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t.s//frr/€tMte 0]<rftry <///</ A DOUIJLK P<)R IRAII X SENTRY EDiTioN- 1970 »/fl f/ijyflH (cid:127) Htf T O C./Arf'n firstSentryPrinting t: Reprintedbyarrangementwithferr.tr,StrausandGiroux Copyright tyjy,ty66byFrenchSteegtmtller rillrightsreserved.Sopertof thistcorhmay be reproducedortransmittedinany formby any illcens,electronicormechanical,including photocopyingandrecording,orby any informationstorageorretrieval system,withoutpermission inwritingfromthe publisher. PrintedintheUnitedStatesof America Since 1939, when thishook was first published,it has beenreissuedinanumber of editions,in each of which Ihave tried toincorporate some of the new findingsin Flaubert scholarship. A few such changes have been made in the present edition. For those whose interest in Flaubert’s early life incites them to read further, let me recommend, as additions to the bibliography,Flau¬ bert’s Intimate Notebook 1840-1841, translated and annotated by me (Douhledav & Company, Inc., Gar¬ den City, New York, 1967; and W. H. Allen & Co., London, 1967), his early novel November, translated by Frank Jellinek (London, Michael Joseph, 1966; The Serendipity Press, New York [distributed by Crown Publishers], 1967), Harry Levin’s The Gates of Horn (New York, Oxford University Press, 1963), and VictorBrombcrt’sTheNovelsofFlaubert (Prince¬ ton, 1966). In French, Jean Bruncau's Les Debuts litteraires de Gustave Flaubert (Paris, Armand Colin, 196:) is important,andin Italian thereis an interesting article by Sergio Cigada, “Gcncsi e struttura tcmatica di Emma Bovary,” in Pubblicazioni dell' Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, nuovo serie, Vol. LXXIl (Societa cditricc “Vita c Pcnsicro,” Milano, 1959). At present writing, a forthcoming study of Flaubert by Enid Starkie has been announced, also one by Ben¬ jaminF.Bart. As to this book,Irepeat from the prefatory note to earlier editions that Ihave quoted very few of Flau- bert’s letters in their entirety, and in many instances have combined passages from two or more letters. The second of my two translations from Alphonse Karr, that on pages91 and 92,has been compiled from two versions of the incident writtenby Karr at differ¬ ent times and differing slightly. Louise Colet’s reply, on pages 92 and 93, was written late in her life, when for some reason the old scandal was disinterred and recountedin the columns of a newspaper.Iamrespon¬ sible for the translation of passages from Flaubert’s letters and travel notes, from Souvenirs Litteraires of Maxime DuCamp,and from all other works,originally inFrench,quotedinmy text. F.S. New York, 1967 PART ONE Romanticism THE TEMPTATION OF SAINT ANTHONY I PART TWO The Purge THE ORIENTAL JOURNEY *43 PART THREE Realism MADAME KOVARY 113 AFTERWORD 345 APPENDIX 355 BIBLIOGRAPHY 3*3 INDEX follows page 365 (&Jie Z//r sf CSfff'j//'S/j/Z/rj/y morning in May <845, a handsome, blond, F.ng- lish-lookingyoungFrenchman was standingin the picture gallery of the Palazzo Balbi-Scnarcga at Genoa. Unlike most of the visitors to the gallery he was not examining the Titians,or the Rubenses, or even the famous frieze by DomcnichinoZampicri.11c wasstaring with fixed,unwav¬ ering gaze at a repulsive canvasby the elder Breughel, en¬ titled The Temptation of Saint Anthony. He was not a connoisseur, young Flaubert. Of the art of painting he knew nothing whatever. But for very def¬ inite reasons—all of them connected with quite another — art he was deeply impressed by this Breughel, far more deeply impressed than by any other picture he had ever seen. To his astonishment and delight it seemed almost to have been painted expressly for him.For at this particular moment he was in quest of a subject for a large and ambi¬ tiouspieceof writingthat would test hispowers and allow himself to see of what stuff he wasmade; and this picture, ignored by most visitors to the Palazzo Balbi-Senarega, suddenly offered him a subject which seemed to be suit¬ able in every way and far more promising than the vaguely conceived’‘oriental talc” whichup tonow he had thought would be his next work. Drama and history, both with a strongly romantic cast, were young Flaubert’s favourite territories, and the sub¬ ject of the temptation of Saint Anthony would allow him toindulgeina long,romantic orgy of more-than-historical drama. The subject was dramatic, especially as portrayed by Breughel: the saint’s temptations were strong and var¬ ied and his struggle was great. Therefore, the dramatic form should be retained. Flaubert was confident that he could retain it, for in addition to several non-dramatic works he already had a dozen or more dramas to his Part One: ROMANTICISM 4 credit,of varying lengths and oil historical and philosoph¬ ical subjects, all lyingin the drawers of his desk at home. Furthermore, to be treated as it could and should be treated, the subject would require weeks of research into the lives of the fathers of the church,into the heresies and schisms,into the worldof Alexandria,intotheanatomy of mysticism. Nothing pleased Flaubert more than the pros¬ pect of buryinghimself in books and papers in the corner of a library,seekingin the colour of the past to forget the drabness of the present: at twenty-three he felt himself sadly out of key with his age, and constantly lamented that he had not beenborn into another and more interest¬ ing one. It was this prospect of losing himself in ancient books, of escaping into the glamour of the ancient w'orld, that wassuddenly heldout to himin the gallery at Genoa; and in the paintingbefore his eyes it was at this prospect, rather than at the colour or the line or the composition, that he kept staring with such rapture. And there wras still another reason for the startling ap¬ propriateness of the subject. Saint Anthony was a hermit, a mystic monk who livedalonein theEgyptian mountains above the Nile, his head full of dreams and visions; and young Flaubert, too, after an active childhood and ado¬ lescence, had lately been forced, for a strange, almost a supernatural reason, to lead a life of lonely inactivity.De¬ spite his vigorous appearance, the state of his health had recently been bad, even alarming. For a year and a half, before setting out from Rouen on this Italian journey, he had been almost as complete a hermit as Saint Anthony, and on his return he expected to resume his solitude. Se¬ cluded from all, except from one of his two friends (the other was abroad), he had lived in Normandy beside the Seine much as the saint had lived in the Thcbaid beside the Nile. Although he loved his parents and his sister, the spiritual companionship he derived from them was no more (now,at least,he suddenly enjoyed imagining) than that whichSaint Anthony had derived from the occasional pilgrims who found their way to his cave. And the com¬ pany of the one friend, a romantic young man named Alfred Le Poittevin, might be likened to Anthony’s com¬ munion with God.For to Alfred he owed, or thought he