Paris in the Twentieth Century (6 page)

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. "

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 M
é
ditations, La Com
é
die 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.