Chapter 59: Lionel's Match, Flaubert's Torch

"...Environment not only shapes behavior, but also shapes the way we perceive?"

This sentence was like a stone dropped into a calm lake, its ripples silently diffusing through the haze-filled study.

That environment affects human behavior is a basic common sense in literature and psychology, which began to gain popularity in the nineteenth century and was put into practice in a vast number of literary works.

This is also the main reason for the ebb of "Romanticism"—in novels prior to the nineteenth century, there were always characters who existed independently of or even transcendent to their environment. Protagonists, in particular, were frequently capable of altering their environment and turning the tides of fate through sheer spiritual might.

It stemmed from the emphasis on man as an independent individual since the "Renaissance"—affirming human value, potential, and worldly happiness while praising human reason, emotion, and creativity.

Daniel Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe* is a typical representative of this, though it is not a work of Romanticism.

The rise of Realism and even Naturalism questioned and subverted this creative approach, placing characters within the active confines of their environment. It posited that human behavior is the product of the environment, yet it failed to reveal why this should be so.

The naturalist writers in this room could usually only attribute this to biological heredity and human pathology—which was, of course, far too extreme and eccentric, causing Naturalism to wane after flourishing for less than thirty years.

The "environment shapes perception" just proposed by Lionel was refreshingly original, seeming to touch upon some faint, elusive glimmer of light that everyone had only vaguely sensed but could never quite grasp.

A brief silence enveloped the room, broken only by the crackling of firewood in the fireplace and the sound of bustling traffic coming and going on the street outside.

Zola was the first to raise his head from his contemplation. Leaning forward like a lion that had caught the scent of fresh prey, his gaze was sharp: "Léon, please go on! This goes a step further than simply recording the impact of behavior and environment!

You are saying that the young shop assistant's 'numbness' and 'sense of participation' are 'perceptions' shaped by his environment? Could it be that our eyes, the way we view the world, are like our lungs, breathing the air of the environment and being remodeled by it?"

Inhaling the pungent, heavy fog of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes filling the room, Lionel thought to himself that if he attended a few more salons, his lungs might indeed be remodeled.

So he raised his hand slightly: "I forgot to bring cigarettes. Can anyone spare me one?"

The veteran smokers in the room all laughed. The young Huysmans pulled out a shimmering silver flat case from his breast pocket, opened it to reveal a neat row of cigarettes, and deftly flipped one out: "Caporal, rolled from fine Indian tobacco."

Lionel plucked it and put it between his lips. Huysmans struck a match and lit it for him.

Taking a deep drag, without the buffer of a filter, a pungent, spicy, yet richly aromatic smoke instantly filled his mouth and nasal cavity, making him cough repeatedly.

Yet no one laughed at him; instead, the looks they cast toward him grew even more affectionate.

Lionel slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke before nodding. "Yes, Mr. Zola, our eyes are indeed remodeled. What does the 'young shop assistant' witness every day? He sees workers haggling over a few sous for drinks, he sees his boss racking his brains to water down the wine, he hears foul-mouthed bargaining and endless quarrels...

In such an environment, 'sympathy' or 'profound contemplation' is a luxury, and may even become an obstacle to survival. To adapt—or rather, to live 'normally' in this environment without being crushed or ostracized—his perception must undergo a certain... dulling."

"Dulling?" Flaubert repeated the word, his gaze flickering beneath thick eyebrows. He turned to Zola, "Émile, this sounds like your territory. We all understand physiological adaptation, such as the calluses that form on the palms of a laborer.

Can our noble souls grow calluses as well?" Flaubert's words did not sound like a question, but rather like guidance—guiding his "young" old friend to exercise his own talents. (At this time, Zola was not yet forty years old.)

"Entirely possible, Mr. Flaubert!" Zola chimed in excitedly, as if Lionel's words had opened a new window for him.

"Think of those workers who spend their entire lives down in the mines. Their 'habituation' to darkness and coal dust—is that not a dulling of the senses?

Léon, do you mean to say that the young shop assistant's 'turning a blind eye' to the old guardsman's suffering is not an innate coldness, but rather a 'habit' formed by his soul as a form of self-protection under that specific 'social climate'? A kind of... acquired numbness?"

By the end, Zola could not help standing up and walking over to Lionel's side.

"Precisely so, Mr. Zola," Lionel affirmed, appreciating Zola's acute associative powers and admiring Flaubert's skillful guidance.

"The tavern is his mine. Long-term immersion in it has made him spontaneously block out the perception of 'suffering'—especially a 'untimely' suffering like that of the old guardsman, which cannot be changed and might only bring trouble.

He sees it, but he no longer 'feels' its sharp sting. He may even unconsciously join in the mocking because it allows him to briefly blend into the crowd and gain an illusory sense of security.

This 'shaping of perception' is more thorough than any external coercion because it has been internalized into his instinctive way of viewing the world." Lionel cleverly avoided using certain terms that had not yet been coined and would require tedious explanations.

Flaubert said subconsciously, "Are you referring to 'onlookers' and 'collective unconscious'?—Oh, the rest of you may not have seen it; those are terms Léon used during an internal inquiry meeting at the Sorbonne.

I have already had a copy transcribed; you may take a look."

As he spoke, he walked over to his large desk, lifted the red velvet cloth covering it, and handed a stack of manuscript paper to Émile Zola.

The others turned over in their minds the new terms they had heard tonight: "environment shapes perception," "dulling," "onlookers," "collective unconscious"...

Ivan Turgenev, who had been listening in silence all along, spoke up slowly in his Slavic-melancholic voice, smoke curling between his fingers: "Ah... This reminds me of winters in the Russian countryside.

Extreme bitter cold not only freezes the body, but sometimes freezes the soul as well. Landlords turn a blind eye to the sufferings of their serfs, neighbors remain numb to the distress of their neighbors... It is not that they are inherently evil.

In that kind of 'purgatory,' the soul must wrap itself in a thick shell of ice to avoid being consumed by despair. Mr. Sorel, the gaze of the young shop assistant in your writing is precisely that layer of ice shell.

It is both protection and prison."

Alphonse Daudet was deeply moved, a gentle sorrow resting on his face: "This explains that peculiar sense of oppression I felt when reading *The Old Guardsman*. We are not struck directly by the suffering of the old guardsman, but rather pierced by the gaze of that 'blind' young shop assistant!

This is even more... more suffocating than directly portraying the suffering itself. Today I understand—it forces us to reflect: have we ourselves become 'dulled'? Have we grown habitually 'adapted' to certain sufferings that are happening right under our noses?"

...

Flaubert listened quietly to the discussion among the group. After a long while, he spoke slowly, his voice deep and powerful: "Therefore, Léon, you made the narrator, the 'young shop assistant,' a prisoner of his environment, and used a prisoner's gaze to view the suffering of another prisoner, the 'old guardsman.'

A prisoner looking at a prisoner, suffering becomes mere scratches on the walls of a cell—ordinary, and even... carrying a hint of amusement. This is the deepest tragedy, the coldest truth! This is a 'imprisoned perspective,' something I have never seen or thought of before!"

As soon as these words were spoken, all present were astounded.

If Lionel's "environment shapes perception" had struck a match in the darkness, Flaubert had used that match to ignite a torch.