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La Comedie Humaine fifty years before the occupants of the Academic fauteuils
woke up to applaud. Half a century had elapsed since the great protagonist
of realism passed for the last time behind the scenes. Surely it might be safe
for official France to recognise his greatness; and in what safer way than by
the non-committal expedient of a statue ? But by whom ? Let logic decide.
Certainly it were fitting that the most dominant personality in modern litera-
ture should be commemorated by the most original and commanding of modern
sculptors. Without doubt, Rodin was the man.
Ye gods and little fishes! But here was matter for another act in the
inexhaustible repertory of La Comedie Humaine! Officialdom coquetting with
the man whom it had studiously ignored; standardised convention seeking to
consort with the contradiction of all that Officialdom stands for! Truly, the
French are a nation of comedians! Or did Officialdom suppose that, because
it was paying the piper, it could call the tune ? Anyhow, we know the sequel.
What was expected to be an innocuously refined drama, as unobtrusively
appropriate to the Foyer of the Theatre Fran^ais as to some square or garden,
where it need not incommode the nurserymaids, turned out to be, as the
world viewed it, a burlesque. Was the jest intentional on the sculptor’s part ?
Did he mean to scandalise Officialdom, even at the expense of his own reputa-
tion ? to doff the seriousness of the artist and don the motley of the clown,
to fool the public ? This was, on the whole, the public’s notion: a comfortable
one, since it is a nuisance anyhow to have to take an artist seriously, and
accordingly to find that he does not take himself so is reassuring. Yes, Rodin
was clearly fooling. And if on this occasion, why not on others ? The fellow,
in fact, was what most sane people had long ago suspected—an arrant charla-
tan; and his admirers, a flock of gullible and cackling geese. Ah! how their
necks ached with straining to discover the merits of this Balzac! Of course they
rubbed their silly heads together, and raised a clatter of adulation, but it was
more suppressed than usual, intermittent and quavering. They were, in fact,
a considerably discomfited flock.
Meanwhile, the statue had been rejected with much gnashing of Official
tusks and Academic anathema, while the Crowd stood by and jeered. Per-
haps it was the sculptor’s proudest moment. Who knows ? At any rate, nothing
abashed, he set it up in the boutique that he had erected outside the gates of
the International Exposition, and invited the cognoscenti of all the earth to
come and see this New Thing. They came and went, bewildered. Then
Rodin removed this offense to his big studio on the hill at Meudon, and
gradually the excitement died down. The Balzac passed to the limbo of things
rejected and, for a time, forgotten.
Behold, however, a marvel! One night, between moonrise and sunrise,
while the world slept, silently and upon a sudden, the Spirit stirred in its plaster
shell. With the expansion of its breath It was free of its material incum-
brances, and stood forth in the moonlight on the studio floor, pure spirit. Then,
with a sound as of the night air among the rushes by a pool, it passed out into
the night; faintly stirring in its passage the leaves of a Japanese picture-book,
24
woke up to applaud. Half a century had elapsed since the great protagonist
of realism passed for the last time behind the scenes. Surely it might be safe
for official France to recognise his greatness; and in what safer way than by
the non-committal expedient of a statue ? But by whom ? Let logic decide.
Certainly it were fitting that the most dominant personality in modern litera-
ture should be commemorated by the most original and commanding of modern
sculptors. Without doubt, Rodin was the man.
Ye gods and little fishes! But here was matter for another act in the
inexhaustible repertory of La Comedie Humaine! Officialdom coquetting with
the man whom it had studiously ignored; standardised convention seeking to
consort with the contradiction of all that Officialdom stands for! Truly, the
French are a nation of comedians! Or did Officialdom suppose that, because
it was paying the piper, it could call the tune ? Anyhow, we know the sequel.
What was expected to be an innocuously refined drama, as unobtrusively
appropriate to the Foyer of the Theatre Fran^ais as to some square or garden,
where it need not incommode the nurserymaids, turned out to be, as the
world viewed it, a burlesque. Was the jest intentional on the sculptor’s part ?
Did he mean to scandalise Officialdom, even at the expense of his own reputa-
tion ? to doff the seriousness of the artist and don the motley of the clown,
to fool the public ? This was, on the whole, the public’s notion: a comfortable
one, since it is a nuisance anyhow to have to take an artist seriously, and
accordingly to find that he does not take himself so is reassuring. Yes, Rodin
was clearly fooling. And if on this occasion, why not on others ? The fellow,
in fact, was what most sane people had long ago suspected—an arrant charla-
tan; and his admirers, a flock of gullible and cackling geese. Ah! how their
necks ached with straining to discover the merits of this Balzac! Of course they
rubbed their silly heads together, and raised a clatter of adulation, but it was
more suppressed than usual, intermittent and quavering. They were, in fact,
a considerably discomfited flock.
Meanwhile, the statue had been rejected with much gnashing of Official
tusks and Academic anathema, while the Crowd stood by and jeered. Per-
haps it was the sculptor’s proudest moment. Who knows ? At any rate, nothing
abashed, he set it up in the boutique that he had erected outside the gates of
the International Exposition, and invited the cognoscenti of all the earth to
come and see this New Thing. They came and went, bewildered. Then
Rodin removed this offense to his big studio on the hill at Meudon, and
gradually the excitement died down. The Balzac passed to the limbo of things
rejected and, for a time, forgotten.
Behold, however, a marvel! One night, between moonrise and sunrise,
while the world slept, silently and upon a sudden, the Spirit stirred in its plaster
shell. With the expansion of its breath It was free of its material incum-
brances, and stood forth in the moonlight on the studio floor, pure spirit. Then,
with a sound as of the night air among the rushes by a pool, it passed out into
the night; faintly stirring in its passage the leaves of a Japanese picture-book,
24