Summary: Part One, Chapter 3
Two months after his visit home, Frédéric is in Paris
for law school. He has convinced Monsieur Roque to introduce him
to Monsieur Dambreuse, and he visits Dambreuse with Roque’s letter
of introduction. Dambreuse works in industry and is very wealthy,
with important political connections. Madame Dambreuse is a socialite. Dambreuse
asks Frédéric a few questions and then sends him away. As he walks
home, he passes a shop and sees a sign saying Jacques Arnoux—it
is Monsieur Arnoux’s art shop. Frédéric hopes to spot Madame Arnoux,
but she does not appear.
Depressed and aimless, Frédéric stops attending classes
and scorns his friend Baptiste Martinon’s version of happiness.
He wanders the streets of Paris, seeing echoes of Madame Arnoux
in women’s faces. He never receives an invitation from the Dambreuses,
and the friend Deslauriers suggests he contact, a math teacher named
Senecal, never returns his attempted visits. He goes back to law
school. He tries to write a novel, and he tries to compose music
on the piano.
One night at the theater, he spots Arnoux with two women. Arnoux
is wearing a black mourning band around his hat, and Frédéric wonders
if Madame Arnoux is dead. He goes to Arnoux’s shop and asks a clerk
if the couple are doing well; they are. Reassured, he leaves the
shop, but he is still melancholy. He visits home, then he returns
to Paris and gets a new apartment. He begins to lose interest in
Madame Arnoux.
Summary: Part One, Chapter 4
As Frédéric goes to class one morning, he sees chaos in
the streets. He asks a young man named Hussonnet what’s going on.
Hussonnet says that no one knows—it’s a riot where even the rioters
don’t know what they’re rioting about. Various political events
from the past few months have resulted in frequent protests.
Frédéric’s friend Martinon appears, frightened of potential
secret societies among the rioters. Hussonnet says the government
has made up the idea of secret societies to instill fear in the
middle class. The riot begins breaking up, and a professor named
Samuel Rondelot appears on his way to class. The crowd turns on
him simply because he is an authority figure, and he retreats. The
rowdy crowd starts heckling the police. A fight ensues, and a policeman
pushes a young protestor. A large man carrying a box drops the box
and tackles the offending policeman. As police lead him to jail,
he announces that his name is Dussardier and that he wants his box.
Frédéric and Hussonnet follow him.
In jail, they ask to see Dussardier, who doesn’t know
them. They try to get him to say he is a law student as a way of
indicating that they are there to help him, but it takes him a while
to catch on. Dussardier takes a smashed pipe from his pocket—a pipe
he’d spent years making and which was broken in the fight. Frédéric
gives Dussardier some cigars, and Dussardier is overcome with gratitude.
Back on the street, Hussonnet reveals that he works at
Monsieur Arnoux’s magazine, L’Art Industriel. Frédéric
and Hussonnet exchange addresses and promise to meet again. Reluctant
to visit Hussonnet too soon, Frédéric deliberately runs into him
one evening, and they go to Frédéric’s apartment to talk. Hussonnet wants
to become famous in the theater; he writes musical comedies and
songs. He insults Frédéric’s books of poetry, written by poets from
the Romantic school who he claims had no common sense. Angry, Frédéric
gets to the point and asks Hussonnet if he can take him to Arnoux’s
house. Hussonnet agrees.
Soon, they visit the Arnouxes’ house. It is full of artists,
and Hussonnet engages in a passionate debate about the role of money
in art. Arnoux invites him and Frédéric back. Various people come
in and out of the shop below Arnoux’s home, including a man named Regimbart,
and the afternoon wears on. Discussion turns to politics and gossip.
Soon people begin to leave, and Frédéric walks for a while with
an artist named Pellerin. They agree to see each other again.
Pellerin is a mostly unsuccessful artist who has made
nothing but sketches. When Frédéric visits him, he sometimes finds
Pellerin in bed, having been out at the theater late. He never mentions
Madame Arnoux to Frédéric, but one day Frédéric sees a sketch that
resembles her in one of Pellerin’s sketchbooks. Pellerin says Arnoux
has many mistresses, but that Madame Arnoux is virtuous.
Frédéric also spends time with Regimbart, another friend
of Arnoux’s, who drinks a lot, plays billiards, and does not do
any work. Arnoux admires him, and Frédéric tolerates him for this
reason only.
Though Frédéric looks up to Arnoux as a man who values
the arts, Arnoux actually is a shrewd art seller who often cheats
his customers. However, he thinks of himself as honest.
Arnoux actually does not live at the home where Frédéric
has been spending so much time. Frédéric accompanies Regimbart and Pellerin
to a bar, where the two older men complain about Arnoux. Frédéric
stands up for Arnoux, but when he goes back to see him under the
pretense of looking for a lost notebook, he suddenly sees Arnoux
as vulgar. He leaves, convinced he won’t be back.
Deslauriers sends a letter to Frédéric announcing that
he is returning to Paris. But on the day he is to arrive, Arnoux
invites Frédéric to dinner, and Frédéric can think of nothing else.
When Deslauriers arrives, Frédéric doesn’t tell him he’s made other
plans for the evening and feels guilty. The two sit down and talk.
New clothes are delivered for Frédéric, who has ordered a new outfit
in anticipation of his dinner. He confesses to Deslauriers that
he is going to dinner.
Frédéric arrives at the Arnouxes’ home and finally sees
Madame Arnoux, who claims to remember him. The meal is lavish, and
the conversation about travel and art is engrossing. Madame Arnoux leaves
the table when liquor is served, and the men discuss women. Frédéric
is surprised by the vulgarity. Later, in the drawing room, Madame
Arnoux returns and shows the men a romantic gift Arnoux gave her—a
piece of Renaissance art. Arnoux kisses her.
When Madame Arnoux eventually talks to Frédéric, he is thrilled,
but he cannot look her in the face. Then she is asked by one of
the guests to sing. She sings a song in Italian, which Frédéric
does not understand. She offers Frédéric her hand before he leaves.
He goes out into the darkened streets, certain that he is meant
to be a painter and that this vocation will lead him to Madame Arnoux. When
he arrives home, he finds Deslauriers sleeping in a closet. He had
forgotten he was there.
Analysis: Part One, Chapters 3 and 4
As winter settles onto Paris, Frédéric’s confidence is
shaken by a series of rejections that leave him lonely, defeated,
and depressed, feelings that are mirrored in the way Flaubert describes
the scenes. As Frédéric is rejected or ignored by the wealthy Monsieur
Dambreuse and Arnoux, he loses his energy, and life becomes dull. Flaubert
presents a series of small dissatisfactions that illustrate his general
unhappiness: he has to deal with annoyances such as laundry and
the unpleasant concierge; he doesn’t like his room; he doesn’t like
overhearing the happy students next door. He spends time with his
happy friend Martinon, but he is annoyed by Martinon’s happiness
in his simple domestic pleasures. As Frédéric reaches a low point,
Flaubert describes a haunting street scene complete with glowing
gas lamps, shadows, slimy pavement, a mist, and darkness. Frédéric
himself has become part of this bleak Parisian landscape.
Frédéric attempts to use art as a way of lifting him out
of his depression, but his efforts fail. He tries to write a novel,
but he gets discouraged at its lack of originality. He rents a piano
and composes German waltzes, but this doesn’t help either. He attends
the theater, but this only serves to agitate him more: this is where
he spots Arnoux and suspects (incorrectly) that Madame Arnoux has
died. No matter what strategies he tries, he fails to lighten his
psychological load. In the absence of a passion for anything at
all, even his interest in Madame Arnoux starts to disappear.
Frédéric’s chance meeting with Hussonnet sets his life
on a new path and lifts him out of his bleak depression. The world
of Madame Arnoux, which had seemed permanently closed to him, suddenly
reopens at the news that Hussonnet has worked for Arnoux on his
magazine. Seizing the moment with an energy that had been dormant,
Frédéric ingratiates himself with Hussonnet and wrangles an invitation
to Arnoux’s home. Until now, Frédéric has been idle, flitting from
one activity to the next and discarding one unsatisfactory endeavor
after another. He has lacked focus and drive. With Hussonnet, however,
and in the evenings at the Arnoux residence that follow, Frédéric
displays a singular drive and vision: he wants to see Madame Arnoux
again, and this desire sustains him. He defends Arnoux against detractors
and is rewarded—finally—with a dinner invitation that gives him
his second face-to-face encounter with Madame Arnoux.
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