CHAPTER VIII

A SHEAF GLEANED IN FRENCH FIELDS AND A SCENE FROM CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

FROM the study of the great English poets Toru turned with eager zeal to the works of their French compeers of the nineteenth century. She did more than merely peruse their poetry; she translated specimens of their work into English: nor did she confine herself in this task to the verses of poets of outstanding fame and genius; she included in her survey the productions of poets and poetesses of inferior rank, and entitled her collection A Sheaf gleaned in French Fields. This book of hers contains nearly two hundred poems, the work of seventy or eighty different authors, and it possesses the melancholy interest of being the only book which she published in her lifetime. Her sister Aru was associated with her in this undertaking, but her share in the work was very small and was limited to eight poems. It is a matter of some surprise that Toru did not select for her first venture of this kind some of the literary treasures of her own land, such as those to which she did justice later in her Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan. Perhaps she preferred to try her prentice hand on a foreign literature before she sought to render a maturer service to that of her native country. She started her translations while in England, and after her return to India she contributed them regularly to the Bengal Magazine from March 1874 to March 1877. The late Rev. Lal Behari Dey was the Editor, and he reserved a space in his pages for her and called it the ‘Poets’ Corner’. Her final contribution to this magazine was the translation of Barbier’s ‘La Cavale’, which was found among her MSS., and sent by her father.

Her book was first published in 1876, without any preface, by the Saptahik Sambad Press, Bhowanipore, and was dedicated to Mrs. Govin Chunder Dutt. It bore as its motto the following lines from Schiller:

Ich bringe Blumen mit und Früchte, Gereift auf einer andern Flur, In einem andern Sonnenlichte, In einer glücklichern Natur.¹

Her translations were accompanied by detailed notes, dealing chiefly with the characteristics of the poets whom she has enshrined in her volume, but giving also particulars of the lives of many and, in some cases, parallel passages from English literature. The notes are helpful and interesting, and are a striking evidence of the wide range of Toru’s reading. The last note of all refers to her sister’s collaboration and premature death, and adds—‘Had she lived, this book with her help might have been better, and the writer might perhaps have had less reason to be ashamed of it, and less occasion to ask for the reader’s indulgence. Alas!

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’

The book did not at first attract the attention which was subsequently paid to it. In India the translations were for a time accredited to some Anglo-Indian author who was supposed to be veiling his individuality under an Oriental pseudonym. No one could believe that they were the work of a Bengali young lady of eighteen. This is no wonder, for her work astonishes the English reader even now. In France and in England their appreciation was handicapped by the homely style of the volume in which they appeared. ‘The modest book, badly printed on poor paper, by a small native press, was in no way calculated to attract the English reader of verse, who expects to find his poetical gems enshrined in caskets matching, if not exceeding, them in excellence.’ ² Fortunately, however, the work came into the hands of scholars and writers like André Theuriet in France and Mr. Edmund Gosse in England. The former wrote a eulogy of it in the Revue des Deux Mondes and the latter announced its discovery in the Examiner of August 1876. Mr. Gosse had previously had the melancholy satisfaction of sounding the only note of welcome which reached the dying poetess from England. He now wrote:

‘It was while Professor W. Minto was Editor of The Examiner, that one day in August, 1876, in the very heart of the dead season for books, I happened to be in the office of that newspaper, and was upbraiding the whole body of publishers for issuing no books worth reviewing. At that moment the postman brought in a thin and sallow packet with a wonderful Indian postmark on it, and containing a most unattractive orange pamphlet of verse, printed at Bhowanipore, and entitled A Sheaf gleaned in French Fields by Toru Dutt. This shabby little book of some two hundred pages, without preface or introduction, seemed especially destined by its particular providence to find its way hastily into the waste-paper basket. I remember that Mr. Minto thrust it into my unwilling hands, and said, “There! see whether you can’t make something of that.” A hopeless volume it seemed, with its queer type…. But when at last I took it out of my pocket, what was my surprise and almost rapture to open at such verse as this:

Still barred thy doors! the far East glows, The morning wind blows fresh and free. Should not the hour that wakes the rose Awaken also thee?

All look for thee, Love, Light, and Song, Light, in the sky deep red above, Song, in the lark of pinions strong, And in my heart, true Love.

Apart we miss our nature’s goal, Why strive to cheat our destinies? Was not my love made for thy soul? Thy beauty for mine eyes?

No longer sleep, Oh, listen now! I wait and weep, But where art thou?

‘When poetry is as good as this it does not much matter whether Rouveyre prints it upon Whatman paper, or whether it steals to light in blurred type from some press in Bhowanipore.’

In May 1878 a second edition was issued by the same press containing a frontispiece portrait of the two sisters and a touching biographical notice by their father. This edition was soon exhausted. A copy of it was sent to the Viceroy and was appreciatively acknowledged.

The third edition of the book is the most tasteful. This was published by Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co. in London, in 1880, and its cover is ornamented with the picture of a sheaf. Two of the translations which it contains were also printed separately by Sir Roper Lethbridge in The Indian Magazine and Review. If we may judge from his article on ‘The Poetry of Toru Dutt’ he appears to have overlooked the fact of their previous publication in England in book form. Sir Roper was also under the impression that Toru had resided for a while at Wiesbaden, whereas she never visited Germany.

A copy of The Sheaf presented to the Chevalier de Châtelain, the translator of Shakespeare into French, with an autograph inscription by Toru, is preserved in the British Museum Library.

So much for the outer history of the book. Its inner wealth now awaits our consideration. The special field of literature from which Toru principally gleaned her harvest was that which may be broadly characterized as the Romantic School of French Poetry. The Romantic movement corresponded in the realm of literary art to the Revolution in the sphere of politics. It was the assertion of freedom for the imagination and also of the rights of individuality. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had witnessed in connexion with poetry a process of restriction to certain forms of verse and to arbitrary rules. The seventeenth century was the period of Classicism—of servitude to the models of Greece and Rome. The eighteenth century emphasized reason. The Romantic School sought to give free play to feeling and to the imaginative faculty. It introduced changes too as regards language and metre. Simple, direct, and vivid words replaced high-sounding periphrases. The Romantic School proper was born towards the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and has as its chief poet Victor Hugo, as its chief critic Sainte-Beuve, and in its ranks included Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, Borel, Deschamps, and others. From this initial group later groups originated. The next generation produced the poets Théodore de Banville, Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire, Soulary, and Bouilhet, while in the succeeding epoch the leading poets were Sully Prudhomme, Coppée, and Verlaine. Theuriet too started as a poet, but diverged to novel-writing.

Toru’s book does more, however, than reproduce for English-speaking readers specimens of the poetry of the above-named authors of the Romantic School and also of the subsequent Parnasse. She starts earlier in that century, with poets of the transition period like Chénier, Courier, Béranger, and Lamartine. She goes back even farther, and gives glimpses of the work of Parny and de Florian of the eighteenth century, of Scarron and P. Corneille of the seventeenth, and of du Bartas and du Bellay of the sixteenth century. These form but a brief introduction to the main theme of her book. Nor has she overlooked the work of writers who stood somewhat apart from the Romantic School, e.g. de Vigny, de Musset, Barbier, Brizeux, Moreau, Dupont, V. de Laprade, Mme Ackermann, and Mme Valmore. She even includes five poems of Heine, on the ground that, though he was born in Germany, yet he lived in France and his tastes and predilections were peculiarly French. In fact, her work forms an admirable help for a student anxious to get a general idea of French poetry in the nineteenth century as well as to note the kind of verse that characterized the Romantic School. Victor Hugo occupies the place of greatest eminence in this period, and a like position has been accorded to him in this book. No less than thirty of his poems have been reproduced by Toru, and these are chiefly taken from two of his later works, viz. Les Châtiments and L’Année terrible. In these translations we find expressed the variety and vigour of his metre and the splendour and sonority of his diction. They set forth also his many-sidedness—his epic grandeur of style, his power of description, his lyrical skill, his humanitarian feeling, and his deep patriotism. The next two poets in place of importance in this volume are F. de Gramont (seventeen pieces) and J. Soulary (thirteen pieces). Soulary was probably chosen because of the exquisite sonnets which he wrote, among the best in the language, and Toru seems to have been rather partial to the translation of sonnets. Fifteen out of the seventeen translated poems of the Comte de Gramont belong to that class of literature, and this appears to be the reason for allotting so much space to this writer, whose name is not so well known as those of many others. Sainte-Beuve and Gautier are each represented by five or six translations, Barbier, Leconte de Lisle, and Mme Valmore by four poems each, while the work of the other chief poets is limited to two or three specimens each. Evidently, Toru was not writing with any idea of her book becoming a standard anthology of the French poets of the century; otherwise she would have regulated the space devoted to each individual more in accord with the position assigned to him by literary criticism. Lamartine, for instance, occupies a rank not much inferior to Victor Hugo’s. The authoress herself in her notes speaks in high terms of him—‘In fancy, in imagination, in brilliancy, in grandeur, in style,—in all that makes a poet—excepting purity—he must yield to Victor Hugo. In purity he yields to none. His mind is essentially religious…. There is much in Victor Hugo—far greater poet though he be—which it would not be wise to put into the hands of young people whose principles have not been sufficiently formed; but Lamartine may be placed indiscriminately in the hands of all.’ She had a high opinion too of Laprade—higher than that of some other critics—and has written of him—‘In truth, Laprade is one of the great poets of France, and may take rank with the greatest names of the time…. Laprade and Lamartine are the only great modern poets of France whose works are essentially and eminently pure and religious, and it is remarkable that they both are deeply indebted for the tone of their minds to their mothers, women of prayer, large-minded and self-denying.’ Yet versions of but two of Lamartine’s poems are given, and only one of Laprade’s. Again, de Vigny and de Musset are poets deserving fuller space from a literary point of view. It is difficult for the average reader to discern clearly the principles that guided Toru in her choice of poems, or to decide whether indeed she was actuated by any definite principles. Probably different motives actuated her. One poem may have attracted her by its general style and facility for translation; another by the sentiments which it expressed. The ‘Sextine’ of F. de Gramont was evidently selected because of the peculiarity of its metre, since Toru calls attention to the fact that it is something new in English versification, and acknowledges that the thought it seeks to set forth remains rather obscure. Not a few poems—chiefly Hugo’s—are patriotic, and others deal with varied subjects—doves and butterflies and swallows, homely joys and simple scenes, kindness and bravery, child life and ideal manhood. Mlle Bader thinks that it was the authoress’s Indian birth and upbringing which caused the poetry of the nineteenth century to appeal to her more than the poems of the Classical School. She found in the Romantic School that which her countrymen have always loved, viz.—the lifelike and dramatic reproduction of the sentiments of the heart, as well as wealth of imagery and warmth of colour. The subjects, however, which seem to have attracted her most were pathetic ones—those that spoke of separation and loneliness, exile and captivity, illusion and disappointment, loss and bereavement, declining seasons and premature death. Here, as in other work of hers, her innate susceptibility to the pathos of life has manifested itself. But though the separate stalks that make up her Sheaf may seem at times to have been gathered at random, the Sheaf as a whole reflects very fairly the varied efforts of the French poets of last century. We see in her pages the secret of Béranger’s popularity with the masses and the plaintiveness that helps to make the lyrics of Mme Valmore so attractive. We get a glimpse of de Musset’s unrequited love and acquaintance with philosophic thought, as well as of the ties that bound Brizeux to Brittany. The two poems that bear de Vigny’s name represent himself as well as his work. He was the thinker among the poets of his time and stood to some extent apart, and his picture of Moses climbing Pisgah’s height is the personification of the burden of loneliness that often has to be borne by genius. Barbier’s admiration for Italy and its artists, Gautier’s proclivity for unusual words, not infrequently associated with the Orient, de Nerval’s idealism and admiration for the past, de Lisle’s recourse to foreign climes or literature for his subjects, and Dupont’s sympathy with rural toilers—all these are reflected, and much more. Names of poets not so familiar out of France are thus brought before the English-reading public.

Mr. Gosse tells us, ‘the Sheaf gleaned in French Fields is certainly the most imperfect of Toru’s writings, but it is not the least interesting. It is a wonderful mixture of strength and weakness, of genius over-riding great obstacles and of talent succumbing to ignorance and inexperience. That it should have been performed at all is so extraordinary that we forget to be surprised at its inequality. The English verse is sometimes exquisite; at other times the rules of our prosody are absolutely ignored, and it is obvious that the Hindu poetess was chanting to herself a music that is discord in an English ear. The notes are no less curious, and to a stranger no less bewildering. Nothing could be more naïve than the writer’s ignorance at some points, or more startling than her learning at others. On the whole, the attainment of the book was simply astounding. It consisted of a selection of translations from nearly one hundred French poets, chosen by the poetess herself on a principle of her own which gradually dawned upon the careful reader. She eschewed the Classicist writers as though they had never existed. For her, André Chénier was the next name in chronological order after du Bartas. Occasionally she showed a profundity of research that would have done no discredit to Mr. Saintsbury or “Le doux Assellineau”. She was ready to pronounce an opinion on Napol le Pyrénéen or to detect a plagiarism in Baudelaire. But she thought that Alexander Smith was still alive, and she was curiously vague about the career of Sainte-Beuve. This inequality of equipment was a thing inevitable in her isolation, and hardly worth recording, except to show how laborious her mind was, and how quick to make the best of small resources.’

Such is the judgement of an able and learned critic and hence worthy of consideration; yet to the ordinary reader it is the strength of the work and not its weaknesses, and the genius of the writer and not her limitations, which are most evident on perusal and are most deeply impressed upon the memory. Toru’s command of English is wonderful, and it is difficult to realize that the book is not the work of an English writer. It is not surprising that Mlle Bader should have remarked—‘This Indian girl, so fond of our European civilization, instead of increasing the number of Indian poetesses of whom we have heard through the writings of M. de Tassy, has taken her rank and place among the writers of England.’ One is astonished at the wealth and variety of the vocabulary and at the many instances of real poetic expression. It is true that there are limping lines, and a phrase like ‘Epidaurus’ fatal oracle’ (p. 24) strikes the ear as harsh and prosaic, but such defects are exceptional. She reproduces for the most part the actual metre of her originals (or a metre as closely allied as possible), and such diversity of metre as the book displays only serves to emphasize her own talent and skill. Her translations are fairly close as a rule, though not uniformly so. In some of her versions, the ideas rather than the actual expressions of the French poem are reiterated or elaborated, and occasionally one meets with slight deviations or omissions. Napoléon le Petit is a good specimen of her work. Though largely a free translation, it reproduces the swing and the sarcasm of Hugo’s verse, and her substitution of ‘Tom Thumb’ for ‘Le Petit’ is a happy and ingenious rendering. The subjoined examples will enable readers to judge for themselves the merits of the book.

Here is a verse from Béranger’s ‘The Memories of the People’ which illustrates both her faults and her merits:

In the hut men shall talk of his glory, With pride, not unmingled with tears; And the roof shall not ring with a story But that grand one, for fifty long years.

There villagers in evenings cold, Shall haply beg some gossip old, By stories of a former day, To while the livelong hours away.

‘Some say that he has done us wrong, But the people love him yet; Mother, sing of him a song; We love him, though his sun be set.’

Of like calibre is the version of Hugo’s To Those who Sleep, of which we give a stanza:

Sweep away the tyrant, and his bandits accurst! God, God is with you, let Baal’s priests do their worst! God is King over all.

Before Him who is strong? Lo! He lifts up His hand, And the tigers fly howling through deserts of sand, And the sea-serpents crawl,

Obedient and meek! He breathes on idols of gold In their temples of marble, gigantic and old, And like Dagon they fall!

In the last stanza there is a change of simile from the original, but the general idea is not thereby weakened. The following two verses from Gautier’s What the Swallows Say are an example of a different style of poem, yet Toru’s rendering of them is very felicitous:

Says a fifth, ‘Old age, you see, Weighs me down, I scarce can fly; Malta’s terraced rock for me! Azure wave and azure sky!’

And the sixth, ‘In Cairo fair, On a lofty minaret, Mud head-quarters lined with hair Make me winter quite forget.’

Amongst other poems worth quoting—did space permit—are the versions of A. de Vigny’s Moses and The Death of the Wolf. As a specimen of her work that is marred by weaknesses in prosody, Soulary’s The Two Processions may be instanced:

Two processions met on consecrated sod, One was sad,—it followed the bier of a child; A woman was there, whose sobs bursting wild Attested a heart crushed under the rod;

The other was gay,—a mother who trod Triumphant, friends, and a babe undefiled (Who sucked at her breast, prattled nonsense, and smiled) To be sealed with the seal that marks us of God.

The service done, the gatherings crossed each other, And then prayer’s mighty work was seen achieved, The women barely glanced at one another, But oh! the change in both the glad and the grieved! One wept by the bier,—it was the joyful young mother, And one smiled at the babe,—it was the mother bereaved.

Though that sonnet may not show Toru Dutt’s best work, it is marked nevertheless with the stamp of her genius.

One other quotation may fitly close this reference to this work of hers. She has not reproduced the metre, and here and there she has amplified the thought, of Parny’s On the Death of a Young Girl, but the poem might almost have been written as her obituary notice:

Though childhood’s days were past and gone, More innocent no child could be; Though grace in every feature shone, Her maiden heart was fancy free.

A few more months, or haply days, And Love would blossom—so we thought; As lifts in April’s genial rays The rose its clusters richly wrought.

But God had destined otherwise, And so she gently fell asleep, A creature of the starry skies, Too lovely for the earth to keep.

She died in earliest womanhood; Thus dies, and leaves behind no trace, A bird’s song in a lonely wood— Thus melts a sweet smile from a face.

The last stanza at any rate could not apply to Toru. If she had left behind her no other work save this volume of translations, she would have left behind her something that will not soon die away.

This chapter would be incomplete without a further brief reference to Aru’s work. Her few translations, so limited in quantity, yet in quality deserve a place by her sister’s productions. She appears to have kept perhaps more closely to the original than Toru often did, though she has left scarcely sufficient work behind her to warrant a very decided opinion on that point. A couple of examples of her work will enable readers to compare it with the extracts from Toru’s work given above. Here is Aru’s rendering of the first verse of Béranger’s The Captive to the Swallows:

A soldier captive by the Maure, Who bent beneath his heavy chain, Welcomed the swallows from afar,— ‘O birds! I see you once again, Foes of the winter, high ye wheel, Hope follows in your track e’en here; From well-loved France ye come, reveal All that ye know of my country dear.’

Her version of Chénier’s The Young Captive shows her not much less gifted than her sister. Two verses are a type of the whole poem:

The budding shoot ripens unharmed by the scythe, Without fear of the press, on vine-branches lithe, Through spring-tide the green clusters bloom. Is’t strange, then, that I in my life’s morning hour, Though troubles like clouds on the dark present lower, Half-frighted shrink back from my doom?

Let the stern-hearted stoic run boldly on death! I—I weep and I hope; to the north wind’s chill breath I bend,—then erect is my form! If days there are bitter, there are days also sweet, Enjoyment unmixed where on earth may we meet? What ocean has never a storm?

A SCENE FROM CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

TORU DUTT’S unique linguistic abilities are evidenced by two other translations which she made from French into English. These were published in the Bengal Magazine (June and July 1875), each under the title of A Scene from Contemporary History. These translations deal with speeches delivered in the French Legislative Assembly at different periods by Victor Hugo and M. Thiers, together with a specimen of the poetry of the former.

The first translation is part of the speech delivered by Victor Hugo on July 17, 1851.³ It belongs to that stormy period of French history connected with the Second Revolution following the abdication of the throne by Louis-Philippe in 1848. A republican form of government was re-established, but this collapsed before the end of 1852. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the great Napoleon, had been chosen in 1848 to act as President of the Legislative Assembly for a term of four years. At the beginning of 1851, however, it became evident that there was a strong tide of feeling setting in for the re-establishment of the monarchy, and the question which agitated the minds of politicians was the best means of effecting that change. Could it be accomplished by introducing a suitable legislative measure, or by having recourse to force? If the former, then a modification of the existing constitution was needful, rescinding the special clause (article 45) which prohibited the re-election of the President at the end of his four years of office. This was the focus of discussion in the summer of 1851. The revision of this clause had been proposed in the Assembly by Louis Napoleon himself in the furtherance of his own interests. Victor Hugo was an ardent republican and strongly deprecated any reversion to government under an emperor. He felt that the Republic was already too much in the hands of Louis and of a clique of self-interested politicians, and consequently the rescinding of that clause would perpetuate present misgovernment by making Louis Napoleon virtually king. He did not regard Louis Napoleon as personally capable of sustaining the weight and responsibilities of Empire and of enabling France to take her proper place in Europe and to exert her legitimate influence upon European politics. Consequently, Victor Hugo vehemently opposed any alteration in that particular clause of the constitution, and the portion of his speech translated by Toru shows alike the boldness and eloquence of the speaker as well as the intense feeling which then pervaded both political parties, viz. the republican supporters of Victor Hugo, seated on the left, and the advocates of the change, on the right. The opposition of the republican party was strong enough to defeat the proposal, and Louis Napoleon had subsequently to have recourse to force and fraud in order to gain his ends.

The poem of which Toru Dutt has given a version was one in which Victor Hugo expressed his estimate of the character and achievements of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and contrasted him with his great predecessor. The chanson is published in the volume of poetry entitled Les Châtiments.

The remaining prose translation deals with a later period of French history, but resembles it in this respect, as it describes another stormy scene in the French Senate. The date is July 15, 1870, when for more than two years the possibility of a Franco-Prussian war had threatened Europe. Bismarck had seen that the candidature of Leopold of Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain would be extremely displeasing to the French nation, and accordingly at the beginning of this month he caused the announcement of this candidature to be publicly made. On receipt of the news, the French Government sent a protest which was couched indeed in arrogant terms, but the King of Prussia had already yielded to their demands and had enjoined the renunciation of the candidature. The members of the extreme party in the Government, however, were not satisfied with this. They wanted either to humiliate the King of Prussia or to conquer him. Accordingly on the evening of July 14, relying upon information which promised the assistance of Austria and the South German States, they decided to propose the declaration of war. The following day the Legislative Assembly, without requiring further information, supported them, Thiers, Gambetta, and eight others alone opposing this momentous step. Thiers felt that, as the King of Prussia had conceded France’s request, there was not sufficient reason for involving the country in a sanguinary strife. He spoke amid interruptions similar to those which Victor Hugo had encountered twenty years previously, but the opposition which Thiers led was not as effective as Victor Hugo’s in 1851, when he opposed the change in the constitution. The translator has given us practically the whole of the speech, and the original may be seen in the official report of the debate published on July 16 of that year.

Toru’s translations afford us vivid reproductions of both these historic debates, and they afford evidence that she had passed beyond the slavish stage of literal translation. In several passages she aptly expressed with freedom of language the thought of the speaker. She fails, however, to do this uniformly, and here and there she does not appear to have grasped fully the idea expressed in the original. Some of her renderings are not as happy or suitable as they might be, and there are a few instances of mistakes both in translating the French and in writing the corresponding English idiom. But these are, for the most part, flaws that can only be discerned by a careful and close comparison of the English version with the actual words of the orators, and the second prose translation is freer from them than the former. Despite them all, the translations, taken as a whole, quite suffice to depict the two scenes in the French Assembly and to enable the reader to gain a realistic idea of the nature of the discussions and of the oratorical powers of the speakers.

The poetic rendering of Hugo’s comparison between the two Napoleons is well deserving of praise. The translation is, however, very free and far from literal, individual stanzas frequently expressing a different thought from Victor Hugo’s. The last stanza approximates in idea more closely to the French than do the others, and a reproduction of it side by side with the original will serve to show both Toru’s linguistic ability and her poetic power.