Julian Barnes - Flaubert's Parrot

Should we jump to conclusions? Frankly, this is the kind of boastful, nudging stuff that Flaubert was always writing to his male friends. I find it unconvincing myself: true desire isn’t so easily diverted into metaphor. But then, all biographers secretly want to annex and channel the sex-lives of their subjects; you must make your judgment on me as well as on Flaubert.

Had Ed really discovered some Juliet Herbert material? I admit I began feeling possessive in advance. I imagined myself presenting it in one of the more important literary journals; perhaps I might let the TLS have it. ‘Juliet Herbert: A Mystery Solved, by Geoffrey Braithwaite’, illustrated with one of those photographs in which you can’t quite read the handwriting. I also began to worry at the thought of Ed blurting out his discovery on campus and guilelessly yielding up his cache to some ambitious Gallicist with an astronaut’s haircut.

But these were unworthy and, I hope, untypical feelings. Mostly, I was thrilled at the idea of discovering the secret of Gustave and Juliet’s relationship (what else could the word ‘fascinating’ mean in Ed’s letter?). I was also thrilled that the material might help me imagine even more exactly what Flaubert was like. The net was being pulled tighter. Would we find out, for instance, how the writer behaved in London?

This was of particular interest. Cultural exchange between England and France in the nineteenth century was at best pragmatic. French writers didn’t cross the Channel to discuss aesthetics with their English counterparts; they were either running from prosecution or looking for a job. Hugo and Zola came over as exiles; Verlaine and Mallarmé came over as schoolmasters. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, chronically poor yet crazily practical, came over in search of an heiress. A Parisian marriage-broker had kitted him out for the expedition with a fur overcoat, a repeating alarm watch and a new set of false teeth, all to be paid for when the writer landed the heiress’s dowry. But Villiers, tirelessly accident-prone, botched the wooing. The heiress rejected him, the broker turned up to reclaim the coat and watch, and the discarded suitor was left adrift in London, full of teeth but penniless.

So what of Flaubert? We know little about his four trips to England. We know that the Great Exhibition of 1851 secured his unexpected approval – ‘a very fine thing, despite being admired by everyone’ – but his notes on this first visit amount to a mere seven pages: two on the British Museum, plus five on the Chinese and Indian sections at Crystal Palace. What were his first impressions of us? He must have told Juliet. Did we live up to our entries in his Dictionnaire des idées reçues (ENGLISHMEN: All rich , ENGLISHWOMEN: Express surprise that they produce pretty children )?

And what of subsequent visits, when he had become author of the notorious Madame Bovary ? Did he search out English writers? Did he search out English brothels? Did he cosily stay at home with Juliet, staring at her over dinner and then storming her fortress? Were they perhaps (I half-hoped so) merely friends? Was Flaubert’s English as hit-or-miss as it seems from his letters? Did he talk only Shakespearean? And did he complain much about the fog?

When I met Ed at the restaurant, he was looking even less successful than before. He told me about budget cuts, a cruel world, and his own lack of publications. I deduced, rather than heard, that he had been sacked. He explained the irony of his dismissal: it sprang from his devotion to his work, his unwillingness to do Gosse anything less than justice when presenting him to the world. Academic superiors had suggested that he cut corners. Well, he wouldn’t do so. He respected writing and writers too much for that. ‘I mean, don’t we owe these fellers something in return?’ he concluded.

Perhaps I offered slightly less than the expected sympathy. But then, can you alter the way luck flows? Just for once, it was flowing for me. I had ordered my dinner quickly, scarcely caring what I ate; Ed had pondered the menu as if he were Verlaine being bought his first square meal in months. Listening to Ed’s tedious lament for himself and watching him slowly consume whitebait at the same time had used up my patience; though it had not diminished my excitement.

‘Right,’ I said, as we started our main course, ‘Juliet Herbert.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘yes.’ I could see he might need prodding. ‘It’s an odd story.’

‘It would be.’

‘Yes.’ Ed seemed a little pained, almost embarrassed. ‘Well, I was over here about six months ago, tracking down one of Mr Gosse’s distant descendants. Not that I expected to find anything. It was just that, as far as I knew, nobody had ever talked to the lady in question, and I thought it was my… duty to see her. Perhaps some family legend I hadn’t accounted for had come down to her.’

‘And?’

‘And? Oh, it hadn’t. No, she wasn’t really of any help. It was a nice day, though. Kent.’ He looked pained again; he seemed to miss the mackintosh which the waiter had ruthlessly deprived him of. ‘Ah, but I see what you mean. What had come down to her was the letters. Now let me get this right; you’ll correct me, I hope. Juliet Herbert died 1909 or so? Yes. She had a cousin, woman cousin. Yes. Now, this woman found the letters and took them to Mr Gosse, asked him his opinion of their value. Mr Gosse thought he was being touched for money, so he said they were interesting but not worth anything. Whereupon this cousin apparently just handed them over to him and said, If they’re not worth anything, you take them. Which he did.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘There was a letter attached in Mr Gosse’s hand.’

‘And so?’

‘And so they came down to this lady. Kent. I’m afraid she asked me the same question. Were they worth anything? I regret I behaved in a rather immoral fashion. I told her they had been valuable when Gosse had examined them, but they weren’t any more. I said they were still quite interesting, but they weren’t worth much because half of them were written in French. Then I bought them off her for fifty pounds.’

‘Good God.’ No wonder he looked shifty.

‘Yes, it was rather bad, wasn’t it? I can’t really excuse myself; though the fact that Mr Gosse himself had lied when obtaining them did seem to blur the issue. It raises an interesting ethical point, don’t you think? The fact is, I was rather depressed at losing my job, and I thought I’d take them home and sell them and then be able to carry on with my book.’

‘How many letters are there?’

‘About seventy-five. Three dozen or so on each side. That’s how we settled on the price – a pound apiece for the ones in English, fifty pence for the ones in French.’

‘Good God.’ I wondered what they might be worth. Perhaps a thousand times what he paid for them. Or more.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, go on, tell me about them.’

‘Ah.’ He paused, and gave me a look which might have been roguish if he hadn’t been such a meek, pedantic fellow. Probably he was enjoying my excitement. ‘Well, fire away. What do you want to know?’

‘You have read them?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And, and…’ I didn’t know what to ask. Ed was definitely enjoying this now. ‘And – did they have an affair? They did, didn’t they?’

‘Oh yes, certainly.’

‘And when did it start? Soon after she got to Croisset?’

‘Oh yes, quite soon.’

Well, that unravelled the letter to Bouilhet: Flaubert was playing the tease, pretending he had just as much, or just as little, chance as his friend with the governess; whereas in fact…

‘And it continued all the time she was there?’