TWO NOVELS BY LEON BLOY
We are presented to the crapulous Chapuis, Clotilde's step-father,
and
to
Clotilde's mother. They have had money and lost it. Chapuis
drinks and makes advances to his step-daughter, whose mother adores
him. Clotilde herself has on one occasion succumbed to a young
man's importunities, out of boredom and curiosity. She is now thirty,
of pure life, and as deeply possessed of a religious "secret" as the
heroine of Bernanos'
La ]oie.
Alas, this solidly created atmosphere
is quickly dispelled by one of Bloy's obsessions.
Chapuis finds Clotilde work as an artist's model and sends her
to the jovial, Rabelaisian Pelopidas Gacougnol who turns out to be
a sheep
in
wolf's clothing. That Clotilde would have disliked undress–
ing
in order to pose for an artist is likely enough. Unfortunately,
Bloy not only approves of her scruples but maintains them in person
with such vehemence that he is reduced in the end to saying that to
pose nude is worse than prostitution. This lengthy digression
is
the
book's chief flaw, for it
is
not even particularly interesting in itself.
Omit it, and the story -continues to evolve realistically for another
twenty or thirty pages. Gacougnol is engaged in an argument when
Clotilde arrives. He tells her briefly to undress and continues his
argument. When his visitor has gone to the .accompaniment of
shouting and recrimination, Clotilde is heard sobbing behind
the screen. She is on her knees, having removed but one piece of
clothing. Gacougnol is at once sympathetic, decides that he can use
his model clothed as a Christian martyr in the arena and takes
her off to the Jardin des Plantes to sketch lions. Here they meet
Marchenoir, and the day peters out in conversation.
There is one more good realistic scene when Clotilde's mother
comes round in tears to blackmail Gacougnol, who has bestowed
Clotilde
in
lodgings of her own. From this point,
The Woman Who
Was Poor
ceases to be a novel and becomes a
recit
(using the distinc–
tion as it is made by Ramon Fernandez) in which the narrative is
but a vehicle for the presentation of Bloy's dominant theme, holy
and persecuted poverty. Yet having dragged his characters through
every kind of accepted misfortune, Bloy concludes by saying in the
person of Clotilde,
"ll n'y a qu'une tristesse
...
c'est de
N'ETRE PAS
DES
SAINTS,"
and indeed a little earlier Clotilde has said,
((Tout
ce qui arrive est adorable."
185
