Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot

12 That he was beastly to women .

Women loved him. He enjoyed their company; they enjoyed his; he was gallant, flirtatious; he went to bed with them. He just didn’t want to marry them. Is that a sin? Perhaps some of his sexual attitudes were pungently those of his time and his class; but who then in the nineteenth century shall escape whipping? He stood, at least, for honesty in sexual dealings: hence his preference for the prostitute over the grisette . Such honesty brought him more trouble than hypocrisy would have done – with Louise Colet, for instance. When he told her the truth it sounded like cruelty. But she was a pest, wasn’t she? (Let me answer my own question. I think she was a pest; she sounds like a pest; though admittedly we hear only Gustave’s side of the story. Perhaps someone should write her account: yes, why not reconstruct Louise Colet’s Version? I might do that. Yes, I will.)

If I may say so, a lot of your charges could probably be reclassified under a single heading: That he wouldn’t have liked us if he’d known us . To which he might be inclined to plead guilty; if only to see the expression on our face.

13 That he believed in Beauty .

I think I’ve got something lodged in my ear. Probably a bit of wax. Just give me a moment to grip my nose and blow out through my eardrums.

14 That he was obsessed with style .

You are babbling. Do you still think the novel divides, like Gaul, into three parts – the Idea, the Form and the Style? If so, you are taking your own first tremulous steps into fiction. You want some maxims for writing? Very well. Form isn’t an overcoat flung over the flesh of thought (that old comparison, old in Flaubert’s day); it’s the flesh of thought itself. You can no more imagine an Idea without a Form than a Form without an Idea. Everything in art depends on execution: the story of a louse can be as beautiful as the story of Alexander. You must write according to your feelings, be sure those feelings are true, and let everything else go hang. When a line is good, it ceases to belong to any school. A line of prose must be as immutable as a line of poetry. If you happen to write well, you are accused of lacking ideas.

All these maxims are by Flaubert, except for the one by Bouilhet.

15 That he didn’t believe Art had a social purpose .

No, he didn’t. This is wearying. ‘You provide desolation,’ wrote George Sand, ‘and I provide consolation.’ To which Flaubert replied, ‘I cannot change my eyes.’ The work of art is a pyramid which stands in the desert, uselessly: jackals piss at the base of it, and bourgeois clamber to the top of it; continue this comparison. Do you want art to be a healer? Send for the AMBULANCE GEORGE SAND. Do you want art to tell the truth? Send for the AMBULANCE FLAUBERT: though don’t be surprised, when it arrives, if it runs over your leg. Listen to Auden: ‘Poetry makes nothing happen.’ Do not imagine that Art is something which is designed to give gentle uplift and self-confidence. Art is not a brassière . At least, not in the English sense. But do not forget that brassière is the French for life-jacket.

Now hear my story. I insist. Look, take my arm, like that, and let’s just walk. I have tales to tell; you will like them. We’ll follow the quai, and cross that bridge – no, the second one – and perhaps we could take a cognac somewhere, and wait until the gas-lamps dim, and then walk back. Come, you’re surely not frightened of me? So why that look? You think I am a dangerous woman? Well, that’s a form of flattery – I accept the compliment. Or perhaps… perhaps it’s what I might have to say that you’re frightened of? Aha… well, it’s too late now. You have taken my arm; you cannot drop it. After all, I am older than you. It is your job to protect me.

I have no interest in slander. Slip your fingers down my forearm, if you want to; yes, there, now feel the pulse. I am not vengeful tonight. Some friends say, Louise, you must answer fire with fire, lie with he. But I do not wish to. Of course I have lied in my time; I have – what is that word your sex favours? – I have schemed. But women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance. You don’t agree? I only speak from observation; yours may be different, I grant. But you see how calm I am? I am calm because I feel strong. And – what’s that? Perhaps, if I am strong, then I am scheming like a man? Come, let’s not be complicated.

I did not need Gustave to come into my life. Look at the facts. I was thirty-five, I was beautiful, I was… renowned. I had conquered first Aix, then Paris. I had won the Académie’s poetry prize twice. I had translated Shakespeare. Victor Hugo called me sister ; Béranger called me Muse . As for my private life: my husband was respected in his profession; my… protector was the most brilliant philosopher of his age. You haven’t read Victor Cousin? Then you should. A fascinating mind. The only man who truly understood Plato. A friend of your philosopher Mr Mill. And then, there was – or there was soon to be – Musset, Vigny, Champfleury. I do not boast of my conquests; I do not need to. But you see my point. I was the candle; he was the moth. The mistress of Socrates deigned to cast her smile on this unknown poet. I was his catch; he wasn’t mine.

We met at Pradier’s. I could see the banality of that; though of course he couldn’t. The sculptor’s studio, the free talk, the unclothed model, the mixture of demi-monde and three-quarter-monde. To me it was all familiar (why, only a few years before I’d danced there with a stiff-backed medical student by the name of Achille Flaubert). And, of course, I wasn’t present as a spectator; I was there to sit for Pradier. Whereas Gustave? I do not want to be harsh, but when I first set eyes on him I knew the type at once: the big, gangling provincial, so eager and relieved to find himself at last in artistic circles. I know how they talk, out in the provinces, with that mixture of fake self-confidence and real fear: ‘Go to Pradier’s, my boy, you’ll always find some little actress there to be your mistress, and grateful she’ll be too.’ And the boy in Toulouse or Poitiers or Bordeaux or Rouen, still secretly anxious about the long journey to the capital, feels his head filling up with snobbery and lust. I understood , you see, because I had been a provincial myself. I had made the journey from Aix a dozen years earlier. I had come a long way; and I could recognise the signs of travel in others.

Gustave was twenty-four. To my mind, age does not matter; love is what matters. I did not need to have Gustave in my life. If I had been looking for a lover – I admit my husband’s fortunes were not at their brightest, and my friendship with the Philosopher was a little turbulent at that time – then I should not have chosen Gustave. But I have no stomach for fat bankers. And besides, you do not look, you do not choose, do you? You are chosen; you are elected into love by a secret ballot against which there is no appeal.

I do not blush at the difference between our ages? Why should I? You men are so conformist in love, so provincial in imagination; that is why we have to flatter you, to prop you up with little lies. So: I was thirty-five, Gustave was twenty-four. I state it and pass on. Perhaps you do not want to pass on; in which case I shall answer your unspoken question. If you wish to examine the mental condition of the couple entering into such a liaison, then you do not need to look at mine. Examine Gustave’s. Why? I will give you a pair of dates. I was born in 1810, in September, the 15th day of the month. You remember Gustave’s Madame Schlesinger, the woman who first cicatrised his adolescent heart, the woman with whom everything was doomed and hopeless, the woman of whom he used to boast furtively, the woman for whose sake he had bricked up his heart (and you accuse our sex of vain romance?). Well, this Mme Schlesinger, I happen to know, was also born in 1810, and also in September. Eight days after me, to be precise, on the 23rd. You see?