Электронная книга: Henri Murger «Stseene boheemlaselust»
Romaan on eelkõige tuntud mitme kuulsa lavateose alustekstina, nende hulgas Leoncavallo ja Puccini ooperid “Boheem”, I. Kálmáni operett, uuemal ajal ka samateemaline muusikal. Teos põhineb autori noorpõlveaastatel Pariisis, kus ta algaja kirjanikuna vireles ärklikorteris, kaaslasteks samasugused nooredboheemlased, kes kutsusid end veejoojate klubi liikmeteks, kuna neil polnud raha veini ega toidu jaoks. Издательство: "Eesti digiraamatute keskus OU" (2010)
ISBN: 9789985658383 электронная книга Купить за 451.28 руб и скачать на Litres |
Henri Murger
Henri Murger (
He is chiefly distinguished as the author of "Scènes de la Vie de Bohème," from his own experiences as a desperately poor writer living in a Parisian attic, member of a loose club of friends who called themselves "the water drinkers" (since they had so little money that wine was difficult for them to afford). In his writing he combines instinct with pathos and humour, sadness his predominant tone. The book is the basis for the
Early life
Henri Murger was born in 1822 and was the son of a man who exercised the joint calling of tailor and doorkeeper in the Rue Saint Georges, Paris. After receiving a scanty and fragmentary education he entered a lawyer's office, but like many another "youth foredoomed his father's soul to cross,” thought more of scribbling stanzas than of engrossing deeds. His verses, however, gained him the patronage of M. de Jouy, the Academician. Thanks to this gentleman, he obtained the position of secretary to
Murger's literary career began about 1841. His first essays were mainly poetical, but under the pressure of necessity he wrote whatever he could find a market for, turning out prose, to use his own expression, at the rate of eighty francs an acre, and scattering his talent in the columns of petty literary journals so unstable financially that they never dared announce anything as “to be continued in our next,” and even in trade periodicals. Like his own Rodolphe, he edited a fashion paper, the
Development as a Writer
About the year 1844 Murger joined the staff of the
The piece was produced at the
It is questionable after all whether Murger was at heart a Bohemian. He has, indeed, been reproached that after having swam vigorously away from the
Writing Process
Murger possessed a curious and attentive mind, and, as a writer, was careful and exact. Writing was indeed a difficult task to him. He felt his lack of education. He used to work, by preference, at night, stimulating his mind by copious draughts of coffee and surrounding himself with a number of lighted candles. He would put ten sheets of paper before him, write the same idea down in ten different fashions, and then choose the one that pleased him best, or if he could not make a choice would toss up a coin and settle it that way. He would strive to polish a phrase as a lapidary polishes a stone, for the poet of Bohemia was the most conscientious of artists. It was this excessive care that led to his published works being fewer than might have been anticipated, since he devoted so much time to each. The works written in his second manner differ widely from those of his early days, and he is reported to have said of "The Bohemians", “That devil of a book will hinder me from ever crossing the Pont des Arts" and becoming an Academician, which was one of his dreams. The coffee drinking had a very injurious effect on Murger. It led to constantly recurring attacks of
Murger's wit is best shown in his works, though one or two of his sayings deserve quotation. His furniture was once seized. "Already,” said he to the bailiff, “see what it is not to have a clock, one never knows the hour one's bills fall due.” When his first success was achieved, he did his best to clear off his old debts, but this only made his creditors keener. “I have watered my creditors and they are sprouting afresh,” was his comment. During his sojourn at Marlotte he became a most enthusiastic sportsman, though it was a standing jest that whilst he sallied out day after day he never hit anything. Indeed, he wrote to a friend when inviting him down, “There are pheasants. I will introduce you to an old cock that I have missed five times. Indeed, he knows me, and now does not trouble himself to take flight at my passage.” Winter he described as “a beastly time, when the sun himself has a red nose.” His early death was in a great measure due to a neglect of the regimen prescribed by the doctors, for as he said: “When I am ill I treat my illnesses with indifference and cure them by contempt.” To the last, however, he retained his cheerfulness, and when in the hospital observed to one of his friends, “I am so weak that even a fly might safely challenge me."
The Bohemians, wild and eccentric as the work may appear, is essentially true to nature. It is a series of sketches of real life. The experiences related are actual ones, and the characters existed and can be readily identified. Many writers have put their heart into their work, but Murger put his life. It was when living with Champfleury in the Rue de Vaugirard that, under the influence of the author of "The Bourgeois de Molinchard", he began to abandon the Muses and devote himself to prose; it was during this period that the first germs of the book that was to render him famous were deposited in his mind. The scenes which he has embellished in describing he was present at, the actors who take part in them and whose physiognomy his pen has somewhat poetized he knew and spoke of.
The Character of Rodolphe
Rodolphe is Murger himself. As
Rodolphe himself surely speaks in the following letter written to
The Character of Schaunard
Schaunard is
The Character of Marcel
Marcel is composed of two artists who ended very differently, Lazare and Tabar. Lazare was a tall, powerful, fair-haired, and rather red-faced young fellow. The best off of all the set, he lived with his brother in the Rue d'Enfer, in a house inherited from their father. There was no other Bohemian so well to do, and perhaps it was sheer love of contrast that led him to take such interest in the seamy side of Parisian life, to hunt out odd industries like
The Character of Colline
Colline was made up of
The Character of Barbemuche
Barbemuche was a fancy sketch of
Minor characters
Many of the minor characters, too, are traceable. The Jew Medicis, alias Salomon, really kept a shop in the
Mimi
"Mimi” was, for Murger, a kind of generic appellation. His first love was undoubtedly one of his cousins, named Angèle, the daughter of a stove maker, more or less Piedmontese. But this love was more than platonic, it was ethereal, for his young relative was never touched by it, neither bouquets nor madrigals in prose and verse could move her. She married, and he, full of her remembrance, paints her under the name of Helene in the Buveurs d'eau. She had, however, a friend named Marie, who became
Musette
The Musette of Murger and the Mariette of Champfleury are modeled on one and the same person, though both writers have deviated somewhat from their original. Murger, for instance, ascribes to her vocal qualifications she did not possess. This was a trait he borrowed from Lise, the wife of
Phemie
As to Phemie Teinturière Schanne has surely the most right to speak. “It was at the period when one Alexandre S. wore a nankeen suit of the most revolting yellow, and played on the hunting horn without being a hunter. One evening he had accompanied into a free-and-easy in the Rue Saint Martin a jeweler, the owner of a tenor voice, who wanted to have his accompaniment played by the author of the "Symphony on the Influence of Blue in Art." Whilst he was at the piano the said Alexandre S. noted out of the corner of his eye the nervous agitation produced by his music in the young dilettanti of the locality. Soon approaching the instrument in order to be nearer the instrumentalist, she ventured to ask for a few notes to accompany a ballad she knew. This featherless linnet was named Louisette, and was never called Phémie save in Merger's book. Why now the surname of 'Teinturière’ under which she is known in story? I will tell you. Louisette worked all day at an artificial flower maker's in the Hue Saint Denis. She was a ‘dipper,' that is to say, that having to dye the materials used in imitating foliage her hands were continually of the brightest green. She was a plump little woman, with blue eyes, despite her dark hair. Her nose was saucy, her mouth laughing, and behind teeth, as white as if they were false, lay hid the voice of a songstress. She was devoid of all instruction, but had the spirit of repartee of a Parisian street Arab. She was indeed so turbulent and foul-mouthed that she was often caught slandering the boys in the street in their own language, and having no regard for the dignity of her sex, would ride behind carriages like these youngsters.” She also seems, as we learn from Alfred Delorme, "to have gone to and fro from the barracks to the studio, from the Carbineers to Schaunard, and from Schaunard to the Chasseurs de Vincennes.” Hence, as Schanne remarks, "All the same when Murger speaks of Phemie Teinturière as 'the idol of Schaunard’ I think he goes a little too far."
etting in the novel
Places as well as persons are copied from nature. The
Cafe Momus
"The almost daily frequenters of the
"After a warm day spent over the old books on the quays
"'But,' exclaimed the landlord, 'tell us at least why--' “Without giving him time to finish his sentence, Tabar had the coolness to invent the story that Wallon was a somnambulist, that he had fancied he was putting his boot where he was in the habit of placing it every evening, and that it was very lucky that he had not gone further or he would have thrown himself out of the window thinking he was jumping into bed.
"'Did I do that?' asked Wallon, still unbooted and heavy with sleep.
"' Yes,' we replied in chorus. Tabar then added that somnambulism never failed to punish hyperphysical philosophers for their hyperphysical philosophy. Then addressing Wallon he even persuaded him that he had been talking to his boot, calling it 'old fellow,' and making it partake of refreshments after excusing himself for having made it so heated on the asphalt of the quays. Plalf satisfied with our explanation, or seeing that they could only get paradoxical excuses from us, the invaders resignedly retraced their steps downstairs."
At that time not only in the Latin Quarter but throughout Paris, people hardly went to a cafe except to drink coffee. Beer was only known as a strange and accidental beverage. As to liquors of a supposedly appetizing character, they were but rarely seen, and were looked upon as potions only good for constitutions debilitated by a sojourn in Africa. Punch and mulled wine were drunk in the latter part of the evening. The pipe now replaced by the cigarette was in high esteem; the students even made it an accessory to their costume, and when it was not in their mouths, they wore it in their buttonhole.
The
Incidents from the Novel
Turning from persons and places to incidents we find plenty of these scarcely exaggerated by the author. As for the scene of the borrowed swallow-tail, it was founded on fact, and indeed, Schanne's account of it is almost as diverting as Murger's. The hero was really a young fellow named Espérance Blanchon, who had inherited from his father a respectable fortune gained as a pork-butcher. But let Schanne speak. “Murger was sharing my studio in the Rue de la Harpe. One morning we were trying to warm up some coffee with bits of lighted paper when there was a knock at the door. It was a young fellow, bearer of a letter of recommendation from a student friend of mine who had assured him that I was a good painter. He was, he told me, going on a long journey and did not want to start without leaving his portrait for his mother. He was between twenty-five and thirty, and was pitted with small-pox to such an extent that if a handful of peas had been thrown into his face not one would have fallen to the ground. Whilst he was taking a seat in the patient's armchair I passed behind the rich tapestry masking my bed and the entrance of the garret that served as a kitchen. I went to join Murger, who would, perhaps, have drunk all the coffee without me. We agreed that on returning to the studio I should make an eloquent patter speech to my client, and that at each pause in it Murger, hidden behind the tapestry, should play on the tambourine. Accordingly I returned to the scene of action with the words, 'Your lucky star did not deceive you, sir, when it guided your steps to this sanctuary of art.' 'Broum, broum, broum,' from Murger, who, faithful to our agreement, was strumming with wetted thumb on the parchment of his instrument, 'Pay no attention,' I resumed; ‘it is a poor friend of mine with a very bad cold who is amusing himself with reciting verses. You recognize Ponsard's style. But learn that you are in the studio of the painter-in-ordinary to Queen Pomaré, who is so much talked about just now.' 'Broum.' 'I am entrusted by her Majesty with the task of allegorically depicting seven theological virtues and not three, a number recognized as inadequate to equilibrize the seven deadly sins.' ' Broum, broum.' ' You see in what line I exercise my talents. If, therefore, you have not a pure conscience, a stainless soul, it will be useless to persist in your project of being painted by me. I would not guarantee the likeness and not even a vague family resemblance--” you would turn my oil!' Somewhat bewildered he replied,' I will do my best to--' 'Broum, broum.' 'Is your friend no better?' he added. ' No,' I replied, ' those verses from Lucrece are so chilly. But we are losing time in vain discourses; let us seek a position suitable to a 'No. 20 canvas and that I can reproduce with my finest colors. The head a little less forward, if you please, more ease about the body. Please cast one of those looks that express all the joys of youth joined to those of a heart without remorse. Look pleasant, confound it, or I won't begin.'
“Murger now issued from his hiding-place and said, in his natural voice: 'The gentleman surely does not think of being painted in a tail-coat.' ' Is it not the fashion ?' asked Esperance Blanchon. I divined the need of a dress-coat felt by Murger to go and take tea that evening at an influential critic's. We pleaded in favor of a frock-coat on account of the fuller folds of its draping. Murger offered his, which at once passed on to the gentleman's back. This done, in the studio usually so noisy, nothing was heard but the scratching of the charcoal on the canvas. At half-past five the sun failed us. But it was important not to let Esperance Blanchon go, as he would have taken away his coat, so we kept him to dinner. He at first declined our gracious offer, which did not suit us, but he ended by accepting it on the express condition that he should find the money, and that in order to put us quite at our ease, the expense should be strictly confined to the sum represented by my day's work. It was a payment already due and not an advance that he made. Murger spread himself round the town and returned with a caravan of pastry cooks, cooks and butlers bearing eatables and drinkables. He had also stuffed his pockets with several pounds of candles. It was, indeed, his mania and his luxury to give himself what he called a ' feast of light.' The forty francs of the Russian prince at the time when he received them passed away in a great measure in private illuminations. He, who only worked at night, had nonetheless a passion for light and light most intense, believing that to see clearly with the eyes added to the lucidity of the mind. We dined cheerfully, despite the scant supply of crockery, and dessert was farther enlivened by the expected arrival of Mimi and Phemie Teinturiere. Murger was still in a tail-coat as his frock continued to drape our young pork-butcher in its folds. He profited by this to slip away and go to the tea-party of the no less well furnished than influential critic. I therefore remained with the task of amusing the guests, and above all, of gaining time, for from one moment to another Esperance might have a wish to go off, and how, in that case, was one to restore him his coat? Ten struck, and then eleven, and no Murger. My piano was of great assistance, and the ladies also devoted themselves; Mimi waltzed and Phemie sang. Still Murger did not return. Midnight had struck and the bottles were empty.
“Happily my 'Symphony on the influence of Blue in Art' was ready in my head and at the tips of my fingers, an excellent piece under the circumstances because it lasts long. I attacked the fragment of it entitled 'The Elephant's March' with copious verbal explanations, to which the young pork-butcher listened with amazement, the elephant being an incomprehensible animal to him, unknown as it is in his trade. ' I begin,' said I,' by warning you that we are in C minor, a key with three flats. I do not spare flats to give you pleasure. How many avaricious composers would you not meet in life who would only put in one or two at most. But see what a picture. The elephants slowly advance, one, all white, at the head of them bearing under a magnificent dais the corpse of the Indian maiden. The sun flames on the horizon; it is hot, very hot. Here, to convey this idea, I pass into the major key as you would have been the first to advise me. However, the moon rises, and I return to the minor, it was self-evident. Do you now mark the hoarse voice of the tigers in the jungle ? do you also hear the Indian poet singing in verses of thirty-two feet the virtues of the young deceased? It would be the oboe in a European orchestra that would be entrusted with this discourse. Here an uncle of the young girl blows his nose loudly; unfortunately the exact note, which is found in the scale of the bassoon, does not exist on the piano. The elephants still advance, pan, pan, pan. But is not someone knocking at the door ?' I went and opened it. Murger at last. But the situation was not so difficult as might have been believed, for Esperance Blanchon was in such a little hurry to leave us that he would not go away at all, and even asked leave to sleep on our sofa.“The next day I had to resume my brushes to again earn commercially a little festival that was in preparation. The same thing happened the following days. Only my model gave me a great deal of work and trouble, for under the influence of his libations the tint of his skin kept continually altering, passing from a kind of green inclining to violet to a sort of yellow tinged with grey. Hence the portrait scarcely advanced. ' There are really months when one is not in working humor,' said I to Murger, who in his book has altered months to years. Finally Esperance, who had never laughed so much in his life, would not leave us. One saw that he was seeking to distract his thoughts. We asked ourselves during his ' brief absence whether a criminal was not concealed beneath this lamb-like envelope. Some words that escaped him reassured us; he had lost one dear to him, a victim, through nursing him, of the terrible malady that had so disfigured him.
"All this was very well, but a notice to quit in due form came from my landlord. My neighbor on the floor below, a lithographer, complained of no longer being able to get to sleep, and the doorkeeper had backed up his protest. We had, therefore, two enemies to be revenged on. Esperance Blanchon undertook to deal with the lithographer. He had the patience to copy off the bills, stuck up about the district, the names of everyone advertising for lost property. Then he wrote to them in terms something like this: ' Sir (or Madam) you wish to recover your dog (or your parrot, your bracelet, etc.), You will find it at M. X's, lithographer, 50, Rue de la Harpe. Insist on having it back, for you will have to do with a man who, without being positively dishonest, will begin by saying he does not know what you mean. Yours, etc.' The following morning there was started at the lithographer's a din of ringings at the bell and strong language which I cannot reproduce by any known method of typography. We might have complained in turn of a noise that hindered us from exercising our liberal professions, but we disdained such a mean revenge. As to the door-keeper, I brought back from a country excursion a dozen hideous toads and let them loose in the court-yard at one in the morning. Then we lowered a sponge, saturated with alcohol and set on fire, at the end of a wire from our window on the fifth floor, and gave the door-keeper a sight of such a will-o'-the-wisp as is scarcely seen save at the opera in Robert the Devil. We heard a cry of terror as the lodge was lit up. In the morning Murger went down and asked Madam Cerberus whether she had any letters for him ? Without replying she told him how the house was haunted by ghosts who made punch at night and were not ashamed to get drunk with toads, adding that it was unbearable, and that he and his friends were lucky in having notice to leave. During the five weeks we remained there the lodge remained lit up all night.
“But Espérance Blanchon had arrived at the last hour of pleasure that was to strike for him in this world. His portrait being finished was varnished, framed, packed and forwarded to his mother. He then left us, and hearing nothing more of him, after some time we made enquiries and learnt that he had written to a member of his family that he was to be looked for at the bottom of the pond at Plessis Piquet. Murger and I at once went to Plessis Piquet and saw Father Cens, the innkeeper. He had seen the poor fellow come along in a deluge of rain holding up an umbrella as though to protect Murger's frock-coat, which he still wore. Father Cens thought, and rightly, that he recognized one of his customers, and great was his surprise when he saw him, instead of turning to the left, resolutely walk into the pond with his umbrella still up. It was impossible to do anything in that deserted locality to hinder the suicide. Some days later a man-servant of his mother's came and had the body placed in a coffin to be taken away to Normandy. Nothing more was ever known. But with all this Murger remained in a tail-coat, and was thus condemned to show himself in this ceremonious get-up under the most commonplace circumstances of life, such as buying four sous' worth of tobacco or taking a cassis and water at
The incident of the piano has also some foundation. Schanne was living with the painter,
Nor is the desperate poverty in any way exaggerated. The sufferings of Murger and his fellows, especially of the Water-drinkers, are hardly to be imagined. In a work jointly written by three members of that society, Pierre Tournachon, better known as Nadar, Adrien Lelioux, and Leon Noel, some harrowing details are given. One poor fellow lived a week on some raw potatoes sent him up from the country by his mother, having no fire to cook them by, though his greatest suffering was having to eat them without salt. Another spent three days and three nights without food, whilst to do so for a couple of days was common. A third passed the bitter winter of 1838 without a shirt, and with only a blue cotton blouse over his waistcoat. One night, clad like this, without having tasted food all day, and without a shelter for his head, he walked up and down between the Madeleine and the Bastille till he dropped exhausted in the snow and fell asleep. Karol really lodged, as Rodolphe is said to have done, in a tree in the Avenue de Saint Cloud, whilst Nadar himself had to spend several days dressed as a Turk, being unable to redeem his own clothes, which he had pawned to obtain this costume for a fancy-ball.
The programme of the celebrated fete has been several times more than rivalled by such passages as:
“At midnight experiments in dissection on a voluntary subject. The future Dr. Nicol will demonstrate the utility of the liver.
“The matches will be found in the third gunpowder barrel to the left on the bottom shelf of the cupboard.
“Performers are requested to wipe their feet before playing on the piano.“During the evening M. Alexandre Schanne will give an unconscious imitation of the actor Charles Perey in the part of Schaunard."
Editor’s Note:This biographical essay first appeared in an edition of Murger’s seminal Scènes de la Vie de Bohème published by the Société des Beaux-Arts as part of their Comédie d’Amour series of French masterworks in translation. This text was prepared from OCR scans with some additional copy editing. The text's copyright has expired, as it was produced in 1888 in America.
External links
*gutenberg author|id=Henry_Murger|name=Henri Murger
Источник: Henri Murger
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Henri Murger | Stseene boheemlaselust | Romaan on eelkõige tuntud mitme kuulsa lavateose alustekstina, nende hulgas Leoncavallo ja Puccini ooperid “Boheem”, I. Kálmáni operett, uuemal ajal ka samateemaline muusikal. Teos põhineb… — Eesti digiraamatute keskus OU, электронная книга Подробнее... | 2010 | 451.28 | электронная книга |
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