[In the following essay, Hamilton examines the motif of game-playing and display of structural, thematic, and psychological tensions between spontaneity and calculation in Musset's On ne badine pas avec l'amour.]

Des ricochets! Ma tête s'égare; voilà mes idées qui se bouleversent. Vous me faites un rapport insensé, Bridaine. Il est inoui qu'un docteur fasse des ricochets.

(1, 5)¹

Our understanding of Musset's masterpiece on love has progressed from the study of parallels between the couples Perdican-Camille and Musset-George Sand to the examination of conflicting bipolarities, psychological and temporal.² To this approach must be added structural and ideological dimensions capable of elucidating the play's dramatic mechanism. Only then can motivation, time, and space be grasped as a dynamic whole. The generative principle of this expanded interpretation derives from the verb badiner in the title to Musset's tragi-comedy. The implied motif of jeu goes to the heart of Romantic drama, its psychology and metaphysics.³ The complementary image, ricochets, appears four times at the end of Act 1 and is metaphorized to convey the spontaneous breakdown of order. Stones are thrown by a university doctor and noble, Perdican, who courts a peasant girl, Rosette; and, village rascals follow them to the chateau, all to the horror of the Baron. In short, I contend that the images of ricochets and jeu reflect two contrary modes of behavior. The first—unreflective, spontaneous, and natural—characterizes Perdican's conduct up to the second fountain scene. Here, he joins Camille by operating on the basis of calculation, strategy, and artifice—the behavioral mode of jeu.

“Ricochet” explains repeated movement in the play. It occurs when Perdican's advances toward Camille are thwarted. His desires are deflected in the direction of Rosette where they dissolve in frustration. Then, he rebounds to Camille and the next “ricochet” takes effect. This dynamics is made apparent upon the reunion of Perdican and Camille. Rebuffed by his cousin who refuses a kiss and an invitation to take a walk, Perdican goes alone to the village. The unreflected quality of Perdican's “ricochet” from Camille to Rosette is illustrated by his trance-like state of mind the morning after his argument with Camille on religion: “Où vais-je donc?—Ah! je vais au village” (3, 1). The kiss intended for Camille is given to Rosette who is identified by the chorus: “C'est Rosette, la sœur de lait de votre cousine Camille” (1, 4). A few lines later, Perdican links the two women in his inquiry: “Ta sœur Camille est arrivée. L'as-tu vue?” Similarly, Perdican defends his kisses: “Quel mal y trouves-tu? Je t'embrasserais devant ta mère. N'es-tu pas la sœur de Camille? ne suis-je pas ton frère comme je suis le sien?” (2, 3). Perdican's confused images of the two women points to the level of rich psychological meaning in On ne badine pas avec l'amour.

Structurally, the “ricochet” effect is based upon the commonplace of a romantic triangle, but it establishes a trajectory whose terminal points constitute bipolarities. A confluence of meanings—temporal, spatial, psychological, and philosophic—is associated with each set of points. When traumatized by Camille's transformed personality and her concomitant rejection of him, Perdican is forced to redefine himself. Upon returning to his country estate after completion of doctoral studies in Paris, he appears to journey back into time in the search of enduring values.⁴ Perdican finds his emotional roots among the peasants of the village. There, in spite of his ten-year absence, he retrieves his ideal self in the eyes of those who, less corrupted and blinded by prejudice and social rank, see him both as child and man: “Que Dieu te bénisse enfant de nos entrailles! Chacun de nous voudrait te prendre dans ses bras; mais nous sommes vieux, monseigneur, et vous êtes un homme” (1, 4). Moreover, the peasants take joy in the reunion of a loved one, without regard to his legal status as inheritor, and liken his return to a rebirth: “Votre retour est un jour plus heureux que votre naissance. Il est plus doux de retrouver ce qu'on aime que d'embrasser un nouveau-né.”

Chateau and village, present and past, form a temporal-spatial network around which Perdican careens in his “ricochets” from Camille to Rosette. Foster sisters, playmates, beautiful young women, such images overlap in the troubled mind of Perdican. Rebounding from a cold, critical Camille, he finds not only Rosette but a reflection of his cousin in the past. However, on one occasion, the illusion becomes translucent to Perdican. He is moved by the reflection of his memories in Rosette, the village folk, and the setting, but he is also disconsolate because of their meaninglessness for Camille. The contrast strikes a painful emotional chord, and Perdican mourns the past, as Rosette naively observes: “Regardez donc, voilà une goutte de pluie qui me tombe sur la main, et cependant le ciel est pur” (2, 3). He begs Rosette's pardon, but she does not understand: “Que vous ai-je fait, pour que vous pleuriez?”. The fault is not hers but that of Perdican who seeks the impossible, the unification of the past and the present, the village and the chateau in the recaptured joy and innocence of childhood.

The bipolar structure of the plot has a parallel psychological component that provokes Perdican's “ricochets” and promotes game playing. He sees in himself a continuum from the past to the present, a child in the man. However, Maître Bridaine views him as a learned doctor; the Baron suspects him of seducing “les filles du village en faisant des ricochets”; Camille regards him as an experienced man of the world (1, 5). In confessing a number of love affairs and in rejecting the sanctity of marriage, Perdican gives evidence of a double identity. He is a libertine (philosopher-seducer) and a Romantic hero (lover-child). This principle of characterization, dédoublement, is manifested by oscillation and ambiguity and renders self-knowledge problematic.⁵ The same psychological principle motivates Camille. In addition to being a lover-child, she is a coquette (casuist-tease) in the tradition of Molière's Célimène but with a premature pruderie. Their double identities, libertine/lover and coquette/lover, expose the childlike qualities of Perdican and Camille and verify the extent to which, despite appearances, they are indeed cousins. At crucial moments in the conflict, each doubts not only the sincerity of the other but is unsure also of his own feelings. Because of this inherent instability, psychology in On ne badine pas avec l'amour cannot serve as a vantage point from which to elucidate its dramatic structure. The motifs of ricochets and jeu derive their meaning from the philosophic substance of the play.

Game playing and its preparatory stage of unreflected trajectory, i.e., ricochets, along the chateau-village circuit (in its spatial, temporal, and psychological dimensions) can hardly be understood without recourse to ideology in general and to Rousseauist doctrine in particular. Structural bipolarity in On ne badine pas avec l'amour corresponds to the ideological opposition between art and nature. Introduced at the opening of the play, it provides the philosophic touchstone upon which all successive actions are judged. The joint arrivals of Maître Blazius and Dame Pluche oppose corpulence, fresh wine, and good cheer to sterility, vinegar, and piety. This opposition of nature and anti-nature, reinforced by stylistic effects, evokes a positive and a negative reaction from the peasant chorus and is continued in the movements of Camille and Perdican. For example, after refusing to kiss Perdican, Camille turns her back to him and focuses on an object which encompasses her values—a portrait of a great aunt devout and never married: “Oh! oui, une sainte! c'est ma grand-tante Isabelle. Comme ce costume religieux lui va bien” (1, 2). In contrast, Perdican lingers before a pot of flowers which he appreciates solely for its beauty and scent and he subsequently waxes lyrical: “Voilà donc ma chère vallée! mes noyers, mes sentiers verts, ma petite fontaine” (1, 4). Not only are the cousins situated in the opposite worlds of nature and art, color symbolism places Rosette and Camille at opposite ends of affectivity. Rosette's name promises passion, fecundity, and spontaniety while Camille's name conveys cold purity, sterility, and contrivance.⁶

Bipolarity—structural, psychological, and philosophic—creates the tension necessary to dramatic conflict and opens the possibility of a reconciliation of opposites in the union of lovers. Steps in this direction are taken in a site where past and present, village and chateau, nature and art converge—“à la petite fontaine.” In the first fountain scene, Perdican remains on the “ricochet” projectory of uncalculated movement from chateau to village. Although Camille operates on the level of jeu (in the sense that her actions are premeditated, that she wears a mask and has set the stage), the outcome of their meeting still offers hope. Perdican reacts truthfully to her queries, and, in the heat of mutual anger but heartfelt emotions, she removes her mask to confess a fear of love and its sufferings. The nature principle seems to overcome art, interpreted as deceit and false piety, to promise liberation for her and the possibility of union. However, an event intervenes which removes Perdican from nature and makes him an actor with a mask. Intercepting a secret letter from Camille to Sister Louise, he learns that Camille's conduct had been prearranged so as to deceive him. Feeling victimized by her boasts of having driven him to despair, he promises himself revenge: “je n'ai pas le poignard dans le cœur, et je te le prouverai. Oui, tu sauras que j'en aime une autre avant de partir d'ici” (3, 2).

When pride prevails in Perdican's conduct, he leaves the unmeditated level of ricochets to compete with Camille on that of jeu. The second meeting at the fountain results in the profanation of nature that separates Perdican from the truest part of himself, l'enfance, the spiritual source of his being. From the Rousseauist perspective, pride leads to corruption—thought for the purpose of dominance—which makes Perdican liable to evil.⁷ Moreover, by imitating Camille's game-playing, he abandons the past, the village, and nature. Morally, Rosette is deserted to become an object of exploitation, the only unmasked and unconscious player of a game which is imposed without her consent.⁸ Structurally, the play's bipolar principle becomes so imbalanced in favor of art that any reconciliation of opposites is rendered highly improbable. Resolution of conflict through union would require a miracle.

Once the “game” is set into motion—triggered by fear and unconscious hostility—it escalates through reprisal, denial of aggression through repression, and further emergence in unforseen ways. This spiral of escalating psychological warfare eludes control to threaten the social peace of its community. Two questions emerge from this dilemma, a moral and a pragmatic one: who is at fault and how does one stop the “game”? The first question is broader than the more obvious one: who started the “game”? To this it suffices to reply that the social aspect of games requires that more than one person play. Although Camille is at fault in the first instance, her conduct adheres consistently to the bipolar principles of château and art. Moreover, her free will is severely circumscribed by the negativity of her convent experience. In contrast, Perdican reverses allegiance from nature to art through an apparently free decision, although provoked and made in anger. He defiles the fountain place of his childhood. Although the peasant chorus has nothing positive to say about Camille, its attitude toward Perdican changes from paternal warmth to distrust. The voice of village and nature, a veritable social conscience, sides with Rosette against Perdican who is portrayed no longer as a child returned as a man but as a libertine: “Hélas! la pauvre fille ne sait quel danger elle court en écoutant les discours d'un jeune et galant seigneur” (3, 4).

The theoretical question of culpability and the pragmatic one of stopping the “game” are closely associated. A series of critical moments occurs in the conflict and offers this possibility: Camille's momentary dropping of her mask with the ventilation of anger (“O Perdican! ne raillez pas, tout cela est triste à mourir”) which opportunity is thwarted by Perdican's rage (2, 5); the exposure of Perdican's duplicity to Rosette, hidden behind the tapestry, which is misused by Camille to belittle Perdican and to drive him into a marriage which neither wants: “Eh bien! apprends-le de moi, tu m'aimes, entends-tu; mais tu épouseras cette fille, ou tu n'es qu'un lâche!” (3, 6); the meeting of the three in the village where Rosette tries to withdraw by returning her necklace to Perdican. The gesture is accepted by a patronizing Camille but rebuffed by her proud cousin who walks off with Rosette. Shortly thereafter, Camille sends for Perdican but is unable to verbalize her feelings and she retreats: “Non, non—O Seigneur Dieu!” (3, 7). No clear picture of culpability emerges from these missed opportunities. The “game” is out of control.

The failure to stop the “game” serves to elucidate the character traits of Perdican and Camille, but psychoanalysis must yield to philosophy in explaining the improbability of their reconciliation. Three ways of bringing the “game” to a halt come to mind, and two of them apply to the play. They are “return to nature,” magnanimous self-sacrifice, and spiritual elevation. Musset adheres faithfully to the Rousseauist inspiration of his thought in On ne badine pas avec l'amour. At an abstract level, Perdican and Camille cannot return to the innocent happiness of childhood. They resemble the majority of people in the social state “dont les passions ont détruit pour toujours l'originelle simplicité.”⁹ In particular, his studies and love affairs in Paris and her indoctrination by forlorn women in the convent condemn the cousins to live in the social state where paraître, mask, vanity, and class consciousness prevail.

No synthesis is possible for Perdican between château and village, art and nature, present and past. Camille and Rosette can never become one woman. However, the social state does permit radical reversals in character and conduct. Through the Old Regime system of values propagated by Corneille, a noble person can demonstrate a generosity of such magnitude as to elicit a corresponding self-sacrifice of ego on the part of one's opponent, albeit a lover. Unfortunately, the nobility of Perdican and Camille remains on the level of orgueil rather than fierté. For example, in their argument on religion and love, Perdican warns Camille: “Tu es une orgueilleuse; prends garde à toi” (2, 5). Likewise, she charges him with pridefulness in the exposure of his lies to Rosette: “Je m'étais vantée de t'avoir inspiré quelque amour, de te laisser quelque regret. Cela t'a blessé dans ton noble orgueil?” (3, 6). Hence, their noble pride impedes their rising above roles in a childish but fatal game, a microcosm of a corrupt social state.

Since the bipolar world of Perdican does not offer resolution either through a “return to nature” or noble magnanimity, he has no recourse but withdrawal in despair or transcendence of the conflict through spiritual elevation. His communal confession in the chapel of the chateau removes the psychological obstacle to the union of adversaries. He rises above his role: “Orgueil, le plus fatal des conseillers humains, qu'es-tu venu faire entre cette fille et moi?” (3, 7). Tragic irony brings the libertine to his knees in prayer at the end of the play while the would-be nun finds herself unable to pray. The lie of her vocation is made manifest while Perdican's “sentiment de la nature” is shown to have a spiritual foundation, in true Rousseauist fashion. This revelation of truth exacts a price greater than the personal pain of humiliation. Instead of purging their pride through commitment in full responsibility for their actions, Perdican and Camille sacrifice a third party. Rosette witnesses their reconciliation and dies. Separated from village and nature through their game-playing, she is also cut off from the world of the château and art. Deprived of her place in life, she falls prey also to a fictitious temporality, Perdican's desire to unite past and present, and Camille's dissolution of the future through fear.

The question of culpability proceeds to the forefront. Camille is rendered silent before her god and returns to the convent. Her increasing isolation toward the end of the play foretells her fate, the regret of love lost and never enjoyed. At the same time, Perdican imagines blood on his hands. In a patriarchal society where young men are free to be educated and have experiences, while young women are protected, he bears the responsibility of opening up life to Camille with patient persuasion and sensitivity. Unfortunately, he forfeited the possibility of playing the role of preceptor-lover in the manner of Rousseau's Saint-Preux. He takes the initiative in their debate only to overpower Camille by his intellectual, secularized view of the world. The idealism of love (“mais il y a au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c'est l'union de ces êtres si imparfaits et si affreux”) is not made accessible to the young novice (2, 5). Perdican makes an ideological point and spurns his would-be student (“Adieu, Camille, retourne à ton couvent”) just when she starts to open up: “J'ai eu tort de parler; j'ai ma vie entière sur les lèvres.” Literary tradition has Perdican returning to a libertine life in Paris. However, having known love and with a guilt accentuated by an awakened spirituality, he seems destined to be lonely and misunderstood in the world.

The motif of game playing, of consciously assuming a role, culminates in Musset's Lorenzaccio and reflects the alienation of Romantic writers from post-revolutionary France.¹⁰ The play ends with confessions for sins wrought by “des enfants gâtés” and “deux enfants insensés,” an image used in his description of a lost generation, La Confession d'un enfant du siècle (1836). The pervasive guilt and sense of perdition at the ending to On ne badine pas avec l'amour would seem to reflect the cosmology of sin without redemption.¹¹ If institutions and sexual roles constitute secondary factors in social disharmony, its primary cause is found in a human nature made defective by pridefulness, a principle of social fragmentation and self-alienation. However, the images of jeu and ricochets reflect a dialectic beyond despair. Implicit in On ne badine pas avec l'amour and explicit in Musset's lyrical poetry, the cure for orgueil comes from a commitment to life through love and brave acceptance of suffering in-the-world without transcendence.¹² The interplay of pride and love as a closing and opening to life is set forth by Musset as a Romantic social pact in the final stanza of “La Nuit d'août” (1836):

Dépouille devant tous l'orgueil qui te dévore,
Cœur gonflé d'amertume et qui t'es cru fermé.
Aime, et tu renaîtras; fais-toi fleur pour éclore;
Après avoir souffert, il faut souffrir encore;
Il faut aimer sans cesse, après avoir aimé.

Notes

1. Musset, Théâtre I (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1964), p. 298. All quotations refer to this edition and are indicated by act and scene.

2. See David Sices, “Multiplicity and Integrity in On ne badine pas avec l'amour,” French Review, 43 (1969-70), 443-51, and Robert Lorris, “Le Côté de Perdican et le côté de Camille,” Australian Journal of French Studies, 8 (1971), 3-14.

3. See M. Crouzet, “Jeu et sérieux dans le théâtre de Musset,” Journées d'Études sur Alfred de Musset (Clermont-Ferrand: SER Faculté des Lettres, 1978), p. 35, who characterizes le jeu as: “un déchirement manichéen qui est sans doute la métaphysique générale du romantisme. … Le jeu est le négatif d'un sérieux absolu, le détour par le néant qui affirme l'absolu de l'homme.”

4. See the thesis of David Sices, p. 447.

5. See Jean-Pierre Richard, Etudes sur le romantisme (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970), p. 208.

6. See Pierre Gastinel, Le Romantisme d'Alfred de Musset (Paris: Hachette, 1937), p. 424, who stresses Rosette's incarnation of nature and adds: “Ne reconnaît-on pas là l'influence de Rousseau vers qui Sand a ramené Musset pour un temps?”

7. See Rousseau's “Discours sur l'inégalité” in Du Contrat social (Paris: Garnier, 1962), p. 68. Rousseauist pride is not to be confused with the Christian admonition to humility. Rousseau identifies “le premier mouvement d'orgueil” as initiating the separation of man from nature; he sees himself as being superior to other species.

8. Metaphorically, Rosette relives the plight of “natural man” who, upon emergence from nature, is forced into a social pact with prescribed roles, none of his choosing and against his will. See James F. Hamilton, Rousseau's Theory of Literature: The Poetics of Art and Nature (York, South Carolina: French Literature Publications Co., 1979), p. 83.

9. See Rousseau, p. 105.

10. For recent studies, see Naomi Schorr, “La Pérodie dans Lorenzaccio,” Michigan Romance Studies, 2 (Winter 1981), 73-86, and James F. Hamilton, “Mimetic Desire in Lorenzaccio,” Kentucky Romance Quarterly, in press.

11. See Richard, p. 208, who characterizes Musset's plays as “psychodrames” and perceives in Musset “un vœu secret d'auto-punition.”

12. In the moral landscape of Musset, l'horizontalité prevails. Transcendence is limited to “l'éternité de chaque moment de vie.” See Georges Poulet, La Distance intérieure II (Paris: Plon 1952), p. 248.