necessary to refer when we survey Zola's work generally. The books
have been mentioned here because they were issued at the period we
have now reached, and because it is advisable that the reader should
realise how energetic, how zealous Zola always was, how great was his
versatility, and how strenuous his life. This man who subsequently
preached the gospel of work had practised it unremittingly since the
day he emerged from Bohemia. Fortune might frown or success might come,
he did not alter in his industrious habits. In spite of every rebuff,
every attack, he continued striving undauntedly, even as his father had
striven before him. He was a living example of the axiom that life is a
battle. He fought for his ideas, his principles, without a pause, until
his last hour.
[1] £360 = about $1,800.
[2] "Une Page d'Amour," Paris, Charpentier, 1878, 18mo, vii-486 pages
(genealogical tree of the Rougon-Macquarts); seventy-fifth thousand on
sale in 1893 when the series was completed; ninety-seventh thousand in
1903. Illustrated edition: Paris, Librairie du Bibliophile (Jouaust),
1884, 2 vols., crown 8vo, iv-261 and 287 pages; portrait and ten
designs by Ed. Dantan, etched by Duvivier, ornaments by Giacomelli.
Impressions on various papers, Dutch, India, Japanese, etc. Another
illustrated edition, Paris, 1894, with etchings and woodcuts designed
by F. Thévenot.
[3] "Le Sublime, ou le Travailleur comme il est et ce qu'il peut être,"
Paris, Charpentier, 1865.
[4] "Le Figaro," Supplément Littéraire, December 22, 1878.
[5] It was as the Paris correspondent of various English newspapers
that the writer became acquainted with a good many French literary
men. A reference to the Paris letters in the first volumes of the
"Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News" will show that the writer at
one time dealt largely with the French stage. In that connection he was
fortunate enough to secure the favour of Dumas _fils_ to whom he was
indebted for many little kindnesses.
[6] Zola to Vizetelly, November, 1898.
[7] "La République Française et la Littérature," 8vo, Paris,
Charpentier, 1879. The text of this pamphlet was added by Zola to the
collection of papers entitled "Le Roman Expérimental," which he issued
in 1880.
[8] Alexis, _l. c._, p. 190 _et seq._; Adolphe Brisson in "Le Temps,"
October 3, 1902.
[9] "Les Romanciers Naturalistes," p. 204.
[10] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI (January 21, 1879).
[11] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI (January 21, 1878).
[12] See Sala's "Paris herself Again," London, Vizetelly & Co., 1879
_et seq._
[13] It will be remembered that Charles Reade prepared an English
version entitled "Drink."
[14] "My Impressions of Zola," by George Moore, in "The English
Illustrated Magazine," February, 1894.
[15] "L'Œuvre," p. 435.
[16] "English Illustrated Magazine," _l. c._
[17] So stated by M. Yves Guyot in conversation with the writer and
others in the autumn of 1902. It ought to have been mentioned that it
was M. Guyot who engaged Zola as dramatic critic of "Le Bien Public."
See _ante_, p. 156.
[18] This woman had an extraordinary career. She was of German origin,
her real name being Theresa Lachmann, but she was born in Russia,
and first married a French tailor of Moscow, named Villoing. After
eloping with Herz, the well-known pianist, she entered the Parisian
_demi-monde_ under the auspices of the notorious Esther Guimond.
Finding herself in difficulties she proceeded to London, fascinated
and half-ruined a member of an English ducal house, returned to Paris,
ruined several French nobles there, and ultimately married Viscount
Armijo de Païva of the Portuguese Legation, whom she also ruined
and who committed suicide. Though her beauty, which had been great,
was then fading, she captivated Count Henckel von Donnersmarck, a
connection of the Bismarck family, and he ended by marrying her. She
lived in a magnificent mansion in the Champs Élysées adorned by Baudry,
Cabanel, Gérôme, and Clésinger; and Girardin, Gautier, About, Ponsard,
Angier, Houssaye, and Goncourt were familiars of her drawing-room. She
died in 1884 on her husband's estate in Silesia.
[19] Alexis, _l. c._, p. 118.
[20] Mr. R. H. Sherard in his "Émile Zola: a Biographical and Critical
Study," London, 1903, prints several of Zola's letters on the above
subjects. The following may be given as a specimen: "Médan, September
18, 1879: I have received your book on small-pox. That will evidently
suffice for my purpose. I will devise a death mask by comparing the
various documents. I am very much tempted to make the disease black
pox which, in point of horror, is the strangest. Only I admit that if
without taking too much trouble you could manage to see the corpse of
a person who had died of that complaint--I say, that is a nice little
task!--you would oblige me greatly. In that case mind you supply full
details about the state of the eyes, nose and mouth, giving me a
precise geographical chart, from which, of course, I should only take
what I may need." This suggestion was not acted upon. In describing
Nana's death Zola eventually had to rely on the statements he found in
medical works.
[21] Sherard, _l. c._, p. 171.
[22] "Nana," Paris, Charpentier, 1880, 18mo, 528 pages; one hundred and
sixty-sixth thousand on sale in 1893; one hundred and ninety-eighth
thousand in 1903; some special copies on Japan, India, and Dutch
papers. Illustrated edition: Marpon and Flammarion, n. d. but 1882,
large 8vo titles, 456 pages, with sixty-six wood engravings after
Bertall, Gill, Bellenger, Clairin, etc. A hundred copies printed on
Dutch paper with impressions of the engravings on India paper, and a
special frontispiece showing Nana on a sofa. The ordinary copies of the
illustrated edition were priced at 6 francs, but were also sold very
largely in fifty-seven parts at 10 centimes. From 1882 to the present
time (1903) over two hundred thousand copies of the illustrated edition
have been sold, bringing the total sales of the work (apart from
translations) to nearly half a million copies.
[23] See his explanations on this subject in the preface to E. A.
Vizetelly's translation of "Le Docteur Pascal," London, Chatto, 1893
_et seq._
[24] "Documents Littéraires," p. 375 _et seq._
[25] The first edition (Charpentier, 18mo, 301 pages) was accompanied
by ten copies on India and fifty on Dutch paper. There was a special
edition in 1890, small 8vo, 307 pages, six portraits etched by Fernand
Desmoulin, and six illustrations etched by Muller after Jeanniot. Of
this edition one copy was printed on Japan paper with three sets of the
etchings; one copy on parchment with two sets of the etchings before
lettering; and sixteen on Dutch paper with two sets of the etchings,
both before and after lettering.
[26] See _ante_, p. 162.
[27] Her real name was Adrienne Legay and she really bore the nickname
of "Ball of Tallow." She was of peasant extraction, and was born near
Fécamp about 1850. Coming to Rouen, where she became the mistress of
a cavalry officer and later of a manufacturer of cotton goods, she at
one time kept a small hosiery shop, at another a little café. Finally,
after making a precarious living as a fortune-teller, she committed
suicide at Rouen in August, 1892. She often declared to the literary
men who became acquainted with her that she herself gave Maupassant the
idea of his story by telling him an adventure of hers, which, however,
had not resulted in the manner he described; and she accused him of
having pilloried her in a spirit of revenge for having rejected his
suit when he was a penniless hobbledehoy at Rouen.
[28] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI, p. 127.
[29] "Le Roman Expérimental," Paris, Charpentier, 1880, 18mo, vii-416
pages. This volume, in which the whole theory of Naturalistic fiction
is expounded, has been reprinted several times with the mention:
"Nouvelle Édition."
[30] "Une Campagne," Paris, Charpentier, 1881, 18mo, x-408 pages.
[31] "Une Campagne," Gambetta, p. 105.
[32] "Une Campagne." Abbreviated from the article entitled "Esclaves
Ivres," p. 362 _et seq._ Readers of "L'Assommoir" will remember that
the bibulous "My-Boots," referred to above, is one of its principal
characters.
[33] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol. VI, p. 134.
[34] Charpentier, 18mo, 338 pages. Ten copies on Dutch paper. The
contents first appeared partly in the "Viestnik Yevropi," partly in "Le
Voltaire."
[35] Charpentier, 18mo, 427 pages. Ten copies on Dutch paper. The
contents of this volume also appeared originally in the "Viestnik
Yevropi."
[36] Both volumes mentioned above were issued by Charpentier uniform
with the previous one. Dumas _fils_, whom Zola criticised with great
severity in "Nos Auteurs Dramatiques," responded by assailing Zola's
dramatic theories, in his preface to "L'Étrangère." See "Théâtre
Complet d'Al. Dumas _fils."_ Paris, Calmann Lévy, 1879.
VIII
THE BATTLE CONTINUED
1881-1887
"La Joie de Vivre" begun and put aside--"Pot-Bouille"--The outlay at
Médan--Zola's first franc--His hypochondria and dread of death--His
opinion of drawing-rooms--His idea of writing a book which would
never end--"Au Bonheur des Dames" begun--Zola falls seriously
ill--He recovers and finishes "Au Bonheur des Dames"--"Le Capitaine
Burle"--The decline of Zola's sales--He is still stage-struck--Alphonse
Daudet and the French Academy--His popularity and friendship with
Zola--"La Joie de Vivre" finished--"Pot-Bouille" as a play--First
ideas of "La Terre"--"Germinal"--Zola among the pitmen--A charge of
plagiarism--The reception of "Germinal"--"L'Œuvre"--Zola on politicians
and young writers--Death of Victor Hugo--Zola's telegram to George
Hugo--"Germinal" forbidden as a play--The purport of "Germinal"--Zola,
humanitarianism, and artistry--Publication of "L'Œuvre"--Zola prepares
"La Terre"--A glance at the French peasantry--Sketch of "La Terre" by
Zola--His tour of investigation--Various plays: "Le Ventre de Paris,"
"Renée," "Jacques Damour," "Tout pour l'Honneur,"--The "Manifesto of
the Five" against Zola and "La Terre"--Zola's opinion of it--Daudet
and Goncourt unconnected with it--Prolonged denunciation of Zola--M.
Lockroy to the rescue--How Zola became a knight of the Legion of Honour.
In the year 1881, besides launching the critical volumes enumerated
in the last chapter, Zola carried his Rougon-Macquart series a step
further. Early in the spring he planned "La Joie de Vivre," a tale of
pain and suffering, containing numerous autobiographical passages,
descriptive of some of his feelings and peculiarities. But while he
was preparing his notes the recollection of his mother's recent death
constantly pursued him, and he felt it would be impossible for him at
that time to write such a book as he wished. So, after a few attempts,
he decided to postpone this particular work. It will be remembered
that he had first intended to make the Rougon-Macquart series one of
eight volumes only. Next, he had decided on twelve, to which figure he
had adhered until the time of "L'Assommoir." But plenty of characters
for additional volumes figured on the leaves of the genealogical tree
which he had long since prepared,[37] and now that success had come
he felt that he might extend his series. "Nana" was its ninth volume,
and he resolved to add eleven more. "La Joie de Vivre" having been put
aside, he was thinking of what subject he might take in hand when,
in the course of his "Figaro" campaign, he had occasion to write an
article on "Adultery in the Middle Class." The idea that this was the
great evil preying on the _bourgeoisie_ seized hold of him, and he
began to prepare the book which he called "Pot-Bouille," a title which
might be Englished, perhaps, as "The Stockpot," and which signifies
every-day _cuisine_ and by extension every-day life. Some of the
incidents that he wove into this work had come under his personal
observation, others were suggested by friends, some of whom also
collected special information which he needed, Huysmans, for instance,
supplying notes about the church of St. Roch, and Céard inquiring into
diocesan architects, government clerks, judges, and others, their
earnings, their duties, their pensions, and so forth.[38]
Begun at Médan, continued at Grandcamp on the Norman coast, whither
Zola betook himself during the summer, and eventually finished
at Médan in the autumn, "Pot-Bouille" first appeared, somewhat
bowdlerised, in "Le Gaulois," which paid the author thirty thousand
francs[39] for the serial rights. But even Zola's best friends did
not receive the work very favourably. In writing it he had made a
trial of his own scientific formula, keeping his descriptions as
short as possible, dividing the narrative into acts, as it were,
like a play, curbing his fancy throughout, allowing no exuberance
of style; and he was afterwards amazed to find so many cavillers.
"It is the clearest and most condensed of my novels," he wrote to a
friend early in 1882.[40] Nevertheless, this time the public seemed
to share the opinion of the critics. The sale of "Pot-Bouille" in
volume form[41] was much smaller than that of "L'Assommoir" and "Nana,"
a circumstance which is worthy of note, for Zola's adversaries had
argued that if "Nana" had sold so largely it was solely on account of
all the depravity depicted in its pages. But here was a book which,
in that respect, actually surpassed "Nana," and yet it had nothing
like the same sale. It has been suggested by way of explanation that
middle-class people were the chief purchasers of Zola's works, and
that while they appreciated his delineation of depravity among others,
they were offended by his description of it among themselves. In
that respect "Pot-Bouille" certainly brought Zola some worry; for as
a gentleman of the law declared he recognised himself in a certain
character, legal proceedings supervened, and Zola had to make certain
alterations in his work.
Shortly before the publication of "Pot-Bouille," Edmond de Goncourt
had suggested to Zola that their monthly dinners, abandoned since the
death of Flaubert, might be resumed, and Zola, like Tourgeneff and
Alphonse Daudet, immediately assented. Goncourt, by the way, would
seem to have then seen little of Zola for some time past. He mentions
that he read the first chapters of his novel, "La Faustin," to the
Zolas, the Daudets, Hérédia, Charpentier, and the "young men of Médan,"
on which occasion he was amazed to find that the passages based on
study and research produced no effect on his little audience, whereas
the chapters in which he had relied on his imagination carried them
away. And he was particularly amused when Zola declared that a certain
imaginary Greek, called Athaasiadas, must really have been drawn
from the life.[42] A little later, when Goncourt, the Daudets, and
Charpentier visited Zola at Médan, they found that he had already spent
two hundred thousand francs on his house there, besides buying one of
the islands on the Seine near the property and building a chalet on it.
In talking of those matters, Zola evinced a superb contempt for money.
It was impossible for him to hoard, he said; he remembered the first
franc-piece given him when he was a very little boy. He had immediately
gone to buy a purse, which had cost him nineteen _sous_, in such wise
that he had only one _sou_ left to put in it.[43]
When the monthly "Diner des Auteurs Sifflés" was resumed in March,
1882, the two stock subjects of conversation, says Goncourt, were
death and love. And the hypochondriasis from which Zola was suffering,
which had declared itself at the time of his mother's death and had
recently compelled him to put "La Joie de Vivre" aside, now became
painfully manifest. An unreasoning fear of death, and, it would seem,
even of suffering pursued him. Somewhat later (in 1885) and apropos
of the terrible, lingering death of Jules Vallès, who in the midst
of a friendly conversation would suddenly blanch with dread as if he
could see death approaching him, Zola said to Goncourt: "Ah! to be
struck down suddenly, as Flaubert was, that is the death one should
desire."[44] This wish, we know, was ultimately granted. But in 1882,
according to Goncourt, Zola, who believed that he had a complaint of
the heart, was tortured by the idea of "a sudden and violent death
which would fall upon him before he had finished his work." Again, we
know that such a fate did ultimately befall him; but Goncourt tells
us that, at the period we have now reached, the thought of it haunted
him to such a degree that "since the death of his mother, whose coffin
it had been necessary to bring down by way of the window (there
being only a narrow, winding staircase at Médan, in spite of all its
embellishments), he had never since been able to set eyes on that
window without wondering who would soon be lowered from it, himself
or his wife. 'Yes,' he said, 'since that day the thought of death is
always lurking in our minds. We now invariably keep a light burning in
our bedroom, and very often, when I look at my wife before she falls
asleep, I feel that she is thinking of it even as I am. And we remain
like that, a certain feeling of delicacy preventing us from making any
allusion to what we are both thinking of. Oh! the thought is terrible!
There are nights when I suddenly spring out of bed on both feet, and
remain for a moment in a state of indescribable fright.'"[45]
And this, it will be observed, was the leading French novelist of the
time, a man in the prime of life, whose name was already known all
over the world, who had risen from poverty to affluence, and who, if
attacked by some, was also envied by thousands!
A few days after telling his friends how he suffered at the thought
of death, Zola gave a _diner fin_ at his Paris residence. There was
great display, and Goncourt tells us that the _menu_ included _potage
au blé vert_, reindeers' tongues, mullet _à la Provençale_, and
truffled guineafowl.[46] But Zola was still out of sorts. Success had
no charms for him, he said, and, in his estimation, literature was a
mere dog's trade. Less than a month afterwards, on April 6, the day
when "Pot-Bouille" was published, and when the first orders seemed
to indicate a large demand for the book, Goncourt met Zola again and
found him as morose as ever. The truth would appear to be that he
resented some of the criticisms already levelled at his work. He kept
on growling, and finally exclaimed that it was not so necessary to
have had actual experience of things as some folk imagined; and as
for incessant reading, well, he had not the time for it. "Society?"
he added, "why, what does a drawing-room reveal of life? It shows one
nothing at all! I have five and twenty men now working at Médan who
teach me a hundred times more than any drawing-room would teach me."
Again on April 18, when lunching with Madame Zola at Goncourt's, he
was full of spleen, complaining of a score of worries, and notably
of some plot, engineered by sundry members of the French Academy,
to stop the circulation of "Pot-Bouille." He had now already begun
to write the next instalment of the Rougon-Macquarts, that is, "Au
Bonheur des Dames," but according to his statements to Goncourt, this
story really had no great attraction for him. He dreamt of undertaking
some work which he would never be able to finish, he said, something
which would give him occupation, and at the same time enable him to
retire from the every-day battle without saying so--for instance, some
colossal and endless history of French literature. In July that same
year--1882--when Goncourt, Daudet, and Charpentier were at Médan,
Zola reiterated his dissatisfaction with "Au Bonheur des Dames." His
previous success had spoilt his life, he declared; he would never again
be able to write a book which would make as much stir as "L'Assommoir"
or command such a multitude of readers as "Nana."[47]
Writing to a friend a fortnight previously, he had evinced less
pessimism. Indeed, though he referred to "Au Bonheur des Dames" as
a _tour de force_ which would end by disgusting people "with the
complicated state of French literature," he had expressed himself as
being generally satisfied, and as enjoying the solitude in which he
found himself at Médan, for it lent him great lucidity of mind. But
it is certain that his nerves were overstrained, and that Goncourt's
opinion of his condition was accurate; for a little later, in August,
he collapsed and had to cease work entirely. His friends were very
much alarmed, for his weakness became extreme and a fatal issue seemed
possible. But his constitution slowly triumphed over that nervous
prostration, and at the end of October, one finds him writing to a
friend: "I am a little better. I have been able to get back to work.
Nevertheless I am not at all strong. I fancy that something very grave
brushed past me but spared me.... How heavy is the pen! For the next
two or three years I ought to lead the life of an idiot [i. e. a purely
animal life without mental exertion] in order to recover my strength. I
have become such a coward that the prospect of having to finish my book
terrifies me."[48]
But he compelled himself to resume it, for as is well known he regarded
work as the panacea for all evils, physical as well as mental. Thus, by
the middle of November, he was able to announce that he had taken up
his task again with a sufficiency of courage and intellectual health.
It was about this time that M. Charpentier published a volume of his
short stories, previously contributed to various periodicals.[49]
Moreover "Au Bonheur des Dames" was now appearing serially in the "Gil
Blas," which paid twenty thousand francs for the right of publication,
or two-thirds of the amount which it had given for "Pot-Bouille." "Au
Bonheur des Dames" had naturally necessitated considerable preliminary
study and investigation in order that a truthful picture might be
presented of the trade of a great city, as exemplified by one of those
huge drapery establishments,--the Louvre, the Bon Marché, and the
Printemps. Some such leviathan, devouring all the small fry around
it and teeming with restless life, was depicted in Zola's pages,
which introduced the reader to a world of counter-jumpers beneath
whose superficial gloss lay much rank brutishness. And the subject
also embraced the hard, the often cruel lot of the girls employed
in such places, the ambition and commercial daring of the master,
and the ways of all the customers, not forgetting the kleptomaniacs.
But though the book was full of interest of a particular kind and
deserved the attention of all thinking people, it was perhaps scarcely
one to fascinate the great majority of readers. Zola finished it
at the end of January, 1883, and in March it was published by M.
Charpentier.[50] Most of the newspapers dealt with it sharply; and
Schérer, the Protestant critic of "Le Temps," still smarting from the
attacks which Zola had made upon the French Protestants, their alleged
self-righteousness and narrow bigotry, during his "Figaro" campaign,
revengefully described the book as "the attempt of an illiterate
individual to lower literature to his own level."[51] The general
public did not take very kindly to the work. With "Pot-Bouille" there
had at least been a moment when a very large sale had seemed probable,
but the demand for "Au Bonheur des Dames" was distinctly moderate,
and the wiseacres of the bookselling world opined that Zola, after
going up like a rocket, might presently come down like a stick. It is
true that the sudden and melodramatic death of Gambetta a short time
previously (December 31, 1882) had left the French political world in
some confusion; and it is known that the bookselling trade invariably
suffers when there is any political unrest. Yet the conditions of the
time did not sufficiently explain the drop in the demand for Zola's
writings.