Paris in the Twentieth Century Page 4

  Monsieur Stanislas Boutardin was the natural product of this age of industrial development; he had sprouted in a greenhouse, rather than among the elements; a practical man in every particular, he did nothing which was not of some utilitarian function, orienting his merest ideas to use, with an excessive craving to be useful, which turned into a truly ideal egotism, joining the useful to the disagreeable, as Horace might have said; his vanity was apparent in his words and even more in his gestures, and he would not have allowed his shadow to precede him; he expressed himself in grams and centimeters, and at all times carried a cane marked off in metrical divisions, which afforded him a wide knowledge of the things of this world; he utterly scorned the arts, and artists even more, though he was quite prepared to suggest that he knew such creatures; for him, painting stopped with a tinted drawing, and drawing with a diagram, sculpture with a plaster cast, music with the whistle of locomotives, and literature with stock market quotations.

  This man, raised in mechanics, accounted for life by gears and transmissions; he moved quite regularly, with the least possible friction, like a piston in a perfectly reamed cylinder; he transmitted his uniform movements to his wife, to his son, to his employees and his servants, all veritable tool machines, from which he, the motor force, derived the maximum possible profit.

  A base nature, in short, incapable of a good impulse, or, for that matter, of a bad one; he was neither wicked nor good, insignificant, often ill lubricated, noisy, horribly vulgar.

  He had made an enormous fortune, if such activity can be called making. The industrial impulse of the century impelled him; hence he showed a certain gratitude toward industry, which he worshiped as a goddess; he was the first to adopt, for his household, the spun-metal garments which first appeared around 1934. Such textiles, moreover, were as soft to the touch as cashmere, though scarcely of much warmth; but in winter, with a good lining, they sufficed; and when such everlasting garments happened to rust, they were simply filed down and repainted in the colors of the moment.

  The banker's social position was as follows: Director of the Catacomb Company of Paris and of the Driving Force in the Home.

  The enterprises of this company consisted in warehousing the air in those huge underground vaults so long unused; here it was stored under a pressure of forty to fifty atmospheres, a constant force which conduits led to the factories and mills, wherever a mechanical action became necessary. This compressed air served, as we have seen, to power the trains on the elevated railways of the boulevards. Eighteen hundred fifty-three windmills, constructed on the Plain of Montrouge, compressed the air by means of pumps within these enormous reservoirs.

  This conception, certainly a highly practical one which came down to the employment of natural forces, was readily anticipated by the banker Boutardin; he became the Director of this important company while remaining a member of fifteen or twenty supervisory boards, vice president of the Society of Tow Locomotives, administrative director of the Amalgamated Asphalt Agencies, et cetera, et cetera.

  Some forty years ago he had married Mademoiselle Athénaïs Dufrénoy, Michel's aunt; she was certainly the worthy and cantankerous companion of a banker—homely, stout, having all the qualities of a bookkeeper and a cashier, nothing of a woman; she was expert in double entry, and would had invented a triple version if need be; a true administratrix, the female of any and every administrator.

  Did she love Monsieur Boutardin, and was she loved by him in return? Yes, insofar as these businesslike hearts could love; a comparison will complete the portrait of the pair: she was the locomotive and he the engineer; he kept her in good condition, oiled and polished her, and thus she had rolled forward for a good half century, with about as much sense and imagination as a Crampton[6] Motor.

  Unnecessary to add that she never derailed.

  As for their son, multiply his mother by his father, and you have Athanase Boutardin for a coefficient, chief associate of the banking house Casmodage and Co., an agreeable boy who took after his father for high spirits, and after his mother for elegance. It was impossible to pass a witty remark in his presence; it seemed to miss him altogether, and his brows frowned over his vacant eyes. He had won the first banking prize in the grand competition. It might be said that he not only made money work but wore it out; he smelled of usury; he was planning to marry some dreadful creature whose dowry would energetically make up for her ugliness. At twenty, he already wore aluminum- framed spectacles. His narrow and deep-rutted mind impelled him to tease his clerks by touches of the whip. One of his tricks consisted of claiming his cashbox was empty, whereas it was stuffed with gold and notes. He was a wretched creature, without youth, without heart, without friends. Greatly admired by his father.

  Such was this family, this domestic trinity from which young Dufrénoy was seeking aid and protection. Monsieur Dufrénoy, Madame Boutardin's brother, had possessed all the sentimental delicacy and the sensitivity which in his sister were translated as asperities. This poor artist, a highly talented musician, born for a better age, succumbed in youth to his labors, bequeathing his son no more than his poetical tendencies, his aptitudes, and his aspirations.

  Michel knew he had an uncle somewhere, a certain Huguenin, whose name was never mentioned, one of those learned, modest, poor, resigned creatures who are the shame of opulent families. But Michel was forbidden to see him, and he had never even encountered him; hence there was no hope in that direction.

  The orphan's situation in the world was, therefore, nicely determined: on the one hand, an uncle incapable of coming to his aid, on the other, a family rich in those qualities which are readily coined, with just enough heart to send the blood through its arteries.

  There was not much here for which to thank Providence.

  The next day, Michel went downstairs to his uncle's office, a somber chamber if ever there was one, and papered with a serious material: here were gathered the banker, his wife, and his son. The occasion threatened to be a solemn one.

  Monsieur Boutardin, standing on the hearth, one hand in his vest and puffing out his chest, expressed himself in the following terms:

  "Monsieur, you are about to hear certain words which I must ask you to engrave upon your memory. Your father was an artist—a word which says it all. I should like to think that you have not inherited his unfortunate instincts. Yet I have discerned in you certain seeds which must be rooted out. You tend to flounder in the sands of the ideal, and hitherto the clearest result of your efforts has been this prize for Latin verses, which you so shamefully brought here yesterday. Let us reckon up the situation. You are without fortune, which is a blunder. Moreover, you have no parents. Now, I want no poets in my family, you must realize. I want none of those individuals who spit their rhymes in people's faces; you have a wealthy family—do not compromise us. Now, the artist is not far from the grimacing humbug to whom I toss a hundred sous from my box for him to entertain my digestion. You understand me. No talent. Capacities. Since I have observed no particular aptitude in you, I have decided that you must enter the Casmodage and Co. banking house, under the direction of your cousin; take him as your example. Work to become a practical man! Remember that a certain share of the blood of the Boutardins flows in your veins, and the better to recall my words, take heed never to forget them. "

  In 1960, as may be seen, the race of Prudhomme[7] was not yet extinct; the finest traditions had been preserved. What could Michel reply to such a diatribe? Nothing, hence he was silent, while his aunt and his cousin nodded their approval.

  "Your vacation, " the banker resumed, "begins this morning, and ends this evening. Tomorrow you shall be introduced to the head of Casmodage and Co. You may go. "

  The young man left his uncle's office, eyes filled with tears; yet he braced himself against despair. "I have no more than a single day of freedom, " he mused, "at least I shall spend it as I please; I have a little money, and it I shall spend on books beginning with the great poets and illustrious authors of the last
century. Each evening they will console me for the vexations of each day. "

  Chapter IV: Concerning Some Nineteenth-Century Authors, and the Difficulty of Obtaining Them

  Michel hurried out into the street and made for the Five Quarters Bookstore, an enormous warehouse on the Rue de la Paix, run by an important State official. "All the productions of the human mind must be here, " the young man reflected, as he entered a huge vestibule, in the center of which a telegraph bureau kept in touch with the remotest branch stores. A legion of employees kept rushing past, and counterweighted lifts, set into the walls, were raising the clerks to the upper shelves of the various rooms; there was a considerable crowd in front of the telegraph desk, and porters were struggling under their loads of books.

  Amazed, Michel vainly attempted to estimate the number of books that covered the walls from floor to ceiling, their rows vanishing among the endless galleries of this imperial establishment. "I'll never manage to read all this, " he thought, taking his place in line; at last he reached the window.

  "What is it you want, sir?" he was asked by the clerk in charge of requests.

  "I'd like the complete works of Victor Hugo, " Michel replied.

  The clerk's eyes widened. "Victor Hugo? What's he written?"

  "He's one of the great poets of the nineteenth century, actually the greatest, " the young man answered, blushing as he spoke.

  "Do you know anything about this?" the man at the desk asked a second clerk in charge of research.

  "Never heard of him, " came the answer. "You're sure that's the name?"

  "Absolutely sure. "

  "The thing is, " the clerk continued, "we rarely sell literary works here. But if you're sure of the name... Rhugo, Rhugo... " he murmured, tapping out the name.

  "Hugo, " Michel repeated. "And while you're at it, please ask for Balzac, Musset, Lamartine...

  "Scholars?"

  "No! They're authors. "

  "Living?"

  "They've been dead for over a century. "

  "Sir, we'll do all we can to help you, but I'm afraid our efforts will require some time, and even then I'm not sure..."

  "I'll wait, " Michel replied. And he stepped out of line into a corner, abashed. So all that fame had lasted less than a hundred years! Les Orientales, Les Méditations, La Comédie Humaine—forgotten, lost, unknown! Yet here were huge crates of books which giant steam cranes were unloading in the courtyards, and buyers were crowding around the purchase desk. But one of them was asking for Stress Theory in twenty volumes, another for an Abstract of Electric Problems, this one for A Practical Treatise for the Lubrication of Driveshafts, and that one for the latest Monograph on Cancer of the Brain.

  "How strange!" mused Michel. "All of science and industry here, just as at school, and nothing for art! I must sound like a madman, asking for literary works here—am I insane?" Michel lost himself in such reflections for a good hour; the searches continued, the telegraph operated uninterruptedly, and the names of "his" authors were confirmed; cellars and attics were ransacked, but in vain. He would have to give up.

  "Monsieur, " a clerk in charge of the Response Desk informed him, "we don't have any of this. No doubt these authors were obscure in their own period, and their works haven't been reprinted... "

  "There must have been at least half a million copies of Notre-Dame de Paris published in Hugo's lifetime, " Michel replied.

  "I believe you, sir, but the only old author reprinted nowadays is Paul de Kock[8], a moralist of the last century; it seems to be very nicely written, and if you'd like—"

  "I'll look elsewhere, " Michel answered.

  "Oh, you can comb the entire city. What you can't find here won't turn up anywhere else, I can promise you that!"

  "We'll see, " Michel said as he walked away.

  "But, sir, " the clerk persisted, worthy in his zeal of being a wine salesman, "might you be interested in any works of contemporary literature? We have some items here that have enjoyed a certain success in recent years—they haven't sold badly for poetry..."

  "Ah!" said Michel, tempted, "you have modern poems?"

  "Of course. For instance, Martillac's Electric Harmonies, which won a prize last year from the Academy of Sciences, and Monsieur de Pulfasse's Meditations on Oxygen; and we have the Poetic Parallelogram, and even the Decarbonated Odes..."

  Michel couldn't bear hearing another word and found himself outside again, stupefied and overcome.

  Not even this tiny amount of art had escaped the pernicious influence of the age! Science, Chemistry, Mechanics had invaded the realm of poetry! "And such things are read, " he murmured as he hurried through the streets, "perhaps even bought! And signed by the authors and placed on the shelves marked Literature. But not one copy of Balzac, not one work by Victor Hugo! Where can I find such things—where, if not the Library..."

  Almost running now, Michel made his way to the Imperial Library; its buildings, amazingly enlarged, now extended along a great part of the Rue de Richelieu from the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs to the Rue de la Bourse. The books, constantly accumulating, had burst through the walls of the old Hotel de Nevers. Each year fabulous quantities of scientific works were printed; there were not suppliers enough for the demand, and the State itself had turned publisher: the nine hundred volumes bequeathed by Charles V, multiplied a thousand times, would not have equaled the number now registered in the library; the eight hundred thousand volumes possessed in 1860 now reached over two million.

  Michel asked for the section of the buildings reserved for literature and followed the stairway through Hieroglyphics, which some workmen were restoring with shovels and pickaxes. Having reached the Hall of Letters, Michel found it deserted, and stranger today in its abandonment than when it had formerly been filled with studious throngs. A few foreigners still visited the place as if it were the Sahara, and were shown where an Arab died in 1875, at the same table he had occupied all his life.

  The formalities necessary to obtain a work were quite complicated; the borrower's form had to contain the book's title, format, publication date, edition number, and the author's name—in other words, unless one was already informed, one could not become so. At the bottom, spaces were left to indicate the borrower's age, address, profession, and purpose of research.

  Michel obeyed these regulations and handed his properly filled-out form to the librarian sleeping at his desk; following his example, the pages were snoring loudly on chairs set around the wall; their functions had become a sinecure as complete as those of the ushers at the Comédie-Française. The librarian, waking with a start, stared at the bold young man; he read the form and appeared to be stupefied at the request; after much deliberation, to Michel's alarm, he sent the latter to a subordinate official working near his own window, but at a separate little desk. Michel found himself facing a man of about seventy, bright-eyed and smiling, with the look of a scholar who believed he knew nothing. This modest clerk took Michel's form and read it attentively. "You want the authors of the nineteenth century, " he said. "That's quite an honor for them—it will allow us to dust them off. As we say here, Monsieur... Michel Dufrénoy?" At this name, the old man's head jerked up. "You are Michel Dufrénoy?" he exclaimed. "Of course you are, I hadn't really taken a look at you!"

  "You know me?"

  "Do I know you!" The old man could not go on; overpowering emotion was evident on his kindly countenance; he held out his hand, and Michel, trustingly, shook it with great affection. "I am your uncle, " the librarian finally stammered out, "your old Uncle Huguenin, your poor mother's brother. "

  "You are my uncle!" Michel exclaimed, deeply moved.

  "You don't know me, but I know you, my boy. I was there when you won your splendid prize for Latin Versification! My heart was pounding, and you never knew a thing about it. "

  "Uncle!"

  "It's not your fault, dear fellow, I know. I was standing in back, far away from you, so as not to get you into trouble with your aunt's family; but I hav
e been following your studies step by step, day by day! I used to tell myself: it's not possible that my sister's boy, the son of that great artist, has preserved none of those poetic instincts that so distinguished his father; nor was I mistaken, since here you are, asking me for our great French poets! Yes, my boy! I shall give them to you, we shall read them together! No one will trouble us here! No one bothers to keep an eye on us! Let me embrace you for the first time!"

  The old man clasped his nephew in his arms, and the boy felt himself restored to life in that embrace. It was the sweetest emotion of his life up to that very moment. "But, Uncle, " he asked, "how have you found out what was happening to me all during my childhood?"

  "Dear boy, I have a friend who is very fond of you, your old Professor Richelot, and through him I learned that you were one of us! I saw you at work; I read the theme you wrote in Latin verse—a difficult subject to handle, certainly, because of the proper names: Marshal Pélissier on the Malacoff Tower. But that's how it goes, they're always about old historical subjects, and, my word, you managed it very nicely!"

  "Not really!"

  "Oh yes, " the old scholar continued, "you made two strong beats and two weak ones for Pelissierus, one strong and two weaks for Malacoff, and you were right: you know, I still remember those two fine lines: