Chapter XXI: M. Anatole France speaking at Zola's Funeral (13)

In these last sections of Zola's series the march of degenerescence is hastened; downfall follows downfall; before long that of individuals is to be succeeded by a supreme collapse, that of the _régime_ under which they live. Thus, after "L'Œuvre," comes "La Bête Humaine" (XV), Claude's brother Jacques, an engine-driver, in whom a murderer appears among the Rougon-Macquarts. The hereditary virus, transmitted from Adélaïde Fouque, has turned in him to an insensate craving for woman's blood, and, frankly, his story is horrible. At the same time, while one follows the growth of his abominable disease, many a vivid page arrests attention: awful, yet a masterpiece of colloquial narrative and full of a penetrating psychology, is Severine's account of the murder of President Grandmorin; very human is Jacques' love for his engine, La Lison; and striking are the pictures of the snowstorm, the railway accident, and the death of Jacques and the stoker Pecqueux, at the end of the volume, when their train, crowded with soldiers, is seen rushing driverless, like some great, maddened, blind beast, towards catastrophe and annihilation.

Next the story of Gervaise's third son, Étienne, is unfolded in "Germinal" (XVI), this again a tale of the workers, the hardships, the misery, the degradation of the sweated toilers of the coal-pits, who are maddened by want to revolt. And then, of course, they are shot down by the soldiers at the disposal of the capitalists who batten on the sufferings of labour. A tribute of compassion, a call for justice, a cry of warning to the rich and powerful--such, as Zola himself said, is "Germinal." Those who wonder at the hatred of the workers for those above them, at the spread of socialism throughout France, need merely read his pages to understand why and how such things have come to pass.

But "Nana" (XVII) now confronts the reader. He has just passed through the world of labour: drunkenness, degradation, insanity, crime, revolution have been indicated successively as resultants of the condition of the masses; and here comes another product of an evil social system, the low-born harlot who, like an unconscious instrument of retribution, ascends from her native dung-heap to poison the _bourgeoisie_ and aristocracy--the rulers, the law-givers, to whom the existence of that dung-heap and its evil ferments is due. In "Nana" depravity coruscates. Here is the so-called "life of pleasure" of the world's great cities, the life of indulgence which recruits its votaries among all the aristocracies, all the plutocracies, all the _bourgeoisies_, all the bohemias. To some, Nana may seem to be "a scourge of God"--assuredly the world's Nanas have wrought more evil than its Attilas--"a punishment on men for their lewd and lawless sensuality." In Zola's pages one does not witness merely the ruin and disgrace of the professedly profligate; one sees also how natural, youthful desire when exposed to temptation may ripen into depravity and end in misery. One sees, again, the reflex action of libertinism on married life--how wives end at times by following the example of their husbands, and even "bettering the instruction."[1] From first to last this much-maligned book is a stupendous warning for both sexes, as great a denunciation of the social evil as ever was penned.

But the scene changes, and in "La Terre" (XVIII) appears Jean Macquart, soldier and artisan, who becomes a peasant. He, though a brother of Gervaise, has escaped the hereditary taint, is strong, sensible, hard-working, a man destined, one might think, to a life of useful and happy obscurity. But fate casts him among the Fouans, a family of untutored peasants, barely raised above animality; and a drama of savage greed and egotism is unfolded around him. Old Fouan, being no longer able to till his fields himself, divides his property among his children, who agree to make him an allowance. But he is cheated, ill-treated, robbed of his savings by them, and finally murdered by one of his sons. That same son, Buteau, is consumed by a ravenous earth-hunger, but animal desire is also strong within him. He is both enamoured and jealous of his wife's sister, Françoise, who is Jean Macquart's wife, his passion for her being blended with a craving to appropriate her land. At last she, by violence, becomes his victim, and in a struggle with her sister, who is present, is thrown upon a scythe and mortally injured. That crime is witnessed by old Fouan, and it is for fear lest he should reveal it that he is stifled--then burnt.

From "La Terre" Jean Macquart passes to "La Débâcle" (XIX), for the time has now come for the great smash-up of that Empire all tinsel without and all rottenness within. War and invasion descend upon France. You follow the retreating soldiers from the Rhine to the Meuse, on that terrible, woeful march to Sedan, where all becomes disaster. You see the wretched Emperor borne along in the baggage train of his army, carried, it was thought, to certain death in the hope that France might then forgive, and allow his son to reign. And you see him under fire, vainly courting death, which will not take him. Then the horrors of Bazeilles, the struggle for the Calvary, the great charge, the hoisting of the white flag, the truce, and the abject surrender follow in swift succession. Next comes the battlefield after the slaughter, with the dreadful Camp of Misery, and later, the efforts of the National Defence, the peace imposed on the vanquished, and then the Commune's horrors crowning all. But from first to last human interest is never absent: one finds it in the friendship of Jean for the unlucky and degenerate Maurice, in the story of Silvine and Prosper, in the bravery of Weiss, the heroism of Henriette, Jean's love for her, and the hope that both, hereafter, may be able to begin life afresh and together, a hope which is blasted by the fatality of civil war, when brother rushes on brother and blindly slays him.

At last comes "Le Docteur Pascal" (XX), the zealous scientist who sits in judgment on his family. You see him among his documents, sifting evidence, explaining the heredity of one and another relative, expounding the whole theory of atavism which underlies Zola's series. The old ancestress, Adélaïde Fouque, is still alive, a centenarian, mad, confined for many years in a lunatic asylum. Her son, Antoine Macquart, also survives, still an unscrupulous knave and a confirmed drunkard, until spontaneous combustion destroys him, while hemorrhage carries off little Charles, the last delicate, degenerate scion of the exhausted stock. Pascal himself would seem to have escaped the hereditary taint; but after a long life of celibacy, spent in the study and practice of medicine, his passions awaken, and he falls in love with Clotilde, his niece. He strives to overcome that passion, he wishes to marry the girl to his friend Ramond, but she will not have it so, and in her turn becomes a temptress. Then the impetuous blood of the Rougons masters them both, and they fall into each other's arms. Previously, old Madame Félicité, Pascal's mother, has tried to use Clotilde as an instrument to effect the destruction of the documents which the doctor has collected, for the family would be dishonoured should they ever see the light. The girl has also tried to convert Pascal to her own religious views; but all in vain. A period of delirious folly ensues, Pascal turns prodigal in his old age, and is at last brought to ruin by a dishonest notary. Then Clotilde and he have to part, and he dies, struck down by heart disease. The young woman survives with a child, his son and hers, who, perhaps, may yet rejuvenate the dwindling race. And we see her nursing her babe and indulging in a thousand hopes, as the curtain at last descends on the history of the Rougon-Macquarts.[2]

Such, then, is Zola's great series: one work in twenty volumes, in whose pages appear twelve hundred human characters besides many others, such as La Lison, the engine which Jacques Lantier worships and which seems to be endowed with life; such, too, as old Bonhomme, Pascal's horse; Bataille and Trompette, the horses of the coal-pit; Zephyr, who falls in the great cavalry charge at Sedan; Mathieu and Bertrand, the two big dogs; Pologne, the unlucky rabbit; Minouche, the egotistical cat; Gédéon, the comical donkey who gets drunk in the vintage scene of "La Terre"; César, the great bull at La Borderie; La Coliche and her calves; Mathieu, Désirée's pig; Alexandre, her big lusty rooster, and a score of others. Zola always loved animals; he put them into his books, and they entered largely into his life. As for the human characters of his great series these are of all classes, all kinds. Napoleon III appears in various volumes, at the Tuileries, at Compiègne, at St. Cloud, and again and again during the war of 1870. The Empress is seen also, like the Duke de Morny and other high personages of state. Members of one and another aristocracy, politicians and functionaries, judges and lawyers, medical men and other scientists, bishops and priests, generals and soldiers, company promoters, speculators and shareholders, schoolmasters and revolutionaries, _bourgeois_ of Paris and the provinces, artists and shopkeepers, street hawkers, peasants and miners, workmen of innumerable callings, pass across Zola's stage. The reader enters the homes of all those classes; he goes from the palace to the hovel, from the dancing-hall to the coal-pit, from the cathedral to the boozing-ken, from the artist's studio to the Chamber of Deputies, from the great drapery shop to the harlot's boudoir; he sees Paris, her boulevards, her slums, her promenades, her theatres, her quays, under twenty different aspects, at dawn, at noon, at night, in shine and rain and snow; he travels to the rocky shore of a boisterous and predatory sea; he finds fairyland in the magic garden of the Paradou, he roams the bleak coal country of the north; he is buffeted by the mistral and scorched by the blazing sun of Provence; he gazes on La Beauce, an ocean of waving corn, and on the battlefield of Sedan, strewn with the dead and dying. Religion, politics, sociology, art, science, trade, agriculture, military affairs, life's characteristics, duties, functions, errors and aims, love, marriage, eating, drinking, and a hundred other matters are discussed before him. Beautiful friendships, confiding loves, ardent passions, terrible jealousies and rivalries, lofty aspirations, horrid lusts, generous sacrifices, deeds of bravery and virtue, cruelty and vengeance, greed, craft, and cowardice,--in a word, both the nobility and the mire of life in turn confront one, in such wise that this Rougon-Macquart series is like a miniature world.

It has been previously shown that Zola began to study and plan the series in the middle of 1868, and commenced his first volume in May, 1869. For some seven or eight months, during the war of 1870-1871, he had been obliged to set his work aside, but apart from that break it had occupied the greater part of his attention during all the years that elapsed until "Le Docteur Pascal" appeared in 1893. Every year, as a rule, some months were occupied in framing a new volume, then several were given to the actual writing of it. In the first instance it was usually necessary to visit places and people, and in some cases certain branches of the chosen subject had to be studied in books, chiefly of a technical nature. This brings one to the consideration of a legend which has grown up around Zola and much of his work. It has been assumed, and repeated _ad nauseam_, by some critics, that he was a very ignorant man with little or no real experience of life, one who, aided by a little imagination, concocted his books out of others, basing his narratives entirely on printed documents. But that assumption is fallacious. It was helped on, certainly, by some of Zola's friends, notably by Paul Alexis, who in his account of the earlier Rougon-Macquart volumes expatiated at length on some of the novelist's sources of information.[3] This Alexis did with Zola's sanction, in a spirit of literary honesty, but his insistence on the subject perverted the judgment of several critics, in such wise that Zola has been largely described as a writer who acquired his information merely by cramming. That such a view of the man and his work is erroneous may be easily shown.

He certainly had to study certain subjects in books, and rely, occasionally, on information given him by friends, but few writers ever put more actual experience and personal knowledge into their works. Even his original acquaintance with "society" was more considerable than some have admitted. In Michelet's drawing-room, which was the first he frequented, he met, it is true, only serious men, while Flaubert's was but a superlative Bohemia; but in Madame Meurice's _salon_, to which, whatever his poverty, he had his _entrée_ during the last years of the Empire, he found not only republicanism and literary culture, but many of the graces of life, a high standard of comfort if not luxury, charming women who added a touch of pleasant frivolity to the serious talk of the older men, and young fellows in good circumstances, whose minds were more intent on amusement than politics or literature or art. After the Empire his favourite _salon_ became for a time that of Madame Charpentier, a lady of culture, whose circle of acquaintance extended far beyond literary men and their wives. Among the former, be it noted, were academicians, but there were also statesmen,--Gambetta, Jules Ferry, and numerous others, with many people who, in one way or another, represented the new Republican society. Another drawing-room of high standing in Republican Paris which Zola frequented, was that of Madame Menard-Dorian.

Besides, his experiences during the Franco-German war, when he became secretary to Glais-Bizoin, his participation in newspaper life, his position as parliamentary correspondent to "La Cloche," as general Paris correspondent of "Le Sémaphore" of Marseilles, made him acquainted with scores of people, instructed him in a hundred different ways. Further, his dramatic efforts brought him in contact with the stage; his artistic friendships carried him among painters, sculptors, and their critics; his intercourse with the Goncourts led him occasionally into peculiar company, like that of Nina de Villars, and other semi-literary women of questionable repute; the dinner parties with the Goncourts, Flaubert, and Daudet took him to restaurants and cafés where he elbowed the flash set; and we know also that the circumstances of his early manhood had brought him in touch with the poor. Finally, it is obvious that his actual experience of the emotions was large: he had known sorrow in many forms; the pangs that come from defeat and contumely, the gloom which hope deferred casts over the spirit, followed by the delight which arises at an unexpected success. No doubt, when he first planned "Les Rougon Macquart," in 1868, he was still very imperfectly equipped for his selected task; and the fact that he should have attempted it under such circumstances shows that he possessed more than the usual amount of confidence that a young man usually places in his powers. But his experiences during the next four or five years altered everything, for they greatly increased his equipment and rendered the successful prosecution of his task a possibility.

Each time he turned to a fresh volume of his series he began by preparing an _ébauche_, or as he generally preferred to say in his letters, a _maquette_, that is a rough model of the intended work. The Rougon or the Macquart who was to figure most prominently in it had been previously chosen; he knew what was to be that character's environment, and the philosophical idea which was to govern the volume. Taking his pen in hand, he now pictured such secondary characters as the proposed _milieu_ suggested, and set down such facts and incidents as might logically ensue from the chosen characters and their surroundings. Briefly, in a broad and somewhat vague way, he built up a subject. Those general notes having been placed in a portfolio by themselves he next took his characters in hand, one by one, noting their respective histories, ages, health, physical appearance and nature, disposition, habits, and associations. That work having been completed was placed in a second portfolio, and Zola next passed to the question of environment, collecting a variety of information respecting the different localities where the scenes of his narrative were to be laid. Next he started an inquiry into the professions or trades of his characters, and such other technical matters as might be useful to him, and his notes on those subjects were also gathered together in portfolios. They were often based on personal observation, but naturally enough Zola consulted technical works and friends whom he knew to be well informed on certain points. Their letters and quotations from the books he had consulted were added to his personal memoranda.

By the time all this was done his materials were often in excess of what he required. Nevertheless he based himself upon them in planning his book. He decided on the number of chapters the volume should contain, and distributed the materials among them. This entailed much minute labour. For instance, he took his first rough draft of his subject, and distributed the principal incidents mentioned in it among the proposed chapters; then he took his notes on his characters and apportioned them in a similar manner; in one chapter, for instance, the appearance of some individual must be described; in another some particular characteristic must be brought to the front; in yet another the changes effected in the same personage by environment or other causes must be dealt with. Thus borrowing notes from one and another of his first portfolios, and distributing them as the narrative and its situations might suggest, Zola gradually planned his chapters from the first to the last.

All this was still rough work, and before committing a chapter to paper, Zola re-examined his materials, set them in what seemed the best order, both with respect to what he might have said in previous chapters and with respect to the effect he desired to produce in the new one. Now and again he would find some note superfluous, and reject it altogether; at other times he might transfer it to a subsequent chapter, where the fact, incident, problem, or theory it enunciated would have a more logical place. Moreover, while he was writing, it occasionally occurred to him that some incident he was describing, or some remark he attributed to one of his characters, would have a certain effect farther on; and thereupon he at once made a note of the circumstance, and, his chapter finished, transferred all such notes to their proper places. "It will be seen," says Alexis, from whom these particulars have been borrowed,[4] "that this method of proceeding from the general to the special is complicated, but logical and safe. A friend of Zola's (M. Bruneau?) told me that it reminded him of Wagner's learned and novel orchestration. I do not know how far that comparison may be accurate; but it is certain that Zola's works, when read for the first time by the profane, must have a little of the disconcerting effect of the Wagnerian operas. The first impression is one of great confusion; the reader is on the point of exclaiming that there is no sign of composition or rule; but on penetrating to the structure of the work you find that everything is mathematical; you discover a deep science, and recognise that the outcome is really the result of prolonged labour fraught with strenuous patience and determination."

Edmondo de Amicis, in an appreciation of Zola, included in his "Recollections of Paris," mentions that the novelist showed him a number of notes he had prepared for "L'Assommoir," and as Amicis's account of them throws light on Zola's methods of work, a quotation from his pages may be added to the particulars taken from Alexis.

"On the first sheets of paper were sketches of the
personages, notes about their appearance, temperament,
and character. I found the _miroirs caracteristiques_ of
Gervaise, Coupeau, Mother Coupeau, the Lorilleux, the
Boches, Goujet, and Madame Lerat. All the figures of the
book were there. The notes were laconic, like those of a
court registrar, but free like those of a novelist, and
sprinkled with short arguments, such as this: 'Born under
those circumstances, educated in that manner, he must conduct
himself in such or such a way.' In one place was the query:
'What else can a rascal of this stamp do?'... I was struck
by a sketch of Lantier's character, which was nothing but
a string of adjectives, each stronger than the other, such
as 'gross, sensual, brutal, egotistical, smutty.' In some
places appeared the words: 'Use So and So,' meaning somebody
known to the author. And the whole was penned in proper
sequence in a large, clear handwriting. Then I saw sketches
of places outlined in ink, and as accurate as the drawings
of an engineer. There were a number. The whole book was
drawn: the streets of the district in which the plot was
laid, with their corners and indications of their shops;
the zigzags which Gervaise made to avoid her creditors,
the direction taken by Nana in her Sunday escapades, the
tipplers' peregrinations from music-hall to boozing-ken, and
the hospital and slaughter-house, between which one terrible
evening the poor ironing woman went maddened by hunger. Then
Marescot's big house was drawn in minute detail; there was
the whole of the top floor with the landings, the windows,
the mute's den, old Bru's hole--all those dark passages in
which one detected the gasp of death, those walls which
resounded as if only empty paunches were within, those
doors through which came an everlasting music of blows and
the cries of little ones dying from starvation. There was
also a plan of Gervaise's shop and home, room by room, with
indications of the beds and tables, and here and there
erasures and corrections, which suggested that Zola had
amused himself by the hour, perhaps quite forgetting his
story, immersed in his creation as if it were something he
actually remembered. On other pages were notes of various
kinds. I recollect two particularly--'twenty pages of
description of such a thing, twelve pages of description of
such a scene, to be divided into three parts.' One could
divine that Zola had the description in his head, formulated
before it was set on paper; that he could hear it resounding
rhythmically within him, like music which only lacked words.
This system of working with the compasses, as it were, even
at things of the imagination, is not so rare as some may
imagine. Zola, for his part, is a great mechanic. One can
see how his descriptions proceed, symmetrically, spaced
out, separated at times by some padding to give the reader
breathing time, and divided into almost equal sections, like
that of the flowers of the Paradou in 'La Faute de l'Abbé
Mouret,' that of the thunder storm in 'Une Page d'Amour,' and
that of the death of Coupeau in 'L'Assommoir.' One might say
that for his mind to work at ease it is necessary Zola should
first trace the precise limits of his work, know exactly at
what points he may rest, and what will be the extent and
aspect of his work when printed. When his materials are too
large he cuts them down in order to get them within those
limits; when they are small he makes an effort to spin them
out to the allotted point. He has an unconquerable passion
for due proportions which may occasionally tend to prolixity,
but which frequently, by compelling his mind to dwell on his
subject, renders his work deeper, more complete."

Zola's books were written on small, unruled quarto paper, almost invariably of a very stout quality and highly glazed. Though his handwriting was large and bold he did not use a quill like Hugo and others, but the French equivalent of the J pen, and for some thirty years he invariably employed the same thick ivory holder, so heavy a one that the present writer, who had occasion to use it now and again when Zola was in England, could not help remarking that the hand might well feel tired after carrying it to paper for three or four successive hours. But with Zola it was a question of habit; he could hardly write at all unless he had a weight of nearly three ounces in his hand, and he would be in quite a state of distress if an urgent letter had to be written and he lacked his usual implement.

The script of his books was as a rule beautifully clear and open. On each slip he left a margin about two-thirds of an inch in width; his lines, on an average one and twenty per slip, were very straight and regular. The general character of his handwriting is shown by the fac-simile of a letter given in this volume, the concluding portion being more like his book "copy," for on the first page the script is rather smaller than usual. It will be noticed that the writing is of a distinctly personal character. On consulting a large number of autographs we have found little like it, but the disconnected letters and syllables recall the writing of Boileau, Chateaubriand, Michelet, Jules Janin, and Victor Hugo. Some specimens from Hugo's pen seem to indicate that if, instead of a sloping, he had written an upright hand, it might well have resembled Zola's. The latter, it may be remarked, never departed from his upright hand, whereas in autographs of some French authors--Dumas _père_ and George Sand, for instance--one finds now an upright and now a sloping writing, the former being used in formal letters, the latter in notes to intimate friends, when the writers were not _en représentation_, but allowed their feelings full play. In Zola's case the upright hand appears in the most intimate letters as well as in his "copy" for the press, and thus it would seem to have been with him a natural, not an artificial, writing. One may add, without asserting any particular faith in graphology, that on applying its rules, without prejudice, to Zola's writing, the latter will be found to indicate despotivity, stubbornness, insight, and orderliness, combined with poetry. Perhaps, then, there may be some truth in that alleged science.

Here and there in Zola's book "copy" one finds words crossed out with double lines, and there are some interlinear corrections, with occasionally a marginal addition, but these alterations are surprisingly few. If one judged Zola by his manuscripts only, one would take him to be a man who wrote _au courant de la plume_, without the slightest effort. But should his manuscripts ever be open to public inspection[5] it will be found that they differ largely from his printed works. His proof corrections were most extensive, whole sheets of his first proofs were sometimes cut to pieces, and numerous additional corrections and alterations appeared in his first revises. It was from second revises that the translations of his books were usually made, but further corrections often ensued. One has not yet reached his novel "Paris," nevertheless one may mention here that he modified the names of several characters in it at the last moment, altering Harn to Harth, Duthil to Dutheil, Sagnier to Sanier, and so forth; and as, amid the great rush of the Dreyfus affair, he forgot to send any warning of what he had done, the English version appeared with the names unaltered. It may be added that Zola always welcomed suggestion and correction. The writer pointed out to him that two characters in "La Débâcle" had the same Christian names, and that some confusion might arise respecting them. Forthwith--in this case also at the last moment--he altered one of the names, delaying the printing of the book for some days in order that the correction might be made. Again, on reading the proofs of "Rome" the writer detected a few topographical errors and called attention to them. Zola consulted his plans of the city and, finding he had erred, altered what he had written, at the same time requesting his translator to point out any further slips he might notice. Those were trifling matters, and are only mentioned here as instances of Zola's desire to make his books as perfect as possible.

Naturally enough, they contain some blunders. For instance, Zola was in error when, at the outset of "Son Excellence Eugène Rougon," he pictured an official of the Corps Législatif reading the minutes of a previous sitting, whereas the minutes were always taken as read, for otherwise hours would have been consumed in their perusal. He also erred with respect to the betting odds on a horse in "Nana," which was not surprising, the turf being virtually _terra incognita_ to him. Again,--and this was a bad blunder,--in "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret,"[6] he spoke of lizards hatching their eggs on the rocks, instead of depositing them there and leaving them to be hatched by the warmth of the atmosphere. Critics made much of that unfortunate slip, which reminds one of a curious mistake made by Alexandre Dumas _père_, who relates in a novel that the peritonitis (!) of one of his characters was perforated by a sword thrust. Dumas certainly wrote rapidly, at times anyhow; but we must remember that the most painstaking works often fall short of perfection. Mérimée rewrote "Colomba" sixteen times before he sent it to the press; nevertheless several slips have been found in it. Flaubert devoted six years to "Madame Bovary," and yet pictured one of its characters paying another exactly eighty-five francs in two-franc pieces. Briefly, lapses are to be found in the most carefully written books as well as in the best-regulated families.[7]

In Zola's short stories, particularly the earlier ones, his style often remains light even when it is most ornate. In the Rougon-Macquart novels, the insistence on a multiplicity of details tends to heaviness. Zola was well aware of it, for as far back as 1884, in conversation with Edmond de Goncourt, Maupassant, Huysmans, Alexis, and an English friend,[8] he said: "I am in the habit of feeling the pulse of the public, and am compelled to say that I notice signs of a reaction against us.... Our books will be regarded as heavy, and we cannot hide from ourselves that they are not easy to read. To follow us the reader has to make a determined mental effort." There is no little truth in that remark, but one may add that Zola is easier to read and follow than many of his brother realists. Fifty pages of the pyrotechnics of the Goncourts--the labour connected with which killed the younger one, Jules, as Edmond often acknowledged--may interest the reader, but after a few hundred of them one often feels dizzy and fagged. The brothers Margueritte, who proceeded from the Goncourts, have sometimes carried the passion for literary fireworks even further. Zola was quite unable to read their chief work, "Le Désastre." "I have taken up that book a dozen times," he said one day to the present writer, "but on each occasion, after picking my way through a few pages, I have had to put it down. There is some trick of style in every sentence. One is never allowed a moment's rest. After each of those trials it has seemed to me as if my head would split."

On another occasion he remarked: "Nothing changes more frequently than the fashion in literary style. That is why so many books, although often not very old, are quite unreadable. Our _décadents_ insist on polishing and repolishing their style till their writings become mere jewellery work, which will please nobody a few years hence. I myself dabbled in such work formerly. When it does not run to any great length it amuses one, and it may interest the critic, even please the reader, like something fresh and novel. But the latter soon sickens of it. He does not want to be obliged to cudgel his brain at every sentence."

It is generally held by the critics that the descriptions of Paris appended to each section of "Une Page d'Amour" are among the finest passages to be found in the Rougon-Macquart novels. But the present writer after reperusing them, is inclined to regard their beauty as being somewhat too artificial, too elaborate. One may well prefer the panorama of the quays of Paris in "L'Œuvre," the picture of daybreak at the central markets in "Le Ventre de Paris," the _descente_ and the _rentrée_ of the workers in "L'Assommoir," and the march of the pitmen in "Germinal." In the former instances the spectacle which Zola sets before the reader has a vividness that leaves a lasting impression; in the latter you are borne along with the crowds which the author has conjured forth, you can see and hear their tramp, the sensation of motion being rendered with a skill which few writers have ever equalled. Further, as a superb example of the horrible blended with the pathetic, one may cite the wonderful description of the death of little Charles, in "Le Docteur Pascal."

"Germinal," "L'Assommoir," "La Débâcle," and "La Terre" are ranked as the four pillars of the Rougon-Macquart series. From a purely literary standpoint the first is superior to the second, because it contains less slang. The use of slang in dialogue is often advisable, even necessary; but in narrative and descriptive passages it is difficult to defend it unless the story be told in the first person by one who habitually speaks slang. Zola had some such idea in writing "L'Assommoir" (which he pictured as a book about the people by one of them), but shrank from carrying it to its logical conclusion, and the result, in a literary sense, was not quite pleasing.[9] However, both "Germinal" and "L'Assommoir" are living books, the greatest their author ever penned.

Passing to "La Débâcle," this is certainly a wonderfully truthful panorama of war and its horrors, though the psychology of several of its characters is open to criticism. Too many of them lack robustness; they seem too full of nerves to be regarded as typical. In the case of Maurice, a mere degenerate, the picture is accurate enough; but assuredly many feelings which Zola and others have attributed to soldiers are little known in actual war. The majority of military men are far less sensitive than some have said, and incident often follows incident so rapidly in real battle that there is no time for thought or emotion at all. "La Terre" also has faults, the outcome of Zola's reforming purpose, which led him to assemble too many black characters within a small circle; had they been more dispersed among people of an average kind the effect would have been more lifelike. In "Nana" the general blackness of the characters does not seem out of place, for only men and women of a sorry sort gravitate around a harlot. A few more average characters in "La Terre," or, rather, more prominence given to some who scarcely appear in its pages would have greatly improved the book. Here, however, as in "Pot-Bouille," Zola, carried away by his feelings, overlooked that doctrine of average truth, of which Ste.-Beuve had reminded him apropos of "Thérèse Raquin." He then admitted that he had piled on the agony unduly, and he made the same mistake in two or three volumes of "Les Rougon-Macquart." But when all is said "La Terre" remains one of his strongest and most truthful books.[10]

The savage brutishness of the chief characters in the work may well seem impossible to the ignorant; but although in reading "La Terre" one should always bear in mind that Zola never pretended that all peasants were like those in his grim picture, it is certain that his personages, individually, are accurately drawn. Awful is the record of parricides, matricides, fratricides, common murders, murderous assaults, rapes, and offences of inferior degree perpetrated in rural France. And earth hunger, disputes about property, boundaries, inheritances, and so forth, will be found at the bottom of the great majority of cases. But "La Terre" does not deal exclusively with the criminal side of peasant life. It pictures many other features: it describes the drawbacks of the small-holdings system, shows agriculture hampered by the extreme subdivision of the soil, traces the march of revolutionary and socialist principles among those who till it; sketching, too, on the way, the treatment which the imperial _régime_ accorded to the peasantry.

There is not space here to pass all the Rougon-Macquart volumes in review from a critical point of view. One may say, however, that generally, though not invariably, those dealing with a multiplicity of characters are superior to those in which Zola analyses the feelings and actions of a few. It is acknowledged he excelled in portraying the "crowd." Structural faults are to be found in various volumes. For instance, the long idyll of Silvère and Miette interrupts the narrative of "La Fortune des Rougon" unduly; and the poetical Paradou portion of "La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret" is hardly compatible with the realism of the opening and concluding chapters. Then "Le Rêve" is almost out of place in the series, for though the Naturalist writer must take account of the dreamy aspirations and imaginings of certain hearts and minds, it is perhaps excessive to picture those dreams fulfilled in actual happenings. Again, there is some artificiality in "Une Page d'Amour." Innumerable as are the love intrigues in French society one may well doubt if an analysis of any would yield the psychology of Zola's work. "La Curée," on the other hand, within the limitations imposed on the author by circumstances and personal knowledge, is a sound piece of work, quite irrespective of the poetical intentions which some critics have ascribed to it. Passing to such volumes as "La Conquête de Plassans," "Le Ventre de Paris," and "Son Excellence," one finds that though they may be minor works they are very near to life and historical truth. Then "Nana," a great book from the social standpoint, is almost one in the literary sense also. But while freely admitting the greatness of "L'Assommoir" and "Germinal," the volume which particularly appeals to the present writer is "Le Docteur Pascal," perhaps because Zola therein expounds and defends his theory of life. The love of uncle and niece, pictured in this book, may offend the feelings of English and American Protestants, but they ought to remember that in Catholic countries marriages often take place between people connected by that tie of relationship. The writer, for his part, has nothing whatever to say against them from the moral standpoint; he deprecates them, even as he deprecates all marriages between relations, on physiological grounds. But the affections bow neither to legal enactments nor to scientific rules; love, as we are all aware, has no master; and if, therefore, one accept the position of Dr. Pascal and his niece Clotilde, Zola's work will be found one of absorbing interest for the thinking mind. True, it is disfigured by an error which the reader must set aside: the death of the old drunkard Macquart by spontaneous combustion, for scientists have declared such a death to be impossible. Zola, however, long before writing "Le Docteur Pascal," had found a case of the kind recorded in a scientific work; and for years, as several of his letters and utterances show, he had nursed the idea of bringing it into his final volume. Nobody then warned him of his error, but directly his book appeared several scientists protested that, whatever might be the effects of alcoholism, it could not lead to a death like Macquart's. That episode, then, must be dismissed, but the bulk of the book remains, with its terrible lessons, its pages of vivid and merciless analysis, its pictures of the evils of life relieved by a glowing faith in nature's power for good, an optimism which nothing dismays, which points to the dawn of a brighter day for humanity, whatever may be its present condition. And from the purely literary standpoint "Le Docteur Pascal" is admirable. Its style is perfect. The descriptive and the analytical passages are replete with beauty, depth, and force of expression. Poetry is here so thoroughly welded with prose that one cannot object to it as one may in some other volumes, such, for instance, as "Une Page d'Amour," where it seems merely a beautiful excrescence. The psychology of the characters in "Le Docteur Pascal" is also good. In point of fact, no doubt, this was a long meditated work. Almost from the time when Zola began his series--at least as soon as the Empire had fallen--he pictured the _finale_ ahead of him, he thought of it during all the years when he was writing the intervening volumes, he gradually planned and perfected it in his mind long before he actually wrote it. It is not a book for the vulgar, who come and go, heedless of the problems, possibilities, and purposes of life; but though the love of Pascal and Clotilde may offend moral prejudices, though from the standpoint of scientific accuracy the narrative may be disfigured by the error of Macquart's death, we hold this to be the noblest, the most convincing, the most consoling book that Zola ever wrote. Such an opinion, however, may not find much acceptance in England and America where the bias in favour of revealed religion is so strong.

Without insisting further on the merits or demerits of particular volumes, if we glance at the series as a whole we shall find it to be an unexampled achievement. It is more self-contained than "La Comédie Humaine," in writing which Balzac really had no definite plan. As M. Chaumié, French Minister of Public Instruction, has said: "In Zola's work one finds all society ... with the _milieux_ in which it displays its activity, the men composing it, the passions which stir and sway them, their vices, sorrows, and miseries, the sufferings too of the disinherited,--the whole forming so striking and so true a picture that after contemplating it those with the poorest like those with the keenest sight must realise the necessity of remedying those sufferings, contending against those vices, and assuaging those sorrows.... Thus, what might have been only an admirable literary achievement, an inestimable document on a period, an ever-living picture of a given time ... acquires greater grandeur, is insured of yet loftier glory, by the generous spirit which inspired it."[11]

Further, though it has been suggested here that some exaggeration and some flaws may appear in the psychology of certain individual characters, the series as a whole responds to Taine's definition of literature as "a living psychology." As M. Paul Bourget has said: "Zola regarded the novel as a kind of hypothetical experiment, attempted on positive bases, the first condition for success being that the bases should be accurate and the hypothesis logical. When the hour of justice strikes for that unwearying toiler people will recognise what immense preliminary toil and study lay beneath each of his books. They will also discern his unwavering purpose to inquire fully into the condition of contemporary France, to carry his inquiry as far as possible in order to set the social problem completely and accurately before one. His right to depict all reality (_la réalité totale_), which is that of every sociologist, even of every historian, will not be disputed then."

It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the Rougon-Macquart novels should be studied, whenever possible, in the original French, and not in translations. There have been many versions of the books in the English language; the present writer has made himself responsible for not a few of them; and certainly translations are in a measure useful, for as yet a knowledge of foreign languages is limited to a minority of the reading public. Besides, it is usually possible to transmit in a translation, at least in essential particulars, the lesson which a book is intended to convey. But at the same time much is lost, and in a good many instances translations which have even taken rank as literature do not adequately represent their originals. At the present day, with respect to contemporary works, excellence in translation is scarcely to be obtained, for commercial conditions militate against it. An author may give years to the writing of a book, whereas the English translator is compelled to prepare his version in a few months, at times even in a few weeks, for it is often stipulated by the publisher that the translation must appear at the same time as the original. It may be necessary also for the English translator to attend to some serial publication, and to provide for copyright in America, with the result that the work has to be done hastily, in a rough and ready manner. Again, the prices paid for translations are usually so low that few men of real ability are willing to undertake them. The writer, though he has had great experience in these matters, can suggest no remedy, for undoubtedly the commercial as well as the literary side of the question has to be considered, and even if a translator, regardless of gain, were to bestow on his work all the time and care it might deserve, the chances would be that no publisher would look at it, for the market would be gone--so swiftly do even very able books perish in these modern days.

With respect to the writer's own work, as translator or as editor of various English versions of Zola's novels, he is fully aware of its many imperfections, due in some instances to the time limit imposed on him, and in others to pecuniary and similar considerations. Again, British pharisaism being what it is he had never been able to give an absolutely complete version of any of Zola's books. Still he has always tried to preserve the spirit of the original, even when he has been compelled to throw off his "copy" at express speed. And in any case his versions, like those of others, will at least have served the purpose of making most of Zola's views known to thousands who are unable to read French.

But to properly appreciate and judge any one of the works of the great novelist it must be read in the original and in its entirety. That demands a good sound knowledge of French. Nothing has amazed the writer more than to receive from time to time during the last twelve years a note to this effect: "Dear Sir,--I am learning French, and in order to gain a better knowledge of it, I think of trying to read one of Zola's books with the help of a dictionary. Which volume would you recommend me to try? Which is an easy one?" Such an idea is, of course, ludicrous. Zola's style is not particularly involved, his vocabulary if large is not recondite, but to understand him properly the reader must possess more than a mere smattering of French. In some volumes, too, he deals with technical subjects, while in others he occasionally uses slang or purely Parisian expressions, in which cases dictionaries are of very little help. The present writer found it necessary to study certain subjects carefully before attempting to translate some of Zola's volumes: for it was only by doing so that he could avoid mistakes. For instance, the English version of "Travail" necessitated the perusal of several text-books on metallurgy, and a visit to some large English steel works. An American version of the same book was made by a person who did not take that precaution, with the result that it literally bristled with technical errors. When one considers the vast range of Zola's subjects, it must be obvious that the work of translating his books amounts to little less than a liberal education. The writer must confess that for his part he learnt a great deal by the work, so that if he conferred no particular advantage on his readers he at least benefited himself.

In previous chapters some mention has been made of Zola's repeated efforts as a playwright, and as after 1893 he only penned some _libretti_ for the music of his friend, M. Bruneau, one may here add a few words respecting his plays. None of those which he wrote without assistance proved a success, though he often claimed that some of the public were favourable to "Le Bouton de Rose," which, said he, was damned mainly by the critics. On the other hand the stage-craft of M. Busnach made a success of "L'Assommoir" and of one or two other adaptations. In all probability the correct view to take of Zola's writings for and about the French stage is that their influence, however considerable, was chiefly indirect. Realism has come to dramatic literature--on which the novel always reacts--but the younger French dramatists rightly regard M. Henri Becque as their more immediate sponsor. At the same time several things that Zola desired to see have come to pass; a good many of his philosophical and social ideas are to be found in the contemporary French drama. Now and again they appear somewhat conspicuously, as in M. Octave Mirbeau's play "Les Mauvais Bergers," and in some of the works of M. Brieux. Again, M. Gustave Charpentier's famous _roman musical_, "Louise," produced in 1900, was distinctly Zolaesque in its inspiration; one of its chief features, the frequent evocation of Paris, proceeding directly from "Une Page d'Amour." Further Zola's influence was at times destructive. Soon after "La Terre" had been published in Paris the Comédie Française revived George Sand's peasant-play "François le Champi," which since its first production in 1849 had been frequently played with success at the Odéon Theatre. But the revival at the Comédie proved a complete failure, the play which had lived for nearly forty years being slain in a few nights. Originally regarded as ultra-realistic, it appeared quite insipid to the generation which had just perused "La Terre." To sum up, even as the influence of Balzac (though he wrote little for the stage) was apparent in dramatic productions from 1850 to 1870, something similar though, perhaps, less pronounced may be observed with respect to the more recent influence of Zola. He, by the way, was once asked his opinion of the influence of Ibsen on the French stage, and of Tolstoï and other Russians on the French novel, and he replied that he did not attach much importance to the question, for he held that the ideas which were supposed to rain on Paris from the North were in reality French ones, which had been disseminated by French writers, and had come back to their place of origin, occasionally crystallised or intensified by the more sombre imagination of Scandinavian and Russian minds.

[1] See a clever study of "Nana," by H. Schutz-Wilson in the "New Century Review," Vol. V, No. 26, February, 1899.

[2] In our summary of the novels we have left the scientific questions on one side. It would be impossible to deal with them adequately here, and those who are curious on the subject must consult "Le Docteur Pascal," from which we venture to quote just one paragraph, which indicates Zola's views in a general way: "We see that human creatures may appear radically different one from another, though they merely typify so many logical modifications of their common ancestors. The trunk explains the branches, and the branches explain the leaves. Although Saccard and Eugène Rougon differ so much in temperament and mode of life, the same impulsion produced the former's ravenous appetites and the latter's sovereign ambition. Angélique, a spotless lily, came from an equivocal creature like Sidonie, for the same influence determines either mysticism or sexual passion according to environment. In the case of Mouret's children the inspiration makes an intelligent man like Octave a millionaire dealer in finery, causes Serge, a believer, to become a poor priest, while Désirée, a witless creature, develops into a physically handsome and happy girl.... But the neurosis passes to Gervaise's children, and Nana sells herself, Étienne rebels, Jacques murders, and Claude is endowed with a measure of genius; while Pauline, their cousin-german, becomes a personification of victorious rectitude, a battling and self-sacrificing woman. That is heredity, life itself, which produces imbeciles, madmen, criminals, and great men. Certain cells collapse, others take their place, and a rascal or a raving lunatic appears instead of a genius or a mere honest man. And meantime mankind continues rolling onward, carrying all along with it."

[3] The writer must plead guilty to having unintentionally assisted the growth of the legend by insisting often unduly on some of Zola's "quellen," in his introductions to the English translations of the novelist's books.

[4] Alexis, _l. c._, pp. 163-166.

[5] He was exceedingly jealous about them. The present writer has had a few in his possession, on trust, but always had to return them. There may be some early manuscripts of short stories in Russia, and a few similar ones in the possession of French collectors; but, as a rule, Zola insisted on the return of his "copy," and nearly the whole of it was in his possession when he died. As for the first proofs bearing his numerous corrections he repeatedly stated that almost all of them were destroyed. The writer has some revises containing occasional corrections, usually in the handwriting of Madame Zola.