SOURCE: "The Merits of Inarticulacy," in Flaubert's Characters: The Language of Illusion, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 25-40.

[In the following essay, Knight examines Flaubert's "simple" characters who lack the ability to articulate their experiences effectively, and argues that Flaubert "suggests an important connection between moral and aesthetic values" in these types of characters.]

Although his 'weak vessels' have often attracted critical disapproval, Flaubert himself suggests an important connection between moral and aesthetic values in so-called 'simple' characters:

Les mots sublimes (que l'on rapporte dans les histories) ont été dits souvent par des simples. Ce qui n'est nullement un argument contre l'Art, au contraire, car ils avaient ce qui fait l'Art même, à savoir la pensée concrétée, un sentiment quelconque, violent, et arrivé à son dernier état d'idéal. 'Si vous aviez la foi, vous remuerez des montagnes' est aussi le principe du Beau.

(Correspondance [hereafter, Corr.] (B) II, p. 785 (1957))

Flaubert writes into his works an almost explicit argument on behalf of such characters, whose simplicity invariably takes the form of an extreme linguistic disadvantage. If language itself is sometimes blamed for difficulties of self-expression,¹ inarticulate characters are more usually seen to have a personal problem. It is not that the right words do not exist, but that they do not have access to them. They are not good at translating their experience of the world into speech, and are especially unable to use language to communicate with other people. Nor is this because their thoughts are too profound for expression—the same characters clearly lack intellectual capacity as well. Yet Flaubert uses them to incarnate positive values such as single-mindedness, silence, immobility and imaginative sympathy. These values seem, in Flaubert, to possess a traditional moral sense, but all also have aesthetic connotations. At the same time, Flaubert undermines, at the level of theme and plot, the normally accepted function of spoken language as an instrument of self-expression and communication. He does this through a debunking of various forms of verbal facility, accompanied by a sustained caricature of any intellectual outlook on the world as boring pedantry.

Sartre's influential analysis of the ubiquitous but slippery concept of 'la Bêtise' (L'Idiot I, pp.612-48) suggests that it originates as a quality of language, but is best characterized as a refusal to synthesize—stupidity is basically an attitude which makes things stupid. It is powerful because no position can be adopted to combat it, that is, its identification has nothing to do with formulating a more sensible alternative view (for example, opposing sound opinions to the silly ones of the bourgeoisie). Intelligence is neither a foil for stupidity nor an analytical weapon against it, but is invariably put forward by Flaubert as a sub-species of stupidity itself. Herein lies all the subtle difference between Balzac's treatment of a bourgeois fool like Célestin Crevel in La Cousine Bette and Flaubert's of M. Homais. For as Sartre suggests in an outstanding analysis of Homais, Flaubert's masterstroke is to make Homais the incarnation of intelligence (p.642).

A fierce criticism of easy eloquence, verbosity, and pedantry is pursued right through Flaubert's works. He claims to have no liking for 'les doctrinaires d'aucune espèce' (Correspondance. Supplément [hereafter, Corr. Suppl.] IV, p. 84 (1878)), and describes eloquence as 'une chose qui me laisse absolument froid' (Corr. Suppl. IV, p. 63 (1878)). This is a personal position maintained throughout his life and declared as early as 1837:

Il y a des jours où je donnerais toute la science des bavards passés, présents, futurs, toute la sotte érudition des éplucheurs, équarisseurs, philosophes, romanciers, chimistes, épiciers, académiciens, pour deux vers de Lamartine ou de Victor Hugo. Me voilà devenu bien anti-prose, anti-raison, anti-vérité car qu'est-ce que le beau sinon l'impossible, la poésie si ce n'est la barbarie—le cœur de l'homme.

(Corr. (B) I, pp. 24-5)

He builds into his fiction a long line of complacent smooth talkers: Ernest, Paul and the later Henry prefigure the better-known examples of Lheureux and Rodolphe. Flaubert's method is often to set up a contrast between a pair of characters, whereby some version of pompous verbosity acts as a foil for apparent ignorance, ineloquence or simplicity. Straightforward examples abound in a rather obvious way in the early works.

Giacomo, the illiterate, manic book collector of Bibliomanie is above all a silent man, apparently by choice: 'Cet homme n'avait jamais parlé à personne, si ce n'est aux bouquinistes et aux brocanteurs; il était taciturne et rêveur' (I, p. 78). This causes him to be despised and misunderstood, but, standing in court accused of arson, theft and murder: 'il était calme et paisible, et ne répondit pas même par un regard à la multitude qui l'insultait'. This dignified silence is set in relief by the nature of the prosecutor's speech which precedes it: 'le Procureur se leva et lut son rapport; il était long et diffus, à peine si on pouvait en distinguer l'action principale des parenthèses et des réflexions', and that of his own 'clever' lawyer—'il parla longtemps et bien; enfin, quand il crut avoir ébranlé son auditoire . . .'—who makes the tactical error of producing the second Bible (I, p. 82).

In Quidquid volueris a clear contrast is set up between Djalioh and Paul. Djalioh cannot read or write, and while it is not made clear whether he is actually dumb, he appears to be so for all practical purposes. He cannot make himself understood, and although the narrator suggests that his strange and incoherent violin music at the wedding is some form of self-expression, this music in no way explains him to his audience: 'Tout le monde se mit à rire, tant la musique était fausse, bizarre, incohérente' (I, p. 108). Yet the richness which lies behind his inarticulacy is made explicit for the reader:

Si c'était un mot ou un soupir, peu importe, mais il y avait là-dedans toute une âme! [ . . . ] Oh! son cœur était vaste et immense, mais vaste comme la mer, immense et vide comme sa solitude [ . . . ] Il avait en lui un chaos des sentiments les plus étranges; la poésie avait remplacé la logique, et les passions avaient pris la place de la science.

(PP. 104-5)

He is all poetry, passion and capacity for love, while Paul is a cold, rational person, who has even created Djalioh by way of a scientific experiment: 'l'homme sensé, celui qu'on respecte et qu'on honore; car il monte sa garde nationale, s'habille comme tout le monde, parle morale et philanthropie' (p. 103). Paul translates his shallow feelings into easy words, while Djalioh's experience remains non-verbal and unformulated, and Flaubert heavily underlines the moral lesson which he means his reader to draw from the contrasts:

Voilà le monstre de la nature qui était en contact avec M. Paul, cet autre monstre, ou plutôt cette merveille de la civilisation, et qui en portait tous les symboles, grandeurs de l'esprit, sécheresse du cœur. Autant l'un avait d'amour pour les épanchements de l'âme, les douces causeries du cœur, autant Djalioh aimait les rêveries de la nuit et les songes de la pensée [ . . . ] où l'intelligence finissait, le cœur prenait son empire; il était vaste et infini, car il comprenait le monde dans son amour.

(p. 105)

Mazza and Ernest, of Passion et vertu, an obvious first sketch of Emma and Rodolphe, represent the same dichotomy, for Mazza lives in a world of emotion, while Ernest is all judgement and reason: 'C'était un de ces gens chez qui le jugement et la raison occupent une si grande place qu'ils ont mangé le cœur comme un voisin incommode' (I, p. 120). Like Rodolphe, Ernest is a skilful talker who knows how to exploit language for purposes of seduction, how to flatter Mazza and to out-argue her scruples:

—Il faut que je l'aime. [her husband]

—Cela est plus facile à dire qu'à faire, c'est-à-dire que si la loi vous dit: 'Vous l'aimerez', votre cœur s'y pliera comme un régiment qu'on fait manœvrer ou une barre d'acier qu'on ploie des deux mains, et si moi je vous aime . . .

[ . . . ] il faudra que je ne vous aime plus parce qu'il le faudra, et rien de plus; mais cela est-il sensé et juste?

—Ah! vous raisonnez à merveille, mon cher ami.

(pp. 114-15)

Once he feels the need he can even persuade himself out of any feelings of love he may have (again resembling Rodolphe regretfully renouncing Emma): 'La lettre était longue, bien écrite, toute remplie de riches métaphores et de grands mots . . . Pauvre Mazza! tant d'amour, de cœur et de tendresse pour une indifférence si froide, un calme si raisonné!' (p. 119). The young Flaubert cannot resist spelling out the moral lesson behind the contrast of eloquence and ineloquence: 'Quel trésor que l'amour d'une telle femme!' (p. 123).

In the 1845 L'Éducation sentimentale Alvarés's silent love for Mlle Aglaé rings what is beginning to sound like a typical note: 'il aurait épuisé l'éternité à tourner, comme un cheval au manège, autour de cette idée fixe et immobile, il n'en parlait plus, mais dans le silence de son cœur il se consumait solitairement' (I, p. 319). And Flaubert comes near to doing something important with Shahutsnischbach, who is not just awkward but arguably Flaubert's first really stupid character. He makes his début arriving late at Mme Renaud's dinner party, in his everyday clothes and covered in chalk: 'étonné, confus, ébahi, ne sachant s'il devait s'en aller ou rester, s'enfuir ou s'asseoir, les bras ballants, le nez au vent, ahuri, stupide' (p. 286). Later we learn why Shahutsnischbach is the only young man of the household not to be in love: 'il travaillait toujours aux mathématiques, les mathématiques dévorait sa vie, il n'y comprenait rien. Jamais M. Renaud n'avait eu de jeune homme plus studieux . . . ni plus stupide; Mendès lui-même le regardait comme un butor' (p. 293). When M. Renaud makes a silly joke: 'Alvarès et Mendès rirent, Shahutsnischbach ne comprit pas' (p. 295), and at Mme Renaud's ball the stupid but good-natured German: 'resté dans l'anti-chambre, aidait les domestiques à passer les plateaux de la salle à manager dans le salon' (p. 301). For in the strange interlude where Henry sadistically 'beats up' M. Renaud in the street, Shahutsnischbach, who happens to be passing ('pour une commission que Mme Renaud lui envoyait faire'), shows a contrasting kindness:

Et le bon Allemand, en effet, le réconfortait de son mieux, il alla lui-même dans la cour, y mouilla son mouchoir sous la pompe, revint auprès de M. Renaud et lui essuya le sang qui était resté le long de sa figure; il s'offrit pour courir lui chercher un médecin, pour acheter quelque drogue s'il en avait besoin, pour aller avertir chez lui, pour tout ce qu'il voudrait, n'importe quoi. En songeant que, jusqu'à cette heure, à peine s'il l'avait regardé et qu'il le méprisait même pour son manque d'esprit, le père Renaud se sentait le cœur navré et était pris de l'envie de le serrer dans ses bras, de l'embrasser comme son fils.

(p. 349)

Built into the final development of Henry and Jules is a very marked contrast between verbal facility and its lack. Henry ends up by becoming a man of the world, only really believing in feelings which can be expressed. His superficial intelligence is characterized by its easy processing of language:

Il croit bien connaître le théâtre, parce qu'il saisit á première vue toutes les ficelles d'un mélodrame et les intentions d'une exposition [ . . . ] il passe pour avoir le tact fin, car il découvrira l'épithète heureuse, le trait saillant ou le mot hasardeux qui fait tache [ . . . ]

Il a un avantage sur ceux qui voient plus loin et qui sentent d'une façon plus intense, c'est qu'il peut justifier ses sensations et donner la preuve de ses assertions; il expose nettement ce qu'il éprouve, il écrit clairement ce qu'il pense, et dans le développement d'une théorie comme dans la pratique d'un sentiment, il écrase les natures plus engagées dans l'infini, chez lesquelles l'idée chante et la passion rêve.

(p. 365)

Such articulacy is typically combined with a complete inability to understand people different from himself, and of this, we know, Flaubert disapproves:

Il n'estimait pas ceux qui se grisent avec de l'eaude-vie, parce qu'il préférait le vin: il trouvait le goût de la pipe trop fort, parce qu'il fumait des cigarettes [ . . . ] il ne comprenait pas les gens qui meurent d'amour, lui qui avait tant aimé et qui n'en était pas mort.

(p. 364)

But his opposite, Jules, is shown to have moved right away from the verbal domain, especially as an artist: 'la discussion lui était devenue impossible, il n'y avait à son usage de mode de transmission psychologique que l'expansion, la communication directe, l'inspiration simultanée' (p. 360).

Playing the various characters of Madame Bovary off against each other is an altogether more complicated business, largely because of the ambivalent treatment of Emma and Charles. A clear undermining of pompous verbosity is nevertheless apparent, which sets in relief some famous worldless characters. At the very centre of the novel (middle chapter of middle part), Flaubert inserts, in the set-piece 'symphony' of the agricultural show, the description of the old peasant woman receiving her medal. Catherine Leroux is often commented upon, normally to emphasize the contrast between the complacent bourgeoisie and 'ce demisiècle de servitude' (I, p. 625). But I should prefer to underline her silence and immobility. By frequenting farm animals all her life she has assumed their dumb placidity. Whereas the gaping crowd is shown drinking in the ridiculous speeches against a background of mooing cows, Catherine Leroux is so frightened by the noise, bustle and confusion, that her reaction is simply to stand quite still, not knowing what else to do. In a scene carefully constructed so as to oppose the absurd parallel exploitation of the official speeches (to seduce the crowd), and of Rodolphe (to seduce Emma)—both are shown to be equally effective—the implicit moral worth of the old woman who does not even understand language is foregrounded, the more so given the reaction of the audience: '—Ah! qu'elle est bête!'. Abuse of language for various reasons is so widespread throughout the novel (Lheureux's selling technique, Homais's journalistic powers, the campaign to persuade Charles to operate on the club-foot), that characters who hardly speak should be prized by the reader quite simply for not misusing language.

M. Homais's view of the relative values of silence and speech is made clear on his first appearance in the novel, through his disdain for Binet's uncommunicativeness:

pendant tout le temps que l'on fut à mettre son couvert, Binet resta silencieux à sa place, auprès du poêle; puis il ferma la porte et retira sa casquette, comme d'usage.

Ce ne sont pas les civilités qui lui useront la langue! dit le pharmacien, dès qu'il fut seul avec l'hôtesse.

—Jamais il ne cause davantage, répondit-elle; il est venu ici, la semaine dernière, deux voyageurs en draps, des garçons pleins d'esprit qui contaient, le soir, un tas de farces que j'en pleurais de rire: eh bien! il restait là, comme une alose, sans dire un mot.

—Oui, fit le pharmacien, pas d'imagination, pas de saillies, rien de ce qui constitue l'homme de la société!

(p. 600)

The particular combination of talkativeness and useless knowledge that distinguishes Homais throughout the novel is characterized by his preferred version of social intercourse with the Bovarys:

Ensuite, on causait de ce qu'il y avait dans le journal. Homais, à cette heure-là, le savait presque par cœur; et il le rapportait intégralement, avec les réflexions du journaliste et toutes les histoires des catastrophes individuelles arrivées en France ou à l'étranger. Mais le sujet se tarissant, il ne tardait pas à lancer quelques observations sur les mets qu'il voyait. Parfois même, se levant à demi, il indiquait délicatement à Madame le morceau le plus tendre, ou, se tournant vers la bonne, lui adressait des conseils, pour la manipulation des ragoûts et l'hygiène des assaisonnements; il parlait arome, osmazôme, suc et gélatine d'une façon à éblouir.

(p. 607)

Flaubert takes particular pleasure in deflating Homais when he is given the task of breaking the news that Emma's father-in-law has died: 'Il avait médité sa phrase, il l'avait arrondie, polie, rhythmée, c'était un chef-d'œuvre de prudence et de transition, de tournures fines et de délicatesse; mais la colère avait emporté la rhétorique' (p. 659). Perhaps the abrupt outburst which is substituted in the event is a salutary one, for when Homais writes to Emma's father to tell him she is dead: 'par égard pour sa sensibilité, M. Homais l'avait rédigée de telle façon qu'il était impossible de savoir à quoi s'en tenir' (p. 687). The preferability of Père Rouault's own uneducated style of letter-writing is surely apparent: 'Les fautes d'orthographe s'y enlaçaient les unes aux autres, et Emma poursuivait la pensée douce qui caquetait tout au travers comme une poule à demi cachée dans une haie d'épine' (p. 632).

Charles's generally distracted and wordless grief makes the ending of the novel moving in a way that Flaubert quite explicitly intended,² and it is only when 'il la regardait avec des yeux d'une tendresse comme elle n'en avait jamais vu' that Emma at last consecrates his value with her 'tu es bon, toi!' (p. 681). Indeed one interpretation of the finding of the autopsy on Charles would surely be that he is allowed the fictional privilege of dying of a broken heart. Less dramatic than Salammbô's death, it is equally strongly motivated, and the cruelly ambiguous 'Il l'ouvrit et ne trouva rien' (p. 692), which both sets the seal on his moral worth and on his 'stupidity', captures the possible connection between the two.

Critics have more readily noticed that Charles speaks in clichés than that such a central character can barely speak at all. In the first part of the novel, despite his large part in the plot, he is especially wordless—direct conversations that exist in the early drafts have been removed by Flaubert to give greater emphasis to Charles's occasional stutterings.³ It is not that he is a secretive, deliberately silent person; by nature he is relatively expansive and tells Emma everything. He simply has no command of language. The famous 'Charbovari' scene presents a lasting image of Charles: introduced to the reader as 'un nom inintelligible' (p. 575), he cannot even pronounce his own name. He is aware of his own problem to the extent that he dare not ask for Emma's hand in marriage: 'la peur de ne point trouver les mots convenables lui collait les lèvres' (p. 582). Indeed he is right and when the moment comes can manage only to stammer out 'Père Rouault . . . Père Rouault'. If he is a social failure at his wedding it is because he is unable to keep up with the jokes, puns and obligatory allusions, for their medium is linguistic. In fact in so far as Charles is transformed by the wedding night, it is his powers of speech that are temporarily improved: 'Mais Charles ne dissimulait rien. Il l'appelaient ma femme, la tutoyait, s'informait d'elle à chacun' (p. 584).

Though Emma's language is clichéd and while her tragedy is partly tied up with the misunderstanding or abuse of words, she is not properly speaking inarticulate, and is quite at home in a verbal atmosphere. In many ways she serves as a contrast for Charles here. While Charles is totally nonplussed by his medical studies and can only pass his examinations by learning the answers by heart, Emma can understand all the difficult parts of the catechism at school, and can send out well-phrased letters to Charles's clients. She notices and easily fits into the social conventions at La Vaubyessard, whereas Charles spends five hours at the card tables 'à regarder jouer au whist, sans y rien comprendre' (p. 592). The first reported conversation between them shows how easily Emma can out-argue Charles:

—Les sous-pieds vont me gêner pour danser, ditil.

—Danser? reprit Emma.

—Oui!

—Mais tu as perdu la tête! on se moquerait de toi, reste á ta place. D'ailleurs, c'est plus convenable pour un médecin, ajouta-t-elle.

Charles se tut.

(p. 591)

It is because Emma needs to converse with someone that she becomes dissatisfied with Charles, and although at first she wishes that he would understand her need, she more or less writes him off for good when 'il ne put, un jour, lui expliquer un terme d'équitation qu'elle avait rencontré dans un roman' (p. 588).

Flaubert points out that Emma is at least partly seduced by Rodolphe's verbal 'galanterie': 'C'était la premiére fois qu'Emma s'entendait dire ces choses; et son orgueil, comme quelqu'un qui se délasse dans une étuve, s'étirait mollement et tout entier á la chaleur de ce langage' (p. 627). It is because Charles is so incapable of using the clichéd language of love with which she is familiar that she can never understand that he loves her (Flaubert's rough notes state plainly that Charles adores Emma far more than Léon and Rodolphe ever do, and that though clumsy and without imagination, he is 'sensible' (Pommier and Leleu, 1949, pp. 3 and 21)). Emma's most serious personal failing is her inability to understand any experience other than her own: 'guére tendre, cependant, ni facilement accessible à l'émotion d'autrui' (p. 597), and:

incapable, du reste, de comprendre ce qu'elle n'éprouvait pas, comme de croire à tout ce qui ne se manifestait point par des formes convenues, elle se persuada sans peine que la passion de Charles n'avait plus rien d'exhorbitant. Ses expansions étaient devenues régulières; il l'embrassait à de certaines heures.

(p. 589)

At the climax of her disgust with him she denigrates him as 'cet homme qui ne comprenait rien, qui ne sentait rien!' (p. 637), and her mistake is obviously supposed to lie in thinking that the two activities of intellectual understanding and feeling have any necessary connection. Critical discussions of Charles as the clumsy and stupid husband who cannot cater for Emma's needs therefore miss at least half of the point. This was spelled out by Flaubert in a grandiloquent description of Charles to be found in earlier versions of the novel. In this passage—deleted perhaps for the very reason that it overemphasizes one half of the final, ambivalent Charles—Rodolphe, at their final meeting, scorns Charles for not hating him:

Car il ne comprenait rien à cet amour vorace se précipitant au hasard sur les choses pour s'assouvir, à la passion vide d'orgueil, sans respect humain, ni conscience, qui plonge tout entière dans l'être aimé, accapare ses sentiments, en palpite, et touche presque aux proportions d'une idée pure, à force de largeur et d'impersonnalité.

(Pommier and Leleu, 1949, p. 641)

This is precisely the treasured moral ideal of universal sympathy which Emma lacks:⁴ 'Il fallait qu'elle pût retirer des choses une sorte de profit personnel; et elle rejetait comme inutile tout ce qui ne contribuait pas à la consommation immédiate de son cœur,—étant de tempérament plus sentimentale qu'artiste' (I, p. 586). In fact my own reading of the much glossed 'c'est la faute de la fatalité' (p. 692) would be that if it is the ultimate cliché it is also the ultimate act of generosity. For as seen in his wishes for her burial and in his much changed behaviour after her death, Charles more or less succeeds in understanding Emma, 'raising' his ideals to the level of literary romances, passionate affairs etc. These words could be seen to represent the final insight into her world and are a generous self-sacrifice, for Charles himself is not so trite.

But one character is ahead of Charles in understanding Emma's value system, for her desire for a tilbury and groom is attributed to Justin: 'C'était Justin qui lui en avait inspiré le caprice, en la suppliant de le prendre chez elle comme valet de chambre' (p. 665). Indeed if Charles, in contrast with Léon and Rodolphe, lies awake all night after Emma's funeral, it is Justin's grief which is given the privileged position as he lies sobbing at the graveside. Justin is Charles's silent shadow in that he echoes his values, and, as Flaubert makes quite specific in the text, he too offers adoring but unvoiced devotion of which Emma remains unaware: 'Elle ne se doutait point que l'amour, disparu de sa vie, palpitait là, près d'elle, sous cette chemise de grosse toile, dans ce cœur d'adolescent ouvert aux émanations de sa beauté' (p. 647). He is almost a caricature of Charles in that he is even more incompetent linguistically.⁵ When Homais calls him a 'petit sot' for fainting 'Justin ne répondait pas' (p. 618), when in disgrace over the key to the arsenic his only response to Homais's noisy scene and 'Parle, réponds, articule quelque chose?' (p. 658) is a few stutterings, and his copy of L 'Amour conjugal (like the geography book that provides Félicité's literary education in Un Cœur simple), needs pictures by way of explanation. He comes and goes so quietly that it is indeed easy to overlook him: 'Il montait avec eux dans la chambre, et il restait debout près de la porte, immobile, sans parler' (p. 647). Just as on the Sunday expedition to the flax mill his role is to carry the umbrellas and to wipe the children's shoes clean, his devotion is never articulated, but (again like Félicité's), shows itself in acts of service: 'et Justin, qui se trouvait là, circulait à pas muets, plus ingénieux à la servir qu'une excellente cameriste. Il plaçait les allumettes, le bougeoir, un livre, disposait sa camisole, ouvrait les draps' (p. 665). As this reference to the sheets suggests, it is the erotic and sensuous qualities of Emma which fascinate him, for example her hair, and it could be suggested that he shares with Charles the role of creating and preserving Emma's 'mystery', even when her rather silly interior has been made available to the reader. Justin's greatest satisfaction is always to watch Emma, and his imaginative sympathy has the power to transform reality: 'Et aussitôt il atteignit sur le chambranle les chaussures d'Emma tout empâtées de crotte—la crotte des rendezvous—qui se détachait en poudre sous se doigts, et qu'il regardait monter doucement dans un rayon de soleil' (p. 638). That Flaubert regards this power as an artist's privilege is suggested when he writes to Maupassant: 'La poésie, comme le soleil, met l'or sur le fumier' (Corr. (C) VIII, p. 397 (1880)).

The values associated with inarticulate characters—silence, stillness and single-mindedness—are clearly built into the presentation of character in the 1869 L'Éducation sentimentale. The simple but loyal Dussardier, though a minor character, appears at enough crucial points in the novel to act as a symbol for its guiding moral thread. He is introduced stammering 'Où est mon carton? Je veux mon carton [ . . . ] Mon carton!' (II, p. 19), he is incapable of understanding the stories by means of which Frédéric and Hussonnet try to help him out of trouble at the police station, and his erudition is limited to two books. But his dream is to love one woman for life, his hatred for authority is unswerving, and, more faithful than his friends to his earlier cry of 'Vive la République!' (p. 114), he is struck down on 2nd December as he towers above the police in a quite immobile pose: 'un homme,—Dussardier,—remarquable de loin à sa haute taille, restait sans plus bouger qu'une cariatide' (p. 160). He is rewarded in the next line with a martyr's death: 'Il tomba sur le dos, les bras en croix.'⁶

Frédéric's persistent attachment to Mme Arnoux may well act on the reader as it does on Deslauriers: 'La persistance de cet amour l'irritait comme un problème. Son austérité un peu théâtrale l'ennuyait maintenant' (p. 97). Yet Frédéric's story embodies a deliberate tension between concentrated and diffuse experience, as he dabbles in painting, literature, business and politics, frittering his energies among four women between whom he seems unable to choose. Arnoux, Rosanette and many of Frédéric's Parisian acquaintances clearly provide the temptation of diffusion, and the semi-fidelity despite everything to Mme Arnoux is surely, in this context, a positive force. Part of Flaubert's problem is to build moral value into Mme Arnoux, despite her husband and, up to a point, despite Frédéric himself. This he does through the particular nature of Frédéric's perception of her, and through her place in the structure of the novel. By constructing the novel around her (through a complicated network of reminders), he obliges the reader to join in Frédéric's original desire to 'vivre dans son atmosphère' (p. 26), an atmosphere which is not only poetic and emotional, but essentially moral: 'la contemplation de cette femme l'énervait, comme l'usage d'un parfum trop fort. Cela descendit dans les profondeurs de son tempérament, et devenait presque une manière générale de sentir, un mode nouveau d'exister' (p. 33).

If Frédéric's 'Je n'ai jamais aimé qu'elle!' is less than totally convincing (p. 157), Mme Arnoux is nevertheless presented to the reader as a coherent force in the novel. The varieties of dispersion which act as a foil for her simplicity are invariably related to noise and unnecessary speech. Without being inarticulate Mme Arnoux is basically quiet, gentle and unaffected. Criticized by Frédéric for using bourgeois maxims, she protests that she has no pretensions to anything else. She has no special love of literature, she uses straight forward language, she is superstitious—'croyait aux songes' (p. 38)—and enjoys commonplace pleasures like walking bareheaded in the rain. The very first vision of her is presented against a background of the noise, bustle and confusion of the departure of the boat. The talkative Arnoux fits naturally into this scene, involving everyone around him in his fragmentary conversation, giving advice, expounding theories, relating anecdotes. Mme Arnoux's 'apparition' is immediately preceded by a squalid description of the mess on the deck, of the noise and constant movement of the passengers and the captain:

Le pont était sali par des écales de noix, des bouts de cigares, des pelures de poires, des détritus de charcuterie apportée dans du papier [ . . . ] on entendait par intervalles le bruit du charbon de terre dans le fourneau, un éclat de voix, un rire; et le capitaine, sur la passerelle, marchait d'un tambour à l'autre, sans s'arrêter.

(p.9)

While everyone else mixes, laughing, joking and drinking together, dressed in old, worn and dirty travelling clothes, Mme Arnoux sits alone and silent, her light-coloured dress standing out against the blue sky. She is sewing, that is doing something useful, but above all she is still. Frédéric observes her for some minutes in the same pose, and on his last view of her as the boat arrives: 'Elle était près du gouvernail, debout. Il lui envoya un regard où il avait tâché de mettre toute son âme; comme s'il n'eût rien fait, elle demeura immobile' (p.11). The immobile pose of this first scene is established almost as a leitmotif which appears throughout the novel, and on one occasion the continuity is even pointed out: 'Elle se tenait dans la même attitude que le premier jour, et cousait une chemise d'enfant' (p.56). That these values are not necessarily obvious ones is shown up in the scene where Deslauriers dismisses his mistress: 'Elle se planta devant la fenêtre, et y resta immobile, le front contre le carreau. Son attitude et son mutisme agaça Deslauriers' (p.73).

One especially memorable tableau of Mme Arnoux is during her fête at Saint-Cloud, where she is placed on a rock with a flaming sunset behind her, while the other guests wander around somewhat aimlessly, and Hussonnet on the river bank skims stones on the water. In his correspondence Flaubert twice uses this as an image to imply moral dispersion: 'Ah! mes richesses morales! J'ai jeté aux passants les grosses pièces par la fenêtre, et avec les louis j'ai fait des ricochets sur l'eau' (Corr. (B) I, p. 290 (1846)). Louise Colet's idea of a communally directed review is dismissed in the same terms: 'On bavarde beaucoup, on dépense tout son talent à faire des ricochets sur la rivière avec de la menue monnaie, tandis qu'avec plus d'économie on aurait pu par la suite acheter de belles fermes et de bons châteaux' (Corr. (B) II, p.291 (1853)). Appropriately it is Hussonnet who is chosen to skim stones, for as the newspaper owner he emerges as a rival to Mme Arnoux for Frédéric's time, attention and money. At Rosanette's ball he is made by Flaubert to stand in Frédéric's line of vision and thus to interrupt his thoughts—as the sight of the chandelier from the Art industriel stirs old memories of Mme Arnoux, Frédéric is suddenly distracted by 'un fantassin de la ligne en petite tenue' who has planted himself in his path, congratulating him and calling him 'colonel'. This turns out to be Hussonet in fancy dress (pp.49-50). It is also specified that the dispersal of Hussonet's talents in all directions is linguistic: 'Hussonnet ne fut pas drôle. A force d'écrire quotidiennement sur toute sorte de sujets, de lire beaucoup de journeaux, d'entendre beaucoup de discussions et d'émettre des paradoxes pour éblouir, il avait fini par perdre la notion exacte des choses, s'aveuglant lui-même avec ses faibles pétards' (p.84).

Frédéric is described as coming to resemble Arnoux more and more, and undoubtedly Arnoux is the character who most consistently leads Frédéric in the direction of dissipation and moral decline. Frédéric's first visit to the Art industriel is an introduction to Arnoux's typical environment: the rooms are packed, nobody can move or breathe amidst the cigar smoke and dazzling light, and all is bustle and activity against a background of different conversations. This moral chaos is carried over into the description of the evening at the Alhambra, where even the talkative Arnoux is outdone:

Mais ses paroles étaient couvertes par le tapage de la musique; et, sitôt le quadrille ou la polka terminés, tous s'abattaient sur les tables, appelaient le garçon, riaient; les bouteilles de bière et de limonade gazeuse détonaient dans les feuillages, des femmes criaient comme des poules; quelquefois, deux messieurs voulaient se battre; un voleur fut arrêté.

(p. 35)

It is Arnoux who takes Frédéric to Rosanette's ball, a fancy-dress party-cum-orgy clearly intended to symbolize the superficial pleasures of a diffuse and essentially worthless experience which is again, at one point, quite specifically related to language:

Une horloge allemande, munie d'un coq, carillonnant deux heures, provoqua sur le coucou force plaisanteries. Toutes sortes de propos s'ensuivirent: calembours, anecdotes, vantardises, gageures, mensonges tenus pour vrais, assertions improbables, un tumulte de paroles qui bientôt s'éparpilla en conversations particulières.

(p. 53)

When the whole party collapses in exhaustion, it is appropriately a moment of sudden silence which shows up the real value of the ball, as someone opens a window and daylight transforms the scene: 'Il y eut une exclamation d'étonnement, puis un silence' (p.54). The costumes and flowers are all wilting, there are drink stains everywhere, hair-styles have collapsed and make-up runs down perspiring faces. The frenzied excitement is no more than a sordid chaos, and Frédéric not surprisingly fails, in his half-drunken stupor, to recognize the 'deux grands yeux noirs' which were not, of course, anything to do with the ball.

The clearest reinstatement of an inarticulate character in any of Flaubert's works takes place in Un Cœur simple. If the problem of irony in this story can be put aside for the time being, it is clear at least that the straight forward linear plot raises a completely illiterate and ineloquent servant to the position of central character and main focus of interest. She is quite uneducated apart from Paul's explanations of a picture book geography, where she speaks directly, as in the bull incident, it is in very short sentences, and she is so silent and orderly that she seems to function automatically. Her life is made up of regular work and devoted service, her fondness for those around her is constantly shown in small acts of kindness, and her reaction to the grief of Victor's death leads her to contain her sorrow and keep on working. Though she starts out with a certain amount of common sense (her suspicion of Théodore's promises, her dealings with Mme Aubain's tenant farmers and visitors), as the story progresses she appears more and more stupid.

The chief foil for Félicité is M. Bourais, the pedantic culmination of Flaubert's long line of self-satisfied 'knowledgeable' characters, whom Mme Aubain regards as an authority to consult on all important matters (on the bathing at Trouville, on the choice of a school for Paul). Flaubert completes the undermining of such characters by making Bourais a cheap villain who is finally exposed, a disgracing of 'intelligence' all the greater in that it is the parrot Loulou (a caricature of Félicité in his relations with language), who is given the privilege of seeing through him from the start, laughing at him every time he sees him and humiliating him to such an extent that Bourais has to arrive at Mme Aubain's by stealth (with his hat covering his face). The contrast between Félicité and Bourais is underlined when she asks him to show her where Victor is on the map. Bourais, wrapped up in lengthy explanations of longitudes and so on, is enormously amused when asked to point out Victor's house: 'et il avait un beau sourire de cuistre devant l'ahurissement de Félicité [ . . . ] Bourais leva les bras, il éternua, rit énormément; une candeur pareille excitait sa joie; et Félicité n'en comprenait pas le motif, elle qui s'attendait peut-être à voir jusqu'au portrait de son neveu, tant son intelligence était bornée!' (p.171).⁷ But Flaubert makes plain the relative values of their different versions of 'understanding'. Félicité does not need Bourais's intellectual approach to the world; indeed it is because of her ignorance that she is able to follow Victor in her imagination. She is thirsty on his behalf when it is hot, frightened for him when there is a storm, and her simplicity is enhanced by a genuine interest: her attempts to visualize Havana involve clouds of tobacco 'à cause des cigares' (p. 171.)

Félicité's heart and imagination dominate her whole conception of reality; for example because Virginie and Victor are linked in her heart she imagines that their destiny must be the same. Similarly her understanding of religion takes place on the level of imagination and emotion, as she reduces Christian imagery to her own surroundings:

Les semailles, les moissons, les pressoirs, toutes ces choses familières dont parle l'Évangile, se trouvaient dans sa vie; le passage de Dieu les avait sanctifiées; et elle aima plus tendrement les agneaux par amour de l'Agneau, les colombes à cause du Saint-Esprit [ . . . ] C'est peut-être sa lumière qui voltige la nuit aux bords des marécages, son haleine qui pousse les nuées, sa voix qui rend les cloches harmonieuses; et elle demeurait dans une adoration, jouissant de la fraîcheur des murs et de la tranquillité de l'église. (p. 170)

When the priest tells stories from the Bible she can vividly imagine Paradise and the Great Flood, and 'pleura en écoutant la Passion'. But when it comes to dogma: 'elle n'y comprenait rien, ne tâcha même pas de comprendre' (p. 170). Her sympathetic understanding is such that she can forgive Mme Aubain for sending Virginie away to the convent, and for thinking her daughter so much more important than Victor. The height of this power comes at the moment of Virginie's First Communion when Félicité identifies with Virginie so closely that she feels she has become her: 'avec l'imagination que donnent les vraies tendresses, il lui sembla qu'elle était elle-même cette enfant' (p.170).⁸ Her qualities are those which Flaubert elsewhere attributes to the artist. Like Justin's her love can transform the ugliest of realities: she forms a fetishistic attachment to Virginie's hat although it has been eaten away by vermin, loves the stuffed Loulou all the more and kisses him farewell regardless of his worm-eaten state, and devotedly tends the cancer-ridden Père Colmiche. Certainly Emma Bovary could not have accepted and pitied the blind beggar, and the importance of this particular theme is shown by the fact that, in La Légende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier, Julien's accession to sainthood seems ultimately to be dependent on his willing and selfless embrace of the leper. The enormous effort over self required by Julien sets in full relief Félicité's entirely spontaneous selflessness, which is quite without personal motive. While her 'sainthood' emerges largely through association with the saints of the other stories of the Trois Contes, Flaubert would evidently consider it deserved: though (or because) an inarticulate servant cut off from the world, she is rewarded with an experience that is the richer and the more complete for being imaginary.

Notes

¹ Especially in the early works, and normally in the context of artistic creation: 'Comment rendre par des mots ces choses pour lesquelles il n'y a pas de langage?' (I, p.238); 'Pouvez-vous dire par des mots le battement du cœur?' (p.247). Such remarks can be classified of course under the familiar Romantic cliché of the incommensurability of language and experience; however, Flaubert's insistence upon this theme far outlives his imitations of Romantic literature.

² 'il faut que mon bonhomme [ . . . ] vous émeuve pour tous les veufs' (Corr. (B) II, p.346 (1853)).

³ For example on the return journey from La Vaubyessard ([Pommier, Jean, and Gabrielle Leleu (eds.), 1949. 'Madame Bovany'. Nouvelle Version précédée des scénarios inédits (Paris, Corti)], pp. 218-19).

⁴ 'cette faculté de s'assimiler à toutes les misères et de se supposer les ayant est peut-être la vraie charité humaine. Se faire ainsi le centre de l'humanité, tâcher enfin d'être son cœur général où toutes les veines éparses se réunissent, . . . ce serait à la fois l'effort du plus grand et du meilleur homme?' (Corr. (B) II, p. 346 (1853)).

⁵ As for Charles, much of Justin's direct speech is removed from the drafts, for example the discussion about the tilbury and groom (Pommier and Leleu, 1949, p.536).

⁶ In a draft Dussardier is described as follows: 'Ce gros garçon avait l'âme plus délicate qu'une marquise. Avec ses fortes épaules & ses bons yeux, il rappelait les forgerons que l'on voit au bord des routes, tenant sur leurs bras un petit enfant [ . . . ] Quoiqu'il n'eut pas d'esprit Fred. goûtait dans sa compagnie un certain charme' (B.N. n.a.fr. 17605, fol. 167r).

⁷ Discussing this Culler claims: 'We are amused, no doubt, but we do not want to class ourselves with Bourais by joining in his amusement. We prefer to be won over by her innocence and unpretentiousness, valuing the sense of our own broadmindedness that comes from protecting or defending one so charmingly vulnerable' ([Culler, Jonathan, 1974. Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty (London, Elek)], p.209). Doubtless my view of inarticulacy leaves me open to the dreadful charge of 'protecting the charmingly vulnerable', and I can only rely on the reader's good will to protect my own vulnerability on this issue.

⁸ Whereas when she takes communion herself the next day the experience is less real: 'Elle la reçut dévotement, mais n'y goûta pas les mêmes délices' (p. 170).