The following is the first English translation of an article by George Bonnamour, originally published in La Revue Indépendante in May 1892 and subsequently reproduced as the preface to his book Trois femmes (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Parisienne, Albert Savine, Éditeur, 12, 1893).
This satirical dialogue captures a moment in French literary history when the battles between Symbolists, Naturalists, Positivists and various other aesthetic movements were at their height. Bonnamour’s thirteen young intellectuals, gathered in a Parisian café after a disappointing theatrical performance, embody the passionate literary disputes of the fin de siècle. Their heated exchanges about art, science, philosophy and the merits of their contemporaries—from Mallarmé to Zola, from Renan to the Goncourts—offer a vivid snapshot of the cultural ferment of 1890s Paris.
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This dialogue is, I need hardly say, pure invention. Yet when it first appeared in the Revue Indépendante, some amongst my friends claimed to recognise themselves and protested against the attitudes and tone I had attributed to them. I gladly bow to their objections whilst marvelling that anyone should take what was clearly an imaginative fancy for some sort of Goncourt-style memoir. This misapprehension, far from mortifying me as some have supposed, I find rather flattering.
G. B.
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An anxious observer blessed with a retentive memory, I chanced one evening to overhear this significant exchange and here transcribe it. After enduring a spectacle of crushing tedium, ashamed at having jostled amongst financiers and critics in the theatre’s teeming corridors, these young men had retreated to the back room of a quiet café. There, exhilarated by alcohol and tobacco, and perhaps also by thoughts of the mistresses who awaited them, they held forth thus about themselves—and others:
THE POET. — Anyone care for a cigarette?
With the firm, square-fingered hand of a man of purpose, he offered round a packet of Richmonds. Against the matt surface of his taut, polished skin—hard-grained as marble—a trim black moustache made its mark; his brow was crowned with thick, bristling hair, and behind his pince-nez gleamed fierce eyes. A young voice, its timbre bright and silvery, repeating: “Anyone care for a cigarette?…”
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — …To put one’s faith in Science, which explains nothing whatsoever!… Ah! that symbol of the infant in the arms of the Blind Man (Les Aveugles by Maurice Maeterlinck.)!… Ignorance—the supreme irony—leading those who have lost their Faith…
THE FIRST SIAMESE TWIN. — …The child leads them because he can bloody well see, that’s all there is to it. And why on earth should someone possessed of one sense more than the rest symbolise Ignorance?… And this contempt of yours for Science—what utter rot! Because “it doesn’t explain everything”… Fair enough! But it’s the only thing that explains anything at all…
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — And what of it! I couldn’t give a damn. The Idea is all I believe in, as you perfectly well know—we’re worlds, simply worlds apart!…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — The Idea!… The Idea!… How droll—we believe only in facts, in hard little demonstrable facts, observed, verified, proven true. You’re still mucking about with that antiquated distinction between the Self and the Non-Self… Mademoiselle is rather behind the times… When you’ve a moment to spare, I’ll demonstrate their identity…
Stationed at oblique angles in the corner: the fair young man—delicate, slight of build, neck craned forward, lip thrust out combatively, beardless and mild-mannered yet obstinate, bridling against the others’ rigorous reasoning and icy precision like a spirited little thoroughbred, all temper and pride. And the Siamese Twins—those unaffected cynics, contemptuous of every hypocrisy, fists brandished in gestures of revolt. Light played across the high, phlegmatic brow of one; whilst on the other’s drawn features showed the pallor of rage, his mouth twisted in insolent mockery.
THE DRAMATIST. — …She may look the part, but between you and me, old man, she’s an absolute goose! One has to prime her like all the rest.
This one’s eyes danced merrily behind his monocle; an apostle’s beard, already threaded with fine silver.
THE FIRST SIAMESE TWIN, musing. — …You’re on about unconscious ideation?…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — Precisely—without unconscious reflex activity, one can never account for conscious ideation. These gentlemen’s Pure Idea—can you make head or tail of it?
THE FIRST SIAMESE TWIN. — Oh, come off it! That’s ancient history! Nobody even bothers to refute it anymore…
THE MUSICIAN. — It’s all legend—I’m not the carping sort…
A gentleman’s polish distinguished this melancholy Wagnerian, whose dejection stemmed from being perpetually savaged by the critics.
THE DRAMATIST. — Sarcey—I went to see him: “Your play, you know—frankly, I don’t care for it.” Then he insisted I stay for luncheon. We were served leathery turkey and the old devil paid me no further mind… There were ladies present…
A VOICE. — Just like my experience… Two hours cooling my heels on that red divan only to hear: “Well yes, I’m an old fool… when you reach my age…”
THE FIRST SIAMESE TWIN. — …Come now, be fair—it’s not just Sarcey. What about the others, the Bauër-Fouquier-Lemaître cabal; all those villains of the review pages, the whole newspaper racket…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — …I’ve observed them at close quarters—their souls have low ceilings and precious little light gets in… One need only gather the evidence and then strike hard.
THE FIRST SIAMESE TWIN. — Quite so! They simply cannot help their bellowing… You all saw Nestor in the Echo de Paris, and yet what we’d written, the whole of Paris already knew…
THE MONOCLE. — …You’re making enemies needlessly… squandering your forces to no purpose… Now irony, that’s my weapon of choice… Anatole France’s hypodermic—that tiny needle that seems harmless yet proves fatal—far less risky than your sledgehammer approach.
Terrifically smart, this one, with a waspish air.
THE SIAMESE TWINS. — Less courageous, you mean… France! There’s your man to show no mercy—a specimen who lavishes praise only on mediocrities and will grovel on the Academy’s doorstep until they cry “Enter!” as to a lackey!
THE CLEAN-SHAVEN YOUNG MAN. — You do him an injustice—France is perfectly delightful. He reads our work. He keeps himself informed… When my first book appeared, I received an article from him…
A deadpan delivery, sharp as an English razor. Good-hearted. A leg-up diplomacy.
THE PHILOSOPHER. — No sense of ingratitude, then?… You’ll never make your mark… No, my dear chap, gratitude simply doesn’t figure amongst the Force-Ideas…
Thickset, pig-headed, full-blooded. The sluggish diction of a deep thinker. At once solemn and impassioned. Bull-necked, with a gaze of tranquil pride.
THE FIRST SIAMESE TWIN. — You actually credit these Force-Ideas? But they’re completely unproven!… sheer metaphysics… rather like our friend’s “love as the generator of improvement”—if he imagines that’s something tangible!…
THE PHILOSOPHER. — Is there anything tangible? Who’s to say our senses don’t deceive us entirely? Wouldn’t you agree, Poet?
THE POET. — …Anyone care for a cigarette?
THE PHILOSOPHER. — No, hang it all, metaphysics is pure drivel… I divide the world into two components: the element of Force, the element of Goodness—a proper scientific theory… I can demonstrate… Look here, follow my progression: Taine, Bourget, Rod, Barrès—so many waymarkers, and I arrive…
THE SIAMESE TWINS, chanting mockingly:
Je m’appelle Bouteille-à-l’Encre,
Je suis métaphysicien!
[They call me Ink-Bottle,
I’m a metaphysician!]
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN, rapturously, from the far end. — …Now there’s a pure soul, a truly noble mind… Oh, I can sense how utterly absorbed he is in his Art, and nothing else… His Apparition—one of the finest novels of the past fifteen years… But of course, writing for the Revue impartiale…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — Rubbish! That book is mine to dissect! I intend to expose the puerility of all this mysticism: watered-down atmospherics, and what it amounts to, we know perfectly well—a lymphatic temperament’s sensuality… However you try to wriggle free, you cannot escape Reality. You make everything misty, nebulous and bluish, but it remains reality all the same, merely rendered insipid.
THE ART CRITIC. — …And have you observed how, in the plastic arts, these mystics and symbolists prove utterly impotent when it comes to expressing the Idea, the Sentiment… The sum total of their discovery? Aping the Primitives… Honestly, after five centuries of discoveries, innovations and technical advances, it’s simply not on!
A refined face, smiling, with a forked beard. Gestures full of grace and the warm, caressing timbre of his voice. The rare, exquisite constitution of a true élite, preserving for the battles of press and page the undimmed fire of his conviction. His sensitive hand, practised in handling precious objets d’art, sketched expressive arabesques before his eyes, which sparkled with lucid intelligence.
THE CLEAN-SHAVEN YOUNG MAN. — We scoff at Science, we spit on technique—we are Poets! We pursue the frisson!
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — The frisson, the pure Idea, Sentiment in its eternal essence… We’ve had quite enough of the contingent… Idealism shall prevail, and with it, Magnificism.
THE POET, THE ART CRITIC, THE PHILOSOPHER, THE MONOCLE AND THE SIAMESE TWINS. — Do explain!
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — That would take three hours… An entire book… I’m preparing a Work at home, you’ll see. Magnificism will triumph—yes, in one hundred and fifty years’ time!… No! No! Don’t argue, it’s pointless… I am a Plotinist.
THE SIAMESE TWINS. — Plotinus—a most distinguished madman.
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — You disgust me!
THE CLEAN-SHAVEN YOUNG MAN. — What divides us?… I believe in the Soul. I know with absolute certainty that I shan’t perish entirely…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — An immortal Soul for you, the author of Les Souliers Vernis? The Almighty is too generous!
THE CLEAN-SHAVEN YOUNG MAN. — You disgust me!
THE MAGE. — The Novel? Art dumbed down for the bourgeoisie, an inferior Art form… Still, I acknowledge excellence in every field…
A formidable combatant, this one…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Don’t scoff—I know verses of his (François Coppée) that Mallarmé would gladly claim…
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — Leave Mallarmé out of this!…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — Mallarmé! There’s their deity. Oh, this pure artist—but his philosophy’s riddled with inanities, if you can call it philosophy—an artist’s table-talk, nothing more… And his art? Charade-verses! Have a look at his Savetier in the latest Revue Incolore… He’ll be versifying advertisements next… And that salon of his, from which young men emerge raving and putrid with self-regard—shouldn’t it be shut down forthwith as a public health measure for the intellect?
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — Mallarmé—I no longer see eye to eye with him on any matter whatsoever… But to insult an entire generation—really?
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — Why shouldn’t I? Oh, what a splendid generation! Just look at yourselves—puny weaklings, craniums caved in; no blood, no sinew, nothing but nerves, wretched diseased nerves; the final phase, the withering, the death-rattle of a race. And you expect me to show respect for that?… If you had the slightest inkling what the great minds of our age think of you, you might pause for thought… Come now, bestir yourselves, emerge from your cocoons, listen—here and abroad—to what the learned world pronounces about you daily. Pitiful!… Rosny has it right—you’re the Generation of CONQUEST… Anything robust terrifies you! And perhaps your anti-patriotism isn’t quite so philosophical as we’re led to believe—if you ask me, your entire worldview was conceived in hysteria during a night of blind panic!…
THE MAGE. — …I should dearly love to record somewhere that a nation which has credited the Goncourts, Zola and Daudet with genius has plumbed the very depths of intellectual degradation… Flaubert—the soul of a shopkeeper!… Huysmans—a clerk’s vision of the world…
Beneath flowing dark hair, a nervous profile with its aquiline curve. A forked beard. A gentle smile belying the vehement gestures of a revolutionary.
THE SIAMESE TWINS. — And what of the Symbolists? The Magnificists?
THE MAGE. — They lack talent, but they’re not wrong…
THE SIAMESE TWINS. — Their great discovery, good God, it’s perfectly simple—either paraphrasing Moreau, or having a swineherd discourse like a prince…
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — To paraphrase means, when one is enamoured solely of one’s own individuality, to recreate, to reorder others… Truth?… It dwells within us. We fashion our soul into a sumptuous repository for those visions of the world that we ourselves create.
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — You, who’ve sung Goncourt’s praises—you believe that?… Frailty, thy name is Camille.
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN. — Tear me to pieces—you’ll do me a service… And let’s call it a night, since we’re spouting endless nonsense in execrable French…
THE MONOCLE. — …………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
THE DRAMATIST. — Mademoiselle Renan! Lemaître’s green with envy, as he is of everything beyond his comprehension…
THE MONOCLE. — Renan—triumphant through irony.
THE MAGE. — That old man is obscene…
THE SECOND SIAMESE TWIN. — Renan, Ledrain, the whole tribe of exegetes cut from the same cloth—I’ll compile the inventory one day, catalogue all their inflated claims… I’ll display the whole jumble-sale of their erudition, the claptrap of their theories… There’s a book to be written, and I’ll entitle it: The Learned Asses.
THE FIRST SIAMESE TWIN. — La Vie de Jésus—a George Sand romance! And on the origins of language, the old fool parrots the very opinions of Saint Basil, who hadn’t the foggiest notion… These recent years, all his recantations, his spat with Goncourt—it turns one’s stomach… He’s gone to fat, round the heart, round the brain…
THE FAIR YOUNG MAN, in raptures. — …I see the Future!… Positivism lies mortally stricken!… Magnificism renders aesthetic the radiance of the ideal… One need only open one’s eyes and observe to comprehend: Science is human, Art is divine, and we exist to ensure the Divine triumphs… The time has come to confront the Idea that has arisen and to reckon with those who will champion it…
THE SIAMESE TWINS. — And we’re telling you, you’re crowing over a mere flash in the pan!… You invoke Positivism. Your learning’s out of date. We are simply Transformists. Positivism posits the Unknowable. Taken in its entirety, it’s already a defunct doctrine. Those who maintain, as you do, that our Unknowable goes by the name of Matter are talking through their hats, for Matter deals only in “How?” and never “Why?” Are we the sickly ones? What specimens you are!… That little metaphysical St Vitus’s dance that seizes one generation in ten has you in its grip, and you mistake it for a renaissance?… Your naivety is your only excuse… But shout “Forward!” all you like, style yourselves “Magnificents”—your metaphors ring hollow and you drape your little academies in moth-eaten rags. We’ve had quite enough of this intellectual buggery! The only genuinely new things are Science and Life—if you must have Mystery, seek it there and you’ll find aplenty…
THE POET. — Anyone care for a cigarette?…
And so their discourse drew to a close, punctuated with knowing smiles. Troubled pale faces with over-keen eyes, febrile young men of nervous disposition, already somewhat weary from excessive cogitation—a pugnacious band who, once the fever had subsided in the chill of night, clasped hands warmly, destined to swell the ranks of tomorrow’s élite. — They numbered Thirteen.
GEORGE BONNAMOUR.
Paris, 15 May 1892.
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