bourgeois pigs

In a book about the painter Paul Cézanne, I found this little tidbit, which I thought was kind of hilarious -- the less successful, resentful painter talking about his old school pal, who's hit the bigtime...

From Cézanne by Ambroise Vollard:

One day Cézanne was showing me a little portrait of Zola painted in the period of his youth, about the year 1860. I seized the opportunity to ask him at what period Zola and he had broken with each other. "No harsh words ever passed between us', he replied. 'It was I who stopped going to see Zola. I was not at my ease there any longer, with the fine rugs on the floor, the servants, and Emile enthroned behind a carved wooden desk. It all gave me the feeling that I was paying a visit to a minister of the state. He had become (excuse me, Monsieur Vollard – I don't say it in bad part) a dirty bourgeois.

Vollard: I should think it must have been frightfully interesting to meet Edmond de Goncourt, the Daudets, Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant and all those people at Zola's house.

Cézanne: Oh, there were plenty of people there, but the things they talked about made me sick. I tried to arouse interest in Baudelaire once, but nobody cared anything about him.

Vollard: What did they talk about?

Cézanne: Each one talked about the number of copies he had had printed of his last book, or how many he hoped to have printed of his next. Of course, they exaggerated a little. But you should have heard the women! Mme X would say proudly, casting a defiant look at Madame Z: 'My husband and I have figured that the last novel, with the illustrated editions and the "popular edition" has reached 35,000 copies.' 'And we', Madame Z would say, taking up the challenge, 'we are promised by contract and edition of 50,000 copies for our next book, not counting the edition de luxe."
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