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Authors: William Styron
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that absorbs and transcends the influences.”
At some point one of us spoke of Flaubert, and when I expressed my great admiration for his work the colonel said: “Well, if he’s your man you really must read Steegmuller’s book, if you haven’t already.”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t,” I replied.
“Well, I really recommend Flaubert and Madame Bovary , a truly fascinating work. I’ll lend you my copy if you can’t get hold of one. By the way, do you read French?”
“Fairly well,” I said, “for newspapers and magazines and such. But not well enough for a book like Bovary.”
“That’s unfortunate, because of course it’s written in the most, well—crystalline style imaginable. I imagine you’ve read the Aveling translation.”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“She’s not at all bad, actually—certainly it’ll do well enough until a better one comes along. A remarkable woman, you know. Did you know that she was the daughter of Karl Marx?”
“No, I didn’t,” I said with honest amazement. “That’s fascinating. I just hadn’t made the connection.”
“Yes, and another strange thing about her—she was rather badly unbalanced mentally and finally became totally obsessed by the life of Bovary, by the career of this woman she’d rendered into English. Finally she killed herself and in the identical manner of Emma Bovary—by taking poison. It’s one of the most curious tales in the history of literature.”
I was at that time, indeed, especially devoted to Flaubert, and had been through Bovary so often that there were many passages which I had all but committed to memory. I had also read as much about the man’s life as I could lay hands on (my failure to know about Steegmuller’s book is an unexplainable mystery): Flaubert’s enormous craft, his monkish dedication, his irony, his painstaking regard for the nuances of language—all of these commanded my passionate admiration. Few others shared room with Flaubert in my private pantheon of writers. I remember being seized by avivid excitement as Paul (it was not “Paul” yet, but it later became so, and I’ll refer to him this way hereafter) spoke of the master, alluding not only to his work, about which he seemed to know a great deal, but to his life—here he was equally well-informed. Although he was clearly a Flaubert votary like me, he had a wide-ranging knowledge of French literature in general, and the references he made to Maupassant, Zola, Turgenev, Daudet, and other of Flaubert’s friends and contemporaries were pertinent, illuminating, and thoroughly grounded in broad reading. We had particular fun exchanging views on Louise Colet, Flaubert’s mistress, speculating on her jealousy and her tantrums, and when I suggested that it was Flaubert’s mother who was at the root of his neurosis and his flight from women, Paul paid tribute to my insight—which may not have been original—by saying: “Oh there’s no doubt that you’re absolutely right. It’s straight out of the Freudian textbook. But at the same time Louise must have been an awful ball-breaker.”
A pretty girl of seventeen or eighteen with red hair approached the table and Paul’s son rose to greet her. Then the rest of us got up and, after introductions and a few murmured amenities, the boy and the girl bade us good night and left gaily, arm in arm. The interruption made me suddenly aware of how quickly the time had passed—outside it was dark and frogs madly piped in the swamp, numberless and shrill above the sound close by of a bleating saxophone. But this interlude had also brought me quickly back to earth; something had caused my wonderful mood to snap in two, and as I took my seat again I saw that Paul Marriott, like the prince transformed into baser stuff at one stroke of the wand, was once again a mere lieutenant-colonel, and thefull panoply of stars and ribbons—miraculously lost to sight during the course of our dialogue—was now intimidatingly
At some point one of us spoke of Flaubert, and when I expressed my great admiration for his work the colonel said: “Well, if he’s your man you really must read Steegmuller’s book, if you haven’t already.”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t,” I replied.
“Well, I really recommend Flaubert and Madame Bovary , a truly fascinating work. I’ll lend you my copy if you can’t get hold of one. By the way, do you read French?”
“Fairly well,” I said, “for newspapers and magazines and such. But not well enough for a book like Bovary.”
“That’s unfortunate, because of course it’s written in the most, well—crystalline style imaginable. I imagine you’ve read the Aveling translation.”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“She’s not at all bad, actually—certainly it’ll do well enough until a better one comes along. A remarkable woman, you know. Did you know that she was the daughter of Karl Marx?”
“No, I didn’t,” I said with honest amazement. “That’s fascinating. I just hadn’t made the connection.”
“Yes, and another strange thing about her—she was rather badly unbalanced mentally and finally became totally obsessed by the life of Bovary, by the career of this woman she’d rendered into English. Finally she killed herself and in the identical manner of Emma Bovary—by taking poison. It’s one of the most curious tales in the history of literature.”
I was at that time, indeed, especially devoted to Flaubert, and had been through Bovary so often that there were many passages which I had all but committed to memory. I had also read as much about the man’s life as I could lay hands on (my failure to know about Steegmuller’s book is an unexplainable mystery): Flaubert’s enormous craft, his monkish dedication, his irony, his painstaking regard for the nuances of language—all of these commanded my passionate admiration. Few others shared room with Flaubert in my private pantheon of writers. I remember being seized by avivid excitement as Paul (it was not “Paul” yet, but it later became so, and I’ll refer to him this way hereafter) spoke of the master, alluding not only to his work, about which he seemed to know a great deal, but to his life—here he was equally well-informed. Although he was clearly a Flaubert votary like me, he had a wide-ranging knowledge of French literature in general, and the references he made to Maupassant, Zola, Turgenev, Daudet, and other of Flaubert’s friends and contemporaries were pertinent, illuminating, and thoroughly grounded in broad reading. We had particular fun exchanging views on Louise Colet, Flaubert’s mistress, speculating on her jealousy and her tantrums, and when I suggested that it was Flaubert’s mother who was at the root of his neurosis and his flight from women, Paul paid tribute to my insight—which may not have been original—by saying: “Oh there’s no doubt that you’re absolutely right. It’s straight out of the Freudian textbook. But at the same time Louise must have been an awful ball-breaker.”
A pretty girl of seventeen or eighteen with red hair approached the table and Paul’s son rose to greet her. Then the rest of us got up and, after introductions and a few murmured amenities, the boy and the girl bade us good night and left gaily, arm in arm. The interruption made me suddenly aware of how quickly the time had passed—outside it was dark and frogs madly piped in the swamp, numberless and shrill above the sound close by of a bleating saxophone. But this interlude had also brought me quickly back to earth; something had caused my wonderful mood to snap in two, and as I took my seat again I saw that Paul Marriott, like the prince transformed into baser stuff at one stroke of the wand, was once again a mere lieutenant-colonel, and thefull panoply of stars and ribbons—miraculously lost to sight during the course of our dialogue—was now intimidatingly
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