produced here in a translation which leaves nothing
to be desired, whether as a transfusion of the French spirit of the
book, or as an example of a fine English narrative style.[10] Indeed,
it unites these two most important requisites of a good translation in
a rare and remarkable manner. As to the book itself, although it is a
very good novel, and carries upon its face the evidence that it is a
careful study of a certain phase of French life, we are at a loss to
account for its phenomenal success. It is all about Sidonie, who may be
called its heroine, as Becky Sharp is the heroine of "Vanity Fair." Now
Sidonie is a pretty, vulgar, vile-souled shop girl who uses her beauty
to make her way to a certain sort of _bourgeois_ fashionable life, but
who is really a far more infamous creature than many a common harlot.
For she is not wanton; she is not merely venal; she is pitilessly
selfish and fiendishly malicious. She has no honesty of any kind--of
mind, heart, soul, or body. A baser, viler creature in female, and
therefore in human form, it would be impossible to conceive. For to all
grovelling, debasing vice she adds a monstrous, cold-hearted cruelty.
With all this she is not remarkable for anything except a pretty,
blooming face and a low cunning. What need to familiarize us with the
life of such a creature? She ruins the happiness of two men, one of a
noble soul and the other a weak-minded creature; she breaks up a
family; she brings her principal victim to suicide; and all this not
even for a grand passion, but that she may have fine dresses, diamonds,
and a social success. This is very barren business. We do not care to
have such a life as this laid before us with all the particularity of
treatment which belongs to the realistic school. But granted that we
did desire it, we must confess that we could not wish for it better
done. The life-portraiture, inner as well as outer, is perfect and
minute to admiration. The end is brought about in fine melodramatic
style. Around Sidonie are grouped several personages lovable and
unlovable, admirable and unadmirable, but all painted with perfect,
clear conception and firm, minute touch. The distinctive Frenchness of
the author is manifest in every page. It is shown particularly in the
absence of any touch of humor in the portraiture of Sidonie. Unlike
Becky Sharp, she hems no little shirt in public until a little Rawdon
has long outgrown it. The hard portrait of her hard soul has