562
PARTISAN REVIEW
person who brings with her (apart from her money) inestimable so–
cial advantages." After this, one can't feel surprised that Mme. de
Mortsauf in
Le Lys dans La VaLlee,
his superlative ideal woman, his
"angel," writing from her deathbed to Felix de Vandenesse, whom
she loves both amorously and maternally, a letter so enshrined
in
his
memory that years later he will say of it:
"This was the heavenly
voice that suddenLy spoke out of the siLence of night, this was the
subLime figulfe that arose to show me the true path,"
should give
him good advice as to how to get on in the world. To get on in
the world virtuously and in a Christian spirit; for Balzac knew he
ought to paint a saintly figure, but he could not conceive how social
success should not be the goal of all goals, even in the eyes of a
saint. And when he enlarges to his sister and his nieces on the bene–
fits to be drawn from close acquaintance with such a wonderful be–
ing as the woman he loved, that
summum bonum
she might impart
to them is to be found in a particular aristocratic deportment that
knows how to indicate and preserve the distinctions due to age, rank,
etc., with some theater tickets thrown in: "a box at the
[taLiens,
and
the
Opera,
and the
Opera-Comique."
And Rastignac, when he falls
in love with his aunt, Mme. de Beauseant, confides in her quite seri–
ously, "You could do a lot for me." Mme. de Beauseant shows no
surprise at this, and smiles.
I say nothing of the vulgarity of his language.
It
was so in–
herent that it even contaminated his verbal resources and made him
use expressions that would jar in the most careless conversation.
QuinoLa's Expedients
he first intended to call
QuinoLa's Dodges.
"His hair stood up on end" is how he paints d'Arthez's astonishment.
To a worldly-wise reader these expressions sometimes seem primed
with deep social observation: "Vandenesse's earlier loves, Mme. d'Es–
pard, Mme. de Manerville, Lady Dudley and others of less note, felt
serpents stirring in the depths of their hearts; they envied Felix's
happiness; gladly would they have given
their prettiest sLippers
to
see some misfortune befall him." And whenever he tries to hide this
vulgarity, he develops a vulgarian's refinement, like those mawkish
attitudes, those fingers affectedly propping the brow, which frightful
stock-jobbers put on when they go for carriage rides in the Bois. So
he says, "Dear lady," or rather,
"cara," "addio"
for good-by, etc.
You have sometimes thought Flaubert vulgar in the light of
some of his collected letters. But at least there is no vulgarity
in
