Sister Philomène by Jules de Goncourt

First published:Sœur Philomène, 1861 (English translation, 1890)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Naturalism

Time of plot: Nineteenth century

Locale: Paris

Principal characters

• Marie Gaucher, later known as Philomène
• Céline, her friend
• Madame de Viry, the employer of Philomène’s aunt
• Henri de Viry, Madame de Viry’s son
• Barnier, a young doctor
• Malivoire, his friend and a doctor
• Romaine, Barnier’s former mistress

The Story:

In a hospital ward, two white-clad Sisters of St. Augustine are making their rounds. One of them, a novice, is Sister Philomène, whose name was originally Marie Gaucher. She is the daughter of a tailoress and a locksmith and was orphaned at the age of four, when she was adopted by an aunt who was a servant to the widowed Madame de Viry. In that pleasant household, the child began to thrive, and she soon assumed equal footing with Madame de Viry’s son, Henri. Madame de Viry felt this situation to be dangerous and she sent the child, screaming, to a convent orphanage. To avoid confusion with another child there called Marie, the Sisters called her Philomène. Though she was miserable at first, she gradually lost her resentment as she became accustomed to convent routine, although she changed from a vivacious child into a quiet and a whining one. She was restless, living only for her aunt’s monthly visit. One Sister, the ugly but good and kind Marguerite, paid special attention to Philomène.

At the age of ten, Philomène became the intimate friend of a newcomer, twelve-year-old Céline. Much of Céline’s childhood was spent in reading the Lives of the Saints aloud to her infirm grandmother, and she developed a mystic temperament. She liked to deny herself pleasures, to fast, and to invent self-punishments, and she converted Philomène to a course of personal sacrifices. Philomène worked herself up to a state of religious agitation, habitually spending all of Sunday in church and looking forward to that prospect as she once did to her aunt’s visits. She became sickly and irritable, and her thoughts were always on death. When her eyes began to give her trouble, the Sisters sent her with her aunt to see an eye doctor. On that occasion, Philomène visited Madame de Viry’s house for the first time since she entered the orphanage.

Back in the convent, Philomène felt miserable and forlorn. She succeeded in maintaining her state of feverish piety for two years, but then her faith became automatic and unfelt. Céline left the orphanage to become a nun; Sister Marguerite left for her health. The convent became unbearable to Philomène; she went into a decline and was so close to death that her aunt was permitted to take her away. Madame de Viry died, and Philomène became a servant to Monsieur Henri. Philomène longed to sacrifice herself for him, and she rejected the advances of a coarse groom who hoped eventually, by marrying her, to gain the management of Henri’s house.

One night, Philomène overheard Henri telling her aunt that he would bring a woman home with him were it not for the presence of an unmarried girl in the house. When he suggested that Philomène marry the groom, she fainted. Later, though assured she would not be sent away, she decided to begin her novitiate to the Sisters of St. Augustine. With seven months of her novitiate to complete before taking her vows, she was sent to a hospital to replace her friend Céline, who died of typhoid.

The doctors agreed that Philomène was pretty, but Barnier, under whom she worked, said that he preferred the old ones, tried and true. Philomène’s original horror of the hospital was relieved by its clean, peaceful atmosphere at first, but later the realization of death and disease tortured her. Midmorning breakfast was the happiest hour for her, for then, useful and busy feeding and cheering her patients, Philomène gained strength for the rest of the day. By the time she realized that she could do no more than relieve suffering, she was inured to the hospital. She was never hardened, however, and her patients loved her for her tenderness.

Philomène earned the respect of doctors and students alike by her courage and compassion. Soon she was all-powerful, softening hospital rules and lending courage to sufferers.

When one dying patient despaired for her little boy’s future, Barnier generously proposed to send him to his mother in the country. Everyone admired his goodness, and he and Philomène became closer. Their chats were her one recreation, for Barnier told her about changes outside the hospital in Paris. She feared that she would be transferred, for the Sisters were not supposed to become attached to a ward, but she was pleased to learn that she was to remain. One day, Barnier, an unbeliever who often discussed religion with her, was silenced by her announcement that she just took her vows. Soon after, Philomène became ill and had to leave the hospital for a month. When she returned, she was very pale but seemed strong and active.

Malivoire told Barnier that he should have a more or less permanent mistress. Because a doctor’s profession was so material, maintained Malivoire, the physician needed the illusions of love as well as the brutal fact of sex. Barnier was about to confess a love affair to Malivoire when they were interrupted. Barnier provided Philomène with laudanum to take for her neuralgic headaches. Her laudanum-provoked dream included the illusion of the touch of a kiss.

A new patient arrived. Barnier recognized her as the specter of Romaine, the woman he loved. They were happy lovers until she left him and began a life of dissipation resulting in a breast injury. When Barnier asked Philomène to prepare Romaine for the operation, Philomène spoke to the woman with unusual harshness. After the operation Romaine, raging in fever, alternately cursed Barnier and begged him not to let her die. As he was leaving, Barnier overheard Philomène say that women like her should not be admitted to the hospital. Romaine died, after a scene in which Philomène’s prayers were broken by the woman’s curses and singing. Returning, Barnier saw the coffin that was to carry her away.

At a drinking party, Barnier defended the Sisters against a cynic who said that they were tender only toward those who were religious and decent. A suggestion was made that Philomène loved Barnier. Drunk and aroused, he went to the ward and attempted to kiss her, but she slapped him. Sobered, he returned to his friends to say that he would fight anyone who suggested her impurity.

Miserable in his memories of Romaine, Barnier took to drinking absinthe. Intoxication became his real life. When he learned that the house surgeon’s coveted medal would not be his, Barnier struggled to resist drink, but when sober he was haunted by thoughts of Romaine. Philomène was ill. After her laudanum dream she searched her heart for symptoms of attachment for Barnier and remembered her jealous reaction to Romaine. Resolving on a course of expiation, she punished herself by remaining in the hospital and suffering the torments of love. One day Barnier asked her forgiveness for the attempted kiss. Her heart too full to speak, she went silently to her closet.

Barnier’s student period was soon to end. He told Malivoire that the subject of his thesis was to be death, that modern existence—a suicide more or less slow—does not use up but breaks life. Having deliberately scratched his hand while dissecting a diseased body, Barnier went to bed to await death.

Philomène went to a priest to have prayers said for Barnier by the Confraternity of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, who were devoted to those who do not believe. Later, she knelt and prayed beside the dead Barnier. After she left, Malivoire was unable to find the lock of Barnier’s hair that was to have been sent to his mother.

Bibliography

Ashley, Katherine. Edmond de Goncourt and the Novel: Naturalism and Decadence. New York: Rodopi, 2005. Ashley analyzes Edmond’s four solo novels, arguing that these books deviated from the strict naturalistic style that characterized the novels he wrote with his brother. She places Edmond’s work within the larger context of late nineteenth century fin de siècle literature.

Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by Willard Trask. New York: Doubleday, 1953. Considers the Goncourts as naturalist writers. Compares their novels with those of Émile Zola and classifies the Goncourts as second-tier writers.

Baldick, Robert. The Goncourts. London: Bowes, 1960. A very brief but excellent survey of the Goncourts’ novels. Concentrates on biographical background to the novels. Includes some exploration of major themes and aspects of literary style. Sister Philomène is cited as their most positive and least sensational novel.

Billy, Andre. The Goncourt Brothers. Translated by Margaret Shaw. New York: Horizon Press, 1960. The standard biography of the Goncourts. Shows that their novels emerged from events in their lives. Traces the research efforts that contributed to Sister Philomène. Also furnishes contemporary reaction to their novels.

Grant, Richard B. The Goncourt Brothers. New York: Twayne, 1972. Surveys the lives and works of Jules and Edmond de Goncourt. Ordered chronologically, the book carefully integrates the lives of the authors with detailed stylistic and thematic analysis of their novels.

Nelson, Brian, ed. Naturalism in the European Novel: New Critical Perspectives. New York: Berg, 1992. Essays by prominent scholars of naturalism in England, France, Germany, and Spain. Includes several important discussions of the Goncourts’ role in the development of social documentary as a literary genre.