For the first time in Russian: Nadar about Balzak

The proposed essay was taken from the book by Nadar (the real name and surname Gaspar-Felix Tournashon; 1820-1910), a photographer, caricaturist, writer and air melshot, “when I was a photographer”, published in 1900 (first published on April 25, 1891 in the first issue of Paris-PhotoGraphe magazine ). Judging by the essay, you might think that Nadar was one of the close friends or at least good familiar Balzac. The documents, however, indicate that this is not so. Nineteen-year-old Gaspar-Felix Tournashon, unknown to anyone, a novice journalist who had not yet taken a pseudonym Nadar at that time, was seen with Balzac, apparently one single time (and not two, as said in the essay)-in October 1839, and their meeting was purely pragmatic in nature: the tournapon The “LA FRELORE” , which he promised to give for publication in Kipsek (a collection of stories and poems decorated with engravings) “Golden Book”, conceived by the friends of the tournament. Balzac began to write a novel, but then the publishers of the Golden Book went bankrupt, and the publication stopped. Balzac lost interest in the short story and did not end it; The manuscript and the Grani remained among his papers, where they were found by the collector S’s S’s S’s S’s de Lovanjul in 1896 (see the history of this publication and the Nadarov’s memories, sometimes quite fantastic, in the book: Chotard L. Approchs Du XIXE Siècle. P. 95-102). Since the report of the physicist and astronomer Francois Arago Chamber of Deputies about the invention of Dagermrotip, who contributed to the popularity of the novelty, was made in July 1839, and in September, Dager himself published the brochure “History and Description of the action of Dagerrotype and Diorama”, it cannot be excluded that Balzac mentioned the novelty in the conversation. However, what is known about the attitude of the author of the “human comedy” to this method to capture the physical world does not confirm Nadar's sketch. Describing on May 2, 1842, in a letter to Evelina Ganskaya, his visit to the dagerrotypes workshop, Balzak speaks of him without any fear, but, on the contrary, with great enthusiasm and claims that he “predicted” Dager's invention in the last thoughts of the title hero of Louis Lamber (1832-1835). Another thing is that Balzac actually believed all his life in the materiality of thoughts, will, desires, and therefore the theory assigned to him, if not true, is believable. It is based, as it can be assumed, a passage from the novel “Cousin Pons” (1847), where Balzac in connection with Dagerrotype mentions “tangible, tangible ghosts of all things”, but in this passage there is neither hostility nor fear in relation to dagerrotype; It can be assumed that fears attributed to Balzac are inspired by the “shagen skin”.

When the rumor spread that the two inventors opened a way to capture on the silver -plated plates everything that their eyes falls on, the amazement of society was so great that we, long accustomed to photography and spoiled by its widespread distribution, are not able to imagine it today.

There were even people who refused to believe in the veracity of this news. It is not surprising, because by nature we are hostile to any novelty that contradicts our rooted ideas and violates our habits. Immediately a suspicious, evil irony, “itching to murder”, as the sweetest Sand, wakes up in us [1] . Let us recall the recent rage of a member of the French Institute, who was invited to the first demonstration of the phonograph. With what indignation, the scientist's husband refused to spend a few seconds on this “fiction of the womb”, with what noise he retired, promising that he would still show the impudent fraudster [2] ...

“How do you really not understand,” Gustav Dorea once told me in a fit of bad mood (however, a man of clear mind and independent views), “do not you really understand what kind of pleasure it is to convict a brilliant artist in a petty error?”

The unknown causes us dizziness and, perhaps, insults us, like impudence; So "in the sublime, we first see a riot" [3] .

It is clear that the appearance of a daguerrotype - which would be more fair to call the niepsootype [4] - could not but cause strong feelings. Being unforeseen, unforeseen, completely unexpected and refuting everything that people still knew or assumed, the new discovery seemed (and still) the most unusual in the galaxy of the inventions, which make our appropriate century of science - for lack of other virtues.

In fact, we are in such a hurry in pursuit of glory that the discoveries are in the light, bypassing the ripening period: the hypothesis comes out of the human brain in the fully armed with accurate formulas, and the first guess instantly turns into a finished work. The idea of ​​an altitude of embodiment. Before the couples could conquer the space, as electricity changed it. While the Frenchman Bursel - a modest postal employee - announces the world about the phone [5] , and the poet Charles Cro dreams of a phonograph [6] , Lissage with its sound waves allows us to see the sound [7] , Aider explains how to transmit it over long distances [8] , and Edison - how to save forever; Pasteur, just carefully peering into the helminths, which was discovered [9] , makes a new diagnosis forever crossing out all our old pharmacopei; Charcot opens the door to the mysterious supersensitive world, predicted by Mesmer, and all centuries -old ideas about crime collapse in an instant [10] ; Mare, who has recently revealed the secret of a bird flight, reveals to humanity the path into the vast expanses of the ether, which will soon become our home [11] , finally, the simplest physiological phenomenon, anesthesia [12] , according to inspiration, almost divine rises to the act of mercy and forever relieves humanity from physical pain ... And all this, yes, this is the kindest Mr. Bruneter calls the “bankruptcy of science” [13] ...

We did much more than described in the excellent report of Furkroka, compiled at the fatal hour when the Fatherland was in danger and required discoveries [14] , we went much further than Laplace and Mongolfier, Lavoisier, Shapp, Contain [15] And many others went so far that all these almost simultaneous outbreaks of scientific genius in our 19th century demanded a change in symbolism: “Antique Hercules was a man in the color of years, powerful and muscular; Modern Hercules is a boy pressing a lever " [16] .

But all these new miracles turn pale before the miracle most amazing, most breathtaking of all - to those that, it seems, finally gives a person the ability to create, materialize a fleeting vision, which disappears at the first look at him, not even leaving a shadow on the mirror, rowan on the water surface. In fact, couldn't a person consider that he became a creator when he learned to grab, tame, capture the intangible, carve out the skill on the most durable copper?

Strictly speaking, Nieps and his cunning comrade were born very on time. The church always looked at innovators more than cold - however, they themselves sometimes became too hot - and the opening of 1842 was very suspicious [17] . It was devilishly like witchcraft and smelled of a bonfire: heavenly fried not once flared up on much less significant occasions.

Absolutely everything was suspicious in the novelty: she forced to recall the waterways and sorcerers, the evidence of the spirits and the phenomenon of ghosts. In the dark room, as if deliberately intended for the prince of darkness, only night reigned, dear to the miracles. Right, nothing should have made a love potion from our solutions.

Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that at first the contemporaries of Dager admired his discovery uncertainly; Anxiety and even fright were mixed with their enthusiasm. It took the time that the World animal was used to it and dared to approach the monster.

Before the daggerrotype, everyone was abusive, “from small to great”, as they say, and not only illiterate ignorant, he inspired superstitious fear. The brightest minds initially looked at him with apprehension.

Let us give an example of one of the greatest: Balzac was embarrassed by a new miracle; The manufacture of daguerrotype caused him a vague fear.

He found this his own explanation, which sounded not very convincing and approaching fantastic hypotheses in the spirit of Cardano [18] . I remember that he set out his theory on this subject in some of the nooks of the enormous literary building erected by him. I am now not looking for her, but in my memory there was a lengthy explanation that he once gave me at our meeting, and another time he repeated, for he seemed completely fascinated by these ideas; The case took place in a tiny apartment with purple wallpaper in the house on the corner of Richelieu and Boulevard Street: this mansion, where in the restoration era there was a illustrious gambling house of Frascati, continued to wear the former name [19] .

So, Balzac claimed that each body in nature is composed of a number of ghosts - infinitely thin films through which our gaze penetrates. Since a person is not able to create anything on his own, that is, to turn an intangible vision into something material, in other words, to make a real thing out of nothing , it means that one who makes daguerrotypes, every time seizes one of such layers of the human body, extracts it from there and retains in his own use. Consequently, with every removal of a daggerrotypic portrait in a person, a person becomes one ghost, in other words, he loses part of himself.

Is he forever parting with this part or is the loss is gradually compensated due to the mysterious and more or less rapid revival of this ghostly matter? I believe that Balzac, once starting to reflect on this topic, did not stop halfway and developed his hypothesis to the end. But we did not concern this second paragraph.

Was there a fear that Balzaka Dagerrotype inspired, sincere or played? Sincere: after all, Balzac himself did not threaten anything, his dimensions allowed him to scatter his “ghosts”, not stingy. Be that as it may, this fear did not prevent him from at least once to appear in front of Dager's car, the fruit of which was the unique daguerrotype that I owned after Havarny and Silvi, until I transferred it to Mr. Sspelberg de Lovanzhul [20] .

To argue that Balzac's fear was played, I will not dare, although you should not forget that our best minds sinned to amaze and amaze for a long time. People truly, genuinely original with such pleasure are dressed up in front of us that for this mental illness even a special name was invented-“pose”, and this pose from consumption romantics who loved to show off and take a tragic look turned to our realists, nastylists, simple-minded in their rudeness, and then to the current decadents, chopping, closed for three turnover, closed for three turnover, closed for three turnover Fans of delving into their unique individuality and engage in contemplation of their own navel - mannerly pedants, which are more unbearable than all previous ones instead of those taken, and prove with their example that Kato and Madlon [21] Immortal.

Be that as it may, Balzak easily found two adherents of his new belief. Of those who belonged to his closest environment, the cautious Gozlan, without thinking twice, stepped aside, but the good of Gauthier and no less excellent Gerard de Nerval was immediately believed in the “ghosts” [22] . The “impeccable” theo, a charming and sophisticated poet, a lover of Eastern bliss, liked any theory that decisively goes beyond the liability of credibility, especially since in the countries of the rising sun the images of man are prohibited. As for the meek Gerard, who once and for all, the Himerus, everything was clear with him in advance: a man worshiping Isis, a friend of the Queen of Savskaya and Duchess de Longville [23] , accepted with enthusiasm for any dream ... However, neither one nor the other talk about the ghosts prevented one and the fraudulently appeared before our lens [24] .

I don’t know how long the trinity of the Kabbalists rejected the purely physical explanation of Dagerova’s secret, after a short time, which made the generally accepted and well -known. I believe that in our Sanhedrin everything happened in the same way as everywhere, and very soon about the theory, which at first caused such a keen interest, no one already recalled. The Ghosts left the same way as they came.

In any case, visiting my workshop, both friends never spoke about it.

Translation, introductory note and notes of faith Milchina

[1] From 1864 to1874, Nadar repeatedly photographed Georges Sand (1804-1876) and during this time made friends with her and her family.

[2] We are talking about a meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences (part of the French Institute), held on May 111878; The academicians presented the invention of Thomas Edison, and one of them, the physician Jean-Batist Buyo, not wanting to believe that the sound is reproduced mechanically, suspected the inventor and the Academician assistant in deception.

[3] Baudelaire. Aesthetic wonders (approx. Nadara) . The article “Salon of 1846” is quoted, section XI “On Mr. Orace Verne”.

[4] The discoverer of the photograph was not Louis Dager, but Joseph Nisefore Nieps (1765-1833). However, Nieps had no opportunities for the promotion of his invention (he called him “heliography”), and since 1829 his cooperation with Dager, who had already had a name by this time, was a famous artist, decorator, creator of diorama (however, Dager also had achievements in this direction). When, in July 1839, Francois Arago presented the Chamber of Deputies a report on the new discovery, it was called the Dagerrotype in honor of Dager (however, in this report to the Nieps was given their due, and his son remained a companion of Dager and received a pension from the state for opening).

[5] Charles Bursel (1829-1912) - a French telegraph operator who, in 1854, submitted a note on the apparatus to the authorities of the Telegraph Service, which allows to conduct conversations at a long distance, - the phone; The authorities, however, did not accept this idea seriously. However, in the same year, Bursel printed the article “Electric Speech Transfer”, and this allowed the American inventors of Bella and Edison to declare it with an “unrecognized genius” and the discoverer of telephone communication, after which, in 1889, Bursel was recognized as such in France.

[6] Charles Kro (1842-1888) - French poet, inventor of Paleophone (prototype of the phonograph).

[7] Jules-Antoine Lissage (1822-1880)-French mathematician, author of works on acoustics and optics, who studied, among other things, sound waves.

[8] Cleman-Anes Ader (1841-1925)-French engineer, inventor of Theatrophone, who allowed Parisians to listen to the representations of the Paris Opera at home.

[9] Francois-Vensan Roli (1794-1878)-French chemist, doctor and politician; His theory, according to which parasites and, in particular, helminths (worms) cause diseases, anticipated the pathogenic theory of the origin of many diseases from microorganisms, which Louis Pasteur developed, which maintained it, the creation of vaccines from weakened microorganisms for the treatment of various diseases.

[10] Jean-Marten Charco (1825-1893)-a French psychiatrist who studied hypnosis and used it to treat hysteria and other mental illness; Sharko followers associated crime with the mental degeneration of personality. Franz Anton Mesmer (1733-1815) - a German doctor who practiced in Paris; Mesmer proceeded from the fact that all living things are inherent in a magnetic fluid, and diseases stem from the incorrect distribution of his patient in the body and, therefore, for healing it is necessary to return him to his place; Mesmer and his followers resorted to this to “Messerization”, or the introduction of patients into a hypnotic state.

[11] Etienne-Zhul Mare (1830-1904)-a French physiologist and inventor who studied the possibilities of mechanical flight and engaged in the construction of mechanical birds, among other things.

[12] This refers to the original meaning of the Greek word "anesthesia" - a loss of sensitivity.

[13] Literary critic Ferdinand Bruneter (1849-1906) announced the “bankruptcy” of modern science in the article “After visiting the Vatican” written from traditionalist Catholic positions (published in January 1895 in the magazine “Revoy De Mond”); The formula abandoned by him caused a lot of refutations and gained great popularity.

[14] Antoine-Franesu de Furroca (1755-1809), a French chemist and politician, published in 1793 a “report on behalf of the Committee of Public Salvation on Crafts, which served to save the Fatherland.”

[15] Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827)-researcher of “Heavenly Mechanics” and one of the creators of the theory of probabilities; Brothers Joseph-Michel (1740-1810) and Jacques-Etienne (1745-1799) Mongolfier-inventors of the balloon; Antoine-Loran Lavoisier (1743-1794)-author of numerous discoveries in the field of chemistry; Claude SHAPP (1763-1805) - inventor of an optical telegraph; Nikola-Jacques Comte (1755-1805)-inventor of the pencil.

[16] Louis de Lucy (approx. Nadara) . Louis Godfruis de Lucy (1822-1892) - French photographer.

[17] In fact, the first image made in the technique of daguerrotype dates back to 1837.

[18] Джироламо Кардано (1501—1576) — итальянский врач, астролог, философ, математик; Бальзак упоминал его во многих своих произведениях как одного из тех мыслителей прошлого, которые верили в сверхъестественные видения.

[19] В предшествующем варианте надаровских воспоминаний о встрече с Бальзаком фиолетовыми названы не обои, а халат, в который был облачен писатель, а в более позднем рассказе о том же посещении Бальзака обои стали серыми. Особняк, где с конца XVIII века располагался игорный дом Фраскати, был разрушен в1837 г. (тогда же, когда в Париже были запрещены азартные игры); на его месте на углу улицы Ришелье и Монмартрского бульвара был выстроен доходный дом, принадлежавший Жану Бюиссону, модному портному, чьим клиентом был Бальзак. Именно у Бюиссона Бальзак нанимал на рубеже 1830—1840-х гг. три меблированные комнаты.

[20] На самом деле, как известно из писем Бальзака к Эвелине Ганской, он побывал в мастерской, где изготовляли дагерротипы, дважды — 2 и 15 мая1842 г.; мастерская эта принадлежала фотографу Луи-Огюсту Биссону. Из двух сохранившихся экземпляров дагерротипа Бальзака один принадлежал сестре писателя Лоре Сюрвиль, от нее попал к фотографу Камилю Сильви, затем к Надару, а тот в 1896 году продал его виконту Шарлю Спельбергу де Лованжулю (1836—1907) — бельгийскому эрудиту, собравшему огромную коллекцию рукописей, которую он завещал Французскому институту; большое место в ней занимают материалы, связанные с Бальзаком: его рукописи и исправленные им гранки. До того как расстаться с дагерротипным портретом Бальзака, Надар неоднократно сфотографировал его, нарисовал на его основе две карикатуры и способствовал его широчайшему распространению.

[21] Героини пьесы Мольера «Смешные жеманницы» (1659), разговаривающие на вычурном, жеманном языке.

[22] Леон Гозлан (1803—1866) — французский литератор, приятель Бальзака, автор мемуаров о нем «Бальзак в домашних туфлях» (1856) и «Бальзак у себя дома. Воспоминания о Жарди» (1862). Французские писатели Теофиль Готье (1811—1872) и Жерар де Нерваль (наст. фам. Лабрюни; 1808—1855) начали интересоваться дагерротипами с начала 1840-х годов. Готье, чей дагерротипный портрет Надар изготовил в 1855 или 1856 г., сближал фотографирование с магнетизмом, а дагерротипу приписывал магические свойства. Напротив, Нерваль далеко не всегда придерживался «призрачной» теории дагерротипа; в последние годы жизни он, напротив, упрекал дагерротипические изображения в том, что они чересчур материалистичны и уничтожают иллюзию. По-видимому, Нерваль опасался фотографироваться именно потому, что ему казалось: дагерротип, изображая тело, но не дух, приближает человека к смерти ( см. подробнее о нервалевском отношении к фотографии : Llouz J.-N. Nerval et Baudelaire devant Nadar // Baudelaire et Nerval : po é tiques compar é es , actes du colloque international de Zürich (25—27 octobre 2007), Études réunies par Patrick Labarthe et Dagmar Wieser, avec la collaboration de Jean-Paul Avice, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2014, p. 83—102, publié sur Phlit le 31/01/2012).

[23] Имеются в виду произведения Нерваля: повести «Изида» (1845, затем в сборнике «Дочери огня», 1854), «История царицы утра и Сулеймана, повелителя духов» (1850, затем в составе «Путешествия на Восток», 1851) и «Анжелика» (1850, затем в составе «Дочерей огня»). В последнем случае Надар перепутал героиню Нерваля Анжелику де Лонгваль (впрочем, тоже реально существовавшее лицо) с другой дамой XVII века — герцогиней де Лонгвиль (урожд. Анна-Женевьева де Бурбон, 1619—1679), видной деятельницей Фронды.

[24] Сам Надар занялся фотографией в1854 г., то есть уже после смерти Бальзака. Он сделал два фотопортрета Нерваля в конце 1854 или в начале 1855 года.