On one side is the divine element (Rudolph) to, which all power and freedom are attributed, the only active principle. On the other side is the passive world system and the human beings belonging to it. The world system is the ground of reality . If this ground is not to be entirely abandoned or the last remnant of the natural condition is not to be abolished ; if the world itself is to have some share in the principle of development that Rudolph, in contrast to the world, concentrates in himself; if the human element is not to be represented simply as unfree and inactive , Herr Szeliga is bound to fall into the contradiction of religious consciousness . Although he tears apart the world system and its activity as the dualism of a dead Mass and Criticism (Rudolph), he is nevertheless obliged to concede some attributes of divinity to the world system and the mass and to give in Marguerite a speculative construction of the unity of the two, Rudolph and the world (see Kritik der Synoptiker, Band 1, p. 39). Besides the real relations of the house-owner, the acting individual force , to his house (the objective basis ), mystical speculation, and speculative aesthetics too, need a third concrete, speculative unity, a Subject-Object which is the house and the house-owner in one. As speculation does not like natural mediations in their extensive circumstantiality, it does not realise that the same bit of world system , the house, for example, which for one, the house-owner, for example, is an objective basis , is for the other, the builder of the house, an epic event . In order to get a really single whole and real unity" Critical Criticism, which reproaches romantic art with the dogma of unity , replaces the natural and human connection between the world system and world events by a fantastic connection, a mystical Subject-Object, just as Hegel replaces the real connection between man and nature by an absolute Subject-Object which is at one and the same time the whole of nature and the whole of humanity, the Absolute Spirit. In the Critical Marguerite the universal guilt of the time, the guilt of mystery , becomes the mystery of guilt , just as the universal debt [a pun on the word Schuld which means guilt and debt"] of mystery becomes the mystery of debts in the indebted Epicier [grocer]. After proving that according to the logical sequence Marguerite ought to have been Rudolph s mother, Herr Szeliga proves the opposite: This shows at least that the idea of our epic and Herr Szeliga s logical sequence are mutually contradictory. The speculative Marguerite is nothing but the embodiment of an idea . But what idea? She is the representation of an allegorical tear, and even this little that she is, is only as it were . We shall not follow Herr Szeliga in his further description of Marguerite. We shall leave her the satisfaction, according to Herr Szeliga s prescription, of constituting the most decisive antithesis to everyone , a mysterious antithesis, as mysterious as the attributes of God. Neither shall we delve into the true mystery that is deposited by God in the breast of man and at which the speculative Marguerite as it were hints. We shall pass from Herr Szeliga s Marguerite to Eug ne Sue s Fleur de Marie and to the Critical miraculous cures Rudolph accomplishes on her. We meet Marie surrounded by criminals, as a prostitute in bondage to the proprietress of the criminals tavern. In this debasement she preserves a human nobleness of soul, a human unaffectedness and a human beauty that impress those around her, raise her to the level of a poetical flower of the criminal world and win for her the name of Fleur de Marie. We must observe Fleur de Marie attentively from her first appearance in order to be able to compare her original form with her Critical transformation. In spite of her frailty, Fleur de Marie at once gives proof of vitality, energy, cheerfulness, resilience of character qualities which alone explain her human development in her inhuman situation. When Chourineur ill-treats her, she defends herself with her scissors. That is the situation in which we first find her. She does not appear as a defenceless lamb who surrenders without any resistance to overwhelming brutality; she is a girl who can vindicate her rights and put up a fight. In the criminals tavern in the Rue aux F ves she tells Chourineur and Rudolph the story of her life. As she does so she laughs at Chourineur s wit. She blames herself because on being released from prison she spent the 300 francs she had earned there on amusements instead of looking for work. But, she said, I had no one to advise me. The memory of the catastrophe of her life her selling herself to the proprietress of the criminals tavern puts her in a melancholy mood. It is the first time since her childhood that she has recalled these events. Good and evil, as Marie conceives them, are not the moral abstractions of good and evil. She is good because she has never caused suffering to anyone, she has always been human towards her inhuman surroundings. She is good because the sun and the flowers reveal to her her own sunny and blossoming nature. She is good because she is still young, full of hope and vitality. Her situation is not good, because it puts an unnatural constraint on her, because it is not the expression of her human impulses, not the fulfilment of her human desires; because it is full of torment and without joy. She measures her situation in life by her own individuality, her essential nature, not by the ideal of what is good. In natural surroundings, where the chains of bourgeois life fall away and she can freely manifest her own nature, Fleur de Marie bubbles over with love of life, with a wealth of feeling, with human joy at the beauty of nature; these show that her social position has only grazed the surface of her and is a mere misfortune, that she herself is neither good nor bad, but human. Rudolph tells her that he is going to take her to Madame George s farm. There she can see dove-cotes, cow-stalls and so forth; there they have milk, butter, fruit, etc. Those are real blessings for this child. She will be merry, that is her main thought. You can t believe how I am longing for some fun! She explains to Rudolph in the most unaffected way her own share of responsibility for her misfortune. My whole fate is due to the fact that I did not save up my money. She therefore advises him to be thrifty and to put money in the savings-bank. Her fancy runs wild in the castles in the air that Rudolph builds for her. She becomes sad only because she So far we have seen Fleur de Marie in her original un-Critical form. Eug ne Sue has risen above the horizon of his narrow world outlook. He has slapped bourgeois prejudice in the face. He will hand over Fleur de Marie to the hero Rudolph to atone for his temerity and to reap applause from all old men and women, from the whole of the Paris police, from the current religion and from Critical Criticism . Madame George, to whom Rudolph entrusts Fleur de Marie, is an unhappy, hypochondriacal religious woman. She immediately welcomes the child with the unctuous words: God blesses those who love and fear him, who have been unhappy and who repent. Rudolph, the man of pure Criticism , has the wretched priest Laporte, whose hair has greyed in superstition, called in. He has the mission of accomplishing Fleur de Marie s Critical reform. Joyfully and unaffectedly Marie approaches the old priest. In his Christian brutality, Eug ne Sue makes a marvellous instinct at once whisper in her ear that shame ends where repentance and penance begin , that is, in the church, which alone saves. He forgets the unconstrained merriness of the outing, a merriness which nature s grace and Rudolph s friendly sympathy had produced, and which was troubled only by the thought of having to go back to the criminals landlady. As Laporte, when he receives the girl, bestows on her the consciousness of her sins, so Rudolph, when he leaves her, presents her with a gold cross, the symbol of the Christian crucifixion awaiting her. So Rudolph first changed Fleur de Marie into a repentant sinner, then the repentant sinner into a nun and finally the nun into a corpse. At her funeral not only the Catholic priest, but also the Critical priest Szeliga preaches a sermon over her grave.
The Holy Family Chapter VIII