The Reinvention of Love

misfortune to be released on the day in 1852 that Napoleon III staged his coup, and to be reviewed in the press by me.
    It has not met with much success.
    I am too old to be impressed with the tricks of youth. The brothers’ clumsy attempts at originality seemed so banal, so unoriginal, and I said so in my review.
    My critique of their writing hasn’t made the Goncourts feel very warmly towards me. They often take pokes at me duringthese dinners at the Magny. But I am too old to be provoked into a public argument.
    “And that from a man who sleeps only with whores,” I say in response, and get equal applause.
    The evening continues. We move to the next food course, and change topics from women’s nocturnal headgear to men’s seminal discharge.
    “I must have a discharge every two or three weeks,” says Taine, “or else I cannot concentrate properly on my work. My mind is not clear.”
    “You are mistaken,” says Flaubert. “What a man needs is not a seminal discharge, but a nervous one.”
    “What do you mean?” asks Renan.
    Flaubert leans back in his chair. He is in good form tonight, and discoursing on love is his favourite subject.
    “What a man needs is the thrill of love. Emotion. The exquisite pleasure of squeezing a woman’s hand. A stolen kiss. That is what I mean by a nervous discharge, and it is so much more meaningful than a seminal one. And so much more necessary to our well-being.”
    “Yes,” agrees Taine, “but also so much harder to come by. Many of us have wives, old mistresses, or take our pleasure at the brothel. We cannot experience what you are talking about at any of these stations. Some of us have probably never experienced this
nervous discharge
.”
    All along the table, heads nod in agreement.
    “So, it is not very helpful then to tell us about an experience we might never have,” says Taine.
    “But I have experienced this,” I burst out. “I have known this kind of love.”
    “I say again,” says the Goncourt with the moustache, “this from the man who has never spent an entire night with a woman.”
    “But what I am talking about,” says Flaubert, “does notdepend on spending a great deal of time with a woman. In fact, one is better served if this is not the case.” He looks across the table at me. “Tell me about your experience of love,” he says.
    The other writers look at me expectantly.
    Even though much of Paris probably knows about my affair with Adèle Hugo, and all of us here have promised never to talk about these dinners outside this restaurant, I just cannot bring myself to speak of her as though she were a conquest. I know Flaubert does not require me to describe my affair that way, but inevitably, once I start talking I will start boasting and my love for Adèle will become cheapened by my recounting of it.
    I also cannot bear to have the Goncourts say anything cruel to me about Adèle, so I distract the group by making myself a pair of earrings out of some cherries. I offer myself up as a clown to save Adèle’s honour. You see, even though I said earlier that I will talk about anything, there is still one subject I keep secret. There is still one thing I hold sacred.
    Strangely enough, later in the evening, after a great deal of wine has been consumed, the talk turns to Victor Hugo.
    “He wants to be a thinker,” says Flaubert, “but what strikes me about his work is the absence of thought in it.”
    “He’s a charlatan,” I say. “A fake.”
    “Didn’t I hear you say once that he taught you about poetry?” says a Goncourt.
    “Perhaps, but I can’t remember anything he said, so it must not have been particularly useful.” I wiggle my ears with the cherries dangling from them and get a laugh. “Did you know,” I say, “that Victor’s beard is so coarse it damages the razors of the barber where he gets it trimmed. And his teeth are so strong he can crack peach stones with them. He has an amazing constitution. Once I climbed with him to the top of the Notre-Dame towers and he could tell the colour of the dress Madame Nodier was wearing on the balcony of the Arsenal.”
    I suddenly remember that perfect evening, after years of never recalling it.
    Victor had decided to write his book about the cathedral, but he hadn’t quite started yet. He was full of excitement about the idea, came every evening to ascend the steep stone steps of the tower, to the parapet of Notre-Dame to watch the sun go down over Paris. He begged me to