Flaubert's Parrot Read online

  His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation that he was not cut out for success, and his duty was therefore to ensure only that he failed in a correct and acceptable fashion. At one point, when discussing the improbability of his Gosse biography ever being finished, let alone published, he paused and dropped his voice:

  ‘But in any case I sometimes wonder if Mr Gosse would have approved of what I’m doing.’

  ‘You mean …’ I knew little of Gosse, and my widened eyes hinted perhaps too clearly at naked laundresses, illegitimate half-castes and dismembered bodies.

  ‘Oh no, no, no. Just the thought of writing about him. He might think it was a bit of a … low blow.’

  I let him have the Turgenev, of course, if only to escape a discussion about the morality of possession. I didn’t see where ethics came into the ownership of a second-hand book; but Ed did. He promised to be in touch if ever he ran down another copy. Then we briefly discussed the rights and wrongs of my paying for his tea.

  I didn’t expect to hear from him again, let alone on the subject which provoked his letter to me about a year later. ‘Are you interested at all in Juliet Herbert? It sounds a fascinating relationship, judging by the material. I’ll be in London in August, if you will. Ever, Ed (Winterton).’

  What does the fiancée feel when she snaps open the box and sees the ring set in purple velvet? I never asked my wife; and it’s too late now. Or what did Flaubert feel as he waited for the dawn on top of the Great Pyramid and finally saw that crack of gold shine from the purple velvet of the night? Astonishment, awe and a fierce glee came into my heart as I read those two words in Ed’s letter. No, not ‘Juliet Herbert’, the other two: first ‘fascinating’ and then ‘material’. And beyond glee, beyond hard work as well, was there something else? A shameful thought of an honorary degree somewhere?

  Juliet Herbert is a great hole tied together with string. She became governess to Flaubert’s niece Caroline at some time in the mid-1850s, and remained at Croisset for a few undetermined years; then she returned to London. Flaubert wrote to her, and she to him; they visited one another every so often. Beyond this, we know nothing. Not a single letter to or from her has survived. We know almost nothing about her family. We do not even know what she looked like. No description of her survives, and none of Flaubert’s friends thought to mention her after his death, when most other women of importance in his life were being memorialised.

  Biographers disagree about Juliet Herbert. For some, the shortage of evidence indicates that she was of small significance in Flaubert’s life; others conclude from this absence precisely the opposite, and assert that the tantalising governess was certainly one of the writer’s mistresses, possibly the Great Unknown Passion of his life, and perhaps even his fiancée. Hypothesis is spun directly from the temperament of the biographer. Can we deduce love for Juliet Herbert from the fact that Gustave called his greyhound Julio? Some can. It seems a little tendentious to me. And if we do, what do we then deduce from the fact that in various letters Gustave addresses his niece as ‘Loulou’, the name he later transfers to Félicité’s parrot? Or from the fact that George Sand had a ram called Gustave?

  Flaubert’s one overt reference to Juliet Herbert comes in a letter to Bouilhet, written after the latter had visited Croisset:

  Since I saw you excited by the governess, I too have become excited. At table, my eyes willingly followed the gentle slope of her breast. I believe she notices this for, five or six times per meal, she looks as if she had caught the sun. What a pretty comparison one could make between the slope of the breast and the glacis of a fortress. The cupids tumble about on it, as they storm the citadel. (To be said in our Sheikh’s voice) ‘Well, I certainly know what piece of artillery I’d be pointing in that direction.’

  Should we jump to conclusions? Frankly, this is the kind of boastful, nudging stuff that Flaubert was always writing to his male friends. I find it unconvincing myself: true desire isn’t so easily diverted into metaphor. But then, all biographers secretly want to annex and channel the sex-lives of their subjects; you must make your judgment on me as well as on Flaubert.

  Had Ed really discovered some Juliet Herbert material? I admit I began feeling possessive in advance. I imagined myself presenting it in one of the more important literary journals; perhaps I might let the TLS have it. ‘Juliet Herbert: A Mystery Solved, by Geoffrey Braithwaite’, illustrated with one of those photographs in which you can’t quite read the handwriting. I also began to worry at the thought of Ed blurting out his discovery on campus and guilelessly yielding up his cache to some ambitious Gallicist with an astronaut’s haircut.

  But these were unworthy and, I hope, untypical feelings. Mostly, I was thrilled at the idea of discovering the secret of Gustave and Juliet’s relationship (what else could the word ‘fascinating’ mean in Ed’s letter?). I was also thrilled that the material might help me imagine even more exactly what Flaubert was like. The net was being pulled tighter. Would we find out, for instance, how the writer behaved in London?

  This was of particular interest. Cultural exchange between England and France in the nineteenth century was at best pragmatic. French writers didn’t cross the Channel to discuss aesthetics with their English counterparts; they were either running from prosecution or looking for a job. Hugo and Zola came over as exiles; Verlaine and Mallarmé came over as schoolmasters. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, chronically poor yet crazily practical, came over in search of an heiress. A Parisian marriage-broker had kitted him out for the expedition with a fur overcoat, a repeating alarm watch and a new set of false teeth, all to be paid for when the writer landed the heiress’s dowry. But Villiers, tirelessly accident-prone, botched the wooing. The heiress rejected him, the broker turned up to reclaim the coat and watch, and the discarded suitor was left adrift in London, full of teeth but penniless.

  So what of Flaubert? We know little about his four trips to England. We know that the Great Exhibition of 1851 secured his unexpected approval – ‘a very fine thing, despite being admired by everyone’ – but his notes on this first visit amount to a mere seven pages: two on the British Museum, plus five on the Chinese and Indian sections at Crystal Palace. What were his first impressions of us? He must have told Juliet. Did we live up to our entries in his Dictionnaire des idées reçues (ENGLISHMEN: All rich, ENGLISHWOMEN: Express surprise that they produce pretty children)?

  And what of subsequent visits, when he had become author of the notorious Madame Bovary? Did he search out English writers? Did he search out English brothels? Did he cosily stay at home with Juliet, staring at her over dinner and then storming her fortress? Were they perhaps (I half-hoped so) merely friends? Was Flaubert’s English as hit-or-miss as it seems from his letters? Did he talk only Shakespearean? And did he complain much about the fog?

  When I met Ed at the restaurant, he was looking even less successful than before. He told me about budget cuts, a cruel world, and his own lack of publications. I deduced, rather than heard, that he had been sacked. He explained the irony of his dismissal: it sprang from his devotion to his work, his unwillingness to do Gosse anything less than justice when presenting him to the world. Academic superiors had suggested that he cut corners. Well, he wouldn’t do so. He respected writing and writers too much for that. ‘I mean, don’t we owe these fellers something in return?’ he concluded.

  Perhaps I offered slightly less than the expected sympathy. But then, can you alter the way luck flows? Just for once, it was flowing for me. I had ordered my dinner quickly, scarcely caring what I ate; Ed had pondered the menu as if he were Verlaine being bought his first square meal in months. Listening to Ed’s tedious lament for himself and watching him slowly consume whitebait at the same time had used up my patience; though it had not diminished my excitement.

  ‘Right,’ I said, as we started our main course, ‘Juliet Herbert.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘yes.’ I could see he might ne
ed prodding. ‘It’s an odd story.’

  ‘It would be.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ed seemed a little pained, almost embarrassed. ‘Well, I was over here about six months ago, tracking down one of Mr Gosse’s distant descendants. Not that I expected to find anything. It was just that, as far as I knew, nobody had ever talked to the lady in question, and I thought it was my … duty to see her. Perhaps some family legend I hadn’t accounted for had come down to her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And? Oh, it hadn’t. No, she wasn’t really of any help. It was a nice day, though. Kent.’ He looked pained again; he seemed to miss the mackintosh which the waiter had ruthlessly deprived him of. ‘Ah, but I see what you mean. What had come down to her was the letters. Now let me get this right; you’ll correct me, I hope. Juliet Herbert died 1909 or so? Yes. She had a cousin, woman cousin. Yes. Now, this woman found the letters and took them to Mr Gosse, asked him his opinion of their value. Mr Gosse thought he was being touched for money, so he said they were interesting but not worth anything. Whereupon this cousin apparently just handed them over to him and said, If they’re not worth anything, you take them. Which he did.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘There was a letter attached in Mr Gosse’s hand.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘And so they came down to this lady. Kent. I’m afraid she asked me the same question. Were they worth anything? I regret I behaved in a rather immoral fashion. I told her they had been valuable when Gosse had examined them, but they weren’t any more. I said they were still quite interesting, but they weren’t worth much because half of them were written in French. Then I bought them off her for fifty pounds.’

  ‘Good God.’ No wonder he looked shifty.

  ‘Yes, it was rather bad, wasn’t it? I can’t really excuse myself; though the fact that Mr Gosse himself had lied when obtaining them did seem to blur the issue. It raises an interesting ethical point, don’t you think? The fact is, I was rather depressed at losing my job, and I thought I’d take them home and sell them and then be able to carry on with my book.’

  ‘How many letters are there?’

  ‘About seventy-five. Three dozen or so on each side. That’s how we settled on the price – a pound apiece for the ones in English, fifty pence for the ones in French.’

  ‘Good God.’ I wondered what they might be worth. Perhaps a thousand times what he paid for them. Or more.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, go on, tell me about them.’

  ‘Ah.’ He paused, and gave me a look which might have been roguish if he hadn’t been such a meek, pedantic fellow. Probably he was enjoying my excitement. ‘Well, fire away. What do you want to know?’

  ‘You have read them?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘And, and …’ I didn’t know what to ask. Ed was definitely enjoying this now. ‘And – did they have an affair? They did, didn’t they?’

  ‘Oh yes, certainly.’

  ‘And when did it start? Soon after she got to Croisset?’

  ‘Oh yes, quite soon.’

  Well, that unravelled the letter to Bouilhet: Flaubert was playing the tease, pretending he had just as much, or just as little, chance as his friend with the governess; whereas in fact …

  ‘And it continued all the time she was there?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘And when he came to England?’

  ‘Yes, that too.’

  ‘And was she his fiancée?’

  ‘It’s hard to say. Pretty nearly, I’d guess. There are some references in both their letters, mostly jocular. Remarks about the little English governess trapping the famous French man of letters; what would she do if he were imprisoned for another outrage against public morals; that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, well, well. And do we find out what she was like?’

  ‘What she was like? Oh, you mean to look at?’

  ‘Yes. There wasn’t … there wasn’t …’ He sensed my hope. ‘… a photograph?’

  ‘A photograph? Yes, several, as a matter of fact; from some Chelsea studio, printed on heavy card. He must have asked her to send him some. Is that of interest?’

  ‘It’s incredible. What did she look like?’

  ‘Pretty nice in an unmemorable sort of way. Dark hair, strong jaw, good nose. I didn’t look too closely; not really my type.’

  ‘And did they get on well together?’ I hardly knew what I wanted to ask any more. Flaubert’s English fiancée, I was thinking to myself. By Geoffrey Braithwaite.

  ‘Oh yes, they seemed to. They seemed very fond. He’d mastered quite a range of English endearments by the end.’

  ‘So he could manage the language?’

  ‘Oh yes, there are several long passages of English in his letters.’

  ‘And did he like London?’

  ‘He liked it. How could he not? It was his fiancée’s city of residence.’

  Dear old Gustave, I murmured to myself; I felt quite tender towards him. Here, in this city, a century and a few years ago, with a compatriot of mine who had captured his heart. ‘Did he complain about the fog?’

  ‘Of course. He wrote something like, How do you manage to live with such fog? By the time a gentleman has recognised a lady as she comes at him out of the fog, it is already too late to raise his hat. I’m surprised the race doesn’t die out when such conditions make difficult the natural courtesies.’

  Oh yes, that was the tone – elegant, teasing, slightly lubricious. ‘And what about the Great Exhibition? Does he go into detail about that? I bet he rather liked it.’

  ‘He did. Of course, that was a few years before they first met, but he does mention it in a sentimental fashion – wonders if he might unknowingly have passed her in the crowds. He thought it was a bit awful, but also really rather splendid. He seems to have looked at all the exhibits as if they were an enormous display of source material for him.’

  ‘And. Hmm.’ Well, why not. ‘I suppose he didn’t go to any brothels?’

  Ed looked at me rather crossly. ‘Well, he was writing to his girl-friend, wasn’t he? He’d hardly be boasting about that.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ I felt chastened. I also felt exhilarated. My letters. My letters. Winterton was planning to let me publish them, wasn’t he?

  ‘So when can I see them? You did bring them with you?’

  ‘Oh no.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ Well, no doubt it was sensible to keep them all in a safe place. Travel has its dangers. Unless … unless there was something I hadn’t understood. Perhaps … did he want money? I suddenly realised I knew absolutely nothing about Ed Winterton, except that he was the owner of my copy of Turgenev’s Literary Reminiscences. ‘You didn’t even bring a single one with you?’

  ‘No. You see, I burnt them.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s what I mean by its being an odd story.’

  ‘It sounds like a criminal story at the moment.’

  ‘I was sure you’d understand,’ he said, much to my surprise; then smiled broadly. ‘I mean, you of all people. In fact, at first I decided not to tell anyone at all, but then I remembered you. I thought that one person in the business ought to be told. Just for the record.’

  ‘Go on.’ The man was a maniac, that much was plain. No wonder they’d kicked him out of his university. If only they’d done it years earlier.

  ‘Well, you see, they were full of fascinating stuff, the letters. Very long, a lot of them, full of reflections about other writers, public life, and so on. They were even more unbuttoned than his normal letters. Perhaps it was because he was sending them out of the country that he allowed himself such freedom.’ Did this criminal, this sham, this failure, this murderer, this bald pyromaniac know what he was doing to me? Very probably he did. ‘And her letters were really quite fine in their way too. Told her whole life story. Very revealing about Flaubert. Full of nostalgic descriptions of home life at Croisset. She obviously had a very good
eye. Noticed things I shouldn’t think anyone else would have done.’

  ‘Go on,’ I waved grimly at the waiter. I wasn’t sure I could stay there much longer. I wanted to tell Winterton how really pleased I was that the British had burnt the White House to the ground.

  ‘No doubt you’re wondering why I destroyed the letters. I can see you’re kind of edgy about something. Well, in the very last communication between the two of them, he says that in the event of his death, her letters will be sent back to her, and she is to burn both sides of the correspondence.’

  ‘Did he give any reasons?’

  ‘No.’

  This seemed strange, assuming that the maniac was telling the truth. But then Gustave did burn much of his correspondence with Du Camp. Perhaps some temporary pride in his family origins had asserted itself and he didn’t want the world to know that he had nearly married an English governess. Or perhaps he didn’t want us to know that his famous devotion to solitude and art had nearly been overthrown. But the world would know. I would tell it, one way or another.

  ‘So you see, of course, I didn’t have any alternative. I mean, if your business is writers, you have to behave towards them with integrity, don’t you? You have to do what they say, even if other people don’t.’ What a smug, moralising bastard he was. He wore ethics the way tarts wear make-up. And then he managed to mix into the same expression both the earlier shiftiness and the later smugness. ‘There was also something else in this last letter of his. A rather strange instruction on top of asking Miss Herbert to burn the correspondence. He said, If anyone ever asks you what my letters contained, or what my life was like, please lie to them. Or rather, since I cannot ask you of all people to lie, just tell them what it is you think they want to hear.’