rue Le Pelletier, at the Hôtel Drouot, who had a specialized line in sales. This dealer only sold copies from the Louvre attributed to Masters: Zurbaráns copied by Delacroix, Raphaels studied by Ingres, and others besides. He furnished copies of Velázquez; and the dealer, with the aid of a certain technique, laid onto the new canvasses the patina required to age them by twenty, thirty, or forty years, according to which master he wanted to attribute them to. Given that Germain couldn’t apply himself to copying, it was pointless to turn to him, who knew nothing outside of this little business. But Germain was wrong to

The Substance and the Shadow //

117

doubt Lespignac. Their friend could do him a real favor. Lespignac was well in with several dealers. What a trickster that Lespignac was! “Hey,” said Damasquère, “only last night, I met that big baby on the boulevard des Italiens. He was in search of a pal, didn’t matter who, to invite him to dinner. His wife had brought him along a girlfriend; and not knowing what to do with two tarts, he sat them down there, in a café, and went to look for a friend to organize a foursome. I was that friend, sent by the gods. There was no refusing, Lespignac was treating. [195] ‘I’m paying,’ he said; ‘but as I haven’t a sou, you can help me make up the bill.’ I thought he was going to pick up the money for some sale or other. Oh! but—this is where you see my old Lespignac, the true, the unique Lespignac. We turned up at rue Drouot, rue de Provence and by the Nouvel-Opéra. At each door, standing some feet away, Lespignac gave me his hat to look after with the recommendation that I should go and wait further away, just around the corner of the street. The first time, I did what he said without trying to understand; the second, I thought he was up to something and refused to take the hat. He started to laugh and explained the trick to me. ‘Idiot,’ he said to me, ‘don’t you want a good gorging, then, tonight, in a good restaurant on the Boulevard, with two delicious women? I told you I didn’t have a sou; help me make up the bill. By looking after my hat and poking your head around the corner of the street, you are helping me, my dear fellow, you are helping me. These are my dealers. I have nothing to offer them today; but they know me and they can advance me something. They could, for instance, drag their heels; and in those cases you can lose only by appearing poor. You only lend to the rich, that’s understood. So, I don’t go to complain, tell them my woes, no. I go without a hat, and I cry: “O, my dear sir, quick—a louis, if you please. The wind has blown my hat away, it fell into the stream and got ruined in a drain. I’m going into town to dine and I’m so embarrassed. A louis, please, so’s I can run [196] to the nearest hat-shop. I’ll give it back to you tomorrow, when I come by.” So, you animal, have you understood?’ Hell! yes, I understood, and I let him get on with it. Lespignac raised his sixty francs. We made a dinner of it—Oh! la! la! what a dinner! The bill came to sixty-four francs, and, with a two-franc tip for the waiter, that made sixty-six francs. Lespignac still had a little money in his pocket; the harmony of the foursome wasn’t disturbed. Luckily! Because me, if you threw me from the top of the Panthéon, I wouldn’t have raised a chinking!” “Oh, he’s a crook, that Lespignac.” “Not at all; he’s a cunning devil. These dealers are his, like he says; and he’ll pay them back. Of course, he won’t give them their money; but he’ll give them a watercolor or a sketch in return. For the rest, unless he has an immediate need, Lespignac doesn’t need to resort to this trick to sell; his clientele has been made. Oh! God!—such finesse, all the same. This Lespignac is unique of his kind. At dinner, he told us how he came across these dealers. At

118

//

marius roux

first, he put on an act and told us of his talent, his notoriety, a bag of blather, yes!—these were what had put the dealers his way. Over the main course he behaved himself and gave himself great praise for his savoir-faire, without saying a word about what his high commercial acumen consisted of. Finally, when the champagne came, his tongue loosened and he explained the trick to us. He keeps an eye on the shopkeepers. Every time a new art-dealer sets up, he gives himself a treat. So there are [197] tons of businessmen in Paris who know nothing of their business. They’ve come down in the world, junkmerchants and other unfortunates, who try their hand at all trades. They almost always started as wine-merchants or grocers, because they’ve heard ‘that’s good, that is.’ Then they give up selling perishable goods and go into durables, household goods, draperies, and all that sort of thing. Finally they arrive at selling luxury knickknacks; rubbish, at first, a five-and-dime store; and, without noticing it, they gravitate toward the Golgotha of small business, with a foot in every camp; perfumes, neckties, imitation jewelry, and so on. In this jumble of tempting businesses there is the antiques dealer and the art dealer. So a season hardly goes by without some new shop opening up on the first floor in some new district. Woe to the art dealer who hasn’t kept his eye on the ball, who arrives fresh-faced from his grocer’s shop or his fiveand-dime. He becomes the prey of all those lurking Lespignacs. I don’t know how all these con artists go about it, for one sees amazing things in the shop windows; but I know how our friend pours out his pictures. He has a relative, an insurance salesman, who pounds the sidewalk from dawn to dusk. This relative has a pleasant face and keeps himself clean; he plays the role of the collector. This is what he does. The moment a new shop opens, he rushes in and turns the portfolios upside down and inside out. [198] ‘You haven’t got what I’m looking for,’ he says in the end to the dealer. ‘Have you nothing by the celebrated watercolorist Lespignac?’ You can guess the rest. The next day, the celebrated Lespignac is on the list of the firm’s suppliers. It can’t last, you say? Yes, he gets to the point where it can’t last, when our friend, pressed for cash, attacks the dealer; but it lasts as long as he keeps his prices in the modest range; because, after all, Paris is big and idiots are numerous, and he will meet collectors, the ignorant and the naïve, who will buy that sort of thing.” “What you’re telling me is very funny, but—” But Germain, whose aloofness was full of disdain, didn’t dare admit that he was disposed to use such measures if he felt able to mass-produce watercolors, like his friend Lespignac. “No,” he added aloud, “I will never descend to such depths. First of all, I don’t have the facile ability of the fat gentleman for daubing pictures, and that’s that.” “Brush up a couple of canvasses, in the same genre as the one you had undertaken in December; and put it on a sale at the Hôtel Drouot. Do like your friends: hot up the bidding, push yourself up, as long as you don’t end

The Substance and the Shadow //

119

up the buyer. The trick’s easy enough, with a bit of nerve.”146 “Oh, yes, but—the time? Daubs like that don’t get done in one stroke of the brush, and I’m busy.” “Then get together what you’ve got, your presentable studies, [199] your finished paintings, and have the whole lot taken down to Dramard’s, the dealer who’s in vogue with the English and the Americans.147 I think his is the place where we should have our first exhibition. Lespignac told me to start negotiating to hire his hall, where there’s always some exhibition or other. For a price and a percentage on each sale, and Dramard will organize your success. He’ll have it put in the papers that everyone should come to his gallery to see the fifty thousand francs worth of paintings bought by our celebrated bass Fortini.148 When that goes in, he’ll tell his clients that Fortini doesn’t want to keep everything, that he might well decide to give up some paintings. You get it? And there you have it, a sold painting.” Germain glanced around him, totting up the number of paintings. He put very little trust in Damasquère’s stories. There was not enough of the Right Bank about him not to be discouraged at the idea of all the impossibilities he would meet before coming to an understanding with a dealer like Dramard;149 but his vanity was piqued by his friend’s words. The mention of fifty thousand francs set his mind the other way. He saw his name setting the columns of a newspaper alight with the violent explosion of this bombshell. 146 // Rivière records that Cézanne sold “Portrait de Chailhan, marchand forain” of 1873 (Rewald et al. 1996, no. 74) through Drouot in 1875 for “quinze francs”; see Rivière 1923, 200; on this painting’s sale, see Ratcliffe 1960, 11. The Impressionists were no strangers to the Hôtel Drouot, and held two collective sales of their work on 24 March 1875 (whose catalogue had a preface written by Burty, and at which friends of the painters attempted to push up the bidding) and 28 May 1877; see Bodelsen 1968, 333–36, Rewald 1973, 351–54 (which cites Albert Wolff’s remark that Impressionism might interest those wanting to make speculations for the future), and 395 n. 13, and Tabarant 1925, 37–38. These sales were perhaps prompted by the relative success of the (anonymous) Hoschedé sale at Drouot of 13 January 1874, which included Impressionist paintings; see Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 33, Tabarant 1925, 27–28, Bodelsen 1968, 332, and Rewald 1973, 309–10. Pissarro also sent some paintings to a Drouot sale that took place on 19 April 1873 on behalf of the people of Alsace-Lorrain who had emigrated to Algeria; see Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 32. Unsuccessful sales of Impressionist works from the collections of Faure and Hoschedé took place at Drouot in April and May 1878; see Rewald 1973, 412–13, Rewald 1985, 147–48, and Venturi, 2:204–5. Cf. Manette Salomon, in which Coriolis conceives the plan of selling his work through an “exposition particulière” (complete with catalogue) in an auction house; see Goncourt 1867, cxxxvii, 2:242–43.

147 // Dramard, “le marchand en vogue parmi les Anglais et les Américains,” is perhaps a reference to Durand-Ruel, who had a gallery in Bond Street until 1875; see Rewald 1973, 254–55, 261, 269 n. 34, 274, 301, and 311. Durand-Ruel was no stranger to inflationary tactics; see Green 1987, 60, 66–67, and 74, and Green 1989, 29, and 31. 148 // Fortini, a “célèbre basse-chantante,”recalls the (baritone) opera singer Jean-Baptiste Faure, who owned many Impressionist paintings; see Rewald 1973, 412, and 436 n. 30, and 219, 303, 309, 311, 318, 366, and 380. See also Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 99, 100, 102 n. 3, and esp. 89, for a letter from Pissarro to Duret of 26 December 1873 mentioning his ambition of selling to Faure. Green 1987, 65–66, characterizes Faure (like Hoschedé) as a speculator in modern art, although the sale of his collection in April 1878 was unsuccessful. Faure also distinguished himself by selling some of his collection to buy Cézanne as early as 1874; see Emile Cardon as cited in Berson, 1:13–14, who suggests he did so as part of a strategy of selfpromotion, consistent with speculation: “Acheter des Cézanne, c’est un moyen tout comme un autre de se signaler, et de se faire faire une réclame unique.” 149 // The Right Bank was the newer, more commercial part of Paris and included both the city’s financial center and the majority of its more salubrious art dealers.

120

//

marius roux

That made him feel bigger and more assertive. All his envious friends would be astounded. They would talk about him everywhere, in houses where he had never set foot; and down there, in his hometown, in Aigues-les-Tours, those good people who had doubted him, his family, his friends, they would be out of their minds with surprise. [200] His father would be furious; and his beloved, the tender Madame Mazouillet, proud of his success, would wait for him to give him the kiss of a lover, the sweet kiss rendered sweeter, more submissive, more sincere, by her admiration for him. “Right!” he said. “I’m going to get busy getting some canvasses together. When you come back, we’ll count them up. You, you know how to handle the business side, do you want to see Dramard?” The next day, he had dragged out all his artistic baggage into the middle of the studio floor, three studies that had hung on the wall and nine others left on the floor, in the corners, in the two angles at the back. There wasn’t a single finished painting. There were sketches, rough drafts, doodles; but it was all worth something! When Damasquère came back, not right away but five days later, the arrangement with Dramard had been set in motion and was well on its way. In any case they would have to wait, since the dealer’s gallery wasn’t free; and, again, Dramard was asking to see the paintings before concluding the agreement. So they had to choose the best from the painter’s work. The pile supplied by Germain couldn’t all go in. “There were some things there, certainly rather personal, but no good for grabbing the dealer.” And Damasquère, raised to the rank of expert, put each canvas aside, one after the other, after a detailed examination. Damasquère was severe, too severe. “Oh! What! Not one presentable painting, nothing?” They discussed it, they started to examine them again, and finally they picked four reasonably worked-out studies that [201] might pass. Unfortunately, with four canvasses, Germain couldn’t claim the fifty thousand francs. Enough! He’d have to make do with less. All things are relative, definitely, and if Dramard would say that he had enough there for twenty or twentyfive thousand worth of paintings, then honor would be satisfied. Some days after that, Damasquère came back again. This time, it had all fallen to bits. Dramard wouldn’t deign to trouble himself over four bad paintings by an unknown artist. Badly received by Germain, irritated by him, as he looked askance at him with an air of distrust, Damasquère had not minced his words and had let fall the “four bad paintings by an unknown artist” in an unsympathetic tone. The two friends parted on bad terms. Germain would have liked to contain himself, keep his dignity; Damasquère would have wished to stay cool, not react to a distrust that could not affect him; but both were too vain to control their resentment. They flared up, putting their violence down to their openness. “When the heart is high, the answer comes quickly. So there!”

The Substance and the Shadow //

121

Definitely, said Germain to himself afterward, it was he himself who was in the wrong, to talk to his friends: the enviers! An artist of his caliber should trust in himself alone. When one is alone, one is strong. Friends are only good for barring your way. This Damasquère was a false fellow. If he had wanted to, he could have settled the matter; but, instead of making the way clear, all he had done was burden him. He had smelled a rat the day Damasquère came to badmouth his [202] paintings. Since he hadn’t been embarrassed to do this in his presence, what must he have said behind his back? His offer of help was nothing but a ruse to stick his nose in Germain’s paintings, steal his ideas, his techniques. As for Dramard, he hadn’t even gone to see him. Did Damasquère even know this Dramard! “Oh! misery!” he said that evening to Caro, his heart swelled with emotion, ready to weep, if he had not made a superhuman effort to hold back his tears. “Me, you see, my dear, I’ll never amount to anything, because they’ve all got it in for me. Everyone is jealous of me. All I have around me is enemies.” “There’s still your brother.” “I have no brother.” “And me.” “You?—you, without meaning to, you are my most—” Germain didn’t have the time to finish, the bell rang like the devil. “Finish it,” cried Caro, ready to run to the door. “You are my most faithful supporter.” “Just in time!” “Just in time,” said the visitor that Caro had let in, in his turn, good old Godet, who, having surprised this last word, returned it by way of a compliment to his friends while they embraced. “We’re not embarrassed in front of you,” answered Caro. And leaning on Germain’s arm: [203] “I dare you to complain now—isn’t this a true friend?” She wanted to cheer Germain up, and she boldly put their interrupted conversation back on the table, sure of finding an ally in good old Papa Godet. She told him the painter’s woes. The sculptor declaimed a moment and trotted out his grand phrases on art. He too wished to comfort his friend. Then since they were talking about the dirty trick Damasquère had pulled, he moved on to some reasonable advice on the subject. “Have no regrets,” he said. “This sale with the much talked of publicity would have put you right off-track. Let parcel wrappers wrap their parcels. You have the true painter’s temperament, and your time will come, of its own accord, when you are not even thinking of it. If you have a pressing need for money, I’ll show you a good way of getting it. You have to live, no? It would be better to be rich; but, when you’re not, you have to know how to bend under the weight of material necessities. You work to live, and that doesn’t stop you

122

//

marius roux

working for the love of art. You go slower, that’s all. Me, I’ve always worked like that. Too long, giving in to a false shame, I kept hidden the way I made my living. I was wrong, let me confess it, to blush over what will be the glory of my life as a fighter. I worked to live, yes; but I knew how to make time to look after my real work. My Democ-Soc is there to say what I knew how to do; soon my group will be finished, and it will also tell you who I am. There, my [204] dear boy; do as I do, and like me you will be sure of your future.” On the word “future,” old Godet lifted his head, shaking his long white locks. While admitting to his means of making a living, old Godet had still given no explanation at all about the nature of these means. Germain hesitated to talk of the religious goods workshop. It was left to Caro to commit this indiscretion, adding that “it was Damasquère who told us.” “I don’t hide what I do,” Godet replied. “I work in a religious goods workshop five or six days a week, and I am a sculptor properly speaking for one or two days. Seven sessions a month, an average of twenty-four a year. If I had been luckier, perhaps I would have worked less.” “What do you do for your menial work?” “Well, come and pay me a visit. You’ll see. It’s interesting, come on! It’s art applied to industry. Oh! wait!—if you wanted to believe me—but you’d have to have seen—you’d put in an order. There’s money to be made. Oh! not thousands at a time, like all these jokers who fiddle around; no, a hundred sous, ten, fifteen, twenty francs a day, according to the demand and the quality of the artist. I started on a hundred sous. Today, with my share in the firm’s profits, I’ve got to the stage when an average day will bring in twentyfive francs. I run the sculpture studio. You see, you can become someone.” The conversation went on for a few more minutes, and, when old Godet went away, it was agreed that Germain would go and see him at the religious goods workshop [205] in the rue Bonaparte, at the sign of the Parochial Shop. And as Caro laid some store on the good advice of the old sculptor, Germain burst out laughing in her face and started to chant: Sancta Mater, istud agas—Crucifixi fige plagas—Cordi meo valide. “What’s got into you?” “I’m reciting my Stations of the Cross. Ha! ha! ha! you dolt! Did you really believe I was going to get involved with religious bric-à-brac?—Good Lord have mercy! I’m not yet reduced to that dire extremity. Why not run straight down to the Town Hall and give lessons to the street-urchins from Plaisance or Montmartre?” He would have liked to shut up, out of prudence; but his vanity propelled him to speak. He named the terrible thought of which he was possessed: “You see, my dear, you get on by flattering idiots like that. I have my five thousand francs. I’ll go and see the studios of the Parochial Shop. I’ll find it really fine. Old Godet will burst with jubilation, and—he’ll cough up the

The Substance and the Shadow //

123

money I need; he’s got sackfuls, that old cretin.” “That’s not what it is, Germain.” “Oo-oo-oo!—” “And then—you can’t be sure.” “Give it up! I’ll give him his money back, cash on the nail—later. I’m not going to bother about so little.” “Very well! But old Godet must be slow on the uptake.” [206] “I’ve made rustier guns than his fire. My friend Lafont really dragged his heels in coughing up into the pot. A few days before I left, Lafont had a diabolical trick played on him. To prove how excellent his blends are, they served him with a cruet of rather dubious oil at dinner. I saw the move, but I let on I didn’t see the trick, and, all through the salad course, I never ceased to praise the exquisite quality of his oil. That very evening, he lent me a hundred écus. I oiled that one out of him, you get it? I’ll get the other fellow through the application of art to industry.” That evening, highly satisfied with himself, Germain went to bed singing; and he fell asleep dreaming of the fortune that his high intelligence assured him was coming, saying to himself that, decidedly, he was a damn clever fellow.”150

xvi [207] The sign for the Parochial Shop, with its adjoining sections that were magical signs for the parishes and the faithful, took up the whole front of an enormous house that was ten windows wide. The words “Parochial Shop,” in gilded letters and in relief, were set very high up in an oval shop sign placed over the mezzanine; and this sign stretched out and unrolled into spirals right up to the far edges of the wall, so that on the sides and between the windows hung down banners of blue on a chestnut background, at the heart of which could be read all the promises of credit and guarantees made to their God-fearing buyers. Behind the mezzanine windows one could make out the shadows of very high statues, selections of garishly colored pictures and glittering gold frames. On the first floor it was like a display for a fair. The large, wide windows were strewn with tiny objects: candleholders, copper bouquets of lilies, golden reliquaries crammed with ornaments and adorned with [208] colored stones, virgins and saints; there was the golden and white virgin whose hands were hanging by her side, mater inviolata; there was the red and gold virgin whose head was crowned, regina virginum; the blue and gold virgin with the baby Jesus in her arms, mater gloriosa; the virgin, on her knees and bowed under her brown cloak, her face stained with tears, mater

150 // “Damn clever.” Once more: “très fort.”

124

//

marius roux

dolorosa; the virgin all in white, her hair done in the Dauphiné style, speaking to two children, a little red shepherd-boy and a little blue girl, Our Lady of La Salette; there was the virgin in a white dress with a blue sash, a rosary hanging over her right arm, speaking to the same girl in blue, Our Lady of Lourdes; there were still more virgins, all of them sweet-faced, a cubit high, stacked up on the shelves next to the baby Jesuses in the crib and the Madeleines in the grotto; and then further on, in the corners, still in the row of life-size statues there were Saint Josephs with snowy hair and red cheeks; Saint Louis, recognizable by their gold, serrated crowns and their blue cloaks trimmed with ermine and strewn with gold fleur-de-lys. Here and there were a few unknown saints, saints who had been ordered for private chapels; a mitered abbot, a bald apostle, a bearded hermit and others still; all of them were stiff beneath their cloaks of clay that had been colored red or blue, gold or brown, according to their rank and quality. Beyond this display one could make out the shop, which was a huge square room full of statues like the ones in the windows, mixed in with other stone figures that were larger in scale and had been placed in the corners—these ones were to end up in some church alcoves. Right in [209] the middle, the only one of this kind, rose up a large Jesus, done in tender blue, pink, and gold, his two hands on his open chest, smiling and showing his heart. Against the walls were hanging paintings in a mass, Ways of the Cross; and at the back on the right, hanging from a beam, was a mountain of Christs, a pile of black sticks spotted with white dots, like an anthill stirring over its eggs. Passersby would stop to take a look. An unkempt woman in a cotton frock was looking in, her mouth hanging open; a priest, buttoned up in a padded coat, was taking notes in a notebook; children, their hands pressed against the glass, were craning their necks and opening their eyes wide in an air of reflection. Germain, who had often walked past this display without taking any notice, stopped that day so that he, too, might take a look. And the huge shop, with its painted figures scattered about, seemed to him like one of those corners of a field that you can see going past from the top of a railway carriage, like one of those little, clean cemeteries on the outskirts of Paris. There, behind these large windows, behind each of these canvasses marked with a cross, beneath each of these clay or stone figures, under each of these tombs, lay the soul of an artist. His chest tightened and he shuddered from head to toe as he thought of himself, at the possible death of his faith, the burial of his being if it ever came to pass that he should give in to the weight of these cruel thoughts that weighed heavily on him at certain times; for, try as he might to protect himself from the thought, if he had come to this point, [210] even though it might not be to bury himself there, it was still the case that he had given up demanding from his art the money that he needed; it was the case that, doubting his

The Substance and the Shadow //

125

strength, he had been reduced to this by sheer necessity. He pressed the doorbell mechanically. He was inside. Everything around him was spinning, and he could no longer remember the name of the shopboy for whom old Godet had recommended he ask. “The studios are in the yard, on the other side of the shop,” Godet had told him. “To get to me you have to open three doors and go down two corridors—it’s very complicated. Ask Monsieur Firmin, the boy, to go with you.” He went straight toward a little fenced-in booth in the corner on the left where he saw a young woman in the middle of writing something. As he was crossing the room, the woman had risen, one hand leaning on a large, open register—she was stretching out her neck, her head in the air and her eyes gazing into the well of a spiral staircase. She was speaking to someone out of sight up there: “Get down Saint-Sébastien, number three.” Once he had arrived in front of the woman, Germain stopped dead, as petrified and stiff as the statues surrounding him. She was red in the face, unsure and confused as she looked at him, waiting for the words he didn’t voice; for, having turned back on himself, Germain made for the door again and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. He slowed down only when he was a long way off; but he didn’t stop, and went straight on ahead, without daring to look behind him, like a wounded animal looking for a hole to hide in. When he recovered [211] from his alarm, when he regained his senses, he was in an alley between Hôtel-Dieu and Notre-Dame. He told himself that he was a fool and wondered whether he was going mad, without explaining this headlong running to himself. Reason, his own reason, was advising other courses to him than flight. “He had certainly acted wisely in avoiding a confrontation with Madeleine, Caro’s sister—for it was Madeleine Duhamel, for sure, whom he had met— but it wasn’t necessary to run off so far. On the contrary, what was required was for him not to take himself off—but to watch out and learn something. What was Madeleine doing in this house then? If she was working there, she must have seen him go past often; she could also have seen Caro. And, Caro, who had said nothing about it, did she not know? Was it perhaps a trap that had been set for him? Was old Godet in on it?” Germain went down the quais. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes were wild, as he followed the course of the water; and he mulled over a world of strange reflections that all led him to this conclusion: “that he had been outwitted by his nearest and dearest.” And so he took them by the throat, one after the other, Caro, Philippe, Godet, all the friends, and he flung them into the water. It was them, those wretches, for whom his wild eyes looked beneath the waters, happy to see them resurface no more. When a flash of reason restored him to reality, he clung to his nightmare, for he was set upon realizing his sinister dream. “Were these brutes worthy of his pity? Did they deserve anything other than his wrath, these ingrates, who, in return

126

//

marius roux

for everything he had done for them, only sought to destroy him? Oh, the ingratitude of it!—For, when it came down to it, they owed him everything.” [212] He didn’t ask himself how Caro, Philippe, and, above all, old Godet could owe everything to him. It had come into his head and become a bee in his bonnet. He was convinced. And so, “how he was going to get his own back on them!” He had left the quais and gone into the rue des Saints-Pères. His ideas, which had not been thought through properly and were muddy like the water over which his eyes had wandered, were now becoming clearer, were taking on something from the clarity of the stark lines of the houses over which he was gazing. “He was going to use a great deal of caution, primarily because he wanted to know just how far those close to him might have compromised him. He would question Godet cleverly, would stand on his guard with his brother, and, whatever happened, he wouldn’t breath a word to Caro.” “As for Caro, it would be easy to wipe the slate clean with her. So she had wanted to outsmart him, to pit herself against him and to lure him into a trap, had she! She was soon going to learn, to her cost, the price of laughing at a man such as himself! He could have separated from her, tactfully; he had promised himself that he wouldn’t lose sight of her and that he would come to her aid in a most splendid fashion; but from the moment of her cheating and conspiring he had no more niceties to observe, and he was free of all his promises in the future.” Germain went past the door of his house without stopping, and went up the street as far as the brasserie. He waited there until dinnertime, when he could join old Godet in the restaurant. He killed time by writing a long letter to Madame Mazouillet. Since his trip to Aigues-les-Tours he no longer wrote letters [213] that Caro saw or knew about, and no longer received letters from Madame Mazouillet at his home; he went to the brasserie to write, and to the post office to pick up the letters that were waiting for him posterestante. That day he indulged even more in the lyricism that he adopted in his love-talk. “The pretty widow was the only woman in the world who had understood him; she was to him all his happiness, all his strength, his life, his soul.” And so, what adoration flowed from him! His letter was just a jumble of admiring epithets and caressing phrases that regularly ended with several exclamations marks: two, three, four in a row. At seven o’clock Germain went to the restaurant. He hadn’t told anyone at home that he would be eating out; but “if Caro were upset, that was her lookout; so much the better.” Old Godet, who kept to a very methodical regime, arrived exactly at seven. “I waited for you today,” he said, as soon as he saw his young friend come in. “We’ll talk about that,” answered Germain, as he took a seat next to the old man.

The Substance and the Shadow //

127

They talked for a long time in low voices, while the rest of the table gave themselves over to ordinary conversations. They were talking about the future exhibition of the Society of Free Art, for the day for it was drawing near. More than once Germain had to interrupt the confidences he was making in order to answer to questions called out to him. Old Godet was not part of the plot; his responses were too frank, his explanations too sincere. He wasn’t even sure that Caro had taken advantage of him; for Godet confessed very naively that he [214] had only acted in the interests of doing a favor for a friend. “He had seen that Germain was in difficulties; certain worries had been talked about in front of him and so he had offered a favor.” All this emerged clearly from the answers given to craftily placed questions. All that remained was to establish clearly what this situation was that had arisen unexpectedly. Germain made old Godet repeat as many as three times certain details that he had set out right from the start. “That young woman is your boss.” “Yes, dear fellow. The boss’s son took over the business last October when he got married.” “Do you know who this woman is?” “I don’t know any more than this. I know that the family is settled at Versailles. I’ve only seen the father and mother once, on the day of the wedding. However, her parents come over from time to time; but on a Sunday when the studios are closed. I’m never there.” “Has she asked you about me?” “What do you want her to ask? Does she know you? In any case she didn’t know that you were coming to ask for me.” “Fair enough. But whatever happens, if ever she were to question you— you don’t know, do you hear; she might have seen us together, or she might meet us later—so if she asks you anything, don’t give her any answers. You’ll say that you hardly know me, you’ve just seen me with some painters; that you don’t know my address, and [215] that you’ve got reason to think that I live at—Pontoise; that’s right, at Pontoise, one of the colonies of landscape painters.”151 “I’m happy to do so; but why all these precautions? What’s in it for you?” “Ah, old Godet; this from you who are so subtle!” “Eh! what!—would she be—” “My word!” “An old one.” “You’ve said it, my good man, she’s one of my former mistresses; and—a real leech!” 151 // A group of painters, including Cézanne, Guillaumin, and Béliard, gathered around Pissarro in

Pontoise in 1872; see Rewald 1939, 195–96.

128

//

marius roux

“—I would never have thought it. A little woman like that to whom you’d give God himself without going to confession—Well, women, after all!” “Yes, yes, women!—And you understand, my dear Godet, that it’s vital that you never speak of your boss in front of Caro, who would scratch my eyes out.” “Say no more! It’s understood!” As there was nothing more to learn and no more advice to give, Germain joined in with the general conversation. People were talking more quietly than usual, and the discussion didn’t soar to the heights that it usually reached. It was because there weren’t very many there that evening. Lespignac, Damasquère, Long-Hair, Pointy-Beard, Bald-Head and others too were missing from the gathering. It was the twentieth of March that day, the last day indicated for submitting entries to the Salon. “They had agreed, they had sworn that they would keep away; and no one, of course, had broken his promise.” That’s what they were saying. The conversation turned to the subject of [216] “false brothers, of traitors who were capable of jeopardizing the future of the Society of Free Art.” Small Béju was saying that “he who would be bold enough to send something to the Salon would have only one excuse; and that would be to carry home a success.” “A success—yes, that’s right,” replied a neighbor. And they all agreed that only success could justify a defection. Germain didn’t see it that way. “Either you’re an Intransigent, or you’re not. What were they calling success? A serious painter, a genuine artist, would he be able to accept as a success the ridiculous gaping of a bunch of incompetent bourgeois, the mendacious compliments of an uncritical press, the medals that were won, God only knows how?” “No, no,” he shouted. “As long as there’s a Jury the Salon will be for us, or at least for me, a closed institution. I know what it costs to rub shoulders with people there. The Salon is freemasonry and nothing else. The pupil votes for the teacher, and the teacher gives the medal to the pupil; that’s how it works. I’ve sent paintings in for seven years in a row. They’ve always turned me down; even the last time, when I’d thought that I’d deceive them by signing it with a false name. Damn it, they recognized me from the way I handled the paint, and I, well I frighten them. If they’d accepted my pictures, everything would have come tumbling down around their ears. Their bazaar of cardboard dolls and zinc trees wouldn’t have existed any more. And you’re 152 // The Impressionists submitted works to many Salons in the 1860s and early 1870s, and were successful on several occasions, particularly at the Salons of 1866 and 1868 (when Manet, Pissarro, Renoir, Bazille, Morisot, Monet, and Degas were accepted); see Mainardi 1987, 187–93, and Roos 1996, 37–39, 53–62, 104–5, and 111–21. Around the time Roux was writing, Pissarro told Caillebotte that

Cézanne should not be denied the opportunity of exhibiting at “l’Officiel,” given that Renoir had broken his word about exhibiting at the Salon in 1878, which he had given (after a reconciliation) following a falling-out over L’Union; see Bailly-Herzberg 1980, 109. See also n. 87.

The Substance and the Shadow //

129

talking about success? But is that what you call success! I’d rather be methan be one of the two thousand in their terrible hall.” [217] He shouted, he gesticulated, he really grew angry. The others let him speak, and only gave him satisfaction out of condescension, as they’d agreed to. This was because Germain hadn’t sent anything to the Salon, and the others, without admitting it, had all given it a shot.152

xvii [218] That day, while she believed that Germain was with old Godet, Caro had

put into motion a certain plan long premeditated in concert with Philippe. As it mattered to Caro to put the spirit back in her painter, and, to Philippe, to put his brother on the right path, “the path that leads to everything, because that’s where the crowd passes by,” the little sister-in-law and the little brother-in-law had resolved to get Germain accepted at the Salon. They had a presentable piece, the sketch made at Marlotte on the twentyeighth of September, a sketch forgotten by Germain since he moved house and left behind in the old studio. It would need very little, in Philippe’s opinion, to give the piece the necessary finish, the appearance of a completed painting; and he had knuckled down to the chore, happy with the pleasant surprise he was giving his brother. The work done, he put the canvas in a fine golden frame; and, certainly, the canvas [219] was very well done. They should accept this without argument. Caro, to be in on the pleasant surprise, had kept for herself the job of carrying the painting to the Palais des ChampsElysées and of filling out all the forms. So she had carried the painting. It had taken all afternoon, and she came back, late, out of breath, trembling that she had kept Germain waiting and had no time left now to prepare the dinner. For a moment, she was glad to find herself alone; but when the dinner was done and the time for it was past, she began to feel impatient. However, once she thought about it she realized that the important business started up with old Godet might have made Germain go and eat at Bruno’s and spend his evening at the brasserie. So she was no longer afraid, and ate her share of the now-cold dinner; then she waited very patiently for Germain to come home. To occupy her thoughts she had the great joy she had felt carrying the painting to the Palais des Champs-Elysées. “As long as they didn’t see me,” she said to herself, “like I saw some others.” But she was sure she had been very careful. She was counting on keeping the secret until the day the news broke of its own accord, and when Germain,

130

//

marius roux

too happy at his own success, could do nothing to spoil it; because she knew he was quite capable of undoing all she had done. She promised herself that she would bring him, little by little, to break with his friends; “jokers who didn’t play a straight game like he did.” She knew them, all those with fine words, and promised herself [220] she would unmask them, and soon! That was the best thing she could do to bring her painter to his senses. Germain, coming back past eleven o’clock, thought he should offer some sort of explanation for his absence. Coming up the stairs, he had remembered he was playing the false-fellow, and put on his deceiver’s mask. Then too, for he had completely forgotten the main question, he remembered the purpose of his visit to old Godet, the sum of money he wished to borrow. “Another false friend, that one,” he said when he found himself with Caro again. “I didn’t leave him all day; I followed him to Bruno’s and the brasserie; I attacked him from all sides, from reason, from sentiment; nothing would make him do it.” Deep down inside himself, Germain told himself that the affair he had forgotten could be taken up again and could succeed; but, in the end, it was better not to mention it to anyone. The reproaches aimed at his friend Godet, a false friend like the others, made it easier for Caro to confide in him. “You were quite wrong,” she said, ready to give herself away at the beginning, so great was the joy she would feel when she told him what she had done; “you were quite wrong to let yourself be led astray by all these absurd suggestions by all these incompetents, who protest about the Salon only because they’re banned from showing there.” “No, my dear, no. Say whatever you like about those egoists, but leave that touchy subject alone. There, you would be wrong. [221] They might not have exactly the talent required, that’s possible; but their prejudice is sincere. In our protests against the Salon there is a matter of principle.” “So why do they all go there then, to the Salon?” “Never—never ever!” 153 // “Sorrel”: oseille, which is also a slang term for “cash.” (Translators’ note.)

an individual may apply for membership to the secretary (as did Baudelaire, unsuccessfully).

154 // The Académie des Sciences, Agriculture, Arts et Belles Lettres d’Aix was formally constituted in 1829 by royal decree, superseding a learned society founded in 1808. Like its more illustrious counterpart, the Académie Française, the Aix academy held séances publiques and published mémoires.

156 // In Mon salon, Zola had described Manet’s appearance at the Salon as that of “un tempérament . . . un homme dans la foule de ces eunuques,” sentiments he reiterated at the end of the text; see Zola 1866b, 51–52 and 71.

155 // The Académie Française was (and is) one the five academies comprising the Institut de France, and was the most distinguished learned society in France in the nineteenth century. It was founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, and has played a leading role in formalizing the French language. When a vacancy arises as a result of one of its forty members’ dying,

157 // “il n’y a que moi!” According to a letter from Pissarro to his son, Lucien, of the summer of 1895, Cézanne had recently opined to Franciso Oller: “Pissarro est une vieille bête, Monet un finot, ils n’ont rien dans le ventre. . . . Il n’y a que moi qui aie du tempérament, il n’y a que moi qui sache faire un rouge . . . !”; see Rewald 1978, 241.

The Substance and the Shadow //

131

“Yes, they do. They get turned down.” “They don’t condescend to go.” “Oh! there you are wrong—I’ve seen them, with my own eyes. Wait—my tongue is going to burst; I have to tell you. While you were at Godet’s, I got tired of being on my own; I needed a breath of air. I remembered that today was the twentieth of March, the last day for entries to the Salon. I was curious to go and see; and I walked in front of the door to the Palais des Champs-Elysées. I saw them all, your friends, one after the other, all of them, you understand? with their daubs. Damasquère sent a gigot of lamb and a portrait; Lespignac a wood-nymph, and a large cut of veal with sorrel.153 I didn’t see the others’ canvasses, they were carried by porters, in piles on their hooks; but I saw the fellows who came after the porters: the big one, with hair like that; the other one, with the pointy beard; and the other one, with the ivory dome; all of them, all of them, I tell you. They were being careful, coming there through the backstreets, looking behind them, watching out, hiding. There was only a crowd with that little one—let’s see—what’s the name of the little skinny one?—Béju!—they came in a group.” “Then they put on a great act for us this evening, for me and Godet!—” [222] “Ah!—they didn’t admit it? Well! and Damasquère, and Lespignac, and the others?” “Not there. It was empty, tonight, at Bruno’s.” “The cowards!” “No, darling, no, those fellows aren’t cowards. They have produced something, and they are trying to show it; that’s quite natural. Let them be accepted at the Salon, and there’ll be no more talk of our Society of Free Art, because that’s the lesser evil. I heard you mocking that poor Monsieur Mazouillet, who had had a prize for a piece of poetry from the Academy in his village; because there is an Academy at Aigues-les-Tours, isn’t there?154 Believe it, my love, your Mazouillet had already knocked at the door of the Académie Française before he applied to the ‘Local Areopagus,’155 as he called it, poor man.” You did well to tell me. I congratulate you, and I thank you for your happy curiosity. Those men are eunuchs.156 Enough of them! So much the better, after all; now there’s only me.”157

xviii [223] Nevertheless, the lowliest of painters could not chase away the new reflection that came to swell the tide of bitter thoughts in the midst of cruel self-doubt. The others were false brothers—that went without saying; but

132

//

marius roux

they had produced something, they had works to put on display. He had nothing to put on display, unless you counted a few pictures that had been rejected in the past and that were at present being turned down by Damasquère, who hadn’t dared to offer them to the dealer. Yet he was placing all his hopes in these pictures. If the Society of Free Art were to form once and for all and were to organize an exhibition, he would send them there. But would the Society ever form? The friends forgot to talk about it again. Those men who wanted to open the doors of their exhibition before the Salon opened its doors now seemed to be waiting for the results of their efforts in front of the Jury. Béju and Damasquère were the only ones to be demanding that Lespignac and the other leaders of the business should realize their promises; that was because [224] those two, whose names came ahead of the others in the alphabet, must have received their rejection letter. Little by little, day after day, new voices lent themselves to Béju’s and Damasquère’s indignant protestation. The group of the Intransigents was reforming. At last, once the Jury had finished its work, the group found itself made up once more in its entirety. The statutes of the Society of Free Art were voted in, and they got ready to organize an exhibition—the famous exhibition of independent artists, “artists who spurn the patronage of the Administration, and who refuse to submit to a Jury that they themselves haven’t nominated.”158 The initial meetings were held, as in the past, in Germain’s studio. There were no great difficulties to overcome, thanks to the payments made by the club members and to the significant amounts of money that had been given by some new people who had joined. The only question was to find a place and to discuss rental costs. Caro would have liked to see the whole lot of them buried a hundred feet underground, because she was afraid of missing the effect of the surprise she had set up to help Germain along. She couldn’t talk to Germain anymore. He spoke only of the glory with which he would cover himself by displaying his work to the public. He spoke also—and it was this above all that disarmed the poor woman—of the crazy sums of money that he was going to make; “for he could not fail to win the hearts of collectors, true collectors, those who loved work that was on the fringes, those who had a taste for great art.” They were then in the last days of April. On the day preceding the eve of the Salon’s opening, a disturbing rumor [225] circulated around the band of Intransigents. Someone, who had got into the Champs-Elysées palace, was assuring them that he had seen a picture by Germain. This was reported in the evening at the Brasserie Bismarck in the absence of the offender. The Intransigents shouted out loud, and a thousand curses were rained down upon the head of the false brother—for it remained understood that not one of them had broken their promise—and there was even a question of a delegation being sent to Germain, so that he would have to explain himself.

The Substance and the Shadow //

133

Given the lateness of the hour, they did nothing about it; then, as there might have been a mistake, they decided to put the expedition off to the day after the next day, after the opening of the Salon at a time when there would be no possibility of any doubt. In the meantime, the managing committee of the Society of Free Art was no longer to set foot in Germain’s house; they would hold their meetings at the brasserie, in the little room on the mezzanine— they had been wrong not to think of this room from the beginning. On the first of May there was a riot in front of Germain’s canvas. The whole group was there, whispering and showing their indignation. Without wanting to, the friends ensured the canvas’s success. The crowd follows the crowd. When the Intransigents, worn out by their wrath, had drifted away little by little, there was an unending stream of visitors stopping in front of this landscape that was causing such a stir. Everyone wanted to see close up the masterpiece in front of which a crowd of interested viewers were crushing each other; and each time that two, three, four people moved away, quickly their place was taken by passersby. This went on all day long. The critics all allowed themselves to be taken in; and several of them withdrew, scribbling notes as they left. Germain, who was sitting a few feet away on a bench [226] between his brother and Caro, was enjoying his triumph enormously. He hadn’t seen the comrades gathered together in front of this work, because he had arrived rather late; but he had met a few of these gentlemen as he was going through the galleries to get from the Room of Honor to his letter.159 The comrades had ignored him; and he, who knew exactly how they really felt, he, who was heady with success, counted himself fortunate “not to have to exchange greetings with such small fry.” He didn’t leave the room all day. When he was tired of staying seated, he rose, paced up and down a little, pretending to look at the portraits, the landscapes, the multiplicity of scenes of all kinds that were all around him; but everything melted away in front of his eyes, he could only see hazily, and, despite himself he came back each time to his picture, pleased that he couldn’t get near to it, satisfied to see the crowd stationed in front of it. Philippe and Caro did most of the talking. He could no longer find anything to say. Even if it happened that he wanted to emerge from this pleasurable daze to answer a question, he grew choked with emotion and stammered. 158 // In a letter to the the Comte de Nieuwerkerke (the surintendant and effective executive of the arts administration) of April 1867, requesting the reinstatement of the Salon des Refusés, Cézanne had stated among his reasons: “Je ne puis accepter le jugement illégitime de confrères auxquels je n’ai pas donné moi-même mission de m’apprécier.” See Rewald 1978, 114. On Nieuwerkerke, see Mainardi 1987, 126, and Roos 1996, 3–6.

159 // The allusion to “his letter” relates to the fact that (from 1861) paintings exhibited at the Salon were hung in alphabetical order according to the artist’s surname (Germain’s painting is thus in Room R) unless exhibited in the salon d’honneur among the most prestigious paintings; see Roos 1996, 24–28 and 42–46.

134

//

marius roux

Pleased by his happiness, Philippe and Caro did not ask to leave room R. It was only at the end of the day, half an hour before closing time, and at Germain’s suggestion even, that they made a cursory visit through the exhibition, which was spread over two rows of little rooms throughout the whole width of the Palace that were cut down the middle and shut off at each end by an enormous area that, in itself, was larger [227] than the largest museum in the provinces. They went on down, hurried along by the guards who called out solemnly their implacable cry “We’re closing now!” without having time to gaze upon the magnificent drawings and marvelous tapestries in the vestibule. They didn’t stop again but crossed the garden, where the well-raked lawns, rare flowers, and elegant shrubs disappeared against the dazzling whiteness of the statues, of which there were so many that all of ancient Greece seemed to have been restored in this Olympian bazaar. “Ah! my friends!—my friends!—” Germain kept saying with his wife on his arm, and one hand resting on his brother’s shoulder. That very evening he went to the brasserie. He needed to take pleasure in his success. If the friends were to give the slightest sign of huffiness, he had decided that he was going to shout a few home truths at them; and his glory swelled in direct proportion to the fall of these poor rejects. But the friends, who had had time to vent their spleen, who had spent the whole day shouting themselves hoarse in their fury with their false brother, in their criticisms of his work, which they said was a spineless, colorless machine with no personality, perfectly suited to featuring in the market of the Champs-Elysées, all these fine little colleagues turned into cowards in the victor’s presence. At first they pretended to know nothing about it; then, when somebody pointed out that the exhibition of the Society of Free Art was going to open and that the letters of invitation were ready, Lespignac contented himself by saying: “I haven’t written to you. You’re not part of it, are you?—that’s understood.” Then Béju ventured a word: [228] “Congratulations, my good man.” That was the start of a whole sequence of flattering words. They made fun of him with their compliments. Germain was too full of himself, too puffed up by his success to pick up on the malicious tone of certain flattering remarks that were over-the-top. He allowed himself to be treated as the master, without blinking an eyelid; and he went off, convinced that he was the greatest landscape painter of modern times. It was no longer him saying it to himself; it was all painters. “And for his colleagues to admit something like that, it meant absolutely that there was no escaping his talent.” The next day, and the next, and all the days after that Germain felt the need to go back to the Salon. Philippe, who was very tied up at the Ecole and in the Louvre, could not always follow him; but Caro had to go with him

The Substance and the Shadow //

135

every time. The dear woman no longer had the time to see to her household. They had lunch and dinner while they were out, in the first restaurant they came to; sometimes they ate from the buffet at the exhibition so that they could show off, and also so that they could glory in the conversation of their neighbors, who must have noticed the masterpiece of the greatest landscape painter of modern times. The crowd no longer stopped in front of the masterpiece; but Germain wasn’t offended by the indifference of the public, this public of the second day, made up of ignorant ironmongers who only stop in front of battles, in front of tragic or comic scenes. His own admiration was enough for him; and he could not forget his success on the first day, the infatuation of the public at the opening—that was the real public, [229] composed of artists and collectors “who scorn bourgeois images and pause only in front of masterly works.” Nor had he forgotten that plenty of critics, attracted by his landscape, had taken notes. He was impatient to read his panegyric; and so in the evening, before dinner, he would have to go into a café to look at the papers. But almost all the papers were holding over their article about the Salon until the Monday edition; and it seemed as though the first Monday would never arrive. The keenest ones, two or three lightweight papers, had published an initial article that had given an overview, had looked at the cream of the exhibition. He had been forgotten. That was perfectly natural, for these lightweight papers stank of connections; and, after all, these lightweight papers weren’t serious enough to be able to appreciate a demanding work.” Germain often stopped off at the Brasserie Bismarck so that he would be more comfortable. The rooms were more or less empty at the time he went there, so he could help himself to all the papers that were lying around on the tables. On one particular evening the waiter, who knew him and knew exactly what he was looking out for, handed him a new paper, printed on four sheets that the postman had just dropped off. Its title was The Dispenser of Justice; its subtitle was: Fine Arts, Literature, Theater. Heading the contents list was the announcement of an article on the Salon, with the names of the artists exhibiting there, among whom Germain saw his own name: Monsieur Germanicus Rambërr. He felt faint. Caro was jumping up and down. Germain wasn’t opening the paper quickly enough and was using too many precautions to cut [230] the sheets. She snatched up the little spoon from her glass of red-currant cordial, and using it as a paper knife, tore jaggedly through the paper. She wanted to read it at the same time as he did; but he forced her to stay in her seat and gathered his thoughts together so that he could breathe in the incense that he could smell rising from the lines of the precious newspaper. He read; but suddenly his face tensed and he turned terribly pale. The

136

//

marius roux

passage that concerned him was a proper slating, a real dressing-down. The author of the article, who was putting the Jury in the dock, took Monsieur Germanicus Rambërr’s landscape as an example and asked the real supporters of art “if, after accepting such an inane piece, the institution of the Jury did not stand condemned once and for all?” Germain flung the paper far away from him in fury, and forbade Caro, who was rushing forward to pick it up, to read that stupid thing. The paper had fallen onto a chair next to the table and had opened out on the other side of the page that the hapless painter had been reading. The article ended in the middle of the second column and the author’s signature could be seen from far off as it was printed in large capitals. “Fool!” cried Caro who guessed at what the article might say and who placed this signature under Germain’s eyes. “Hang on—look.” “Lespignac!” “Well, yes!—‘Year 1, number 1.’ It’s the famous journal of the Intransigents.160 It must be funny.” [231] It was, indeed, funny. From the first line to the last, from one article to the next, there was no talk of anything except of the band of martyrs, the phalanx of young men, the painters of the future who would not be slow to reveal themselves; for the Society of Free Art was announcing a public exhibition on the twenty-fifth of the month, on the boulevard des Italiens in the rooms of the former band of Moaners.161 The article on the Salon was simply an exposé of its principles; the names cited, and some of these were eminent, served as examples supporting the theories set out by the general editor of The Dispenser of Justice, the incorruptible Lespignac. Germain read the article from beginning to end. Caro read it in turn. Then they took it up again together, taking turns to read it, half out loud, paying particular attention to the names of famous painters whom Lespignac was dragging through the mire. “It’s a success!” cried Caro. “As I expected,” added Germain, “and I’m immensely flattered by Lespignac’s blunder. He’s put my name in with those of the greatest masters, the glory of France.” That evening, at dinner, they treated themselves to oysters as a mark of celebration. Afterward, since they hadn’t been able to take the journal away from the brasserie, they went in search of it, from kiosk to kiosk down as far as the arcades of the Odéon, where they ended up finding it on a small shopkeeper’s stall, next to the omnibuses. It was a magical evening, that evening spent in each other’s company, in the studio along with that dear Philippe, that excellent brother who had helped Caro to [232] perform this good deed, this act of justice; for, from now on, Germain believed in justice. “He himself was a poor judge of men; he had been mistaken about the good faith of friends; he, who was as seething with

The Substance and the Shadow //

137

power as boiling water, had let all his strength melt away in smoke. He could see clearly now; he could judge men, could judge himself.” And he remained a superior being. “Damn it!” he said, smiling, Lespignac only clings on to the group because he needs other people in order to be someone; without the others he wouldn’t have at his disposal the means of singing his praises in a journal. After all that we’ve just read about the group of martyrs, just look at the splendid personal advertisement from the general editor. “In preparation: The Tub of Blood, impressionist poetry by Monsieur César Lespignac.” “Hang on!” Philippe pointed out, “the sea—the river—the fountain—so there you have the fountain reduced to the tub.” “That’s not all. I’m reading it out: ‘This remarkable study will consist of—’” “That’s enough! We know what the remarkable study will consist of.” The evening following the next day, a Monday, this famous Monday that had been so eagerly awaited, there was to be a new joy. The papers, crammed with articles about the Salon, still kept quiet about the greatest landscape painter of modern times; but, failed by the Paris newspapers, the paper of his hometown, the [233] Aigues-les-Tours Memorial brought Germain the compliments for which he had longed. Twenty well-placed lines, right in the middle of the local news, two lengthy paragraphs, that must have leapt out at the whole city, have astounded the population and flabbergasted family and friends, gave an analysis of the masterpiece that was exhibited “in Paris.” Germain was careful not to point out, even to Caro, even to his brother, that he was the author of this article.162 He left them to rejoice and rejoiced himself all the more. When they had read and reread the superb panegyric, until they knew it by heart, he folded the paper and sent it sealed to the address of Monsieur Godet at the Brasserie Bismarck. He was sure that it would be made known to the whole group. Old Godet, who could hardly be passed off as young, had been excluded from the exhibition by the others; 160 // The Impressionists produced their own journal, L’impressionniste, edited by Georges Rivière, to coincide with their third exhibition in 1877. It comprised three issues appearing on 6, 14, and 21 April and included illustrations of works by Degas and Renoir; see Berson 1996, 1:176–87, 195, and 198–99, and Rewald 1973, 394. 161 // That this advertisement states the projected exhibition will take place in the boulevard des Italiens perhaps alludes to the fact that the first Impressionist exhibition was held in the nearby boulevard de Capucines. The exhibition is advertised as being about to take place “dans les salles de l’ancien cercle de Grognons”: “grognon” means “moaner”

or “grumbler.” The name have may been an in-joke among the Parisian Aixois, as Alexis had edited a journal between 1868 and 1869 entitled Le grognon provençal: Journal satirique mais honnête homme; see Athanassoglou-Kallmyer 2003, 71–72 and nn. 69 and 70. “Grognon” may also relate to the word “grog,” the favorite drink of many old-fashioned Aixois; see Athanassoglou-Kallmyer 2003, 266 n. 68, and Bakker 1971, 5–6. 162 // Astruc wrote a puff for his own work under a pseudonym in 1872; see Flescher 1978, 204.

138

//

marius roux

and he was very well able to take his revenge, to use the journal “to have a laugh at the expense of the others, to poke fun at them.” The article in the Aigues-les-Tours Memorial brought Germain’s mind back to his former projects. Having been distracted for about three weeks by all his preoccupations, thanks to the wonders of his undreamt success, the painter returned to his landscapes in broad daylight, amidst the rich, powerful nature of the Midi, which was to provide him with such marvelous motifs. He returned also to his marriage, to this union that was to make him rich, to ensure that he would lead a life free from care, that he would be completely free for his art. To be sure, he was touched by the kind thoughtfulness of Caro, who had bulldozed him into success. And so he promised himself that he would be grateful. “Caro would have her part [234] of the substantial fortune.” He no longer deigned even to count out how much; “and if fifteen hundred francs worth of pension that he had already set aside for her were insufficient, well then, he would see—he would increase her pension significantly.” Germain had thought long and hard about the most suitable way of breaking up without a scandal; he had come up with nothing better than disappearing without warning when the time was right. But from the moment that Caro had behaved like an intelligent woman, he didn’t want to feel indebted to her. “He too would know how to behave like a sharp-witted man. He wouldn’t split up from her without taking his leave in the best way possible, like a gallant man.” He immediately prepared the ground. One evening at dinner, when his brother was there, he spoke of using his success at the Salon. More than ever now he was to cultivate landscape painting; that was where his future lay. The landscape around the outskirts of Paris had its established painters; and, anyway, he “had no feeling for this intimate nature, that was of so tender a green that it looked like the decoration for a love scene. This landscape couldn’t work without people in it; and people ruin everything when painters don’t have the knack for them; just look at Corot, who had only ever found sugary nymphs, even though he was masterly at bringing trees to life. And so he was set upon turning to the wide horizons, to this powerful nature of the Midi, that was colossal and majestic and that he had an instinctive feeling for, that he was capable of depicting and that was to help him to assure, to impose his originality.”163 The three friends were gathered together that evening in the little dining room in the flat. They had had to give up [235] going to restaurants; Caro was no longer in any condition to walk the streets. They had called Dr. Caseneuve during the afternoon for a false alarm, but the doctor had announced that the time of delivery was about ten days or two weeks off. 163 // Cezanne has a strong attachment to his “terre natale”; see Smith 2000.

The Substance and the Shadow //

139

And it was this last fortnight that Germain had, for a long time, been designating as the definite end to his stay in Pairs. He didn’t want to be there for the birth of the little one, “a bore, that one, who could have brought his plans for the future crashing down” if he were to allow himself to feel sorry for it for reasons that he could not foresee, and if, by acknowledging the child, he were to rivet the chain that kept him bound to the mother. As he blamed things on his overly tender heart that were entirely due to his cowardice, he dared to reflect upon the situation; and he condemned himself to running away, so that he could fight against all those kind feelings to which he thought that he was prone. “He would always have time to obey his generous heart once he had taken care of his own fortune and that of his family. An overly impressionable captain is not the one who wins battles; and, since life is a fight, one has to struggle mercilessly, not to stop over the laments of the wounded. It is through success that you can offer a solution to all evils; and success comes only to keen-tempered souls, the stout hearted and the intelligent. He was intelligent and strong. He couldn’t miss the opportunity to climb out of his poverty, to guarantee a future for this child whom chance was giving him, to consolidate for his work the success that was beginning to take hold.” Marriage to a rich widow was a pure sacrifice [236] to art, to this great art that is only developed in splendid centers, which can live under the protection of lofty princes or luxurious states. “He had to accept the widow’s gold in the same way as he would have accepted his share of the budget for the fine arts.” Neither Caro nor Philippe could suspect anything. As they heard Germain speak of using his success, of devoting himself to landscape painting, and more particularly to the landscape that was in his blood, they contented themselves with nodding their approval. No reference to Caro’s situation had been hazarded by either side. There was a tacit understanding in her mind, and in Philippe’s, that this planned trip would be put off until some time in the future. With this reservation Philippe, especially, kept up his brother’s good spirits. The trip to his birthplace could only be lucrative. The article in the Memorial ensured that Germain would have enough recognition to be able to carry out some portraits that had been promised for some time, portraits that he would once have done as a kindness and for which he was now within his rights to demand a good price. He could bring back more than one pretentious subject from the studies that he would make in the country, which would be very presentable at the next Salon and very easy for a dealer to sell. Finally, and this was the reason that clinched it, the presence of one of the two brothers in Aigues-les-Tours was absolutely indispensable. After their father had married the serving girl Annette, Germain and Philippe had run headlong into a lawsuit. They were demanding the payment of their mother’s estate that they had put off indefinitely, [237] never imagining

140

//

marius roux

that they would have to divide their parents’ assets into two parts. The matter was extremely confused. Madame Rambert’s dowry had only reached fifty thousand francs. The marriage contract was worded in such a way that Monsieur Rambert had been able to divert half of this amount in ways that had resulted in unfortunate deals. As far as the half that was left was concerned, since the mother had died when the children were still minors, the father was claiming that he had discharged his duties, as he justified the way in which he had spent the money on their behalf. He had set up a guardianship fund that had been approved by Philippe and Germain within the time allowed by law—and this account acquitted him of the sum of twenty seven thousand francs. In Monsieur Rambert’s view it was his sons who were indebted to him. But, according to the lawyer and the barrister selected by the two brothers, both the uses made of the dowry and the guardianship fund could be reviewed. On the one hand, there was a surprise, on the other, bad faith. All of these actions, that were possible within a family who settled its affairs amicably, came to nothing in a family whose members fought among themselves and sought the strict application of the law. Once the case had begun, the lawyer had demanded a sum of money that the two brothers had not been able to give him. And so the matter was threatening to drag on. The lawyer had even just written to say that he would have to say “thank you” to the barrister who had been their first choice, and who was good, and turn to the first one whom he came across who would, of course, be second-rate! The good barrister didn’t want to spend any longer studying the file unless he received an advance of five hundred francs. [238] It was this last reason, added to all the reasons that cropped up in ones and twos, the deeds that had to be passed on, the explications that had to be given, that made the presence of one of the two brothers necessary. Germain was naturally designated to fulfill this mission. He was the eldest; and then he had a special interest in being there, since he had to do portraits and make studies; finally, Philippe couldn’t leave the Ecole at the very moment when the big competitions were coming up. Since the beginning of the year Philippe had won a gold medal and a commendation; and he was hoping, if not to carry off the Prix de Rome,164 at least to make it into the studio and to put his name forward for the future to be taken seriously. Philippe’s existence, which was very calm, very much spent in obscurity, dedicated to work, had passed by without attracting any attention from those who lived around him. If there are streams whose bed stands dry for three-quarters of the year and that swell up within an hour, that bellow and roar, that burst their banks and cause devastation, there are also broad and peaceful rivers that perform their tasks of powerful rivers in all tranquillity, casting dew over the meadows, lending strength to mills and factories, carrying products from the industrial cities through which they pass up as far as the big port. Germain was the torrent that stays dry and then roars and

The Substance and the Shadow //

141

overflows; Philippe was the peaceful river that noiselessly accomplishes its powerful work. If Philippe had not become vain with his success, if he didn’t speak of his hopes out loud, nevertheless he bore within him a strong sense of pride that kept itself contained so that it might not break out until his moment of true triumph. But he obeyed this need to open up [239] that lies at the heart of all beings and he had relieved his heart to the only heart that was capable of understanding him. Caro had had the homage of the prizes won at the Ecole; Caro knew all of the young painter’s glorious dreams for the future. Germain had not shared in his brother’s present joys and future dreams, because he had scorned to see and hear them. He, quite puffed up with vanity, still knew only one thing: “that his brother was not as good as he was, because he hadn’t sent anything to the Salon.” Yet Philippe had explained himself on that subject. He was still a pupil, but was being marked out in competitions as someone who ought to win the Prix de Rome later on, and he didn’t want to jeopardize his success. “I would only be able to exhibit a second-rate work,” he said. “What’s the point? It would serve no purpose and would even be very harmful. In art to be second-rate is to be no one. You’d be better off to be bad. Yes, indeed, people take as much notice of the god of hell as they do of the god of heaven; and I’ve never heard anyone talk about the god of purgatory. So if you can’t manage to be one of the princes of the Institute, you can still be someone in the Ecole des Batignolles; look at Manet,165 whose position must turn green with envy the band of second-rate painters, insignificant artists who pass unnoticed, who don’t exist. Since my desire is to scale the heights of art, to reach possible perfection, I’m biding my time. As a pupil I will remain a pupil; I’m learning my trade. When I am an established master, I’ll try to make my mark with works that will be worthy of attracting attention. Then, but only then, I will take part in the great battle; [240] that from which the valiant artist emerges glorious and triumphant, if he does not give in. Germain’s ignorance over his brother’s accomplishments, his plans for the future, over everything to do with him was absolutely true to his nature. His self-love could not brook the possibility of any character counting except his own. Germain only thought of himself, only spoke of himself. His sense of self was always keenly alert. If, through deference or weariness, he allowed the conversation to drift to a matter foreign to his being, he no longer listened. To be sure, his eyes focused on the person who was in the middle of speaking, but his mind was elsewhere, locked in on itself, engaged only with 164 // The Prix de Rome carried a stipend and allowed students to study at the French Academy in Rome, provided a place was available; see White 1965, 19, and Boime 1971, 50–57. 165 // Manet’s high status among his contem-

poraries was recorded in, among other things, Fantin-Latour’s painting Un atelier aux Batignolles of 1870, which showed Manet surrounded by his “disciples,” the painters Renoir, Bazille, and Monet, together with Astruc and Zola. Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’herbe is also mentioned in Roux 1869, 239.

142

//

marius roux

itself. When, as sometimes happened, he was forced to listen in order to be polite, to give the required responses, he found it wearisome and boring. Weariness prompted him to give unfriendly answers, boredom drove him back into egoism; and, without meaning to, he began to speak about himself once more. Three days had passed since the evening when it had been decided in principle that a trip to Aigues-les-Tours was necessary, and Philippe wasn’t breathing a word about it anymore, and Caro had no thoughts for anything except the great event that was on its way for her. Germain was still most put out. “What he had done there was nevertheless the action of a gentleman, when he could have taken himself off without telling anyone, without anyone knowing what had become of him. By not hiding what he was up to, he was yielding a part of his strength. He was beginning to regret his frankness; for, in the final analysis, he didn’t know exactly what this underhand Philippe and this disillusioned Caro would prove themselves capable of doing. He really had been wrong to give in to [241] a ridiculous and unhealthy feeling of gratitude. It wasn’t him who owed something to Caro, but she who owed everything to him. He would have to end the whole thing as soon as possible.” Germain took his precautions. Caro—through necessity and through Philippe’s entreaties—agreed to go and stay in a maternity hospital, with Madame Cheurlin, a first-class midwife, on the corner of the rue Jacob and the rue Bonaparte; it was a trustworthy establishment. Philippe, who was supposed to be taking up his place in the studio for the Prix de Rome, had to undergo the sketching competition and the painted figure competition at the same time—that was going to keep him holed up at the Ecole for several days. So Germain cried: “That sorts out the two of them!” breathing freely, at liberty to act. Four days later he left Paris and went to Aigues-les-Tours on the slow train in the afternoon. He left a long letter with Philippe’s concierge, to which he had attached a piece justifying his behavior, a telegram—that he had had addressed to him by his lawyer—which said: “Come immediately—or I cannot answer for anything that happens.” On top of that he had embroidered his farewell letter to Philippe and to Caro. His brother was entrusted with the task of explaining the situation to Caro, of making her see reason and submitting patiently. “He was devoted to her. He was leaving because it was necessary; and, since the household funds were nearly at an end, he was condemning himself to traveling [242] third class. Madame Cheurlin, the midwife, had been given two weeks advance pay; all that remained in the drawer of the chest of drawers was a hundred and eighty seven francs. He was leaving a hundred francs; so he had taken

The Substance and the Shadow //

143

the cost of the journey exactly, plus a twenty-franc coin, so that he wouldn’t have to beg from the day that he arrived.” Every sentence, every word, sought the thanks of those whom he was abandoning. That was what Germain called getting out of a scrape with panache, taking one’s leave like a gentleman.

xix [243] Philippe had nothing more urgent to do that evening than to return to Caro’s side. Leaving his work, about five o’clock, he went each day by the rue Bonaparte and stopped a few moments at the sick woman’s house. So he had just left,when he came across his brother’s letter. His return, far from pleasing her, troubled the poor woman. She had complained to him of the abandon in which Germain had left her. Since her stay at the Cheurlin house, she had seen Germain only three times, and each time he had barely shown himself, not giving himself the time to sit down, to chat for a moment. The two last days, he hadn’t shown himself at all. So, Philippe had promised to go and seek out his brother and bring him back. But he came back alone, and, however hard he tried to hide his thoughts, he looked contrite, desperate. “I want to get away from here!” cried Caro, before he had told her anything. “I have thought about it—so much the worse—or so much the better—I shall go to my mother’s house.” [244] “Let’s be reasonable, let’s see!—calm down! Life makes demands on us. There are some circumstances, some events, that are just an interruption for some people and something terrifying for others. But everything passes. The fear comes only from some fierce mental preoccupation. If you can stay in control of yourself, you’d avoid half the troubles you meet with; because those troubles are ones we give ourselves. Don’t add to the problems you can’t avoid or that come from not thinking straight. You must think straight, my dear. You have to tell yourself that what has happened is a fact of life. You should wait for Germain’s return patiently, confidently; he’s gone in spite of himself, he’s doing it for me, for us all. This is what is happening—” And Philippe, who had no need of all the facile argument his brother invoked, did not read the letter and found in his heart splendid ways of explaining the situation, of justifying it, and as well of calming Caro’s fears, and strengthening her courage, her faith. But Caro was no longer mistress of her own understanding.

144

//

marius roux

Sitting in a large armchair with the tipped-back back, she seemed to be listening to her excellent little brother-in-law, agreeing with everything he said. She smiled; and he thought he had brought the right medicine. Unfortunately, whatever effort she made, her mind was elsewhere. Fever weakened her; the throbbing of her blood disturbed her reason. She remained stubborn to her obsession; to leave the adventurous life, come back to a life of [245] the family; wipe away the sin, ask forgiveness of her mother. When Philippe was no longer there, she forgot all the fine words he had spoken. She cried for a long time; then she had a nervous attack, and she had to be put to bed. For several days, the same scenes played over and over. The sick woman seemed docile and calm, smiling and relaxed, as long as her friend stayed beside her. She fell back into prostration, then into madness, when she found herself alone again. At last, the competitions of the Ecole were over. Philippe, set free, promised he would not leave his dear invalid again. “It’s finished,” he said, “I thank you for allowing me to go until the end; for, I assure you, I had decided to give up the competition if I had seen you less reasonable.” He was deceived by appearances. One time, the attendant who watched over Caro had spoken of a nervous attack; but that was something so natural, so inevitable, that he hadn’t attached much importance to the incident. Caro’s calm look, and her nice smile, had fooled him. “I shall come back tomorrow,” he added; “and from tomorrow on, I shall not leave you again in the daytime.” The next day, the lad found the bedroom empty. The attendant’s wailings were worthy of Jeremiah. “It was Madame Cheurlin’s fault, she was never there. Madame has a lover who was causing her grief; she ran [246] after him, and the trustworthy establishment was given over to the servants.” “What do you want me to do about it?” asked the hag. “This person wanted to leave. I couldn’t keep her here by force. She’d paid for a fortnight and didn’t owe anything. She had the right to go, because she no longer felt well.” “She must have said something—said where she was going?” “No—only she often said she meant to go to her mother’s.” Philippe left without knowing what he was going to do. Once on the sidewalk, he hesitated a long time before he turned right or left. He stood there dumbfounded. By instinct, he turned toward the rue de Sèvres. At his brother’s house, the concierge, Madame Quillard, declared that she had seen no one; at his house, Madame Lessandre informed him that Madame Rambert had been there and asked to see him. Madame Rambert had gone straight in and come straight out, without saying whether she would be back.

The Substance and the Shadow //

145

He thought she would come back, and waited all evening. When he was tired of staying in his studio and was letting himself think impossible suppositions, he went downstairs to keep watch in the street. In truth, Caro could either come to his house or go to hers. The evening passed, and the night also; and the next day Philippe found himself no farther ahead than he was the previous night. While he was no expert on medical matters, he was aware that a woman in Caro’s position could run the most serious risks; and then, even if there were no danger to think of, he had to see her again, speak to her, bring her back to his brother, to himself. [247] He left his instructions with the two concierges, went over it with them that they had to keep Madame Rambert there if she turned up, and in any case that they should not lose sight of her again; after that he went back to the Cheurlin’s place, where he found out nothing new, but where, too, he gave grave instructions. At last, he risked running as far as Versailles. Philippe didn’t know exactly what he was doing or what he would say once he was in the presence of Caro’s relatives. Was it even certain that the sick woman would have gone back to her father’s house? The situation could become very embarrassing; but he didn’t balk at the likely difficulties. He didn’t want to think about that; and on he went, firmly decided, resolute, impelled by a feeling of integrity that, for him, admitted no indecision, because it was the source of his very consciousness. He was only half sure which was Caro’s family’s home; from all his friend’s intimate chats he had retained only the name and the profession of the father: Monsieur Duhamel, pharmacist. At Versailles, the first person he met would tell him the street and the number of Monsieur Duhamel. The shop was indeed very easy to find, for it was only a hundred steps from the station on the Right Bank, where he got off, beside the market. The sign bore in each corner a large square, divided into four triangles, red, green, yellow and blue. Unfortunately Monsieur Duhamel was no longer the owner of the shop. He had sold it six months ago, and his successor had only flitted by, to [248] sell it in his turn; so the new merchant had no real information about the former owner. He thought Monsieur Duhamel had retired to Paris; but Paris is so big, but a neighbor, the clockmaker next door, who was just talking of Monsieur Duhamel the day before yesterday, said he had set up home at Plaisance. He had even made a pun on it.166 Yes, he was positive, it was in Plaisance. The clockmaker was consulted, and confirmed what he had said, without being able to be more precise. This was the only information Philippe picked up during his flight to Versailles. 166 // Plaisance means “pleasure” as well as (the town) Plaisance. To be “à Plaisance” is thus also to be

enjoying oneself.

146

//

marius roux

He did not let it get him down; and the following days he tramped the district of Plaisance, asking of the mayor, the police officer, the police superintendents, the lawyers, everybody, in short, able to tell him, not forgetting the pharmacists, the grocers, the little local retailers, who might have struck up an acquaintance with their former colleague. All his searching was fruitless. And Philippe, exhausted, desperate, sick, shut himself up at home, to cry and to wait.

xx Once he had arrived at Aigues-les-Tours, Germain forgot all the cares that had weighed heavily on him in Paris so that he could revel in his new success, his remarkable success as a smart man. Being good at everything, he thought, is the sign of a great mind; and he who, for a long time now, knew himself to be a very strong painter began to think of himself also as a very smart diplomat.167 He had put up at one of the top hotels in the town, à la Mule-Noire. He had decided that he ought not to impose on the friend who had already put him up and who fell so short of great-heartedness; and his calculations led him to tell himself that, since he found himself without a penny, he would be given credit more easily in a good hostelry than in a second-rate one. He had come to an arrangement for his bed and board. At the very worst the hotel keeper’s trust couldn’t run out in less than a month. One is not the son of a well-known solicitor for nothing; and then, when one is undertaking a court case where one lets people know of the many thousands of francs to which [250] one is entitled, it is because one can pay thirty francs for a room and eighty francs for board. With a month’s supplies and twenty francs pocket money, Germain remained in control of himself, absolutely sure that he would succeed in his many projects. First of all, he had to see Madame Mazouillet and court her assiduously: that was easy. Then he had to start on his friend Lafont’s portrait, not to finish it straight off, since it was paid for in advance, but so that he could lure clients in and ensnare them: that was possible. Finally, Germain had to keep an eye on the court case, consult with the solicitor and barrister, to skirt the question of credit, and get to the end of the dispute: that was important. For, out of the fifty thousand francs they were looking for, out of the twenty-five [249]

167 // Roux uses his habitual “très fort” in both epithets.

The Substance and the Shadow //

147

thousand of his share, he would have preferred to have in his hand immediately four or five thousand-franc bills that would have helped him make a good impression and taken care of the costs of his impending wedding. It was with these priorities set upon his ideas that he set about dealing with things. Madame Mazouillet allowed herself to be courted; his friend Lafont gave all the sittings that were needed for the portrait; Monsieur Tamisier, the lawyer, promised that they would win the court case. But, as the end of the month drew near, Germain began to notice that fine words could not always keep the pretty widow happy, and that small gifts sustain friendship better. The portrait of his friend Lafont, which he handled with too much self-consciousness and executed in the grand style, was not the kind to win over bourgeois clients. Lafont’s friends looked at it with incomprehension, with dumbfounded eyes, [251] absolutely determined that they weren’t going to hand over their heads to him. As for Monsieur Tamisier, he pointed out without the slightest trace of awkwardness that, since the matter could not be adjudicated before the holiday, it would be referred to the following year’s roll. So Germain found himself thinking hard; and, as he followed the train of his thoughts, he reached the point of remembering the priest at the church of Saint-Jean, this friend of his father’s whom he had neglected to visit in the past. The priest gave him the warmest welcome. Father Tavan had a good-natured face despite being extremely thin. He was a little old man, whose hair had turned completely white, whose face was furrowed with wrinkles; but he was very lively. Once you had yielded to the authority written in his small eyes, which were as bright and as playful as quicksilver, you were immediately put at ease by the look of kindliness that imbued all his features. “I learned of the scene that took place during your last trip,” said the good priest. “Someone told me of your return here in the last few days, and—I was waiting for you, my child.” The priest had received Germain in his study, inviting him to take a seat in a wide armchair that was soft and convenient; he himself had remained seated in front of his table. And, as if everything had been said concerning the object of the visit, the priest began to talk of other things. He showed Germain his library, where there were only rare books, finely bound; there were canvasses and sketches hanging on the walls, two Florentine bronzes, half life-size, placed on a pedestal table between the windows; a few valuable pieces of porcelain strewn here and there, [252] two Sèvres candelabras, a Chinese mandarin and a tea service from Saxony; a small Venus de Milo, in fired earth, left on the mantelpiece next to the clock, on which was a very fine head of Christ in oxidized bronze. As he listed the qualities of his small artistic treasure trove—qualities that he only recalled for the record and so

148

//

marius roux

that he could ascertain if his appreciation was the same as that of someone in the business—he paid Germain a great many compliments on his work that was of so high a standard!—on his success in Paris, in a world that was so overcrowded! “We read with the greatest pleasure, sir, the few lines that the Memorial devoted to your last picture. Your work featured at the Salon—that’s very good, really very good!” When the conversation began to run dry and Germain rose to take his leave, Father Tavan returned to the subject of the visit. At first he said only a few words: “Be so kind as to call tomorrow at the same time. I will probably have something new to tell you.” Then, once he had seen his visitor down to the bottom of the staircase, there the good priest became more voluble. He took the young man’s hand in his own, and without letting go, he added: “You have suffered, I know you have! but your father has been ill with this. Take heart, my child, it will all sort itself out. What’s done is done, isn’t that so? There’s nothing to be gained in going over it again. I know, I know— this wedding—the difference in their ages—but it’s the law of God, and it’s the law [253] of men; you have to submit to it. You will go back home and you will be made welcome, I’ll answer for that. Monsieur Rambert, your father is a fine man, and Madame Rambert is a worthy person—very god-fearing, very charitable, absolutely dedicated to our works of charity. Oh! I haven’t the slightest shadow of a doubt about the success of the course of action I plan to take. I can already see you in each others’ arms, reconciled and happy. Until tomorrow, my friend, until tomorrow!” The following evening Germain was dining in his father’s home and was taking over a newly furnished bedroom that had been made ready for him during the day. While they were at the table, the old man grew tearful with emotion, and Madame Annette laughed like a child and spoke while clapping her hands every time that she found an occasion to drop a kindly word directed at her “dear son.” The dinner was excellent; nothing but the first produce of the season and dainty delicacies, all washed down with exquisite wine—a quality Bordeaux of a fine label to start with, and an exceptional old Burgundy to help the roast go down. Germain thought that they were having a feast in his honor. But when every meal was as well served on the following days, he had no choice but to open his eyes and to realize that his father’s new existence was quite different from his former one that had been so parsimonious and, at times, so mean. And so he saw more clearly all around him as well; and he was more sorry than awestruck by the luxury surrounding him. There were rugs everywhere, mirrors in every corner, silky draperies, gilded furniture, rare flowers, all kinds of ornaments. It was a burst of color, it was a stream

The Substance and the Shadow //

149

of [254] gold, it was a display of objects that had been bought for a very high price, it was something like a fat bag of one-hundred-sou coins melted down. It was then also that he opened his eyes with regard to his situation and became aware of the part that people wanted him to play. Father Tavan had opened the doors of the house to him, to be sure; but, without realizing it, the good priest had only engineered the excuse they had been looking for, so that they might sort out their differences. Monsieur Rambert and his wife, each of them in their heart of hearts, wanted this reconciliation—the former because it would bring an end to a court case that could turn nasty, the latter because it would redeem her in the eyes of the world. Monsieur Rambert had nothing to fear from the quibbling over his guardianship fund. He could even demand a higher price from his sons; since, once the account had been closed and signed over, he had continued to give them an income that was several times higher than the interest on the sum of the dowry that had been put to such unfortunate use. But it was this unfortunate use that was making him anxious. He knew exactly where he stood with regard to the alleged misfortunes that were being brought up; nor was he unaware that misfortunes of the same kind had befallen some of his clients. If his practice as a solicitor had brought him wealth, it was not without him being mixed up in some really nasty jobs. The rumors going around about his court case with his sons had unearthed more than one disgruntled person who had been thrown over in the past. So, according to the advice from the court—and when it comes to trials, one never knows what can happen—an adverse judgment to begin with [255] would bring about others in its wake. The clients who had been ousted were just biding their time until the moment was right to come forward. By settling the case, Monsieur Rambert was silencing all the dirty dogs who were preparing to run hot on his heels, and who were perfectly capable of baying loudly and biting cruelly. Madame Annette’s position was just as delicate. She had been unable to break away completely from her former peers, and as yet had not known how to win over the good graces of the bourgeois world to which she had risen through her marriage. Since she had quarreled, quite naturally enough, with her former friends, she had to endure their malicious rumors. Gossip in the anteroom, malicious rumors running around the lower orders, cut her to the quick because, despite her best efforts, she still counted among the working class, to whom she was linked by birth. And this link, that is hard to sever, stopped her from rushing headlong into the new society with whom she longed to mix. The bourgeoisie refused to open its doors to her; she knew this, she had been made to feel it. She had made many sacrifices and through them was still only just able to join the gatherings where everyone manages to appear, if they pay for their place; she was involved in all the good works in the parish. The priest praised her to the heavens; but the Ladies Bountiful,

150

//

marius roux

who were quite happy to take her money, would never have allowed her onto a committee. She was not one of those women whose name leapt out from fete programs, or who went campaigning to people’s homes, or who, on the arm of a gentleman dressed in a black suit, a gentleman who had an illustrious name, collected money at concerts and in churches. [256] And, when she was giving ten times more than the others, why should she not have done the collections? Why did all these committee ladies, who called her “dear madame” when they couldn’t avoid meeting her, turn down her invitations to dinner, why did they never call on her, and, consequently, why did they not allow her to cross the threshold into their drawing rooms? Why? Most certainly—and it was the only thing she believed—because in the society like of the Grand’Place, people accused her of engineering an argument between Monsieur Rambert and his sons. This quarrel and all its attendant consequences had given the servants in the neighborhood, the shopkeepers in the area, and family and friends in the town, a great deal to ramble on about. She was especially resentful of the family and friends. Her ambition was composed entirely of wrath and swollen with self-love. She never imagined herself having arrived at her heart’s desires—winding her way through the rows of chairs in church, the collection box in her hand, arriving in a carriage at some society soirée—without at the same time thinking of some jealous cook, some overbearing shopkeeper, and of fifty malicious gossips whom she would be squashing at the same time. The reconciliation had taken place on a Wednesday. On Thursday, the following day, Monsieur and Madame Rambert had the opportunity of flaunting their peace treaty. There was to be a military band playing that day on the Avenue between five and six.168 They were among the first to arrive at this gathering. Monsieur Rambert and his wife had seated Germain between them, in the front row on the south side of the Avenue—an alley that had been exclusive [257] to the nobility up to the Revolution and that, even today, is the place on the promenade sought out by society. Germain was not really enjoying himself on his chair, between his two tyrants, in the midst of high society. He would have preferred to be wandering around on the north road, accompanied by a few fast-livers; and he would willingly have exchanged the whole program of music for a nice glass of beer at widow Moser’s brasserie at the bottom of the Avenue, where there was pistol shooting and prostitutes made themselves available. He would have gone there, for he was too consumed with self-love to put his wishes second to anyone else’s, but he ended up enjoying his father’s observations and his stepmother’s chatter. It didn’t take him long to notice that his father was trying to cheat with him and that his stepmother was not accepted by society, as she would like to have people think. The people who passed by scarcely bowed or curtsied at all—they did it absent-mindedly, without stopping. She was always the first to greet people, even men. And

The Substance and the Shadow //

151

so he enjoyed himself. He got his father to talk by agreeing with everything that he said and by affecting the most complete disinterestedness. He got his stepmother to talk by speaking ill of the people whom she greeted, “a bunch of shady characters and goody-goodies. A lot was known about the goodygoodies in particular.” “This is how the matter is settled,” said his father as he laid a hand on Germain’s left arm, “we won’t lose anything. For the costs of the court case would have represented a loss for everyone all around, since [258] nothing has changed and you and Philippe stand to gain everything after us.” “Well, yes—” said his stepmother, drawing Germain toward her by his other arm and speaking into his ear; “that’s really good! I’ll keep quiet so that I don’t offend Monsieur Rambert; but how they annoy me, those little madams, how they drive me to the limit—for I’m quite capable of shouting a few home truths at them.” And quite fired up, red-hot coals on her lips and the light of battle in her eyes, she looked as if she was going to plant her fists on her hips; but she suppressed the gesture, because the wife of the sous-préfect was looking at her. “Do you see that woman?” she said. “Well she’s the most respectable of them all.” “That woman” had been forced through her position to approach people indiscriminately, and had invited Madame Rambert to an official ball. “I don’t think she’s attractive,” replied Germain, who found the woman ugly. “In what country do they make people like that?” “At Saint-Nazaire. Well, hang it!—as far as she’s concerned that’s true. She’s not pretty-pretty, but she is respectable. The people from the North, the Franchimands169 as they’re known around here, are better than them. There are only idiots here!” “You’ll permit me to make an exception.” “Well, as far as she is concerned—I grant you that.” They understood that they were speaking of Madame Mazouillet. The previous day, at dinner, the exceptional burgundy had loosened Germain’s tongue. Caution ought to have counseled him to keep quiet about his wedding plans, because by telling his secret he could [259] be giving ammunition against himself both to his father and to Madame Annette; but at the very beginning he was unsuspecting and, since this admission flattered his own sense of self-worth, with the help of the burgundy he revealed his innermost thoughts. Luckily for him, at least as far as his stepmother was concerned, the confidence was very well received. Annette and Madame 168 // Undoubtedly a reference to the Cour Mirbeau, the main street in Aix. 169 // Roux uses the word franciot(s), as on page 92. Franchimand: (from the English, ‘Frenchman’) is also an Occitan term current in French, meaning either a

northener or someone who affects northern (especially Parisian) ways. Mildly pejorative, in American terms it corresponds perhaps to what someone from the Deep South means by “damn Yankees.” (Translators’ note.)

152

//

marius roux

Mazouillet were good friends. This friendship was only natural; it was bound to have happened. For a long time Madame Mazouillet had suffered from the arrogance of the haughty bourgeois ladies of Aigues-les-Tours, and her husband had not seen enough of life to gain her admittance into certain magnificent houses that were still unwilling to accept her. Madame Mazouillet could not, indeed, be treated with the same heedlessness as Madame Rambert—she was a little tramp, that one, who had soaked her chemise in the stream and who came from Lord only knows where—but for all that she herself was still only a former shopkeeper, a well-known figure on the Grand’Place, which had branded her with a coarse stamp by giving her the nickname “the lovely pasta seller.” The day when these two women met each other they bonded together, without needing to confess to each other their wounds, without telling each other of their troubles. That was difficult, that was mortifying, and, what’s more, it served no purpose. It had been enough that, by making each other’s acquaintance, they had filled for each other something of the gap left around them to see themselves so closely knit. This meeting was occasioned both by Monsieur Mazouillet’s death and Monsieur Rambert’s marriage. The two families had exchanged letters announcing the events. Out of respect for his neighbor’s grief, Monsieur Rambert [260] had not paid his visit to mark his wedding, but he had left his card at the door of the house. Old Mazouillet, who had been deeply moved by Germain’s devotion, had made a point of going to shake hands with the father of this splendid young man, and Madame Mazouillet, spurred on by her own interests, had followed him in this visit. She didn’t want Germain to stay on bad terms with his father, and she reckoned on using her relationship with Madame Rambert to bring him around to a reconciliation. Her actions could be dangerous, but, since she was appealing to a convert her efforts all turned to her advantage. Madame Rambert was enchanted, all the more so as she imagined that her friend was only seeking to be pleasant to her by matching her own desires. The pretty widow, who had not been a shopkeeper for nothing, was well practiced at outwitting people; she barely mentioned Germain’s name and carefully concealed the interest she took in him. Once the time to make up had arrived, Madame Mazouillet had not intervened and had left Germain to appeal to good Father Tavan’s devotion because she knew that the case had already been won and because she didn’t want, still through caution, to confess to her relationship with him. And here he was with nothing better to do than to shout the big secret from the rooftops. “And people say that women are talkers!—” said Madame Annette, after a pause to listen to the last piece of music, a gallop that she adored. Yet there’s one who could hardly be called one!—that only makes her go up in

The Substance and the Shadow //

153

my esteem. She is [261] charming, quite charming!—and I understand your passion, your good taste, my dear friend. It is vexing that she could not be seen on the promenade; she would have been one of our group. We’ll go and say good evening to her, when we go past her house. When the time came, neither Germain nor Madame Annette gave any thought to stopping at the house of their charming friend. To get to her door they had had to pass in front of the solicitor’s former house and Germain had been unable to resist the wicked pleasure of teasing his father: “You’ve said that your children will gain everything. There’s still a house here where they will never again set foot.” This observation had displeased Madame Annette, who marched along, staring straight ahead, her brow furrowed, her demeanor angered; and she forgot about the visit they had promised to make. For his part Germain had to put up with his father’s reply. His father had no intention of being defeated and he said, with a shrug of the shoulders: “A great big barracks like that! an uninhabitable heap of stones that brought nothing in!—Don’t you think that it was a good maneuver to transform this useless building into considerable assets?” But Germain knew where the considerable assets had ended up; and he, too, forgot about the visit they had promised to make. They got back to the little house on the boulevard Saint-Louis, half angry, at least very bothered, and appeared embarrassed as they sat down at the table. The ice was soon broken, thanks to the fact that to Germain these things were like water off a duck’s back, since his former japes as a student had accustomed him to jokes, and he dealt with everything [262] in such a way that you never knew whether he was speaking seriously or whether he wanted to jest. “It’s not all that—” he finally said when he saw that his observation about the house that had been sold had upset his two opponents. “Here’s a sulky bouillabaisse!—I noticed as we were going past in front of the kitchen a guinea fowl whose breast was turning golden brown at the fire, and I smelled a fish stew that struck me as delicate and substantial—we must eat these fine dishes with the contentment they deserve. So let’s be happy; and if you want to take offense for empty words, at least wait for dessert, because I myself sulk over sweet things. I’ll forego my piece of cake, but—I’m not giving up the bouillabaisse! So pass me a slice, my dear little mother—two slices and— plenty of fish.” From the moment that Germain had said that it was only empty words and that he didn’t want them to stay angry at each other, Monsieur Rambert and Annette began to smile again. Deep down they had been afraid, and it was nothing more than that, that Germain would slip away from them. Over dessert, instead of growing angry, Monsieur Rambert toasted his

154

//

marius roux

beloved children as he had done the day before, without, in any case, neglecting to add: “It really is over, isn’t it, Germain? You’re signing the withdrawal?” “With both hands, father. However—” “Ah!—there’s something holding you back?” “You’ll allow me to refer the matter to Philippe. I can’t commit him without him knowing—” “That’s fair. Write to him, and don’t forget to tell him that if I stopped his allowance from the day when people [263] saw fit to send me stamp-duty forms,170 I’m prepared to reimburse him the arrears and to give him two hundred francs a month until the end of the year, just as I had promised.” “That sees to Philippe. And—how about me?” “I think that you’re a big enough lad to manage. What’s my newspaper telling me then?—it’s always talking to me of pictures that are being sold, of trinkets for which people pay ten thousand, thirty thousand, a hundred thousand francs! Aren’t you doing any of these pictures, then?” “I need time. I’m still not selling for ten thousand; but I am selling—listen, I’m selling well!—between fifteen hundred and three thousand francs. Oh! I’m not complaining; it’s just that life is so expensive in Paris! You have to make so many sacrifices!—and I’ve saved up only debts.” “You want me to pay off your debts.” “I’d like a lump sum to clear the past and to enable me to look good for my wedding.” “I’ll take care of all that, the wedding breakfast and the gift.” “Oh! oh!—diamonds!—I’ll say no more.” “No, not diamonds. Your pretty widow owns more than you could ever give her. I know how one conducts oneself in a situation like this. You simply give a set of jewels; something simple and in good taste.” “And not expensive—is that it?” “Certainly, not expensive. Anything more would be useless.” [264] “—Well I’ll go back to my original idea. Let’s see—how about ten thousand francs.” “That’s too much.” “You’ve talked enough about this,” Madame Annette finally said. “You’ll talk about it all again tomorrow or some other day.” Germain didn’t press the issue. His father had said “That’s too much,” so they could discuss the figure. “You’ll talk again about all that,” his stepmother had added; so, she was taking it upon herself to settle the disagreement by taking his father aside and talking privately to him. It was all working out for the best.171 Germain made no haste to write to his brother the next day. If he had spoken of his brother, it was only to give himself time to play his own game, to bring his father around to a transaction that would benefit him alone. He

The Substance and the Shadow //

155

thought about Philippe so little that, from the time he had arrived at Aiguesles-Tours, twenty-five days earlier, he had as yet not given him any sign of life. Completely bound up in himself, busied only with his own matters, he had also completely forgotten to tell Caro about his arrival, to give her any of his news, to send the poor woman that attentive word, that caress that is thrown into a sentence, those nothings that mean everything and to which she would have had a right twice over, once through her conduct as a fine woman and once through her position as an invalid. If he didn’t trouble to write, that didn’t stop him feeling surprise at the silence of his family. At the very moment when he had talked of speaking to Philippe, he himself had noticed that Philippe and Caro had forgotten him. “That was really a very poor show, because when it came down to it they owed him important news.” “Who knows?” he said to himself, “who knows—It’s customary [265] in these situations to broadcast the fact that mother and baby are doing well; doubtless because the event is viewed as something happy and because it often happens that the mother and child—” This thought made his heart beat faster and his face burn, but it didn’t stop him from smiling with pleasure. It was stronger than he was. It seized his throat and rose to his lips, and he laughed. It gnawed away under his skull and threw his brain into turmoil; and he reflected. “Too bad, after all! You only ever die when your time comes. None of this was his fault. He had done his duty right up to the end. And then—it was a real weight off his shoulders.” In order to distract himself and at the same time to gather some good advice, Germain went to see his lawyer. As it happened, the lawyer Tamisier wanted to talk to him. The latter had told himself that, since there was no deposit to safeguard any longer there was no need to compromise himself; for he was compromising himself by pursuing a former solicitor, because the members of the legal fraternity, who were very touchy, bore him a grudge, and could very easily stop reserving him his place for the good cases. And so he gave the idea of a settlement a very warm welcome. “I had always thought,” he said, “that we would end up with an agreement. I was saying it just now to your father’s successor, with whom I was chatting at the club: “First and foremost I am only representing the interests 170 // French: “un papier timbré,” which is a paper sent out by the government for civil or judicial deeds that are subject to stamp duty. It bears a seal indicating how much duty is to be paid. (Translators’ note.) 171 // Cézanne seems to have reached a settlement with his father toward the end of 1878. In a letter to Zola of December 1878, he told Zola that he hoped his father would give him two or three thousand francs

a year in return for renouncing any inheritance; see Rewald 1978, 177, and Rewald 1939, 232–33. Reporting conversations with Cézanne’s son and brother-inlaw (Maxime Conil), Mack reports that Cézanne had already received a substantial portion of his inheritance in 1870, when his father divided the larger part of his fortune among his three children in order to avoid inheritance tax; see Mack 1935, 234–35.

156

//

marius roux

of the Rambert sons so that I can bring them around to a transaction that is honorable for the whole family.” [266] It was the first time that Master Tamisier was expressing his views so honestly. Monsieur Rambert, who left no stone unturned in his attempts to hinder the court case, had ganged up his former colleagues against his sons’ lawyer; and his successor, not content with shouting, had invited Master Tamisier to take part in an important litigation. There was a tacit agreement that the big court case was offered in exchange for the little one, for this miserable little court case that had been fabricated by the Rambert sons, who deserved no consideration and who could be sacrificed. So Master Tamisier was bound to greet with satisfaction the news brought by his client. In any case, if he gave up on the matter, he was not departing from his usual way of seeing and of judging matters. Indeed, as he was in a talkative mood that day, he had no qualms about speaking ill of his opponents—it was force of habit, a matter of showing his client that he was committed to his cause. “All of that is very good,” said the old fox, “it’s now just a matter of negotiating a price. Hold out on him, don’t get angry, because it’s all you’re going to get from your father both for now and in the future.” “I know, damn it! all too well, even though he has assured me that we will get everything again—after them.” “If it were only after him, that would be one thing; but after her!—No, don’t rely on it. For one thing she’s younger than you and for another there’s nothing left anymore; all the property has been turned into bearer’s bonds. At the present time your stepmother and the devil alone know where the treasure is hidden. [267] You would plead for that in vain, you would win your court case in vain—you would find nothing to seize. All of that is—because of the little lieutenant.” “There’s a lieutenant?” “Don’t you know the story? But that’s all the town had been talking of since the evening at the sous-préfecture when Madame Rambert won the heart of a sub-lieutenant from the barracks who, my word, is a very nice chap! She’s waiting only for the old man’s death to be able to marry the young man—it’s sad to relate but that’s the way it is. And it’s not far off.” “When there’s a fire in an old barn, it burns quickly.” “She’s a scoundrel, that little lady. My cook claims that she’s in the middle of poisoning her husband.” “You’re beginning to interest me.” “She doesn’t use those coarse poisons, those barbaric poisons that land you in court, no, she’s killing her husband in an elegant and refined way, using dainty morsels as deadly blows—truffles, dark meat, all the hot peppers you can imagine.”

The Substance and the Shadow //

157

“But—that’s really clever!”172 “Do you think so?” Master Tamisier, whose heart had been hardened by civil litigation, did not get excited about nothing; but he was not used to the capers of rapins, and the cavalier way in which Germain listened to the story disconcerted him. And on top of that Germain pushed matters further. “I’d misjudged her,” he said, “but I’ll [268] apologize to her. Better still, I’m capable of wooing her.” “He’s unhinged!” thought Master Tamisier. “All these artists—” Once the chatty solicitor had been thrown off course, the conversation began to dry up. So Germain took his leave. A letter was waiting for him at home. It was a long time before he broke the seal. The Paris stamp and his brother’s handwriting danced before his eyes. It was a pleasure to put off reading this letter, which was certainly going to confirm the news about which he’d had the premonition. With what satisfaction he skimmed over the first lines! The end that had been predicted had come to pass; and he didn’t have to regret Caro’s death; “a good girl, when all was said and done! to whom he wished no ill.” He was extremely happy to know that she was still of this world. He was also extremely pleased to be rid of her.” His joy ebbed away little by little, as he went into the lengthy explanations provided by his brother. Philippe apologized for keeping quiet, but it was because he had spent all his time looking in vain. He hadn’t dared to write while he still had hope of finding the fugitive again. Finally, his strength spent and not knowing what to imagine, he was picking up his pen, both because it was his duty and because he hoped that Germain ought to know the fate of the unhappy woman. “Since she was not to be found in Paris or Versailles, Caro must have gone to Aigues-les-Tours.” That was what Philippe thought, and it was the [269] only thought that could still bring him any hope, leave him some comfort.” Funny kind of comfort! and hardly the sort that was to Germain’s taste. He read the letter again, very carefully, looking between the lines for the clue to the enigma that was presenting itself to him because of his perverse way of seeing things. And he found all manner of dreadful things: “Philippe was an idiot who was trying to be clever. There had to be some plot behind it. Caro and his brother must have deemed him ill-disposed to being taken in and had just hatched a plan. Caro was in Aigues-les-Tours, there was no doubt about it. She was planning to foist herself on him by playing the part of the mother looking for a name for her poor child.” In truth, Germain was not comfortable. He didn’t leave his room anymore—he barely even dared to take a breath 172 // French: “très fort.”

158

//

marius roux

of fresh air in the garden. He could be seen from the neighboring houses, from the top of the wall, “and maybe Caro was there.” Forced to leave the house on one occasion only to accompany his father to see Master Tamisier where the case was to be settled and the supporting documents to be signed, he only ventured forth trembling. Everything in front of him was blurry, and he imagined that the passersby were casting sardonic looks at him. At every step he trembled to find himself opposite the woman who was chasing him. He slowed down whenever he turned the corner into a street so that he wouldn’t be caught unaware. If Germain had stayed cooped inside for three long days fretting, he had [270] at least put his hours of seclusion to use. Since he had nothing else to do, he had wearied his father and stepmother by entering into lengthy discussions about the clauses of the transaction. Monsieur Rambert had finally agreed to give him seven thousand francs, five thousand francs in cash and two thousand held over for the upholsterer and color merchant,173 Germain’s two creditors. Since the trip had been carried out without incident, Germain grew bolder. His fear changed. At times it is fear that makes heroes; and the most cowardly of men, carried away by gunpowder, maddened by blood, have been seen to risk everything for everything, and to be the first to appear in the breach. He himself began to go throughout the town resolutely. “If Caro is here,” he said to himself, “I want to know, I’d feel calmer afterward.” And he ferreted around everywhere, went from one hotel to another, from the wealthiest home to the lowliest little country restaurant. A few days after that, sure that she whom he sought was not around, and wholly reassured, Germain took up his usual lifestyle once more. Henceforth he had only to give free rein to his artistic frenzy and to nurture the love of his pretty widow. He had got hold of the five thousand francs; and “since his brother had betrayed him, since Caro had left him, he was keeping it all for himself.” This sum, carefully locked away, was more than enough to allow him to enjoy his bachelor life while waiting for his wedding, and, once that had taken place,

173 // In March 1878, Cézanne sent his (main) colormechant, père Tanguy (whose shop was in the rue Clauzel), an I.O.U. for 2,174 francs (and 80 centimes); see Rewald 1978, 160 (and 224, for a later letter from Tanguy to Cézanne about his debt). See also Rivière 1923, 79, and Bernard 1908, 603–9, for acounts of Cézanne’s dealings with Tanguy. 174 // The painting is most readily identified with Rewald et al. 1996, no. 147, said to be a portrait of Valabrègue, where the areas of tone are in many places almost separate; see Rewald et al. 1996, 2:123–24, and Rewald 1939, 168, for a letter from Valabrègue to Zola about a comparable painting.

The painting is a clear example of the kind of painting Cézanne later remembered as “couillarde,” which signified “tempérament”; see Vollard 1938, 20. The term “peinture couillarde” also seems indebted to Stendhal’s description of the painter of a “tempérament bilieux,” in whom “Presque toujours les effets stimulants de la bile coincident avec ceux de l’humeur seminale,” and so is disposed to “Des sensations violentes” and to “des impressions aussi rapides et aussi changeantes que chez le sanguin; mais, comme chaque impression a un degré plus considérable de force, elle devient pour le moment plus dominante encore.” See Stendhal 1868, 214–15.

The Substance and the Shadow //

159

to finance his future as a ladies’ man. Germain had never wasted his money, even in his earliest youth. In that he was his father’s son, and the friends who teased [271] him about his stinginess admired him deep down for his good habits of orderliness and thrift. The home life that he had just been living was also such that it fostered his natural tendencies toward orderliness. If, in a fit of vanity, Germain had forgotten himself so far as to owe a fair amount to his paint seller and his upholsterer, he had also wisely given some thought to clearing the debt, so that no anxiety would remain and so that he might give himself over entirely to his new hopes, to this love that was to guarantee his rest, his happiness, his success. Before going after new patterns and gathering together the precious drafts of his paintings to come, Germain finished the portrait of his friend Lafont—using a knife—a style unknown in Aigues-les-Tours and which made a sensation. He gathered up the color from the palette on his knife, just as a bricklayer gathers up plaster on his trowel, and he applied each bit of color without blending it in; to such an extent that the portrait looked like a geographical relief map. He called that “making the tones stand out.” His friend Lafont, who had fifteen hundred francs’ worth of painting there, once he had put the canvas in a beautiful golden frame in the middle of his drawing room, was unable to put up with his visitors’ criticisms, and he ended up relegating the infamous portrait to the attic.174 Germain never knew of this mishap. As he no longer needed Lafont, he only paid him very occasional visits, and his friend, who was always kind each time, spared him the trouble of going into the drawing room; he received him without any airs and graces in his shop, in the middle of his jars of oil. Once he was quits with his friend, Germain also freed himself from [272] his obliging creditor, Madame Mazouillet. He handed over to the pretty widow the note she had lent him, delicately concealed in a sweet nosegay of carnations, the favorite flower of this sensual woman, who liked to savor their heady, voluptuous scent.

xxi [273] While Germain applied himself to sentiment and arithmetic, Philippe gave himself over entirely to searching. His whole soul belonged to Caro. He had no defense against the emotion of his being when he recalled those sweet moments passed in the company of his friend. The thought of this terrible end to it all, which perhaps he might discover from one moment to

160

//

marius roux

the next, sapped his strength. He trusted Germain now, and could no longer accuse him of being the author of this melodrama in which he found himself tangled. His share of pain in the sad adventure did not burden him. He would have given ten years of his life to bring one hour of happiness to the one he loved, as a brother can love, as a true man can love who obeys only the promptings of his generous heart. With no news of Germain, who did not bother to reply to his letter, Philippe hesitated for several days. He wrote again, and, faced with a new silence, [274] wrote yet again. The idea that Caro must have taken herself to his brother was too logical for him to fight against it and believe something else. But the silence frightened him. Certainly, he thought, the melodrama had had its denouement, and it was only the awkwardness of the situation that that made him take umbrage about the emptiness around him. Caro had acted very rashly; to run too fast ahead of life, she had thrown herself to her death. Poor woman, poor darling!—He wished he could have been there to close her eyes, hear her final farewell, offer her a last kiss. At last, after the third letter, Germain decided to answer, cutting it short and not going into details. His letter didn’t even reach the second page; twenty lines, that was all, to announce to Philippe that the rift in the family was healed. Their father had promised to change none of the dispositions of his will; and especially as regarded Philippe, he was going to go on paying him the promised allowance. And that was all; of Caro, not a word. Then Philippe realized that his imagination had been mistaken; then, too, he began to understand that there was some reason for Caro’s flight that he could not know. Many words exchanged long ago came back to his mind; more than one intimate scene, which he had only glimpsed, drew itself clearly before his eyes. He did not want to penetrate his brother’s secret, but, more than ever, he felt the need to know what had been the fate of his unfortunate friend. The information he had got at the maternity home [275] was still the most probable. Caro must have gone back to her family. If he hadn’t found the Duhamel family at Versailles, that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. He should just go on searching. Paris is too vast; as well, Philippe ought not just to wander at random. He needed to proceed methodically, to go through each quarter just as he had in Plaisance. Barely returned from the country, Philippe set off on the trail. At the town hall in Saint-Sulpice, the police officer told him of a young woman found in the street, one night at the beginning of June, and taken to the police station, where she had given birth. The doctor, sent for in all haste, had not arrived in time; but the unfortunate woman had been able to deliver her baby, thanks to the specialized knowledge of a sergeant, formerly of the Seventh Infantry battalion, who, at Sebastopol,175 had stayed with the battalion canteen lady in the trench, while his comrades mounted their assault.

The Substance and the Shadow //

161

“And that’s all about us!” said the sergeant, called in to complete the story. “While there was one coming into the world, down there, in a hole, up there, on the ramparts, the entire battalion was blown up by shell-fire.” “This woman—the one you brought to the police station—did you keep her name?” “She was still delirious, and we’ve found nothing on her to establish her identity; but, if we have no name, here are some precise details.” The sergeant leafed through the report book [275] and stopped at the page bearing the date 5 June. He read: “‘Tonight at a quarter to three, officers Blondeau and Leroy brought to the station a woman, found dying in the rue de Sèvres, next to No. 6. Having heard moaning, officers Blondeau and Leroy, on duty at the Croix-Rouge crossroads, approached, and saw this woman rolling on the ground and asking for help, picked her up and brought her in a commandeered cab to the nearest station. This woman being in labor, Sergeant Lanthelme sent for Doctor Michel, whose name was on the list of doctors for that night; but as there was an emergency, before the doctor arrived, the woman was delivered of an infant of the masculine sex, under the care of Sergeant Malaspina—’ your servant—‘Doctor Michel had the mother and child taken to the Charity Hospital. Being unconscious, the woman could not be questioned, and had no papers on her whereby her identity could be established. Description: about twenty years old, blond hair, dark eyes, distinguished face, delicate hands. She wore a dress of gray material with black flounces, new boots and no hat, being bare-headed. Linen marked C.D.’” “Caroline Duhamel—it’s her!” cried Philippe. “The date, the description, everything fits. To the Charity, you say, this woman was taken?” “Yes, sir, near here, rue Jacob.” [277] At the hospital, Philippe was certain. The sick woman had given her name; but that was all, and, having already left several days ago, they didn’t know what had become of her. The good young man didn’t leave until he had tired the attendant who had admitted her with his questions, without, however, being satisfied. “I have one resource left,” he said; “you must have the address of the child’s nurse.” “The woman kept her child. We have recourse to a nurse only when the mother wants one or when it’s impossible for her to feed it herself; but there was no question of a nurse with that one. Ah! well! yes—she held onto her child too hard; and she would have been killed if we had tried to take it away from her.” Philippe’s only comfort in Caro’s departure was the thought that she might possibly have gone back to her parents’ home. He set out again 175 // The French (and British) successfully laid siege to the town of Sebastapol in the Crimean War in

September 1855.

162

//

marius roux

therefore with good heart in search of the Duhamel family, going from one arrondissement to the other, from district to district. The days, the weeks passed, and the months too, without bringing anything new. The Ecole had closed its doors and Philippe, now freer, used all his vacation time on these useless searches. When the time came to go back, he returned to his studies, his heart broken, but happy to find a healthy refuge in his work, a shelter from his bitter pain. He had been around the whole of Paris; from now on, the only thing left for him was to trust to chance, to the goodwill of providence. Certainly, in his mad rushing, he must have passed by the chance he was looking for; [278] from now on, it was up to chance to offer itself. While he waited, he set himself to work again, with all his time and all his strength. The previous year had borne its fruits and the new year came in with a promise of yet more abundance.176 The medals won and a third place in the competition of the Prix de Rome brought Philippe to the attention of his teachers, who had high hopes for him. The most intelligent of all the professors, a very old painter, who had seen the French school go through three or four ephemeral phases, had taken the boy into his great friendship, because of his bias to resist certain new tendencies, a fashion that would pass like the others, to keep to an absolute dogma, to what he called “art for Man; an art that, not being the whim of a certain period, belongs to all time; an art that stays eternal, because it speaks the truth.”177 Despite his obstinate efforts, Philippe came back in spite of himself to his pain. It was at the times when he had to rest that he gave in to his tender feelings. On Sundays, when the Ecole was closed and work was forbidden at the Louvre, Philippe stayed at home, most of the time not having the knack of using this time he was used to spending freely. Then he went out and began his wanderings across Paris. So many motives impelled him! Here, there, almost everywhere, he had picked up snippets of information; such-and-such a suggestion, such-and-such a detail, which he had not noted down, bloomed with promise when he recalled them and his imagination built on their foundations an entirely new plan [279] at the end of which there was the solution to the problem facing him. And so he went where he had been before, only to come back as before, just as sad, just as disheartened. And on Sundays, when his discouragement was too strong and he decided not to go out, Philippe would set to work at his easel and trace from memory the portrait of her whose image stayed fixed in his eyes. From the first sitting, the portrait sprang living from the sketch, with its beautiful blond hair reflecting the stars, with its big dark eyes, sweet and smiling, with its mouth 176 // The year is now 1873. 177 // This definition corresponds closely to Academic doctrine, as expressed in, for example,

Charles Blanc’s recommendation that art should strive to capture both the “éternel” and “vérité”; see Blanc 1867, 17 and 513.

The Substance and the Shadow //

163

whose lips were a little full and warm like the lover’s kiss they bore. When he had pushed the piece far enough to be satisfied, the painter took pleasure in contemplating it, leaving until another session the work it still needed. He stayed there, smoking cigarettes, talking with the portrait; and the portrait must have answered him, for the conversation would often end up out loud, and often too, by way of ending, Philippe would say: “Then that’s decided; I’m am going to write all this to my brother.” He wrote, but his letters always remained unanswered. It was a desertion, yet more complete because Germain seemed to have given up on everything that tied him to Paris. Philippe had seen the furniture dealer, who had supplied the notorious yellow and red draperies, carry out a removal for his brother. He had thought the stuff was being seized, had been moved and had offered to intervene; but the dealer, not concerned with what he believed, had told him that he was acting on [280] his client’s orders; he emptied the lodgings and the studio, to rent them out again, and he was going to put the furnishings into a loft, until they were needed again. However, toward the end of November, Philippe had a letter from Germain. It was an announcement, four lines without exordium or peroration, a short dry phrase, to announce his marriage with the widowed Madame Mazouillet. Philippe swore that he too would not answer the letter; but it was put in such a way that he couldn’t grasp its true sense and he assumed the marriage had not yet been celebrated. His brother was telling him about a plan; perhaps to ask for his opinion? This opinion Philippe was keen to give him. But what could he do about something already done? Germain had only announced his wedding three days after it was celebrated, and while he and his wife were packing their bags, ready to set out for Paris.

xxii [281] If Germain had fallen into Madame Mazouillet’s skirts through calcula-

tion, it was also through calculation that the pretty widow had been pushed into the young man’s arms. He was dreaming of a fortune; she wanted independence. The beautiful pasta seller, elevated to the rank of a wealthy socialite through her first marriage, had suffered too much from the lofty haughtiness of the ladies from the fine town of Aigues-les-Tours, who were born-andbred bourgeois ladies. On top of this she had encouraged the wild dreams of her husband, that lawyer who believed himself to be a poet. Their trip to

164

//

marius roux

Paris, which they had been planning for a long time, was a trip to test out the waters. They were meant to be feeling their way, seeing how they took to the climate. Monsieur Mazouillet’s health was so delicate! and the climate in the north had such a bad reputation in Aigues-les-Tours! If the climate proved to be mild, they had almost made up their minds that they would settle in Paris. And Paris was the dream of the young woman who imagined herself breaking out of the narrow boundaries of her existence, free and independent. [282] “She swapped the shabby cabriolet that was used to drive her out to her husband’s lands for a sumptuous carriage that would drive her to the Bois. She exchanged her pew in church for a lodge at the Opéra. In this tonsured little town, sermons and salvation were her only distractions; but in Paris—And the world, the real world, the world that set the tone and set the fashions, was welcoming her with open arms. To be someone at Aiguesles-Tours she would have needed never to have sold pasta; whereas in Paris, where people are witty and have good taste, it is enough to be young and beautiful to be accepted—” Unfortunately the climate had proved to be less than mild—had been cruel, had been pitiless. Poor Mazouillet had returned to Aigues-les-Tours to lie on his deathbed and to die. This death had made her fall in status; and she was still too humble a woman to mix with high society, and too wealthy a woman to enjoy the sound family life of the populace. Germain had only to step forward; he had been approved in advance. He had all the qualities needed to satisfy the widow’s ambitions. He belonged to the same world as the deceased and, what is more, he had realized his dreams of being an artist; he lived in Paris. In their haste to strike the deal, the two lovers ought to have seen, each in the other, the calculations that were prompting them to act, but each of them was possessed by the same carnal vice, quite apart from their mutual folly. They were two sensual beings subject to the power of desire. Both of them, beautiful girl and handsome boy, believed in love because [283] their feelings gave an edge to their whims. They would have sinned if they had not been sure of the exact time when they would at last be allowed to satisfy their passion. If they resisted temptation in their frequent meetings and their long intimate conversations, it was yet again through calculation that they were saved. They were afraid of the scandal that could jeopardize their hopes; and they reached the date when they expected to be free, firmly resolved to abandon themselves to the other should their hopes not be fully realized. Germain was not entirely at ease about the healthy state of his beautiful mistress’s fortune; and Madame Mazouillet could not see herself being borne effortlessly into the elegant world of Paris, if, by chance, a simple acceptance at the Salon was not enough to free the painter and bring him out of the world of the brasseries. But in the end, after he had pondered everything carefully, he

The Substance and the Shadow //

165

worked out that his wife’s dowry had to be fairly substantial; and she thought that the position gained by her husband by a first success might be respectable enough. Both of them had pursued inquiries, each following their own line. Madame Mazouillet saw very few people, but the odd few people who called on her—out of respect for old Mazouillet—were astounded by Monsieur Rambert’s talent. A painting accepted at the Salon seemed to them to be a rare distinction. Germain himself had turned to his father for more definite information. The former solicitor could, indeed, glean information from a reliable source; but he was weary of his son’s presence [284] and, fearful that he would never see him leave if he brought back worrying news from his inquiries, he contented himself with what he knew from hearsay and simply confirmed the claim of Germain’s friend Lafont that “Mazouillet had bequeathed a considerable amount to his wife.” When the time came to publish the banns of marriage, Germain no longer made an appearance in the house on the Avenue. Madame Mazouillet was supposed to be retiring to her father’s house—he lived in a small cottage outside of town behind the barracks. The widow, who knew exactly how things stood with regard to the fortune that she was reputed to have, and who would not have been displeased to have taken away with her some of the comfort in which she lived, didn’t leave her father-in-law without requiring him to come to her aid. It was a difficult venture; but, she thought, one always succeeds with grit and native cunning. She had devised behind the scenes a little drama in which her father was to play the main part. One evening, around dinnertime, the former pasta merchant, who didn’t set foot in the Mazouillet’s house except in extreme circumstances, suddenly appeared without having himself announced. He seemed troubled, and what he had to communicate would brook no delay. “Monsieur,” he said, addressing himself to old Mazouillet, who was dipping a biscuit in some wine, the only tasty part of his meal—“monsieur, certain things are happening—how shall I put it?—It’s a matter of honor.” The poor old man left his biscuit, ready to listen to his importunate guest and fully determined to sort the matter out for him, [285] for there was no need to say the word “honor” twice in order to have his full attention. “You’ve received in your house a young man, one of your poor child’s friends. That was natural, that was acceptable. There’s nothing to say about that. And yet, the world, which is spiteful, has found something to say. We live in a town where everyone concerns themselves with what is happening in their neighbor’s house. Well this young man, who was too often in the company of a young and winning woman, has let it be understood that he was taken with her. He has said, or let it be said, that a wedding—” “That’s false! That’s impossible!—” cried the old man, who was devastated by this notion.

166

//

marius roux

He thought of only one thing: his son; loved only one thing: his son, always his son. His beloved child’s memory was the adoration of his life, his only strength, all that he had to live for. All those around him had to think and act as he did. His daughter had not lost the memory of her dearly beloved; his son’s companion was faithful to his happy memory. The pasta merchant, who had rehearsed his part, replied as best he could to the outraged observations of the elderly father, without losing sight of the outburst with which he would close. Having engaged in a face-to-face exchange, he rose and, with a gesture full of authority, showed his daughter the door: “As for you, Madame, you who have not yet uttered a word, you who lower your eyes when you are looked at—get up and go back to your father’s house. We must put an end to this scandal. The whole town is talking of nothing but your love affairs. If people are slandering you, your father will know how to defend you; if they are telling the truth, if you are [286] compromised through the fault of a fine man, too fine, but also too blind, your father will know how to get you, you and the young man, out of this false situation. It is your father who is speaking; it is your father who is ordering you to follow him. It’s a question of honor.” Madame Mazouillet would not have been able to have the banns of her marriage published while staying with her father-in-law; but she could have put off the event. By broadcasting her secret at the very moment when her period of mourning was drawing to a close, by leaving old Mazouillet alone with his thoughts, by making all their close friends and advisers choose between him and her, she was jeopardizing her interests. Her departure from the house was truly farcical. Her father’s speech seemed quite genuine, and the young woman had yielded to this command that had been voiced so authoritatively. She had left without so much as changing her headscarf, forgetting to take the smallest package with her. She had fled, trembling and fearful, like a startled dove. If his great grief, if the advice of his nearest and dearest, drove old Mazouillet to rage against the thankless woman, her flight that was so natural and so disinterested did not fail to move him deeply. He used a great many strategies to invite his daughter to come back to him; then, when he was quite sure that she had left him, he made her hold on to anything that might be thought of as her personal property: her linen, her outfits, her jewelry, and a host of little trinkets. The jewelry alone represented a sum of fifteen [287] thousand francs. In the end he told himself that “after all, this woman had taken his name, and he owed it to himself to pay handsomely for 178 // It is now 1874: a whole year has elapsed in the previous eleven pages. 179 // Lespignac has established himself as a “marchand de couleurs et de tableaux” with funds, it

turns out, that he embezzled from the Impressionist Société; see La proie et l’ombre, 191.

The Substance and the Shadow //

167

the last ten months during which the law had imposed this name on she who was unworthy to bear it.” He instructed his solicitor to count out twenty-five thousand francs for her. Once Germain had heard about the situation, he had no real choice but to submit to it. It was the eve of their big day; everything had been ordered for the wedding; he could not break it off without a good deal of thought. He had always affected a supreme indifference to and shied away with a certain distaste from talking business, since all that counted for him was love. At the very last minute, if he had agreed to take note of the customary mundane formalities, it was so that no one could doubt the delicacy of his feelings any longer; but he was expecting the million francs of his dreams, and his disenchantment threatened to disturb him to the point of letting his guard down. He was able to contain his emotion, to maintain his pose of indifference, that of a man in love and unconcerned with material wealth. He stored away the possibility of finding an honorable excuse for breaking a contract that was of such little worth. And once he was on his own, he thought long and hard: “It wasn’t what he had believed it to be, yet it was still something. He had very nearly settled down to live with a woman who owned absolutely nothing, not even a dozen blouses; so he would be able to get by with a woman who was bringing him a reasonably significant sum. It really was something—fifteen thousand francs worth of jewelry and twentyfive thousand francs in money. He would always have to marry; and [288] in his position as the disinherited child, who could expect to receive nothing further from his father, the stubborn warrior who had not yet left the fray, where was he to find another woman who owned forty thousand francs outright? They could live comfortably on forty thousand francs for two years; and in two years time he was too talented not to have made sure of his success and made this success pay.

xxiii [289] New Year’s Day had come around again,178 and Philippe, running around

Paris to pay his calls, could not resist the temptation to go to his brother’s house as he passed the door of his new lodgings, at the end of the rue Pigalle. Germain had given him no further sign that he was alive, after his letter of announcement. Back in Paris, with his wife, he had set himself up with a furor. Thanks to this rumpus, Philippe had found out his new address. Lespignac, recently established as a seller of paints and paintings, on the rue NotreDame-de-Lorette,179 still condescended to spend time with his former friends of Bruno’s. Perhaps he had an interest in not losing sight of them, so that he

168

//

marius roux

could sell them colors and all the accessories of painting. So it was through Lespignac that Philippe learned his brother was living on rue Pigalle. If simple curiosity had led him to his brother’s home, Philippe would have had enough occasion to [290] satisfy his whim; but he came there impelled by the need to speak of her who was gone, and he looked ill on this house into which he entered. It was a little detached house, a pavilion at the end of a garden.180 On the first floor there was a dining room joining onto a parlor. Madame Rambert received her guests in this parlor, and it was there that a servant led Philippe. Nowhere, unless it were at Aigues-les-Tours, at Madame Annette’s house, was there such a dining room and parlor. You could believe that Madame Annette’s furniture and knickknacks had made Madame Rambert envious, for she had found nothing better to do that pile up all the gold and all the colors that would fit into these two rooms. Germain, who took his brother’s astonished look for admiration, was eager to offer a tour throughout the whole of his little house, which he called pompously “my little mansion.” They climbed the steps of a rather wide staircase, garnished with a wooden banister with square corners, a good style that called to mind nicely the décor of a Renaissance stair. They passed, without stopping, the doors of the bedrooms on the second floor. The bowls had not been emptied, and Madame Rambert did not bother to apologize for her untidiness. Anyway, it was the chambermaid’s fault, who had left everything in this state that day to go and wish her aunt a happy new year. The household consisted of a chambermaid and a cook. Germain made a pretext of what his wife was saying to explain to his brother their domestic arrangements. [291] On the third floor, the final one, there was just one room, the studio, very wide, very high, and with a good light. It was an octagonal room, with three bay windows, draped with gray voile, so that the light could be managed at will. The décor of the place was nothing like that of the first floor. The door was masked by an ancient drape, in Italian green; the model’s changing space, enclosing the stove, was formed by a three-paneled partition, covered on the open two sides by large pieces of Cordova leather; on the closed side by a Beauvais tapestry showing figures, a circle of children, with a turreted castle in the background. The painter’s tools, his easel and paintbox, were in imitation old chestnut, to go with the furniture, some seats and knickknacks in the style of Henri II. On the wall there was a mirror of Venetian glass in its original frame, some extraordinary pieces of faïence, and here and there 180 // Germain’s luxurious “pavillon” recalls the “petit pavillon . . . au fond d’un jardin” in the rue La Condamine in which Zola lived just before and for a few years after the Franco-Prussian War; see Alexis 1882, 91 and 175. See also La proie et l’ombre, 188

(where the story surrounding the acquisition of the pavilion is told), and Alexis 1882, 76, for another garden “pavillon” in which Zola lived in the mid-1860s.

The Substance and the Shadow //

169

figurines in bronze and terra cotta, in the middle of which were to be seen two big Chinese vases, two chocolate-colored clocks, covered with inscriptions and ornamented with a dragon with five claws, the five claws you find only on vases reserved for the sovereign. There were also some antique weapons, a panoply surmounted by a gothic helmet and bearing in its center a gladiator’s headpiece in massive, heavy leather. “It was the painter Goldsmith’s studio,” said Germain; “his widow was looking to rent out the house and sell the contents—I profited from the occasion. I took on the lease; four thousand francs, that’s [292] not expensive. As for the knickknacks, the poor woman knew nothing about them, and she asked a derisory price. I got the lot for six thousand francs.” Philippe had to force himself to concentrate on what was around him. He searched the walls and on the easel, to look for his brother’s new work, but the new work was not there. “You see—” said Germain, seeing Philippe looking, “you need some time to move in—You know I don’t sulk at having to work, and I’m going to get down to it.” Philippe would really have liked to talk of something else; but how to broach the grave question when his wife was there and would not leave them? “And then again, what would be the use?” he said to himself. “It’s all finished with.” Thus he took his leave, with the firm resolution never again to set foot in that house, in spite of the invitation of his sister-in-law to come back often and be kind enough to share the family meal with them; and that beautifully said, with great politeness—with too much politeness. And alone in the street, Philippe went away, head bowed, sad, overwhelmed, ready to shout aloud the words that rose from his heart to his lips: “Poor Caro!—Poor Caro!”

xxiv [293] Philippe, who was engrossed in his work, who no longer went out, who was constantly attending classes or going to the studio at the Ecole, who was bent on making the most of copying at the Louvre, who rose early and went to bed at a sensible time—Philippe could have told his life story by writing down the way in which he spent one of his days from the day when he came home still thinking of Caro, but giving up on his search and waiting for the right moment to the day when, given the opportunity, he was going to pick up once more the chain of events that had been broken.

170

//

marius roux

Two years had elapsed since Caro had run away; and the Salon had just opened its doors once more. That year Philippe had made up his mind to exhibit. Having won the Prix de Rome in the last competition, he had turned his back on the advantages that his position could have brought him “because,” he said to his master, “a pressing duty kept him in Paris.” “Stay here,” his master had replied; “you’re running no real risks. If you were a sculptor, I would think twice before giving my opinion, because Italy is the country [294] for marble and for marble masons, and there’s something to be learned amidst these people before whom the stone trembles. But you are a painter, and, to tell you the truth, if it weren’t for the fact that emulation is the main motive for sending students away, I don’t know that Rome could help you more than Paris. The Ecole de Rome worries me even, because there’s far too much frippery on display there. I’ve seen pupils who, like you, had a feeling for what is beautiful and what is true, come back from there with a taste for nitpicking. Yes—a detail in a costume, a design on armor, a piece of nonsense in short, was everything to them; and they invented a new fashion—neo-Greek or neo-Latin; and they poisoned painting with their new ways of doing things, their junk art, the art of cobbling together the remains of the past.”181 And so Philippe had stayed in Paris. He was good at his work and now had to show himself to be an intrepid warrior. When the day of the exhibition arrived, he was ready. His picture, a simple, academic study, a Spartacus that was mighty and austere, lively and gripping, had been admired by all his close associates who had been allowed into the studio. The old master came in his turn to evaluate the work. “Very good,” he said, without getting carried away and preparing to issue some caveats. “It’s a good figure, but this one is better, even if she is dressed.” He pointed to the picture of Caro that was hanging on the wall. “Enter both of these figures. The Spartacus will certainly be noticed; but it’s the portrait that will win you the medal. There’s something in that head that is really felt, really meant—that something that’s the real secret of art.” Philippe obeyed; and the event justified the master’s forecasts. [295] Together the two canvasses attracted the attention of the critics and the Jury. There was a great deal of talk about the new painter who had come along and who was causing such a stir at his debut. The medal was the least of the rewards that came about; for the directors of the Beaux-Arts put in a bid to buy the two pictures—five thousand francs for the Spartacus, which was to be sent to a provincial museum, and ten thousand francs for the portrait, which was good enough to go in the Luxembourg. Before agreeing to these terms, Philippe hesitated. He didn’t want to say goodbye to his beloved portrait, but the Luxembourg was for him as well as

The Substance and the Shadow //

171

for the whole world; and after all he couldn’t forfeit his first success and deny his work the place that the judgment of his peers as well as of his masters was bestowing upon it. He gave in; and tears of joy sprung to his eyes when he thought of the purity of feeling to which he owed his burgeoning fortune. If he had put all his skill into the Spartacus, he had put his whole soul into the portrait. “My master’s right,” he said to himself, “skill isn’t enough, you need that ‘something’ that he speaks of and that for me henceforth will be that ‘something extra.’ To depict the truth you have to have lived your work.” If Philippe had waited for a long time for the occasion that would bring him face to face with Caro once again, the Duhamel family had also relied on such an occasion that would enable them to find again their child’s seducer. Living in Paris since the wedding of their daughter Madeleine, Monsieur and Madame Duhamel had engaged in [296] a great many searches. They, too, like Philippe, must have missed their chance. From 1873 onward their plan was to go to the Salon, preferably on opening days or fashionable days, in the hope of meeting Germain among the painters who like to be seen on those days. Nor did they forget above all to look through the catalog. Germain could have had a painting on display and, if that were the case, they would have found an address next to his name. As early as the opening day of the Salon in 1874, Monsieur and Madame Duhamel believed that their waiting days were over. The name of the painter Rambert was in the catalog. The forename was different, but that was of little consequence to them. “That was probably one of the traitor’s little tricks.” They didn’t go further than the vestibule of the palace, and quickly returned to their house at Batignolles, avenue de Clichy, ten feet down from la Fourche. These fine people wanted before anything else to tell Caroline about what they had found, to talk with her about it, since it concerned her and her child; they wanted to weigh things and not to undertake anything lightly. The hapless woman, whose delirium had only intensified her feelings, 181 // An attack on Gérôme and his followers. In his Salon de 1859, Baudelaire had railed against Neo-Greek and Neo-Roman painting as follows: “Ainsi d’un côté le bric-à-brac (élément sérieux), de l’autre la transposition des vulgarités de la vie dans le régime antique (élément de surprise et de succès), suppléeront désormais à toutes les conditions requises pour la bonne peinture. Nous verrons donc des moutards antiques jouer à la balle antique et au cerceau antique, avec d’antiques poupées et d’antiques joujoux; des bambins idylliques jouer à la madame et au monsieur (Ma soeur n’y est pas); des amours enfourchant des bêtes aquatiques (Décoration pour une salle de bains) et des Marchandes d’amour à foison, qui offriront leur marchandise suspendue par les ailes, comme un lapin par les oreilles,

et qu’on devrait renvoyer à la place de la Morgue, qui est le lieu où se fait un abondant commerce d’oiseaux plus naturels. . . . Par sa manie d’habiller à l’antique la vie triviale moderne, elle [L’école en question] commet sans cesse ce que j’appellerais volontiers une caricature à l’inverse.” See Baudelaire 1976, 637–39. Baudelaire then continues to discuss Gérôme. In March 1866, Bazille wrote to his mother that he would stand a better chance of being accepted at the Salon if he had painted “des Grecques et de Romaines . . . dans un péplum ou un trépidarium”; see Roos 1996, 40 and 234 n. 17. In Manette Salomon, Chassagnol launches a tirade against the Prix de Rome, which concludes with: “Rome? C’est La Mecque du poncif!” See Goncourt 1867, xvi, 1:82; cited in Ratcliffe 1960, 448 n. 162.

172

//

marius roux

had not been strong enough to recognize the road she was following; and she had fled the Cheurlin maternity home only to end up in hospital. Her destitute life might still have gone on for a long time but for a felicitous encounter she had just as she was leaving the Charity Hospital.182 She was going back up the rue Bonaparte, just in case, going ahead of herself and instinctively making her way to the rue de Sèvres. Her pale, worn face, [297] her wretched appearance of one who has given up and the child whom she was carrying in her arms and kissing like a madwoman attracted the attention of passersby and shopkeepers. She was pointed at; those who were busy inside their houses were summoned to come and see. Madeleine, like so many others, ran to her doorstep. The scene that then took place was not the least curious aspect of this obscure drama that had moved the whole street. Without uttering a word, without a cry, choked with emotion, the two women had thrown themselves into each other’s arms. That very evening Madeleine, taking her sister by the hand, took her to her parents’ house. “Thank you,” her father said simply to Madeleine. “We were waiting for you—” added their mother, taking her child in her arms. They embraced, they wept; and it was over. There was not a word of explanation, not a word of reproach, nothing—either on that day or on any of the following. Just by coming back home to the house alone, Caroline was telling them the end of the story. Her stubborn silence, her pensive manners, her marmoreal expression all spoke of her past troubles and her anxieties about the future. “She’s wearing herself away!—” her mother often whispered into her father’s ear. “In one word she could give me the information I’m killing myself to find.” And so Duhamel spoke up and told his wife about his trips throughout Paris, the efforts he had made to get hold of Monsieur Rambert’s address, an address that was not to be found. [298] “And yet she heard me!” the poor, desperate man added in a low voice. “Yes,” said the sad, stern mother, “and she has not broken her silence. Oh—let her keep her secret; for I’m too afraid of finding out that our hopes have been in vain and that there’s no possibility of restoring her.” For a long time Caroline rejected all distractions. Her only pleasure was in helping her mother around the house; and she willingly turned her hand to the most menial jobs. She went so far as to give free time to the maid so that she might have the opportunity of washing up in her stead. Like the goldfinch who takes pleasure in its cage, she had no wish to see anything beyond the four walls of where she was staying. But the goldfinch didn’t sing, and the

The Substance and the Shadow //

173

goldfinch was still melancholy. Her face was pale and rigid, and never relaxed from its worried lines, even when she was looking at her child’s laughing face. The greatest outbursts of mirth from this dear, innocent child only brought her a defeated sadness. The child broke into laughter as his mother’s stroking tickled him—but she would remain speechless at these outbursts, and would content herself by sighing as she said: “Poor little one!—poor little one.” She was fading away and the hidden fever that was eating away at her ended up laying her low and keeping her in her bed. The doctor came. Since the man of science recommended walking as the most effective cure, the invalid agreed to accompany her mother as far as the square at Batignolles. After that, little by little, she took to walking on the streets again and sometimes crossed the river to visit her sister Madeleine. She went walking [299] as she would have gone to the pharmacists to pick up a life-restoring tonic; because she wanted to live, because she wanted to eke out her dying long enough to help her child grow, to support him as he took his first steps in the world and to propel him toward the glittering future she dreamed of for him, despite her poverty. Him!—his son!—The whole world might have collapsed and she would have seen nothing, would have heard nothing at the very moment of its collapse if her dearly beloved had continued to smile at her. On her visits to her sister Madeleine, the spurned woman had inevitably run into her former friend—old Godet. The elderly sculptor was a man of the world and so pretended not to recognize her when she came into the studio for the first time, accompanying the mistress who was showing her around the house and pointing out the way in which the industry worked. But Caroline did not resist the temptation to come back and see Godet without her sister’s knowledge when she knew she would find him alone in the studio; and she learned from him what she already knew—that she had been forgotten, denied by the father of her child. And so when Monsieur and Madame Duhamel came back home—on the day of the opening of the Salon of 1874—looking pleased with themselves and slightly panic-stricken, ready to announce important news, Caroline took pity on their devotion. She clung to her mother’s neck as she embraced her; she crouched at her father’s feet, kissing his hands and crying as though her heart would break: “Have mercy on me, have mercy,” she cried. “Take pity on me, my good father, [300] my sainted mother! The past is dead.” Yet she had to hear her parents’ confidences to know that this hateful past might have a sweeter future. 182 // This refers to the hospital of La Charité, opened originally in 1791 by nuns and rebuilt between 1861 and 1866. It occupied a site extending over the

rue Taranne, the rue des Saints-Pères, the rue Jacob, and the rue Saint-Benoît in the 6th arrondissement.

174

//

marius roux

“We know where to find this man,” said her father as he showed her the Salon catalog open at the right place. “That’s not him—that’s his brother.” “His brother?” “He’s a good and fine man, that one!” And quite suddenly Caroline wept no more. Her face was as pale and as translucent as wax, her eyes were wild. She rose, stammering incoherently, and then she fell to the floor, her teeth chattering, all her limbs shaking, emitting strangled groans, her mouth wide open as if she were going to expel her soul. The illness that was lurking within her was not cured; and the mishap that was to make it break forth in all its fury had just taken place. Caroline’s life hung in the balance for a fortnight. Her parents didn’t leave her bedside. To be sure, they scarcely gave a thought either to Germain or to Philippe; they blamed themselves for causing the fever that was killing their child; and they vowed that, if by a miracle she were restored to health, they would never again speak of the terrible past, they would respect the unhappy woman’s secret. But it was she herself, the poor woman who, relieved of [301] fever and coming back to life, forced her parents to pick up once again the interrupted conversation. Every night, taking turns, her father and mother watched over her. One morning when, her strength spent, the kindly mother had dozed off in an armchair, she awoke with a start. She thought she had heard her child call her. She went over to the bed and realized to her great joy that the invalid, whose face was rested and was gaining some color, was looking at her quite naturally. “Good morning, mother.” “Good morning, my child.” And the mother was overcome with emotion and restrained herself from crying out. The invalid lifted herself up with both arms onto the pillow; then she looked around the room and, using a finger to help her count, added up the flowers on the tapestry. “One, two, three, four, five—twenty-one. That’s right, mother, isn’t it— there are twenty-one roses in the first row?” “Yes, my precious, twenty-one.” It was the awakening—the return to life. The mother did not take long to tell the father. And both of them, those kindly souls, were there, sitting next to their beloved child, unable to take their eyes off her, not daring to let their joy break out, fearful lest the idea of the danger that had been averted might not strike the invalid’s imagination too vividly.

The Substance and the Shadow //

175

“—So!” said Caroline suddenly, fixing her large eyes upon those of her father, “and Philippe?—why is he not here?—Didn’t he want [302] to come then?—Maybe you didn’t go and look for him?—I want to see him; I need to speak to him—He really is a good, decent boy!” Her good father answered all his child’s questions, and always in the way she wanted. He promised everything that she wanted to make him promise; but he did not hurry to run off looking for Monsieur Philippe Rambert. Monsieur and Madame Rambert believed that the invalid’s mind might have been weakened. During the crisis, brought about by the news they had told her, her heart had gathered up like seed this name that was now flowering on her lips. There was perhaps, in the expression of this desire, a residue of fevered confusion, an appearance of wanting something that was nothing more than an unconscious manifestation. Monsieur and Madame Rambert dreaded a new crisis if they didn’t obey their wish to wrest from their child’s heart the memories of an unhappy past. Whatever precautions they took, this memory was going to break down the doors of the house, burst into the house and spread itself out, shout at the top of its voice all its hurts and joys, snatch from the rejected woman all her tears and all her smiles. Monsieur Duhamel took a paper that he himself had neglected to read, a collection of which was gathering on the chest of drawers. The neighbors who called on them had sometimes forgotten their own paper. And all these papers sang the praises of the young master, Monsieur Philippe Rambert. In the early days of her convalescence, there was nothing more important to Caroline, who had heard that Philippe had exhibited, than to gather together all these scattered papers [303] so that she could read the articles about the Salon. What delightful, frustrating reading! All her regrets, all her hopes, the whole blighted past with its trail of joyful illusions and bitter disappointments, her lost happiness, the misery she had found, dreams and reality flowed from the lines of every article; and the sheet she was holding in her hand seemed to her eyes to be a magic mirror in which she was reading the story of her life. In the middle of these scattered papers she had found three numbers of an illustrated journal that were still in their wrappers. As a distraction from the thoughts that were weighing her down, she tried to amuse herself by looking at the pictures, but the pictures also were going to speak to her of the past. Caroline reddened and paled in turn. Her heart pounded as if it were going to burst when her gaze rested on a reproduction of her portrait. “Him!—me!—” she cried, as she fluttered her eyelashes and made an effort to steady the picture. She read the caption: “The Salon of 1874. First-class medal. Painting by Monsieur Philippe Rambert, bought by the directorate of the Beaux-Arts.” That name, that sweet name that for so long she had hesitated to utter,

176

//

marius roux

through caution, through self-respect, through the fear of ruffling her family’s delicate sensibilities, Caroline now called it out, with no shame or embarrassment. “Had her parents not been the first to bring this name to her?” “It’s too much to pine away here,” she ended up saying. “Why does Philippe not come?” She begged her father to run the errand he had promised to do [304] and, in case he might find his visit too sensitive an issue, gave him the information he needed to deal with any awkwardness. One of her sister Madeleine’s employees, Monsieur Godet, whose age and character recommended him, could be taken into their confidence. Monsieur Godet would gladly take it upon himself to see Philippe and bring him to them. In these wishes there was decidedly something more than just seeming to want something; and to thwart these wishes would perhaps be to ensure the return of the illness that Monsieur and Madame Duhamel had wanted to ward off. It was also a notion of these good parents that Monsieur Philippe Rambert’s visit might herald Germain’s return. The treaty of honor was going to be discussed and signed. And so, one morning, while he was at work, Philippe saw old Godet coming in to see him, followed by a gentleman whom he didn’t know and whom he took at first to be a collector, while his friend, thinking he was explaining the purpose of his visit in a single word, as an introduction to the unknown man, satisfied himself by saying: “Monsieur Carpentier.” As this word didn’t produce the desired effect, old Godet hastily added: “My boss—who married Mademoiselle Duhamel.” “Duhamel!” cried Philippe, letting his happiness shine forth. The explanation was short. Philippe was too eager to satisfy Monsieur Carpentier, who was asking him to be so kind as to accompany him to his father-in-law’s house. [305] “Where your sister-in-law has taken refuge?” said Philippe, cutting him short. “Yes, sir.” “I’ll see her? I’ll talk to her?” “Yes, sir.” “At last!—

The Substance and the Shadow //

177

xxv Monsieur and Madame Duhamel, who had stayed at home to receive Philippe, understood nothing of the behavior of their child, who monopolized the visitor and spoke only about him, about his work, about his brilliant success, and who, after having interrupted them many times when they tried to speak about Germain, had let Philippe go without exchanging one word on the author of the drama whose end she must wish to see. She had even stayed mute and cold when Philippe, ready to leave, thought he ought to touch on the serious matter and said: “I shall come back tomorrow, and bring you news of my brother.” Philippe left Caro’s house and went straight to Germain’s. What was he to say, and what hope could he bring? He knew nothing; he didn’t think about it. He went to his brother, by instinct, impelled by the need to talk of Caro with him, so that, tomorrow, he could talk [307] of him with Caro. It might well be that he did not wish to follow on a certain determination without having exhausted all the options that his delicate feelings imposed on him. Philippe did not want Caro’s child to be utterly abandoned, submitted to the shame of bastardy, without the name that was his right. He could give him that name. Germain, married, parted forever from Caro, would still be no less the child’s father; Germain should adopt the child. It was to tell Germain what his duty was that he was going to him, pushed on by an irresistible need. “Monsieur Rambert doesn’t live here any more,” said the concierge at the rue Pigalle. “He left us more than a year ago. He moved not far from here, rue Fontaine; but I’ve heard tell he moved away again.” At rue Fontaine, at the address he had been given, Philippe could gather no useful information. The concierge knew absolutely nothing about what had become of her tenant. He learned only that his brother had run a photographic studio there, very poorly stocked, whose windows the landlord had used to make a conservatory. Philippe decided to go by the rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and go into Lespignac’s shop. He might know something. “Oh! certainly, I know what’s going on—” cried the fat Lespignac, at Philippe’s very first question. Ecstatic at being able to talk about his own success, when he had so much to say about the woes [308] of that “poor Germain,” Lespignac, before anything else, offered the painter his services. “You see—all top quality. There’s not a dealer in Paris with a stock like mine.183 Business is going well; painting pays. Me, you know, I took art the right way. It would have been too naïve to condemn myself to Bruno’s sauce [306]

183 // Lespignac’s main model, Astruc, was also something of an art dealer, and allowed few Impressionists in his collection; see Flescher 1978,

59–63, 487–91 (for a list of the works Astruc sold at the Hôtel Drouot in April 1878).

178

//

marius roux

all my life. It’s all right for a while, that is. You got out, too, didn’t you? We got out of that, by God! you by doing, me by selling, masterpieces. Look at my window—nothing from the Intentionists184—I only have paintings by masters. If you have anything to sell, come to me. I have a very rich clientele on my books. Philippe let the blatherer blather, quite convinced that the quickest way was to let him get it out of his system. “One moment, just a moment,” added Lespignac sitting at his desk. “These are proof-copies they are expecting; I have to send them back. It’s a free-form sonnet that I’ve sent to the République des Lettres; you know it?—a good selection, good circulation, widely read. There are quite a few Parnassians on the editorial board; but what do you expect, you can’t do without them. They are excellent for selling the paper because they push their devotees into buying their own newspaper. What comforts me is that there are also some independent poets like me.” Philippe read, over Lespignac’s shoulder, the title of the sonnet: The Drops of Blood. “You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” said Lespignac, who caught him looking. “It’s an idea out of my [309] great poem, which I haven’t given up on. You know—my great poem? Poetry, you see, it’s not a great burden like painting; you don’t have to rent a studio or ruin yourself buying all the equipment. You can write verses in your spare time, on top of work hours, going on trips, over lunch, smoking a cigar, in a carriage, on a boat, everywhere, in short, right up to the top deck of a bus. It’s great, the top deck!—for inspiration. Wait a moment! It was on the top deck, going to the Odéon, that I crafted this quatrain, the best in the sonnet: Whence come these sounds that blow across the world, On mountain’s peak, in deepest waves unfurled; Compared to which the thunder and the gale Are like an infant’s wail! “Do you grasp the grandeur of the concept? And do you feel the delicacy of that dissidence?—hem!—hem! Compared to which the thunder and the gale Are like an infant’s wail!” “Jolly good,” said Philippe with irritation, “but I’ve never heard these sounds you’re talking about.” “Eh! It’s an allegory. It’s the old world and the world that is to come that—” “Ah! yes, yes—I remember.”

The Substance and the Shadow //

179

“Here, listen to how it goes on.” Philippe had to swallow fourteen more verses. [310] At last fat Lespignac decided to recount the adventures of his friend Germain. “He wasn’t badly off, on the rue Pigalle, not bad at all; and, you know, he knew his business. A serious setup is a good way of hooking the collector; you set things out and that impresses them. But as for making jugged hare!—yes— that’s the bad side of Germain. He forgot to catch his hare.185 Imagine if I had had my shop adorned with parquet flooring, and I hadn’t put a single ounce of merchandise in my drawers or my windows; the client would be drawn in by the décor, wouldn’t he? But where would be the benefit in that for me? That’s what happened with your brother; nothing ready, not even the smallest presentable sketch. He set to work, yes, but he never finished anything and was always restarting. So, he got discouraged, and after six months of trial and error he decided to give up painting and take up photography. There are some who will tell you: ‘Germain made a stupid mistake’; me, I tell you: behold the sole sensible thing Germain did, in all his life. The devil! you have to learn to know yourself; and it had been shown definitively to Germain that painting just wasn’t within his abilities. They always talk of art!—What is art?” “Go on.” “Art is the secret of making oneself superior. A cobbler who cobbles well and pays his rent with his boots is an artist. A painter who paints badly and who is dying of hunger is just a dolt. Isn’t painting just another trade?” “Go on.” [311] “Well, photography too is a trade, and a good one, but you have to look after the business side, and unfortunately business for Germain is just like painting. He has no business sense. I would have got him customers if he’d agreed to pay me a fee. He refused; so I went on supplying photographers I could get on with. Ah! you know, business is business. In short, I don’t know what happened, except that Madame Rambert ended up getting angry. Ah! Madame Rambert!—there’s a woman who—You’re a bachelor, aren’t you? So much the better. I am and ever shall be a bachelor. Ah! the ladies!—Anyhow, all things considered, it wasn’t her who was wrong. If she wore the trousers, it was because her husband couldn’t. We must be fair; a man must show he is in charge and keep his household in order. So, what can I say!— They ended up doing a moonlight-flit down the rue Fontaine to the Passage Colbert, where he, the imbecile, started to do some painting in a garret converted into a studio, while she went to sell pasta in a little street-front shop. You know that alley, no one ever goes down it. As well as being in the wrong 184 // The term “intentionnistes” was sometimes used of the Impressionists, perhaps to suggest that their intentions were not fulfilled in their achievements. The term is also used in Meilhac and Halévy 1877, 132. See also Berson, 1:212.

185 // The proverbial recipe for making jugged hare, dating from at least 1300, begins: “First, catch your hare!” (Translators’ note.)

180

//

marius roux

location, there was already a huge pasta and biscuit store there; and the little shop, crushed by the big one, died a bloody death. It didn’t take long. After three months, just one rental term, for which they didn’t pay, for sure, with the takings, Madame Rambert took refuge elsewhere, in Jouffroy Alley, this time. A nice alley, that one. What could also have been nice was the [312] little sideline she had, in photographs of showgirls, of buttons for sleeves, of false collars and neckties, with a bit of a perfumery. But suddenly the painter renounces painting and wants to get involved with selling. God! you know, it’s not the merchandise that brings them in in certain little alleyway shops. Under the pretext of buying a pair of buttons or half a dozen false collars, you go there to flirt with the shopkeeper. I like to believe that with Madame Rambert the gallants would always have failed, but that’s exactly the secret of the trade. Twice, oh! twice only, because it would have been impossible for me to go a third time, I amused myself by taking Germain out with me for a whole afternoon. When we came back, there was always money on the counter. She is superb, Madame Rambert! she has such eyes!—” “Yes, go on, go on.” “I wanted to explain the trick to Germain. Well, yes! He started getting jealous and didn’t want to leave the place. It didn’t work anymore; in the end, they had to give up the little shop. At this moment I’ve lost sight of them, because they’ve gone miles from anywhere, all the way down near Bercy. I heard tell that Germain had fallen into the clutches of the Justice of the Peace, in the capacity of clerk, while his wife was organizing herself a dressmaker’s studio. Anyway, three or four months ago, they came back to town, rue Auber, not far from the Nouvel Opéra, where they run a curiosities shop. Marvelous, that! a very good commodity, the artistic knickknack, very [313] good—when you know how to buy for nothing and sell very dear. Go to the rue Auber, you’ll see your brother. Oh! and boy! you know, you’ll find him changed. He’s got fat; not, got fat isn’t the word. Fat men!—I’m one of them, you know, the regiment of fat men—hee! hee! hee!—all men who know how to live are fat men; while he!—he has thickened; and instead of glowing, of taking on that beautiful light of a happy face, his face has gone out. Pooh! he’s a ruined man.” Philippe hurried to the rue Auber. It didn’t take him long to find the right shop. The name Rambert, in yellow letters, shining in their newness, spread out on a thin sign framing a narrow door. The door was shut. A printed poster, freshly pasted to an awning, seemed to be there to proclaim the reason for the closure. Philippe had barely a foot on the sidewalk before he made out a word, a single word, broader and higher than the others, which occupied all the middle of the poster.

The Substance and the Shadow //

181

For a moment he stood there defeated. He thought he had read it wrong, and he wanted to fix his eyes on this cruel word that was choking him. But he had read it only too well: the shop was closed due to bankruptcy.

xxvi [314] At the Duhamels’ house the following day, the subject of Germain did not come up immediately—neither Caroline nor her parents mentioned his name, and nobody attempted to make even the slightest indirect allusion to him; and, in spite of his promise to bring them news, Philippe remained dumb, as he was highly embarrassed by approaching this thorny subject. This situation could not go on. And so after a few more visits, the head of the household determined to go to meet the young man face to face so that they could thrash things out once and for all. Monsieur Duhamel, using the pretext of reciprocating Philippe’s visits to them, came around and rang at the painter’s door. “Come in and welcome,” cried Philippe. “At last! we will be able to speak freely.” “Thank you for your kind welcome. You’ve put me at ease; for I won’t hide the fact that this was part of my reason for coming. It is time, is it not, for you to tell us what has become of your brother. My [315] son-in-law has got Monsieur Godet to speak, and I’d like to know—” “If what Monsieur Godet has said is the truth?—Alas!” “So, it’s all over?” “No.” Monsieur Duhamel attempted to feign surprise and gazed at Philippe; but a pleased smile revealed his innermost thoughts, and he hastened to add: “I can’t pretend, and I don’t want to play at being the diplomat. From a few things that you’ve said in front of me, I was led to believe that you were hatching some plan. At first this realization set me against you. I thought you were harboring an unhappy passion, and from my guesswork I built up a whole dramatic plot ending in this result that you know about and because of which we’re all suffering. When my son-in-law told me of the information he had gathered from Monsieur Godet, I guessed the truth. I said to myself: ‘There’s a decent fellow who has resolved to put right his brother’s wrongs.’ If I am mistaken, please do forgive me. These ideas, however strange they might appear, come quite naturally to a poor, tormented father.” Philippe’s only response was to take Monsieur Duhamel’s hands in his own and to clasp them fervently. Since they were obsessed by the same thought, they could only be in

182

//

marius roux

agreement with each other; but this thought, which seemed so simple to them, received a very chilly reception from Caroline, whose delicate feelings were hurt by it. “No, no,” she said angrily to her father. [316] “I don’t have the right to take this decent lad’s life in order to put right the trouble I’ve brought upon myself.” And when Philippe came before her, she took him to one side: “No,” she said again, “no. It’s impossible for me to accept the reparation you’re offering.” “But, my friend, think of honor and duty, of your child.” “I don’t doubt your generosity. Yes, my child—you’ve thought about my child; but have your feelings been stirred by him? Come now, in all honesty, why dupe yourself with words, why talk of honor and duty? You’re deluding yourself; it’s not duty that’s brought you here to me—” “Well!—come now—” he said, quite overcome. “And so,” she added, “we mustn’t think of anything beyond remaining good friends. It’s enough to have turned my own life upside down without starting on yours too. Let me see through my sacrifice to the end.” “It’s a pointless sacrifice!” “Anything else is impossible.” “Why?” “What! Because between you and me there’s, well there’s your brother!” “My brother no longer exists.” “Don’t blaspheme. I have the right to forget him, but you!—” “Germain betrayed me, just as he betrayed you. When he left Paris to go back to Aigues-les-Tours, he had a surprise in store for both of us.” [317] “A surprise!—It may have been a surprise for you, but it wasn’t for me. Yes, I had an inkling of what was to come.” “You knew that he was going to get married?” “What a child you are, speaking of honor and duty, with no realization of the way I struggled to the end out of respect for myself, love for my child, deference to my parents. If I ran away, if I came home to my mother’s house, which I ought never to have left, it was because I knew that I could no longer rely on the reparation that Germain had promised me. It was glaringly obvious that Monsieur Rambert and Madame Mazouillet would end up getting married. If poor Monsieur Mazouillet had lived, the whole story might have had a more dishonorable ending; for, as early on as their famous trip to Paris, the two lovebirds—must we call them lovebirds?—the two lovebirds began to write, write, write! At that time they still maintained a veneer of good faith. They didn’t hide themselves away. You might have thought they simply showed an excess of social niceties. But then, as soon as the poor devil died, the display of letters stopped all of a sudden. It was clumsy of them. The way they hid themselves away to write and concealed the letters they received

The Substance and the Shadow //

183

gave away the secret they wanted to keep a mystery. Well might Germain have torn up or burned the letters he received: in these circumstances there are always a few letters that you forget to destroy, because you want to read them over and over again, until you’ve had your fill of them. Well, since I let no day go by without foraging around everywhere—” “Woman is an unhappy creature!” “Because she makes too much of life’s little miseries, and she always throws herself headlong at them, and [318] sometimes she breaks herself on them! Admit that, in my circumstances, I was right to satisfy my curiosity. People say that a deceived husband is the last to know of his misfortune; this is not the case for a deceived woman, because she had nothing to do other than to study her husband, to learn him by heart. You need a goal in order to snap your fingers at the miseries of existence, in order to follow the straight path ahead of you. You men have a goal, and most especially you artists; and you walk ahead, unconcerned about any impediments on the road, with nothing preoccupying you except the work you are dreaming of. From now on I shall be like you, for I have a goal in my turn, I have my child to raise.” “Well?” “Well then! I will only have eyes for him, and I shall no longer bother about the hindrances on the road. If I were to accept the help you’re offering, I would perhaps be useful to him, but, in the meantime, he would not be the one I was thinking of. As I said, what good is there in deluding oneself?” “The world is harsh, and prejudice is all-powerful.” “Prejudice only strikes women. It’s yet another of the miseries of our existence. If my child were a girl, I would be afraid, but what does it matter whether my son is called Duhamel or Rambert, whether he has good or bad family connections, so long as he becomes a strong and intelligent man. Just think, you, for example, lost your mother at an early age, your best support; you stayed with a father who was incapable of assisting you, as he is a compromised and compromising man. Well! Where is the harm that this situation did you? Your brother, you say again, [319] has betrayed you. I suppose that it’s something to do with money—” “You’ve guessed.” “Well then! Have material loss and the more keenly felt loss of your affection distracted you from your path? Have you lived more wretchedly? Have you not persisted with your work? All these misfortunes, over which you’ve passed without diverting your gaze, would have stopped a poor woman and would have forced her to yield, to give in.” “There are also men who give in.” “I only wanted to talk about the effect of prejudice, and we’re coming to the effect of vice that is particular to the individual. On the loveliest tree in a garden there are fruits that stay green and others that turn rotten; that doesn’t stop the harvest from being fine and rich. What killed Germain was

184

//

marius roux

his vanity. He refused to learn anything, as he thought he knew everything, and he ran into life’s hardships when he could no longer make out the goal to which his ambition was driving him. I myself have been present at the slow death of the artist who is losing his illusions. The wretched man never admitted to the doubt that consumed him; perhaps he was not aware of his trouble, just as he was not aware of the remedy to which he had recourse. He didn’t lose hope of attaining his goal, but he suffered from the slowness of his journey, and he thought of helping himself by any means that he thought might be useful to him, as he fought against the obstacles that were thrown in his path. He had wanted to make fortune a means of attaining success, whereas fortune is the result of this success. It was at this point that he thought of marrying for money.” [320] “If only the wretched man had found what he was looking for!” “Lespignac must have told you—” “Why Lespignac rather than anyone else?” “You mentioned his name the other day. Come now! Admit that you went to see him, just as you’ll call to see old Godet, now that you know that our elderly friend knows more about your brother’s business.” “I shan’t go.” “You will go, I tell you, because at this point you’re going off course. You wanted to reckon without life’s anxieties and you’ve run into the miseries of the weak. What have you done in the last three weeks since we found each other again? Where have you got to with that picture that you had just started?” “It’s true—I’ve hardly picked up my brushes.” “And yet you haven’t spent all your time here, where you’ve never stayed longer than an hour a day. It’s that memory—” “Memories of you!” “And of—What time is it?” “Half past three.” “You arrived at two o’clock. That means that we’ve spent more than an hour talking about Germain. You see that between you and me there are these memories that we can’t erase.” “Perhaps.” “Alas!” “It’s my turn to speak reason, or nonsense, if [321] that’s how you prefer to see it. I was wrong, was I not, to talk a lot of rubbish, to see nothing but a question of honor, of duty, at the heart of feelings that were only born of love? Don’t you think that you yourself are wrong by retreating into your maternal pride, when in your heart of hearts you’re tormented by the same feelings that are goading me? Let’s admit our awkwardness, and henceforth let’s speak only of ourselves, of our love. Passion is a blind force; we’ll overcome all of life’s hardships without even seeing them. We’ll make straight for our goals,

The Substance and the Shadow //

185

those goals that you can see so clearly. It’s your portrait—you’re the one who opened the doors of the Luxembourg to me. It’s by your side that I want to step into that future, which will be dazzling if you lend me your strength and support. It’s true that I haven’t worked since we found each other again. That’s because I’m consumed by the cares of my love—the thought of you floods my whole being. Only say the word, and I shall return to work. Better still, come and keep the worker company, encourage him with your smile, help him by your kind attentions; come and enchant his studio with your bewitching love. I love you, I love you, I love you—and I will always love you!” Caro didn’t answer. She had dropped her hands into Philippe’s, and he was clasping them in his own. And he was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t feel that these little hands were burning like a furnace, that they were trembling with fever.

xxvii [322] Bewitched by passion’s spell, Caro was only too ready to succumb. Her reason lost its strength before the loving will of her darling. Certainly, she had often dreamed of this union to which she had refused to agree. Her thoughts were so chaste, her ambition so pure, that she had taken fright, at the crucial moment, of destroying the ineffable dream. She would have wished to wipe out the past, and it was in the name of this past, in payment for this past, that they had come to talk to her about her wishes possibly coming true. Where she had seen a new hope, those close to her, and even her darling, all, had seen only the end of the drama of her life. So she had had to come back; she had relived the evil times. Like the worm that clings on inside the sweetest fruits, the hateful memory threatened to take hold of her happiness, to bite it, to sully it, to ruin it. It was perhaps inescapable to stop at this memory. You don’t throw a building to the ground without [323] lifting a hand; you have to create ruins, on which you can build again. As there was no longer anything to gain, because Monsieur and Madame Duhamel kept a prudent silence; because Philippe, more in love than ever, spoke only of the bright future, Caroline let them say and do what they wanted. More than a month had gone by since the first admissions, and yet she had not positively agreed to Philippe’s request; but it was tacitly understood that the agreement was made. Philippe continued to call, and the family received him eagerly. As for setting the date of the wedding, that was no longer a question. You cannot rush things; they really must wait. Caroline, in

186

//

marius roux

bad health for a long time, had suffered several crises of fever; she was not completely recovered from the last, and her convalescence wore on. The hot season affected her health; the heat, the lack of air burdened her. The doctor advised her to leave Paris and go to the seaside. Toward the middle of July the Duhamel family left for Caen. They would stop in a nearby resort. Caroline seemed to decide on this trip only to alleviate the isolation she must have felt in Paris. Indeed, at the same time she was seeking distraction in Normandy, Philippe went to Touraine. He went to a château, to finish a portrait commissioned at the end of the Salon. This absence, even more than the sweet intimacy of [324] being together, should have fanned the hot flame of their love. They exchanged many letters, to complain about their unhappiness. Separation was for them the worst of evils. Thus what joy, what ecstasies, when they met again, as early as the beginning of September. Caroline was still a little pale, and rather weak, but she was sure enough of a return to health to joke about her illness. “Oh dear!” she would say sometimes to Philippe, especially when she was in a very good mood—“What a poor deal you are getting, my dear!” The family was consulted, and it was decided that October would not pass without the marriage being celebrated. Although they had not mentioned again the delicate situation of the two fiancés, the Duhamels decided to go on with the ceremony, without fuss, without noise. Their son-in-law Carpentier and Monsieur Godet would act as witnesses to the marriage. Philippe would bring his old master with him and a close friend. The family and the witnesses would meet again for lunch only and, the same day, the bride and groom would leave. They would go to the South, where Philippe had some business to attend to, relatives and friends to visit. On their return, the newlyweds would take possession of an apartment with a studio, in the same district, on the boulevard des Batignolles. All was arranged, when, at the last moment, terrible news came to spoil it all. [325] The news was nothing less than the tragic death of Germain. The poor devil had killed himself. “I saw this coming!” cried the wretched Caroline. “Here is the other one, now, throwing his corpse at our feet, to force us to turn back.”

The Substance and the Shadow //

187

xxviii The terrible news was spread by Monsieur Godet and confirmed by Madame Lessandre, the concierge of the house that Germain had once lived in and that Philippe had recently left. Philippe had to go and find out what had happened. Germain was still of this world, but, alas, it would have been better for him if death had spared him the burden that was too heavy to bear of an existence that had missed its mark. “It’s a suicide that’s worse than others,” his brother said, “a moral suicide.” The story that Philippe picked up was a lamentable tale. Once he had moved into rue Pigalle, Germain was not to bask for long in the false luxuries with which he had surrounded himself. Since he was unable to turn his art to good account, he might have stagnated there for quite some time, have stayed in his new studio until his wife’s forty thousand francs had run out, were it not for his wife, who had been driven to revolt, and whose thrifty bent prompted the most vigorous resolutions. [327] “It cost nothing,” Germain had said; “four thousand francs for the rent, six thousand francs on trinkets, and that didn’t include the cost of furnishing the bedrooms, and especially the dining room and the sitting room.” It might have been a different matter if the painter had produced some painting. His impotence broke his wife’s heart as she saw a small fortune melting away. At that time she still had feelings for her husband, and she didn’t know how to go about protecting her money, their future, in short the very basis of their carefree existence, when she made an appalling discovery. In her white-hot fury, she found the strength to impose her will. Madame Rambert, who was displeased with her painter, felt the need to pour out her troubles to a friendly ear. She also had cause to complain about Monsieur Lespignac, whom she accused of inviting himself too frequently to dinner. But it was through Lespignac’s intervention that Germain had made the find of the reasonably priced lodging and of the studio that was all set up and handed over so cheaply; it was through him again that the painter would have to win collectors when he had at last found his path. They had to handle Monsieur Lespignac carefully. Madame Rambert had agreed to put on a brave face for this friend, just as she had forced herself to cosset her husband. That didn’t stop all of this from rankling. The erstwhile pasta seller, whose common touch drove her toward certain familiarities, did not take long to befriend the concierge of the house. This concierge was a young, elegant woman; and, in truth, many of Madame Rambert’s former friends from Aigues-les-Tours were not as good as she in terms of both her distinguished demeanor [328] and her amiable chat. Her husband, who was a bailiff at the Ministry of Justice, had the serious and solemn appearance of a magistrate. “They are extremely proper people,” said [326]

188

//

marius roux

Madame Rambert, who allowed herself to be impressed also by the spotlessness of the concierge’s lodge, which was a fairly wide room that had been furnished more tastefully than the parlors of very many bourgeois people from Aigues-les-Tours. To begin with, Madame Rambert stopped at the lodge only to pass the time of day. She spoke, for the sake of speaking, about rain and fine weather, the fashions of the season, the scandalous news printed in the newspapers. Then the time came when she gave in to her need to speak of her troubles. The concierge had not received from Monsieur Lespignac the remuneration she had been promised and so told Madame Rambert the true story of the little hotel. This little lodging was a simple pavilion that had never been rented out by its owner for more than eighteen hundred francs. Monsieur Lespignac, who had just seized the possessions of a client, was looking for an attic to put away the furniture, of which he was legal possessor to the tune of thirteen hundred francs. From the attics of the house you could see the pavilion situated at the bottom of the garden. On seeing it and on hearing that it was for rent, Monsieur Lespignac had changed his mind; he had set himself up as the tenant of the pavilion, had done out the studio with his furniture, and to crown all his little schemes, he had finally made up the story of the widow who was looking for a way of ridding herself of a house and of furniture for which she no longer had any use. Exasperation would not have given her the strength to shriek out, but the sheer fact of being able to reproach her [329] husband for being taken in in this way, and being taken in by a friend, gave Madame Rambert the opportunity to take over the reins of her household. She was very eager that Germain should not give up his painting; she even deigned to encourage him to persevere with his art—but why should he sacrifice everything to glory? “For example, instead of condemning himself to produce commercial paintings, why did he not branch out into a sideline business, something artistic, like photography? The painter could still use his spare time for his own pursuits, for his personal satisfaction, and to work for great art.” She had seen in the advertisements in a newspaper that there was a photography studio to be had on rue Fontaine. She took over the matter; and before Germain had time to recognize himself she had set him up as a photographer. Photography produced no more than painting did. Madame Rambert, who was able to accuse Germain of clumsiness, since he experienced serious setbacks in handling his instruments and his fluids, did not tell herself that she herself had been wrong to rush straight into the first opportunity that came along. Nor had she given any thought to the position that a small local studio was put in by the large studios in the center of Paris, whose sophisticated equipment, which was constantly being renewed as science produced new procedures, assured their clients of an ever more

The Substance and the Shadow //

189

perfect execution. No, the poor, bewildered woman no longer listened to anything but her self-love. She thought only of taking it upon herself to see that the rest of her money was saved. [330] She alone wanted to see to the running of her household. Germain would continue to paint, as he saw fit; she was going to set out in business. And so it was that she started off with a small trade in pasta, a return to her first job. She subsequently turned her hand to any business that chance put in her path. After a series of unfortunate attempts, during which she always had the intention of leaving Germain to his painting, she had fallen upon a curiosity shop, where her adventures ended in bankruptcy. A few trinkets that had been taken away in good time and a little money that had been set aside had allowed Madame Rambert to accumulate a sum of about four thousand francs. It was her last hope, the last card left in her hand. As they awaited the bankruptcy certificate, the Rambert couple had withdrawn to a furnished house on the rue de Sèvres. Germain had felt the need to see his former stamping ground again—Bruno’s and the Brasserie Bismarck. “Since we have to fight the good fight once again!” For her part Madame Rambert was quite satisfied to cross the water, to distance herself from the spot of the disaster; and on top of this the rooms they were renting on the rue de Sèvres were modestly priced and she knew that at Bruno’s they wouldn’t spend a fortune on food. The appearance of the restaurant and of its little back room had not changed, even though all its former regulars had left.186 There were still painters, [331] sculptors, architects, young people who lived in the neighborhood and who came there to talk about the artistic movement until the cows came home. Only old Godet had remained faithful to Bruno. He still sat at the head of the table in the little back room that was reserved for the Intransigents; and the new boys were even more intransigent than the last lot. You had to hear them reply to old Godet as he told them the story of the previous group. The truth had to be that each member of this group had pursued his own business, quite naturally. Lespignac had taken up his shop; Damasquère had returned to the college in his hometown, where he had found a position as teaching master; this one had gone into a printed paper factory, that one had gone in for making religious objects, as old Godet himself had; in short, all of them had gone, some to the left, some to the right, as the wind took them, as far as photography and pasta and everything else, like poor Germain still. But the famous group had made enough noise to justify its legend, and old Godet put great store in legend. 186 // The Guerbois gatherings largely fizzled out after 1870, when Manet and others shifted allegiance

to the less rowdy Café de la Nouvelle Athènes in the place Pigalle; see Rewald 1973, 399–405.

190

//

marius roux

“I can assure you,” he used to say, “that it was the fear of finding themselves together that drove them away from here. To start with, I have always professed orthodox opinions.” “Hey,” shouted the assembly. “I was born a classicist.” “Throw him out!” “I shouted it at them just as I’m shouting it at you, my boys: the only truth is the Salon.” And the assembly began to sing: [332] At the Salon

There’s great talent Zin-ma-na-zin, ma-na-zin, boom! boom! All the riverside’s in bloom Bright with flowers no room for gloom Oh! what a shame! what a shame! what a shame! Art with verve What a nerve— Zin-ma-na-zin, ma-na-zin, bang! bang! Doré’s still the lad in vogue Is he good or just a rogue187 Oh! what a shame! what a shame! what a shame! As for the Panel Give them flannel Zin-ma-na-zin, ma-na-zin, beep! beep! Gérôme ran off with the prize.188 Really caught his teachers’ eyes. Professor Gérôme got the prize— Oh! what a shame! what a shame! what a shame! And so on and so forth for as many as fifty or a hundred couplets, since the catch-tune didn’t have a fixed frame, and the words were left up to the inspiration of each of them. The evening when Monsieur and Madame Rambert came to sit next to old Godet for the first time, and he started to tell once again the story of the erstwhile group, the assembly spared the president their shrieking and songs out of deference for the young woman, who had the merit of being pretty. “As for me,” said the old sculptor, “they wanted to drag me into their society, but I refused. You [333] knew that, didn’t you, Germain—that I refused? I could see what would come of it. They were all jealous of one another. When it came to their exhibition, it was all a question of who would have the

The Substance and the Shadow //

191

best place. And so, as they all had cause for complaint, they all went away from each other quarreling. In the middle of the general mayhem our friend Lespignac got out while the going was good. He was the treasurer. Since he couldn’t find anyone to whom he could hand over the accounts, he made off with the cash. It was out of the Society’s funds that he paid the first of his moving costs. At first Germain was vexed to find that his former companions were no longer there. He rather neglected old Godet and frequently stopped off in the front room so that he wouldn’t have to mix with the newcomers, young ones who were a little too green for his liking and whom he accused of going too far, of leaving the movement. Madame Rambert, who wasted no time in getting to know old Mother Calypso, seemed content that there was no one hanging around her husband. The absence of his former friends put her mind at rest with regard to the new project that she was in the middle of hatching. On several occasions in the evening, as the restaurant was closing, she had stayed behind alone to chat with the excellent Mother Calypso, while Germain had followed his friend Godet to the brasserie. The restaurant was something they going to give up “because Bruno was getting old, and because everything had to come to an end.” “It would suit you down to the ground,” said the old woman. “Just think— you have a guaranteed set of customers and we won’t include them in the sale. We’ll only ask the price of the equipment—five thousand francs—[334] three thousand in cash and we’ll come to an arrangement about the rest.” Madame Rambert didn’t say yes or no. She questioned herself. She thought about it all. “Perhaps,” added the old woman, “you’re worried about the administration of the house? It’s not really Monsieur Germain’s thing. I agree!—but he doesn’t have to worry his head with it. You wouldn’t be hard put to run the floor. The counter will benefit from a change of cashier—a young, pretty woman—hell, that’s always good, that is. As for the kitchen I can answer for young Charles. He’s a boy who is well able to step into Bruno’s shoes. He’s hardworking, intelligent, and loyal. He’s the one who goes off to the market every morning ever since Bruno—Ah, he’s getting old is my poor Bruno! Listen to this—only the day before yesterday, what a blunder he made!— Would you believe that he skimmed off the burgundy gravy, thinking that he was skimming off the coffee, and he poured the gravy into the coffee pot. Désiré, our new waiter—he’s another good worker whom I recommend— Désiré served it up without realizing. Well—the customers weren’t annoyed. 187 // Gustave Doré, although best known as an illustrator, enjoyed success as a painter of anecdotal subjects. His Bataille d’Inkerman was purchased by the State after the Salon of 1857, and in 1868 the Doré Gallery opened in London (remaining popular

until its closure in 1892). 188 // On Gérôme’s success with the Salon Jury, see n. 47.

192

//

marius roux

They’re forced to come here. They’re all of them young people who aren’t rich, and yet they pay well if you know how to catch them unaware. And where one comes, another follows. Have you noticed that? They’re all new faces. Over the fifteen years that my brother and I have been here, we’ve seen an army of them march through. Oh—it’s a good joint here, isn’t it! We took it over too late—but someone young could realize great profits from it and could use it as a stepping stone to greater things. Mother Calypso was not lying. A young couple [335] could find the key to a fortune there. Madame Rambert was sorely tempted. Nevertheless, she didn’t decide to tell Germain about her plans until she had thought everything through carefully, had weighed it. She used a surefire argument to win her painter. “Mother Calypso’s bedroom and the rooms leading off it would do for them—and Bruno’s bedroom could be turned into a studio.” It was a large square room on the fifth floor, lit by two windows that faced north. There was excellent light for a studio. Germain, who was looking around him, began to congratulate himself on the defection of his former friends. Old Godet was the only one left— and Germain obviously had to count in his eyes. His pride had taken a bad knock, and he would have liked to have a few words of encouragement from the old sculptor. But the sculptor, who had at last sketched out the famous group and who could already see himself as the hero of the next Salon, took a very lofty tone with him. “Among ironmongers,” he said tersely, “these things don’t matter at all, but among artists . . . ! Do what Madame wants, my boy, run over to the stove. I take my leave of you.” Old Godet did not set foot in the restaurant again. This exit nearly ruined everything, but once he was left on his own, quite alone, Germain came around little by little to thinking that the matter was far less terrible. His wife got the better of all his scruples. They needed to work to live, and out of all the projects available to them [336] this was the most reasonable course of action. They could pay off the down-payment demanded by the vendors—the house was easy to run and they could be sure of making a profit—and, as for Germain, he was sure to find in the affluence that they could expect the means to give free rein to his artistic temperament. Three days after the arrival of the bankruptcy certificate that they had expected, they signed the deeds of sale offered by Bruno, and a week later Madame Rambert took over Mother Calypso’s place at the counter. The way they had planned to work was carried out without hindrance— Madame was at the counter, Monsieur was in the studio. It all took place like a scene from a play that had been learned and sorted out beforehand. Nevertheless, it didn’t take Madame long to realize that the loyal boy Charles spent too much on meat, fish, and vegetables. She talked of going

The Substance and the Shadow //

193

with him to the market, but she found it difficult to get up in the morning. Germain was always up and about early. “Why didn’t he accompany the boy to market? There would be no shame in that. He had no input into anything that was happening in the house, he was left in peace in his studio, he could easily make this small sacrifice for the common good.” Germain agreed to this small sacrifice. And then, as time passed, there were other demands on him, quite naturally, “because he had to do them, because it was his duty.” Most often, after a very busy day, when he was pleased with the way the present masterpiece was shaping up, he wasn’t too proud to lend a hand to the smooth running of the household [337] to which he owed his well-being. At those times he could be seen standing in the dining room at mealtimes to answer the customers’ queries, to speed up the service, and also to keep an eye on the loyal waiter Désiré, whom Madame the boss suspected of slipping money into his pocket. And prompted by habit, when he was bowed down and conquered by the nature of things, he could be heard on more than one occasion, when things got frantic, shouting in his loud voice as he turned to the kitchen door: “One black skate—two muttons, that’s two! And a cauliflower cheese—with a nice crust!” Unfortunately the masterpiece that was under way ended up the same way as all the masterpieces of the past. Germain didn’t wear himself out by scratching out the canvasses and constantly starting again. On days of crisis he became intolerable. He quarreled with his wife at the counter in front of everyone. He humiliated customers. If only, on his good days, when the new masterpiece was full of promise, Germain had made up for his stupidity with an excess of attention showered on his wife and customers! But he had ended up never knowing a moment of good temper. All the customers were united in singing the praises of the mistress of the house; some even dared to make eyes at her. That exasperated Germain, who was consumed with savage jealousy. There were scenes. During the day, in the heart of the kitchen, in their bedroom, husband and wife often went so far as to screech stupid remarks at each other, and Germain, who had raised his fist, several times, ended up [338] by letting it fall. He hit out; she scratched. There was no hope for the household. The waiters gossiped among themselves. The customers whispered. Everyone was in on the secret of their discord, and it was obvious to everyone that no good could come of the adventure. “Madame won’t stay around here,” the loyal Désiré said to the customers. This Désiré, a handsome young man who had started off in life by playing romantic leads at the Montmartre theater, began to speak insolently to Monsieur and didn’t hide his devotion to Madame. People were absolutely sure that matters would end up with Madame Rambert and the pretty Monsieur Désiré running off together.

194

//

marius roux

This was how matters stood when an unexpected person turned up. A wine broker who supplied the restaurant introduced himself to Madame Rambert. He was about thirty, was squarely and strongly built, had a manly face and wore a full beard. His beard was black, thin and smooth, like naturally curling hair. He was a man whose penetrating gaze had always made an impression on his clients, especially his female clients, any time that he had made one of his sporadic appearances. Immediately this man addressed Madame Rambert by her first name. She no longer recognized under the long beard, under the fine clothes that were in the latest fashion, the former worker at the pasta shop, her beloved cousin Calixte. [339] “He’s been sent along by Heaven,” she thought, as soon as her dear cousin gave her his name. There was no question between them of renewing the latest wine order made out by Monsieur Bruno, even though the merchant explained his position and told her how he had gone from selling pasta to trading in oil, for which he had traveled, and how from oil he had fallen into the wine business, which had made him settle in Paris and which brought him, year in, year out, a salary of between twelve to fifteen thousand francs. They didn’t even have time to speak of the past—the present was too fraught with worries for her, and the future too promising for him. Calixte offered to redress the balance of his dear cousin’s misfortune—his cousin whom he had loved so much, whom he still loved—and she immediately agreed to follow him. Calixte ran to the restaurant door, hailed a passing carriage, and made a sign to his cousin to come over to him, and before the waiters, the customers, and even Germain had realized what was going on they were climbing into the carriage and leaving. Germain’s fury was a spectacle. He swore, railed, and spoke of breaking everything. He vented his wrath on a pile of plates that he smashed to pieces, and on a customer who owed twenty-three francs and whom he flung out. Désiré was as full of regrets as his boss and drowned his sorrows in cognac and Chartreuse. He sank the two liters that had been opened and placed under the counter to fill up the small carafes on the shelf. “Come on,” he said, “another little drop, boss. It gives you heart.” [340] But his boss had no need of this liquor to lose his senses. After his violent outburst he had collapsed, pale and speechless, his eyes staring wildly. Every now and then when he unclenched his teeth, it was only to stammer sinister oaths. He called upon death to help him. Quite suddenly he got up, called the staff over to pay them for the whole month and to order them to shut the doors. Then he left. And the closed doors had not opened again the following day, and during the night, at about one o’clock, Madame Lessandre, who was on her way home from the Opéra-Comique,189 had met Monsieur Rambert on the Pont

The Substance and the Shadow //

195

des Arts. Madame Lessandre had bid him goodnight, but he had replied as he gazed upon the water, “There is my bed.” He had run away so that he would not be stopped in his dastardly plan, and Madame Lessandre had seen him running under the bridge and then along the bank, far, far away. When Philippe came to the rue Bonaparte, to old Godet’s, he heard nothing encouraging from him. “I went yesterday to the rue de Sèvres,” said his old friend, “the doors of the restaurant were closed. That surprised me. I stopped, and I couldn’t help hearing what the neighborhood gossips were saying. Madame Lessandre, who witnessed the suicide, will give you more information.” At the concierge’s lodge there was a new turn of events. “I don’t know what’s happening,” said the good lady, [341] “but the doors were opened again just a minute ago. Come and see.” They had to go back up the street, to go more than a hundred paces to make out the front of the restaurant. “Come into my lodge,” added Madame Lessandre. “I’ll come back and tell you what I’m off to find out, and I’ll look completely innocent!” The restaurant looked as it usually did. In the dining room, which was empty for the moment because it wasn’t yet dinnertime, Désiré was sitting with his back against the wall, reading a newspaper with an air of conviction, and also looking as if he didn’t have anything on his mind. “Could I have a slice of your cold veal?” asked Madame Lessandre. “Ask Charles,” answered the waiter. Madame Lessandre rushed into the kitchen. “I’d like a bottle of burgundy,” she said, “a bottle of your good burgundy with the red seal.” “That,” replied the cook, “is a matter for the boss.” “Where is the boss?” “In his studio.” “Oh!—but, can I disturb him?” Charles didn’t answer, but went out into the yard and started to shout, cupping his hands around his mouth: “Monsieur Rambert, come down! There are people here to see you.” When Germain was in her presence, Madame Lessandre felt her legs buckle. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She opened them wide and stared straight ahead to [342] assure herself that the man that she had thought was dead was there in front of her. “Pardon me for disturbing you,” she said. “I needed to see you, to convince myself that you were still among us. You gave me a terrible fright the night before last.” 189 // This was the opera house located in the place Boieldieu, on the Right Bank, built in 1838 (and destroyed in 1887). It was called the OpéraComique as it was originally built to house French

operas, which were less formal than their established Italian counterparts. Berlioz’s and Bizet’s work was performed at the Opéra-Comique in the nineteenth century.

196

//

marius roux

“A fright!—how so?” “Damn it, the things you replied to me were hardly reassuring.” “Really!” “And I really thought that you had taken a dive.” “What would have been the good. To rid others of my presence?—to make them all right?—Oh no! I want my revenge. They’ve thrown me off course, they’ve pushed me into the gutter. I’ll pick myself up again and I’ll crush them all in my turn. Let’s see, you knew me when I was just starting out, my good Madame Lessandre, you heard all the fuss that was made about me! Is it my fault if I haven’t realized my goals, if I’ve strayed, if the struggle has to be started all over again? What did you want me to do, surrounded as I was by envious and malicious people? I had no true friend—no one but traitors. And on top of that a mad father who refused to help me, a pushy mistress who threw my life into turmoil, and an idiot brother who thought he was helping me by forcing me to enter the Salon. I was not born for this official painting. I had to be left to follow my temperament. I would have exhibited on the Boulevard like the others,190 and like the others I would have sold my paintings, I would have found my place. Finally, having been harassed, hounded, and thrown off my course, I got married—and my wife leads me astray into the byways, [343] drives me ever further from the straight path. I sacrifice myself for her—you know how she has repaid me. There you have the world, friends, family! Ah, dear God, I’ll have my revenge! I’ll have my revenge, I tell you!”

xxix Hardly recovered from her emotions, hardly healed of the fever that, on several occasions, had kept her tied and pinned to her bed, Caroline had been unable to bear the latest trial without succumbing. This corpse, which threw itself between her and her beloved, had made her blood boil, and fever had again taken hold of her poor body. In vain did those around her cry that the news was false; the blow struck home. She was still in bed on the last day of October, of this month that was not supposed to end without her and Philippe realizing their dearest wish. That day, Philippe had a long discussion with the doctor; and the next day, on the pretext that they had let the date fixed for the wedding go past, and that one must not go back on a sacred oath, he invited the sick woman to receive a visit from the mayor and the priest. [345] The family was in on the plot. [344]

The Substance and the Shadow //

197

“I would like that,” said Caroline, who was cheered by this idea, for she had not caught the hidden sense of that terrible thing, a marriage on the deathbed. And she added: “This way we shall spare ourselves the bothers and the burdens of a public celebration. The good Lord will come to this house, won’t he? We will repay the visit next spring, at his home, in the country, where, under the brightness of the gay sun, there is a carpet of lilacs and roses. We will go to the woods at Verrières, won’t we? That will be our first walk, because I have never seen that charming wood, which they say is a true earthly paradise. They say that at the end of a sunken road there is a little restaurant with music and dancing, run by Mother Sens, the friend of painters and poets. The good old lady prepares, they say, for ‘her artists,’ sautéed rabbit like even millionaires don’t eat. We’ll go and enjoy ourselves at mother Sens,’ won’t we? And flatten His lilacs. We’ll find the right way in, we’ll ask a passerby; and then, on the way, there is a road, between two trees, a sign that we ought to recognize easily; it is the handicraft of some famous painters.”191 She joyed in speaking, but, insensibly, she grew drowsy, and sleep overtook her. An hour later, she awoke again and took up a conversation, interrupted three days before, on what Philippe was busy with. Since the fifteenth of October, the day when his rent was due, Philippe [346] had moved out of the rue de Sèvres and into the boulevard des Batignolles. Caroline had him tell her about his new lodgings. “How was the studio? How many bedrooms did it have? Was the kitchen bright and big enough? She wasn’t worried about a parlor, but she wanted a spacious kitchen, because, in the beginning, they would have no maid and they would have to make do with a cleaner.” Philippe’s moving in was incomplete, the studio in a mess, the bedrooms without furniture. He didn’t dare furnish this apartment where he despaired of seeing his wife come; he was too upset, too worried, to get his studio in order and set to work. Carelessly, he had admitted his disorderliness, but Caroline had not sensed his pain. “That will sort itself out,” she said. “I will go there soon and do it myself. Men don’t know how to do anything.” When she woke up the next morning, Caroline saw grouped around her bed her father, her mother, Philippe, her sister Madeleine, her brother-in-law Carpentier, Monsieur Godet, an old gentleman and a young man, whom she didn’t know, and whom Philippe introduced to her as his best friends. The bedroom, already scarcely large enough to hold all these people, 190 // On the meaning of “le boulevard” here, see n. 107. 191 // Verrières is almost due south of Paris. Roux’s inn may allude to the Hôtel des artistes at Barbizon,

which replaced the auberge Ganne; see Denecourt 1875, 415–18.

198

//

marius roux

was too narrow when they were joined by a functionary of the mayor of Batignolles, followed by a secretary carrying the Civil Register. They touched elbows, they were on top of each other. The functionary put on a tricolor sash, asked the [347] questions, and had the bride and groom and witnesses sign the register. All this happened very quickly and without mishap. The bride, who alone seemed to keep her presence of mind, thanked the functionary, because she had brought him out in such bad weather. “Because it’s raining torrents,” she said. From here, you can hear the rain lapping the sidewalk.” However, a priest from the chapel of Saint-Michel had come in his turn. The priest had crossed the road, in his cassock, followed by the sexton in his everyday clothes. The sexton carried in his hands a box that they opened when Madame Duhamel brought the new arrivals into her room, where the priest had to prepare for the ceremony. He took from the box a surplice and a white stole, and the sexton took out an aspergillum filled with holy water. Once again the bedroom was too narrow when the priest and his server rejoined the group of family and witnesses. In this forced contact they let themselves be won over by emotion of those present, who were hiding their faces in the handkerchiefs or turning their heads away so as not to show their tears. The sexton, too, that good man, a father of a family, lowered his head to pretend he had no tears; and the priest hurried through the blessing of the couple’s golden rings, reciting the long prayer in one breath. Alone of them the sick woman, propped on her pillows, lifted her head and smiled. [348] “Take each other’s hand,” said the priest after offering the rings. But the ring Caro received would not fit on her wasted finger. The poor girl was obliged to keep her hand closed so as not to drop it. This amused her; and she didn’t hear the priest say, raising his hands: “Ego conjungo vos, in nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti. Amen.” Philippe and Madame Duhamel, who for a moment had been looking at each other from the corner of their eyes and exchanging tears, as in other circumstances one exchanges smiles, had just succumbed to the pain of it all. Philippe broke down sobbing, and her mother fell, losing consciousness. “Is it true, then?—” said Caroline. “I am going, then?” But Philippe controlled his emotions. Madame Duhamel regained her senses. The rain had stopped, the sky was uncovered, a ray of sunshine splintered on the corner of the window. “Oh! living God!” cried the sick woman, reviving to hope. “The floods battered the ark, but Noah saw the sun again. No, I shall not leave. Life is so good!—when one feels happy.” And she smiled her sweet smile. And she smiled still when night fell, and she went to sleep.

The Substance and the Shadow //

199

And she smiled still when, while she was resting, Philippe came near and kissed her forehead. She kept her sweet smile on her lips, [349] the next day, when her poor ravaged body was no more than a corpse. As if it were ashamed of the theft it was committing, Death had taken her in her sleep.

xxx [350] The dead woman’s body was borne to the neighboring cemetery at Cayenne at the bottom of the avenue. As they returned from the sad ceremony, Monsieur and Madame Duhamel didn’t have the courage to return to their house. Madeleine and her husband invited their parents to take refuge in their home. Philippe, who didn’t know what to do with himself, went with them—and the whole family gathered together in the house on the rue Bonaparte. When night fell, Madeleine offered them all beds—but Philippe declined her offer. He needed to take the air, to wander about on his own, to go back to his home, this new home that he hadn’t had the courage to make ready to receive the woman who was never to make an appearance there. Instead of going down the rue Bonaparte, he had mechanically followed his way down the rue du Vieux-Colombier. [351] He had gone as far as the rue de Sèvres. He had hesitated for a moment there—then he had gone on his way again. He was going to take again the walk that he had gone on, one particular evening, accompanied by his dearly beloved. For a long time he tarried in front of the shops, where the poor woman saw all manner of fine things that fueled her imagination. He tarried for a long time on the Pont des Arts, where she and he had taken fright at the love that was being born between them. He saw again everything they had seen together. He said again to himself everything they had said to each other. And while he was letting himself drift off into raptures, lulled by bitter memories, he didn’t notice a man who came over to him and hesitated to speak to him. He couldn’t recognize the man, who was dressed in a short jacket and wearing a soft hat pulled well down over his eyes. It was no doubt a workman who was passing that way as so many did, and who was simply stopping to light up his pipe again—a short, earthenware pipe. Philippe slipped away. He had even gone into the courtyard of the Louvre and the unknown man was still there.

200

//

marius roux

Somebody who went past said his name: “Good evening, Monsieur Rambert.” It was him, Germain, who, ever since his suicide had been announced, came regularly each evening from ten until eleven to smoke his pipe on the Pont des Arts, so that he would have the right to reply to those who would have lent credence to the reports of his suicide attempt: “But it’s my habit to walk by the water in the evening.” Germain watched his brother walking away. Then he struck [352] a match and lit his pipe again as he had let it go out. And he went off on the opposite side, going down the rue des Saints-Pères, and he reached the rue de Sèvres again slowly, stopping every now and then to breathe out a copious cloud of smoke.

the end

appendixes: responses to la proie et l’ombre

Appendix 1: Joris-Karl Huysmans, La proie et l’ombre de Marius Roux, L’artiste (Brussels), 20 April 1878 The subject of the new novel from Mr. Marius Roux, The Substance and the Shadow, is as follows: Germain Rambert, a painter, is obsessed by the vision of staggering works which he dreams of but is incapable of executing. He floats from landscape to portrait, from portrait to landscape, throws himself on to his canvas, burns with enthusiasm, agonizes and snuffs himself out when he realizes the baseness of the work he has begun. Utterly possessed by his passion for art, his nerves sick, his brain laboring to bring forth these unrealizable marvels, he attains the most monstrous egoism, the most implacable ferocity, and, after he has got the daughter of a Versailles pharmacist, whom he has kidnapped, with child, he kills her by degrees, abandons her to get married, and ends in the most abject misery, exhausted, drained, abandoned by his lawful wife, who goes far away to have herself scooped up by a Sir Calixtus, a dealer in wines and spirits. As for his former mistress, Caroline Duhamel, smitten by a discreet love for her tormentor’s brother, Philippe Rambert, she dies, married on her deathbed to this young man, a prudent painter who, having followed the courses at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and studied the formulae of Gérôme, Cabanel, and the other artistic cripples, comes away, in the end, thanks to his clever bearing in class, with a goodly number of medals. I had already read Mr. Roux’s previous volume, Eugénie Lamour, and under the somewhat gray covering of his style I had found some well-turned analyses of character, some serious qualities of a novelist who tries and manages to make things truthful and living. These qualities I found better and still more developed in The Substance and the Shadow. The character of Germain is drawn with extreme care. From page to page, we are present for the gropings and anguishes of the artist, at the rages and the mistrusts of the madman who tortures poor Caro so savagely. The downward slide of the painter, fallen from art into photography, from photography into semolina, from semolina to haberdashery and bric-à-brac, until the day when he breaks down and goes definitively crazy at a restaurant where his wife waits table, is traced with a truly remarkable ease. Germain Rambert has an astonishing realism and life, and I will even admit that I prefer him to Philippe, so gentle and so pale, who seems with his perpetual success destined to show that all Impressionist painters are impotent buffoons, and one must pass through that crammer that should be torn down, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, to have any talent or any chance of success, even. Leaving aside these ideas, which I do not share, I find Mother Calypso’s restaurant delightful, where there swarm such types as Godet, a manufacturer of religious artifacts by necessity and a Michelangelo by vocation, Lespignac-Shakespeare, who ends up selling paints and giving the République des lettres his only sonnet with one line that limps along, Damasquère-Velázquez, the painter of feminine opulence in his youth, and who teaches drawing and wash to kids in his latter years. Yet another bonehead, but a

202

//

appendixes

bonehead without guile, is the one called Mazouillet, a lawyer-versifier, who dies in time for Germain to marry his eminently consolable widow, whom he thought rich, and thus deliver the final blow to the poor Caro, whom the author has drawn so sweet and sympathetic, but who would have gained somewhat by being treated now and then with a little less sentimentality. If, after this brief sketch of the cast of the book, we come to the backdrop, to the milieu in which they move, I will point out, as well as certain parts of Paris where the action is played out, some fresh landscapes around Fontainebleau, and a little town in the provinces where, less lucky and less able than Balzac’s Philippe Bridau, he cannot manage to avoid losing an inheritance. To sum up, in a few lines, Mr. Roux’s volume is a good Naturalist novel, and with his most delicate qualities of observation and analysis, with his scenes well managed and full of charming details, it will be a treat for gourmets who are looking, in a novel, for a study of manners, a character who is powerfully rendered and set up, a character who has, in a word, life!1

1 // Huysmans 1878: “Le sujet du nouveau roman de M. Marius Roux la Proie et l’ombre, est celui-ci: Germain Rambert, un peintre, est obsédé par la vision d’oeuvres bouleversantes qu’il rêve mais qu’il est incapable d’exécuter. Il flotte du paysage au portrait et du portrait au paysage, se jette sur sa toile, flambe d’enthousiasme, agonise et s’éteint quand il se rend compte de la turpitude de l’oeuvre qu’il a commencée. Possédé tout entier par sa passion de l’art, les nerfs malades, le cerveau en gésine de merveilles irréalisables, il arrive au plus monstrueux des égoïsmes, à la plus implacable des férocités et, après avoir fait un enfant à la fille d’un droguiste de Versailles qu’il a enlevée, il l’assassine à petits coups, l’abandonne pour se marier et finit dans la plus abjecte des misères, éreinté, fourbu, lâché par sa femme légitime qui va se faire brasser au loin par un sieur Calixte, placier en eaux-de-vie et en vins. Quant à son ancienne maîtresse, Caroline Duhamel, éprise d’un amour discret pour le frère de son bourreau, Philippe Rambert, elle meurt, mariée in extremis, avec ce jeune homme, un peintre bien sage qui, après avoir suivi les cours de l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts et étudié les formules des Gérôme, Cabanel et autres perclus de l’art, décroche enfin, grâce à sa bonne tenue en classe, un grand nombre de médailles. J’avais lu déjà le précédent volume de M. Marius Roux, Eugénie Lamour et, sous la couverte un peu grise du style, j’avais trouvé des analyses de caractère bien venues, des qualités très sérieuses de romancier qui cherche et arrive à faire vivant et vrai. Ces qualités, je les ai retrouvées, meilleures et plus développées encore dans la Proie et l’ombre. La figure de Germain est détaillée avec un soin extrême. De page en page, on assiste aux tâtonnements et aux angoisses de l’artiste, aux rages et aux méfiances du fou qui torture si sauvagement la pauvre Caro. La dégringolade du peintre, tombé de l’art dans la photographie, de la photographie dans la vente des semoules, des semoules dans la ganterie et le bric-à-brac, jusqu’au jour où il chavire et s’affole définitivement dans une salle de table d’hôte que sa femme régit, est tracée avec une habileté vraiment remarquable. Germain Rambert est étonnant de réalité et de vie et j’avoue

même que je le préfère à Philippe, si doux et si pâle, qui semble avec ses perpétuels succès, destiné à démontrer que tous les peintres impressionnistes, sont des impuissants et des pitres et qu’il faut avoir passé par cette métairie qu’on devrait bien jeter à bas, l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, pour avoir quelque talent ou même quelque chance de réussite. Sous cette réserve d’idées que je ne partage pas, bien que je convienne, tout le premier, que quelques impressionnistes manquent d’étude et de savoir-faire, je trouve absolument réjouissante la table d’hôte de la mère Calypso où grouillent des types tels que Godet, le bondieusard par nécessité et le Michel-Ange par vocation, Lespignac Shakespeare qui finit par vendre des couleurs et donner à la République des lettres son unique sonnet dont un vers cloche, DamasquèreVélasquez, le peintre des opulences féminines, dans sa jeunesse, et le professeur de dessin et de lavis pour gosses dans ses derniers jours. Un autre bon nigaud encore, mais un nigaud simple et sans roublardise, celui-là, c’est le nommé Mazouillet, avoué-versificateur, mort à temps pour que Germain puisse épouser sa consolable veuve qu’il croyait riche et porter ainsi le dernier coup à la pauvre Caro que l’auteur nous a dépeinte si sympathique et si douce, mais qui aurait gagné peut-être à être traitée parfois avec un peu moins de sentimentalité. Si, après cette brève esquisse des personnages du livre, nous arrivons au décor, au milieu où ils se meuvent, je signalerai, en dehors de certains coins de Paris où se déroule l’action, de frais paysages des environs de Fontainebleau, et une petite ville de province où Germain s’est rendu et où moins heureux et moins habile que le Philippe Bridau, de Balzac, il ne peut parvenir à conjurer la perte d’un héritage. Pour me résumer, en quelques lignes, le volume de M. Roux est un bon roman naturaliste et avec ses très précieuses qualités d’observation et d’analyse, avec ses scènes bien menées et pleines de détails charmants, il sera un régal pour les délicats qui cherchent, dans un roman, une étude de moeurs, une figure puissamment accusée et mise debout, une figure qui ait, en un mot, la vie!”

appendixes

// 203

Appendix 2: Anonymous, Le rappel, 14 April 1878 A well-timed book, on the eve of the Salon opening, The Substance and the Shadow, by Mr. Marius Roux. It is a curious study set in the world of the young painters and particularly that part from which the Impressionists have sprung. The drama that comes from this saga is poignant and will win women the vote, a cause for which the author has made himself an advocate.1

1 // Anon. 1878: “Un livre qui tombe bien, à la veille de l’ouverture du Salon, La proie et l’ombre, de M. Marius Roux. C’est une étude curieuse prise dans le monde des jeunes peintres et particulièrement

de ce milieu d’où sont sortis les impressionnistes. Le drame qui sort de cette comédie est poignant et gagnera le suffrage des femmes, dont l’auteur s’est fait l’avocat.”

204

//

appendixes

Appendix 3: Letter from Stéphane Mallarmé to Marius Roux, 30 April 1878 Reading The Substance and the Shadow for two days from morning to night has been a tonic for me . . . I take up a piece of paper, and now I shake you by the hand. First of all, what daring you had, writing this book after Manette Salomon; and what a force of originality allowed you to make it so different! The leisurely study of your main character introduces bit by bit the painful evolution of his decadence. It is a pity one cannot transpose this sinister tale from the domain of painting to that of literature, where a like mental drama must occur more frequently; for I believe the manual arts (like painting, unless one is a genius) entail a certain brutality and something material that saves a man prone to sink or faint away in too many dreams. But it is precisely here that the novel lost its interest for the reader, who believes only in oddballs and craftsmen; and after all you deal with your subject with enough generality to let him see one of the pitfalls that threatens the artist, whoever he might be. You will guess that I regret a little that you didn’t look outside the Impressionists (of whom some are miraculously gifted beings, who have found their way belatedly after many struggles) for a band apart, extravagant and stupid, like those you describe: why was that? The plot of the novel is very fine; it is strange that no one before you has sketched out this noble idea of a brother, giving the child the name it had a right to, as if inspired by the race, the ancestors, etc. And that simply, from the outside, without knowledge of the social greatness of the act, doing it as a contemporary does it, and with the dash of banality the novelist should not neglect. As to the detail itself, you succeed on every page: the observation and analysis of a thousand little things, gestures and fleeting visions, which in the end, after all, make up our everyday soul, constantly surprise with you, without tiring, especially in the provincial section; and in the world of the painters, so very bounded and localized, who live in but one corner of life.1

1 // Mondor and Austin 1965, 174–75: “La lecture pendant deux jours du matin au soir de la Proie et l’Ombre a été un de mes réconforts. . . . Je tiens une feuille de papier; et vous serre enfin la main. Quelle audace vous avez eue d’abord, en écrivant ce livre après Manette Salomon; et quelle force d’originalité vous a permis de le faire tant différent! L’étude lente de votre personnage gradue à merveille toute l’évolution pénible de sa décadence. C’est dommage qu’on ne puisse transposer de la peinture en la littérature, où pareil drame mental doit se passer plus fréquemment, cette sinistre aventure; car je crois que les arts manuels (comme la peinture, à moins qu’on n’y soit un génie) comportent toujours une certaine brutalité et quelque chose de matériel qui rattrapent un homme prêt à sombrer ou s’évanouir en trop de rêves. Mais le roman y perdait justement en intérêt, chez le lecteur qui ne croit qu’aux spéciaux et ouvriers; et vous traitez après tout votre sujet avec assez de généralité, pour qu’on y voit un des accidents menaçant l’artiste, quel qu’il soit.—Vous devinez que je vous en veux un peu de n’avoir pas cherché en dehors des Impressionnistes (dont quelques-uns sont des êtres miraculeusement doués et ayant trouvé leur voie tardivement à travers maints travaux), une

bande à part extravagante et sotte, comme celle que vous décrivez: pourquoi cela? L’aventure du roman est très-belle; il est étrange que personne n’ait, avant vous, effleuré cette noble trouvaille d’un frère, en donnant à l’enfant de celui-ci un nom auquel il avait droit, comme sous l’inspiration de la race, des aïeux, etc. Cela simplement, extérieurement, sans conscience de la grandeur sociale de l’acte, comme agit le contemporain et avec la pointe de banalité que ne doit point négliger le romancier. Quant au détail même, vous réussissez à chaque page: la remarque et l’analyse des mille riens, gestes et visions rapides, qui, après tout, finissent par faire notre âme quotidienne, surprennent toujours chez vous, sans fatiguer, dans les pages de province notamment; et dans l’existence si entièrement localisée des peintres, qui n’habitent qu’un coin de la vie.”

appendixes

// 205

Appendix 4: Letter from Cézanne to Marius Roux, 1878–79 My dear old friend, Although our friendly relations haven’t been kept up, in the sense that I haven’t often knocked at your hospitable door, still I don’t hesitate to write to you today. I hope you will be able to separate my humble persona of an Impressionist painter from the man, and that you will only want to remember your old friend. So I call on you, not as the author of The Shadow and the Substance, but as the child of Aix-en-Provence, under whose sun I too first saw the light of day, and I take the liberty of introducing to you my eminent friend the musician Cabaner. I beg you to look kindly on his request, and at the same time, I recommend myself to you in case the day of the Salon ever dawns for me. Please accept, in the hope that my request will be well received, my thanks and my kindest regards. P. Cézanne, Pictor semper virens Although I have not had the honor of making her acquaintance, may I please offer my respects to Mme. Roux?1

1 // Rewald 1978, 178–89. Mon cher camarade Quoique nos relations amicales n’aient pas été très suivies, en ce sens que je n’ai pas souvent frappé à ton huis hospitalier, je n’hésite pas cependant aujourd’hui à m’adresser à toi.—J’espère que tu voudras bien disjoindre ma petite personnalité de peintre impressionniste de l’homme et que tu voudras ne te ressouvenir que du camarade. Donc ce n’est point l’auteur de l’Ombre et la Proie que j’invoque, mais l’Aquasixtain sous le même soleil duquel j’ai vu le jour, et je prends la liberté de t’adresser mon

éminent ami et musicien Cabaner. Je te prierai de lui être favorable en sa requête, et en même temps, je me recommanderai à toi au cas échéant où le jour du Salon viendrait à se lever pour moi. Veuille accepter, dans l’espérance que ma demande sera bien accueillie, l’expression de mes remerciements et de sympathique confraternité. P. Cézanne Pictor semper virens, Quoi que n’ayant pas [l’honneur de la connaître] puis-je faire agréer l’hommage de mes respects à Madame Roux?”

bibliography Adams, Steven, and Anna Gruetzner Robins, eds. Gendering Landscape Art. Manchester: Manchester University Press; New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001. Adhémar, Hélène. “Ernest Hoschedé.” In John Rewald and Frances Weitzenhoffer, eds., Aspects of Monet. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984. Adorno, Theodor. Minima Moralia: Reflections on Damaged Life. London: New Left Books, 1974. Alhoy, Maurice. “La lorette.” Les Physiologies Parisiennes, première série. Paris: Bibliothèque pour rire, n.d., 5–7 [c. 1840]. Allen, Peter. “Les images d’Epinal: Une spécialiste des Vosges.” Matrix 13 (Winter 1993): 16a–h. Anon. “Six Lettres inédites de Frédéric Mistral à Marius Roux.” Quo vadis 4, nos. 38–40 (October–November 1951): 16–20. Anon. [review of La proie et l’ombre]. Le rappel, 14 April 1878. Cited in Mondor and Austin, 1965, 174 n. 1. Anon. “Les artistes indépendents.” Le petit journal, 11 April 1879, 2. Alexandre, Arsène. “Essai sur la vie du Comte Armand Doria.” In Albumsouvenir de la collection Armand Doria. Paris: Petit, 1899. Alexis, Paul. Emile Zola: Notes d’un ami. Paris: Charpentier, 1882. ———. Madame Meuriot, Paris: Charpentier, 1890. Astruc, Zacharie. Les 14 stations du salon, suivi d’un récit douloureux. Paris: Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1859. ———. Le salon intime. Paris: PouletMalassis et de Broise, 1860. Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina. Cézanne in Provence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Baille, Franck. Les petits maîtres d’Aix à la belle époque, 1870–1914. Aix-enProvence: Roubaud, 1981.

Bailly-Herzberg, Janine. Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, vol. 1, 1865–1885. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1980. ———. Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, vol. 3, 1891–1894. Paris: Valhermeil, 1988. Bakker, B. H.“Naturalisme pas mort”: Lettres inédites de Paul Alexis à Emile Zola. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971. Bakker, B. H., Colette Becker, Clive Thomson et al., eds. Emile Zola: Correspondance, vols. 1–10. Montreal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal; Paris: Editions du Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, 1978–95. Balzac, Honoré de. La comédie humaine, vol. 5: Etudes de moeurs, scènes de la vie de province (fin): Illusions perdues. Etudes de moeurs, scènes de la vie parisienne: Histoire des treize—Ferragus—La duchesse de Langeais—La fille aux yeux d’or, ed. Pierre-Georges Castex. Paris: Gallimard, 1977 [1843]. ———. Les deux frères, 2 vols. Paris: Souverain, 1842. Barr, Alfred. “Cézanne d’après les lettres de Marion à Morstatt, 1865–1868.” Gazette des beaux-arts, 6e période, 17 (January 1937): 37–58. Baudelaire, Charles. Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2. Paris: Gallimard, 1976. Benjamin, Walter. “The Author as Producer.” Address delivered at the Institute for the Study of Fascism, Paris, 27 April 1934. In Frascina and Harrison, 1982, 213–16. ———. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. London and New York: Verso, 1983. Berg, Christian, and Pierre Cogny, eds. Joris-Karl Huysmans: Lettres à Théodore Hannon 1876–1886, SaintCyr-sur-Loire: Pirot, 1985. Bernard, Emile. “Julien Tanguy dit le ‘père Tanguy.’” Mercure de France 76, no. 276 (16 December 1908): 600–616.

208

//

bibliography

———. Souvenirs sur Paul Cézanne et lettres. Paris: La Rénovation esthétique, 1921. Bernex, J. “Zola, Cézanne, Solari.” Les cahiers d’Aix-en-Provence (Autumn 1923), 49–53. Berson, Ruth, ed. The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886: Documentation, 2 vols. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, 1996. Beucken, Jean de. Un portrait de Cézanne. Paris: Gallimard, 1955. Bodelsen, Merete. “Early Impressionist Sales 1874–94 in the Light of Some Unpublished ‘procès-verbaux.’” Burlington Magazine 110 (June 1968): 330–49. Boime, Albert. The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century. London: Phaidon, 1971. Boissin, Firmin, “Romans, contes et nouvelles,” Polybiblion: Revue bibliographique universelle (partie littéraire) 55 (1879): 5–35. Boyé, Maurice-Pierre. “Antony Valabrègue, poète et historien d’art.” Rolet, nos. 416, 418, 419, 420, and 421 (18 December 1952; 1, 8, 15, and 22 January 1953). Brady, Patrick. “L’Oeuvre de Emile Zola”: Roman sur les arts, manifeste, autobiographie, roman à clef. Geneva: Droz, 1968. Breeskin, Adelyn D. The Graphic Work of Mary Cassatt. New York: Bittner, 1948. Brown, Frederick. Zola: A Life. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997. Burty, Philippe. Grave Imprudence. Paris: Charpentier, 1880. Busk, Rachel Harriette. Gossip of the Century: Personal and Traditional Memories, Social, Literary, Artistic, etc. 2 vols. London: Ward & Downey, 1899. Callen, Anthea. The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Camoin, Charles. “Souvenirs sur Paul Cézanne.” L’Amour de l’art (1920). Carver, Terrell. The Postmodern Marx.

Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. Castagnary, Jules-Antoine. “Corot.” Les artistes au XIXe siècle: Salon de 1861. Paris: Le Monde illustré, 1861, 1–4. Champfleury. L’Hôtel des commissairespriseurs. Paris: Dentu, 1867. Champsaur, Félicien. “Le rat mort.” L’étoile française, 21 December 1880 (a). ———. “Le rat mort.” Revue moderne et naturaliste, 1880(b), 435–41. ———. “Silhouettes Parisiens: Cabaner.” Le Henri Quatre: Journal républicain, 15 May 1881. ———. Dinah Samuel. Paris: Séguier, 1999 (1882). ———. “Carolus Duran (La bonne côté de la médaille).” Le cerveau de Paris. Paris: Dentu, 1886, 71–76. ———. “Antoine Guillemet.” Les hommes d’auhourd’hui, 8, no. 224 [324]. Paris: Vanier, 1887; reprinted in Les masques modernes. Paris: Dentu, 1889, 25–30. Chappuis, Adrien. The Drawings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1. Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 1973. Charles. Clément. “Les artistes aixois au Salon de 1874.” Le mémorial d’Aix, 21 June 1874. Claretie, Jules. L’art et les artistes français contemporains. Paris: Charpentier, 1876. Clément-Janin. La curieuse vie de Marcellin Desboutin. Paris: Floury, 1922. Cohen, Gerry. Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defense. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Craven, David. “Marxism and Critical Art History.” In Paul Smith and Carolyn Wilde, eds., 267–85. A Companion to Art Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. Crouzet, Marcel. Un méconnu du réalisme: Duranty (1833–1880). Paris: Nizet, 1964. Daulte, François. “Un provençal pur: Paul Gigou.” Connaissance des arts, no. 98 (April 1960), 70–77. Denecourt, Claude François. L’indicateur historique et descriptif de Fontainebleau: itinéraire de la forêt et de ses environs. Fontainebleau:

bibliography

Guides-Denecourt, 1875. Doucet, Jérome. “Eugène Murer.” Les hommes d’aujourd’hui, 9, no. 433. Paris: Vanier, 1891. Drujon, Fernand. Les livres à clef: Etude de bibliographie critique et analytique pour servir à l’histoire littéraire. Paris: Rouveyre, 1885–88. Duranty, Louis-Edmond. “Le peintre Marsabiel.” La rue: Paris pittoresque et populaire, 20 July 1867. ———. “La simple vie du peintre Louis Martin.” Le siècle, 13 and 16 November 1872. ———. “Maillobert est un grand peintre.” Les beaux-arts illustrés, 1877(a), 2, no. 63, 83–86. ———. “La simple vie du peintre Louis Martin.” In Les séductions du chevalier Navoni. Paris: Dentu, 1877(b), 327–62. ———. “Le peintre Louis Martin.” In Le pays des arts. Paris: Charpentier, 1881, 317–50. Duret, Théodore. Histoire des peintres impressionnistes. Paris: Floury, 1939. Eisenman, Steven. “The Intransigent Artist or How the Impressionists Got Their Name.” In Moffett, 1986, 51–57. Elder, Marc. A Giverny chez Claude Monet. Paris: Bernheim-Jeune, 1924. Ely, Bruno. “L’un était sculpteur, l’autre peintre.” Impressions du Musée Granet 3 (September 1989), 10–13. Flaubert, Gustave. Oeuvres complètes, vol. 16, correspondence—1877–80. Paris: Club de l’honnête homme, 1976. Flescher, Sharon. Zacharie Astruc: Critic, Artist, and Japoniste. New York and London: Garland, 1978. Frascina, Francis, and Charles Harrison, eds. Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology. London: Harper and Row, 1982. Gachet, Paul. Deux amis impressionnistes—le Docteur Gachet et Murer. Paris: Editions des musées nationaux, 1956. Gandy, Matthew. “The Paris Sewers and the Rationalization of Urban Space.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24, no. 1 (1999): 23–44.

// 209

Gasquet, Joachim. Cézanne. Paris: Bernheim-Jeune, 1926 (1921). Geffroy, Gustave. Claude Monet: Sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre. Paris: Crés, 1922. Gerdts, William H. Monet’s Giverny: An Impressionist Colony. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de. Manette Salomon, 2 vols. Paris: Librairie internationale; Brussels, Leipzig, and Livorno: Lacroix and Verboeckhoven, 1867. Green, Nicholas. “Dealing in Temperaments: Economic Transformation of the Artistic Field in France During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century.” Art History 10 (March 1987): 59–78. ———. “Circuits of Production, Circuits of Consumption: The Case of MidNineteenth-Century French Art Dealing.” Art Journal 49 (Spring 1989): 29–34. Harrison, Charles, and Fred Orton, eds. Modernism, Criticism, Realism: Alternative Contexts for Art. London: Harper and Row, 1984. Hemmings, F. W. J., and Robert J. Niess, eds. Emile Zola: Salons. Geneva: Droz, 1959. Herbert, Robert L. “Impressionism, Originality and Laissez-Faire.” Radical History Review 38 (1987): 7–15. Hobbs, Richard, ed. Impressions of French Modernity: Art and Literature in France, 1850–1900. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. Huysmans, Joris-Karl. “La proie et l’ombre de Marius Roux.” L’artiste (Brussels), 20 April 1878. J.-J.L. [Jean-Jacques Lefrère], M.P. [Michel Pierssens] et al. Les romans à clefs [troisième colloque des invalides]. Paris: Du Lérot, 1999. Jahyer, Félix. “Camées artistiques: Marius Roux.” Paris-portrait (ancien Paris théatre), 7,no. 321, 10–16 July 1879. Kirsch, Bob. “Paul Cézanne: Jeune fille au piano and Some Portraits of His Wife: An Investigation of His Paintings of the Late 1870s.” Gazette des beaux-arts, 6e période

210

//

bibliography

(July–August 1987), 21–24. Larguier, Léo. Le dimanche avec Cézanne. Paris: L’Edition, 1925. ———. Cézanne ou la lutte avec l’ange de la peinture. Paris: Juliard, 1947. Lefrère, Jean-Jacques, and Michael Pakenham. Cabaner, poète au piano. Paris: L’Echoppe, 1994. Lepage, Auguste. Les boutiques d’esprit, Paris: Olmer, 1879. ———. Les cafés artistiques et littéraires de Paris. Paris: Boursin, 1882 [1877]. ———. Les Diners artistiques et littéraires de Paris, Paris: Frinzine, Klein et Cie., 1884. Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, and Toulouse, Musée des Augustins. CarolusDuran, 1837–1917. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2003. Lorenz, Otto. Catalogue générale de la librairie française depuis 1840, vol. 10 (tome deuxième du catalogue de 1876–85. I–Z). Paris: Lorenz, 1887. Lukács, Georg. History and Class Consciousness. London: Merlin, 1971 [1923]. Mack, Gerstle. Paul Cézanne. London: Cape, 1935. MacIntyre, Alasdair. “The Idea of a Social Science.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 41 (1967). In Harrison and Orton, 1984, 214–27. Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. London: Penguin, 1976. Mauner, Mauner. Manet: PeintrePhilosophe. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975. Meilhac, Henry, and Ludovic Halévy. La cigale: Comédie en trois actes. Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1877. Menant, Sylvain. “La Babylone moderne.” Dix-huitième siècle 34 (2002): 137–48. Moffett, Charles S., et al. The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886. Geneva: Richard Burton; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986. Mondor, Henri, and Lloyd James Austin, eds. Stephane Mallarmé: Correspondance, vol. 2. Paris: Gallimard, 1965. Moore, George. Confessions of a Young Man.

London: Penguin, 1936 [1886]. Murer, Eugène. Pauline Lavinia. Paris: Lévy, 1887. Murger, Henry. La vie de bohème: Pièce en 5 actes mêlée de chants. Paris: DondeyDupré, 1849. ———. Scènes de la bohème. Paris: Lévy, 1851. Nelson, Robert S., and Richard Shiff, eds. Critical Terms for Art History. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996. Newton, Joy. “The Atelier Novel: Painters as Fictions.” In Hobbs, 1998, 173–89. Niess, Robert J. Zola, Cézanne, and Manet: A Study of L’oeuvre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968. Nittis, Giuseppe de. Notes et souvenirs. Paris: Quantin, 1895. Nord, Philip. Impressionists and Politics: Art and Democracy in the Nineteenth Century. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Paris, Galerie d’art, Braun et Cie. “L’Impressionnisme et quelques précurseurs.” Bulletin des expositions 3 (22 January–13 February 1932). Paris, Musée d’Orsay. La Dame aux éventails: Nina de Callias, modèle de Manet. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2000. Petrone, Mario. “‘La double vie de Louis Séguin’ par Duranty.” Gazette des beaux-arts, 6e période, 88 (December 1976): 235–39. Pissarro, Joachim. Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro, 1865– 1885. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005. Ponce Art Museum. Francisco Oller: A Realist-Impressionist. Ponce, 1983. Prendergast, Christopher. Paris and the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Proust, Antonin. Edouard Manet: Souvenirs. Paris: Renouard-Laurens, 1913. Provence, Marcel. “Cézanne et ses amis: Numa Coste.” Mercure de France 187, no. 667 (1 April 1926): 54–81. Raimbault, Maurice. Numa Coste: Extrait des annales de la Société d’Etudes Provençales. Aix-en-Provence: Niel, 1907.

bibliography

Ratcliffe, Robert W. “Cézanne’s Working Methods and Their Theoretical Background.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1960. Reff, Theodore. “Reproductions and Books in Cézanne’s Studio.” Gazette des beaux-arts, 6e période, 55 (November 1960): 303–9. ———. “Cézanne’s ‘Dream of Hannibal.’” Art Bulletin 45 (June 1963): 148–52. Rewald, John. Cézanne et Zola. Paris: Sedrowski, 1936. ———, ed. Paul Cézanne: Correspondance. Paris: Grasset, 1937. ———. Cézanne: Sa vie, son oeuvre, son amitié pour Zola. Paris: Albin Michel, 1939. ———. Paul Cézanne: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948. ———. “Un article inédit sur Paul Cézanne en 1870.” Arts (21–27 July 1954): 8. ———. “Cézanne and His Father” [1972]. In Rewald, 1985, 69–101. ———. The History of Impressionism. London: Secker and Warburg, 1973. ———, ed. Paul Cézanne: Letters. Oxford: Cassirer, 1976. ———, ed. Paul Cézanne: Correspondance. Paris: Grasset, 1978. ———. Studies in Impressionism. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985. ———. Histoire de l’impressionnisme. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986. Rewald, John, Walter Feilchenfeldt, and Jane Warman. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996. Rivière, Georges. Renoir et ses amis. Paris: Floury, 1921. ———. Le maître Paul Cézanne. Paris: Floury, 1923. Rivière, R. P., and Jacques Schnerb. “L’atelier de Cézanne.” La grande revue 25 (December 1907): 811–17. Roos, Jane. Early Impressionism and the French State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Rose, Margaret. Marx’s Lost Aesthetic: Karl Marx and the Visual Arts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Roux, Marius. “La confession de Claude par Emile Zola.” Le mémorial d’Aix, 3

// 211

December 1865. ———. La proie et l’ombre. Paris: Dentu, 1878. ———. La poche des autres. Paris: Dentu, 1879. Rude, Maxime (pseudonym of Adolphe Perreau). Tout-paris au café. Paris: Dreyfous, 1877. Schapiro, Meyer. “Courbet and Popular Imagery: An Essay on Realism and Naïveté” [1941]. Reprinted in Modern Art: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: George Braziller, 1978, 47–85. Schier, Flint. “Painting After Art? Comments on Wollheim.” In Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, and Keith Moxey, eds. Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation. Cambridge: Polity, 1991, 151–57. Scott, David. “Matter for Reflection: Nineteenth-Century French Art Critics’ Quest for Modernity in Sculpture.” In Hobbs, 1998, 99–117. Sensier, Alfred. La vie et l’oeuvre de J.-F. Millet (Manuscrit publié par Paul Mantz). Paris: Quantin, 1881. Shiff, Richard. Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Silvestre, Armand. Au pays de souvenir: Mes maîtres et mes maîtresses. Paris: Librairie illustrée, 1892. Smith, Paul. “‘Parbleu!’ Pissarro and Political Colour of an Original Vision.” Art History 15 (June 1992): 223–47. ———. Interpreting Cézanne. London: Tate Publishing; New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 1996. ———. “Joachim Gasquet, Virgil, and Cézanne’s Landscape: ‘My Beloved Golden Age.’” Apollo 147 (October 1998): 10–23. ———. “Cézanne’s Maternal Landscape and Its Gender.” In S. Adams and A. Gruetzner Robins, eds., Gendering Landscape Art. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000, 116–32 and 211–15. Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri Beyle).

212 //

bibliography

Histoire de la peinture en Italie. Paris: Michel-Lévy, 1868 [1817]. Stuckey, Charles. “Monet’s Art and the Act of Vision.” In John Rewald and Frances Witzenhoffer, eds., Aspects of Monet. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984, 106–21. Tabarant, Adolphe. Pissarro. London: John Lane/Bodley Head, 1925. ———. Manet et ses oeuvres. Paris: Gallimard, 1947. Tabary, Louis Edouard. Duranty (1833– 1880): Etude biographique et critique. Paris: Les Belles-lettres, 1954. Taine, Hippolyte. Philosophie de l’art. Paris: Baillère, 1865. Thomson, Clive. “Une correspondance inédite (première partie): Vingtsept lettres de Marius Roux à Emile Zola (1864–1869).” Revue de l’université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa Quarterly 48, no. 4 (1978): 335–70. Thoré, Théophile. Salons de T. Thoré 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848, avec une préface par W. Bürger. Paris: Librairie internationale; Brussels, Leipzig, and Livorno: Lacroix and Verboeckhoven, 1868. Tucker, Paul. Claude Monet: His Life and Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Valabrègue, Antony. “Livres sur l’art.” La Revue contemporaine: Littéraire, politique et philosophique 4 (January– April 1886): 126. ———. “Duran, Charles-Auguste-Emile, dit Carolus.” La Grande encyclopédie, vol. 15. Paris: Société Anonyme de la Grande Encyclopédie, 1886–1902, 107. Virmaître, Charles. Paris palette. Paris: Savine, 1888. Vizetelly, Ernest. Preface to Emile Zola, His Masterpiece (L’oeuvre). London: Vizetelly, 1888, v–viii. ———. Preface to Emile Zola, His Masterpiece (L’oeuvre). London: Chatto and Windus, 1902, v–ix. Vollard, Ambroise. En écoutant Cézanne, Degas, Renoir. Paris: Grasset, 1938. Wagneur, Jean-Didier. “Quand le roman porte clefs.” In J.-J.L., M.P. et al.

(1999), 47–50. Walter, Rodolphe. “Zola et ses amis à Bennecourt.” Les cahiers naturalistes 7, no. 17 (1961): 19–35. ———. “Cézanne à Bennecourt.” Gazette des beaux-arts, 6e période, 59 (February 1962): 103–18. White, Harrison C., and Cynthia A. Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World. New York: John Wiley, 1965. White, Nicholas. “The Work in Art: Zola, Cézanne, and Cabaner.” Bulletin of the Emile Zola Society 7 (April 1994): 3–8. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value: A Selection from the Posthumous Remains. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998 [1977]. Wolff, Albert. La Capitale de l’art. Paris: Victor-Havard, 1886. Wollheim, Richard. Painting as an Art. London: Thames & Hudson; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Wood, Paul. “Commodity.” In Nelson and Shiff, 1996, 257–80. Zap, Gaston (pseud.). “M. Marius Roux.” Monde pour rire, 2, no. 73, 24 July 1869. Zola, Emile. Mes haines. Paris: Faure, 1866a. ———. Mon salon. Paris: Librairie centrale, 1866b. ———. “Livres d’aujourd’hui et de demain.” Le Gaulois, 2 July 1869. ———. “Aux Champs: La banlieue, le bois, la rivière.” In Le Capitaine Burle. Paris: Charpentier, 1883, 191–230. ———. L’oeuvre. Paris: Charpentier, 1886. ———. “Bohèmes en villégiature.” Les types de Paris, vol. 2 (1889), 17–26. (First published in 1877 as “Une farce.”)

index Académie des Beaux-Arts, 14 n. 29, 52 n. 87 Académie des Sciences, Agriculture, Arts et Belles Lettres d’Aix, 131 n. 154 Académie Française, 14 n. 29, 59 n. 92, 131 n. 155 Académie Suisse, 31 nn. 65–66 Aesop fables, xix Aix-en-Provence, Aigues-les-Tours modeled on, 3 n. 8 Aigues-les-Tours, 3 n. 8 Alexis, Paul, xii n. 4, xiv nn. 15–16, 2 n. 6; Impressionist exhibitions and, 51 n. 84, 137 n. 161; on Valabrègue, 26 n. 58 Antinous (Vatican statue), 50 n. 82 L’artiste (journal), xi L’art libre: tribune des artistes (journal), 51 n. 85 art-novels, emergence of, xxi–xxiii, 80 n. 105 L’assommoir (Zola), xliv Astruc, Zacharie, xxxiv, 138 n. 162; anti-jury position of, 11 n. 26, at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35, 19 n. 42; Carolus-Duran portrait of, 66 n. 100; first Impressionist exhibition and, 51 n. 84; Japonism and, 18 n. 40, 40 n. 72; Lespignac modeled on, 18 n. 40, 178 n. 183; “temperament” and, 50 n. 83; watercolors of, 40 n. 71 Bacchante (Solari), 20 n. 46, 82 n. 110 Baille, Jean-Baptiste, xiv n. 15, 2 n. 6; Zola’s correspondence with, 90 n. 121 Balzac, Honoré de, xxii, xliii n. 181 Barbizon painters: marketing of, xxiv n. 83 Baudelaire, Charles, Peintre de la vie moderne of, 5 n. 13, 22 n. 53; Salon de 1845, 112 n. 138; Salon de 1859, 171 n. 181 Bazille, Frédéric, xiv n. 15, 6 n. 15, 9 n. 20; acceptance at Salon, 128 n. 152; Impressionist exhibitions and, 51 n. 84; Salon des Refusés and, 52 n. 87 Béju (in La proie et l’ombre), 19 n. 44, 49 n. 81; “impression” of, 2 n. 3 Béliard, Edouard, xiv nn. 15–16, 19 n. 44; first Impressionist exhibition and, 51 n. 84; at Pontoise, 128 n. 151 Bennecourt, 1 n. 1, 2 n. 6, 3 n. 9, 16 n. 35 Béraud, Jean, 19 n. 42 Blanc, Charles, xxiv n. 83, 162 n. 177 “boeuf nature” dinners, xiv n. 16 “Le bois” (Zola), 8 n. 17 Brame, Hector, xxiv n. 83 Brideau, Joseph (in Les deux frères), xvii n. 42 Burty, Philippe, xx n. 59, xxi, xxiv n. 83, xxx, xxxi n. 115, xxxii, xlii; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35, 19 n. 42; Impressionists and, 52 n. 88, 119 n. 146; Japonism and, 40 n. 72 Cabanel, Alexandre, 21 n. 49 Cabaner, Ernest, xiii n. 11; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35 Café de la Nouvelle Athènes, Impressionists at, 87 n. 116, 191 n. 187

Café Guerbois, xvii n. 32–36, xxiii n. 74, 9 n. 20, 191 n. 186; Restaurant Bruno modeled on, xv–xvi Caillebotte, Gustave, 89 n. 119, 128 n. 152 Camoin, Charles, xxiv n. 79 canvas sizes (in La proie et l’ombre), 28 n. 61 Capital (Marx), x, 11 n. 2 Carolus-Duran (Charles Auguste Émile Durand), xxxiv, 9 n. 19; Astruc portrait by, 66 n. 100; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35, 19 nn. 41–42; Damasquère modeled on, 18 n. 39 Castagnary, Jules-Antoine: at Café Guerbois, 9 n. 20, 16 n. 35; on Impressionists, 52 n. 88 Cassatt, Mary, xxi Cézanne, Louis-Auguste, xvi n. 26, 24 n. 55, 60 n. 96, 84 n. 112, 155 n. 171 Cézanne, Paul, at Académie Suisse, 31 n. 65; Aixois roots of, xi, 138 n. 163; allowance from father, 84 n. 112, 155 n. 171; at Bennecourt, 2 n. 6; bohemian life of, xxii–xxxiii, xxii n. 69; at Café de la Nouvelle Athènes, 16 n. 35, 87 n. 116; at Café Guerbois, xv, xvii n. 32, xxiii n. 74, 16 n. 35; capitalism and, xxiv–xxviii, xliv–xlv; “daring,” aesthetic of, 114 n. 145; “doubt” of, xvi, xxxiv n. 134, 90 n. 121; first exhibition of, xvi n. 21; at Fontainebleau, xxx; genre painting of, 112 n. 137; “impotence” of, xvi; La Fontaine’s work admired by, xviii n. 50; landscape paintings by, xxxi–xxxiii, 128 n. 151; xliii–xlv; large paintings of, xxxviii; law studies of, xiv, 45 n. 75; light of Provence and, 56 n. 91; mistresses of, xvi n. 19, 3 n. 9; motley colors (bariolages) and, xxxi, 81 n. 105; novels modeled on, xx–xxviii; paintings reworked by, 92 n. 126; Paris studios of, 14 nn. 31; personal way of seeing, 49 n. 81; quais painted by, xxxi, 13 n. 27; Germain Rambert modeled on, xiv–xvi, xx–xviii, xxi n. 64, xliv–xlv; rejection from Salon of, xxiv n. 81,4 n. 12; Renoir and, 9 n. 20; Roux and, xi–xiii, xiii nn. 11–12, xv nn. 17–19; Salon and, xiii–xiv, xiii n. 74, xiv n. 82, xxxix n. 172, xli 4 n. 12, 13 n. 28, 128 n. 152; Salon des Refusés and, 4 n. 12, 52 n. 87; Stendhalian aesthetic of, xxxvi–xxxvii, 114 n. 145, 158 n. 174; “strength,” aesthetic of, xvi, xliv n. 185, 27 n. 59, 49 n. 81, 51 n. 83, 93 n. 127, 114 n. 145; “temperament,” aesthetic of, xvi, xvii n. 38, xxiii, xxv, xliv n. 185, 4 n. 11, 49 n. 81, 50 n. 83, 93 n. 127, 114 n. 145, 130 n. 157, 158 n. 174; theorizing of, xvi, 20 n. 45; Tanguy and, 158 n. 173; Zola and, xiii, xiv n. 15, xv n. 17, 1 n. 1, 2 n. 6, 8 n. 17; theorizing of, xvi, 20 n. 45 (See also Cézanne) Chaillan, Jean-Baptiste 2 n. 6, 19 n. 44 Champsaur, Félicien, xx n. 60, xxi, xxi n. 61, 16 n. 35 “Le chef d’oeuvre inconnu” (Balzac), xxii, xxii n. 70 Chesneau, Ernest, Japonism and, 40 n. 72 Chocquet, Victor, xiii n. 11 La cigale (Meilhac and Halévy), xx n. 59, 32 n. 69 commodity: fetishism of, xxvii n. 90, xxviii n. 94, xliii–xlv; painter as a, xli–xliii; sex appeal of,

214 //

index

xxxvii–xxxviii; “temperament” as, xxiv n. 83, xxxiii–xxxvi La confession de Claude (Zola), xiv n. 14, xvi n. 20 Conil, Maxime, 155 n. 171 Coriolis (in Manette Salomon), 71 n. 101, 92 n. 125, 119 n. 146; color sensitivity of, xxi n. 71, 55 n. 90; “doubt” of, 90 n. 121; at Fontainebleau, 3 n. 6; “impression” of, 2 n. 3; motley colors (bariolages) and, 81 n. 105; personal way of seeing, 50 n. 81; as raté, xxii Corot, Jean-Baptiste, 2 n. 6, 9 n. 18, 138 Coste, Numa, xiv nn. 15–16, xliii–xliv, 2 n. 6, 4 n. 12; at Café Guerbois, 19 n. 42; L’Union and, 51 n. 86; writings of, 51 n. 85 Courbet, Gustave, xxxviii, 1 n. 2; Zola’s discussion of, 114 n. 145 Damasquère (in La proie et l’ombre), xxxiv–xxxvi, xxxiv n. 135, xxxvii, xxxix, 9 n. 19, 18 nn. 39–40; artistic aspirations of, 26; Velázquez and, 18 nn. 39–40 (see also Carolus-Duran) Degas, Edgar, xxi, 89 n. 119; acceptance at Salon, 128 n. 152; at Café Guerbois, xxvii n. 32, 16 n. 35, 20 n. 42, 89 n. 119 Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Manet), xxxviii, 142 n. 165 Delacroix, Eugène, xxiv n. 83, xxxv; as raté, xxii n. 71 Dinah Samuel (Champsaur), xxi, xxi n. 61 Doré, Gustave, 191 n. 187 Doria, Arman (Count), 27 n. 60 Duhamel, Caroline (in La proie et l’ombre), xvi–xvii, xxix–xxxiii, xxxix–xl; Lantier’s mistress Christine modeled on, 3 n. 9, 15 n. 34 Durand-Ruel, Paul, xxiv n. 83, 119 n. 14 Duranty, Edmond, xiv n. 15; xxiii–xxiv, xxx, 4 n. 12; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35, 17 n. 37, 19 n. 42; on Cézanne, 87 n. 116 Duret, Théodore, at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35, 20 n. 42, 112 n. 137 Ecole des Batignolles (in La proie et l’ombre), xv, 9 n. 20 Ecole des Beaux-Arts, xvii, 4 nn. 10–11, 20 n. 47, 91 n. 123 Ecorché (Houdon), 32 n. 68 Emperaire, Achille, 27 n. 59, 31 n. 65 Evariste Plauchu (Roux), xxii n. 66, 42 n. 74, 52 n. 87 L’événement illustré (newspaper), 82 n. 110 Fontainebleau, xxix–xxx, 1 n. 1, 2 n. 6, 9 nn. 18–19, 11 nn. 23–25 Fantin-Latour, Henri: at Café Guerbois, xvii n. 32, 16 n. 35, 19 n. 42; Salon des refuses and, 52 n. 87 “Une farce” (Zola), 2 n. 6 Faure, Jean-Baptiste, xxxv n. 141, 119 n. 148 Fiquet, Hortense, xvi n. 19 Flaubert, Gustave, xi, xviii n. 52, xii n. 8 Fortini (in La proie et l’ombre), xxxv (see also Faure, Jean-Baptiste) Frenhofer, Cézanne and, xxii n. 70, 27 n. 59; as raté, xx Gachet, Paul, 27 n. 60, 92 n. 126; at Café Guerbois, xxvii n. 32

Galba, Servius Suplicius, 31 n. 67 Gasquet, Joachim, 3 n. 9, 5 n. 13, 13 n. 28, 27 n. 59, 82 n. 109 Gérôme, Jean-Léon, 20 n. 47, 171 n. 18 Gigoux, Mère, landlady of Marlotte inn modeled on, 8 n. 17 Gloton, Cézanne’s visit to, 3 n. 6, 8 n. 17 Godet, Père (in La proie et l’ombre), xxxv, xxxv n. 142, xxxvi, 17 n. 38 (see also Solari) Grave imprudence (Burty), xx n. 59, xxi, xxx Le grognon proveçal: journal satirique mais honnête homme (journal), 137 n. 161 Guillaumin, Armand, xiv n. 15, xxxi, xl n. 173, 13 n. 27; at Académie Suisse, 31 n. 65; at Pontoise, 128 n. 151 Guillemet, Antoine, 2 n. 6, 20 n. 47, 27 n. 60, 52 n. 87; at Académie Suisse, 31 n. 65; art theory of, 50 n. 83; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35; on Cézanne, 90 n. 121 Histoire de la peinture en Italie (Stendhal): Cézanne’s interest in, 114 n. 145; “daring,” “strength,” “temperament” in, 114 n. 145, 158 n. 174 Hoschedé, Alice: Monet’s affair with, 22 n. 52 Hoschedé, Ernst, sales of works belonging to, 119 n. 146 Hôtel Drouot, paintings sold through, xxxv–xxxvi, xxxv n. 139, 119 n. 146 Huysmans, Joris-Karl, xi, xx, 201–2 Illusions perdues (Balzac), xliii n. 181 Impressionists: at Café Guerbois, xv, xvii n. 32, 16 n. 35, 51 n. 84; color-patch vision of, 20 n. 48; exhibitions of, 89 n. 119, 137 n. 161; as fictional subject matter, xx–xxi; first exhibition of, 51 n. 84, 81 n. 107; Franco-Prussian War participation by, 6 n. 15; Hôtel Drouot sales of paintings by, xxxv– xxxvi, 119 n. 146; as “intentionnistes,” 178 n. 184; as “intransigents,” 53 n. 89; modern aesthetics of, 22 n. 53; origins of name, 52 n. 88; pigments used by, 92 n. 124; Salon and, xxxviii–xli, 52 n. 87; theorizing of, 20 n. 45 L’impressionniste (journal), 137 n. 160 Institut de France, 14 n. 29, 20 n. 47, 21 n. 49; Academies as part of, 132 n. 155 Japonism (in La proie et l’ombre), 1 n. 2, 18 n. 40, 40 n. 72, 80 n. 105 Jas de Bouffan, xx n. 60 La Fontaine, Jean de, x, xi n. 1–2, xvi; Cézanne’s interest in, xviii n. 50; La proie et l’ombre and, xix, xxvii–xxviii La lanterne (journal), xliv Lantier, Claude (in L’oeuvre), xiii, xvi n. 22, xxxi n. 114, 3 n. 6, 4. n. 12; art theory of, 20 n. 45; “doubt” of, 26 n. 57; “impotence” of, 26 n. 57; quais painted by, 13 n. 27; as raté, xxiii La Tour d’Aigues, 3 n. 8 Légion d’honneur, 21 nn. 49–50, 52 n. 87; Cézanne’s aspiration to, 13 n. 28 Lepic, Vicomte, 89 n. 119 Leroy, Louis, 52 n. 88

index

Lespignac, César (in La proie et l’ombre), xxxiv n. 135, xxxviii–xxxix, xl–xliii, xl n. 171, 18 n. 40, 19 n. 42; art dealings by, xxv, 178 n. 183; “impression” of, 54 n. 88; musical talents of, 40 n. 70; poetry of, xvl n. 171, 26 n. 58; Shakespeare and, 1 n. 3, 20; subterfuges of, xxxiv–xxxvi (see also Astruc) “Lettres parisiens” (Zola), 18 n. 39 La libre pensée (journal), xiv n. 14 Lot et ses filles (Cézanne), xxxviii Lukács, Georg, xxvi–xxvii Mahoudeau (in L’oeuvre), 17 n. 38, 81 nn. 108–9 La maison du pendu (Cézanne), 27 n. 60 Mallarmé, Stéphane, xi, xvii n. 43, xx; at Café Guerbois, 9 n. 20; Impressionist exhibitions and, 51 n. 84; letter to Roux, 204 Manet, Edouard, xxxviii, 1 n. 2, 20 n. 48; acceptance at Salon, 128 n. 152; Impressionist exhibitions and, 51 n. 84; modernist aesthetics of, 22 n. 53; Salon des Refusés and, 52 n. 87; status among contemporaries of, 142 n. 165; Zola’s discussion of, 114 n. 145 Manette Salomon (Goncourt), xxi, xxii, xliii; Cézanne’s interest in, 77 n. 83; painting sales described in, 119 n. 146; La proie et l’ombre modeled on, 10 n. 18, 21 n. 62, 70 n. 101, 93 n. 128, 119 n. 146, 204; Stendhal paraphrased in, 114 n. 145 Marion, Fortuné, xxiii–xxiv, xiv n. 15, xxiii, 90 n. 121 Marion et Valabrègue partant pour le motif (Cézanne), 26 n. 58 Marlotte, xxviii n 101, xxix, 1 n. 1, 3 n. 4, 8 n. 17 Martin, Pierre-Firmin, xxxviI, xxxvii n. 150; contact with Cézanne, 27 n. 60 Marx, Karl, x, xi n. 2; on money, xxvii n. 90; “phantasmagoria,” xix, xxviii, xxxi, xxxii n. 122 Mazouillet, Amédée (in La proie et l’ombre), xxix, xxxvi–xxxvii, xxxix, 21–22 Mazouillet, Ernestine (in La proie et l’ombre), xvii– xviii, xxxvi–xxxvii, xlii-xliii, 21–22, 22 n. 52 Mémorial d’Aix (newspaper), xii n. 4, xxix, 46 n. 78 Meissionier, Ernst, 21 n. 50 Mirbeau, Octave, 13 n. 28 Mistral, Frédéric, xi Une moderne Olympia (Cézanne), 92 n. 126 Mona Lisa (Leonardo), 30 n. 63 Le monde pour rire, xxv Monet, Claude, xxxviii; at Académie Suisse, 31 n. 65; affair with Alice Hoschedé, 22 n. 52; color-patch theory of, 20 n. 48; at Fontainebleau, 1 n. 1 money: effect on perception of color of, xxxii n. 122; fetishization of, xxvii–xxviii; as theme in La proie et l’ombre, xxiv–xv, xxvi–xxviii Mon salon (Zola), 20 n. 48, 114 n. 145, 130 n. 156; antijury position of, 52 n. 87; “temperament” in, 50 n. 83, 115 n. 145, 130 n. 156 Morstatt, Heinrich, xxiii Mortier, Arnold, 4 n. 12 Les mystères de Marseille (Zola), xiv n. 14 Nègre endormi (Solari), 82 nn. 109–10 Le nègre Scipion (Cézanne), 82 n. 109 Nieuwerkerke, Comte de, 133 n. 158

// 215

L’oeuvre (Zola): Académie Suisse portrayed in, 31 n. 65; art theory discussed in, 20 n. 45; Café Guerbois portrayed in, xvii n. 32, 17 n. 37; Cézanne’s response to, xx n. 53; Lantier’s reputation in, 49 n. 80; Manette Salomon and, xxi n. 62; La proie et l’ombre and, xiii, xvi n. 22, xxii; quai imagery in, xxxi n. 114; as roman à clef, xxii Opéra-Comique, 195 n. 189 Palais de l’industrie, 4 n. 12 La partie de pêche (Cézanne), 112 n. 137 “Le peintre Marsabiel,” (Duranty) xxiii–xxvi, xxiii n. 74, xxiv n. 79, xxx, 27 n. 59; “temperament” in, xxiv n. 79 Petit, Georges, xxiv n. 83 Petit journal, Roux and, xi, xi n. 4, xv n. 17 Petits poèmes parisiens (Valabrègue), 26 n. 58 Phaedrus, xix Philosopie de l’art (Taine), “temperament” in, 113 n. 140 Pissarro, Camille, xiv n. 15, xx n. 60, xliv; at Académie Suisse, 31 n. 65; acceptance at Salon, 128 n. 152; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35; Cézanne and, 9 n. 20; at Fontainebleau, 1 n. 1, 2 n. 6; Martin’s dealings with, 27 n. 60; at Pontoise, 127 n. 151; Salon des Refusés and, 52 n. 87; L’Union and, 51 n. 86 La poche des autres (Roux), 9 n. 20 portrait-charge: of Cézanne, xxiv; of Roux, xxv Portrait de Chailhan, marchand forain (Cézanne), 119 n. 146 Portrait d’Achille Emperaire, xxiv, 27 n. 59 Portrait de l’artiste (Cézanne), xiv Portrait de Victor Chocquet, 92 n. 126 Portrait d’Antony Valabrègue (Cézanne), 158 n. 174 Prix de Rome, 5 n. 10, 21 n. 49, 92 n. 123, 141 n. 164, 171 n. 181 La proie et l’ombre (Roux): Boissin review of, xxi n. 62; Cézanne’s response to, xx–xxviii, 205; Huysmans’ review of, xi, 201–2; Le rappel review of, xi, xx, 203; Mallarmé’s letter to Roux on, xii, xvii n. 43, 204; obscurity of, xi; Occitan vocabulary in, 61 n. 95, 62 n. 97, 70 n. 102, 137 n. 161, 152 n. 169; Manette Salomon and, xxi n. 62, L’oeuvre modeled on, xiii, xv n. 22, xxii; obscurity of, xi, xii n. 3; as roman à clef, xx–xxviii; translation notes on, 15 n. 32, 94 n. 129, 131 n. 153, 146 n. 166, 155 n. 170, 178 n. 185 Quai de Bercy (Cézanne), xxxi, 13 n. 27 quai motif, xxx–xxxi, xxxi n. 115, 13 n. 27 Rambert, Germain (in La proie et l’ombre), xiv–xix, xvi n. 24, xvii nn. 28, 40; affair with Ernestine Mazouillet, 22; alienation of creativity of, xxviixxix; allowance from father, 84 n. 112; Claude Lantier modeled on, 2 n. 6, 13 n. 27; color sensitivity of, xxxi–xxxiii, 55 n. 90; “doubt” of, xvii n. 39, xxxiv n. 134, 90 n. 121; “impotence” of, xvi n. 39, 26 n. 57; “impression” of, xxviii n. 102, xxix, 2 n. 3; money obsession of, xxvi–xxxiii; Paris studios of, xvii n. 28; portrait by, 147, 159; quais painted by, 13 n. 27; Salon and, xxviii, xxxiii, xxxix-

216 //

index

xli, 112 n. 139; “strength,” aesthetic of, xvi, xxxiv, xxxvi, 27 n. 59, 93 n. 127, 114 n. 145; “temperament,” aesthetic of, xvi, xvii n. 38, 50 n. 83, 93 n. 127, 112 n. 139, 114 n. 145 (see also Cézanne) Rambert, Philippe (in La proie et l’ombre), xvii, xvii n. 42, xlii Rambert, Père (in La proie et l’ombre), xiv–xv, xvi n. 2; xvii n. 28, xviii; Germain’s relationship with, 24 n. 55 (see also Cézanne, Louis-Auguste) Le rappel (journal), xi, xx, 203 La réligion laïque (journal), xliv Renoir, August, xx n. 59; xxi, acceptance at Salon, 128 n. 152; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35, 19 n. 42; École des Batignolles and, 9 n. 20; at Fontainebleau, 1 n. 1, 8 n. 17; Salon des Refusés and, 52 n. 87 Restaurant Bruno (in La proie et l’ombre), xv–xvi, xxxix, 9 n. 20, 16 n. 35; Salon and Academic art criticized at, xxvii-xxix, 11 n. 26 (see also Café Guerbois) Restaurant de Père Lathuile, 17 n. 36 Rivière, Georges, 16 n. 35, 137 n. 160 “La rivière” (Zola), 2 n. 6 Roux, Marius: Aix-en-Provence, Roux’s life in and references to, xi–xii, xiii nn. 11,13, xiv n. 14, xv n. 18, xlii, 151 n. 168; bibliography of works at, xi, xii n. 4; biographies of, xi, xii n. 5; at Café Guerbois, 9 n. 20; Cézanne and, xii–xiii, xv, xv nn. 17–19; criticism of Cézanne by, xii, xvi n. 20; Zola and, xii, xiv nn. 14–16 Salon de 1847 (Thoré), money, light and color in, xxxii n. 122 Salon (state-organized), xiii n. 11, xxiii–xxiv, xli, xli n. 172, 4 n. 12, 40 n. 71, 171 n. 181; Impressionists’ submissions to, xxxviii–xli, 128 n. 152; jury accession at, 52 n. 87; medals awarded by, 3 n. 7; organization of paintings in, 134 n. 159 sensation, xxix-xxx, xxxii–xxxiii, xxxviii, 2 n. 3, 20 n. 48 Sensier, Albert, xxiv n. 83 Silvestre, Armand, xvii n. 32, 19 n. 42, 40 n. 71, 52 n. 88 Société Anonyme, 27 n. 60, 45 n. 77, 51 nn. 84, 86 Société d’Art Libre (in La proie et l’ombre), xxix, 45 n. 77, 51 n. 86 (see also Société Anonyme) Solari, Philippe, xiii n. 13, xiv n. 15, xxxv, 2 n. 6, 4 nn. 10, 12; at Académie Suisse, 31 n. 65; Godet modeled on, xxxv n. 142, 17 n. 38, 20 n. 46, 81 n. 108, 82 n. 109; Mahoudeau modeled on, 17 n. 38, 81 n. 108; Salon submissions of, 20 n. 46, 82 nn. 109–10 Stendhal (Henri Beyle), Cézanne and, xxxvi–xxxvii, 114 n. 145, 159 n. 174 Stock (caricaturist), xxiv, xxxviii, 114 n. 145 Substance and the Shadow, The (La Fontaine), x, xi n. 1, xvi “Un suicide” (Zola), 52 n. 87 Taine, Hippolyte, 20 n. 48, 113 n. 140 Tanguy, Julien (Père), 158 n. 173 Thoré, Théophile, xxxii L’Union, xl n. 173, 51 n. 86

Valabrègue, Antony, xiv n. 15–16, xv nn. 17–18, xxxiii n. 126, 2 n. 6, 18 n. 38, 19 n. 41; poetry of, 26 n. 58 Le ventre de Paris (Zola), 26 n. 58, 89 n. 118 Vizetelly, Ernest, xiii, 3 n. 9 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, xxii n. 65 Wolff, Albert, xvii n. 32, 119 n. 146 Zola, Alexandrine, xv n. 19 Zola, Emile, at Bennecourt, 1 n. 1, 2 n. 6; at Café Guerbois, 16 n. 35, 19 n. 42; Cézanne and, xv n. 17, xvi n. 20, xxii n. 68, xxiii, xxvi, 4 n. 12; gatherings at house of, xii, xiv n. 15; Roux’s association with, xi–xii, xiii nn. 11,13, xiv n. 14, xv n. 18, xvi n. 20, 168 n. 179 Zola, Émilie, xiii n. 13 Zurbarán, Francisco, xvi n. 20